Seeing Red Over Her

TRIGGER WARNING: ASSAULT, CURSE WORDS, BLOOD, MURDER

Feeding on the living; Punishable by loss of claws or loss of one’s fangs. Turning a human; Punishable by starvation in solitary. Killing a vampire; Punishable by execution. 

There aren’t many things a vampire can get in trouble for in our town, but when we do the consequences are not merciful. In my time being here in Scorchholde, this has always been normal. What is not normal is the way a human can make me lose all sense of breath and conscious thinking. Her name is Marigold. The most beautiful girl I knew. We had been friends for a while since humans had integrated into schools that used to be for only vampires. She was the only human comfortable with vampires enough to friend them, not afraid of doing so at all. 

I’m not sure when I started going stupid in her presence. Maybe when she cut her once-long brown hair to have chin-length bouncing curls. If not then it could be her smile, and how it gave a beautiful warm feeling to anyone around her. Even on my worst days, if she was smiling I was as well. Though today was different, “Hey Violet,” she called out to me as school was ending, with a soft smile on her face. “Hey-” I almost smiled, until I noticed she had been crying. And she smelled like blood. “What’s wrong?” I immediately turned to her and started to scan her body for injuries. “N-Nothing just…” I held onto her arm for a moment, so she didn’t take off, and her face not only presented a grimace. She recoiled and slipped her arm from my grasp. “Goldie...What happened..?” I tried to get some answers again. Saying her nickname as gently as possible to relax her nerves. 

Marigold sighed before she pulled her shirt sleeve down enough from her shoulder so I could see. The middle of her arm, right at the inside bend of her elbow, was painted in shades of deep purple and black. A pattern of cuts on the side that looked to be where the person held onto her with their claws. My skin felt like it was on fire from seeing her in pain. “Who did this to you,” I looked up at her face while she fixed her clothes. Then watched as her expression completely dropped. “Violet..” She got closer and took my hand, pulling my claws out from where they had been digging into my palm. Then she locked our hands together. “Your eyes changed colour.” Using her other hand to take out her phone and turn to the camera so I could see. They did change, now: instead of blue, they were bright red with deep black pupils. I think I looked scary to her, I bet. “I’m sorry goldie,” I apologized and opened my other hand to take her free one. Both of our hands intertwined with each other as I tried my best to breathe and calm down. If I wasn't calm then she wouldn't want to talk to me about this. “Can you please tell me who did this to you? No one should get away with treating others like shit.” Her eyes moved from mine to the ground, and I pulled one hand away from hers to hold her cheek in my hand. “The..boys from class A,” she began. “They thought it would be funny to… ruin my uniform.” That's when I noticed the holes in her sleeve where the claws had penetrated. Faint rips in the bottom of her shirt that she first had tucked into her skirt. I had been so worried about her physical injuries, I hadn't seen this before. “Does your other arm look like this?” I began to slide her other sleeve up, needing to unbutton the cuff to get it high enough. The other arm had bruises but wasn't cut. “How many boys from class A?” She looked away, and I waited for an answer. “Maybe... Three or four..?” I squeezed her hands kindly to try and comfort her and myself. Hoping to ease the emotions we both were feeling about this situation. I wanted to help her feel safer than she did before, even if I was still boiling on the inside. I needed to put that aside for her. “Let me take you home,” I held onto her more comfortable arm before starting down the street away from the school. For her sake, I was making conversation about unrelated topics. That way she didn’t have to keep reliving the memory on our way home. The thought of a group of boys harassing her for no reason burned my chest from the inside out. I could see their ugly faces, hear them laugh at what they did. I could see them doing this to other people. Attacking them for no reason. This did not sit well with me.

 After some time we made it to her street, going down the block a bit before making it to her apartment. I walked her inside the main building, and upstairs to her floor. Though I did walk her to the door. "Will you be alright once you're inside?" Marigold looked at me before responding. "I think so.. I'll lock the door once I'm inside." She then looked at me and smiled. 'oh that smile' my thoughts would have gone forever, but she snapped me out of my thoughts with a gentle hug. I held her close with a gentle squeeze as I rubbed her back. When she was ready she pulled away and gave me one more smile before turning to walk to her door down the hall. I watched to make sure she made it inside alright. Once she did, I hid behind the wall between the hall and the stairs as her fathers head poked out of the door frame. He was looking for me. Such an angry person he was towards me and MArigolds friendship, not a good human in my eyes. Once I heard the door close, I went back down the stairs and into the lobby so I could leave, and head home myself.  While I was walking, my thoughts were spinning around the same question. What am I going to do once I find these boys at school tomorrow? Asking them nicely to leave Marigold alone definitely wasn't going to work. Protecting her is the main goal, no matter what. Eventually, I made it home and looked around once I made it inside. "Mom!" I closed the door and locked it before heading upstairs since no one was downstairs. On my way to my room, I could hear my mother in her office. 'Makes sense. I left her a box of sweets from my bag outside her door, then I went into my room to finally sit down to relax.

The next day I waited for Marigold outside at the front of the school building so we could walk in together. She arrived about 15 minutes after I did. (Yes I counted) Then I took her hand and we went inside. All crowded, as usual, kids conversing in almost every corner of the main hall. We enjoyed sitting in the library in the morning. It was much quieter there. On our way, Marigold stopped me in our path to look over at a group of people. “That guy there,” she made a subtle point towards the guy in question. He was tall but big in strength. Definitely a vampire. Considering the way he flaunted his red eyes instead of holding them back. He was in uniform, but he had seemed to have altered it to be more of what he wanted. Rips in the dress pants, some sort of black detail on the sleeve of his dress shirt. “He is the one that did this to my arm.“ She whispered. Though it also helped that the guy wasn’t paying attention to anyone else but the group around them. “Noted,”  I said as we started walking towards the library again so we could keep our distance. We hung out there until the bell rang for classes to start. I walked Marigold to every single one of her classes. She was almost never out of my sight. Then I lost her at lunch, you did hear me say almost right?

 We meant to meet up before going to eat but she wasn’t there. I started to blow up her phone with Messages, especially since I didn’t know who else helped out that guy. “Goldie!“ I called out through the mess hall, keeping my eyes and ears peeled. “V!” I could hear her, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I took a moment to keep listening. “Please V!” After hearing her again I took my chances going upstairs. She was with the guy she showed me before but he was doing way more than only trying to hurt her. “Get off!“ Marigold yelled and my skin burned as I took off in his direction. My claws extended and I went for his face. He yelled out but didn’t lose his grip on her. “Let her go!” I stood on one of the chairs and jumped onto his shoulders. Then wrapped my strongest arm around his neck to pull him back in the opposite direction of Marigold. She was able to get up and step back, but I was too busy seeing red. “Violet!“ Marigold yelled out for me as the guy tore at the skin on my arms. “Violet!“ I wanted to choke him. “Violet! Listen to me!“ I wanted to make him suffer. “Let him go! I’m alright now!” I wanted to kill him. Then I felt the blood go down my arms and legs until I had come down face-first onto the tile floor. I groaned from the impact and tried to breathe, rolling over onto my back. “Violet... Oh no..,” Then I could hear Mari‘s voice. my head tilted to see her, but she wasn’t looking at me. I pushed myself up from the ground to see what she was seeing. Once it all stopped being hazy. I started to gain feeling. That’s when I realised I had almost pulled that guy's head from his shoulders. “Fuck..” He was going to die if he wasn't already dead. “Fuck!” I was absolutely screwed. Once I felt able to, I scrambled to my knees to back away from the body. No darting between looking at him and my arms. I couldn’t tell if I was wearing his blood or mine. Most likely a mix of both. “Violet... We need to go,” my arms started shaking at the sight of all the blood, did I really kill him? “V we have to go now!” She grabbed my hand and took off running. I had no choice but to keep up. 

We went out into the courtyard from the mess hall, around the corner into the parking lot. Then continued to run down the street. It took until my legs started to hurt for me to look up. Then I pulled back against her so we would stop. “Where are we even going!?” She didn’t look at me, instead, she leaned over with her hands on her knees. She was completely out of breath. I sighed and decided to take a moment myself. After a moment of silence, she stood up straight before walking into a park nearby.  Then into the woods to sit under a tree. I followed her, but it wasn't right. “Goldie..” I started once we got to the woods. “I need to go back.” She didn’t respond. “We ran so far... But you won’t get in trouble, you know. It was my fault.” No response again, so I sat next to her. “Goldie... We did not have to run..” “I won't let them kill you!” She yelled in my face, actually making me back up a little. Tears were streaming and staining her face. My chest caved in like a deep hole. I have never seen her so devastated. “They’ll k– kill you... If they find you.” Crying started to hinder her sentences. Then I decided to pull her into my chest to hold her. She felt tired, every part of her body sunk into mine with ease. “I.. Don’t think I have a choice, Goldie.” I look down on the ground, then to her. “I.. Killed a vampire..” She sniffled against me then slowly looked up. We stared at each other before she kissed me on the lips. Right then and there. I nearly froze up from shock but I did kiss her back. How long did it last? I couldn’t tell you. It felt like a lifetime as if we both had been waiting for this moment. “Runaway with me..“ She whispered after pulling away enough for her to speak. “What? G-Goldie that’s-“ “I’m serious.” She cut me off. “if we go back... They will kill you and... I never get to see how this ends.“ She slid her arms around my neck, “say you’ll run away with me... So we can..see where this may take us.” Runaway? Leave everything behind? Leave my mom behind? Though the more I thought about it. leaving my mom behind when she knows I’m alive versus watching me die in a public execution. I'm sure she would rather me be alive than dead. “... Alright,” and that’s all she needed for Marigold to take me on a fugitive adventure I will never forget.