Free Red Dawn by J.J. Bonds Page A

openly.
    “Anya, can we just talk today?” I ask.
    She stokes the flames burning in the marble fireplace. Anya prods the burning logs and a burst of flames leap toward the sky. Shadows dance across her face, distorting her delicate features. The crackling fire is comforting. Perhaps Anya lit it today to help me relax.
    “What did you want to talk about?” she asks, studying my face. I suspect she’s trying to determine if I’m sincere or if I’m just trying to dodge Talent Development.
     “I snuck out last week.” I blurt the truth out, bracing myself for the lecture I’m surely going to receive. Anya and I may have an atypical student-teacher relationship, but she’s still an authority figure. She’s kind of obligated to chew me out for breaking the rules.
    “Katia! You know better than that!” she reprimands me. “What were you thinking? Do you know what would happen if Pratt found out?”
    “It was no big deal,” I assure her as I fidget with my cuff bracelets. “I had to.”
    “Really? You had to?” She turns a skeptical eye on me, arching her right eyebrow as if daring me to convince her that it was necessary. “What was so important?”
    “I needed to go to Rutland. For the Angel of Hope candle lighting ceremony. I had to be there,” I tell her. “I had to be there when they prayed for the lost souls. I had to see Damian’s parents.”
    “Damian?” she asks, tilting her head in curiosity. “That was the boy who died last year?”
    “He didn’t die Anya. He was murdered,” I remind her. Anya may be open minded about a lot of things, but she’s still a pureblood and they don’t really value life the same way humans, or even mixed-blood vamps, do. “There is a difference.”
    “I know. I didn’t mean to make light of it.” She reaches for the untouched goblet in front of me and raises it to her lips. At least the blood won’t go to waste.
    “This will be their first Christmas without their son. He would have been nine,” I tell her, remembering Damian. I think of the real Damian; the one with the Spider-Man scarf and rosy cheeks, not the crazed one, warped by blood lust and shrouded in death.
    “It’s not your fault, Katia.”
    “Isn’t it though?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. I know it’s a defensive gesture, but I don’t care. It happens to be comfortable. “I may not have killed him myself, but I led that monster here. I have to take some level of responsibility.”
    “No, you don’t,” she argues. Anya leans across the desk putting on her emphatic face. “It was Luka who murdered those people. He alone bears the blame.”
    “I’ve taken lives too,” I remind her. I haven’t gone a day without thinking about it since Aldo found me, since I learned to control the thirst. I’d give anything to take it back, but I can’t. If only there was a way to make it right.
    “Where’s this coming from?” she asks quietly. “I thought we put all of this behind us last year.”
    “Anya, you don’t kill half a dozen people and just put it behind you.”
    I move across the room to stand by the fire. I pass my hands through the flames without thinking. It hurts, but only for a second. My fingers burn bright, blossoming shiny and red, before the skin repairs itself, leaving no trace of the damage inflicted by the fire. My ability to heal instantaneously never ceases to amaze me. If only I could share this gift with the fallen.
    “Have you been dreaming of them again?” Anya asks, drumming her fingers on the desk.
    “Thankfully, no,” I tell her honestly, drawing a ragged breath. The nightmares that plagued my sleep last year nearly tore me apart. “It’s just…. I just feel so guilty. What right do I have to be so happy when others are dead and grieving as a result of my actions?”
    “Being miserable, even being dead, won’t change the past, Katia. The past is gone, forever unchanging, written in stone,” she tells me. “The future is not.”
    I’ve