Free Living in Darkness (Bloodbreeders) by Robin Renee Ray

else you will surely take all of your
family, night after night, until they are no more.”
    “Never,” I screamed. I tried to sit up, and for the first time,
realized that I had been hurt. I let out a gasp, and fell back against the
ground.
    “Oh, you poor dear,” the woman said, almost motherly. “Let me take a
look.” She examined my arm, and then dressed my wound with a piece of my dress
she tore away. “Are you in much pain, child?” she asked.
    “Does it matter?” I asked bitterly. “I deserve death as much as Martin.
It was my idea to go to the farm. If I had just....” She stopped me.
    “Don’t you realize why he kept you so close?” she asked. “He knew you would
return. He bargained on it, for now you are one hundred percent our kind.”
    “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
    “Once you have taken life, it becomes easier the next time. You are a
new breed, so to speak, not one of the living, but more so of the damned.”
    “He was just a little boy. He didn’t deserve to die, not like that. Not
by the hands of his sister,” I said, holding my face in my hands. Thoughts of
my mother flooded my mind. I may have very well just nailed her coffin as well.
To lose not one, but two children in a week’s time would be unthinkable. I
couldn’t stand the thought of her finding little Johnny in the morning, his
lifeless body sprawled out in the dirt.
    “I have to go back, I have to move him. They can’t find him like that.”
    “It has already been taken care of,” the woman said. “My men have
placed him back in his bed.”
    I stared at her intensely, not knowing if she should be trusted.
    “Who are you people?” I asked. “How did you know I would be here
tonight?”
    “There will be time for explanations later...”
    “That just so happens to be the exact same thing Martin said. It’s
always later. Why should I believe you any more than I did him?” I angrily
snapped before she could continue.
    “Because,” she said. “I have already told you more truth in a few
moments than he has in days.”
    I was frustrated, overwhelmed, and thought that maybe what she had just
said was true, but I still didn’t know whether or not to believe her. I had to
see if what she had said about my brother being placed in his bed was true for
my own   satisfaction .
I got to my feet and began heading back to the farm. She grabbed my arm, as if
to stop me, but the look that I gave her made her instantly nod and release me.
    It was true. Johnny’s body was no longer where I had left it, and it
made me trust this woman a little more. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that
she had followed me here.
    “See, child?” she said. “I have no reason to lie to you. Will you
please come with me now, before he finds us here?”
    What option did I have? I couldn’t let Martin get his bloody hands on
me, only to make me kill those that I loved. I had to get as far from him as I
could, and she was the only person willing to help me.
    “Okay, I’ll go with you.” I said. “But can you at least tell me where
we’re going?”
    “Of course I can. We are headed to Corpus Christi a place by the ocean. ” she said. “You have made a wise decision, child.”
    “My name is Renee, and I’m no child.”
    “Yes, I meant no disrespect,” she replied with a little nod. “Come,
now. Let us go.”
    I looked back, knowing it would be the last time I would see my home,
but I knew that what I had done would stay with me until the end of my days, no
matter how long that might be. I could only hope and pray that my actions
wouldn’t take my mother as well. What would become of them now? I guess that
was something I would never know.

 
    Chapter 7

 
    By the time we stopped, I knew we had traveled at least seventeen
miles, because we had arrived in Cross Plains, a place I knew well. My family
and I brought our goods here yearly, and had done so for many years.
    “We will rest here this coming day. There is an