ROSES FOR RACHEL: EPISODES 61-THE END
By Painter
Episode 68
I thought hard, trying to think what else is on level 3, then I remembered his mom’s room.
I also remembered the dungeons…and the naked vampires…It clicked in my head what was happening. Somehow all those blood thirsty vampires had found a way out of the crypts and the dungeons.
The realization of how serious this situation was sank in and I knew that if I don’t get myself to that room and find a way to bunker down there, I’m going to be klled out here.
I took a deep breath, slid off my shoes, and padded out into the corridor again, carefully making my way up the opposite hall from the vampires.
I took a couple of turns and after a second I felt like I was getting somewhere, the area I was in was extremely familiar, even in the dark. I stopped for just a second and I gasped as I heard someone’s breathing behind me.
I whipped around, waiting for death to take me, when I saw two dungeon vampires converging on me, one man and one woman. The woman smiled at me and I recognized her as the one who had cut my leg when I’d been in the dungeon. They both lowered into a crouch, and I closed my eyes, knowing it was over.
“Back off!” A man’s voice called. “This one is mine.”
I turned in the blackness and squinted to see who it was. The red lights glowed, revealing Castro standing there wearing nothing but a pair of shorts that didn’t look like they could be his because they were obviously too big for him. “Please help me.” I begged him.
He looked passed me, glaring at the others and I heard them walk the other direction. “Save you?” He repeated me. “Like your mate saved Daniel?” He asked me.
“Where is Calvin?” I asked and he shook his head at me, narrowing his eyes. I gulped loudly in fear. “How did you get out of the dungeons?” I demanded. “Are you the one who let everyone out?”
“So many questions for a girl who knows so little.” He whispered in the dark. “I think I have you to thank for getting me out of the dungeons, actually.” He smiled at me when the lights came up again, and he led up a long piece of red, dirty looking material. “I found this, which is covered in your scent, by the doors in that dungeon.” He explained. “All of the others were too weak to use it, but I wasn’t.” He laughed to himself, a sad hint to it. “I got out, managed to find the blood supply room rather easily, then I helped my new friends gain the strength to escape from their barbaric captivity.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked, then shouted as he grabbed me by the neck, easily turning to pin me to the wall with one hand. He squeezed, cutting off my air flow and making my limited vision even more blurry.
“I’m sorry it’s happening to you, but I have to get revenge somehow.” He said with an actual ounce of remorse in his voice as he looked into my bulging eyes. “I can’t go back to our family without vengeance. I’m sorry.” He repeated again, closing his eyes.
I braced for death, but instead of dying, I fell to the floor, smacking the side of my face roughly on the stones. “I tried to do the right thing!” Calvin screamed, tackling Castro beneath him, holding him by his neck and looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I took your son from you! You have no idea how sorry!” He yelled. “He saved my life and I took his, and now…I’m sorry.”
Calvin whispered, ripping Castro’s head from his body like it was nothing. I felt faint, and laid back on the cool ground, staring blankly up at the ceiling as the lights continued to flash and the alarm faded into the background of my subconscious.
I saw a flickering of blue light reflecting on the stones and I turned my head to the side to see Calvin standing over a blue flame covered pyre. “Rachel, are you alright?” He whispered to me, but I couldn’t answer him. He flashed over to me, kneeling at my side, then he looked around, his face crumpling. “Rachel?” He whispered again, tears in his eyes.
I was in shock of what was going on, but even in the fogginess of my mind I remembered the reason this place looked so familiar. I’d seen it in my dreams…the spot where his mom had died.
I sat up slowly, my face aching slightly on the right side where I’d hit it. “I’m ok.” I whispered to him and he helped me to my feet, grabbing me and looking me over, checking to make sure I wasn’t injured.
He held my face tightly, his face still crumpled. “You have to go.” He said softly, tilting my face back to look me in the eyes.
I stared up into his smoky eyes. “We both do.” I said. “Do we hide or go to the bunkers?” I asked him and his expression looked…empty. “What?” I asked softly, searching his eyes.
He dropped his hands from my face and held my hands in front of me. “I’m not going anywhere…You are.”
“I don’t understand, where do I need to go?” I asked. “I don’t want to go by myself.”
“Hold on.” He said suddenly, picking me up in his arms. Then the walls began to flash by as he ran with me, only stopping at the elevator, but he didn’t put me down, not until we got off of the elevator and he had to stop to put both his hands against the stone wall beside the elevator, opening the secret door.
“Wait.” I protested as he pulled me into the dark hallway. I fought against him, so he tossed me over his shoulder without speaking and he began running again.
When he stopped my head was spinning as he put me back on my feet and I realized that we were standing on the outskirts of the little city, the clear night sky above our heads, and a chill in the air.
I looked to my left and I saw a black car pull up the road, stopping a few yards away from us, and turning off their lights.
“Rachel.” Calvin whispered my name shakily, drawing my attention back to him.
I looked up at him, and my knees began to shake. He was just staring down at me, tears filling his eyes. “What’s going on, Calvin?” I asked warily, fighting back my own tears at his expression.
He sighed, his shoulders shaking and he pulled an envelope out of his back pocket, handing it over to me. “You’re leaving, Rachel.” He said lowly, breathing heavily.
My breath hitched. “What? No!” I shouted, pushing to get by him to go back to the city.
“Rachel!” He said louder, grabbing my shoulders and holding me out in front of him. “You can’t stay here anymore, baby.” He cried, shaking. “You’ve got to go. It’ll never be safe for you, it’ll always be like this, as long as you’re human, and Rachel, I know you…You don’t want to be like me, and I don’t want that for you either.”
“No!” I screamed at him, trashing around in his grip. “You don’t know what I want! I want to be with you! Why are you doing this?” My heart felt like it was on fire, and there was ice in my veins. My whole world felt like it was crumbling apart around me and there was an echoing in my ears. “Don’t make me leave, I love you!”
Calvin shook his head at me, trying so hard not to look me in the eyes. “I don’t want you to go!” He whimpered. “I want to keep you forever, I love you too, but that’s why you have to leave. I can’t do this to you anymore!” He shouted, letting me go and turning his back on me. “You’d never be happy being a vampire, Rachel, never! You could never kll an innocent person to feed your hunger, and I wouldn’t want you to. You would never be safe as a human here either, though!”
“I don’t care, as long as I’m with you!”
“Rachel!” He shouted desperately, stomping back to me, grabbing my face, forcing me to look at him. “You can’t stay here! I’m telling you, you have to leave! I won’t watch…I know you’re not going to be happy here.”
I blinked through my tears. “Is this because of what happened to your mom? I would never leave you like that, Calvin, I swear!”
He cried harder, looking up at the sky. “Baby, that’s not the only reason. I don’t want to keep you as my prisoner anymore, like my father did to her, you can go. I need you to go, live, Rachel.
This isn’t a life for you, being stuck under the ground, never enjoying the sun.” He tilted his eyes back down to me. “You deserve more than this, so much more.”
I stared at him, feeling more than broken that he was denying me, telling me to leave. “I don’t want to leave you!” I insisted. “I can’t leave you! Without you to protect me, the vampire’s will hunt me down and I’ll just end up back in another feeder school, or worse!” I tried to make him see. “I can’t leave! I don’t want to!”
ROSES FOR RACHEL: EPISODES 61-THE END
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