Page 48 of Meeting Her Mate
“I was outnumbered and with snipers, apparently,” Will said. “I don’t know anyone who’s gotten shot with around fifty snipers and lived to tell the tale. A single sniper bullet is bigger than my index finger and thicker than my thumb. Now imagine if you’re shot with fifty of them at the same time. Your body would explode. For the briefest moment, you’d be alive to experience all of that pain, and then you’d die an agonizing death.”
“I wouldn’t put it past those fucking vampires to do something like that,” I said. “Every time they do something like this, I’m reminded of the night they killed my parents. I was young, but I remember every second of it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of that horrible night.”
“Perhaps if you share with me, it will take some of the pain away,” Will said.
“Fine.” I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. It was my break time anyway. Today there was nothing much to do at the warehouse. “Maybe it will help.”
***
Dad was the pack’s alpha, which meant that we didn’t get many chances to enjoy a family holiday. He was a very hands-on person, concerned for every single member of the pack. Mom never minded that. She loved him for who he was, and she loved the fact that he cared so fiercely for the pack.
Mom spent most of her time recording songs in the home studio. By popular demand of the townsfolk, she’d visit the town on the weekends to perform her music. Bars, clubs, restaurants, small-time gigs like that. Mother never had her eyes on achieving fame or anything like that. Music was her singular passion. It wasn’t as if she didn’t get the chance to become famous. Some of her songs made it to the big labels, and they even offered to sign her up, but mom always said the same thing to them. That she was not doing it for the money. She did not want to taint her love for music with something as fickle as money.
I grew up in the most harmonious household. Mom would always be humming, and dad would always be dancing to her tunes. It was a perfect life. Dad taught history at the community college every alternate day. He had a degree in history from the University of Maine. Given that he was the alpha, he could only spare a few hours every day to go teach a lecture at the college.
The day they died was special. It was my birthday. Mom wanted to do something big, and dad agreed with her. They took me to the Derry Carnival in Maine. For me, it was everything I had ever wanted. Roller-coasters, clown cars, merry-go-rounds, and hundreds of stalls where I could play games, buy food, or watch the performers do tricks. I still remember how it all smelled. It smelled of roasted peanuts and cotton candy.
We had a nice family dinner at a quaint little restaurant on our way back. Then, to my surprise, mom got up on the stage and even performed a special song of hers, earning much applause from the crowd.
While returning to Fiddler’s Green, I was sitting in the back seat, a conical birthday hat on my head, party streamers in my hands, and my eyes on the big pile of gifts wrapped and bowed. I couldn’t wait to go home and tear each of these boxes open and see what my parents had gifted me.
But that never happened. At the entrance of Fiddler’s Green, our truck’s tires gave out. Dad got out to fix it. Mom turned around and looked at me with her eyes filled with love.
“Did my baby have fun today?”
I nodded at her and smiled a big toothless grin.
“We love you, Lexi,” mom said, ruffling my hair and taking off my birthday hat. “Always remember that.”
The next thing I knew, my dad was in a verbal altercation with two men wearing long trench coats. As I peeked from behind the window, I saw the two guys jump him with a crowbar, never even giving him a chance to shift and fight them. They bludgeoned him to death in front of my eyes.
“All right there, love?” one of them said in an unmistakable accent as he poked his head through the window and grabbed my mom by the throat. “I’m afraid it’s lights out for you and your hubby, dearie.”
As mom began to shift, the vampire let her go and backed away, taking out his gun and aiming it at her. Mom leaped out of the car and slashed at the vampire, tearing away at his face.
But before she could do much more, the sound of a gunshot rang through the silent night, leaving my mom lying in a pool of her own blood, whimpering weakly as life escaped her.
“What do we do, bruv?” One of the vampires asked the other.
“We leave. Your face’s all ripped up, innit?”
“Bollocks. What do we do about the kid?”
“Ah, leave her be. You don’t kill a kid on their birthday. It’s bad karma.”
Then the vampires surrounded my car and peeped in through the window at me.
“It’s a pity you had to see that, kid,” the one with the slashes ripped across his face said, grinning with a bloody face.
“It’s not personal, little pup. We were following orders,” the other one said and then burst into hysterical laughter.
I did not know how long I stayed in the backseat, crying, petrified, and unable to move. I didn’t dare to look out of the window. I couldn’t perceive what had happened. How could it be that a day could be as magical as it was an hour ago and then turn into the worst nightmare just moments later?
My parents, dead?
***
“It was early in the morning when some people from the pack came looking for us. They took me out of the car and brought me back to the commune. I don’t remember the funeral. I was too mortified to leave my home,” I said. “Even to this day, I can’t bring myself to go to the cemetery where they’re buried. It’s just too painful.”