a blank piece of paper. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it; the movement is almost mechanical, as if it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the here and now. Overwhelming guilt and pain shadow her features as she drops her gaze back to the tabletop.
“Is it someone I know?” I can barely speak above a whisper, pain bombarding me from all sides. Is it Yoselin? Uriel? Someone else? Death is such a funny thing. In our culture, we often celebrate it, considering the death of a witch a renewal of sorts. They give their energy back to the coven, and we lap it up like hungry, desperate carnivores. But when the life is snuffed out before it’s time, when the witch is brutally murdered like with the case of the Bloods, it’s mourned. There’s nothing natural or serene about the way these witches are dying now. Their energy isn’t simply recycled back into the population, their spirits living on. It’s destroyed completely, consumed by men and women with a god complex.
“It’s no one you know,” Nana rushes to reassure me, but she still won’t meet my eyes. Her hands continue to rip, rip, rip at that small paper, watching as the pieces flutter onto the table like snow.
“There’s something we need to tell you,” Christian blurts, and Polo shoots him a look, as if annoyed with his less than tactful approach.
The last bit of fogginess in my brain dissipates like a fan in a smoky room. I sit up straighter in my chair, allowing my gaze to travel over the three adults present. Nana, with her violet hair and eyes laden with worry. Christian, his normally jovial smile nowhere to be found. And Polo, looking uncharacteristically distressed as he reaches forward and places his hand on top of Nana’s.
“There’s a reason why the witch’s council asked Gabriel to investigate the recent string of Blood murders,” Polo begins softly. When Nana pales even further, her bloodshot eyes standing out starkly in her face, I feel my heartbeat ratchet up a dozen notches. I can barely hear over the pounding of it.
“And why is that?”
And I know, right then and there, that I’m not going to like their answer. It’s going to change everything I ever thought, everything I ever knew. It’s going to so effectively rattle the very foundations of my being, I’m going to be left as nothing but a shattered shell, smaller than even the ripped paper raining down on the table like confetti.
When Polo doesn’t immediately respond, eyes dropping to his thumb stroking Nana’s knuckles, Christain takes over. “Because my brothers and I were once Bloods.”
His words send a cold, electric shock racing through my system, skittering down my spine, before settling in the pit of my stomach like a watermelon-sized lump. All I can do is stare at the man who I considered a friend, family. I always thought Bloods would be noticeable at first glance. That I could distinguish them with one speculative look.
What did I honestly expect? For them to have the word BLOOD tattooed across their foreheads? For their eyes to be crimson in color, the evil they hold reflected in their gazes?
But Christian, Gabriel, and Polo look normal. Healthy. Hot, even.
“W-What?” I manage to stutter out, and the urge to run away as fast and as far as I can hits me.
“It was a long time ago,” Polo rushes to say, but I can barely hear him over the sudden roaring in my ears.
Because if what they told me is true, they’re murderers. They killed humans and witches alike, consuming their blood like filthy, fictional vampires, all in the name of power and immortality.
“How long ago?” I whisper, white-knuckling the edge of the table.
Silence descends as the two men exchange wary looks. Nana continues to rip apart the paper even further, until each piece is the size of her nail. I can’t help but stare at her in betrayal. In pain. How could she not tell me?
“Nineteen-forty,” Christian confesses at last, his words a low sigh.
“Nineteen—” I release a dry laugh, one that quickly transforms into something borderline hysterical. Nana appears even more distraught with every passing second, wincing as if my laughter is a physical punch to her lying, traitorous gut. “So you really are old men?”
Polo purses his lips. “We met your grandmother when she was eighteen, and we fell in love with her.”
I turn my accusing stare towards the woman in question, the woman studiously avoiding