A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,1

if anyone were around they would see me, plain as day. It would be over. My red hair and tunic were not made to blend in with the budding grasses of Cain’s spring. When I hit the wall, I flatten myself against it. Breathe it in. Listen to my surroundings.

Nothing.

I recoup before quickly going to work unraveling the rope and fastening the grappling hooks. I propel the hook upward with well-practiced precision. The rope loops several times around the titanium arm before the hook snags its lip—releasing a stagnant breath from my lungs. I finish by tying the loose end around my waist.

Looking up with determination, I leap and latch on, positioning my feet against the bricks. I trained for this. During the recreation periods when everyone else would sew or paint in an effort to eventually please their masters, I would train, run, make weapons. Something much more worthwhile, in my opinion. We were only allowed this free time so as to perpetuate a feeling of happiness, which apparently increases our overall blood quality. Not complaining though, I loved making knives and dreaming of a day when I could finally use them.

I reach the metallic arm of the panel and hoist myself over it with ease, my rucksack hanging off my shoulders. The girth of the panel presses uncomfortably into my back until I shuffle out from underneath its plane. The edge of the wall now looms only inches above my head, so very close, and I rest a moment to try to stifle the building anxiety.

I’m almost there.

My elbows and shoulders send my body over it with ease, and I land in a squat on the dirt-ridden walkway on top of the wall. Cautiously, I stand. Small barrels and crates, used for sitting and slacking off, line both edges with half-consumed synthetic packs resting upon them. I find the horizon and take in, for the first time in ten years, a view that isn’t obstructed by walls. The muscles tighten in my face, and one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever felt spreads across it, victoriously.

As I assess the plan for my descent to the other side, a strange, stinging pain emerges from the palm of my hand. I glance down and nearly double over with panic.

Blood.

I quickly duck down, simultaneously covering the small, yet deeply drawn cut with my mouth and tongue. I curse at myself as fear festers within me.

It must have been while climbing… on a jagged piece of stone or something.

Trying to keep calm, I fumble through my bag for the arument cloths.

This would happen. At the tail end, when I’m this close.

I unroll the cloth and wrap it around my bleeding palm. Arument cloths have the godsend ability to dissipate any traceable scent of blood. Although they were mainly developed for the female students’ monthly cycles, they are also able to solve these kinds of problems. I wrap it tightly, and as I think I’m safe, a deep male voice shoots out from the north.

“This way! She’s on the wall!”

My heart threatens to stop.

What? They shouldn’t have been able to scent me with only this. I must have miscalculated their time away from… or, or my own time scaling the wall—

Wait.

An idea forces its way through my frantic thoughts as more shouts fill my ears, closer than I could have ever imagined. I grasp a knife out of my bag and cut the rope, fastening another hook to the free end and aiming at a large tree branch on the outer side. It hooks, and I breathe again. Another shout. Way too close.

They’re here.

It’s now or never.

My fingers shake violently, tightening their hold along the chipped ledge of bricks. The earth radiates in swirls of yellow and green below, so far down that the bushes and trees are a blur of paint strokes. Stifling vignettes encompass the outer rims of my eyes as I grapple with the weight of what I’m about to do. I seriously might die.

“I found her!” A voice pierces the void, only meters away.

No, not yet. I try to bargain with anything in the world beyond willing to listen, sweat traveling down my neck in streams. I’m not ready. I’m not—

The weight of their presence grows heavier, bringing with it the animosity of a plague; a terror that I take all the way down to the marrow of my bones; a seeping cold that is bristled with thousands of tiny needle-head points, sending fire along my spent arms and