stick propped against my bed frame to attack my intruder with it.
The vampire looked at me cockily from my bed, his arms propped under his head and his ankles crossed. “Do you always walk that slow, or was it a talent reserved for me?” Render asked.
Fucking vampiric speed. He must’ve gone around to the other staircase. How he knew which bedroom was mine, I had no idea.
I dropped my hands and replaced the shock on my face with irritation. “Get off my bed and get out of my room,” I hissed. I didn’t like having him in my personal space.
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and to my horror, I noticed the journal he had clasped in his hands. He flipped open the leather-bound book and started thumbing through the handwritten entries. My hands curled into fists.
He cleared his throat and started reading one. “June sixteenth: My mother wrote to me after the first time in eight months. She asked fuck-all about my life and instead informed me that she didn’t approve of the minus that I earned beside my A. She said that if I didn’t get that mark up, she’d be cutting my clothing allowance for new uniforms. She’s real maternal, that one. She even signed her letter as Council Liaison. Thank fuck I don’t have to suffer through Christmases or birthdays with her. Even though she stopped the pretenses of actually visiting me back when I was twelve. At least I have Dad. He doesn’t visit as often as I’d like, but at least he doesn’t hate me.”
My chest burned. My teeth grinded. I saw furious red awash with devastating blue. “Give that to me. You have no right to read that,” I snapped, moving forward.
Render’s smirk turned into a full-sized grin like he relished in yanking out my personal turmoil. Everything in there was deeply personal. Every time I had raged or grieved, I’d written it down in that book. It was my way to get it all out since I couldn’t tell Reed about the supernatural aspects of my life. It might be stupid and juvenile, but it was mine, and it was utterly private.
Render flipped a few more pages, and I rushed forward to yank my journal away from him, but it was laughable how easily he dodged me. He was across the room and leaning against the wall before I’d even made it a single step.
“October fourth: Mistress Cock caught me out of my dorm after lights out, but only because she was in the kitchen feeling up the janitor. That pretentious bitch always goes on and on about the importance of purity. Guess she liked to get her own purity scrubbed down by Mr. Longhorn. I’d just wanted to sneak some pumpkin pie, dammit. Now I’ll have that image of them all tangled up together burned into my retinas forever. Oh, and I didn’t even get the damn pie. I got two demerits and bathroom duty instead. And to make it all worse? Katie Jones started a rumor that I’m bulimic, and that’s why my head has been in a toilet bowl all week. I keep getting old food shoved into my bag and crushed into my assigned seats for class,” he read, a smirk on his pale, horribly beautiful face.
I hated him so much.
I hated his smooth, deep voice, and the way he read my personal words like they were amusing to him. “Render. Put it down, or I’ll scream and wake up the entire wing.”
He just laughed at me. “Go ahead. Scream, Void,” he said with a twisted curl of his lip. “It wouldn’t be the first time I had a woman screaming in the bedroom.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He cast a critical look up and down my body. “Believe me, Void, you’re the last person I’d ever take to bed,” he said, making embarrassing heat stain my cheeks. “And the longer you stand there, the more entries I’m going to read. So I suggest you hurry.”
Turning on my heel, I marched into my closet and threw open the door, grabbing my duffel.
“December twenty-sixth,” Render’s voice rang out, making red haze fall over my eyesight and my mouth fill with bitterness. “My mother sent me a pair of socks for Christmas and a note that she’s extended my stay here for another year. Looks like I’m not getting out of this prison when I’m sixteen like my father offered. She called him and ripped him a new one for even suggesting it. Merry fucking Christmas to me.”
I packed as fast as I could. Every entry he read was worse than the last. My father missed one of the school’s family dinners. My mother wrote to tell me she was disappointed in my grades. Again. Reed was bullied. I snuck out for a date with a human guy, but he’d stood me up. The girls at the school picked on me. I complained about how I was unwanted. Unloved. Hated. Feared. One after the other, the blows kept coming until my eyes were burning, and I was so humiliated that my hands shook.
Render followed me to the bathroom, still reading, and I simply pulled out my drawer and dumped everything inside the duffel. “There. Done,” I said, my hand outstretched. “Now hand it over.”
“What a sad, lonely little life you’ve lived, Void. It seems no one likes you at all.”
I knew he was purposely being a dick because of what I was. He didn’t really know me. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.
I said nothing, my eyes refusing to blink in case a tear fell down. After a long moment of him watching me, he finally closed the journal and slapped it down onto my open palm. I shoved it into my duffel and zipped it shut.
“Let’s go.”
Reed turned on his heel and walked out, and I was forced to follow behind him. I looked back at my bedroom, feeling slightly forlorn. He was right. I did have a sad, lonely little life. But at least within the walls of my bedroom, I was somewhat shielded. At least living here with humans had allowed me to hide away from the hateful looks and wishes for my death. It was exactly why I didn’t put up a fight when Mother stayed away. There was nothing out there in the super world for me except for a controlling council who liked to use me when they needed and then shove me away in a drawer when they were done with me.
“Let me just say goodbye to my friend,” I asked, though I didn’t know why I even bothered.
Render sneered at me. “That’s funny, I seem to be feeling a bit thirsty. Maybe saying goodbye to your friend isn’t such a bad idea,” he said, the threat obvious.
“Never mind,” I mumbled. I hoped I’d be back before Reed even knew I was gone.
“Smart choice,” Render replied, flashing his fangs. “Now, we’re taking a portal to the vamp community in LA. I hope your little amulet is prepared to work overtime,” he called over his shoulder with a smirk.
My heart drummed. Portals were powerful magic that made it hard to hold back the Void. I didn’t just crave supes, anything with power had me salivating.