Vampires And Witches - Kayla Trautman (bookreader TXT) 📗

deep. I only meant for it to be a small cut. Nothing serious.” David looked up at Keith, “Keith. Son. Please try to calm down. She’s going to be fine.” Keith replied raising his voice a bit, “Yeah! This time! What about the next time she decides she can’t talk to me and she can’t deal with the pain?! What if she gets a vein next time?! What if she dies?! All of our efforts of trying to save her from William will be lost; not to mention how upset I would be if she were to die!”


I muttered not able to raise my voice any but I knew he would hear me, “I’m sorry. I’m not going to do that again. It was a mistake and I swear that it won’t happen again.” “How can I believe you? I mean, I understand that you’re upset and you’re depressed. I get that. I really do. But you can’t . . . you can’t do this.” I replied, “You can believe me. The knife is in my top drawer. Take it away. And I hid the evidence of this under my mattress.” Keith ran upstairs.

David sat next to me, “Ariel. Now you really need to talk to someone.” I shook my head, “No. I don’t. I just need to find a different way to handle it that distracts me from the pain without hurting myself.” I looked at my arm and just starred at the white bandage that he had put on.

David touched my back, “Please Ariel. None of us here like to see you in pain. You’re . . . you’re like family to us.” I started to breathe heavily. I didn’t have a family anymore. Why was he saying that I was family? He continued, “And as part of the family . . .” I interrupted standing up, “I don’t have a family! I don’t have a family! I’m alone in this world! Can’t you see that?!” I turned and went out front. I sat on the front steps and held my right arm around my stomach. Tears ran down my face. I don’t know why I felt so strongly about that but I just did.

David came out and stood in front of me, “Hey. I’m sorry if I upset you saying that you were family. But you are. We’re not trying to replace them. They will still be your family. But now you just got more.” I looked to the side. I wanted to say ‘No I don’t.’ But that would just hurt his feelings. He sighed and went inside touching my shoulder as he did.

A few minutes later Keith came out and sat beside me. He had the evidence and the knife in his hand. He threw the evidence into the street and opened the knife up. He squeezed the knife in his hand. I panicked, “Don’t! You’ll hurt yourself!” He humped, “Not like you did. Vampire, remember?” The metal didn’t cut him. It was crushed into small pieces and he dropped the handle to the ground when he was done. Even though it still bothered me I knew that it wouldn’t hurt him.

Keith looked at me, “Talk to me.” I asked, “What do you want me to talk to you about?” “About how you’re feeling. Dad told me what just happened when I went upstairs to get the knife. He said you went crazy when he mentioned you being family.” I sighed, “I’m sorry. I can’t . . . I don’t know why I reacted like that. I just don’t want another family. I want my own family but they’re gone so now I don’t have one. I shouldn’t have overreacted like that. I’ll apologize to him when I go in.” He shook his head, “No. Don’t. There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s understandable for you to feel that we’re trying to replace your family.” I interrupted, “I don’t think that at all. That’s not how I feel.” He replied, “You don’t know it yet. But deep inside that’s what you’re feeling. And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel that. But you need to know that we would never try to replace them. We’re just trying to add to your family. ‘Cause you are family to us.”


I layed my head against his shoulder, “Wish I could say the same here.” He ran his hand along the side of my face, “With this cutting yourself and hurting yourself. It has to stop.” I replied, “I know. I promise. I won’t hurt myself anymore.” He nodded, “Okay. I’m going to be keeping an eye on your appearance to make sure. But I’ll leave it at that.” I stood up, “I’m gonna go for a walk. I think that that’s safer than cutting. I won’t be gone long.” “Alright.” I turned and left.


Chapter 8: Death or Become a Vampire

I walked until I got to the cliff everyone called Freddy’s cliff. They called it Freddy’s cliff because a guy named Freddy would live up here in a tent. Whenever kids came up here he would be very nice to them no matter how mean they were to him. And if someone came up here to kill themselves he would talk to them. Get them to see life better than it really was. And they listened to him. One day he was found up here dead. It was said that he died of old age. More people committed suicide since he’s been gone. I would’ve been one of them if it weren’t for Mike.

I sat at the edge of the cliff and brought my knees up to my chest. I stared out at the waves that crashed into the rocks at the bottom and the waves that hit the cliff. I was down there once. But I landed in the water. I didn’t hit the rocks. I swam to the beach and climbed out. I remember when my mother would take me up here and tell me stories about the water and the wind. She said these ones weren’t true. That she had just made them up to entertain me. But she made them sound real the way she told them. The way she told stories and read books aloud was remarkable. You’d feel like it was true. Like you were in it. I loved how she told me stories. I miss her stories and everything. I missed having her around.

“What are you doing up here all alone Ariel?” I heard William’s voice ask. I stood up and turned around, “William. Please not right now.” William walked towards me, “Now why would I do that when I have the advantage of you being depressed?” He glanced at my arm and then back up at my face, “What happened to your arm?” I took a few deep breaths and answered, “I . . . cut myself. David stitched it up for me.” He smiled crookedly, “Wow. You humans love causing yourselves pain. And then you get mad at me when I kill you humans. Whatever. I can either kill you or turn you into a vampire. I’ll let you choose which one you want.” I frowned, “What? You’re going to let me choose if I want to die or live forever damned?” He nodded, “Yes. But I wouldn’t say that you’d be damned. You’d be blessed.”

I had to make the choice now. Become a vampire or die. I wasn’t about to become a vampire. And I wasn’t going to die by his hands . . . Teeth; in this case. I sighed and backed up, “Well, since I have no choice. I think I’d rather die.” That’s when I turned around and jumped off the cliff. The rush was amazing. But what layed ahead of me was going to kill me. Luckily, I landed in the water. I came back up a minute later. The water was practically throwing me around. I hit into the rock and hit my head. It hurt so bad that I fell unconscious.

I opened my eyes to see that I was in a hospital bed. In a hospital. Ugh! Of course. I knew if I ever woke up that I would wake up in a hospital. I looked around and saw Keith standing on the other side of the room with his hands in his pockets looking out the room. “Keith.” I whispered. I didn’t know how my voice would sound but my throat was hurting. He turned around and rushed to my side, “You’re awake.” He grabbed my hand, “You had me worried.” “Sorry.” I whispered. “I . . .” “Don’t. Not right now. We’ll talk about this when we get home.” He interrupted me; angry now.

Before there was relief in his voice but now there was anger and his face showed it too. After the doctor examined me he said that it would be okay for me to go. Keith carried me out to the car and I fell asleep in his arms.

I woke up and I was in my room. Alone. I got up and walked downstairs. Hilary and David were sitting on the couch with Diana. I sat on the other couch, “Where’s Keith?” Diana answered, “He’ll be back in a moment. He’s just letting off some steam before he talks to you.”

At that moment Keith came in through the front door and sat next to me, “We need to talk. You promised that you wouldn’t do this again. You lied to me. How could you do that? After everything you’re still trying to kill yourself.” I nodded and rolled my eyes, “Yeah. I guess you would see it as that.” There was so much anger in me that he didn’t even ask me what happened or anything. Ugh! He asked with extreme irritation, “What are you talking about? It was that. If it wasn’t that then what was it?” I chuckled humorlessly, “Now you ask. No that’s okay. If you wanna believe that I was trying to kill myself again then fine. Doesn’t make a difference to me.”

David interrupted our little dispute, “If that’s not what happened then tell us what did happened.” I started, “I did jump. But . . .” “Like I said. You did jump.” Keith interrupted me. I slammed my hand down on my lap and looked at him, “Are you done? I think you should wait outside for someone to tell you what happened.” He rolled his eyes but just sat there and continued to stare at me. I continued, “But I had to jump. I went up to the cliff to just sit there and I was just thinking about when my mom took me up there to tell me stories and all that. That’s when William showed up.”

Keith stiffened beside me as he realized that he was wrong. So wrong. I said, “He offered me a life as a vampire or he could just kill me. But I didn’t want either and I couldn’t fight him at the time so I jumped. I landed in the water but the water threw me around and I hit the rock. That’s when I fell unconscious.”

David sighed and looked at Keith, “That’s a relief. We thought we were going to have to take you to a vampire doctor so you could talk to them without worrying about exposing any of us here.” Keith grabbed my hand, “I’m . . . I’m so sorry. Ariel. I jumped to conclusions. I should have asked you what happened.” I brought my hand back and folded my arms over my chest,