Empire of Vampires ✔️

Chapter Thirty

1814

Lady Marienne stood in the garden of her former home. She watched as her brother stumbled through the door at the crack of dawn. He looked like hell; his clothes stained in dirt and grass and his dark brown hair sticking around his face in disarray. The dark circles under his eyes told her he hadn't slept a wink since it had happened.

Since she had died.

Their father slammed him the minute he walked in the door. He went down without a fight, lying on the floor at the mercy of the hefty man screaming obscenities at him. His frail body curled up as the beatings rained down on him but he did nothing to stop the pain, feeling like it was what he deserved.

Their father had always been a bully. He finally left once he'd gotten out his frustrations but James still lay there on the floor. The twins had always told each other to be brave and fight against their parent's abuse but the boy just lay there. He was dead inside, his eyes blank.

He stayed silent and unmoving even later when their mother came across him and harangued him for not showing up at the funeral. She blamed her death on him, if only you'd walked with her, she said, she'd still be alive today and married to Lord Kenworthy... he had a fortune and a title! He could have been attached to our family; and what an addition it would have made.

Marienne stayed hidden outside the house. She wanted to go to him but she was ashamed of what she'd become. At least he was still in the world of the living but she only regretted that she had to leave him alone with their oppressive parents. But he would grow up, one day, and get married and have kids; and she would watch from the shadows and let him get on with his life. She left the garden knowing that she could just leave and go anywhere in the world. Anywhere but back home.

Marienne ran to the cliffs and she screamed at the sky. When she screamed, she imagined that she was talking to her lost brother. Trying to tell him that she still existed and that she hadn't just left him all alone. Somehow, she had survived and she was still here.

That night James went back to the cliff. He hadn't been able to sleep, hearing his sister's ghostly voice in his head; calling him to her. His memories of her flooded his mind, them playing in the house together, them hiding in the garden together when their father came home smelling of liquor. Them running to the cliffs for a momentary escape from their unhappy world.

He didn't even notice the rain pouring down in sheets, drenching him to the core. He stumbled over the slippery rocks, losing his footing and tumbling to the edge. The sound of the crashing ocean drowned out the thunder that boomed overhead. He looked down into the abyss of the black water.

He felt like he belonged there, tossing about in the careless waves. His life had no purpose now and it didn't make sense to go on living it. He put one foot forward and then another, feeling oddly relieved as the loose dirt beneath him gave way; it was serenity to finally give up.

Strong arms grasped him around his chest and pulled him back onto solid land. They turned him around and when he faced her, he thought he was in the afterlife. His lost sister stood there, solid to the touch as he himself.

'What are you doing?'

She sounded angry. Not as he'd imagined her.

'I couldn't go on... I couldn't do it; I couldn't live without you.'

'You're not dead James, you're not like me,' she said it sternly, wanting him to understand.

He wept when he heard that, burying his face in her wet hair as his whole body convulsed in the cold and despair. Marie felt that this boy was not her brother but rather a broken husk of the person he once was. She'd always seen the darkness within him but she hadn't realized how sharp the pieces were he'd crumbled into.

She leaned his head back gently and he let her sink her fangs into his neck, injecting her venom into his pounding veins.

~~~
A/N: you guessed it! The song is 'My tear ricochet' by Taylor Swift! When she said 'I didn't have it in myself to go with grace,' I immediately imagined being killed and refusing to die - thus giving rise to a bloodthirsty vampire out for revenge

You had to kill me but it killed you just the same

Um... listen to it! (Links on top)
It's the perfect soundtrack, totally imaging this as a movie rn!