The World Will Stain Us

Introduction

Love isn't a spoken thing.

Sure, it can be verbalized in whispered words or grand proposals, and it can be portrayed in small gestures of affection or extravagant declarations. But at its core, love isn't a spoken thing. It's a feeling, something so deep and complex and pure and true that the sheer magnitude of it can never be adequately put into words or squashed into any gesture.

For five vampires struggling to survive in a world that does not wish them to exist and does not accept them, it has never needed to be.

Immortal life can be rough. You watch the world grow and change without you, adapting to fit the mold of society every time it shifts and going unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. You watch the people you love move on, grow old, and die, while you remain, eternal, unchanging. It can leave scars twice as brutal as mortal life can, for you have eternity to bear them and live in the fear that those wounds will ever reopen.

The scars left on the five vampires still have not fully healed.

For Andy Biersack, his scars came the cold winter night he drunkenly trusted a stranger passing through his hometown, and paid the price in his own blood―and his mortality.

For Jake Pitts, his scars came the night one of his bandmates in the experimental alternative band he'd joined got a little too feisty, and turned his whole world on its head when he woke the next morning buried in a shallow grave.

For Jinxx Ferguson, his scars came the night he let his then-girlfriend drag him to a haunted ruin of a building still not fixed from the war, and instead of running into ghosts, they ran into hostile vampires.

For Christian "CC" Coma, his scars came the night the people he loved most got a little too drunk and a little too reckless, and only realized their mistake when he lay dead on the floor and in need of a turning to save his life.

For Ashley Purdy, his scars came when he unknowingly let a vampire girl get too close, and paid for his foolishness with his life―literally.

The five of them found each other for a reason. They all have their own scars, and those scars led to a deep love, impenetrable and unspoken. They're still uncertain, still learning how to love each other―but they're willing to figure it out.

Together.