Blood Land by J.R. Lawson (famous ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“I noticed Dagon’s bandage when he was in here earlier.  Is it from his Vinculum scars?”

Jay nodded. “Yeah…two of them are opened now.  From Aaron’s and Caldwell’s deaths.”

“How is he functioning?  How is he not dead already?”

“I told you.  He’s strong.  He’s been doing this vampire thing for about seventeen years.  Plus, he makes shallow wounds for the vinculums he creates and he makes sure he keeps taking in blood.  But…he is relying on you…to heal them.”

Nora scoffed. “Like I would.”

Jay chuckled a bit and shook his head at Nora’s comment. “You’re almost as pig-headed as Kale is.”

Nora smirked as she took Jay’s remark as an almost compliment.  It was silent for few beats and then Nora spoke up, “So, you’ve known Kale for a long time?”

Jay shrugged. “For a few years yeah.  He knew me even before I became a hybrid.” Jay now made his way to a small chair in the corner of the room and sat in it, facing Nora on the bed.

“Yeah, Kale told me that,” Nora said.

“I moved here ‘cause night-flyers killed my family.  I had been moving from place to place and somehow ended up here.  Kale was really nice to me, even though I was human.  Got me out of trouble a couple of times.” Jay laughed to himself as he said this.  He sort of looked off past Nora as he spoke, like he was seeing the past in front of him as he remembered it. “But…that was at a time that Dagon was upset at Kale for leaving him.  I didn’t find that out until I was attacked by some of Dagon’s vampire helpers…and then Dagon himself healed me.  He didn’t want me talking to Kale anymore.  I realized it was a punishment for him or something.” A sad look came over Jay’s face as he continued to recall the memories. “Of course, we got around that a bit.  Sneaking around and stuff.  We saw each other still.” He then smiled to himself.

Nora smiled slightly too. “So, Kale was nice to humans?  He wasn’t that way when I first met him.”

Jay now looked up at Nora and a very serious expression covered his face. “Kale went through a rough patch for a while.  He was still…in a bad place when he met you.  You shouldn’t blame him for the way he acted then.”

“Was it because of Caroline leaving him?” Nora then asked seriously back.

Jay’s eyebrows raised in surprise, “You know about that?”

“I’ve been around Caroline for a while now.  I know all about it.  And how Dagon was the one that made her leave.”

Jay nodded slightly as he spoke, “Yeah, well, it was that but more.”

“Like what?” Nora pressed.

Jay looked hesitant as he then said, “I don’t know what you know and what you don’t.  There are things that maybe Kale doesn’t want you to know about him.”

Nora chuckled a bit. “There used to be a lot of things he didn’t want me to know.  But I know them.  I’ve somehow had a way of getting him to open up to me.  I mean…he even told me his first name.  From what I’ve heard, not a lot of people know it.”

“Well…do you know about how he tried to kill himself once?” Jay suddenly bluntly blurted as he rubbed the back of his neck somewhat nervously.

Nora stopped her eating as her eyes widened slightly in astonishment. “What?” was all she could softly get out.

“Shit…never mind I shouldn’t have said that,” Jay instantly apologized as he then stood up as if he were about to leave.

“Wait, no, you have to tell me now!” Nora exclaimed.

“I don’t think he would want you to know that about him.  It’s personal.  I never should have mentioned it.  I just…thought maybe he told you about it.”

“No, he didn’t, but please tell me.  I swear I won’t tell him you told me,” Nora begged, “I just want to know more about him.  What he was like before I knew him.”

Jay only responded by sighing and shaking his head as he looked away from Nora.

“Please, Jay?” Nora pressed further.

Jay now finally looked Nora in the eye.  He seemed like he was about to smile, but was trying desperately to hide it. He then said, “You are persistent.”

Nora gave him a soft smile of reassurance as Jay finally seemed to give in and sat himself back in his chair. “There’s not much to tell,” he started, “Just that after Caroline left, of course he was a mess.  But, Dagon was hitting him heavily.  He was making his life absolutely miserable.  Now, Kale is a strong guy.  It’s not like him to give up. But Dagon was making it so he was practically cut off from everyone.  Anyone that Kale befriended, talked to, even smiled at, Dagon would have killed.  Most of the time it was made to look like an accident but Kale knew better.  He eventually got scared to even go out in public.  He was afraid to even say ‘hi’ to anyone.  He felt responsible for all the deaths.  I’d tried seeing him a couple of times and he looked horrible.  He’d shut himself up in his house for weeks.  I had finally convinced him to go hunting with me, but the night we were supposed to meet up to go, he never showed. I had a bad feeling so I went to his house to see if he was o.k.” Jay paused and looked down before continuing, “He was up in his room. He had chained himself up. It was obvious that he had been starving himself and now he was attempting to keep his instincts from even taking over.”

“What did you do?” Nora asked, her face covered with the most sympathetic expression.

“Somehow I was able to talk him into getting some blood in his system.  I tried to tell him that those deaths weren’t his fault.  They died because of Dagon.  Not him.  And it was Dagon that hoped Kale would blame himself.  By hurting himself, Dagon was winning.  He was getting what he wanted.  I think I even tried to convince him just to come back to the brood with me.  Because, I guess in my mind, that was the best solution.  But, of course, Kale wouldn’t go that route.  I was able to convince him not to kill himself, but he still refused to go back to Dagon.  I guess that’s when his anger and want for revenge started.  And his coldness.  He became so cold after that.  So angry; at everyone and everything.  I saw him becoming what he hated…and that was Dagon.  I was so worried about him for a long time until…” Jay paused a moment.

“Until what?” Nora asked.

Jay smiled softly. “Until he met you.”

Nora was taken aback slightly at his statement. “Me?” she questioned.

“I don’t know how you’ve done it.  But you’ve brought the old him back out again.  The Kale I first knew.  I guess I should thank you for that.”

Nora smiled warmly and laughed a bit to herself as she said, “I don’t think I really know how I did it either.”

It was silent again between the two of them for a few minutes until Jay decided to break the awkwardness and stand up.  He reached out his hand and then said, “Can I take that for you?” as he motioned to the empty plate sitting in Nora’s lap.

“Oh, sure,” Nora responded, handing it to him, “Thanks,” she added.

Jay just nodded silently with a smile as he took her plate and turned to leave the room. “Well, I’ve got some things to do, but I guess I’ll see you around,” he added as he turned to her for a second before leaving.

Nora nodded. “Yeah.” She smirked, somewhat to herself as Jay then left the room and shut the door behind him.

***

It was the next day that Nora decided to do some walking around the house, seeing as she was bored and Dagon had just so happened to step out for a moment or two.  He had said something about “urgent matters that needed delegating” within the Blood Land and left, trusting Jay to be in charge while he was gone.  So, of course Nora felt this was her best opportunity to have a look around.  As she wandered, she eventually made it into Dagon’s private office.   As she noticed the door hadn’t been locked and entered the room, she still felt as if she shouldn’t be there. However, that feeling didn’t bother her as much as she thought it should.  Right now she wasn’t really afraid of Dagon.  She knew he needed her more than she did him, and that thought was somewhat reassuring.

Dagon’s office wasn’t as big as she expected it to be, but it wasn’t too small either.  Of course, there was the fancy wooden desk that looked somewhat expensive, with the tall leather chair behind it.  Shelves lined the walls in the back, filled with tons and tons of books.  Nora ran her fingers across the spines of all the books as she eyed them and took in the smell of leather and old paper.  It was then that she suddenly noticed something at the bottom shelf, crammed to one side, that didn’t seem to go with the rest of the books beside it.  She kneeled down to observe it closer and realized that it was dozens of papers, crammed into manila file folders.  She quickly pulled them out and set them on the desk, opening the first file.  What was there, on the top of the stack of papers, was a single sheet that read: “TEST ASSESSMENT FORM” across the top.  Underneath there was a type of chart with various handwritings on it, which Nora proceeded to then read further.

What was written in, who she perceived to be, Dagon’s handwriting was Kale’s full name, age, height, weight, and practically anything else you wanted to know about him.  Of course, under age, Nora noticed Dagon had written “sixteen” which indicated this sheet was filled out many years ago.  However, after all of the information on Kale, the second half of the chart had not been filled out.  A section that said “TEST RESULTS” was left blank.  Except for one section near the bottom that caught Nora’s eye; it read:  “ADDITIONAL NOTES”.  What was written there raised her curiosity.  It stated: “From observations concerning the subject’s personality, certain traits indicated subject is a candidate for the ‘manipulation’ ability.”

Nora immediately wondered what that could mean.  Obviously this was a chart that had been filled out at a time when Dagon had assumed Kale was going to become a hybrid like the rest of his brood, but what could the ‘manipulation ability’ be?  Apparently it’s what Dagon suspected Kale was going to get when he was going to become a hybrid.  Nora quickly flipped through the rest of the papers in Kale’s file and saw several pictures taken at distances when, she supposed, was the time Dagon had been observing him.  She stopped at a particular picture of Kale with his father.  They weren’t anywhere special.  Just in front of a grocery store someplace.  Kale’s father was looking off to the side and you couldn’t see much of his face, but Kale’s body had been facing the camera.  He was looking off to the left, and he wore jeans and a baggy black hoodie, of which his hands were in the front pocket, but Nora couldn’t stop staring at his boyish, sixteen year old face.  He still had the same messy black hair that he did now, but his eyes, she couldn’t stop staring at his blue eyes.  She instantly remembered how he had told her about those eyes; that Freedom Night on the Ferris Wheel at his father’s fairground.

It was then that Nora closed the folder.  She didn’t want to look at it anymore.  She moved it to the side and flipped through the