Chapter 5: Love, Blood, and Fangs

TWENTY YEARS EARLIER

Marcus Cutler POV:

I was woken up by the sound of breaking glass. Lying in bed, I could hear … something happening downstairs, like something was getting knocked around. I could hear voices, but they were muffled, and I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Mom?” I called. “Dad?”

The only answer I got was a loud BANG from downstairs.

Quietly I slipped out of bed and left my room, going down the hall to stand at the top of the stairs. The downstairs light was on, and I could see my mom lying face-down at the bottom of the stairs.

“Mom?” I called down to her.

When she didn’t answer, I made my way downstairs.

“Mom,” I repeated as I tried to shake her awake.

When she still didn’t reply I grabbed her shoulder and managed to roll her over on her back. That was easily the worst decision I had ever made.

My Mom’s eyes were wide open, and her mouth was stuck in a silent scream. Her throat was torn open, and now that she was on her back, I could see the front of her shirt and the floor beneath her were covered in blood. It was like something out of a horror movie.

I screamed. I had to.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“DAD!” I screamed. “DAD!?”

Where was he!? If something had happened to Mom, he should be here!”

“Marcus.”

I turned towards the sound of my dad’s voice, and that was when I saw them. My dad was on the floor just inside the front door of our house. He was wrestling with someone else, someone I had never seen before, but he was pinned underneath them.

“Marcus, you need to run,” my dad managed to get out.

That was the last thing my dad said before the person on top of him leaned in, wrapped his mouth around dad’s throat, and tore it open. I had to scream as I watched a geyser of blood erupt from my dad.

My scream got the attention of the person who had killed my dad, and as they turned to me, I was looking at a nightmare.

The person had wild black hair, sickly pale skin, their eyes seemed to glow red, and blood was dripping from their fanged mouth.

Before I could scream again, this person closed the distance between us and grabbed me by the throat to throw me up and slam me against the ceiling before letting me fall back to the floor. I cried out as I landed, feeling and hearing something crack.

I tried to get up, but my attacker was suddenly crouching in front of me, and they grabbed a fistful of my hair to pull my head up. I ended up looking right into their red eyes. And as I looked, everything … just seemed to fade away.

The last thing I was aware of before I blacked out what the sound of something else breaking.

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I woke up slowly, but this first thing I was aware of was that I was lying on something uncomfortable. When I first opened my eyes a blinding light flooded into them, and I had to squeeze them shut. When I finally opened them again, I could see that I was in a hospital room. I was at the end of a row of beds, but it looked like I was the only one in the room. Trying to move, I left a sharp pain in my right leg. Pulling the sheets away, I found that my leg was in a cast.

“Hello?” I called. “Is anyone there?”

Footsteps came from the hallway outside, and a man appeared in the doorway. He was bald which made him look older than my dad, and he was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, but the smile he was giving me as he walked over looked friendly enough.

“It’s Marcus, isn’t it?” the man asked as he reached my bedside.

I nodded. “Where am I?” I asked nervously. “And where are my parents?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

The man’s smile became strained. “The important thing is that you’re safe, Marcus,” was his reply.

My throat tightened painfully. I felt like I wanted to cry, but nothing happened. “What happened?” I rasped out painfully.

The man sighed quietly as he sat down on the edge of my bed. “It was a vampire attack.”

I might have been a kid, but I was confused, hurt, afraid, and now I was angry because I wasn’t being taken seriously. “Vampires aren’t real!” I snapped.

The man gave a small huff that I thought might have been a laugh. “Have you ever seen Men in Black, Marcus?” he asked me. “How there are all these aliens living on Earth, but people don’t know about them.”

“What does that have to do with this?” I asked.

“It’s closer to reality than most people realize,” the man explained. “Except it’s not aliens. It’s werewolves, vampires, wizards, witches, angels, and demons. It’s the supernatural, and it’s all around us every day.”

All I could do was shake my head.

The man responded by shaking his. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he told me, “Especially without proof. But you’ve already seen it, and there’s more in your future. A lot more.” He turned to face me. “You know the secret now, Marcus. That means it’s your responsibility to help us keep it.”

“Can’t you just erase my memories?” I asked sarcastically.

“I just said this was like Men in Black,” the man replied. “We can’t make you forget what you saw. The best we can do is help you find a way to live with the memory. It’s part of how we’ll prepare you for your new life”

I gave the man a skeptical look. “What new life?”