Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) Read Free

partially
open. Damn. I forgot about that window. But the blinds on the other window were
definitely closed. Before I could stop it, my eyes automatically went to the
other window. Yes, those blinds were definitely closed. There was no
catwalk outside of my bedroom, but vampires had their ways with height
challenges. That could explain the whole being watched feeling but not the
being watched after sunrise part. I made a mental note to check out the vacant
office building right outside the window with the cracked blinds.
    Slowly, I pushed myself up off the bed and
did a backward crawl until my feet reached the edge of the bed. I slid off the
rest of the way standing up to stretch my stiff muscles. For some reason, I
always felt extremely drained after patrolling. I guessed it was all the
fighting, but my body was always so strong and energized during a fight.
    †
    After showering, I investigated the old
office building next door and found no sign of squatters, neither human nor… non -human.
It must have just been my exhaustion getting the best of me this morning when I
sensed someone watching me. Great, now I had an imaginary peeping Tom.
    I walked the eight blocks up to the
new-and-used music shop where I’ve worked for over a year now. I approached the
red brick building and saw the neon open sign shining in the dark green framed
picture window next to the big oak door with a matching dark green awning.
There was frosted lettering adhered to the window reading “Music Lovers Only.”
    It was owned by a local 30-something guy
named Clint who swore that a town with such a musically-infused culture can
never have enough music stores. To that, I always responded with, “Tell that to
I-tunes.” Fortunately for me he was one of those bosses who appreciated brutal
honesty. Otherwise, I might have been fired a long time ago. He told me once
that he found my “prickly” demeanor refreshing and oddly endearing. I’ve been
called a bitch many times, but I appreciated his more creative, subtle
approach.
    Clint works most of the time, but hired a
couple of people to give him breaks here and there. He moved into the apartment
space above the store when he opened it, so he not only takes his work home
with him, but his work is his home. I worked for a few hours, and Clint came
down to relieve me after making his eight year-old daughter dinner.
    Traffic was backed up down every street as I
made my way back to my apartment. I made it back just before dark and grabbed a
quick meal composed of a ham and cheese sandwich, a handful of Cheetos, and a
can of Mountain Dew for a little sugar rush. Not feeling sufficiently satisfied,
I went back to finish off the bag of Cheetos. Finally stuffed to satisfaction,
I sprawled across the black, metal-framed futon in the living area as
comfortably as I could manage.
    I lied there staring blankly at the local
weatherman doing a rundown of the weekly forecast. My eyes were unfocused and I
stopped hearing the highs and lows for the week as I slipped slowly inside
myself to that dark place that always seemed to surface no matter how hard I
tried to distract myself.
    I couldn’t evade it forever. Sooner or later
my fear would catch up to me and the worst fear of all- myself. I’m terrified
of what I am or might be. What would you become if you lost everything but
never knew you had it from the beginning? The answer is simple- me. But what if
you had a more-than-intuitive feeling that you were responsible for that loss?
This was the part I’ve struggled with for so long, the question I’ve never
really wanted answered. A big part of me never wants to know what I am because
deep down, that more-than-intuitive part of me knows there’s something evil
within, something that feels almost primal and dangerous, like a monster. I
know I’m a part of this world of the undead, and the truth is, I already felt
dead inside myself.
    Put it this way, for me, every day was a
lottery. Most people would consider