I woke up to the sound of someone screaming. I jumped up and looked around, finding Cressida awake and looking at me with worried eyes. Thank God it wasn't her screaming.

"What is that?" She asked.

"I— I'm not sure," I said, shaking my head. "I don't think we should go check it out." No offense to Cressida, but last time I went and checked something out I ended up stuck with a kidnapped Weeper.

Cressida tilted her head at me, narrowing her eyes. "I'm checking it ou—" She was cut off by another blood-curdling scream.

She looked down at the ground. "Lennox, please," She begged.

I gave a hefty sigh and then started helping her down as quickly as I could. Eventually, she'd be able to do this with her eyes closed. And open.

I took her hand and helped her through the woods to the sound of a man screaming. I was being a hero, all because some girl told me to.

Who had I become? What was I becoming? I rolled my eyes at myself and kept running towards the sound of death, despite the anxiety crushing my chest.

It wasn't until the yells grew louder, until a man's painful pleas for help, made me realize where it was coming from.

"The border," I whispered.

I dodged around a tree and found the edge of our small territory. Outside of it, the couple from yesterday were there. Only, the woman's eyes were black and fangs hung from her gums as she toyed with the guy from yesterday. He'd run and she'd catch him, throw him back.

"Cressida, stay here," I ordered.

I didn't really want to face off with a vampire, but I didn't know how much humanity I'd have left if I just watched somebody die.

I moved to the line and came out of the border, popping my knuckles. "Hey!" I yelled.

The vampire looked up to me, hissing. "More lunch!" She laughed.

"Oh please, I'm at least dinner, right?" I chided.

"Good one, Lennox," Cressida said from next to me.

I turned and glared at her. "I said to stay back," I groaned but didn't let myself get too distracted. Although I hadn't met very many vampires in my life, and the ones I had met, were all very nice, I didn't want my guard to be down around the woman.

The guy she was attacking tried to get up and run but she zipped over to him and wrapped her hand around his throat. She threw him back, into me. Cressida, me, and the guy fell over, into the dirt.

"A Witch, a human, and a— a Weeper. How interesting." The woman strutted over to us. "Three meals!"

I pushed the man off of me and stood tall. "Ignisma!" I yelled and a fireball rolled into my hand. I held my arm back. "Come any closer and you'll burn."

She smiled at me. "What a handsome witch." She reached down and pulled her shirt off of her body, leaving her in a bra and a pair of denim shorts. "If you're going to burn me, don't ruin my shirt— I love that shirt."

I started to throw the fireball at her but the guy grabbed my arm and pulled it back. The flame flew close to her head but missed overall.

"No!" He yelled.

The vampire took that small moment and sped to me, grabbing my neck and sinking her teeth into my shoulders.

I yelled as I wrapped my hand around her neck. She pulled back and that's when I noticed it— the separation. Her eyes were black— no humanity left in her soulless pits. Red circled her iris like gates to Hell. Black lines ran down her chin, black tar created from Moon only knows what. Her hands were black, her nails long and sharp.

Dividus. She was separated from her soul.

Images of my mother flashed across my vision as she dug her teeth back into my neck. She made the mistake of not covering my mouth.

"Arazi!" She began choking, but vampires didn't need air to live.

Her teeth were ripped out of me, scratching as were they reluctantly pulled from my skin. I groaned as Cressida cradled her hand.

"You punched," the woman laughed. "A vampire!?" She began to go back to us but I had one last trick up my sleeve.

"Ezcon!" She lunged but her feet were sinking in the ground. She groaned as she looked around her, still trying to kill us.

The guy grabbed onto my leg. "Don't kill her! You don't understand."

I narrowed my eyes at him, confused. "She tried to kill you," I argued.

He shook his head. "This isn't her! She isn't— she isn't like this."

I felt my body wobble, the magic I had been using was starting to pile on me. I turned to Cressida. "I'm going to pass out after this."

There was a spell— a spell that took years to master. But I had been practicing. I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I knew that if I succeeded I could very well die.

It wasn't a spell that was taught to you, it wasn't a spell that was even supposed to exist. It defied all unsaid laws. Most importantly, it went against the only law witches really had— do not disobey nature.

But I knew what it was like to watch the person you loved get stripped from themselves, to see the one you care about separate from their soul.

"I'm going to help her— alright?" I offered.

The man nodded.

"This is only going to work if she helps me." And even then, I might die. I decided not to add that part. "Cressida, I need you to cut my palm open on the grass when this is done, do not question it, just do it."

Why the hell was I helping these people? I didn't care about them, I should've just left him to die.

I brought my hands up, the movement was jarring and it made me dizzy. It was only one word, and yet I knew it could shatter my world.

"Detorqueo!" I stared the woman down and her head began shaking as she dropped to the ground, twitching and convulsing on the floor.

"What did you do!" The man yelled, running up to her.

I dropped to the ground, my eyes heavier than a solid brick of gold. A sharp rock cracked against my skull but it was nothing compared to the pain of my body, flared to life by fire. "Cress—"

***

I woke up sweating with blood covering my clothes.

"Oh, you're alive," Ah, Cressida.

"Nice to see you," I groaned out. I tried to sit up but my stomach burned and I fell back harshly. I cried out as a migraine spread behind my eyes. Flashes of purple and colors I didn't know existed darted across the back of my eyelids.

Somebody was crying next to me and when I opened my eyes, the couple from earlier was sitting a little ways away from me.

"What happened?" I groaned out.

Cressida pushed her curly hair behind her ears. "You passed out... I cut your hand and then a couple of minutes later, you woke up." She hid a grin. "What was that, by the way?"

I looked at my hand. The cut she had dug was far too deep and long. Dirt and rocks were shoved inside the wound, burning and infecting it.

"Integana," I said. My hand began flowing a strange blue and I watched the dirt and rocks fall out of my palm and the wound close. "It's a long story I'll have to tell you later," I replied.

Cressida stood up from my side and held her hand out in my general direction. I let her pull me up. "Fine, but we aren't dropping it." For someone who didn't want to be where she was, she certainly was curious about everything.

I knocked the dirt off of my clothes and turned to the couple. They owed me. A lot.

"I just saved both of your lives," I said to them.

The guy and the girl turned to me slowly. They looked at each other and sighed. They began walking our way.

The guy stuck his hand out. "Dane," he introduced. "And this is my girlfriend, Kimmy."

Kimmy wrapped her arms around my neck. "Thank you," she cried. "I don't know what I would've done if you weren't there."

I looked from Cressida to Dane. Cressida was staring off in space and Dane looked like he was going to beat me to a pulp.

Kimmy backed up and composed herself, straightening her clothes out.

"What happened? Why did you go dividus?" I asked.

Kimmy grabbed Dane's hand. "You're a witch, so I feel comfortable disclosing this with you. There's a coven around here, probably the one you're a part of, that my birth mother lives in. I've been looking for it for a while, but I keep getting lost or hurt on my path."

Cressida turned her head to me, giving me a condescending look.

I was in charge of the borders that did that to her. In my defense, I didn't get to pick and choose who the borders affected. If you weren't in my coven or invited in, the borders attacked. It kept us safe from humans and any unwanted supernaturals.

"I ran into a group of witches and when I asked for help they knew I was a vampire, and they knew Dane was a human. They must have been set in the old ways because they turned me atrax so I would kill Dane," she finished.

There were a couple of things very very wrong with the world we lived in. Because of Konrad's rising the second time, the supernatural world seemed split in two.

His rise made some people realize that he was right. Witches were the top species, we deserved everything. We didn't need humans to know about us, we needed them eradicated. And people, even after his death, still believed ideals like that. It was sickening.

Some people couldn't live with what they had. I didn't care what happened as long as it didn't affect me. And that philosophy kept me out of a lot of mischief. However, it also got me into it as well. I guess you could say I was a well-balanced person.

"He made you turn into that monster? Is that what an atrax is?" Cressida tilted her head to the side.

I ran a hand down my face. "Cress... atrax is just another word for dividus... or Rippers— isn't that what you call it?"

Cressida gasped, her eyes went a darker cognac brown. Somehow, she made the red tint cold. "Don't say that word! How could you all just throw that term around. It's cursed and we all know it."

Kimmy scoffed. "I got turned and I had never said the term in my life. I'm not so sure it's cursed anymore."

Dane cleared his throat and we turned to look at him. "Someone else turned you? I thought you said it only happened—"

"Someone else turned you?" I repeated.

Like my mom.

"Yes. I didn't know it could be done. I also didn't know it could be undone." Kimmy blinked at me curiously.

I turned back to my coven line, wondering how I had been so stupid. If there was a spell to undo something, of course there was a spell to make it happen in the first place.

Was that what happened the night of my mom?

I bit the inside of my cheek, picking at a spot that had surely scarred over by now. It was a habit my mother tried to make me break but she never could get me to quit.

"Who's your mom?" I asked. "And not that the witches who hurt you were in the right, but aren't you worried about dating a human? And letting them in on the know? The Hunters might come... it's against the supernatural law for humans to know."

Kimmy grabbed Dane's hand and smiled at him, her once vicious eyes looked more human when she looked at him. "Oh please, now that half the Dawns are dead and one of them is married to a vamp, no Hunters really enforce the human x vampire laws." She was cocky and I hated her. The Dawns did a lot for this world and her tone made it sound like she was spitting on their name. "And as for who my mom is, her name is Laura Chen. Do you know her?"

Oh I knew Laura, I knew her well.