priordivergence | My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out

Before Darrow, I had never heard of vampires. If we talked about monsters, it was because we talked about what might be beyond the fence. Whatever lived in that bombed out wasteland was far more real than an undead creature that drank blood.

Darrow is different. Darrow is full of its own strange terrors that grow bolder with every month. A vampire attack used to be a signal for panic. Now it's a regular danger on the same level as a mugging or a break in. Vigilantes, my own friends among them, seek them out with a vengeance. At their behest, I carry two knives with me now. One, my Dauntless black switchblade; the other, a knife carved from wood, inlaid with a silver filigree cross. It feels strange and theatrical, yet I feel safer with it at my back.

It's Petros Park and barely after sundown, but that seems to matter very little to the vampire in front of me. I catch its reflective eyes, like a cat at night only gaunt and horrible. She has fangs outstretched and I know she means to make a meal of me.

I reach for my knives.

I am not prey.

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I made a deal with myself when I got here, to Darrow. The deal was, if I go out at night, I don't go alone. I go with Ronan. I didn't go with Ronan. I'm going to regret it.

It's late before it gets dark now in Darrow, and knowing that, I've pushed it. And tonight's the night pushed turned to pushed too far. Now I'm lost on my way back to the Pig and I'm not the only one in this alley. There's something here with me.

No, not just with me. It's following me; stalking me, like I'm an animal. It's been a while since I felt this weird kind of anxiousness. Since the last time I'd visited Cabeswater. And I'll be damned if the memory of the sound of a hole filled with buzzing doesn't try to creep in even as I slam back down on it.

"Leave me alone," I say. I don't know why. Because I don't know what else to do, and maybe a show of boldness will convince whatever it is to leave me be. In my head, I can almost even convince myself something like that could work.

I recognize Gansey. He of the orange car and the pet raven. Ronan's friend. The vampire, seeing that I'm not easy prey, seems to think he'll be a more rewarding effort. Too bad I am Dauntless, a warrior, a bodyguard, a protector.

Jumping up, I land on the lid of a dumpster and make a terrific noise as I leap from the metal bin and flying tackle the vampire. "Gansey!" I shout. "Run!" It's the last thought I spare him for the whole of the fight as the vampire pins me and tries to bare my neck after all. Stubbornly, I jerk my head forward and ignore the burst of pain that comes with headbutting her, cutting my own forehead.

The surprise is enough that I can take out both my knives and plunge them into her shoulders. Her flesh withers around the wooden dagger and I drag it closer to her heart. "Get away from us," I whisper. I don't want to kill a human-shaped thing, but I don't want her threat either.

She says, 'run,' and I don't argue. I think about it, for about four seconds, before the thing is on Tris and she's cracking her own skull against it. It doesn't make me happy to run -- I mean, why should it? If anything, I feel ashamed. But I'm capable of seeing reason, and I see it, and reason says that I'm in no way equipped to deal with anything about this situation.

So I run.

"What should I do?" I shout over my shoulder at her, trying to focus even though my head is bobbing and I keep having to check my path to make sure it's clear.

It doesn't stay clear, and Tris doesn't get a chance to give me an order. Before I have a chance to react, there's someone else in front of me. They grab me by the wrist while I run, and when I reach the end of my arm in my momentum, I fall to the ground, feet skidding out from under me in the alley. Pain radiates from my elbow, and I can smell the salty, metallic scent of my own blood blooming in the cool evening air.

"Oh God."

Blood trickles down into my eye and I blink it away. Reinforcements arrive and I grit my teeth and drag my knife further down until the shrieking creature beneath me is nothing but dust. There's not even blood on my knife.

Later, I can be horrified at what I've done. Now, I just vault on top of a dumpster and use the new height as a means of taking a running leap at the second vampire, my knife aimed true. This time I don't bother with warning shots, I just stab him in the heart and watch him go to dust.

"We need to get inside."

I nod dumbly over my shoulder at her, her front covered in the dusty remains of the thing that she'd taken down. I'm not sure what inside can do to help, but she's got an idea of what's going on and I don't have a clue, so as much as it grates, Tris is the boss. It isn't that I can't take orders, or that I don't see sense in pragmatism like this. It's not even that I don't like following someone else's lead.

I just like to be in charge more. That's not going to happen.

What I can do is find a way inside. So I set myself to that task as my feet pound down the alley. There's a service elevator nearby that's open just enough for me to get my fingers into the gap and shove the metal door up. It's big enough for the two of us to climb into it, and then out the other side.

"This way!"

I know this building. If we ride the elevator up to the other side, we can cross through it and get to the Bramford faster and under bright street lamps. I don't know Gansey's building, but I think I've just inadvertently invited him to sleep on our couch. Or in Christina's room. That depends on the mood she's in.

"My apartment isn't far from here," I say, still keyed up with adrenaline and the very real knowledge that I've just destroyed...killed two vampires. "You can stay there until it's safe."

Which means he'll be staying there until dawn.

"Good," I say, maybe a little too emphatically. Because I don't know where my apartment is in Darrow yet -- which I really need to remedy by looking at maps more often -- and I don't know where I left the Pig anymore. And I definitely know that, in any event, we're extremely far away from where Ronan and I are camped out.

It's dark in the service elevator, so I grab for her shoulder. My face feels hot a second later, but it helps me keep track of her, and I'm not willing to dig my phone out of my pants pocket in case, God forbid, I drop the thing, or worse.

The buttons for the elevator glow dully -- there are only four of them. I hit the one that will take us upstairs to storage.

"You're afraid." It's an observation, not a question. Does that make him abnormal or me? My body is hot with adrenaline, ready to fight again, all while I note exits and paths home. I haven't even put away my knives in case another enemy appears.

Will I ever start treating the roads in front of me as anything but a battleground? "I live in the Bramford, with my boyfriend and my best friend. And a rabbit."

My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out

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