• 𝓜𝓪𝓮 •

✵ Seven Years Later ✵

"Happy birthday, dear Mae...happy birthday to you!"

I stared at the candles for a moment, pretending to make a wish like they wanted. The two and zero at the top of the messily made cake looked back at me, mocking me as the flames flickered, waiting for me to blow them out. My twentieth birthday. How I made it that long, I wasn't sure.

I blew them out and smiled at the children around me, all wearing matching white uniforms. It was standard issue for the young "sheep". They were only babies when the vampires took over. They didn't know anything other than the life they lived now, where their entire day was scheduled, down to the moment they laid their heads down at night. It came as a surprise to me when I walked in and the kids had a cake ready. They didn't have that much free time.

"How was the castle," the oldest girl, Sasha, asked. Her hazel eyes always sparkled when she spoke of the vampire's castle. She didn't know what happened in there, and thankfully she wouldn't until she was eighteen. That was still nine years away.

As children, their blood was drawn through needles once a week. A simple prick in the arm, the blood was drawn, the needle was pulled out, and a colorful bandaid was stuck onto their skin like that would make the dizziness and pain any better. To top it all off, they gave the kids squeeze pouches full of nutrients that tasted like you were slurping straight diarrhea out of a plastic package.

As an adult, it was taken directly from your vein. The vampires had a bite that was too pleasurable for children. In all honesty, that was the one characteristic in the vampires that I admired. It was too akin to sex to be appropriate for a child to experience.

"It was fine," I answered, watching as the kids took their pieces of cake and scarfed it down. "Who made the cake?"

"I did!" Suzie said, raising her hand. Her dark red hair was pulled back into a french braid, and bounced as she kicked her legs back and forth.

"Thank you," I said. Though they knew I wouldn't eat it, it was the thought that counted.

"Zero brought over ingredients earlier and helped make it," Sasha said.

I stilled.

Zero wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the kids. I'd made sure of that months ago. I had an agreement that, if I went to the castle weekly to supply blood to a vampire that resided there, Zero would stay the hell away from the kids.

I looked down at the cake, almost completely gone now that the kids had gotten to it.

Zero didn't like me. In all honesty, I think he'd sooner see me dead than actively go out of his way and make me a cake. He'd do just about anything to make me crumple, which was why I quite literally sold myself to the master vampire's son.

The realization hit me.

"Did he do most of the baking?" I looked at Suzie. "Like...combining ingredients?"

She nodded. "But I put it in the oven so technically I made it edible."

I felt sick.

I stood and left the room, calling over my shoulder that I'd be back. The moment I opened the door to my little run-down cottage, Zero appeared, grinning down at me.

I didn't grin back as I shut the door behind me. I grabbed his black shirt in my fist and slammed him against the side of the house. He could have fought back. He could have stopped the whole process, honestly. He was exponentially stronger than me. Him allowing me to lose my cool was something he enjoyed and reveled in. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he got off to it at night.

"How was the cake, birthday girl?" He tilted his head. "Do you feel ill?"

I gripped his shirt tighter. As if that was any sort of threat to him.

"Oh, wait." He looked up at the sky like he was just now remembering something. "You don't like sweets, do you? How are the children? They were so excited to make that cake for you. Little Suzie said she'd give me extra blood just so that I could get the ingredients to make a cake they don't know how to make."

"Fuck you," I hissed. "You're not allowed anywhere near them."

They didn't know that the children were the only things keeping me grounded in this damn place. I knew the exits. I knew the way to a part of the city not even vampires touched. They just needed to give me a reason why I shouldn't just escape.

They brought the kids to me two years prior, stating the five of them needed a new caregiver because theirs had died in a house fire. I agreed, only because Noah stated that he'd help. He didn't live with me, but he came by often enough to become a sort of constant companion in the lives of the kids.

The moment I allowed myself to like the children, and the moment I started to feel protective of them, they took Noah away from me. We had said our goodbyes one night, and the next morning, I waited for him outside like I normally did when I had to go to the castle. He liked to walk me there on the days it was my turn, and I walked him there when it was his. When he never showed, I went to his cottage and saw it was completely empty. Almost as if no one had ever lived there.

His scent was gone. The floors were bare and the walls were empty of his art. The fridge had no food in it, and Noah liked to make sure it was stocked up, just in case one of the kids decided they wanted to stay overnight with him.

I asked the master vampire's son - Kite - what had happened, and he simply shrugged and bit into my shoulder. I was nothing more than a blood bag for him anyway. He had no real need to explain anything to me, outside of where he was biting. And even then, he didn't always say.

"I didn't kill them, Maeve." Zero slid two fingers over my wrist, feeling my pulse there.

"Don't call me that," I spat.

He ignored me completely. "The cake, however..."

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. I didn't care if he saw the horror on my face as I pushed off of him and ran back inside the house.

It was too quiet.

I didn't breathe as I rounded the corner to the kitchen, nor did I fall over in grief when all five of the children - all five of my children - were on the floor.

I wish I didn't look them all over. I wish I didn't take in the empty, hollow looks to their eyes, or the greenish gray tint to their skin. I wish I didn't see the vomit coating their chins and outfits, and I wish I couldn't remember the way just fucking ten minutes ago, they were all laughing and having a good time.

I wish my brain could fucking block the trauma.

"Happy birthday, dear Maeve..."

I turned back to Zero, my breathing shallow as he sang to me.

He smirked. "Happy birthday to you."