27. How to Truly Break a Heart

Chapter 27

How to Truly Break a Heart

A mazingly, my luck didn't run out. In fact, it got me all the way back to Yonkers where I now faced the same run-down hardware store that I now knew held too many secrets inside.

However, before coming to the end of my train journey, I realized I had forgotten all about my phone. The one that was still switched on and with me.

Which meant when it started ringing, I stupidly answered it without looking, freezing the second I heard the growled demand.

"Where the fuck are you?!"

I freaked out enough that I ended the call. But before turning it off, I decided to send a message, ignoring the constant ringing as they tried to get me to answer once more.

‘I'm sorry.'

After that, the ringing stopped. A second later I received my reply.

‘Nothing to be sorry for, if you return.'

I tensed at that, releasing a regretful sigh, before typing out,

‘I can't do that.'

I held my breath as I foolishly waited for a reply.

‘I don't know how you are doing it, but you can't run from us forever.'

‘I can try.'

I typed this last one out but didn't send it. Instead I decided to give out some home truths.

‘You can't keep locking me away. I am not some pet of yours, there at the ready for you both to play with.'

I was sure they could have heard the pain in my voice even as they read it.

‘No, you are so much more.'

The reply had me gasping aloud, making the people sitting on the train eye me warily. The early nightfall made me people more cautious because the darkness always brought out the dangers of the city, but it wasn't me they should be worried about.

It was the unknown enemy that stalked the streets.

That stalked me.

I finally turned off my phone, unable to be trusted to reply to that last message. Because the second I told them how I felt, I would be handing over the type of power I would never get back. Giving them the power to destroy me from the outside in. And I wouldn't do that until I first knew the truth.

So, I had walked with purpose to the shop, bringing me back to now and why I walked inside with determination.

"We are closed!" I heard her say, making me grit my teeth.

"Not for me, you're not," I demanded, making her emerge quickly, and the smirk on her face was the type you couldn't trust. Her navy business suit was a surprise, though. She looked like someone you would have found working on Wallstreet, not as the Fortune teller she had first portrayed herself to be. What would I find back there this time? An office, laptop, and secretary speaking on the phone, making appointments? Even her hair had been styled in a fashionable twist, her make up expertly applied. Who was this woman?

"Ah, so you have learned how to fight against it," she commented, making me frown as I asked,

"Fight against what?"

"The pull of the curse."

I shook my head a little, as if this would help rid me of her lingering words. No, not words… just one.

Curse.

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" I snapped, making her grin before jerking her head toward the room at the back.

"You want your answers or not?" she asked when I didn't move, looking back at the cracked door and questioning whether or not being here was a good idea.

"Or you can leave now and go running off to your Vampires, it's your choice."

My heart started to hammer in my chest.

"You know about Vampires?" I asked, making her laugh, a manic sound of someone unhinged. Every instinct within me screamed that I should run. Every instinct but one.

Curiosity.

Because I needed to know. And she knew it. It was why she walked back toward her room, knowing that I would follow. Which I foolishly did. I was almost shocked to find it looking the same because having her standing in it now looked almost comical, she was so out of place.

"I would offer you some tea, but I think we are both past the formalities at this point."

"You did something to me," I stated, cutting right to it because I didn't want to be here a single second longer than I needed to be.

"Yes," she said, not even trying to deny it.

"That night, you… you saw something, you…"

"I cursed you," she stated, making me stagger back a step as if she had the power to do it again.

"But why… why would you do that? I have done nothing to you!"

She simply shrugged her shoulders and told me,

"It was nothing personal, you just happened to fit. that is all."

Again, another shake of my head before asking,

"Fit what exactly?"

"My needs to conquer a Vampire's heart… well, two of them in this case," she replied, making me gasp. My face twisted in disbelief because this was the very last thing I ever expected to hear. Unfortunately, she didn't stop there.

"You see, I need something from them, an unobtainable item of great power."

"If it's so fucking unobtainable then why bother with me?! Why think that I…"

She was quick to interrupt me at this part, doing so with a wave of her manicured hand like she was swatting an annoying fly.

"Because you are the key to getting it for me. The curse I cast I cannot do on myself, or I would have made them fall in love with me just like I did with you."

My heart stopped. I swear my legs nearly buckled with the weight of her cruel words.

"You… you made them… fall in love with me?" I stammered through my pain. Through my anguish. Her malevolent laughter cutting through me like a knife.

"See, that's what made you so perfect. You were so desperate to be loved, it was so simple. Such an easy soul to manipulate."

My anger grew and I took a menacing step toward her, my fists clenched at my sides ready to lay one on her. So sick of being used. So tired of being the punching bag.

No more!

In fact, it was the first time she looked slightly panicked, quickly lifting her hands up before telling me,

"I can remove it."

This stopped me.

"Remove it!" I snapped with tears in my eyes at the thought. The foolish thought of never seeing them again. Of ending this painful and foolish charade. I had been nothing but a fucking puppet! We all had, but I would soon discover that I would be the only one who would ever know that they had been forced to the stage.

"I will but it will come at a price."

I gritted my teeth before realizing what this truly was… blackmail. Which was when I said,

"Fuck you!" Then I turned on my heel and left.

However, I didn't get far because she ran after me, stopping me in my tracks when she told me,

"It will never stop, Vanessa!"

I clenched my jaw, hating that she even knew my name.

"Then I will leave," I forced out, knowing that I would. I would pack a bag, board a Greyhound bus and disappear.

"You can't… the curse won't let you," she told me, causing my whole body to tense.

"What do you mean?!" I asked, fear of a different kind now taking hold.

"Haven't you wondered why you keep finding them? You seek them out, you can't help it. It's part of the curse, just as they are unable to keep hold of you. Just like the way they are unable to stop themselves from loving you." I sucked in a sharp and painful breath at that, closing my eyes after tearing my face away from the cruelty in her eyes. Then I forced myself to ask,

"It was never real?"

"It was only real for you," she replied, and she might as well just stab me in the fucking heart! Confirming my biggest fears all this time. It had never been real. Their feelings for me were nothing but a curse. A spell cast on them both, making them feel things that weren't real. No wonder they were so invested in me, they couldn't fucking help it.

"Look, if you don't believe me, look at the type of woman Victor normally goes for, now tell me… do they look anything like you?" she asked, tapping away on her phone and holding it up for me to see picture after picture of all the tall, skinny brunettes latched on to his arm.

Each single one of them, the complete opposite of me.

I felt like crumbling right then and there. The urge to burst into tears was so strong, I nearly ran out of there crying in agony. The only thing that made me stay was my determination to end this. To end this once and for all.

"Break the curse," I demanded, my fists shaking at my sides.

"I intend to but first I want you to steal something for me."

My mouth dropped open before I snapped incredulously,

"And how the fuck am I to do that?!"

"I think you know how." She gave me a pointed look, as if knowing what the three of us had been doing all this time.

Last night flashed in my mind and replayed in an entirely different way. A shameful, painful way.

"And if I do, what then?"

"The brothers will forget all about you. You are then free to go on with your life. They will be none the wiser of what happened."

But I would, I thought bitterly. I would never forget.

Forever ruined.

"I won't seek them out anymore?" I asked, needing to make sure.

"No, you can simply walk away."

I winced, looking disgusted with the bitch. My bitter scoff was one I wasn't going to try and hide.

"And how do I steal whatever it is you want?" I hated myself for even asking.

"Tonight, you will seek them out as you always do. Follow the pull, don't fight it like I know you're trying to do, even now."

She was right, my need to leave was growing by the second and not only with my desperation to be alone and wallow in my self-pitying heartbreak. It was my need to see them again. To be with them. It all made so much more sense now.

"Let them take you home, their true home. It is the very last place they will believe can keep you locked to them. Their stronghold on the outskirts of the city. Go there and you will find Victor has a dagger."

"A dagger? All this for a fucking knife!" I practically snarled, my growing anger easy to detect.

"Listen! It is no ordinary dagger. It is powerful, more than you can ever imagine. Bring it to me and I will release you all from the curse," she said, her frustration mounting.

"Oh, and they are going to let me walk out with it, just like that, huh?" I asked sarcastically, folding my arms and shaking my head at her. The crazy bitch even grinned.

"I think we both know what you can do, how do you think you have been escaping them each day? The nights you are theirs to command, but the days have been yours. It is part of the curse." This became another revelation of the worst kind. Of course, my luck had been down to her, but it was being unable to deny them both that really bothered me. Meaning I was right, my luck was close to running out.

"What does this dagger look like?" I finally asked, and she visibly relaxed her shoulders.

"I don't know, very few have ever seen it…"

I scoffed.

"Then how am I…"

"He will keep it somewhere personal, somewhere significant. You will feel its pull as if it's speaking to you."

I hated this. All of it!

"How do I know you will keep your word?" I snapped, making her grin.

"You don't, but you also don't have many choices here, do you?" she pointed out, making me sneer at her. A scathing look she ignored. But unfortunately, she was right, this would never end unless I did as she asked. The three of us were trapped forever in her web of lies. The lies I knew I couldn't live with, no matter how much I loved them. Because it was in that love that I knew I had to let them go. I had to let them be free of this curse. It was like she had said, it was only real for one of us.

"And they won't remember me?" I asked, making her shake her head.

"Not even if you passed them on the street would they give you a second glance."

I finally closed my eyes as her words drove home the last strike. I swallowed thickly, shaking my head at the same time forcing out,

"Then I will do it."

"And I will be here waiting," she said, and seeing as there was nothing more to be said between us, I turned and quickly left. Leaving, with my heart in pieces. Because this would be the very last time and that thought hurt more than it should. Especially now that I knew none of it had been real. A sick and twist fairytale that never had a happy ending in sight.

But it had been real for me.

Real to my heart.

And now I had to choose to willingly shatter it completely. Meaning my fears from the very beginning were founded…

In one way or another…

They would be the death of me.

My tears still flowed, even an hour later as I walked endlessly in search of them. The pull getting stronger the closer I got. My luck faded with the sunlight, and it meant having to use my card to get me around the city with what little money I had. Of course, I could have just turned my phone back on and had them pick me up. But that wouldn't have given me the time I needed to try and compose myself.

Because, unlike them… I still had a part to play.

I would have liked to have said with each step it became easier but that was a lie. I could fool my senses for a little while, but it wasn't enough to mask all of the pain. Pain they would see the second they saw me because my eyes felt sore from all the hopeless tears I had shed. I felt cursed without ever meeting that damn fortune teller, because wasn't this my life?

Just one disappointment after the other. An endless cycle of them circling me like sharks smelling blood in the water. Like she had said, my desperate soul had been such an easy target. My hopeful heart the cause as well as the price paid. And one that kept on paying. Because I knew I would never get over this.

I would never get over them.

Fear them… oh yes, that I could still do.

I knew this soon enough when I finally found myself at some old warehouse in an unsavory part of the city. Because I was quickly reminded of who the brothers truly were at their core.

Just like that night.

Murderers.

I knew this the second I heard the screams of pain coming from the open door that I knew would lead me to them. A door I really didn't want to walk through. But just like that first night, I couldn't seem to help myself. Now of course, I knew why. So, walking my way through the dangerous motions, having no choice, I inched it further open. I even held my eyes closed, shaking my head like a frightened child who really didn't want to open their eyes in the dark. Who didn't want to open their eyes to the monster who had just come home.

But until now, the monsters of this world had only ever been of their own making. The ones who had something sick and twisted inside them that they kept hidden to the outside world.

They had been the humans among us.

These two gave new meaning to my personal monsters. I knew that when I opened my eyes and took in the horror in front of me. Two formidable Vampires who were each taking their time beating a man near to death. Each blow broke a bone or split skin. It was the face of a man I barely recognized anymore.

He was hanging by the chains wrapped around his wrists. Held up and swinging around like a fish on a hook. There was a single tattoo that I focused on because it was one of the only places not covered in blood by the back of his neck. Those swirls of spiked patterns I had once traced with my fingertips in a loving caress.

Why hadn't he ever loved me back?

How different our lives would be right now if he had. I wouldn't be in love with my monsters, and he wouldn't currently be at their mercy.

It was the man who was the first to steal my heart as well as my money, now hanging by a thread to the life Victor and Talon held in their hands.

And in the end, Victor was right…

I did end up screaming for him.