We were the inevitable result of their union, and our birth sapped whatever life our mother had left in her, and she died a few days later. My father, to his credit, never blamed us for her death, but set about educating his three small, precocious boys, and loving us as best he could. And when we hit puberty, and our lives changed forever, he was there to guide us through the changes, and reassure us that we always had a choice. We could harness the power, or we could let it harness us and become monsters. I like to think that we did the former, but sometimes I'm not so sure.
And now Marcus was telling me that there was someone else like us out there, someone who would need guidance through the changes that she would inevitably go through, one way or another. My father had always worried that if we did not expose ourselves to the effects that huge doses of iron had on our systems, and learn to control them, that we would eventually succumb to some profound and overpowering instinct and actually kill someone and drink their blood. It made sense. There's a lot of iron in blood.
I imagined Rebecca biting someone's carotid artery, responding to some deep, unacknowledged desire, and drinking their warm blood as it was pumped directly from the heart to her open mouth. I thought of how her family would react, and flinched again. It was bad enough knowing that you are a freak without everyone else knowing it too. I would have to do something to help the girl. I wondered, not for the first time if I was the right person to do it. I considered asking Marcus or Fergus to take over the task, but a stab of what could have been jealousy made me dismiss that thought. I would do this myself, and let the dice fall where they may.
Rebecca
Mark came bounding through the door as soon as he got home. I'd arrived a few minutes earlier, and had scrambled out of my uniform, and was munching on a slice of toast in the kitchen and reading my book. It was nearing the end, and I already knew what was going to happen, but it was well written, and by one of my favourite authors, so it didn't matter.
"Met our new neighbour this morning," he announced out of the blue, saying just enough to pique my curiosity, as usual. At first I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered the commotion across the street yesterday.