The mind is a funny thing, and if you're not careful, it'll play tricks on you. With the right conviction, it can turn delusions into reality, or with a single word, trigger a memory and give you a whole new understanding of what you thought you knew.
For me it was these two words: The Trine.
I was nine again. Mum and I had gone to visit an old friend. I didn't know the woman, but mum said she would be able to help me, stop the beast from coming out.
Beast, this was what she called the thing inside me that kept getting me in trouble. Some nights I'd hear her crying, begging God to take it from me. Many times, I tried to tell her it wasn't bad, my beast made me stronger. Mum would pull me in her arms and kiss me, promising she'd make it better, all the while blaming herself.
"Greet the trees, baby," mum said as she turned off the road onto a dirt trail barred by an iron gate tangled in vines.
I was a big girl sitting up front, hair slicked into two pigtails and wearing my favourite yellow dress, because it had ruffled scalloped-sleeves and pretty flowers on the skirt that matched the belt mum tied into a perfect bow at the small of my back. I'd always been a girly-girl, and you better believe I had the shoe and handbag to match.
Thinking nothing of what mum said, I waved up at the trees and greeted them. If anything, I whole-heartedly believed the trees understood me and I was in awe as the limbs on the trees lining the trail seemed to bow in welcome.
"Thank goodness," mum sighed in relief as the iron-bar crowded with vines swung open.
"Mommy they're whispering. They're telling the big one my name, look mommy." I pointed with excitement at the large tree at the mouth of the yard, its leaves were rustling fiercely.
I stuck my hand out the window, I don't know what propelled me to do so. A young branch on the great tree dipped, brushing against my fingers. It left a tingling sensation that stayed with me for days.
The old house mum parked before was straight out of a fairytale, I was eager to get out of the car and explore. Fairy lights lined the porch peeking out from the green curtain of Ivy climbing the columns and railings. Wind chimes sang and danced in the soft breeze, fluttering the hem of my dress around my knees as I ran over to the flowerbed and picked up a painted stone. There were so many to choose from, but I liked the dragon.
"Hollis, come." Mom called after me.
Aunty Ona was not my aunt. Mum said it showed respect to address her as if she were. So, this was how I greeted the plump bare-footed woman who stepped through the door with feathers in her long brown hair and beads hanging off her neck and wrists.
We entered her home, smelling of warm pies and the sweet fragrance of burning candles. A fat racoon sat by the foot of a chair under the table in the kitchen. It stared back at me across the living room where I stood by the entrance, rubbing my thumb over the cool dragon stone closed in my small fist.
Tearing my gaze away from the curious animal, my eyes strayed to the nook of books to my right. There was a padded bench running the length of the window, covered in daisies. Shafts of sunrays pouring through the white curtains, fluttering in the wind, hit the bench at the perfect angle, and I swear it was a siren's call to my younger self.
I hung back, watched mum followed Aunty Ona to the kitchen. Silently, I inched towards the bench. As I walked past a shelf, a book jumped out, landing at my feet. I giggled sure the house itself was alive and bent to pick up the dull looking brown book. Hugging it to my chest I climbed up onto the bench and flipped it open.
My mouth fell open in awe, as the words shifted into images racing across the pages.
"…You're my only hope." I caught mum saying.
Looking up from the book I realized the adults were speaking about something serious.
Adult talk was often boring; however, I recognized the signs when my mum's worried. When she's worried about me.
"The Trine will come for her." Mum pleaded with Aunty Ona. "Please, help her."
"Do you know what they'll do to me, if they find out I had a hand in what you're asking?"
"Nothing compared to what they'll do to her, if they find out what she is, Ona."
My heart raced, terrified 'they' would show up at the door any second and take me away from mum. My eyes pricked with tears, as I secretly watched the two women seated around the kitchen table sip their tea and talk.
"You never should have slept with that devil."
I frowned at that. Mum didn't have a boyfriend; she loved Papa too much even though he was in heaven watching over us.
"I didn't know." Mum looked away in shame. Her dark eyes filled with worry swept over where I'd been sitting and I quickly looked away. Hoping she hadn't caught me eavesdropping. "I didn't see it," she said solemnly, staring at me.
"You've lost your way child," Aunt Ona spat. "A pity, as it seems you may very well have awakened the prophecy."
Mum's gaze snapped back to the woman. "She's just a child."
"She's death."
Mum's hands curled into fists on the table. Lips trembling, she shook her head, and it was like she couldn't bring herself to speak or she would cry.
My heart hammered in my chest. Something about what Aunt Ona said, made my skin feel tight, like I'd grown too big to fit inside my own body. I didn't like the sensation, the urge to break free was only superseded by mum's voice at the back of my head, telling me to be on my best behaviour.
So, I sat as still as I could, the book laid face down across my lap, my entire focus on the dragon stone I kept rubbing. Fascinated by the cool stone, the life-like yellow eyes staring back at me.
I'm a good girl. I'm not death.
"I am Rene's daughter." I silently repeated, the affirmation mum had me saying every morning before the mirror. "Granddaughter of Ophelia, sister of the wind, friend to the trees. I am made of the earth, sun and water. I am not death. My name is Hollis, and I am love."
I said this, believing the words until my skin no longer stretched thin, I no longer feared the lie because I was the daughter of Rene Emery, Daughter of the Frist Coven, and light was on my side.
"Why not go to your sisters?"
Mum straightened, her brown eyes turned to stone as she stared the woman down. No longer a desperate woman crying for her child, she was the very vision of a mother who would die before she let anything happen to me.
"Dawnscar has lost its way, they've become decadent. You know what they'll do if they get their hands on her."
"Yes, in their hands she'd be a weapon."
"I won't let them harm her. She's innocent."
"But for how long?"
"Then help me. Shield her and no one will know, not him, not them. No one."
The woman looked at mum for a long time and then turned her pitch-black eyes on me. "Very well."
I gasped, pulling out of the memory. The smell of baked pie and tea leaves vanished replaced by expensive cologne.
The world tilted, I reached out and caught air. My feet tangled and my knees buckled. A strong arm wrapped around my waist, caught me before I crumbled to the floor.
"Got you." I looked up over my shoulder at Bash. "You, okay?" he asked, brows bunched in concern.
No, I wasn't, yet I couldn't covey that to him without explaining why. I'd unwittingly stumbled into a world of vampires, witches and whatever else there was out there. A world my dumbass had spent the past several years blissfully ignorant of, because mum had made damned sure of it.
You heard what I said. I'm not trying to gloss over the shit, I'm aware some things need explaining. But for now, you've got to believe me. They. Are. Real.
"Stand down," the woman in the middle spoke, pulling her hands apart as the ball between them stretched and broke into two halves–each for one hand.
My head snapped around, heart beating out of my chest. The Trine was there for me. I knew it, though I wasn't sure if anyone else had caught onto the fact.
As I looked around, I realized the dinner party had turned into a standstill. Men and women from each house stood guard, guns drawn, swords out.
It was fucking insane. Seriously, it was as if I was standing in the middle of a B-rated gangster movie, save these weren't regular gangsters. Fuck, half of them weren't even human.
"Esme." Papa Knight greeted the woman in the middle before shifting his gaze to the woman on her right. "Ethine," he said in brief acknowledgement as he turned to the last, and shortest of the three on the left. "Eren. Why are you here?"
"We are the Trine, we go where we please," said Ethine.
"This is a private engagement," Avery Rush said, stepping forward. His face lit with a smile, and arms out as if that'll defuse the situation. "How can I be of help to the Maidens of the Trine."
"Nightwalker." Esme the first, voice cut through the silence like the loud crack of a whip, her eyes fixed on Papa Knight. "You harbour the Unbound, the one without covenant."
Papa Knight stepped forward, hands lodged in his pockets, cool as a fucking cumber as he approached the three deadly beings tasked to police the supernatural world.
Ona had explained this to me…no, she'd instilled the fear of the Trine in me, as she prepared the spell that would mask my essence from other supernaturals and supress my beast.
Above everything the Maidens of the Trine were responsible for; stopping the 'prophecy' from being fulfilled was paramount.
Why my Papa didn't fear them, I didn't know at the time. However, I'd come to learn soon enough, of all the men in the world mum could have laid with, she quite literally went and fucked one of the baddest, most unhinged motherfuckers to ever lived.
I didn't want him to leave me. Too scared to speak I took a step forward to follow. A firm hand on my arm held me back, bringing my attention back to the man standing behind me. Bash shook his head, warning me against leaving his side.
For a second I stood stunned. Transfixed, I couldn't stop staring at his transformation. Most prominent were the glowing red eyes staring down at me. He had four fangs, two thick ones at the top and two slender ones at the bottom, positioned where all his canines should've been. His right ear twitched, and it was then I noticed it had morphed, the top of it tapering to a point.
I took a stumbling step back, but again, he stopped me. Saying nothing, his gaze shifted, focusing on the front of the house, bringing my attention along with his.
"My good maidens." Papa Knight stopped short, observing the host of black-clad men filling in behind the Trine, swords drawn.
The Maidens' Blades looked like a brigade of ninjas, covered from head to toe in black, even the eye panel was dark mesh. This sacred order was sworn to serve, guard, and, when needed, kill for the cause.
Nodding, Papa Knight straightened to his full height. "I'm afraid you'll have to be little more specific if I'm to catch your meaning."
"We're here for the girl." Esme decreed.
"So many fear the Trine," Papa Knight said, speaking in the same soft melodious tone, unbothered as he backed off his jacket. "Over the years, it seems that fear has gone to your heads. You've forgotten why you were created and by whom."
"We warn you Nightwalker." Ethine formed her own ball of blue fire, "thread carefully."
I noticed, Esme the first postured a lot, Ethine the second issued weighted threats while Eren the third spoke none at all and was in my opinion the most threatening of the three.
Papa Knight chuckled. He held his jacket out and one of the greens, a soldier of house Bashir, rushed to take it. "No, Trine, it is you who have overstepped. You enter this sacred place, by whose authority, on the premise of what threat? And with quite the show."
He wasn't joking. To the Families, the Rush estate sat on sacred ground. It was the last battlefield the three races came to blows before the Pact was made. The Oaths spoken that night, centuries ago, became a living covenant now known as the Trine, sealed in their blood and carried through time by their successors.
"We need to go," Bash whispered in my ear, backing me away from the imminent cluster fuck that was about to be unleashed. And I had every reason to believe my daddy was about to start it.
I see now, where I got my temper.
"The Pact of Three warns of the Prophecy–"
"A bedtime story made up by the lot of you to inflate your supposed usefulness, or lack thereof."
"Suit yourself Nightwalker." Esme nodded to her sisters.
Ethine waved her hand to the men standing behind them, and they began to fan out, taking up positions. Ready to act on the Trine's command.
My daddy didn't wait. I blinked and ten bodies fell without their heads.
Someone screamed and it took several seconds for me to realize, it was me. I couldn't… it didn't make sense what I was seeing. Papa Knight cut through their fucking ranks like a vengeful breeze, carrying the mark of death.
"Ohmygod," I kept on repeating.
Shock rocked me, my whole body trembled. I didn't know what to do, or where to go. My gaze, no matter how hard I tried not to look, kept going back to the headless bodies.
So much blood. So many discarded heads. I slapped a hand over my mouth about to be sick.
"Get the girl!" Esme ordered.
The silent one stepped forward, eyes locked on me.
"Shit." Bash pulled his gun and aimed it at the woman.
He fired, a rapid line of those odd liquid fire bullets that looked like it would burn through flesh and melt bones.
Eren raised a hand, and the bullets splattered against an invisible shield, turned to smoke and evaporated.
"Whatever you do, don't look back." Bash grabbed my hand and started pulling me away from the fight and the entrance hall.
"Oh my god." I did the one thing he told me not to do, and watched in horror my father, the man I kissed on the cheek, mere hours before, shoved his hand through a man's chest, yanked his heart out and bit into it like it was a ripe peach.
"Oh my god."
"What did I tell you?" Bash admonished, red eyes searching my face with concern written all over his face. "Damn, you're in shock."
"I'm sorry," I whispered, trembling from head to toe. "I'm sorry."
I couldn't stop being sorry, even when I didn't know what the hell I was sorry for.
Five more men joined Bash, forming a barrier around us as we cut across the hall and dodged into the receiving room. They didn't speak, and yet somehow, they moved as one, ushering me out of harm's way as fast as my feet could take me. Every few steps I'm ducking or being pushed out of the of way in time to stop a sword from running me through.
The men surrounding us fired at targets rapidly closing in. I felt like a coward running away as we broke through a pair of doors into a small, enclosed garden.
Blades swarmed in after us.
Bash shoved me behind a huge planter. I tumbled, bruising my knees on the gravel. The air stirred around me. I looked up, and he'd leapt several feet–clearing a fountain and landing on the other side to join his men while firing at the enemy.
He moved like a dancer, light and graceful on his feet, in the few moments my eyes were fast enough to keep track of him. Half the time, he and his men were flashes of motion, cutting down the Blades' numbers.
Not a word passed between them. They were a blur, shadows firing bullets, dodging swords that sliced through the air at mind-boggling speed. Still, he was faster, his aim true and deadly.
In a matter of seconds, he was by my side, pulling me to my feet, and we were on the move. We swept through another set of doors and broke into a run, racing down a long hall at full speed.
Where was Olida and the others, had they made it out or where they still inside, fighting for their lives?
"Where are we going?" I asked Bash.
"Too many ears listening, Pretty, best I don't say."
"Aunty Olida, she was with me and Papa." I tried to explain.
It was as if my mind understood more than I did, it needed to focus on something other than the fear seeping into my bones or it would crack, forever.
"Don't worry about O, she can take care of herself," Bash said, steering me down yet another hall.
This one was more a narrow passage, used by the staff, evidenced by the low ceiling, stone floor and plain walls.
"Please."
We were halfway down the passage, heading toward an old looking door. I needed to stop. Feeling woozy, I braced a hand against the wall.
I didn't know if it was the cloying smell of cleaning agents in the air or the nauseating images of dead bodies playing on a loop in my mind. But I couldn't go any further.
Bash grabbed my chin in a firm grip and tilted my head, so I meet his red gaze. "Do you want to die?"
I shook my head, big fat tears slipping down my cheeks. "No." I choaked back a sob.
As I looked around, I saw for the first time of the men that had been with us, only two remained.
The realization broke me. A wretched sound burst from my chest. I tried to stop it, to catch my breath. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't stop. Chest heaving, tears flooding my eyes, I cried like a baby.
A door banged opened nearby, and there was no mistaking the fight was catching up to us.
"Fuck." Bash palmed the back of my head and crashed his mouth over mine.
He kissed me until I was breathless. When he broke the kiss, it maybe strange to believe, but it did the trick in shutting me up.
Chest rising with each breath, I stared up at him, mouth opening and closing trying to find my words.
"Do you want to live?"
I nodded.
"Run." He pointed a finger toward the old door as a handful of Blades burst through the doors we just passed through.
Behind them, the silent maiden.
"Pretty, run, and don't you fucking look back."
Of course it goes without saying, I ran. Like my life depended on it. Because guess what?
It fucking did.