Sacrum - 9. Chapter 9: Betrayal

9. BETRAYAL

I'd pinned my hopes on a swift response from Eric Van Sant, my mentor's esteemed colleague. But weeks crawled by, devoid of letter or call. The scientist could have vanished, or worse, dismissed my plea for help unread. Panic gnawed at me.

Vincent, true to his word, became a ghost for the rest of November. Every encounter yielded a vague response to my whereabouts inquiries. At least Maratoni wasn't actively tormenting me. For the most part, he was busy avoiding me, only giving me meaningless worksheets to fill out during our private meetings.

That, of course, still left me with the dilemma of not knowing what to do to make any progress with my gift. But I decided not to worry about it until the upcoming Christmas break was over. A plan Laura didn’t exactly support.

“You can’t afford to waste time, Dani,” she cautioned, and Angelo nodded his head.

“Well, what exactly do you expect me to do?” I answered, trying to hide my annoyance.

"Look, I know this is unconventional, Dani, but these are hardly ordinary circumstances. Maratoni's clearly out to get you, and there's something rotten brewing between Trusting, the government, and this whole program. What if..." she paused, eyes gleaming with a rebellious glint, "what if you practiced with Angelo and me?"

A frown creased my brow. Laura's suggestion was a landmine, a direct violation of everything I'd been trained to do. Sharing details about my power was strictly forbidden. Yet, a sliver of logic pierced through my apprehension. She was right. Normalcy had vanished. And with no real guidance forthcoming, could relying on the few I truly trusted truly be so wrong?

A heavy sigh escaped Angelo. “You guys know I hate breaking the rules. But I think Laura is onto something,” he admitted. “The State expects you to be ready when you graduate, but how can you when Maratoni is too busy hoping you’ll fail? Who knows what they’ll do to you if you don’t catch up." His worried rant was cut short by Laura's sharp glare.

"Don't worry about that, Dani," Laura interjected, her voice firm but reassuring. "We'll figure something out. For now, why don't we at least try practicing together, just to be safe?"

“I’m just not sure how,” I admitted.

“We’ll figure all that out. We just need a private place where school officials won’t catch us,” she said.

“The janitor’s closet?” Angelo proposed.

“No, I have a better idea,” I replied, knowing of just the right place. “I will take you guys tomorrow, after class.”

They nodded and after we finished drinking our daily blood juices, we parted ways. I dove into my textbooks and tried to finish up my homework and not think about Vincent or the mounting pressure I felt as the days went by and I continued to fall behind. Little did I know, the next day would bring even worse news.

Emerging bleary-eyed from Vampire History, Angelo intercepted me. "Trusting wants to see you in her office," he announced, his voice laced with concern. "Didn't say why."

My stomach lurched. A torrent of dread flooded my mind, each possibility bleaker than the last. I practically sprinted towards the imposing oak door, this time determined to knock and wait for a response, whatever awaited me within.

“Come in,” I heard the pleasant voice call from beyond the door. She was wearing a sparkling baby blue pantsuit and looked as beautiful as ever. Her blonde hair coiffed in a sophisticated bun.

“Dani, have a seat,” she said sweetly. There was no trace of the panic I heard in her voice during our last conversation. I sat across from her, anxiously waiting to hear what she brought me in for.

“You’re like a regular in here now, huh?” she chuckled. I managed a polite smile.

“Well, you’re probably wondering why I wanted to see you,” she continued, her eyes locking onto mine. I gave a curt nod. “It’s about the Specials program. As you may or may not know, you’ll be staying here during Christmas break, while the regular students depart for the holidays. And I’m happy to inform you that Baritone will be hosting the Specials Summit,” she said and smiled with glee, looking for my reaction.

But all I felt was confusion. “The what?” I blurted, the unsettling feeling of being completely out of the loop settling over me once again.

“The Specials Summit,” she repeated, but realizing there was no sign of ‘aha!’ on my face, she went on to explain, “You are going to meet all the other Specials and the State is going to evaluate your powers, and check on your progress to ensure you’re ready for your duty when the time comes,” she explained, and my insides dropped.

This was my worst nightmare becoming reality. What progress? What power? Panic clawed at my throat. Trusting continued, oblivious to my internal turmoil.

“Now, Professor Maratoni will be out of town until the Summit, so you will have to just keep up with your reading,” she added, taking my situation from simply bad to abysmal.

“Out of town? Where is he going?” I managed to force out, my voice barely above a whisper.

“What Professor Maratoni does is not for us to know, Dani. But believe me, he will be here to support you during the Summit,” she explained, as if that was supposed to help me. I sat there speechless. What if Angelo was right? What is the State would just decide to... get rid of me if they realized I didn’t know how to use my power? The thoughts swirled in my head, making me feel sick with worry.

“Now, there is another matter, Dani.” I stifled the urge to groan. What other wonderful news could she possibly have for me. "It's come to our attention that you attempted to contact a Mr. Eric Van Sant. Is that correct?" she inquired. Suddenly, I felt uneasy. Why was the school monitoring my correspondence?

“That’s right,” I replied cautiously.

“Is there a particular reason why you need to speak with him?” she pressed.

“Mr. Van San is an old friend of Vinicius. I just wanted to talk to someone from my past. I don’t have a lot of friends here,” I explained hoping to deflect suspicion.

“Naturally. Well, he’s written back to you. Here’s the letter,” she said, handing me an envelope that had very clearly been opened. “For security reasons,” she answered my silent question. “We will be happy to accommodate him on his visit here, of course,” she added.

My voice was flat as I mumbled a "thank you." Apparently privacy was now a distant memory. I took the letter, its tampered seal a fresh insult, and muttered a goodbye to Trusting. In my dorm room I tore open the envelope and devoured the contents.

The handwriting was neat, the message brief.

“Dear Dani,

Of course I remember you. You’re the Golden Child, after all.

I will be in town shortly and look forward to seeing you once again, my dear one.

Warmest Regards,

Eric”

I smiled at the note as memories flooded my mind. Vinicius was the only one who ever called me a "golden child," a term of endearment for my unruly blonde curls.

Suddenly, a flicker of hope pierced my dense fog of worry. Maybe Eric Van Sant could help me. Maybe – and this was a long shot, but a lifeline nonetheless – he could become my new mentor. After all, he had been close to Vinicius. He’d know much better than Maratoni what my mentor would have wanted me to learn. Maybe, just maybe, he could even help me navigate the looming nightmare of the Specials Summit.

The key, of course, was his arrival. Would he get here in time? The weight of that question settled heavily in my gut, a new worry nestled amongst the many already swirling there.

I opened my door with the intention of going to find Laura and Angelo, and filling them in on what I just learned. But as I flung open my dorm room door, a flicker of movement caught my eye. Two figures rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, disappearing into the muted glow emanating from the nurse's office.

One of them was Vincent. The other, unmistakable in his stooped posture, was my mentor, Sebastiano Maratoni.

A knot of suspicion tightened in my gut. What were the two of them doing together? I abandoned my initial plan and darted towards the end of the hall. I quickly ran over to the storage closet and made the climb up to the crawl space that sat above the nurse’s office.

Straining my ears, I focused on the muffled sounds filtering up from below. The murmur of hushed voices, laced with tension, confirmed my suspicions – Vincent and Maratoni were having a heated conversation.

Curiosity gnawed at me. What secrets were they exchanging? I inched closer.

“What exactly possessed you to bring Lawrence Ekhart here?” Vincent asked, his voice lacking the usual deference one held for a teacher.

Frustration laced Maratoni's response. “Let’s just say I needed his assistance with something. It’s done now. I know what I need to do, and how to do it. She’ll be home soon.”

“Good. And the others?” Vincent asked, tension still clinging to his voice.

“The others too. Everything is in place. As long as there’s no outside interference, of course.”

“There won’t be," Vincent assured him. "They’ll be too busy with the Specials Summit, it’s the perfect time."

“Hopefully. You know Deadnus has a hard on for you.”

“She won’t miss the Summit. It’s her chance to look at all her secret weapons and gloat. She wouldn’t give that up, not even for me,” Vincent mused. “Have you spoken to Altieri?” Vincent asked, and the name rang a bell. He was the mentor from Austria.

“Yes, all is well,” Maratoni replied, cryptically. Vincent nodded.

“What about the other two?”

“We can’t take the risk. They were too close to Vinicius," Maratoni replied curtly.

Vincent's voice hardened. “Then all the more reason for them to say yes. Tell them what happened.”

“We don’t have the proof, yet. I can’t give them wild hypotheses. And even if we did, it would still go against everything Vinicius stood for. Everything the Specials program was created for. We’ll have to do without them,” he said. A smugness crept into his voice as he added, “Then there’s the case of the blonde protégé. Thankfully, there’s not much to worry about where he’s concerned," I felt a fury within me.

How dare he talk about me in that way? Shame washed over me for having trusted Vincent so blindly. How could he be involved with someone like Maratoni? It made me sick.

“Leave Dani to me. There is more to the bigger picture than what we can see right now, of that I’m sure. Vinicius was always ten steps ahead,” Vincent replied in a flat tone.

My anger boiled over and I accidentally hit a metal pipe next to me with my elbow. The clang was subtle, but enough to make Vincent's alert eyes shoot up right away. I sat still, hoping he didn’t see me.

Suddenly the door to the office opened, and the same busty woman I had seen Maratoni feed on before entered the room.

"Well, well," she purred, "do I have the pleasure of two mouths to feed today?” Her voice dripped with excitement as she looked Vincent up and down.

Maratoni shot his student a calculating glance, a silent question hanging in the air. Disgust churned in my stomach. This couldn't be real.

Vincent, however, remained impassive. He grabbed his phone and walked towards the door.

"Enjoy yourselves," he said curtly, his voice devoid of warmth. Then, in an instant, he was gone.

The air grew thick with the sounds of Maratoni's savage feeding. This time as he feasted on his large breasted meal, his hand roamed between her legs - a predator claiming its prey. A guttural moan ripped from the woman, laced with a sickening edge of pleasure. The sight, the sounds, it all triggered a primal revulsion within me, a tidal wave of nausea crashing over my body.

I stumbled away as quietly as I could. I was feeling incredibly peculiar and sick, which made no sense because for obvious reasons, vampires never got sick. With trembling limbs, I retreated down the ladder. I found Vincent already ensconced in the darkness of the closet, waiting for me.

“How much did you hear?” he asked. The cramped space and the horrifying image of Maratoni feeding just moments ago were making the room spin. On top of that, the conversation echoed in my head, a tangled mess of secrets and betrayal.

“Enough," I spat, shoving his hand away with a vehemence that surprised even me. "Enough to know that you’re no friend of mine."

Vincent's hand hovered in the air, rejected. “Dani, it’s not what it sounded like,” he tried to explain, but I didn’t want to hear.

“You’re unbelievable! I gave you a chance, even though Trusting warned me. Clearly, she was right.” I felt hurt and embarrassed. Vincent looked upset by my statement.

“There are still a lot of things you don’t understand, Dani,” he tried again, his patronizing tone of voice making me even sicker.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, Vincent. Whatever you guys are doing or planning, I have a feeling it’s exactly the kind of thing I was created to prevent. I thought I could trust you!” My anger kept growing, and I felt my whole body become hot, suddenly.

“Dani, you have to calm down,” Vincent stated, he looked worried.

“How can I be calm after what I just heard?” I asked, “How could you betray me?”

“I would never betray you,” Vincent said right away, and I couldn’t understand how he could manage to sound so sincere, when it was obvious that that’s exactly what he was doing from his conversation with Maratoni. “Remember, I brought you to this place first. I gave you the Specials manual. Why would I do that, if I wasn’t on your side?” he asked. “If you just give me some time, I promise, I’ll tell you everything there is to know.”

The room seemed to tilt, a dizzying spin. And my body felt peculiar all over. Instead of replying to Vincent, I doubled over, a violent expulsion of blood erupting onto the floor and splattering across his shoes.

I wiped my mouth and looked up. For the first time, Vincent's carefully constructed mask seemed to crack. A flicker of something entirely alien – genuine confusion – flickered in his eyes, mirroring the terrifying void that had opened up within me.