The Story of Amara Kuran | Mariah Bryant

Book One, Chapter Fourteen

My Crime

Amara's story as told by Kaname to his friends (continued):

Cho and I exchanged glances briefly, then broke, speeding toward the East Wing. I remember cursing having such a huge house. My heart beat so hard that night that it hurt.

Amara had purposely sent Cho and me to the opposite side of the house from where she was. She had manipulated our minds. Then she had sped to exactly which door she knew she needed to enter.

She had not realized fully what she was feeling until she saw inside the library. Then it clicked, and she understood.

The floor was covered with blood. Father was lying on the marble, too weak to move. His body was strewn in an unnatural way. Blood was running from his mouth. There was a huge hole in his chest. Mother's head had fallen back. Shiki held her limp body in one arm. She whimpered as he laughed at them. A deep cut let blood escape from her stomach. Both of her legs were broken, bent in strange ways. With Shiki's other arm, he held my mother's wrist to his mouth and drank her blood.

Mother's head rolled to the side and she saw Amara. With her eyes she pleaded for her daughter to run. At the same moment, Father spotted her and his eyes became large and fearful.

"You are such a beautiful pureblood." Shiki crooned. He let Mother's wrist fall. With his now-free hand, he stroked her hair until he held her head in his hand. He jerked it downward.

Amara stopped breathing.

Shiki howled with laughter and let her drop to the floor. My father glared at him with the eyes of a mad man. Shiki turned to him, and kicked him in the face. Father's head flew back but he survived. He groaned. "Monster," he whispered.

Shiki grinned. "Better a monster than a fool such as yourself." With that, Shiki bent and slashed Father's throat.

Amara whimpered, but made no vocal sound. She took two steps into the room.

Shiki's head snapped around to see where the pitiful, heart-shattering sound had come from. He gasped, and swiftly turned to face her fully.

Amara shook her head. "No." she breathed.

Shiki was silent. His plan had not included this.

The little girl's breaths came in quick, hyperventilating pants. She made a small, squeaky sound with each exhale. Tears sprang into her eyes. Her fists clenched. "No." she shook her head. "No!" Then Amara's angry, anguished eyes became deadly. She looked Shiki dead in the eye and took a deep breath. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

The scream shattered all of the glass in the East Wing. It lasted for what seemed like forever. It was more than the battle cry she had given him before, though: with it, she excreted far more power than that time.

Wind whipped around, obliterating the already-damaged furniture and books. It did not touch our parents. Amara was still screaming when Cho and I skidded to a stop in the doorway. She had not taken a breath. Cho and I were too awestruck to cover our ears.

The scene before us was both incredible and horrible. I had never and never will again see a face that filled with hate . . . nor one filled with as much pain. My sister had turned from an angel to a devil. What before her had ever looked so demonic? And what before Shiki had ever been in as much pain as he was in?

He was both imploding and exploding. He was both frostbitten and burning. His muscles constricted and his bones grew. His flesh ripped apart and dripped from his body. The liquid inside of him was squeezed out through all available holes. He was screaming like a drowning maniac. He was choking on his blood; Amara left his lungs intact. His hair was lifting itself out by its roots. His eyes were pushing themselves out. His joints unhinged themselves. His blood vessels were protruding from his skin in places. His nerves tore through his skin.

I gaped at it. Somehow . . . it was beautiful. Then I noticed my parents.

Amara was taking revenge? My little sister, killing for our parents' deaths? I could not bare it.

My feet carried me forward and dumped me on the bloody marble behind my little sister before I could stop myself. I hugged her tight. She screamed until she was reduced to sobs, and slumped into my embrace. I had closed my eyes until then. When I opened them, I saw that Shiki was now a jumbled glob of unrecognizable red. Small purple flames danced contentedly on his flesh.

A stolen vampyre gun lay beside him.

Amara turned to me and buried her face in my shoulder. I held her.

"Kaname, we must leave, quickly! I have a feeling he will have had assassins waiting for backup." Cho said breathlessly.

I blinked hard to squeeze the tears from my eyes, looking at my parents for the last time. I had loved them more than one can imagine. They were different from other vampyres. Now they were gone.

I took their daughter into my arms and Cho and I ran from the mansion. We caught up with the driver and the limo in the garage. Quickly we re-boarded.

"To Kaien, as fast as you can! Our lives are at stake! Even yours!" Cho yelled.

The man responded well to the danger to his life, and we arrived at Cross Academy shortly. I was still holding on to Amara when we ran to him. Cho quickly explained what had happened.

Kaien was grave. "Cho. You must take them to the train station to ride to the docks. The senate would find out far too quickly if they took a plane. Go with them to China. I will get the vampyre hunters. This has just become war."

Cho put on a hard face as, I presumed, she became a vampyre hunter. She nodded. Just as she was about to turn from Kaien, she suddenly flung herself into his arms and kissed him. She stroked his hair.

"Kaien, we are going to take care of these kids no matter what. And we will do whatever it takes to bring peace to the world. Even if it is in one action." she said.

Kaien smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes. We will also succeed."

Cho kissed her husband again, smiling. "I love you, Kaien."

"I love you, Cho." Kaien said in a soft, sweet voice.

Cho turned to us and ushered us back into the limo and ordered for the driver to go to the nearest train station. The car whipped out of the driveway and sped down the road. We were soon at the terminal and the limo was long gone.

Cho had my sister and me by our hands. We were all too antsy to sit down. The train would be arriving in fifteen minutes. Unlike the rest of the people around us, we had no baggage, briefcases, or anything normal except for Cho's pocketbook. Though snow came down steadily, we were not dressed properly. Amara hugged herself to Cho's leg. She looked anxious. So did Cho.

Amara was silent, but I sensed her breathing quicken. Cho's heart rate sped up. I looked around and saw the darkly dressed men in suits, too. They were assassins. I looked up at Cho. She was braced for action.

"What do we do?" I asked, panicked.

"Run," Amara whispered, staring with wide eyes up at Cho. "Cho, we have to run!"

"There is no way you guys are going to make it onto the train. They are blocking it. We have to wait until they get closer. Then, I will surprise them and you will run."

"But, Cho, you are outnumbered." I said.

"They are getting closer. Cho, let us back up slowly into that janitor's room," Amara did not take her eyes off of the men as they slowly moved in.

"It is most likely locked. Besides, they will probably break down the door."

"We cannot abandon you." Amara said lowly.

"You will have to. Here," Cho scooped Amara up in one arm. "We are going to make our way to the edge of the circle, closest to the train. Then I will drop Amara – Kaname, be ready to possibly catch her – and I will whip out my vampyre gun. I will shoot the two closest to the train, and you will run. I will then turn and shoot down as many as I can. Run to the front of the train and hide. Hopefully, I will be able to get them all. If I cannot, you have to stay on the train until it arrives at its destination." she told us softly as she walked, appearing to merely be telling us of the wonders of riding on a train to soothe Amara.

"No." Amara said defiantly.

"Yes." Cho said. She handed Amara to me, and pretended to check her pocketbook. Then, just before the assassins launched, she flung out her hand and took aim at the one to the right. She shot him. Screams erupted from the humans in the station. He jerked, and fell dead. She swiveled left and took down the one there, too. There were eighteen left, and they all were running at us now.

"Go!" Cho shouted.

I turned to see the assassins, and had to think for some reason about how many seconds it would take each to reach Cho. She shot at them, and took down two more. I backed up slowly toward the bus, too scared to take my eyes off of the scene. Amara clutched me, her jaw hanging open and her eyes wide.

Cho shot more rounds off, but none were affective. The vampyres ran at her, swerving. Many had their eyes on my sister and me, completely ignoring the vampyre hunter. When one got close enough, Cho jumped and planted a kick in his chest, sending him flying back onto the floor. Before she could aim her gun, the vampyre in front of her jumped. While flipping over her, he grabbed her head in his hands, twisted it, and snapped it clean off of her body.

When he landed, he came straight at Amara and me. Grinning, he tossed Cho's head to the side.

I turned to run and suddenly there were three vampyres between the train and us. They surrounded us in an instant. I do not understand why, but I put Amara very slowly on the ground. The vampyres approached until the closest was three feet away. Amara and I were trapped.

"What are you going to do to us?" I asked. I was angry because we had done nothing wrong. I would not rather Amara do anything less to the man who had wrongfully murdered our parents. I wanted to do the same thing to anyone as evil as him.

"Our orders are to destroy the demon child. We are to merely apprehend the pureblood boy. Someone else will be putting you to death after a short trial." one said.

"You have the option of surrendering. If you fight, we will be forced to kill you both." another was quite smug in his statement. He was the one who had murdered Cho.

I was completely silent, at the edge of a bridge. Below me, Amara was breathing like she was getting ready to sob again. I met the eyes of every single assassin around us, too shaken to think straight.

Amara started to make noise, and I immediately knelt to comfort her. I was about to put my hand on her shoulder to draw her to me, but then I noticed her expression. She looked fierce some and bloodthirsty. (Only I could see that she was forcing herself to be brave.)

Amara had never forced herself to use her powers against someone until then. Her emotions had always been its provoker. So naturally the result was not as explosive as what it had been with Shiki. Still, it was ground-shaking. She started out growling, then, instead of screaming, she started singing a single note. Her eyebrows pressed together, her jaw set, her feet spread, her fists clenched, Amara focused hard on the part of her that she could kill with.

The men looked scared and confused at first. Then it began to dawn on them that they were in pain. They all slowly crumpled, screaming, as their bodies imploded. Then, Amara's voice hiked an octave and all at once they exploded.

We were splattered with blood.

Amara was left panting, and fell to her knees. She stared at Cho's dismembered head in disbelief. "I knew. She was in trouble. I . . . Cho . . . and they . . ."

I hugged my sister, though this time she did not cry. She stood up and stomped over to the nearest mound of flesh. Her finger flew out in its direction, and it started cracking and sizzling, blackening and smoking. She gritted her teeth, trembling. "They did not know what they were doing. They knew not what right was. They were ignorant. That is sin enough, though. Not wanting to know more. Not searching. Disobeying the voices in their heads."

I stood. "Amara, please. Do not . . . I cannot stand to see you this way, with so much hate in your heart."

She looked at me very slowly and deliberately. She was angry at me, something that made me shiver. "My brother, I do not hate them. I despise them. I pity them. But I do not hate them. How could I ever hate any soul? Can you not see that I have avenged them, ripping the demons from their bodies? They can be without sin now." she told me.

I had had enough of everything. In a haze, I walked to a nearby payphone and dialed Kaien.

"Kaien, we were ambushed. I am so sorry. Cho fought for us and did not make it."

I think there was silence on the other end for an hour. Meanwhile, my sister continued burning the bodies until she was exhausted. Finally, Kaien spoke. His voice cracked.

"What happened?"

"An assassin running after us jumped into the air just after Cho had kicked another one backward and ripped . . ."

"No, no. Kaname, what happened? How is Amara? How did you escape?"

"Amara used her gift and made them all explode." For his benefit, I added, "She is really weak now. She had never done it on purpose before."

Kaien sighed. "All right. Stay at the terminal. I have a small army of vampyre hunters coming to escort you to China."

"Thank you."

There was no answer. The connection was cut. I hung up the phone.

The hunters took twenty minutes to arrive. Amara fell asleep on the floor in that time. When they got there, fifteen of them, they were in an assortment of vehicles. Amara and I rode in the back of one of them, in the middle of the line. We were driven this way to the docks without incident. If there had been, we would have been safe surrounded by a small army.

But at the docks there were fifty assassins waiting. We did not see them until we had disembarked from the cars and were making our way onto the ship. Between the water and the assassins, there was only one way to go: down the narrow dock to the ship.

We ran, being led along by two vampyre hunters – a man and a wife. Yuki's parents. While the other vampyre hunters held off the assassins, they got us safely to the boat and pushed us up the steps to the deck. The crew of humans was panicking, but they let us inside the hull to hide. (The ship had seen our money and was glad to take us along, though it was a cargo ship.) Yuki's parents stayed outside, fighting.

"What should we do?" one of the panicked sailors asked.

"Set sail!" the captain replied. So, the large ship loaded with UPS boxes and two purebloods chugged forward.

I ran to the deck to see what was going on with the fight. The vampyre hunters were being slaughtered. Their tiny bodies got smaller and smaller as they fell.

Once in China I called Kaien.

"They were slaughtered, but they managed to get Amara and me onboard."

Kaien was quiet for only a moment this time. "I see." he sighed.

Amara, sitting next to me, let her head hang. "He is thinking, 'All of this death for a special little girl'." she whispered to me.

"Well, Kaname, I have been thinking about the answer to all of this along with the vampyre hunter council and this is our conclusion: you must come back to the vampyre world because you have no criminal record whatsoever. As the years go on, you will have to be the one to keep the peace. Amara will have to hide in China. You and I will care for her from afar, but we are both needed in Japan. When the time is right, Amara will come back to govern the senate and bring peace."

I was silent this time.

"Kaname, you cannot tell me that that is not the destiny you sense when you see Amara."

I did not respond.

"Hmm."

Before he could say more, Amara gasped and her eyes flew wide open.

"Kaname, you must know something important: I do not think the battle with Shiki is over. His body was removed from the mansion by his uncle-in-law. I think he will be able to regenerate with help. Purebloods are capable of just about anything."

Amara stared at me, terror written all over her face. "It will happen again." she said, tears springing into her eyes. "They will find me, and when they do, it will all happen again just as it did this time!"

"Kaien . . ." I shook my head.

"Kaname, we must do this. It is for more than just the survival of your sister and for you to regain your status. This is for the future."

I gazed upon my sister with much sadness, but did what I was told. I took her to an orphanage.

"You cannot get adopted." I realized.

"I will not. Just as I persuaded your subconscious to take me here, I will persuade all who see me that I am not the child that they want."

I gawked for only a moment before I hugged my sister tight. "I will miss you."

"Do what you have to do, and do it well." she gave me a small smile. "I am proud of you."

I nearly choked up. The ship ride back to Japan broke my heart. When I got back to the dock where the slaughter had taken place, I was a mess. I decided I would walk home, and did not call a taxi. (I could guess that there was no one willing to risk their lives to drive me home that was nearby.)

When I got to a meadow near the vampyre hunter council, I noticed one of the assassins scaring a little human girl, a little older than my sister but far weaker and more pitiful. I got furious. I pictured myself ripping the assassin apart and holding the little girl in my arms, and before I knew it he had turned into a Level E. My instincts propelled me forward, and Yuki knows the rest. She had followed her parents out there, and had seen the battle. She must have hidden in their car. It was strange, though, because that was the one Amara and I had ridden in. She might have been in the trunk. Her cleverness and innocence and confusion and love was overwhelming to me. I suppose she climbed out of the trunk and started running home, then got lost in the snow. The pain that she felt made me act without thinking. I erased her memories, amazed because I had never done anything like that before. I remembered Amara, and knew exactly what to do with Yuki.


I am dissapointed in the turnout of my last chapter. :( At one point, the traffic spiked to seventy-some whenever I updated; this time it was fifty-some and then today it was hardly any! And to think I was updating sooner than usual to make up for last week! Well, after this chapter, I think you will really be upset if you were off reading something else and not this the last time I updated. :D I really do want you to enjoy this story and be pleased, and I think that the last chapter and this one are ones that Kaname-sama fans will love. To think (those of you who, like me, have only read up to manga six and watched none of the YouTube videos) that I have calculated every part of Kaname's past down to the molecule using every stitch of information from the mangas, missing not a single word! I dedicated myself to making something that Matsuri Hino-sensei would not scoff at. I feel I owe it to her and her fans to provide something worthy of her mangas. I would love it if you would stick with this story. It deserves to be told . . . and appreciated.