We were lovers in a past life
“Benjamin, how could you?!” Brooke screamed through her tears.
“I didn’t have a choice!” Benjamin screamed back.
“You didn’t- of course you had a choice! You killed her!”
“You’re right, I did have a choice, and I’d do it again.” Benjamin said, his eyes dark.
Brooke pulled out the knife she kept in her boot and bared her fangs as she rushed towards Benjamin, pinning him against a nearby tree.
“Tell me right now why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“You wouldn’t kill your own brother.” Benjamin seems confident in his words.
“No? Watch me.” Brooke spits.
Benjamin’s eyes widen with realization. She was serious. She knocked the bow from his hands and laughed darkly.
“Not so tough now, are you?” She snarled.
She held the knife pointing where his heart would be.
“Give me one good reason right now why I shouldn’t do it, Benjamin.”
“I’m sorry.” He said softly, “I’m sorry, Brooke.”
Brooke relaxes slightly, but not lowering her knife. Her mind flashed back to Isabela’s body a few feet away and her anger flared up once more.
“Brooke Lynn!” called a voice from behind her.
It was her father.
“Brooke Lynn, drop your knife.” His tone was commanding, “now.”
She had to listen, and she lowered the knife feeling defeated. She fell to her knees, body shaking with suppressed sobs. This was nobody’s fault but hers.
“Such a shame,” her father said with mock sympathy, looking down at Isabela’s body, “so young, so pretty.” He paused for a minute, “well done Benjamin.”
~*~
“Brooke, I don’t understand.” Vanessa said, “what you mean that’s me?”
“It is you, and that,” she points to herself, “and that’s me.”
“That’s impossible.”
It couldn’t be. This photo was 160 years old, and Brooke and Vanessa were only 18. Well, Vanessa was only 18. Brooke had to be 18 too, right?
“It might seem that way, but you have to let me explain.”
Vanessa isn’t sure she can, the whole thing is just insane.
“This is you, but it’s you from a past life. Your name was Isabela back then.”
A cold chill traveled through Vanessa’s body.
“Isabela?” she asked and Brooke nodded, “that’s my middle name.”
“The girl in the picture is Isabela Mateo, and you are Vanessa Isabela Mateo.” Brooke points out.
“I have questions.” Vanessa said.
“Go ahead.” Brooke felt the energy shift, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was shifting too.
“What happened to me? How old are you?”
“I’m 18….and I’ve been 18 for 200 years. As for what’s happened to you, my brother shot an arrow at you, punctured your lung.” Vanessa furrowed her brow as Brooke spoke, “we weren’t supposed to be together, I was telling you that I couldn’t see you anymore. It was my fault. It was all my fault.”
“How do I know you ain’t fuckin’ with me, B?”
“You have a birthmark on your left side, kind of close to your back.”
It wasn’t a question, and Brooke definitely felt the energy shift to understanding.
“What happened to your brother?”
Brooke hesitates, “a month after he did that, I killed him. I told him I would do it. My parents were angry at me for a long time, but my grief and anger at him was stronger than my will to leave him unharmed.”
Vanessa is shocked at first. Brooke killed her own brother, but her brother killed the love of her life. This was all just a lot.
“So what kind of...creature? That doesn’t sound right. What are you?”
“I know what you mean, baby.”
Brooke released her fangs, and grinned, showing them to Vanessa.
“Those are….those are fangs. Are they real?”
Brooke nodded, “the fangs are real.”
“So you’re a, what? A vampire?”
Brooke nodded again. Vanessa’s head was spinning.
“What was I?” Vanessa asked, “was I anything special?”
“Baby, you were definitely special.” Brooke winks, “but yes, you had magic in your blood.”
Magic.
“Is that why we wasn’t allowed to be together?”
“Yeah, that’s why.”
“This whole thing has my mind in overdrive, B.”
“I know, I can feel it.”
“Feel it? The fuck you mean you can ‘feel it’?”
“I can sense energies. Which is why I knew you were scared on the first day, even though you told me that you weren’t. I told you I could smell fear.” Brooke shrugs.
Vanessa shook her head and they sat in comfortable silence for a moment.
“That’s why you told me to leave. Your mother. Was she gonna hurt me?”
Brooke looks down, “yeah, she was if you hadn’t left.”
The whole situation is crazy to Vanessa, and she shouldn’t believe it. But she does.
“I felt like I knew you.” She thinks out loud, “like we were old friends. If this were anybody else, I’d run for the hills, but I just felt like I knew you.”
“We’re more than just old friends, V, we’re soulmates. That’s how we found our way back to each other again.”
Vanessa leans forward and does something that she’s wanted to do for weeks: presses a soft kiss to Brooke’s lips. The soft kiss turned into a longer one, only stopping when Vanessa pulled back.
“So I’m human now?”
Brooke nods.
“Okay, well, I don’t wanna be,” Vanessa takes a deep breath, “bite me.”
“What?” Brooke wants to be sure she heard correctly.
“I want you to bite me, change me, make me like you. I don’t wanna take a chance of bein’ taken away from you again, and I wanna live the rest of forever with you. The thought of bein’ without you makes me hurt, Brooke, it really does. I feel complete now. With you. Please. Bite me.”
Brooke freezes, she hasn’t bitten a human in a very long time.
“Are you sure?”
Vanessa nods, she’s so sure.
“Right now?”
Vanessa nods again, “I don’t want to waste another day.”
The room energy changes again to confidence, and the energy radiating off of Vanessa was new, it was warm. It was love.
As Brooke leaned forward, preparing to pierce Vanessa’s flawless skin, all she could think about was the life they had ahead of them, and for that, this was worth it.