Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine January 2018 New Year, New You | Page 58

New Release from J. D. Mason
Time didn’t mean anything out here. The only clock
that mattered was the change of seasons and Josie
had learned to live to nature’s rules a long time ago.
She preferred it out here by herself because peo-
ple couldn’t be trusted and vamps ruled the world.
The biggest lie ever told was that there was safety
in numbers. Human Revelers (traffickers) worked
for the vamps and preyed on the weak, capturing
other humans living in the sanctuaries, and selling
them to the highest bidder. Josie had been bought
and sold once, back when she was child, back when
she was weak, but she had learned the truth after
escaping sanctuary a long time ago. The truth that
she was stronger than she ever thought she could be,
and she was safer on her own.
Human beings had only ever been sustenance for
his kind. But that was long time when demons fou-
ght to rule everything, the Brood numbered in the
millions, and the world still hadn’t quite ended yet.
He’d been human once. Like so many others, the
plague got hold of him, and turned him into what
he was an now, brood, a cannibal by nature, a beast
by design. But thanks to a death wish, teeth pulling,
some good, old fashioned cold-turkey starvation
and a stubborn, pain-in-the-ass Djinn with a guilty
conscience and who refused to let Chapman die, he
was a reformed cannibal. She was pretty and she had
no idea of how long he’d been watching her, which
was probably for the best. Being stalked by a brood
would’ve more than likely scared the hell out of her,
so he figured it was best to keep his distance.
Brood weren’t supposed to save lives, they were su-
pposed to take them, but for some reason, this one
had saved hers. Still, Josie wasn’t stupid and knew
better than to trust his kind. They were supposed to be dead. She was old enough to remember the terror of having
to escape to survive an attack against her by her own mother who had caught the sickness and turned to brood.
She remembered the world spiraling into chaos, loved ones turning on loved ones, with kids like her, orphaned and
forced to try and survive on their own. It was hard enough hiding out from revelers and vamps, now she had to add
a brood to that very short list, and knowing that he out there, scared her more than any of them.
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