Dalton's Part 9

The abandoned chocolate factory in the warehouse district of town hardly seemed threatening. The purple and white peeling paint from it's exterior suggested it had once been a busy place, admired by people that past by, everyone wondering what secrets were going into their favorite candies. Now, it was just another old building in a decrepit part of a small town that was wasting away as the years went by. As Lia stood on the perimeter she couldn't help but think about the fact that her father had worked in a factory much like this one, working long hours just to make sure she and her siblings never saw a single moment of the hunting business. Instead, here she was, he was dead and she was waiting to take on a nest full of vampires all on her own, it was safe to say she wasn't living his dream. Her green eyes focused on the entrance, she was at a disadvantage once again. The night was when they were at their strongest, and also when they could escape with ease, with no sunlight providing her backup this was a dangerous fight, especially to do alone. Biting her lip in thought she looked for a higher entrance, she wasn't going to just walk in the front of the building after all, they'd see her and it would be game over before she'd even finished formulating a plan. "Fuck it" she muttered and took off quickly toward the building, in a few short leaps she'd pulled herself up the fire escape with little effort before finding a broken window to squeeze through. That seemed irresponsible of them, leaving it exposed but for all she knew, they'd only just arrived here maybe they hadn't had time to put the place on lock down, which was currently to her benefit. Her feet landed on the floor with a thud as the dust kicked up around her boots. She held her breath for a moment as the sound echoed through the hall, she waited but no sound headed in her direction. With that, she turned and hurried the the lowest part of the building. They preferred the ground floor, less sunlight, easier to contain, and it was a lot easier to see potential threats coming. Sometimes she wondered how she had learned to think like a monster, where they went, how they planned, it was all permanently placed in the front of her mind for recall so that in situations like this, she could get her man out alive. Not that he was her man, she shook her head clear of any thoughts of Hunter, it was just an expression she needed to focus. Finding the nearest stair case she kept her back pressed against the wall as she descended towards the sounds. The further down she got, the louder the murmers became. She stopped suddenly her breath catching in her throat as a voice erupted clearly from the noise.
"Kalika don't eat that" the voice said with annoyance. Closing her eyes Lia tried to picture their placements around the room, the way the voices were projecting, the sounds bouncing off the walls gave her a vague idea of how many were in there, they were gathered around something their voices were coming from far too many directions to be in one area of the room.
"Why...what's it going to do? Kill me?" a girls voice asked bitterly as Lia heard the sound of tearing wrappers. She was eating the chocolate, well that thought was unappetizing."Besides I wouldn't if you let me sink my teeth into him"  her voice shifted, she had turned her head toward something. Hunter, they had him in there.
"Not yet" the voice warned and it almost sounded like a growl escaped the man. "He was the barer of the ring, he is to be unharmed for now! He's leverage"
"For what? I thought we only needed the ring. We have the ring" the girls voice was whiny the type of girl who made Lia  want to smash their heads into the wall when she heard them whining at their boyfriends. If this girl couldn't take care of herself she had certainly chosen the wrong creature to become, especially with hunters like her out there.
"To activate we need a human to willing put the ring on... do you have another idiot human stashed away for us?" his voice was condescending at best and caused Lia to rolled her eyes, it was like a flashback to training with her grandfather. "No one touches him, that's an order" the man said as she heard him walkaway, a door slamming behind him. She moved closer to the door, catching her sleeve on an outstretched nail from the wall and she froze as she felt it tear at her skin. A suddenly silence came from the room and Lia knew they'd smelled the blood. Her plan was all shot to hell now, so she turned the corner charging into the room with an all to assured confidence.
"Blood and Chocolate? Thought that was a werewolf thing" she joked twirling the machete in her hand trying to keep her nerves at bay. Each time she got into a situation like this, it always ended badly for someone, and it was usually never for herself. Her eyes were on Hunter, in the distance, tied up to a chair in the corner, his head slumped over his chest, unconscious. She tried to do the weight math, could she carry him out of there if she needed to? She wasn't so sure at this point but it was something she was going to have to worry about later.
"Come here for you boyfriend?" a voice challenged  "Sorry we think we'll keep him, look at that strength he'd make a perfect addition" the whiny girl said her red eyes flashing dangerously.
"Oh sweetheart you picked the wrong hunter to piss off" Lia said simply besides she was there for the ring, and also Hunter but she needed to find out where they had the ring before she went into full on rescue mode. "I'm here for a little piece of jewelry of mine you stole. Look, hand them over and I walk away" it was a promise she'd never made a creature before, an offer she would likely never make again in fact, it was still up in the air now whether or not she would keep her word on that.
"And if we don't?" the question caused a confident smirk to settle on he lips.
"Then I slaughter you all and burn you to the ground" she watched them carefully and she could sense fear rising in the room, they knew she could do it. As her eyes took them in she did the math, there were about five of them, of the four girls two of them were newborns, so was the boy, the other two girls had a little more experience on their side but still, nothing compared to what Lia had taken care of in the past. This was her first strike alone, but what was a handful of Vampires against her experience.
"You sound pretty sure of yourself little girl" the eldest one taunted but Lia knew she had the advantage already they were all staring at her arm, concentrating on the blood, she had their attention, for now.
"That's because I am" she said lunging forward she had started the war with the first move now they were coming at her. She ducked quickly sliding beneath them turning and swinging the machete to catch the head of the eldest from behind. She twirled then catching another girl watching her collapse to the ground before the youngest three backed away despite the obvious blood lust in their eyes. "I told you to walk away" Lia said sadly but the sound of waking caught her attention off guard. It was her first mistake as the whiny girl charged at her knocking her to the ground. Lia lost hold of her knife but lifting her arms above her head brought her elbows down hard on the vampires' arms and flipped the both of them over before managing to get hold of her knife again. She raised her arm to swing it down just as she felt someone's grip closing around her wrist and yanking her back. The second girl was fighting back now. Lia fought the grip and lifted her boot swinging her leg around to sweep the creature's out and knock her to the ground. "Why can't you ever just play nice" she said sounding almost bored with the situation before she took the creatures head off with one swoop and swung her arm back just in time to do the same to the whiner who had managed to get herself back off the ground. "Anyone else?" she asked but the only one left in the room was the boy, the newborn. Her eyes took him in for a moment, he was the only one who hadn't attacked her, even at the scent of blood. A pang of sympathy hit her. "Go! You won't get this chance again" She told him and watched as he stumbled to his feet and headed towards the door. Her eyes then settled to Hunter who had fully woken up by now and was staring at her in shock. Well, she was hoping he was going to have been passed out for that, now she had some explaining to do. Hurrying over to him she untied his restraints. "The ring where is it?" she asked and he just stared at her before he nodded his head to the side. She looked at the table where the ring was sitting in the center and she moved quickly to pocket it before helping Hunter up from the chair. "We have to move...now!" 

Red Handed: Short story

Tala ran as fast as her feet would carry her.  She didn’t even give time to think about the attention she was drawing to herself as she hurried through the dark streets, her hands dripping blood. She didn’t know where her clothes had gone but she was running through the streets in nothing more than a borrowed dress shirt in too crimson in the blood of another. Her eyes could barely focus and the light of the moon seemed too bright as her blue eyes squinted. Her feet were bare, scratched with rocks and glass with each step she took. A hand grasped her arm and she heard a distant sounding voice asking If she was okay. She ripped her arm away and turned the corner stumbling into the nearest alley. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, hot against her skin in the cold damp night. As she came to a stop against the wall she slid down to the ground trying not to think of what filth was against her bare skin. Her eyes were blurred with tears but she could feel her body shaking closed her eyes for a moment she listened as her heart raced within her chest her hands resting on her knees bloody palms up to the sky. What had she done? She didn’t remember any of it, not after the bar. Her mind flashed back to the apartment, she woken up in. There had been blood everywhere, the bed, the walls, the floor and none of it as far as she could tell, belonged to her. She didn’t know who it belonged to but judging from the state of her hands she could only assume she’d had something to do with it. The moment she’d heard someone in the hall she’d bolted through the fire escape and out into the streets and she didn’t stop running. She stared at her hands and took a careful breath as she felt her ribs tighten. Her body ached, every muscle, every joint felt like it had been ripped and snapped just to be taped back together with hope to heal. A voice, still distant sounding pulled her out of her trance. “Miss Canagan” her bright blue eyes lifted to gaze at the man who had spoken to her, golden eyes stared back at her but the shadows seemed to conceal the rest of him. She could barely make out the features of his face but she was certain he was smirking at her. “You’ve been frighteningly easy to track” he said stepping closer and crouching down so he was suddenly at eye level with her. His eyes looked her over as though he were inspecting a new car he was considering buying. His eyes stopped at her hands and if there had been any doubt of a smirk before, it was obvious now as watched him. “A shame about your boyfriend, I’m sure you two would have been a match made in heaven…you know, if you hadn’t ripped him to shreds” he said and the memories carefully creeped back into her mind. Boyfriend, no she didn’t have one of those, but there had been a guy at the bar, she’d gone home with him and she’d-- the thought of what he’d said caused her to lose whatever was left of her lunch as she leaned over and threw up in the alley, tears appearing in her eyes again. “Ah yes, get him out of your system” he commented which really wasn’t helping manners. He waited for a few seconds before he gripped her arms tightly pulling her with force off the ground. “There’s no time for your conscience they’re looking for you and you need to be briefed on a cover…you’re coming with me” he said harshly his voice sounded almost like a growl as I stared at him but didn’t fight the hold. Whoever, or whatever was planned for her, it couldn’t have been worse than what she’d just done, what she’d woken up to find. She noticed her body was still shaking but she nodded accepting the unknown fate. “Now, there’s a good girl”

How well read are you?

I was thinking the other day about high school literature, I still get shocked when I find people haven't read or studied certain classic novels or plays. Then as I started to think about all the ones that I did study in the short four years of high school I realized the list was relatively extensive. This was JUST for English class, not to mention plays for Theatre (some of which, thank god they worked together and crossed our projects over) and reading for enjoyment (something I do a lot of). This didn't include our study of Mythology where we did whole units on stories of the Greek God's studying creation stories of all different religions. This also didn't include Bible or World Religions studies or readings either. For one subject, In five years I read 41 books and plays, that about 8.2  books a year, which is almost one a month for every month I was in school. Wow. Of course some years were more heavy than others, and this is a list of just the ones I happen to remember reading, I'm sure there were others that didn't make quite an impression.

The Chrysalid's

The Outsiders

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Little Women

To Kill a Mocking Bird

The Heat of the Night

Frankenstein

Dracula

Anne Frank

Flowers for Algernon

Of Mice and Men

Romeo and Juliet

Rebecca

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

The Crystal Cave

Twelfth Night

Catcher in the Rye

1984

Animal Farm

Greek Mythology

Beowulf

Morte D’arthur

Macbeth

Huck Finn

A Separate Peace

Lord of the Flies

Much Ado about Nothing

Death of a Salesman

The Crucible

The Glass Menagerie

Tuesdays with Morrie

The Joy Luck Club

Pride & Prejudice

The Little Prince

King Lear

A Doll’s House

Oedipus Rex

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Stone Angel

Hamlet

Has all of that made me a more informed person? I'm not sure, I look around at my class and know we all read relatively the same things, saw the same words, did the same questions and assignments. What did we all take from it? Certainly not the same things, despite the efforts of a Preparatory education no two people are the same and so we never get the same things out of something. Begs me to think of my writing, it's both a fascinating and terrifying reality that people perceive things differently. What I write on the page may not be what they imagine in their minds, my world could turn out completely different to someone else. It's both exciting and the nerves got mad at the thought of it. It's the same reason people prefer one character over another the ever famous Peeta vs Gale fanbase. Different aspects of characters or stories appeal to different people in different places in their lives. It's the reason my characters range from 15 to 50 in my novel. Different personalities, different careers, places in their lives. We've got meek, strong, laid back, funny and down right psychotic a little something for everyone.

So what do we think? The more the read the better off we are? Or is it all about the perception of what we read that expands out minds?

Daltons Part 8

This is Part 8 continuation of the Dalton's story. The rest of the links can be found throughout the blog. Stay tuned for continuations.

"You were on a what?" Jake asked for about the third time since the three of them had met up at the park.
"A Date! Jake shut up that's not the important part of the story" Lia said exasperated from trying to get their attention again and again when they were both fixated on the fact that she had lied to them about where she'd been going, honestly they lied for a living she didn't understand why they were so utterly shocked.
"Why were you on a date?" Jimmy added in confusion obvious in her voice and she buried her eyes in her hand.
"Dear God, give me strength" she muttered "because someone asked, and because I was trying to get that ring back" she reminded them.
"You could have just taken it back-" Jake said.
"Yeah where did the date come in, I'm still lost on that" Jimmy admitted.
"BOYS!" Lia shouted "Focus! Vampires, ring, Hunter, missing!"
"He's a hunter?" Jake said and she could almost see his need to punch someone right then and there.
"No! His name is Hunter" one more of these and she might just end up punching him herself. "We're wasting time if you're not going to be helpful I'll track them myself"
"Oh like hell Lia, you're not hunting alone you know that's not an option" Jake said going back into full on protective big brother mode, which didn't bode well for hunter when and if they found him. When, she needed to focus on that word rather than the possibility that they weren't going to find him. "This just doesn't make any sense, we kill the whole nest!" he reminded her.
"Then there's another nest.." she said simply "He said 'you weren't exactly subtle' which means they aren't the only ones who know we're here. They also know about the ring..."
"Which brings us back to that Tristan kid" Jake muttered and Lia looked at him. "What? Come on Lia, even you aren't that naive, that kid knew exactly what the ring was, the very reason he hadn't put it on. He wanted you to find it, he's using us for something, the question is what"
"But he sounded pretty upset that I didn't have it" she protested
"Of course he did because with us, it's safe, we aren't going to put it on, use it, lose it.... he needed us to find something on it for him, we just need to figure out what that is before he does, which means we have to get it back from those bloodsuckers" and suddenly he was in full on hunting mode.
"Jimmy research, we burned that warehouse to the ground so find any other abandoned buildings in town or surroundings. They're going to have to be large if they're building another nest, maybe a barn or another warehouse. Where ever they are, find it" he told him. "Lia, you're gonna help me track you were the only one who was here where did you leave that wounded one?" he asked and she led him quickly across the park to the tree where she had wounded him. Jake's blue eyes wandered over the bark and the surrounding ground before shining his flashlight on it "Black blood...you wounded him pretty badly" he said as he followed the trail with the light. "enough that it didn't heal right away, he's trailed blood all through the part" he muttered and followed it quickly. The trail stopped eventually.
"He wouldn't get too far without feeding" Lia said glancing around "Not if he was hurt that badly, he'd need the fresh blood to heal faster"
"Great so now we're looking for two bodies? Way to go Lia" Jake said harshly and she stopped in her steps.
"This- this isn't my fault" she said but there was a hesitation in her voice that was uncertain. Jake had never blamed her for anything before, not out loud, she had always done a good enough job of doing that for herself. She blamed herself for her parents death, for not coming home from school sooner, not being able to stop it, or to be with them when it had happened. She blamed herself for their Grandfather's death on the job, if she'd only listened to him when he had told her she wasn't ready to hunt on her own, he never would have come after her and he never would have been killed. There were so many things she carried around on her shoulders that they didn't even know about to have him throw it directly in her face seemed to have broken down some sort of barrier she'd been keeping it all behind.
"Of course it is if you had just stayed with us at supper you never would have found that ring, you never would have met that guy in the bar, he wouldn't have taken the ring and you certainly wouldn't have been on a date and had this poor guy kidnapped by fucking vampires" he hissed. She stared at him in shock for a few seconds before she realized he was right. She was always hurting people, with her day to day decisions there was always some sort of domino effect that caused trouble, like it followed her around waiting to come out.
"Screw you Jake" She said as forcefully as possibly but she was fighting tears as she turned and bolted from the park. This was pointless, Hunter wasn't here they'd already taken him and the park wasn't going to give them any answers.
"LIA!" she heard coming from behind her but she just ran faster. The further she ran the more time her mind had to think about what she'd seen around town, the places people frequented the ones they avoided. She stopped suddenly as a thought hit her and she pulled out her phone to check. A smile smile crossed her lips at the realization. She knew exactly where they were, and if it was the last thing she did she was going to get him out of there, alive.

Dalton's Part 7

The Dalton's Short Story, Fantasy Fiction continues with Part 7

PART ONE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

PART TWO: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-daltons-short-story-ctd.html

PART THREE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-3.html

PART FOUR: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-4.html

PART FIVE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/08/daltons-part-5.html

PART SIX: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/09/part-6.html



"OW!" Well this was boding well so far. "Jesus if you're going to blindfold someone and expect them to trust you, tip? Don't lead them into every single thing in their way!" Lia said her voice had gone from patient to annoyed relatively quickly

"Sorry..." he said but she could hear a hint of laughter in his voice "and don't call me Jesus" he added.

"Hilarious" she muttered but the more they walked she began to hear more people, which was either comforting or terrifying. "Why are we in the park?" she asked suddenly which caused him to stop abruptly. 

"What- how did you know?"

"Well, we've been walking for a while and we started on pavement but you've led me over grass most of the way, a couple rocks, I've stumbled over two stumps and been hit in the face with tree branches and now there's commotion so... we're in a park" she said matter of factly. 

"Wow you weren't kidding about that training" he added and she shook her head, she rarely joked about anything but especially about her training. "We're here anyway" he said and carefully took the blindfold off. It took a moment for her green eyes to adjust to the dim evening light setting on the Horizon but as she started to take it in, she realized she had been right, they were definitely in a park.

"What is this?" She asked confused.

"Movie in the park.. you don't have that where you're from?" He asked
"I'm not really 'from' anywhere remember" she pointed out and for all she knew, this was sort of a thing, just one she'd never really had time for. She realised the way she made it sound, it seemed like she was an alien or something, not from this planet, let alone the country.
"Well then it's a first even better, how are my chances now?" he joked and offered a wink that caused her to roll her eyes.
"Don't get too cocky" she warned him, just offering a sliver of hope. It really didn't matter, she knew that she'd likely be gone tomorrow, at worst the day after that she had been doing this to get the ring back, it was as simple as that. Her eyes observed the people around her and once again marveled at the normalcy of the situation. She couldn't even recall the last thing she had done that anyone would deem normal, what was a normal life for her was something out of a horror film for others.  As the movie started she took a seat with him on the grass but instead of really watching she couldn't seem to get him to shut up. The problem was, the more he talked about himself, the more she found herself actually starting to like him. He wasn't completely annoying, he seemed to put on a pretty good show of it though. A kiss caught her off guard as the sun began to fully disappear behind the trees, and despite her uncaring attitude she found herself lost in that same feeling from the bar, utter consumption of her senses completely lost in the moment. The sun had been hidden from the horizon for only a few minutes when a cold and all too familiar feeling settled over her. Her muscles froze and her stomach tightened as she pulled away from the kiss she turned her heard to look around. Was this paranoia? Her green eyes found them in seconds. To anyone else they might have looked normal, beautiful even but she could see everything wrong with them even from a distance. Their skin, was pale odd for the middle of the summer, but it was the translucency that stood out, the firmness, the utter perfection of their complexion. "Shit" she muttered under her breath which caused a sideways glance from Hunter.
"What?" he asked curiously glancing around but his untrained eye didn't see it, not as clearly as she saw.
"Nothing, I was supposed to call someone and check in" she admitted. "I'll be right back" she said grabbing her bag and standing up quickly. She moved into the trees and felt in her bag for supplies. She didn't have much, her gun and salt were useless in this situation holy water was her only ally. Breaking a branch of the tree she uncapped her flask and poured some on the tip.
"That for me?" a voice came from in front of her and she lifted her head quickly to see one of them standing there before her, his smile too confident.
"No, but this is" she assured him splashing the holy water into his face she heard the sizzle of his skin and it gave her enough time to push off the tree and reverse the hold. Turning she avoided his grab and kicked him back into the tree lurching forward driving the edge of the branch into his chest. A wooden stake was a little cliche, she knew that much and she also knew it didn't kill them, not even if you hit their heart. It hurt, but unless you left it in there, they could heal from it just like any other wound.
He laughing through the pain "You know that can't kill me" he taunted and she smirked.
"I know... but it hurts like a bitch" she said pressing the heel of her hand against it driving it into his chest further which caused another cry of pain. "What do you want" She said. More importantly where had they come from? They had slaughtered the entire nest, there had not been a single vampire alive when they'd walked out of that warehouse. "and how did you find me?"
"Well your massacre was hardly subtle" he pointed out "besides word on the horizon is you have a ring... one we'd all very much like to get our hands on" she tilted her head in confusion, how did they know about the ring, as far as she could tell Travis and her brothers were the only ones who knew anything about it.
"I don't have the ring" she stated, that wasn't a lie, after all wasn't that the whole reason she was on this date in the first place, to get it back into her possession.
"Oh we know you don't... " he said and again the same confident, knowing grin appeared on his face.
"Hunter..."she said and a panic rose in her chest. She drove the branch in a little further knowing it would be hell for him to get out and turned to run back to where they'd been sitting. Her stomach sank as she saw he was gone. Pulling out her phone she dialed the first number she had on speed dial and waiting for an answer. "Jake? We have a problem"

The Novel Summary: The Lost Legacy

Finn Adams thought she knew what her life had in store for her; a mundane existence of day to day life. After meeting Eamon, the mysterious new boy at school and her whole world is flipped upside down. When her mother goes missing, Finn soon discovers that she is a witch and she is being hunted for her power. Ripped from the only life she’s ever known, Finn is transported across the country to Broadhaven, Maine to discover the secrets she never knew about herself, her heritage, and the tremendous power she’s kept hidden for so long. Her loyalties are tested when she learns of her true parentage and discovers she is part of a prophecy, destined to awaken an ancient power that has been lost for centuries . As she struggles to learn from her mother’s past, she is faced with the ultimate struggle of good and evil, family or friends, she must learn who she can trust and find the power within herself to stop the prophecy from coming true.

Part 6

The Dalton's Short Story, Fantasy Fiction continues with Part 6

PART ONE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

PART TWO: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-daltons-short-story-ctd.html

PART THREE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-3.html

PART FOUR: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-4.html

PART FIVE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/08/daltons-part-5.html

"Is that a dress?" James Dalton's voice inquired with a hint of surprise. "Are we going under cover or something?" he asked his sister as he watched her.
"What? No...I just- " she couldn't tell him the truth. "Wanted to wear it is there a law against that or something?" Lia's dress selection was slim, she owned about two in total one,  the one she had on now was more casual, a red linen sundress the other was a little dressier and usually only for serious undercover work. For the rest of her apparel it consisted most of jeans, cutoffs and plaid.
"You just look weird that's all" he said. Great, she looked weird that was exactly what she wanted to hear. The dress was off faster than he'd said it and just as quickly she was back in dark straight leg jeans, her black combat boots with a red tank and her leather jacket. She actually felt more like herself in this, and what did it matter what she was wearing anyway, she wasn't going on a real date. Grabbing her bag she moved to the door and moved to leave.
"Hey wait up I'll come with you where are you going?" Jimmy asked as he sat up from the bed.
"No!" she said too quickly but she couldn't risk him actually wanting to come along. "You don't want to I have stuff to do-" though she couldn't exactly think of what she would need to do that required her older brother to stay behind. "girl stuff" she said hesitantly. It was weak at best but she had learned a long time ago in the Dalton house hold if you said you had girl stuff to deal with it made everyone uncomfortable and they would leave you alone.
"Oh... err okay well good luck?" he said leaning back and she quickly made her way out of the room before he could have a chance to change his mind.
***
She had told him to meet her back in front of the diner for one reason, she didn't want him knowing where she was staying, and she also didn't want her brothers to have any idea what she was up to. This way, meeting on her own terms it was a win-win situation for her. Hearing a scartch on the pavement behind her she turned quickly, her hand on her bag ready to pull a weapon at the first sign of trouble. She relaxed slightly at the sight of Hunter standing there, the same stupid grin on his face. "Next time you sneak up on me like that I will cut you" she warned him and he laughed. Heh, if only she'd actually been kidding it may have been funny.
"You look hot" he observed and she rolled her eyes. He really was just blunt, it was sort of refreshing to hear the honesty even if it wasn't exactly always the easiest thing to respond to. She was a liar, born and raised. It was difficult to reveal the truth on the best of days, and especially to a stranger.
"Thanks" she responded simply and held out her hand. "Ring" she demanded.
"You want a ring already? Well, that's a little soon, you're hot and all but I don't do marriage"
"Do you take anything seriously?" she asked him "you know exactly what ring I'm talking about come on"
"and you know you're not getting it back until after the date" he said with a grin and offered his arm.
"I hate you" she muttered but took it anyway. She had to make the best of this, it was her own mess and it was her responsibility to clean it up.
"No you don't, you just don't know me" he pointed out.
"No but I know guys like you...and I hate you" she assured him. The over confident athlete who thought he could get any girl that he wanted to. That was not the case with her and she knew that, it was just a matter of making sure that he knew that.
"Just suck it up princess, I promise you'll have fun" that was a very assuming promise.
***
The car ride to where ever he was taking her had started out awkwardly, the silence between them was so thick it could be cut with a knife. The longer he tried to talk to her the easier it became to just let him. He was right, it was one date and she was leaving so she could relax and let her guard down, after all he wasn't a demon she'd already figured that one out.  For the first time in a long time she felt normal. She laughed at his stories as they drove and the hunt and her life was the furthest thing from her mind. She watched him thoughtfully as he talked and for a moment he turned his eyes from the road to look at her and smiled, she smiled in return. He was so painfully normal, just a guy who had no idea who she was, what she did. She was envious of his life, though she suspected he was wasting it, the potential at least. A sadness settled into her as she realized how badly she wanted that. She'd never really thought anything of her life other than knowing it would never change. She didn't let herself care about people because as soon as she did they were taken from her, killed, possessed, or lost when she moved towns. For the first time in her life she actually let herself imagine what it was like to be human, blissfully ignorant and happy. "What's your favorite flower?" he asked suddenly and she turned from her thoughts back to the moment. She'd never been quite so stumped by a question before, but truthfully she didn't have one. To her, a flower was a flower and it wasn't like she had any good memories tied to any specific type.
"I guess I don't have one" She admitted.
"How is that possible, I thought girls obsessed about things like flowers" the wrong flower meant the wrong thing, boy had he learned that the hard way. "All those secret meanings and stuff, I swear you guys have a club" she laughed at the thought but shook her head.
"Some girls maybe but I wouldn't know the difference" she assured him.
"No ones ever given you 'the wrong flowers'?" He asked the disbelief obvious in his voice.
"No, no ones ever given me flowers at all" She corrected and she lurched forward slightly as he hit the brakes.
"What? No one's ever given you flowers? That's impossible..." he accused.
"Ow!" she stated though it hadn't actually hurt, she'd been in some pretty bad crashes in her lifetime a little seat belt tension was hardly going to do any damage. "It's not impossible, it's the truth" he was staring at her like she was some sort of new species of animal at the zoo and it was making her slightly uncomfortable.
"Wait here" he said putting the car into park and climbed out.
"Wait where are you-" he shut the door behind him "going" she finished and with a sigh sat back in her seat. With her luck he was ditching her on the side of the road in a rental car. At least he'd left the keys, that was some sort of act of kindness. After a few minutes she was about to just get up and get out the car. Just as she was undoing her seat belt the door flew open and he slipped back inside handing her a handing of somewhat mangled flowers. She blinked in surprise and a hint of a smile crossed her lips. Seriously? He'd stopped the car to get her flowers, she might have laughed but it was surprisingly sweet, even if she wouldn't dare admit that. It was something she hadn't exactly expected from him. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd expected from him but in the back of her mind she hadn't exactly gotten a thoughtful vibe from him.
"Yeah! I'm a nice guy" he told her in response to her surprised look "Well that, and I was kind of hoping it might help get me laid" he said a joking tone in his voice but she couldn't help thinking he was very serious.
"Don't hold your breath, you'll pass out long before that happens" She told him but as she turned her attention to the window a small smile settled on her lips as she lifted the flowers to smell. Leaning her head forward she let her hair fall to cover her face and hide the smile that had formed there. For the first time in a long time she just felt like a girl, a normal girl on a somewhat abnormal but still enjoyable date. Damn it, she had been convinced he wouldn't deliver now it was going to be really hard to get him to leave her alone, she was going to have to pull one hell of an Oscar performance.
After a couple more minutes of driving he stopped the car and got out and ran around to open her door before she even got the chance to get her seat belt off. "Thanks..." she said hesitantly. He didn't seem like the chivalrous type to be honest so there was a serious hint of doubt hanging in the back of her mind with every action he took to prove otherwise.
"So I know you're not from here" he started "So where are you from?" It was a fair enough question the only problem being the fact that she didn't really have an answer for him.
"I'm, not really from anywhere" She admitted, she had been born in Boston but hadn't been back since her parents had died. Since then they had moved around nearly every week into a new town. The only form of stability had been the lockbox cabin her grandfather had found in the woods somewhere down South. When she'd been really little they'd leave her there alone for days at a time for 'safety' when a hunt was too dangerous but once she'd turned 12 and made her first kill they hadn't needed to do that anymore. "We moved around a lot, still do"
"Ah Military?" He asked and she could do nothing more than shrug her shoulders.
"Something like that"
"You don't talk much" he added and she laughed.
"Yeah well I'm not my favorite topic" she confessed. She would love to be able to talk about herself, but she knew she couldn't, not with her past, and the type of work she did. The less he knew the better.
"I'm from New Orleans.... if you were wondering" he changed the subject without question, something she appreciated and though she'd been dying to know, asking would imply interest and it was safer to remain with as little interest as possible.
"I wasn't" She assured him, even thought she actually had been "I was really more wondering how you ended up here" she admitted as though she really wasn't wondering at all but she knew why she was in this town, she couldn't seem to figure out why on earth he would be.
"Training camp... I'm a kick boxer I've got a match in a couple weeks this is my coach's home town he wanted to be able to spend some time with his family and train at the same time" he stated with a shrug. So she had been right, he was an overconfident athlete, apparently not a very good fighter, or at least not as good as she was. "you don't seem surprised..." he added and she shrugged her shoulders gently.
"I knew you were some sort of jock it was just a matter of what sport...Where are we going?" she asked as she realised they were wandering through the public park with what seemed to be no direction.
"You'll see" he assured her. "can I blind fold you?" he asked curiously with a smart hesitation in his voice.
"Can I cut off your right hand?" she asked. She could see him hesitate for a moment, the look in his eyes as though he were considering weather or not she would actually do that.
"I'm going to assume you're joking and do it anyway" he told her and next thing she knew her eyes were covered.
"Just so you know I have  sensory training" she warned him. Blindfolded combat had been one of the earlier traning exercises their grandfather had taught them and she was perfect capable of retaliating.
"of course you do" he said with a laugh though he suspected that she was being quite serious. "Can you just relax and trust me?" he asked. It was a fair enough question, but trust was not something Amalia Dalton just gave to anyone, there were two people in her life that held her trust and it was only because they watched her back in dangerous situations each day, she had to trust them or she would die.  Hunter, she didn't have to trust but something was preventing her from fighting him, she took it as a sign that he wasn't going to back track, she had an instinct about people, and as annoying as he seemed to be, her danger senses were seriously low.
"Fine" she said carefully "I trust you"

A twist of Fate

Seriously wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I took a two month break from writing my novel (which by the way was close to a completely semi-finished first draft). I just suddenly was not motivated to continue and then I started focusing my attention on the short story which if you've been reading the blog you'll have seen at least one part of I'm sure. Finally yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and take a look at my other manuscript and try to do some more work on it.

That was possibly the worst mistake of my life. In the 10 minutes I worked on it I threw in a twist that was completely out of left field.  Now, it completely reworks the entire dynamic of the story and I have to go back and throw in hints and continue into the end while somehow working this extra tidbit into the basis of the story. I feel like this was some sort of form of procrastination, I was so close to being done and being done meant there was no where to go from there but into the editing process. Is changing the story my way of not finishing it?

That's what I thought, however taking another 10 minutes today, I added in a few sentences reworked a couple paragraphs and suddenly I realised I had connected the seemingly giant gap that had prevented me from deeming this draft complete. Somehow, it is finished. By no means complete, or publishing ready as there had major corrections I have yet to go back and make not to mention this new twist needs to be added in earlier. The bones of the story however are entirely finished. I can't even figure out how this happened and I'm shocked. Now it's just a matter of taking the corrections I received, applying them and reworking,  writing the story a little more until in my eyes it's acceptable to be viewed.

Only one other person, aside from myself has been able to read my writing but considering the amount of time that it took me to actually complete the beginning of the novel (though I had changed it since) reads like a different style. I'm hoping now that the stress of finishing the story is over I can really work on improving the flow of the tale. Fiction is great in the sense that you can write whatever you want, but over time my mind jumped around so much in the story that its a wonder any of it connects at all.

My chaotic mind is now working on formatting what I do have into a template and I will get to revise with my edits from that point. Wish me luck! Here's where the real work begins.

Daltons Part 5

The Dalton's Short Story, Fantasy Fiction continues with Part 5

PART ONE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

PART TWO: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-daltons-short-story-ctd.html

PART THREE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-3.html

PART FOUR: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-4.html

Lia sighed as she heard the phone click on the other end. She felt like screaming, he had every right to be upset, she'd promised the ring would be safe with her and in the few minutes she'd let it out of her sight it had vanished. That guy, at the bar she should have known he was up to something, possibly even a demon, she hadn't bothered to check, that was how distracted she had been. When she'd kissed him, she hadn't been expecting to feel anything she had really just been trying to hide from her brothers. The trouble was, she had felt something, something far more than she'd ever expected and in those few seconds she'd allowed herself to be distracted enough to let the ring slip from her possession and now that idiot was wandering around town doing god knows what with it. This was where she hated to admit that Jake was right, he never let himself get distracted by a girl and in the one time she had everything had backfired on her, guys were trouble plain and simple. That rude, conceited, self absorbed pretty boy had her ring, Tristan's ring and there was nothing she could do about it until she found him. She hadn't even been able to tell her brothers the whole truth, she'd told them part of the truth, she had talked to a guy and he'd managed to take the ring from her. She'd left out the whole hiding and kissing part, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them and she didn't feel like having to deal with their superiority complex right now. Putting her phone back in her bag she got out of the charger and started patrolling the town. He wasn't from there, but she hadn't really been interested enough to find out what he was doing there, she had nothing to go on but a first name and a vague description. If it had been a demon there was a good chance they'd stashed the ring and switched bodies to ensure she couldn't find them. God, she was an idiot; she had never considered herself a stupid person, but in that moment she was almost positive there wasn't a dumber hunter on the entire planet. As she made her way through town she kept her green eyes alert searching for any hint of him. Her first stop was the bar, if her instincts about this guy was right, he probably patrolled there on a regular basis which meant someone would have to recognize him, maybe even have an address for her. As she stepped up to the corner she heard her phone go off in her bag. Reaching in she answered it quickly "What is it Jimmy?" she paused for a moment listening to her brothers voice on the other end "You found him? No, don't, just watch him this is something I need to take care of myself" she told her brother. There was a score to settle and she had to be the one to do it.
****
"She said to leave him" Jimmy told his older brother with a shrug.
"What? You're kidding me right? She sends us out on a man hunt and tells us to stand down?" Jake was already suspicious of this whole situation but even just as he got a look of this guy  his protective instincts went up. Lia was the only sister he had, and the youngest in the family. Once their parents had died, then their Grandfather to follow it had been up to him to step into father mode and that meant making sure nothing happened to anyone else that he cared about. "I'm getting to old for this" he said running a hand along his cropped blond hair twenty-eight was by no means old, but he'd been doing this for fourteen years already, keeping his sister safe, keeping everyone safe, it was his job. Lia would be the death of him, and he didn't mean it in a bad sense. It was never a joke he would make out loud either because he knew, despite her tough exterior, that she blamed herself for the deaths of their family. He still didn't know how an eight year old could possibly rationalize blame for a brutal murder but somehow, she had and continued to do so. Everytime she was out of his sight he worried, what if she got hurt, killed, raped, pregnant, heart broken. He knew he'd trained her well, that their Grandfather had trained them all well but he couldn't stop worrying. He knew that if anything happened to Lia or Jimmy he would just give up on life, there wouldn't be anything left worth protecting, not for him at least. So, he was the hard-ass, he had to be to make sure they listened, to make sure they were safe. He would never be adventurous like Lia, or Carefree like Jimmy but he was the reason they could be both of those things, even if they never knew it. His cold blue eyes narrowed and focused on the guy inside, he was young and didn't look like much a demon but he also knew in their line of work you couldn't judge a book by it's cover. "Lets go" He stated moving inside the diner.
"Jake Wait!" Jimmy said but followed him in anyway pulling him into the furthest booth from the guy. "She said to leave it!" he hissed quietly, normally he wasn't one to disobey his brothers lead but he also wanted to give Lia a chance to fix whatever exactly was going on here which she wouldn't be able to do, if Jake went all Big brother on the guy.
"She also said to keep an eye on him...that's all we're doing relax" Jake said straightening himself up in the seat as his eyes fell back to the kid. "He doesn't look like a demon, an idiot yes, a demon no" he said quietly. The kid was staring at the ring like it was the answer to all of his problems. If Jake didn't know any better he might have classified the guy as lovesick.
"How does he look like an idiot?" Jimmy asked curiously glancing over his shoulder for a good glimpse of the kid. "He looks... like a normal twenty something guy" he said confused.
"Exactly...so an idiot" Jake offered.
"Hey!" Jimmy said turning back to face his brother. "I'm a twenty something guy"
"You just keep making my point" Jake added with a bit of a smirk. Jimmy was not, a textbook idiot in the most obvious sense. He knew Latin, they all did and were fluent in it. He could recite most, if not all urban legends and pagan myths from memory, or at  least know where he needed to look to find the answers. He was however, a kid at heart which Jake usually had no time for. "Wow you don't even have a clever counter for that?" he asked. He had thought they were done with this town, the vampires had been taken care of and they were supposed to get in the car and book it until they found another case. Then, Lia had found that stupid ring and now they were stuck here until she figured out what it meant. Personally he would have just let the guy handle it himself, it wasn't their problem, if his Dad was missing he had probably been messing around in things he never should have been and it had come back to bite him in the ass. "I just want to get the hell out of dodge if you know what I mean" he said his eyes still staring at the kid a few tables away. He had a bad feeling about this, a really bad feeling.
"I'm kind of more interested in this Tristan kid" Jimmy admitted and Jake couldn't help but agree, he'd been thinking the same thing.
"Yeah, the fact that he had that ring in the first place is suspicious enough, but he didn't put it on... he didn't do anything with it, that makes me think he knows a lot more than Lia seems to think he does" he said thoughtfully. If he had something that belonged to his parents, the last thing he'd found of theirs, he'd probably wear it. In fact, he did wear his father's wedding ring on his right hand and he knew Lia had their mothers on a chain around her neck. Jimmy, hadn't wanted anything he said he didn't need them to remember and Jake had never pushed it further than that. Thinking back to Tristan, the kid had also dropped the ring on the middle of the street? If it was his one and only key to finding his father you would think he'd want to be more careful than that. "None of it adds up" he stated, but he still didn't think Tristan was as much of a threat as this kid they were minding now. They could handle whatever came their way, that he was certain of.
****
Pushing through the doors of the diner she heard the bells go off as she entered. Her eyes scanned the room and settled on two familiar faces she hadn't been planning to see inside. Her denfensive nature rose as she saw her brothers there. They shouldn't have been inside, to her it meant they didn't think she could handle herself and there was nothing more infuriating than that. She saw her target at the other end but she wans't even going there until she got them out. Moving to the booth she leaned on the table with her elbows. "So what part of don't do anything was unclear?" she asked her voice was dripping with obvious annoyance and there was nothing she could do to hide it, nor did she want to. "Get out.. I said I would handle this I don't need you hovering" she snapped.
"Fine but this spells trouble Lia I don't like this kid" Jake said
"You don't like anyone" she reminded him but remained steady on her point. "Out! Now" she straightened again and watched them both her green eyes glowing dangerously as she waited for them to listen. After a few brief moments of standing her ground she watched as both her brothers surrendered and stood from the booth moving past her Jake grabbed her wrist as he passed and pulled her to face him.
"I mean it Lia... get the ring and get out" he warned before letting her go and walking out. She was a little shaken by Jake's reaction, he'd always been 'in charge' but he seemed a little more intense than usual and that was enough to put her on edge.Taking a moment to recover she remembered quickly why she'd come there in the first place and quickly turned back around. She slammed directly into someone and it took one look to realise it was Hunter.
"I thought that was you" he said with a grin. "Sorry... I didn't think you were going to head this way" he took a slight step back but was still too close for comfort. Lia had not exactly been expecting to run into him like that, she'd had it all planned out in her mind and this one hitch seemed to have jumbled her thoughts completely. Gaining her composure she looked at him and nodded her head to the door.
"Follow me" she said and turned heading outside. As she moved she slipped a bottle from her bag and once they were safely outside she turned and threw the contents of it in his face.
"What in the hell was that for?" he asked. It wasn't the first drink he'd had thrown in his face he would admit that but usually those were of the alcoholic variety, this just seemed to be water.
"...You're human" she observed. The bottle had been holy water, and there was no way it was faulty she'd created it herself.
"Excuse me?" he asked and she realised quickly he really was just a stupid guy who'd thought it would be funny to take her ring, either that or some kind of common thief. Now it was time to back peddle.
"That! Was for taking my ring you arrogant ass" she said and while that was not the whole truth, it was a substantial part of it.
"This ring?" he asked holding it out for her but pulled his hand back quickly as she reached for it. "One date"
"...what?" she asked. Was he really seriously right now, this was no time for negotiations. "How about you hand it over and I don't kick your ass" and she could see he was amused at the thought as though she wouldn't be able to. He was tall, she'd give him that otherwise she normally would have been able to have it back in a matter of seconds but it was completely out of her natural reach.
"What's one date? I'll give you the ring back at the end. If you don't have a good time I'll leave you alone" he offered and she could feel herself fuming. Of all the low handed tricks he thought he could bargain her into a date with him? It was seriously pathetic, but she also knew it was somewhat working. She wasn't going to have a good time so at least she could assure he'd stop bothering her and well, he was right, what was one date.
"Fine... but you give me the ring now" she said after all it wasn't her ring.
"No way! That's my only leverage babe it sticks with me" he said.
"Don't call me that..." she warned and it was only the crowds of people pushing by that were ensuring his safety at the moment, she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself, not if they were stuck in town for a couple more days. "Meet me here at five with the ring" she said. The grin that appeared on his face, she may as well have been proving to a kid that Santa Claus was real, which of course he was.... but that was a terrifying reality she didn't wish to relive anytime soon.
"You got it" he stated and rolling her eyes she turned on her heels and walked away, only one thing certain on her mind; Jake was not going to be happy.

Daltons part 4

PART ONE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

PART TWO: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-daltons-short-story-ctd.html

PART THREE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-3.html

Hunter sat in the diner twirling something in his hand as he thought to himself. He really didn't know why he'd done this, taken her ring. It had been some sort of weak and desperate attempt to make sure she had to see him again. Pathetic and if there was one thing Hunter did not consider himself it was pathetic. This girl, he didn't know what it was about her but just thinking about her was driving him crazy, he'd tried to find her when she'd left the bar but she'd vanished so quickly he had been starting to wonder if she'd been real at all. The ring was the only hint that she'd existed, he'd slipped it out of her pocket as she'd pulled away from him. He'd watched her slip it in there as he walked up and somehow, it seemed important, important enough that she'd come back for it, for him.
"Hunter!" the shout pulled him out of his trance as he glanced up to see a couple of his buddies looking at him with expectation "We're supposed to be driving those girls out to that party... like ten minutes ago come on"
"What?" he asked with confusion then he searched his brain, oh right, he'd sweet talked a group of girls a few nights earlier into coming out with them to some beach bash the local radio station was throwing, now those girls were the farthest from his mind, not that they're really occupied it for more than a couple minutes. "oh... yeah just go without me not feeling it now" he stated and they stared at him as though he had just told them he was from another planet.
"I'm sorry, I thought I just heard him say he wasn't feeling going to the beach with a group of hot girls.." his friend said the disbelief obvious in his voice. "Someone better call 911 he's got a concussion or something"
"Shut up" he said with a grin but he was seriously hoping they didn't press it. "Just thought I'd actually give you guys a chance to score this time, you know instead of hogging all the attention"
"and there he is... for the record we do just fine without your help but quick lets go before he changes his mind" they joked and with that were out the door in a matter of seconds. They were right, maybe he had hit his head or something but he couldn't stop thinking about this girl. He'd passed up about twenty opportunities to flirt in the past night alone which for him was insane, he never missed an opportunity to flirt. He didn't do just one girl, he'd never been that guy. He had always been impulsive, resourceful, but monogamous? Never. He'd also never been so blatantly rejected like he had been either. He still didn't get it, she wasn't interested in him? It really wasn't possible, he was tall, good looking, fit, what was there not to like about him? Then she'd kissed him, just grabbed him and kissed him like that with no abandon just to walk away. She had felt something she had to, even if it had just been half of what that kiss had done to him, it was enough for him to pursue. He had never wanted to be different, he'd never had an interest in proving anything to anyone he did his own thing and whoever didn't like it could go screw themselves. That had been before last night, he had never met a girl like her and he wasn't willing to leave her alone without making sure she at least gave him a chance to prove himself.

*****

"What do you mean you lost the ring?" Tristan asked in disbelief into the phone. "You promised me you'd take care of it, that it wouldn't 'get into the wrong hands'!" he ran a hand through his long dark hair frustration and worry obvious on his face. That ring was it, all he had to figure out where his father was and what had happened to him, and this girl who had been lecturing him about taking care of it went and let it slip from her grasp. "Oh well as long as you know who has it, do you happen to have their address too?" he said sarcastically. This was unbelievable. "No of course you don't" he muttered. He just wanted to throw the phone at the wall. He needed to stay calm, he knew that he could just have easily have lost it, or had it taken from him but that would have been his own fault, no one to blame but himself, now he had somewhere to place the blame. "Oh good well as long as your brothers are out looking for it" again sarcasm, he didn't even know her brothers what good was it to him whether or not they were on the case. He'd known this girl for less than twenty four hours and she'd already turned his world upside down. "Where are you? I'm meeting you" he said moving to the door to grab his keys and he stopped. "What do you mean no? This is my ring you're looking for or have you forgotten that?" course he wasn't exactly sure he wasn't to piss her off, his neck still hurt from the counter attack she'd used on him. He gripped the keys tightly in his hand as he fought every fibre in his being to argue with her. "FINE" he stated tossing the keys back down by the door "But I swear to God Miss Dalton if I don't find my father because of this I will be holding you personally responsible" He threatened. 

Dalton's Part 3

PART ONE: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

PART TWO: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-daltons-short-story-ctd.html

Lia had spent the past hour talking with the guy who had identified himself as Tristan Cromwell. He hadn't run and there had been no need to shoot him. She had listened as he explained the story, his father, a British businessman, had gone missing recently. The only thing that Tristan had found at the scene out of place was that ring. The cops believed his father had just taken off on some sort of vacation but he hadn't heard from his father in weeks, something evidently that was not normal in their relationship. He had not put it on, there was some comfort in knowing that for she knew that placing the ring on your finger was the equivalent of summoning the demon it had been made for into your body. After some convincing and a promise that she would help him find his father, if she could, he had let her hold onto the ring for further study they would meet again in two days and hopefully she'd have something to offer him. She feared this wasn't the only ring to be found, which meant there was something coming for them she didn't even want to think about. Now, sitting at the bar drink in front of her she twirled the golden ring in her right hand as she waited for something to speak to her, some sort of lightbulb to go off in her brain. As she continued to stare at the ring a shadow stepped up beside her blocking the already dim lighting.

"Can I buy you a drink?" a guy interrupted her train of thought
"I'd rather you just gave me the money" she stated slipping the ring into her jacket pocket before lifting her eyes to meet the guy who had spoken to her. She had not been expecting someone so tall. It was made all the more noticeable by the fact that along with his towering height he had the build to match. With dirty blond hair and tanned skin to match it was obvious along with the slight hint of a southern accent that he did not belong in town anymore than she did. He laughed at her surprise to her snarky comment before he signaled the bartender to bring her another drink. Well so much for that theory. 
"You're not from around here" he observed and it was all she could do to roll her eyes at the obvious statement.
"And neither are you" she stated. Perhaps she was being a bit rude but the last thing she needed on her plate right now was some Frat boy fishing for a hook-up and wasting her time, and his.
"I bet I've been here longer, I could show you around after you finish that drink" he offered. God he was transparent, truly and normally she might have flirted a little back but she had other things on her mind and she wasn't about to occupy any of it with him. "Not interested" honestly she just wanted to be alone, she'd been ignoring her brothers calls and so far they hadn't managed to find her, for one night she just wanted a few minutes to herself.
"...wait what?" he seemed genuinely shocked that she'd just turned him down.
"you heard me right, not interested" she repeated. 
"Why? You have a boyfriend or something?" he asked
"No, you're just not my type" not that she had any idea who, or what her type really was she just knew it wasn't the guy standing beside her.
"I'm everyone's type.." the hesitation in his voice was almost humorous, she could hear the fact that he sincerely thought he was hot stuff and a little confused at the idea that someone might not think the same.
"Well that's not conceited at all" She said sarcastically "And you're not mine, sorry I don't know what to tell you" she said turned her attention away again. There was nothing more to it, she simply wasn't interested and a honestly a little busy at the moment. As a silence fell she thought he'd walked away but a few seconds later she heard the voice again. 
"Come on... you can't be serious. Lets go out I'll pick you up here tomorrow" he offered and it was her turn to be confused. Was he being serious? 
"What don't you understand about not interested?" she asked and focused her green eyes again on the guy for the second time. He was, she supposed, attractive enough but she could tell he thought so too and that was enough to turn her off.
"I just think you're lying..." he accused and it actually caused her to laugh. 
"Okay sorry to shatter your reality buddy but there are just some people that don't find you irresistibly attractive okay, and I just happen to be one of them, I'm sure your ego will recover and you'll be fine" she assured him before she stood up to go. He stepped to the side and stopped her and she couldn't help but smile. She wasn't getting threatening vibes from him, just seriously annoying ones, not to mention the fact that she thought about how funny it was that despite his size she knew she could take him down in a few swift motions. She stopped trying to get past him and just stared at him for a moment, wow he was really tall, she noticed the difference more now that she was standing in front of him the top of he head probably only came just above his shoulders and she was slightly taller than average.
"Just one date, what harm can that do?" he asked suddenly more determined than ever.
"With you? I feel like a lot more than I'm willing to risk" she said not that she meant it. "You don't even know my name" she pointed out, or how old she was for that matter, anything about her other than what she looked like and that she was definitely not interested in him. 
"Fine what's your name?" he asked
"None of your business" she responded still smiling moving to step past him again. For some reason this was a lot more fun than she had ever thought it could be. He moved in front of her again and she sighed.
"I'm Hunter" he offered and she nearly laughed again. Talk about irony. 
"That's nice" she was determined not to give him her name, not that she thought he could do anything with it.
"Oh come on if you don't give me a name how will I find you again?" he asked with a stupid grin on his face.
"Hopefully you won't" she started and her green eyes were drawn quickly to the door of the bar as she watched her brothers walk in. They were undoubtedly looking for her and she'd been ignoring their calls since she'd left the diner. The last thing she needed to deal with was them catching her talking to some random guy in the bar and them making a big deal out of something that wasn't really an issue. "shit" she muttered and did the first thing she could think of to hide, grabbing the guy by the collar of his shirt she pulled him in and kissed him. Her brothers, skilled hunters as they were would glance right over the sight of a supposed couple making out at the bar and move on. After a few seconds she forgot her reasoning as he kissed her back and for a brief moment she actually allowed herself to get lost in it, her heart was racing  until the snap back to attention pulled her into reality again, this wasn't her and despite how date starved she was, she was not the type of girl to hook up at the bar. She pulled away and stared up at him meeting his eyes just for a few seconds, boy were they blue. She was speechless both in the fact that she'd just done that and well, he might have been a little more her type than she had initially thought he was. As he leaned in to kiss her again she moved away. "See..." she started her voice catching slightly as she first spoke "nothing there, oh well we tried right bye" She said and actually managed to slip past him this time and toward the exit.
"Wait-" she heard him start and it was just enough to get her to turn around and look back. 
"It's Lia...by the way" she offered with a smile before she turned and made her way back to her car.


Part 4 Here: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-4.html

Not so Original, Original idea?

I have this problem where I find there is no such thing as an original idea. Or, if you do have an original idea, as though there is a chip in your mind a few years later someone comes along and you see your idea spread out for all to see. Problem? You didn't get any of the credit it! Writing seems to be a medium where this happens a lot for authors.

I can't even tell you the amount of times this has happened to me and it's starting to become a running joke, to the point where I don't even bother telling people my ideas anymore because on some strange unconscious level there is a paranoia that just speaking it will ensure it's stolen. Serious crazy town set up going on in the mind, but what then do we classify as an original idea? How do we protect our mind from penetration. Not literally of course, after all Inception is not real...right?

As a writer and aspiring novelist my biggest fear is being just another book on the shelf. I have already, once had to completely rework my novel because a TV show emerged baring a frighteningly exact same storyline and character layout more or less. Ironically the story line was, loosely based on a series of books I'd never even heard of let alone read (though strangely enough the show was not much like the show or so I'm told). So, my exciting story became the victim of my frustration as I tore apart the foundations and completely reworked the idea. 

It still had similar basis as far as amount of characters and what they were because that was just a fundamental part of the story I could not, and would not change. It did however turn to work in a surprising idea I had not expected to work out at all and completely turned the direction of my story entirely backward. Though I am inspired and interested by the turn which my story has taken it is proving to be a lot more work in research and back reading. This original idea is not so original in the fact that it is drawing from and alluding to mythology and literary works of Irish pagan culture and folklore. So I have now a possibly original (who really knows at this point stay the hell away from my mind!) idea, filled with inspiration from my heritage and culture.

Is my story then unoriginal? Or is it still original? Where is the line and what defines it and how on earth are we supposed to create an original idea in a work full of creative minds and centuries of published ideas and stories. At what point as we drawing literary allusion and just plain old copying?

A Dalton's Short Story ctd...

A continuation of the first part of my short story about the Dalton Family.  Part 1 can be found here http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/04/a-daltons-short-story.html

There was nothing quite like celebratory burgers with her brothers, especially when she was vegetarian. Finding a half decent veggie burger in any place was hard, but in a rinky dink town like this one, it was next to impossible. The road life made her nutrition choices slightly more difficult than average, most motels didn’t have a place to cook and fast food wasn’t the kindest to vegetarians, not to mention the fact that hunting didn’t exactly pay well, or at all for that matter. Day to day they made it by on their inheritance (which had not been very much and practically extinct) and running successful credit card scams. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but it was how they lived. It was their job to protect people where they couldn’t protect themselves, even if it meant struggling to get by. Sitting there watching her brothers as they scarfed down the meat like wild dogs she wrinkled her nose slightly in disgust. “Alright while you too savagely enjoy yourselves I’m finding a bar” she muttered standing up from the booth and slipping outside before either of them could utter a protest. They had stopped by the motel before eating to wash off the vampire blood. The general public didn’t take kindly to strangers covered in blood, while the motel didn’t seem to be able to tell the difference. She knew that they'd passed a bar on the way and the only thing she'd wanted to do was get a drink. The life was hard for anyone but when you kept losing the people you cared about, it suddenly become that much more difficult to deal with. She knew her brothers hated when she went out alone, deemed her 'prey' for guys and all she could do was roll her eyes at the idea. She was trained to a military grade and beyond with all sorts of tricks up her sleeve to blindside someone, she knew that it was really a lot less about her safety and a lot more fear of her getting a date.  Over protective didn't even begin to describe her big brothers. Over baring or smothering perhaps were better terms. Since had been 8 years old they'd never spent even a day apart, they'd been stuck in the same car, the same room. Privacy was just not a world that entered into the Dalton vocabulary not matter how much she desperately craved it. Twenty-two, she was twenty-two years old and never been on a real date, it was pathetic really but at this point she had accepted that it was just her life. She knew James was in the same boat and it brought her a bit of comfort at least to know she wasn't completely alone. Jake, did not have the same problem, being the oldest he pretty much did what he wanted to do and somehow seemed to find girls around every corner, they didn't seem to be intimidated by his siblings the way the way the guys were of her brothers, he got around so much in fact she wouldn't have been surprised to find they'd left a little Dalton running around somewhere along the way. Double-standard was a word she liked to throw around a lot in his face but it didn't matter how much she fought she still never seemed to find a minute alone except brief moments like this one.

 

 

It was fine, truly she knew dating wasn't really a feasible option for her lifestyle anyway. She was never in one place long enough and she risked her life every second of the day, dragging someone else through that was just unrealistic and cruel, something Jake apparently didn't seem to care about, not that she would exactly call what he did dating. Moving quickly through the street she kicked her worn cowboy boot at something shiny on the ground before she stopped suddenly and stared at it for a moment. At first glance she'd thought it was nothing but a quarter on the ground but as she looked closer she realized it was a ring, a very distinctive one at that. The intricate designs on the band clicked something in her memory. The words were in Latin Tenebris resurrexerit Darkness Resurrected and she felt her throat begin to tighten as the memories started to flow. Tenebris resurrexerit, she had studied it, the saying of a demonic secret society that relished in creating whole communities of demons, controlling the outcomes of society through powerful leaders. The Fratres Mortis, brothers of death, were infamous but they were long thought to be extinct. Throughout history theory and speculation fluttered around the great and vicious rulers, all under the control of demonic possession and no one any wiser than the next. As she reached for it a voice suddenly stopped her.

 

"Touch that only if you have a death wish" the voice came from the Alley to her left and she moved to her feet again quickly just in time to counter an attack. He made the mistake of grabbing her arm which only gave her the advantage. She flipped herself around and bent to swing her leg behind his knocking him down to the ground. She rested her knee on his chest her arm bent placing pressure on his neck holding him into place.

 

"Don't touch me" she said simply. She didn't like it and her reflexive instincts always kicked into high gear. Her green eyes stared at him intently looking for some tell-tale sign of supernatural but there was nothing. A puzzled look passed through her eyes as she loosened her hold on him just slightly. "You're human..." she said surprise obvious in her voice, she hadn't expected that.

 

"Yeah-" he coughed clearly trying to catch his breath from having been slammed hard on the ground. "But clearly you're not" he said a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he spoke and also a hint of an accent, he was British. The accent had caught her off guard for just a moment but she quickly snapped back into hunter most. She pressed her arm down harder on his throat maybe he'd be less of a smart ass if he had even more trouble breathing.

 

"Where did you get that ring?" she demanded, it wasn't just a general possession someone carried around with them, and judging but how easily she'd dominated him she had serious doubts about his status as a hunter, at least a decent one that would know anything about the Fratres Mortis.

 

"Bought it at a thrift shop" he said and she pressed her knee down harder now and watched as he winced. "Okay- Okay lay off will you.... you're a charmer you know that" he added sarcasm still evident but she didn't really care what he thought, she was far more concerned about how he had ended up in possession of something she'd only even seen in old photographs and paintings. As she let her guard down slightly she actually took in the appearance of the guy. He was about her age, maybe a little older but the similarities between them stopped there. His eyes were dark, black nearly and if she couldn't clearly have seen the difference between the pupil and the iris she might have suspected he was possessed his hair, black as night hung long around his face just above his shoulders. His skin was darker, but not like hers her fair skin, even at its best tan was nothing more than a gentle glow, his olive skin suggested a hint of Spanish background, a faint hint perhaps but it was definitely there. "Are you going to let me up or just check me out all night?" he asked and it pulled her attention back quickly.

 

"Don't flatter yourself" she muttered but part of her couldn't deny the fact that she had been slightly checking him out even just a little bit, but the comment had still caught her off guard. "I'll let you up when you answer my question" she added and for a moment they just stared at each other waiting to see if the other would give in, if there was one thing about Amalia Elizabeth Dalton, it was that she almost never, gave in.

 

"Do we have to talk about it here?" he asked "on the ground?" No, she supposed they didn't but letting him up risked the chance that he would grab the ring and run, and a ring like that in the wrong hands was a dangerous artifact.

 

"No, but I'll tell you one thing, if you so much as think of running; I'll shoot you"

Part 3 Here: http://thewriteaddictions.blogspot.ca/2013/07/daltons-part-3.html

A Struggle of Emotion

The creative mind it's not an easy thing to live with. Inside your head are so many different worlds and characters, pain and emotions that don't even belong to you. As an artist you look around you see the hurt the struggles of others and you guilt and worry. You can be overly sensitive to the things around you and its so easy to go over the edge. Look at the correlation between artistic, creative talent and mental illness and the results are astounding. Looking into the history of so many of them you find a coping mechanism of alcohol or substance abuse. So many historically dealing with depression and as you look into the strength and personal drive and struggle it takes to create and immerse yourself another world it's not that surprising. I've found so many studies to have looked into it claiming a correlation, though others have tried to disprove it. One study claimed 71% of famous 20th century writers had alcoholism 71%! That is almost 3/4 of the writing population. That's an insanely high number. It begs the question of what to do about it. To drown out the emotions that drive you is to squash your creative talent all together.

 "Write drunk; edit sober.” - Ernest Hemingway

 Are we really two drastically different people when we write? There is such a difference between the inspiration that drives the creative flow and the person who has to read it over again. Personally when I'm writing and really writing, there's no stopping me until everything in my mind has been placed on the page. It's part of the reason I write in such a chaotic manner. I don't write from beginning to end, I write beginning, end, middle, more middle, end again. I need to get my ideas out while they're still there, still fresh and interesting. To go back and try to remember produces a lesser product. If it means dropping everything to run and write it all down, I do it. I can only write in a chaotic state, if I'm too calm, too distracted analytically nothing will flow, it's the time to read back over my work and find all the flaws I couldn't notice when I was writing.

 "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." -Ernest Hemingway

 Writing especially fiction would seem as though it's less personal but despite what you've written on the page, real or not allowing others to look at it it is allowing them to look into your soul and experience the emotions  the terror, the fear, the worry that you feel. You're translating it into your characters. Though you may never have literally been hanging on the edge of a cliff for dear life, it's a reference to your emotional state.

 They say to write what you know, and what you know may not be life as an adopted 16 year old witch who holds the power to fall between good and evil...beneath the base of the story is your life, your hopes and dreams, your beliefs and morals. It's all there for the world to see if anyone truly wants to look. Maybe I should stop quoting Hemingway as an example of a great creative mind dealing with the struggle as his didn't exactly end happily ever after. I was reading a book the other day where two writers were having a correspondence that went 'I now know why Hemingway shot himself' which was responded with 'Yeah, because he couldn't drink himself to death fast enough'

 It's not to discredit a horrific end to a beautiful mind, it's to show that the stress of dealing with it is something so many can relate to. Every human being is different, we feel different, love different, hurt differently.  What causes stress for one person may be nothing to another. There are so many factors, personality, age, mental state, upbringing, even genetics. The fragile breaking point is different for everyone.

 “And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.” - Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 To say 'it could be worse' is always true but does that really make it better? When you're feeling so strongly over something, it's true, and life could always be worse but it doesn't make a difference to how you are feeling about yourself, about your life. Thinking of the misfortune of others, having it thrown in your face just adds to it. The upset and pain you feel living in a relatively good life and to have to think, and imagine the pain of someone worse off than you. How do you not feel it, not care. You don't dismiss your own pain, you add to it and you keep adding.

 “It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.” - Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 If that is true for a reader, if you can become the book, the character, believe that these things are happening, feel and experience the emotions that have been placed on the page for you, think of those who have sat back and pulled these things from their own minds, their own lives.

Would you go to Mars?

So this whole Mars One reality show, first space settlement is the biggest story lately it seems. Would you go? Here's why I absolutely would not, ever go.

1) It's freaking cold up in Mars the warmest read has been something like 23 degrees Celsius  The coldest? Closer to -143 degree Celsius. I know I'm from Canada but geeze, come on.

2) Uh wouldn't be able to handle the 10 year trip there stuck in one place. Cabin fever anyone? I don't care how many other people are with you there's still no where to go! No escape.

3) The obvious reasons, my family and friends are all here and I wouldn't want to leave them behind and never come back just to be the first to go somewhere.

Pros and Cons?

Pros:
-I'd probably get a lot of writing done because what else would you do up there.

-it would be interesting?
-you would definitely make the history books 

-you'd be assisting in space exploration and planatary evolution. Krypton would be proud

-could make lifetime friends you'd sort of have to actually 

-could meet a Martian!! 

Cons

- remember that people only seem to remember one person who else was up there with Neil Armstrong again? Oh yeah you have no idea! (Buzz Aldrin I do actually know that as do quite a few people but most people don't and anyone else?) 

- no escape... Again you'd be. Stuck forever and ever with the select group of people who went up there with you FOREVER!! forever Is an awfully long time

-what if one of the people you're sent with is a secret psychopath or something

-medical care would be limited how would you get anything there. Oh sure just give us another 10 years to get to that equipment. 

-you'd be on fucking Mars... Yeah think about that.

What do you think? Would you go? 

Secret songwriter

So evidently I completely forgot about the fact that in my Junior and Senior year (or Grade 11 and 12) I had dabbled some in lyric writing. Most if it was some pretty depressing stuff, though admittedly I don't think I was as emotionally involved in these songs, or their subjects as the lyrics may suggest I think perhaps I was just really good at inserting myself into the fiction of the idea. They say write what you know, but I feel like the really good writers write what they don't know as if they do. Anyway here's the song, I recorded it  too just to see if I remembered the tune, might post that recording at some point in the future when I'm not horribly embarrassed of my voice.

Verse 1:
As the days go by, I sit and wait
Until the day I can see your face again
like the sun you watched over me when it was light
but when times got dark you were out of sight
when I'm feeling low I want to see your face
so you can bring the warmth you used to bring to me
so, now I'm really gone and I need to say
I miss you more everyday.

[refrain] and I want to you to know
that I'm thinking of you and
wondering if I even cross your mind
and If the day comes when you want to see me
I think you'll find I've lost my mind over you.

Verse 2:
Looking at these walls I see nothing but pain
and I can't wait to see the world again
with the bright blue skies, happy faces
and I can't wait to go to all the places,
I miss and see running through my mind
just I hope the chance this time.

[refrain]

Verse 3:
the longer I'm here, the shorter life I'll live
and everyday I've got less to give
 and the day will come when they'll toss me on the street
and maybe with strength I'll follow my feet back home

[refrain x2]