Gerard

I had a feeling in my gut that something was wrong the minute we were within a mile of the palace. I tightened my grip on the wheel, glancing over at Frank who was still hugging his legs to his chest and staring out of the window tiredly, his eyes drooping slightly.

I glanced back at the road and squinted my eyes when I saw a faint flare of orange in the distance. I sped the car up a little. It couldn’t be sunrise yet. It was hours away. There was no the sun was coming, the moon was still out and the sky was still an inky black, dotted with bright stars.

And yet there it was, a faint warm glow in the distance.

When we got closer the feeling my stomach worsened and I felt psychically sick. As I turned the corner and the palace gates appeared in front of me, I slammed down on the breaks, gasping with horror.

On the edge of the cliff where the palace sat, fire was spreading. The palace was burning, fire crawling up the walls and destroying everything in its path. The windows were shattered and flames were bursting from the broken windows. Dark little silhouettes of other vampires were darting outside of the palace, fire engines hopelessly spraying jets of water at the fire.

“Gerard…” Frank whispered.

I flung myself out of the car and started sprinting up the steep driveway that led up to the palace, Frank following closely behind me. There were ambulances and paramedics rushing around amongst the firemen and fire engines and vampires everywhere.

I watched in horror as a woman staggered through the front doors, her clothes and hair on fire. Her flesh was burnt and she looked like she was about to pass out. I raced towards her before she could collapse, laying her on the ground and helping her roll over, putting the fire out. She stared up at me in a confused daze. I watched in despair as the light faded from her eyes and her chest stopped rising.

I stood up and placed my jacket over her body before stepping away from her. I spotted a huddle of other humans stood away from the panicking vampires, watching the scene with terrified eyes. I spotted Ray amongst them.

“Frank, go and wait over there with Ray and the others. I’ll be back in a minute,” I told him quickly, nodding my head in the direction of Ray before running of towards one of the firemen.

“What happened?!” I demanded the second I reached him.

“The werewolves attacked,” he explained. “Hundreds of them all attacked the palace at once and killed most of the vampires and then set the palace on fire.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “The humans-what about the humans in the dungeons?”

His lip curled up. “What about them?”

“Did nobody think to let them out?!” I screamed at him, my blood boiling with rage and anger.

He flinched at my outburst. “No. Getting humans out of there hasn’t been our priority your
Majesty. We’ve rescued all the vampires however.”

“I don’t fucking care about them! I care about all the people chained up in the dungeons!” I continued to scream at him. “I want a team in there right now! You fucking hear me?! You get them out of there NOW!”

“B-but-” he spluttered before I cut him off.

I don’t know what it was that made me do it, but I found my fist swinging into his face.

I’ve never struck anybody in my entire life.

But I was so angry that I didn’t care. I grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him up to me.

“I don’t fucking care! You go in there and get them out!” I spat at him.

“Gerard! What are you doing?!”

I whipped around the see my parents marching towards me.

“We need to send a team in to get out the people in the dungeons! They’re still all locked up down there, they’ll die!” I yelled at them.

“Gerard, now is not the time to be preaching your ideas to everyone! Don’t be stupid! The humans aren’t getting rescued! The ones that made it out by themselves are the only ones that survived,” my mother snapped at me.

I glared at her before breaking into a sprint towards the front doors.

“GERARD NO!” my father screamed at me.

But it was too late. I was already bounding over the threshold and into the flames.