Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Valtu nods and gets us another order of negronis. I guess I’m on a mission to get drunk tonight and I think he’s on that same mission.
He watches me curiously as I have another large sip of my drink.
“For what it’s worth, Dahlia, I think you’ve changed into an incredible woman.”
I would have laughed at that cheesy line if only he didn’t look so sincere. “You didn’t know what I was like as a child,” I tell him. “Most people only change for the worst when horrible things happen to them.”
“Most people get stronger,” he says quietly. “Most, but not all. So which one were you? Did you get stronger? Or did you change for the worse?”
I tap my fingernails along the glass, noticing the chipped black tips of my shoddy manicure. “Both.”
Because before my parents died, I at least had love in my life, from them. I had love and I was innocent. After they died, all love for me was gone, and my innocence was lost.
I became a killer.
“Who took care of you after they died? Where did you go?” he asks.
I suck on my lip for a moment, wishing I could tell him the truth, so that he could really see why I’d changed. “I went with an uncle.”
A lie. Bellamy came from nowhere. I’d only known him for a couple of weeks before my parents died. He came to visit, stayed nearby. He had a lot of interest in me and my parents humored him but it came from a place of unease. Looking back, I wonder if my mother had feared him. My father definitely didn’t like him. But they explained that he would be hanging around because of the guild. They didn’t tell me why at the time, nor did they seem to want me to have anything to do with him.
Then they were murdered.
I found them in the kitchen after school one day.
The blood…there was so much blood. That’s what I remember the most. It was broad daylight and the blood was everywhere and later I would scream because these fucking vampires didn’t even bother to feed from them. They just killed them and left the blood, like it wasn’t worth tasting.
“I take it things weren’t so happy under your uncle’s care,” he says carefully, and I can feel his eyes on me, studying me. I don’t want to give anything away but I feel this need to let it out.
I shake my head, not wanting to meet his gaze. I stare at the dark waters of the canal instead. “I didn’t know him well. I was in shock, obviously. He took me to this small town, on a cove, in the middle of nowhere, northern end of the island. New school and new everything. I had money, you know he had money. But he…” I try to find the right words, “he was fake. He never really cared about me. I found that out later. I thought that because he took me in, you know, that it meant he would be a parent. But I don’t think he ever saw me as a human being. We had a falling out a couple of years ago and I learned how counterfeit our relationship was. I had always been…disposable to him.”
“Do you still talk to him?”
I’m about to shake my head but I stop. I tell the truth. “I wish I didn’t. He has this…hold on me that I can’t explain. It’s like even though I know he doesn’t value me as a person, I still want his attention. Pretty pathetic if you ask me.”
“That’s not pathetic, Dahlia. That’s just…human.”
“Then sometimes I wish I wasn’t human.”
His eyes glimmer darkly. “You don’t want that.”
I know he’s speaking from experience but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a vampire. To have that edge, to not have to play by society’s rules. Maybe if I had known how I was different, why I was different from everyone else, I wouldn’t have become what I am. Vampires seem to own that, they revel in it, in being different. I barely feel human most days, barely feel like I exist here at all, and it kills me deep inside how not normal I am. Even sitting with someone else, having drinks and a conversation and taking part in society like everyone else feels utterly fucking foreign to me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks quietly after I’ve stewed in my head for far too long.
I don’t know why I keep feeling this need to be honest with him. I guess it’s because I have been honest to a fault with people, opening up to people who don’t even deserve it, people who aren’t safe, and yet I’ll never be totally open to the core of who I am. I live a lie no matter where I go. Most humans in this world don’t know I’m a witch, don’t know what I’ve been indoctrinated to do, don’t even know vampires exist. Back at home, I have a friend or two that will hang out with me, but they don’t know what I am, and only seem to like me when I’m wearing a mask, pretending to be whatever they want me to be, whatever role they think I fit for the evening. And if I were to be in a real relationship with someone, I would have to hide my true nature from them. No matter where I go, I can never truly reveal myself.