Chapter 15 #2
“I want you to go ahead of me to Casimir’s. I need to find Johnny, and I’ll meet you there.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You expect me to believe any of that? You’re just going to run off and play hero, and I’m going to be stuck knowing I’m the one who caused all of this.”
Atticus shakes his head. “You didn’t cause all of this; do you honestly think Morpheus wouldn’t have gotten his way? He was just looking for some way to control me.”
I still can’t help but feel responsible for it, though. “I’m not leaving you. I’m going to help you. I’m not the weak teenager you met all those years ago.”
“Weak? You called me a vampire, lit me on fire, and stole shit from me.”
I smile at the memory.
“Don’t look so fucking smug about it,” he grumbles.
“I’m trying not to… but I really felt quite pleased about it.
I’d vowed that I was going to kill all vampires when I got older, and then there I was finally coming across a vampire for the first time and realizing that I had absolutely no skills to do anything to you.
Really, what did I think I was going to accomplish when I never actually trained to fight?
I kept going, ‘I’ll learn how to be a vampire hunter next week,’ and then…
it never happened. So I decided to light you on fire and steal your shit instead.
And then after you saved me from those slavers, I knew you were a good guy. ”
Atticus huffs. “I just wanted you to stop talking, and while working on that, the slavers decided to annoy me. I didn’t intentionally save you.”
“It was really sexy how you just ran in and saved my life.”
His expression oddly sours a little bit. “Uh… huh.”
I smile at him. “Was it love at first sight for you too?”
“First sight? You were a fucking teenager. Don’t make this creepy. And I’m not in love with you. I tolerate you.”
“It’s damn near the same thing,” I say.
“It is not.”
“Can I have one more hug before the clock strikes midnight and you turn back into being evil?”
“Just for saying that, I have no interest in hugging you.”
I gasp and grab him in a hug anyway. He stands there limply, but he does tolerate it, making me so very happy. I close my eyes and burrow my head against his shoulder. “We’re going to be the ultimate couple.”
“We’re not dating.”
I squeeze him tighter before I hear a slow clap and jump, surprised I didn’t hear anyone come up, but at least I immediately know who it is even before I turn to look. “Fucking hell, Johnny. Make some noise when your creeper ass comes up.”
“I see you have acquired him, sir. You must be positively thrilled to have him back,” Johnny says.
Atticus grimaces while he presses a hand to my face and peels me off. “I am thrilled by nothing. Let’s go.”
I turn my smile on Johnny as I rush over to him. “Was he fretting over me? Was he worried about me?”
“Johnny, if you speak even a word, I will increase your debt by tenfold.”
Johnny briefly stands stone-still before looking at me. “I know nothing.”
“That must mean he was. Johnny, did you get hurt?” I ask when I notice the tear on his shirt and the blood coloring it. I’ve never seen him not in tip-top shape.
“I’m fine. You seem slightly better.”
“Yes, I can finally use my hand, at least, and most of the new wounds are actually healing,” I say.
“Stop chatting and let’s go,” Atticus demands. I hurry after him and get into the car. He stops to talk to Johnny, so I carefully listen while he tells Johnny what happened with Morpheus.
“I want you to take Yorick to Casimir—”
I shove the car door open and jump out. “I’m not going without you.”
Atticus shakes his head. “Just go to Casimir’s and sit tight.”
“Why wouldn’t we do this together?” I ask. “Why do you think you need to shoulder the whole thing? Didn’t you help Ezio and Cyrus? And you helped Casimir… I know they’d all be more than happy to help us.”
“Why sentence them to death? This isn’t their fight,” Atticus says.
“It wasn’t our fight all those other times, either, and yet we still helped them. They might have thoughts or ideas about what to do. Please don’t run off and do this on your own,” I beg. “We all need to recover tonight anyway.”
“I believe a night of rest would hurt no one,” Johnny says.
Atticus glowers at us but wordlessly gets into the car as Johnny heads for his.
I hurriedly get into the passenger seat before he can drive off without me.
I stare at Atticus for a while, wondering why he’s actually listening to me.
He’s always called me the stubborn one, but I feel like he’s just as stubborn.
Eventually, I say, “You told me before that I didn’t understand… and I assume what you wanted to discuss was about Morpheus. Obviously, I’ve known him for years, but you’ve never told me more than what I’ve seen firsthand. What happened to you during the five hundred years before I was alive?”
Atticus is quiet for several minutes as he drives, and I’m afraid I’m not going to get anything else from him, but finally he begins speaking.
“Morpheus has been a vicious and calculating man since the moment I was brought into his life when I was about twenty. He kept hundreds of slaves that he used either to feed from or work for him, and I was just one of the many. I stood out to him because I was strong and a good fighter, so he kept me around just to force me to fight against other poor souls he’d acquired for mere sport.
It was all a sick game to him… the more they bled, the better.
He found sport in the cruelest of things, and it quickly became a life of do or die. ”
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “The shit I did for him, even as a human… I’m not a good person.”
“You had no choice,” I say. “You just said yourself that you’d have died if you didn’t do what you were told.”
“I like to believe that I did what I had to. But it was a miserable existence. We were toys in his sick life, forced to do his bidding. The ones who lost, he’d eat and toss their bodies.
Morpheus didn’t even care that he could feed from them and keep them alive to feed from again.
He said the blood tasted better as they were dying.
For years, I was forced into such depraved situations.
I couldn’t get close to anyone because once I did, he’d throw me in a fight against them just to remind me that I wasn’t allowed any happiness in that life.
If we refused to fight, he’d beat us and starve us until we had no choice but to fight if we wanted to live…
“Then, years later, other vampires attacked him, wiping out nearly all of his humans. I tried to use the confusion to flee. I was prepared to live my life in seclusion if I could just get away from him. But one of the attacking vampires found me and ripped me apart, knowing that I was one of Morpheus’s favorites.
Before I could die, Morpheus, who had come out victorious, found me and knew that the only way to keep me alive was to turn me.
And so he did… but life as a vampire was no different.
He could just push me harder. As the years went on, I tried to escape a few times, but each time, he would drag me back with ease and tear me apart…
he’d break my legs but keep me in a position where I couldn’t heal, or stake me to the wall and keep me from removing the stakes so I’d be forced to wait in pain and misery, all so he could punish me for thinking I could get away.
“For three hundred years, I lived as a pawn of that man. I never wore chains, but I might as well have. He was over a thousand years old, and I was like a toy to him. Sometimes he’d leave me alone for years and I would think I could finally get away, but he always kept an eye on me.
He always knew where I was and how to find me.
It was only a matter of time before he came to gather me again. And you know most of the rest.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him as I fiddle with the zipper on my shirt. “I didn’t know you went through so much when you were younger.”
“It’s been many years,” he says. “I only told you this because I want you aware how depraved Morpheus is. He will control you to get what he wants. Right now, he wants to take a swing at an extremely powerful man. I’m just not sure why, yet.”
“I wish you’d have told me this before,” I mutter. “I knew he was a horrible person, but you never told me why. Maybe I wouldn’t have wandered off alone if you had. How strange.”
Atticus side-eyes me. “I didn’t think you’d run off.”
“You know I always do the opposite of what you think! You should know this by now!”
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” he grumbles.
We’re silent for a minute before I look over at him. “Are you okay? I know it’s been a long time since he bothered us… and now he’s back… Dealing with him again after so many years of trauma must be hard.”
He scoffs. “You think I have trauma from that asshole?”
“Uh… a lot?” I mumble.
“I don’t have shit. Worry about yourself.”
“Oh look, your trauma is making you deflect everything I’m saying.”
The look he gives me tells me that he believes none of that.
I sit quietly for a bit as I fiddle with my zipper some more before laying my head against the car door window. “I think I’d feel happier if you bought me something.”
“You’re already back to this?”
“I want something to hug… or are you going to let me hug you?”
“Hug Julian.”
“Will you be jealous?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I don’t want to.”
“Why the fuck… never mind. Take a nap or something.”
I watch his handsome face closely. “You want to know something?”
“Not really.”
“You smell delectable.”
He gives me an incredulous look and then waves to himself. “I’m over here half starved, coated in my own blood, and—”
“Yeah, I’m not ashamed. You smell very tasty.”
Atticus sighs. “You want my shirt to suckle on?”
I chuckle and close my eyes. “No, but you need to heal up quickly because I’m hungry.”
“I’m not your buffet bar.”
“That’s not fair when you look as good as one.”
He ignores me, and I grin, feeling so relieved to have him by my side again.