Chapter 22 #3
By the time I slip into a clean pair of clothes, I feel like a new woman. The blood has been washed away, taking the terrible memories with it. All that’s left to do now is pick up the broken pieces of the mirror.
I kneel down and begin carefully picking up the larger shards first. Too many of them are coated in Kole’s blood, and even though I know he’s healed himself by now, I can’t help but feel an aching in my chest, knowing his brother was the cause of this.
“Ow!”
Kole is kneeling beside me before the blood even begins to break through my skin.
“I told you I’d clean it up,” he scolds, assessing the cut on my thumb.
“It’s just a little cut,” I assure, pulling my hand away. His fangs snap out, and he quickly turns his head away as the blood begins to pool on my fingertip. “I’ll put a Band-Aid over it, and it’ll be good as new.”
“We don’t have Band-Aids here!” he snaps.
“Okay… then I’ll just wrap it in some toilet paper until it stops bleeding.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he hisses, snatching my hand. His right fang sinks into my thumb for only a second before he pulls away. “There.”
The cut, made from the shard, closes up in an instant. “How did you—”
“Our fangs release a sort of antivenom that heals the area we bite. That’s why you’re never left bleeding after Thane bites you.” I reach for the place on my neck where the mark is, realizing I had never given it much thought.
“Why are you so mad about a little cut?” He’s barely looked at me, and there’s still waves of irritation rolling off of him like I did this on purpose.
He snatches my face in between his palms. “Because, Grey. Just the smell of your blood makes me want to drown myself in you until the taste of your blood is the only thing worth living for.”
There’s so much pain and hunger behind his white eyes that my heart stops.
“Then why didn’t you take any?” It’s a question I shouldn’t be asking, and yet I can’t stop myself from doing so.
He presses his forehead to mine, still holding my face like I’m some kind of anchor he needs in this moment.
“If I tasted just one drop of your blood, I’m not sure I’d have the willpower to stop,” he admits with a heavy sigh like the truth of that is somehow shameful, even though he’s a vampire, and everything about his confession makes complete sense.
I pull away, forcing him to look at me. Even though he just admitted his lack of control, he still chose to use his antivenom instead of just letting me wrap my finger in toilet paper.
“Then why would you risk it just to heal a stupid little cut?”
His eyes fall to my lips for a brief moment. “Because…” He pauses, and I watch his throat bob. “The thought of you being hurt is enough to drive me to insanity.” Before I can process his words, he releases my face and stands up. “Go to bed, Grey. I’ll clean this up tomorrow.”
There’s a sharpness to his tone that wasn’t there before, and everything about him has gone rigidly cold.
It’s almost like he flipped some sort of switch, and the sudden change in his demeanor reminds me of how he looked at me from the stage when I was standing on the platform above the tank tonight.
It’s like there are two Koles. The one who smiles and jokes and feels almost human, and the one who is emotionless and distant.
There’s a tightness that forms in my chest when he turns his back on me and strides out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him without so much as a glance back.
Just a minute ago, he was telling me that he can’t stand to see me hurt, and now it’s like my existence is an inconvenience to him.
And the worst part about it is that I care.
God, what is happening to me?
I mastered detachment over a decade ago.
If anything, I should be the one who is withdrawn and void of all feeling.
That’s who I am. I’m not the person who cares.
I’m the person who keeps a ten-foot wall around me at all times.
Sienna, I could understand. I had been surviving in the woods alone.
Her friendship was a natural cause of years of isolation.
But Kole? He’s just the brother of my tormentor.
Just another one of Thane’s lackeys in charge of babysitting me when Thane’s away.
Shit, maybe this is Stockholm syndrome.
It’s the only rational explanation for the way I feel right now. It’s just my brain trying to cope with the fact that I’ve been captured by monsters and will probably spend the rest of my life paying the price for the entire human race.
It’s like the two of them are playing good cop/bad cop. How did I not see that? I thought I was smarter than this, but while I’ve been playing checkers, they’ve been playing chess. Manipulating me. Twisting my thoughts and feelings so subtly that I wasn’t even aware it was happening.
Well, not anymore.
It’s time they meet the real Fallon. The one who is shut off from the world. The one who thrives in isolation. The one who trusts no one and sees people for who they really are. It’s time they meet the girl who was forged from living with monsters well before the two of them came into my life.