Chapter 33
If moving to Boston all those years ago had been a taste of freedom, a bare sip from the bottle, Bella was drinking down the whole jug now.
She’d never felt such a twister of emotions as she did walking through the wide open front door of the Meridian Tower and catching her reflection in the metal slabs.
Her hair was a mess, hadn’t been brushed in days.
Her mascara was smudged; she hadn’t remembered to apply her lipstick.
Little brown freckles splayed across her nose.
Her mother would hate to see her like this. A small, scared smile crossed her face.
But it wasn’t just her appearance that she’d hate—Bella’s eyes flitted down to the bandage on her arm. She could still feel the pinch where the needle had gone in. She hadn’t felt any different after. Maybe this would change that.
She walked into the lobby, where the construction staff had obviously been wrapping up before her mother shooed them away. There were beer bottles sitting on expensive crystal tables. A tangle of raw wires was still hanging exposed from the ceiling.
It was an odd choice of hideout for her image–obsessed mother. If Yasmine was here, Bella was sure she’d be concocting a flurry of theories on why she’d chosen it, but…
Her throat tightened.
She looked down at her phone again, their conversation from before instantly lighting up the screen. She re-read the messages, a pit forming in her stomach.
Yasmine: You’re being insane. At least let me come with you.
Bella: that’ll just make things worse, trust me. i’ll be in and out.
Yasmine: are you-serious?
Yasmine: what if - she kidnaps. you???
Bella had never seen Yasmine care so little about correct punctuation. She could only imagine the speed at which she was battling her phone keyboard.
Yasmine: just wait, talk to me about it first before you rush in.
Bella sighed, and held the power button for several seconds, watching as the texts faded away to black. She tucked it back into her pocket, where she couldn’t dwell on it.
Of course she wanted Yasmine there with her.
Bella was a coward at her core, after all.
She would have loved nothing more than to cower behind someone else so she didn’t have to face her mother.
Even when she’d run away from home, she’d gotten her family’s consent first, like they were writing her a permission slip to go on a school trip.
But this, she had to do alone.
Not because she was suddenly able to easily shuck off her mother’s disapproval—on the contrary, just a few days ago, she’d decided that she’d solve Yasmine’s research, then she would go home on that jet with them, like a dog with its tail between its legs; she’d cherish the nice little break she’d had, forever hold onto it like a dead bug crystallized in glass, then fall back in line, and wait for her next opportunity to maybe dream a little again.
But now, Yasmine Sokolov was in love with her.
Bella called for the elevator, watching it tick down the floors. The organs of the building were still exposed, but it was hooked up to the electricity. Probably something her mother did with her newfound Suggestion. A horrible, stupid application of it—so unsurprising.
She stepped inside, clicked the 13th floor, like Sabina had told her to. She’d gotten the text from her not long before Rebecca had found out about their location: Meet us at the tall ugly building across from Pinocio’s. If you make Mother wait longer I think she’ll kill us.
The elevator door slid open, and she was shocked to find her family only a few feet away, lazing about the place, chattering away like they were back home in Dacia.
There were about six hundred shopping bags littering the concrete floors.
Sephora, Sephora, Sephora, Dior. Teodora was bent over a stack of make-up palettes, her mother had her feet kicked up on the table, scrolling through her phone, and Sabina was reading a copy of Persuasion, a New York Public Library sticker pressed to the front cover.
It was eerie how familiar it felt, almost comforting in its normalcy. She felt herself momentarily second guessing what she’d set out to do. But then she shook it out of her shoulders—familiar didn’t mean good. It was so easy to forget that.
So she took a breath in, and nodded her head toward Sabina.
“You got a library card?”
Only Sabina and Teodora looked up, her mother just humming at her arrival. Just like always. Whenever Bella would come home from a marriage ceremony, shaken up and tired, her mother would usually ignore her for a little, while her sisters, well—
“Bell!” Teodora squealed, dropping the palette onto the floor and running toward her.
“Why would I pay to read?” Sabina huffed, then followed Teodora, trying to seem apathetic, but still hugging her anyway. “You are so late.”
“I think it’s impossible to be on time with you,” Bella said.
Sabina rolled her eyes, then frowned as she dragged her hand through Bella’s hair.
“You look… disheveled.” She took Bella’s chin gently. “Are you… did you get in a fight?”
Bella hated how all it took was the slightest hint of concern, of empathy, to make her want to forgive Sabina for everything.
But not today. Bella took her hand and clenched it hard. Sabina’s eyes widened—she’d never laid a finger on Sabina, not since they were playing as kids.
“I can’t believe you,” she whispered, unable to stop the emotion from rising into her voice as visions of Wallace’s limp body flashed behind her eyes. “How could you do that to a child?”
“A child?” Teodora said, releasing Bella to look at Sabina in confusion. “What child?”
Sabina’s eyes went cold, clearly startled.
She so rarely ever looked guilty—she was the most defensive woman on Earth, maybe after their mother, but Bella knew what that twitch in her lip was.
Sabina ripped her hand away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to my face.”
“Oh, you’re going to lecture me about lying? The girl who sent us to Los Angeles while you were cozying up with Sokolov in Albany?”
The sharp edge of genuine hurt in Sabina’s voice made Bella pause. Sabina folded her arms protectively over her chest.
“I had no idea you two were even friends,” she spat. “You told me she was just a colleague that you were keeping your eyes on for us. You said you were lining up some rich first-gen vampire bachelor. Where is he? I hope he came with you. I didn’t see him on the cameras!”
Bella blinked, reeling. She sounded so… petulant. Like a jealous toddler.
It all clicked.
“You’re angry with me,” Bella said quietly. “You drained Wallace to get back at me.”
Sabina’s face heated, the guilt flashing raw across her features.
“Oh my god,” Bella inhaled sharply. “You actually tried to kill Yasmine’s son because you were annoyed with me. Are you fucking kidding? Are you an actual child?”
“I wasn’t going to actually kill him—that would be dumb, killing Sokolov’s kid—she’d have our heads—”
“You would have killed him if it was someone else’s son, then?” Bella shouted, seeing red.
“And you wouldn’t? Fuck, what horse did you ride in on?” Sabina got in her face. “Your body count is hundreds higher than mine is, sister.”
“Those were vampires,” Bella choked. “Adult vampires.”
“Ah, Teodora, there she goes again,” Sabina laughed mirthlessly.
“Raising the bar. Let’s all pray to our divine nun sister, our dear moral compass, before she ascends.
Thank goodness you’re back, we nearly lost our way without you.
We didn’t kill someone, just left him with some bruises.
Now that you’re back we can get on with our murderous ways. ”
Bella froze, her heart thundering.
Another day, that would have been enough. They’d done this dance a hundred times before: Bella tells them that she wants to be better. Then Sabina uses her own fledgling morality against her—it’s laughable that you want to be the good guy, you’re the worst of us—and Bella eventually capitulates.
She’d never known anything else.
Bella inhaled sharply, summoning back the strength she’d felt coming in here. She clenched the phone in her pocket, thinking of her.
“You’re right,” she said. “I have killed hundreds of people. Way more than you.”
Sabina let out a breath of relief, eyeing their mother.
“Finally, we’re getting somewhere…”
“But you’ll have plenty of time to catch up with me now,” Bella said, voice trembling as she continued, “Because I’m not going to kill anyone going forward. I’m done. Retired.”
At that, her mother finally had to stop pretending she wasn’t paying attention. The chair creaked loudly against the floor. Bella hated how sick she felt at the sound.
Meanwhile, Sabina scoffed like Bella had shot her.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Sokolov has put ideas in your head, hasn’t she?”
“Don’t bring Yasmine into this. I had the ideas all along.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you. You’re a killer, Bella!
I know you don’t like the label, because you’re sensitive—something only you get to be, because you’re the baby—but you’ve had two thousand years to get used to it!
It’s who you—we—have been since we turned eighteen.
It’s how we survive. We’d be dead otherwise. It’s them, or us.”
Bella stared straight into her sister’s eyes, surprised by the profound sadness washing over her. Pity, not anger. Because even at two millennia old, they were still so stunted.
“Who even is them, Sabina?”
Sabina blinked.
“What?”
“You said it’s them, or us. So who are they that you’re so petrified of?”
“Must I really jog your memory relentlessly? Do you not remember when the humans in the village would ram stakes through our doors, wait in the brush with daggers? And what about the vampire lord that passed through Dacia and tried to take Teodora with him?”
Bella rolled her eyes. No matter how many centuries passed, it was always the same old script. “Those were two incidents in two thousand years.”
“Yes! And do you know why? Because we took precautions afterwards!”
Bella’s hands began to tremble. She was so damn tired of the paranoia.