CHAPTER 23 #2
As they drag me toward a staircase, almost too eagerly, I catch sight of Saul standing in the doorway. His face is a mask of disappointment and resignation.
A slow, cutting smirk tugs at my mouth. “Collateral damage.”
He doesn’t respond or move to help me, doesn’t even speak in my defense. He just watches me go down.
The cells, it turns out, are deep beneath the mansion, carved into the bedrock itself.
Unlike the comfortable room I’d been given before, this is a true prison with bare stone walls, a metal cot bolted to the floor, and a small, barred window in the heavy door.
They throw me inside without ceremony, the door clanging shut with a conclusive slam.
Reece’s face appears at the window, his usual charm replaced by cold hatred. “You should have played by the rules,” he says. “Now no one can save you.”
Then he’s gone, footsteps receding up the stone stairs, leaving me in darkness.
I sink to the floor, my back against the wall, and stare at my hands. Hanae’s vitae has dried to a flaky crust, dark against my skin. I scrub at it frantically, but it clings stubbornly to the creases of my palms and the beds of my nails.
What have I done? In my desperation to escape, I have only ensured my imprisonment. Worse, I’ve crossed a line I never thought I would, embraced the very part of myself I’ve spent a lifetime rejecting.
This wasn’t the first time I killed a vampire, but it was the first time I’d done it with my bare hands. The first time I’d done it in front of people who cared about them. Who cried for them. Who fought for them. They looked at me like I was the monster. And maybe this time… they were right.
I wasn’t surviving. I was surrendering to the darkest parts of myself.
I try to find ways to justify it, telling myself that I was held here against my will.
That they don’t, and probably never will, understand what it’s like to always be running.
To chase some distant idea of salvation, never knowing if it even exists.
That they themselves have killed. But none of it makes me feel better.
It doesn’t change the blood on my hands.
My shoulders tremble, a salty taste finding my tongue. Tears stream down my cheeks, as if they’d been waiting, but no sound escapes me.
Hours pass, or maybe days. It’s impossible to tell in the windowless cell. Thirst claws at my throat, hunger gnaws at my belly, but no one comes. No food, no water, no blood—just as Ace promised.
Eventually, exhaustion claims me. I drift into uneasy sleep, haunted by dreams of hearts torn from chests and the stains I can’t wash away.
I wake to the sound of the cell door opening. Blinking against the sudden light, I shield my eyes with my arm and push myself up from the cold floor, my legs trembling beneath me.
How long has it been? My mouth feels like sandpaper, my stomach a hollow pit.
Saul stands there silently, his jaw tight, dim light from the corridor casting harsh shadows across his face. In one hand is a glass of water, in the other a napkin-wrapped bundle, clutched like contraband.
He glances over his shoulder before slipping inside, pulling the door nearly closed behind him. He hands me the glass of water before tossing the bundle onto the cot and crossing his arms.
I drink greedily. It is lukewarm and scratches down my dry throat, but I keep going until there’s no more.
“Eat,” he says, voice clipped. “Quickly.”
I heed the command, unwrapping the napkin with shaking fingers. Inside lies a pitiful collection: half a bread roll, slightly stale; a few bites of cold chicken; a wedge of cheese with teeth marks along one edge. His leftovers, smuggled from his own plate.
Pride tells me to refuse, to throw it back in his face. Survival tells me to devour every crumb.
Survival wins.
I tear into the bread first, barely chewing before swallowing. The chicken follows, then the cheese. It’s gone in seconds, enough to take the edge off, but nowhere near enough to satisfy.
“Thank you,” I whisper, hating the gratitude that slips out.
Saul says nothing, just watches me lick the last crumbs pathetically from my fingers.
“How long have I been down here?” I ask.
“Three days.”
The words land like heavy brick. Three days without food or water. For a full vampire, it would be uncomfortable but manageable. For a dhampir like me, with my half-human needs, it’s dangerously close to torture.
“They’re going to let me starve.” It’s not a question.
Saul sighs, finally moving to sit beside me. The metal frame creaks beneath our combined weight. “You ripped out Hanae’s heart,” he says flatly. “What did you expect?”
My stomach turns, threatening to reject the meager meal I just consumed as I recall the fresh flesh beneath my fingers, the wet heat of her vitae, and the look of shock on her face as she fell.
“I didn’t—” I swallow hard. “I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted to get away.”
“And that makes it better?” His voice rises slightly before he catches himself, lowering it again. “Hanae was one of us. She was family.”
“She was a vampire,” I counter weakly, but what I really meant to say was that we are family.
“So are you!” The words explode from him, a harsh whisper that feels like a shout in the confines of the cell. “So am I. When are you going to accept that?”
I flinch at the venom in his tone. “Only half.”
He shakes his head in disbelief, and I don’t blame him. I’m far too malnourished to conjure up any good argument right now. The silence stretches between us, taut and uncomfortable. I want to explain and defend myself, but the rebuttal is literally on my hands—dried vitae.
“What happens now?” I ask.
Saul runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “Ace is still deciding.”
“Will he kill me?”
“I don’t know.” His honesty is more terrifying than any threat. “He might. Or he might hand you over to Cain after all.”
A chill creeps down my spine. “You wouldn’t let him do that.”
Saul looks at me then, really looks at me, his hazel eyes so like my own. “Sister, I’ve already used what little influence I have to keep you alive thus far. The others wanted you dead the moment Hanae fell.”
“Why aren’t I?”
“Because, despite everything, despite what you did…” He pauses, struggling with the words. “You’re still my sister.”
Something cracks inside me, a hairline fracture in the wall I’ve built around my heart, finally feeling a connection I’d almost forgotten was possible.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper, eyes watering.
“When you disappeared, when you joined them, I thought you were gone forever. That I was truly alone.”
He drops his head for a moment, waiting for me to compose myself, then shifts on the cot, turning to face me fully. “After Father died, what did you do?”
I blink, confused by the sudden change in direction. “What do you mean?”
“How did you cope? What kept you going?”
The answer comes easily. “Redmoore. My friends. Max.”
“Revenge,” he corrects, his eyes searching for something in mine. “You channeled your grief into hunting vampires, into finding Ace, into making someone pay. I did the same thing, only I went looking for answers instead of blood.”
“And what answers did you find?” I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice.
“That nothing is as simple as Redmoore taught us to believe. That there are no heroes in this story. Just survivors.”
I shake my head, unwilling to accept his philosophy. “There’s right and wrong. Good and evil.”
“Is there?” Saul challenges. “Was it evil when you tore out Hanae’s heart? Or was it survival?”
Survival. The things we do for it.
I open my mouth to respond, but no words come.
Saul continues, relentless. “The Ravens saved me when I was lost. They showed me there was more to being a vampire than bloodlust and violence. They gave me purpose, family, and belonging.”
The fact that he sought family elsewhere instead of sticking by the one he already had, the only one he had left, hurts me deeply.
Although my friends feel like family to me, too, it’s not the same.
Friends can be chosen, but blood is something you don’t get to choose.
It’s messy, complicated, and sometimes hurtful—but it’s unbreakable.
It’s the one thing that lasts when everything else falls apart. The one thing that is bound to us through shared history and pain.
And he chose to abandon it.
“I’m sorry,” I manage to say, grunting as if I’m admitting defeat in a battle I should’ve won. I’m not sure what I’m sorry for, not exactly. I just know that I am.
Saul’s expression softens slightly. “I just wish for you to find peace with who you really are.”
“And who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “That’s for you to figure out. But I do know that you can’t keep fighting what’s in your blood. It will destroy you from the inside out.”
The truth of his words resonates within me, striking a chord I have long tried to silence.
How many times have I felt the pull of my vampire nature, only to suppress it?
How many nights have I lain awake, terrified of the hunger that sometimes claws at my insides?
How long have I denied what I am, only to have it burst forth in the most violent way possible?
“I’m scared,” I confess, the admission escaping before I can swallow it back. “What if what happened with Hanae was just the beginning?”
“Then you learn control.” Saul’s hand finds mine, squeezing gently. “You master the beast inside you instead of letting it master you.”
I look down at our joined hands, so similar yet so different. “How?”