Chapter 23 – Dahlia #2
“I’ll get the drinks.” Valtu goes back inside the house and I’m alone with them.
“So, Valtu tells me that you’re an organist, for the pipe organ,” Solon says, giving me a charming smile. “Did you grow up around churches? It’s an interesting choice for an instrument in today’s world. Of course, when I grew up it was quite common.”
“Not really,” I manage to say, keeping my eyes glued to him because I’m too nervous to look at Lenore.
“My parents weren’t a big fan of organized religion.
I just watched a lot of horror movies over and over again as a kid.
The soundtracks kind of got stuck in my brain.
All that organ. I wanted to create those sounds, too. ”
Valtu comes back out with drinks and I suddenly get up, my chair clattering loudly on the patio tiles as it gets pushed back. “I need to get the charcuterie board, excuse me.” I head into the house, trying to take deep breaths as I lean against the counter.
Okay think. Think, Dahlia, think.
Maybe call Livia? Tell her what’s up. Maybe she’ll have a suggestion on what the fuck I’m supposed to do, because short of just leaving and never turning back, I don’t know what my options are.
Maybe she doesn’t even know , I tell myself. Maybe you’re jumping to conclusions.
Suddenly I hear the patio doors shut and feel a rush of cold at my back and my heart sinks like a stone.
She’s here.
“Dahlia, right?” Lenore asks in a tight voice. “That is your name, right?”
I take in a deep shaking breath and turn around.
I’m on one side of the island and she’s on the other. Outside Solon and Valtu are laughing about something and gesturing wildly with their hands, not paying any attention to us.
“That’s my name,” I squeak.
“Does he know?”
Gulp.
“What my name is?”
Her eyes turn ice-cold, pinning me in place. I try to move but I can’t.
“Does he know who you really are?” she says, her voice growing deeper. “Does he know that you’re wearing a glamor, in disguise? Does he know you’re a witch, a vampire slayer? Does he know that, Dahlia?”
I open my mouth to speak but she’s quick as a wink. In one fluid blur she jumps right over the counter, clearing it and then slams me back against the refrigerator, her forearm against my neck. Jesus, she’s strong and I can’t fucking breathe.
“Tell me what you’re doing here. You’re here to kill him, aren’t you? You’re a slayer, you kill vampires, that’s what you do. What happened, that you lasted this long, got him to fall in love with you, and you still haven’t killed him yet?”
He’s not in love with me , I try to say but can’t.
“What is your end game? I know that slayers are sent on their missions from the guild. Why did they send you here? What has Valtu done?”
I cough and she lets up just a little.
“I’m not just a witch,” I manage to say, my throat bobbing against her arm as I talk. “I am reincarnated.”
Her head jerks. “What?”
“I’m Mina. I’m Lucy. I remember now. I was with him in his past.”
She frowns. “You’re the one? You’re the one he lost twice?” Then a hardness comes back over her eyes. “Fucking liar!” she practically spits in my face.
“I’m not lying! Please. Look at me. You know I’m not lying.”
“You are,” she sneers. “You were playing a role. Why did the guild send you to kill Valtu?”
“I don’t know. You don’t ask. You know how it works. You do what they tell you.”
“Oh, I know,” she says hatefully. “My parents left the guild and they’ve had a mark on their back ever since.
Did you know that you were a puppet? A pawn in their game?
Did you know that they pick slayers who are oh-so good at masking, pretending to be someone else, and then they kill their parents so that they’re easily brainwashed, driven by blind vengeance? ”
I blink, trying to push her arm off me but to no avail. “No. Vampires killed my parents.”
She lets out a caustic laugh. “That’s what they wanted you to believe.
That’s what happened to my mother, to my father.
The guild said their parents were killed by vampires so that they would be in their service for the rest of their lives.
Did you have a mentor show up at the right time too, take you in, fuel your rage? ”
No. This isn’t true. It can’t be true. This whole life can’t be a lie.
“You don’t understand,” I tell her. “That’s not…that’s not what…”
But that’s when I know.
She’s telling the truth.
I cry out, anger taking hold of me now, rage and shame, so much shame.
“No,” I whisper.
Bellamy killed my parents. I know he did. He killed my parents and then pretended to be my family. He turned me into a monster. He turned so many of us into monsters, just ready to do their bidding.
“How does that feel, to give your whole life to an organization that used you from the very start?” Her eyes grow mean again. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it, because had I not found out about you, you would have killed Valtu. You would have killed him and not even asked them why .”
“No, no, I love him,” I sob. “I love him. I wasn’t going to do it. I only found out last night who I was, that I’ve loved him for all these lives—”
“You can drop the act,” she snaps at me, pressing her arm harder.
“The fuck?” Valtu’s voice booms behind us and I see him and Solon come inside the kitchen.
“What the fuck are you doing Lenore?” Solon exclaims and in a second he’s right beside us, pulling her off of me.
I keel over, hand on my windpipe, trying to breathe.
“What the hell just happened?” Valtu asks. He places his hand on my back. “What is wrong with you?” he growls at Lenore.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” She doesn’t struggle against Solon’s grip. “Why don’t you ask her?” she snipes.
I feel Valtu’s eyes on me. “Dahlia?”
I won’t say it. I can’t. I can barely speak, my throat feels damaged and I cough.
I straighten up and that’s when the tears start to prick at my eyes. God damn it, I am so fucking sick of crying. I’m so sick of all of this, all of these lies.
I don’t care anymore.
Go ahead and tell him , I say to Lenore inside my head. Tell him what I am.
And she hears me too. She raises her brow as she looks at me, then turns her focus to Valtu. I brace for impact.
“Your girlfriend is a witch.”
Valtu’s hand doesn’t lift off my back, which I appreciate.
“What?” he whispers harshly. “She’s not a witch.”
“She’s got a glamor on, that’s why. She’s disguised herself using magic. She says her name really is Dahlia, but I don’t believe it. She was sent from the guild to kill you, Valtu.”
Valtu takes his hand away.
Oh no.
I slowly straighten up and the tears start running down my cheeks.
The minute he sees that, his expression collapses.
I can feel the pain, the confusion, the hurt that’s just starting to seep through him and it’s only going to get worse.
“Is this true?” he asks me, his jaw tense as he tries to keep his emotions in check. “Tell me this isn’t fucking true.”
I open my mouth to speak but I don’t know what to say.
“She’s a vampire slayer, Valtu,” Lenore goes on. “Corrupted by the guild just as my parents were. That’s the only reason she’s here in your life. To get close to you and drive the blade of mordernes into your heart.”
He shakes his head in disbelief, but I can tell from the way his eyes harden, the way I feel his pain as the truth settles in, that he knows it’s true. Maybe he’s always known it’s true.
Maybe that’s the reason he never loved me.
He knew I was poison.
“They came up with this whole backstory for her too,” Lenore goes on. “It’s like a play, you know, a game. She says that she’s your reincarnated loves. She said she’s Mina and Lucy.”
Solon makes a tsk of disappointment.
But Valtu.
He just fucking explodes.
Suddenly he’s at me and he’s pressing me up against the fridge now, but it’s not a windpipe to my neck, it’s his hand around my throat, and this time he aims to fucking kill me, his fingers squeezing me like a lemon.
“How dare you?” he cries out, spit flying as his hand crushes me further, the edges of my vision going gray. I reach up with my hands to pry his fingers off me but it’s no use.
This can’t be how it ends.
“How could you pretend, how could you do that to me?” he goes on, bringing his face right up to mine, and his pupils cycle between black and red and there’s a blood vessel in his forehead that I think might burst. “Why did you have to do it? Why did you have to pick on me ?”
The anguish in his voice is breaking me into pieces.
But I’m also being broken by his grip.
I open my mouth but I can’t speak because I can’t breathe .
“Why me?” he says, his eyes watering, his whole body shaking as he raises his hand higher and higher until I’m being strangled, feet off the ground. “Did they tell you what to say, how to act? I bet you were a very apt pupil!”
“Valtu,” Solon warns him.
I try to pry his grip loose but I’m losing consciousness now.
“Valtu!” Solon yells, and now he’s at us and he’s trying to put himself between me and Valtu. “You’re killing her.”
“Maybe that’s what she deserves!” he cries out. “I don’t know who she is, she’s nothing to me! It was all a fucking act!”
Solon pushes Valtu back enough that his grip loosens and I don’t know how much time I have before I’m dead.
“My heart,” I rasp against his hands. “My heart will always find yours.”
He stills, his grip softening further. “What did you say?” he asks in horror.
Remove the glamor , I say to Lenore inside my head. Please, let him see. I am too weak to remove the spell myself .
My eyes close and everything turns cold and black, my body going limp as I’m pulled under, my feet still dangling above the floor.
Everything turns fuzzy as I hear Lenore whispering frantically the words of a spell, over and over.
“What are you doing?” Solon says to her.
All is black now.
“My heart will always find yours,” I whisper again. I believe it. And when I drop dead here at his hand, when the glamor is finally removed, he will finally see.
I love you.
Please don’t let this kill you, Valtu. I should have told you the truth.
As my heartbeat slows and slows and I slip into that black void I’ve faced so many times before, I feel the glamor rise from me, like someone’s lifting a wedding veil from off my face.
“Oh my god,” I hear Solon’s voice.
I hear Lenore gasp.
And Valtu lets out the most heart-shattering scream.
The last sound that Dahlia Abernathy will ever hear.