A Study of Poisons

TWENTY FOUR

       I didn't sleep for the next dawn, instead I came to the balcony and watched the sun rise over the horizon. The image of Alex's lost eyes were burned into every rhythm of my heart. Where the beat was steady, there was still a dangerous sense of worry.

Where the sun came to match with the land, I sat with the hallowing of the trees in my ears. I could feel nothing but the temptation of this secret that the urge to scream it came to my lips. However, I held it back. Alex fought the urge everyday, to worry about it further because of a vision I had- it was too much for the Prince to handle.

I bit down on my nails as the cool air of the coming moonlight settled around me. "Couldn't sleep?" I turned to see Alex walking to me, wearing nothing but his pajama pants. My face growing red as I looked back to the calling light that drew down below the land.

Shaking my head, Alex joined my side and came to me. "No, ever since Sabien- I haven't been able to sleep. All I get are nightmares." I explained as I drew images into my hands, matching the pattern of my palm. Every crease drew to another sect. Until it continued into a loop.

"He isn't the first Lost you killed though." He told me like I didn't know.

There was a hatred in my heart that formed from the deepest parts of my soul. Darkness swallowed around my neck as if it began to suffocate me. So sound and unkept, "But he was the first Lost that I was knew." The last Lost was someone I didn't even know. He was easy to eliminate, but Sabien... it was murder. The feeling was clearly torturing and unknown. My body shivered.

Alex broke away a piece of the wall he had built towards me, a low and guilty smile sprouting on his face. "It eats away at all of us, we act all cheerful but in reality we feel like it's the only way to deal with it." I could only imagine how many friends Alex had seen travel into their insanity. Eating away at them.

"Are you worried, I mean- you're the Prince of the Vampires. You have to be afraid about a Lost breaking out and hurting humans. Then your own lust." My words reminded me of the first time he tasted my own blood. The instant regret on his face as he left me behind, wondering why he had done it in the first place.

Still, his smile rested on every crease of his face. Then I noticed how the moonlight gentle grasped onto the golden color of his hair. Making it glitter, making him glow. "My mom taught me directly how to handle the bloodlust, I was trained since I was young. But to answer your question, yes. I worry everyday about it." He told me as his body reflexed over an inch closer to me, neither of us seemed to notice that our hands almost melted into one another.

The a question rose between my lips, "What would you do if you weren't a Vampire? What if you were a human?" I could never imagine Alex as a human, getting acne- going through puberty. It was too insane.

Now, I didn't know why I didn't consider that he wanted that for himself, not until his voice lowered against the gruff. "I'd want to be an artist and travel the world. I want to see the sunrise in every city and town on the planet." Again, the wonder of his hobbies ran through my mind. If he was an artist, I wanted to know what else the Vampire Prince liked to do. I know he was skilled in swordplay but that was something almost all royals knew to do. "What about you? Have you even thought about it?"

It was my turn to smile, "Of course. You ask any Keeper and they'd definitely thought about it." Mostly because if you failed at the Academy, your memories of this world would be bound and you'd be separated from your family. I had known plenty of people that it happened too, but failing was never an option for me. "I always wanted to be a teacher, like a high school teacher. I've always been obsessed with history, since I was a kid." I thought about Miss Tamara and how she inspired a light like no other in me. Still and beautiful.