Blood Rebel [COMPLETED]

Chapter Forty One - A New Kind of Pain

Goodbye was not something Selene had ever really said to anyone with any real feeling, and when it came to the moment for the word, as she stood opposite Hector, watching him watch her, she couldn't say it at all.

Because this was a goodbye that was permanent, that meant so much more than just farewell; it was a burden she was not prepared to bear.

As she scurried through the streets she tried to focus on all the bad things she knew about Hector, forming pictures in her mind of all the people he had killed, the blood he had shed and the people to whom he had brought pain and suffering. But then she would catch sight of a poster, faded by sun and rain, fluttering in the wind, only half attached to a lamppost or railing, that offered a desperate plea for her return, and her heart would begin to beat for him again.

Hector had had those designed, printed and pinned up everywhere. The whole of London knew there was a great ransom to be paid if they were the lucky one who happened to deliver her back into Hector Stanley's arms. And only then did it occur to her that perhaps Harland had done it for the money all along...

She shook her head and kept moving forward, trekking back the way she had come. Before she slipped back down into the sewers she picked up one of the smaller flyers with her face on it and stuffed it into her pocket.

It was no time at all before she was letting herself back into the hideout and peeling off her soaked clothes, hanging them to dry on the back of a chair, watching them fold into the wood, slapping their sodden form about the seat.

Virgil and Xander were still sleeping in the next room, and she lay down on the sofa and curled up, falling asleep almost instantly, allowing the ache of effort to seep from her limbs.

* 

"Where have you been?" Xander's voice trembled as he grabbed Selene's shoulder and shook it.

"Huh?"

"Where is your dress? Where did you get these clothes, these shoes?" He said, tugging at the damp cotton trousers, and teasing the trainers that lay empty on the floor with the toe of his shoe.

"Home."

"What?"

"I went home. I got some clothes. What of it?" She said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, wearing only her underwear.

"Are you joking? You went back to Cadogan Place?" Xander sat on the low wooden table, staring at her.

She nodded.

"You went back to him, didn't you? Blood, what's wrong with you Selene? Are you on a death mission? Do you want to get yourself killed?" He reached a hand to his forehead and tugged on the front of his hair, grasping the dark strands in a fist. "More importantly, do you want to get us killed too?" He asked, his voice scratching with desperation as he gestured to Virgil who stood behind, a look of confusion painted across his features.

"I wanted to say goodbye." She paused. "Without running away."

"And he let you go? Just like that?"

"Of course he did. Didn't you see him before? The way he looked when they spoke about her?" Asked Virgil, interrupting. Xander glanced over his shoulder at him dismissively.

"You don't know the half of it," said Xander, his shoulders slumping as he sat.

"Tell me then," said Virgil, moving round so he stood closer to Xander. "I know something is going on. If you had asked me whether a Vampire could love at all, let alone love a human, I would have denied it. It's not supposed to be possible. They have no capacity for love; they're little more than beasts. But whatever this Hector is, he's not entirely Vampire."