The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Damages, pt. 2

EVERETT’S “ROOM” WAS REALLY MORE LIKE AN ENTIRE APARTMENT OF ITS OWN, complete with bedroom, bath, living area, game room with vintage arcade games I’d only seen in movies, a card table, a pool table, a foosball table, and who knows how many other tables. I didn’t see the other bedrooms to know if they were like this, but the sheer size of all of it was starting to seem ridiculous. Even for me.

I still couldn’t sleep, but I tried for a little while. Then I talked with Ginny and Mark about what had happened. All of the Winters looked in pain as I described the taste of the blood to them, the feel of the kill. It was partly because they pitied me, and partly because it fueled their desires, which made it so clear to me what I was really struggling with: How I could love them when I knew what they were capable of. It was one thing to know in theory, like I had for months. It was another thing to have experienced it.

Everett had quickly become stir crazy in the cold Canadian air, so he and his siblings left at midday to feed. They never told me this was what they were doing, but I could always tell. I hadn’t figured out how often it had to happen because it seemed to depend on several variables. I did know, though, that Everett never went alone.

I wandered around outside, and eventually I dropped to the ground. I lay in the snow for several hours. Adelaide came to lay with me.

“Do you want to talk?” she asked softly, her eyes fixed up at the bright white sky like mine were. I think she knew what I was going through. Didn’t she have the same struggle I did?

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel like I’ve talked enough.”

“I understand. I used to think it would be nice to have someone to vent to, someone who could understand, or who could at least just hear me out. But as time passes, I’m grateful for the silence I must keep. I’ve realized that saying it all out loud may actually make it worse,” she said.

“It certainly makes it more real,” I said.

“Is that what you’re struggling with? That until now you could deny it in a way?” she asked.

I thought it over. “Probably,” I said. I didn’t know what I was struggling with. It was everything I had always struggled with, just amplified. “You know, when he fell for you, I remembered thinking that you may be able to overlook what he does, what he is because you don’t value life very highly,” she said. This hit me in an odd way.

“I must be an awful person if that’s how I come off,” I said.

“That’s not it. I just thought that maybe someone who regarded death and life in such a strange way would maybe be able not to think about what he does. What they all do,” she said.

“Can you keep from thinking about it?” I asked.

A long pause floated on the frigid wind as Adelaide chewed on my question. Or how to respond to it.

“No,” she said. “And yes.” She sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, right now all I’ve got is ‘no’ and ‘complicated’ so tell me more about the ‘yes’ part,” I implored, pushing myself up to a sitting position. Adelaide sat up too. “I guess I think of it like this: In our supernatural world, there are powers and there are weaknesses. There are individual or specialized powers that only some of us have. Like your mind-reading. Ginny’s mirroring. Or all these other powers Anthony finds for Mark to acquire. But there are specialized weaknesses too. Vieczy and other vampires, they have a weakness you and I don’t have. Their lives are only sustained by taking life from others. Is it awful? Yes. Justified? Never. But that’s how they were born. I’m not going to love my children any less for being that than if they were born with a disability, a terrible illness, or something that made them different in some way. I’m going to love my children unconditionally. I always have. I always will. And I can understand that this family isn’t your God-given family, but I feel like God gave you to us. So I hope you can find a way to cope with what Everett is, with his weakness. He can look past your lesser qualities. Maybe you can look past his.”