My Vampire Bromance

Chapter 40: I Can't Do This Anymore

"I can't do this anymore, Victor! It's wrong! What I am doing to Thomas is wrong!" I raked my hands through my hair as I paced back and forth across my living room.

"What he is doing and has done to you is wrong," Victor said, leaning against the bookshelf beside me. This is not how I imagined my Christmas Eve would go. I wanted to be making out with Victor right now, not yelling at him, but...but....

"Can't I just stop? Can't we just stop? I don't want to play with Thomas's emotions anymore. He cares too much about what I think of him. He wants to be part of my life so bad, and I can't...God, I can't do this to him anymore!" I shouted, real anger finally coming out. "Stop making me play this stupid game! Why am I playing this stupid game with him anyway?" I went to rip a strand of my hair out when Victor's hand suddenly clutched my wrist, stopping me.

"He killed your parents, Phillip! He murdered that girl in the library! He's set his sights on your best friend, Jenna!"

"But he hasn't done anything to her!" I shouted.

"Not yet, but maybe he will. And what then, Phillip?"

I stared into Victor's glowing magenta eyes, his brows knitted furiously at me. "I don't know. But don't you think playing with his emotions would make him more likely to kill Jenna? More likely to kill me? What's the deal anyway? It's not like you have anything personal against him. It's just me that has to deal with what he's done, not you!"

Victor looked away from me, still clutching my wrist between his firm, pale fingers. His nails looked like glass. I swallowed hard, hoping I wasn't about to wreck the only happiness I had experienced in the past six years. "But I do," Victor sighed, the liveliness was gone out of his voice, "I do have to deal with what he's done because Phillip, he has not only ruined one life but two."

My heart dropped down into my stomach. "What do you mean?"

Victor swallowed, "Let us sit down for this conversation. I feel rather weak at not having told you before. But I have known Thomas before...intimately. He and I...well, let us sit down."

I suddenly felt woozy as Victor pulled me down to sit with him. He looked me over once, making eye contact that didn't break. "Let me tell you now. Honestly Phillip, Thomas, and I were sired by the same female." I gaped. "I know what you are thinking, and yes, she did kill herself after I continually refused her, but before she made me, she made him. I only knew of Thomas after half a year of traveling with her. I met him in Rome. He lived in a small house, with minimal furniture or any material wealth about him at all. His appearance was dirty and haggard, his temperament sour. But his beauty? Unbelievable. And the woman who sired us both knew it. Goading Thomas into telling him she'd found another more desirable than him. One that would satisfy her urges more than he ever could. Of course, the second I looked at him, I could tell that Thomas was very much the same as I, that his loved ones had been murdered by her and that his preferences leaned the other way.

"It didn't take very long before Thomas agreed to travel with us, and what he confided to me in the middle of our time without her was that of pure evil. The woman had not only killed his parents, but also his best friend. She had turned him while forcing the act of sexual desire on him. He was a broken man, and when he thirsted, his brokenness became monstrous. Thomas consumed women by tearing them apart in the worst way. His aggression toward his sire came across in the way he slaughtered his victims.

Victor sighed, grasping hold of my hand, "Though I understood his pain, I could not be burdened by his mania any longer and wished him goodbye. I meant to leave my sire behind with her first and most loved turned, but she followed me. And you know what eventually happened then. Time passed by and I assumed Thomas would have ended himself in the turn of the century, but I was wrong. I first saw him briefly in the early nineteen twenties, then again in the seventies, and the last time, here and now.

"I am sorry to have kept it from you, Phillip. I hope that you do not resent me."

I chewed my bottom lip, trying to figure out how any of this had anything to do with me. "You said you knew him intimately," I started. "Did you two ever?"

"No, no. Not like that."

"So, what is my part in all this?" I asked. Really, how did I play any part in this weird scenario at all?

"I am still trying to figure that out," Victor said. "I should have been honest from the start."

"Did you know that he was the one who killed my parents?"

"No," he said softly.

"Did you know he was at my school? That he was infatuated with me?"

"No," he whispered. "Phillip. The whole thing is a coincidence. I had no idea Thomas had even set eyes on you the first time I met you. Only after the murders around your campus started happening, and he showed his face did I come to know he was the one responsible."

"So, what do we do now?"

"We try and stop his madness. Perhaps by giving him someone he would want to change for."

I rubbed my forehead, "And how is that supposed to happen?"

Victor shook his head, "I do not know, Phillip. He is still blinded by rage and grief. But he might listen to you."

"So, what am I supposed to do, Victor? Tell him that I know he's a vampire. That I'm sorry you're sad and angry, but you've gotta change your ways? I don't think that'll work."

"It might," Victor said.

"What if he tries to kill me?"

"He won't," Victor looked at me sadly. "He'll just try to kiss you."

"And if he does?" I wanted to scream.

"Would it really be such a bad thing?"

I held my words in with my tongue between my teeth. How could I let that monster kiss me again? "Victor, I don't think you understand. I only want to kiss you."

He frowned, "Then it will never work."

"Why?"

I watched as pain crossed Victor's face. I waited for him to answer, but all I got was silence.