Elysian House: The Bitten Elixir [Remake] (1)

Chapter 23: The Truth

Chapter 23: The Truth

When I broke free from my flashback, I saw nobody else seemed to notice and I turned back to the interrogation before me. It set me on edge to see Viola, a human, so close to a Vampire who lusted after her blood. Who would no doubt kill her given the chance. It made my heart race in my chest, my fingers tremble and my legs shake. Still, Viola remained calm and steady, and kept the knife hovering over his face. 

The Vampire assassin watched it with awe, moistening his lips with his tongue. She was taunting him, using her own blood to make him talk. 

"That's enough, Viola," Olivia reaches out and grabs her sister's arm. "We need to end his life right now." 

The human shakes her head at her sister. "Not yet, Olivia. I still need to--"

"Viola Chase," the assassin chuckles and all of us turn back to the blood red eyes, suddenly unfocused on the blood and now looking like he was in control again. "The human that brought herself into the world of Vampires. The only human Royal Guard. I've heard a lot about you."

She narrows her deep blue eyes on him. "I'm not talking to you now, Vampire. Shut your mouth."

"Don't you know what happens to humans that involve themselves in the Vampiric world?" His teeth bare in a cocky, dark smile, as if he were picturing what happened to those humans. "All the humans that involved themselves ended up dead."

Styx. 

"What do you know?" I demand, everything else we learned from him fading into black. My only concern right now was the name repeating in my head. Echoing loud and clear. "What humans do you know about?"

His bloody eyes are on me now, his pale skin stretching as yet another smirk appears. "They all die. But you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"

Died. Styx died. How did she die? I need to know. 

As if he read my mind, he cackles. "I remember what happened to poor Styx. Oh, she cried an awful lot. I was there, you know. When they took this place. She begged for you to come, cried your name out. Oh, but you couldn't die yet. So after they beat, tortured, and violated poor Styx, they tied her to a stake and, poof!" While my anger built more and more, he found it incredibly amusing. "She went right up in flames. Then when they were done with her, they used lethal poison on poor, sad, little Rowan." 

There was a blinding rage, as he told the story, things sounded familiar. And it was painful. I could hear a distant scream. Someone crying. A flash of image went through my mind and it wasn't something I could handle. It wasn't something I wanted to remember. So I lunged. 

"Riley, no!" 

I outstretched my hands, grabbing hold of the bastard's head and gave it a rough, firm twist. The crack I heard snapped me out of my catatonic state. 

His body fell forward, hitting the floor. Every single eye in the room was watching me now. And I just stared down at the body at my feet. I just killed him. With absolutely no hesitation. His words just seared me. Cut me deep, deep down. 

It felt horrible to remember it. Well, only bits and pieces of it. But it was enough to make me want to throw up. Bile actually rose up in my throat. I'm not sure if it's because I had just killed someone, or if it's because I could still hear Styx screaming in my head. 

As a result, I rushed to the bathroom, throwing the door open and letting out what's about to come up. 

---

The beach around me was incredibly beautiful. I could see why I would come here for a getaway. But the memories here weren't as pleasant as I had thought. I looked up into the sky at the bright moon hanging in the black mass above. I thread my fingers through the sand under me and let it fall through the gaps in my fingers. My chin rested on my knee, as I watched it slip down back to the ground again.