A Million Reasons [ S. SALVATORE ]

CHAPTER TWELVE

          Her father had always been a strong, boisterous man. She remembers hearing his laughter very much during her early childhood. She remembers being lifted high in the air, supported by arms that she trusted would never let her fall. The giggles of a younger sister, the smell of her mother's perfume, the warmth of family. It had all protected her from the evil her father fought in the night, when she was dreaming of angels in her sleep.

          She can't see her father in the man before her now. A thin form lies on the bed and the smell of death permeates the room. He's too pale, veins appearing even darker underneath porcelain skin. The sight makes her stomach roll.

"Adelaide?" he calls out, and it's barely more than a whisper. "Adelaide is that you?" His eyes strain to see her in the dim light of the candle lit room. She's shaking as she approaches him but he's her father, so she sits at his side, on his deathbed and tries to comfort him.

"Yes, sir," she tells him, his ever obedient child. "I'm here."

          He finds enough strength to lift his hand and his fingertips brush her cheek. His skin feels fragile as paper. It's revolting.

"You shouldn't be here," he tells her and she has the sudden urge to sob. But she's been preparing for this day, she's always known it would come. They both knew.

"It's happening," she explains. "They're rounding up the vampires as we speak. Soon, they will come here and I don't believe I will be able to turn them away."

"No. No, it's too soon. Margaret is too young." And of course he would be thinking of his children first. And suddenly she sees him, her father and protector. It's been so long, so many lost years, but she sees him now.

"I'm so sorry." Maintaining her composure is growing ever more impossible and she hears her voice begin to shake, accompanied by a tightness in her throat as tears threaten to fall. "I've failed you both."

"No, my dear," he tells her gently. "No more tears." His hand falls back to the mattress before sliding towards the edge, and slipping down, reaching for something hidden underneath. It takes some difficulty but he finds what he's looking for. And when he brings his hand back up, he's holding a sharpened wooden stake.

          . . .

          Adelaide had been ten years old when her father came home, clothes stained with her mother's blood. A creature had bested them, drained her mother to the point of death. It had been a better ending than her father's. For he died that night too. Only he returned too soon.

          A vampire hunter turned vampire always knows what he must do. Turned into a creature he detested, reborn into a life he never wanted, his only desire was to end it. And then he thought of his two daughters waiting for him at home. With no one else to care for them, he had to return home. And so he did, locking himself away, weakening himself with vervain, trapped inside by sunlight. Their father became sick and absent, but they remained protected by his living name. He would remain until they were old enough to marry, until they could move on with a new life, a new name, a new protector.

          He was always going to die. It just wasn't supposed to be this soon, not until Margaret had left his household.

          "I'll look after her," Adelaide promises, taking the stake from his weak grip. "You don't have to worry about us anymore. We'll be okay."

          Because if he lives, the hunters will come straight to them tonight. In such an event, her father will die anyways, and bring down his daughters with him. They have planned for this for too long now. The night is falling quickly and she knows it will be a long time before she sees the sun again.

          It's a crime against nature when Adelaide kills her father, and she doesn't believe that she will ever forgive herself for it. The act itself happens quickly, but then she sits on the bed with the bloody stake in her hands and time seems to slow. It's impossible to know how long exactly she sits there, heart thudding so slowly in her chest she feel it might stop completely. It's takes something from her; she's not completely there, not completely whole. She had always known this day would come. She could never have predicted how it would feel.

          Her solitude and silence and dreams of following her father are shattered when the door flies open. It's a terrifying moment as Adelaide tries to catch up with what she's seeing. Her muddled brain refuses to accept what she perceives, her sister standing in the doorway, looking at the stake in her hand, looking at their father lying lifelessly next to where she sits.

          "What have you done?" Margaret asks in horror and Adelaide shakes her head.

          "Margaret, no," she pleads, and there's so much she wants to say, so much she needs to explain but she can't think of the words quick enough before her sister is rushing forward to kneel beside their father's corpse. He had been dead for so long, long before Adelaide pushed the stake into his heart, Margaret needs to know.

          Adelaide tries to explain it, the words come out a bit twisted and meek, warbled like she's had spirits to drink. Margaret freezes, expression growing cold. Let her be angry, let her hate Adelaide. She hates herself too for what she's done, what had been forced upon her.

          "I knew," Margaret tells her, voice flat, cutting off whatever explanation Adelaide had been trying to give. Then she laughs, a hollow sound, void of any real humor. "Of course I knew. I was never allowed in to see him. Not me, nor the doctors, nor the maids. Just you. But then you never came, as if you were afraid of him. I started looking for answers, first in mother's old things."

          Tears drop down onto Adelaide's hands. Strange. She hadn't realized she'd been crying.

          "We had to protect you," she says suddenly, in a bout of coherency.

          "By lying to me," Margaret hisses. "By keeping the worst dangers of this world a secret." Breaking off, she looks away and there's a strange, absent look on her face. It's the expression she wears when she thinks of mother. She has to dig deep for the memories, she had been so young when they lost her. And her eyes see something that appears only to her, some old recollection that only she remembers. "I found her old books," she says quietly. "And weapons. There were a lot of those. I am the only one who kept me safe. Not father, and certainly not you."

          Her words are cruel and they cut deep. It was never supposed to happen this way, Adelaide thinks mournfully. She was never supposed to lose her father and sister on the same night.

          "To protect you," she whispers one last time. "They would have found him. They would have hurt him and then they would have turned on us. You were supposed to be married, your husband--"

          "I don't need a husband," Margaret snaps. "I don't need anyone."

          "These creatures are dangerous," Adelaide insists. "The hunters are too."

          Margaret stands and towers over Adelaide. Yanking her skirts up, she reveals the stake strapped to her leg. "Do I look like I need saving?" she asks, and there's quiet fury in her voice. "Let them come. I've learned a lot from those old books." Throwing her dress back into place, she turns her back to her disintegrated family stalks towards the door.

          Adelaide, with tears still falling, asks "Where are you going?"

          "To join the others," Margaret says without another glance back. "We're having a bonfire tonight."

AN; I've tried to drop clues about where this was headed, did it work ?? I hope it wasn't too out of nowhere and that it actually makes sense within the story lmao and if not, at least it made for a fun twist ?? to me rip 😩