‼️TRIGGER WARNING: Chapter 63-74 (the end) of this book will include highly sensitive and emotional topics. Viewer discretion is advised‼️
Cleodare's POV:
Two months later, I still woke up sweating, panting. Nightmares. I could still hear the sound of her heart stopping. The comfort thumping suddenly ending. Torturous, slow beats. Before nothing.
Panting, I rubbed my eyes.
I'd been sleeping a lot. Sleeping too much, some would say. It wasn't normal for me.
Now I had a sudden boost of motivation. I felt I couldn't stay in the suffocating sheets any longer.
It was kind of fucking idiotic.
I got up and wandered over to the closet.
Whenever I opened it, I was hit with cactus rose, her perfume, her lotion. Dried pink petals, the shampoo she put in her hair.
My hand caressed the sleeve of her jacket, my mind not all there. It was green. Green was her favorite color.
Green like her eyes.
Green like her sweaters.
Green like her pillowcase.
Green like the grass she'd died on.
I grabbed the sleeve and put it up to my nose. Holding back tears, I inhaled the scent, and let myself become absorbed by it.
It wasn't just cactus rose. It was the aroma of her happiness she'd always blessed everyone with, no matter what she had underlying. It was her smell.
Someone knocked on my door, before coming in.
"Mama?"
It was Theodore.
"Yes?" I glanced at them.
"W-we've ran out of blood..."
"You are more than capable of going hunting by yourself," I murmured, closing the closet door.
"B-but-"
"That's my final answer," I said firmly.
"But..."
I sighed, irritated. "No."
"Fine..." they sounded hurt but left with no more rebuttals.
I suddenly felt terrible again. I'd made them feel bad.
Theodore had never been the most confident, especially when it came to hunting. He wasn't proud of his fangs. I knew that he would rather be human. No matter how many times I had told him it was a gift.
However, I pushed it aside. I'd deal with it later.
I headed out after changing. A long walk was ahead of me. I reached for my bag and went out the front door.
It had spare blood bags in it. They were empty, ready to be filled.
I was going back to the old forest. The one where I'd met Marine. The one I'd lived in most of my life.
Before walking into the sun like an imbecile, I put my jacket on, my hood up, and I stayed near the trees so the shade still hung over me.
When I got there, I took my jacket off, shoving it into my bag. The forest was bigger than the one back at home, the foliage was fuller and easier for hiding from the sun.
The first kill was easy. I was still alive, spry.
There was a certain way to collect blood. Slitting the throat was always easiest. Lean the body against something, sit them up, and put the port of the bag up to their neck. It went in most easily after that.
My parents had taught me that, especially my father since we still owned the business together.
He'd probably sent me over a hundred emails I'd ignored over the past two months.
I leaned down to the corpse, jamming my fangs into their neck.
I preferred feeding right out of the veins. It was warmer, it tasted more fresh. Some of the chemicals in the bag seemed to always rub off in the stored blood.
I hadn't tasted it fresh in what had felt like forever. Coincidentally enough, I'd stumbled upon an O positive.
It was a simple taste, quite favorable, leaning towards sweet, but still residing in the middle.
I finished up and wiped my lips off. Even though after so many years I was confident in my ability to not be a complete slob.
I sat up on my knees.
A sudden knot made a twist in my stomach.
This person had probably had a family. Now they were dead. Lifeless before me.
I never thought I'd go soft for someone I'd drained and killed.
Drained.
Someone interrupted my thoughts.
"Cleodare?" a gentle voice whispered. A hand softly grazed against my shoulder.
I flinched at the touch and turned around to see a pale, somber face. I'd seen her before, Underground. She was a low ranking. She probably still was, even after so many years of me being away.
"Ivy Chen, huh?"
I was surprised I still remembered her name. She had two braids dangling against either side of her face, like pigtails, and a purple beanie on her head. She took a step back.
"Are you..okay?" Ivy asked quietly.
I rasped out an annoyed sigh, and she took another step back.
"Honestly?" I laughed, "not even close."
"I apologize," Ivy paused, then looked down at her feet. "Would- would you like to go hunting with me?"
I scoffed, "Would I, like to go hunting with you, three-thousand five-hundred and eighty-nine? Is that right? I haven't been back in quite a while." I finished snarkily.
"A-actually...it's five-thousand-nine-hundred and seventy-six," she mumbled, eyeing the ground.
I snapped a glare at her.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. Her voice shook with every word. She sounded as if about to cry.
I remembered why Ivy was so low on the hierarchy. She was just a gentle soul. No thirst for blood at all, she only ate when she absolutely had to. I was surprised she had even asked to go hunting in the first place. I guess more people still liked me than I had thought.
"No, I'll go," I told her quietly.
It would settle nicely with me to be around a new face.
Her legs were trembling as well. Her hands intertwined, fidgeting.
"Really?" Ivy looked up at me. Hope strangled her virescent irises. The color was all too familiar.
"Don't make me change my mind," I grumbled.
"Right, right! Okay!" She grabbed my wrist and took me out of the area.
Ivy made me do all the killing, she was too nervous. And I surprised myself. I wasn't annoyed and didn't mind at all.
Because there was something comforting about being around Ivy. Her aura was pleasant and calming. It was hard to admit, something about her reminded me of Marine.
I heard a shrill scream in the distance, and it was obvious once I turned around and saw she wasn't behind me anymore. I sighed and went after it with no such urgency in my steps.
Ivy was standing back from a very surprised hunter. A knife jammed through the arm she'd used to protect herself.
"This isn't what I meant by hunting!" she whimpered.
I slid a thick punch to his jaw and threw the hunter down before he could make another move. He began to kick furiously as I pinned his wrists down and sunk my fangs into the soft flesh of his neck. Then dug deeper.
All of a sudden, his wailing ceased and his legs stopped flailing. His warm blood drained into my mouth as my tongue lapped over the wound.
"No," he muttered weakly. I scoffed at his pathetic cries. I wouldn't be stopping anytime soon.
"Holy mother trucker! Cleo!" Ivy exclaimed. I got up and kicked his body to the side.
"I see now why you're so high on the hierarchy," she said quietly as I walked back over to her.
It was nothing to me.
"Mm," I replied, pulling the knife out of her arm. Ivy looked down at it, mouth agape as the wound sealed before her eyes.
And I didn't bother telling her that they'd probably forgotten about my place a long time ago, taken me off their lists.
Part of it still stung sometimes.
"Finish him off will you? He's almost dead."
I stopped.
"And don't call me that."
"R-right, sorry, right! Okay, okay," she said, "I can do that!"
Ivy stumbled over to the limp body nervously, rolling him back over.
"Good girl," I told her, "you got this."
"Uh-huh," she gently bent her head down over his shoulder.
I sighed, "Neck."
"Right, right," she moved up to his neck and hovered there for a second.
I crossed my arms.
Ivy bit into his neck with a small whine.
"His carotids," I demanded, getting annoyed.
She whimpered again and fixed her position. His body completely froze with the damage to his artery.
I could tell that once she began she couldn't stop. She moaned from the sweet taste.
I took a few steps toward her, putting my hand on her shoulder. I knelt down and she knocked me over, falling back into my lap. Tears began to fall from her eyes.
"Oh God! I feel so bad!" she wailed, "I feel so bad!"
I just sighed, I was used to dealing with this sort of emotion with Theodore.
"Shhh, you did very well," again, I surprised myself with how gentle my voice came out to be. Ridiculous what being a mother can do to you.
"He tried to kill you, did he not?" I put a comforting hand back on her shoulder.
"Y-yeah," Ivy mumbled, then lowered her voice, "but that's because I'm a monster."
I sighed, "You were human before this, weren't you? You were turned."
Her head bobbed.
"We're not monsters," I said, "we're not murderers, we eat to live."
I rubbed her shoulder, "were you vegan or something before this?"
"No." She shook her head.
"I don't see a difference," I finished.
I knew deep down, I should've been following my own advice.
"But humans aren't...animals! They think and live so much differently! A-and you spared that one..."
I think by the look that had stunned my eyes, she knew she'd touched a sensitive subject.
"I-I'm sorry..."
"She's different, she's..."
"She was different." I finished.
Ivy raised her eyebrows, "Was?"
"She died."
"Old age, I hope," Ivy sniffled.
"Not even close," I grimaced, "a hunter stabbed her in the chest, she thought she was a vampire."
"I'm sorry, Cleodare, I really am."
"She died in my fucking arms, Ivy. I had to listen as her heart stopped beating."
Ivy closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her white cheeks. I didn't know why I was telling her any of this, but the words wouldn't stop rolling out.
"It'll haunt me for eternity," I whispered. A shaky sigh passed my dry, cracked lips.
Marine would've licked hers by now, then apologized, because she always told me she was sorry I had to kiss her "badly taken care of" lips.
"I'm sorry, Cleodare."
"Me too."
~~~
"Theo," I sighed.
"What?"
"I was wondering...if..."
It was hard to scrape the words off my tongue.
"If you'd like to see a grief counselor?"
Their eyes met mine. I could see sadness pervading the surface. If it was that bad on the outside, maybe it was good I'd asked.
"I...I don't know, c-could you come with me?"
"Oh." I hadn't thought about that. "Yes, if you'd like me to. I'm sure I could, kiddo."
"W-well...okay, maybe. Can I think about it?"
"Of course."
"Mama?"
"Yes?"
"Are you going to my science presentation after school next week on Friday?"
"Yes, kiddo, of course I will."
"Okay."
I bit my tongue, then sighed.
"I'm going to go ask your sister."
"She'll say no."
"I know."
Dreading it, I slunk up the stairs. And I took my time with it.
"Melanie?" I lightly knocked on her door, "Can I come in?"
"Sure," I heard her say from inside.
I slowly opened the door, she was on her phone, the position she'd been in every time I'd seen her for the past two months. To be fair, I suppose, I didn't see her much.
Her room was still a mess. Worse than before. There was only a pathway to the door, but rather than that, the floor was covered with laundry and all of the glass and lights. Bare pins still stuck in her wall.
I stood at the doorway. "I'd like to ask you something."
"What?"
Her tone was still snippy.
"Would you like to see a counselor?"
She put her phone down and stared at me. Her eyes became slim.
"I don't need a fucking counselor!" Melanie cried, her eyes fiery with rage. "I am not soft like Theo!"
"It-it isn't if you're soft or not, Melanie. It's okay to get help in times like these."
"Why don't you get help then?"
I was taken aback.
However, I was aware of her anger. I was aware of the patience needed to deal with things like this.
That didn't mean It wasn't hard to find.
"Baby, you should consider it."
"I-I-" she erupted in a sudden sob. "Why do you have to be here? Why do you have to ruin everything?!"
I sighed, "I am...sorry if I interrupted something. Is there anything on your mind?"
"What the hell do you think?"
I took a deep breath and gripped the wooden doorframe.
"I-I killed her, Mama. I did it," she whispered.
Her heartbeat slowed to a meandering thump, almost as if she'd controlled it. But it quickly rose, suddenly turning into a strange pattern of pulses, up and down.
It concerned me.
"Melanie, don't say that. You...you didn't..."
"Yes, I did! B-because I knew it was going to happen!" she choked. "The night before, I had a vision. A-and I still didn't do shit!"
Subconsciously, my grip loosened, my hand fell flat to my side.
She shoved her head into her pillow and screamed in deep agony.
"That-that is not your fault, Melanie. It's not your fault...she died."
"I didn't do anything!" she wailed. "I didn't do anything!"
She kept repeating it, yelling it into her pillow, until she sat up and threw that same pillow to the floor. Falling back into the covers of her bed, she gripped tightly onto her blankets and screamed a sob.
Slowly, I made my way to sit on the end of her bed. I didn't say anything, didn't utter a word.
I didn't even know what to think.
It took minutes that had morphed into what felt like years before she calmed down and stopped screaming. Her sobbing continued, but she fell into my arms.
I held her as she wept. For a moment, it reminded me of the first time I'd held her, in the hospital.
But not this, this was worse. And that was a memory I didn't want to contaminate with sorrow.
"Shhh."
My fingertips gently glided through her hair as her bawling continued, fit with sniffles.
"Shhh," I hushed again, "you are not at fault."
The truth was, I should've been saying that to myself.