I watched her eyes close and saw her hand slip out of mine, she didn't want to see this anymore and my brother had hurt her even more when she did not need it.
She had only wanted to hold her and he refused, she gave up and now she was bleeding out in my arms. That was the way that things were, so miserable and unchangeable that it hurt me right this second to just be alive.
I used my own blood to make her stomach heal and go back to it's normal skinnieness, to make it even easier for her to just forget that she'd ever had a child, a child that she hardly even knew that existed. But what was the point in healing her? Shouldn't she have to live with this burden? Just like me? Because I never get to forget, I'll never be able to close my eyes and not see the looking of defeat written on her face, the spark gone from her eyes or the silent cries that had lost all hope.
I had been dreading this day for a long time, the day that I said goodbye to the ones that I love. I wasn't just going to be able to let Candice go and then come back here, forget about her as I played house with my brother and his daughter. I wasn't just going to be able to come back here and lie to everybody, tell them that Candice had died because I didn't want people to even pretend she was dead, that was the cruelest thing they could do!
What if Elizabeth ended up looking like Candice? How could I look my neice in the face and lie to her, tell somebody that looked exactly like her mother that her mother was dead, that she just simply died during child birth?
I picked Candice up from the counter and sat on the floor with her in my arms, everything felt so final now and I didn't want her to leave me ever.
Her blonde hair was bloody and tangled, parts of sticking to her focused forehead. Her body limp and like a dead weight in my arms. Her eyes closed, probably for the best considering she didn't have to live through the agony of the next few hours.
I sat with her for that time, until Alistar walked into the kitchen and explained that Malik had sent him to take her home.
Bastard. I'd only wanted my time with her and he couldn't even let us have that! If only it would be easy to end him then I would, but it wouldn't just be my life that I'd be risking, he'd still find a way to kill Candice and I never wanted her in danger ever again.
I dressed Candice in the clothes that she had been wearing when I had found her that night, it was a sick joke by Malik to hurt her even more when I was telling her to forget everything, she was literally going to remember nothing from the moment she walked down that tunnel and that's how the rest of the world will remember her apart from the scars she's obtained since her short time living here.
As soon as she was dressed, I picked her up in my arms and brought her outside to Alistars car, she deserved to forget the hell she's gone through; it would tear her up to remember everything that's gone on with Malik and Elizabeth and if there were an option for me to forget it then I would jump at the chance but the life of a vampire is always a lonely and painful one. I was destined to be destroyed by my own brother from the moment my father cheated on my mother.
I sat in the backseat of the car and laid her sleeping body across the rest of the seat, her head in my lap.
I watched her face the whole way, I saw the dried up tear stains under her eyes and the terrified look on her mouth.
With each bump in the road, each time the car jolted, I felt myself hold into Candice more only to release her when I realised that protecting her was only going to hurt her, she had to go away and not remember this so that she could live a life that wasn't contaminated by the hell my brother made her go through.
I wiped a tear that had began travelling it's way down her cheeks, she opened them seconds later and I could tell that she was so distraught that she couldn't even speak.
I whispered to her something like 'it'll be okay' and even I knew that it was a lie, we were supposed to prepare for this but how do you prepare to say goodbye?
I felt a tear come to my own eye, I blinked to make it disappear but it didn't, they just kept on coming from my face.
"We're ten minutes away, you might want to say goodbye and do what Malik said." Alistar said from the front seat of the car.
Candice shot up from my lap and sat beside me, taking my head in her hands and staring directly into my eyes.
"Candice..." I whispered, there was so many words that I wanted to say, that I wanted to scream at her and beg for her to listen to them. There were so many things that shouldn't be left unsaid but this was our goodbye and she would forget them anyway.
"Don't, please don't do this!" she begged and I could see the pain in her eyes. She dropped her hands, she was feeling betrayed that I was doing what he had asked, couldn't she just understand I was doing this for her? So that she could have a nice happy life?
I wiped further tears that fell from her eyes away with my hands and begged for the heart ache between us two to end but it wasn't going to.
I moved her hands from her sides to my chest, just where my heart lie and kissed her on her forehead.
My voice choked in my throat as she looked into my eyes, begging me to not say anything.
"Candice...I..." I stopped talking, I couldn't say what I wanted to say because it hurt to admit it, she was going and I can't keep her.
"Don't do it, please, don't." she begged and began properly crying.
I wanted to wipe the tears from her eyes, I wanted to tell her without lying that she was going to be okay and together we were going to get through this but I couldn't.
I couldn't save her this time, we couldn't help each other through it.
"Candice..." I caught my breath, I would have given anything to steal a kiss, but I was making it worse for myself.
She looked down at the floor, my heart felt like it was beating and then dying in my chest and I begged for it to stop, but it wasn't like that.
"Candice, you're going to live a happy life." I started, coming to my senses and doing what was best for her even though it hurt more than any injury I had had in my whole life.
Her face crumbled more when she realised what I was doing, she began mouthing the words please and no.
"You're going to forget everything that has happened to you since you met Julian in the tunnel, you will forget Malik and me and...and her. You will forget about our land and our people, you will remember nothing of what happened to you and you will never remember anything to do with me." I choked on the last words and pulled her head into my arms.
The car slowed down and I realised that my tears had gotten heavier and I was crying like I'd never cried before.
"You will live a happy life, you'll meet the man of your dreams and you'll have your little baby Willow. You'll be successful and never give up fighting just like you never did here." I gulped, "And...and as soon as you step out of this car, you will forget everything and you will run home to your family....Candice...I..." I couldn't bring myself to say the words.
I pulled her so that her eyes were looking directy in mine and I could see all of the pain, all of the hurt, the confusion that she was feeling and I just uttered one final word to her, "Go."
She immediately got up out of the car, dressed exactly the same as night we took her and I saw her run off, down into the tunnel in her heels and she disappeared into the darkness.
I closed my eyes, the last tear fell from my eyes and I told Alistar to take us home.
Goodbye Candice, I love you.
Candice POV
I got out of the car and ran, trying to stop my brain from forgetting.
SEDRICK! I screamed inside my mind and wanted to remember that name forever.
What name?
What was I trying to remember?
Where was I again?
I ran through the familiar streets of my home town, running down the road that led to the family home in my favourite heels.
My head span with uneasieness and as I ran, people turned to me with mouths wide open, what was their problem?
I looked down at my own clothes, now I saw their problem. It was because they were all ripped! How the hell was I going to explain that to my mother when I myself had no idea how those rips had happened? It wasn't even as if it could have been caused by walking and catching the dress on a tree, these rips were definately on purpose and that thought frightened me alot.
I made it to my home street, the road was full of parked cars leading to my mothers home, had I forgotten that we were having a party of some sort? It was nearly Christmas, could we be celebrating that?
I paused for several seconds by a lamp post, my head was spinning and I needed to catch myself before I fell. But one word on the lamp post, beside a picture stuck out to me more than ever and that one word made me step backwards several steps, feeling more distant from that home that I had called my own before I'd started my own life felt a milllion miles away.
Missing. Candice.
I snatched the elaminated piece of card off the lamp post, gazed at the text and the dropped the card to the ground.
My feet made their way to the front door, my hands pulled the door knob and my being stepping over the threshold into the very silent and very empty home.
"Mum." I murmured, the room spinning as my feet tried to remain on the ground.
No answer.
"Mum!" I cried, my brain coming to life with eagerness. "Mum! I'm home!"
Footsteps approaching, a door opening and then a figure appearing at the top of the wooden stairs that led to my childhood bedroom.
"Baby?" She asked, her face showing nothing and her eyes questionning what she was seeing, could this really be true?
I put my arms around her, burried my head in her shoulder and all I could hear were the shrieks and cries coming from around me, life entering the hallway and filling the house again.
"Mum what's going on out here? Oh..." David said and he stood there, frozen.
I sank to the floor with my mum, she put her arms around her and squeezed me tight to her.
"Candice, You're...I love you so much." she cuddled me and began showering me with kisses all across my face.
David fell to the floor with us and began crying.
I shut my eyes, I was home.