It had taken months, but I had finally gotten comfortable with Keel's absence from my stratosphere. Arthos' lessons, which over time had graduated into excursions to various parts of the compound, kept me busy and exhausted. As the weather outside warmed, I checked the bond less and less until I'd all but stopped attempting to surmise where Keel was and what he was doing. Instead, I threw myself into my studies and I excelled. In Arthos' pop quizzes, I could name all the dates and locales of historic Nosferatu conflicts; I could list crimes and punishments, and the years each found their way onto the books; and I could name all the cities across the globe that housed Nosferatu seats of political power. My muscles blossomed with growing sense memory of several new styles of physical combat, which I channelled through the techniques I'd learned during my early lessons with Bruce. And to my surprise, I was becoming competent and confident. And with each achievement, Keel's absence faded, and I became more convinced than ever that Arthos had been right, I would find a way to make my own place among the vampires.
Still, there were moments - usually when the rest of the compound slept and I was hounded by insomnia - that I longed for a companion, not just someone my own age, but for the type of friend I could say anything to. No matter how much learning I crammed in, it was never enough to put a stopper in my loneliness.
My 17th birthday was celebrated with my tutor. Nosferatu didn't have restaurants in the traditional human sense, but Arthos went out of his way to secure a table and chairs, the proper place settings, and even a fancy floral centrepiece with real wild flowers. We shared a meal together, though he didn't eat. It was nice, if subdued. He'd put in so much effort, I didn't have the heart to tell him that teenage birthdays were usually heralded in by raucous parties and illicit alcohol. When we were done, he slid a black velvet box across the table. It was nearly as big as my palm.
"I understand it is customary for humans to exchange gifts on anniversaries," he said.
I nodded, too stunned to speak, no Nosferatu, not even Keel had ever given me a present, unless my father's phone number counted.
"But we're not topside and you're not human. We should be observing Nosferatu traditions."
"Is that what you want?"
I looked at the box and considered what I'd learned of Nosferatu culture. Birthdays were formal affairs, packed with evolving oaths and rituals and an increase in responsibilities. "No," I said, and reached out and retrieved the box, brushing my fingers over its soft fabric top.
"Well, then happy birthday."
I gripped the edges and flipped open the lid. Inside was met with the most striking necklace I'd ever seen. A trio of rubies burst out of a setting of white gold, sparingly tinted green to look like thorns and vines. "It's beautiful," I said, trying to think if anyone had ever given me anything nicer.
Arthos rose from his chair, rounded the table and took the box from my hands. A couple moments later, the chain fell around my neck and I could feel Arthos' chilly fingers fastening the clasp.
"How does it look?" I asked, when he returned to his chair.
"Like an ornament fit for a sorceress."
I tried not the blush as I thanked him again.
"Are you sure His Majesty won't be upset that you are giving me presents? Couldn't that be seen as some sort of bribe or attempt to buy favour?" At least five different legal lessons were swirling around in my head.
Arthos looked uncomfortable for a moment, but collected himself. "No, it's fine."
"I can make sure I wear it under my clothes if you think it will get you in trouble," I said. I still struggled with residual guilt from Arthos' starvation days in the stocks.
"It's fine," he repeated, but again something about his tone was a bit off
I wanted to ask him more, but as far as birthdays went this one had been far better than I'd hoped for from the compound, so I let it go. Why ruin a good thing?
And so life went on, as it often does, and I grew ever more used to the new way of things. Halfway happy and complacent even.
Sometime during month six, Keel showed up with Arthos and turned all of that on its head. For the whole of the first minute after his arrival, I stood frozen and gape-mouthed beside my desk. It was not unlike seeing a ghost or the sudden reappearance of someone believed lost halfway around the globe. My mouth only closed when I took in the strained, troubled expressions on my visitors' faces.
Arthos trailed behind Keel with metal folding chair slung under his arm. Keel nodded to the centre of the room and Arthos popped it open.
"Sit," Keel said. The word boomed power; if Keel had ever been unsure of his place on the throne, he did not appear to be now.
I scurried to the seat I was offered. I didn't know what the king wanted but I intended to show him that I took my lessons seriously, which was proving difficult, given that the bond had started singing and trilling and yearning the moment Keel emerged from the elevator. Its one and only was back and it was doing a zealous lap around the emotional treadmill.
I expected Keel to keep talking, but Arthos took over as soon as I was seated. "There was another attempt on His Majesty's life last night and unlike the previous ones, this one managed to do some real damage."
Now I looked at Keel - really looked at him for the first time since he'd arrived - assessing him for bruises and broken bones, but he appeared unharmed. This only added to my confusion. "I don't understand," I said.
"Security did what it should and it secured him, but our team took heavy injuries. Boras is in the infirmary; we're waiting to hear if any of the damage will be permanent."
"I'm sorry," I said. Even if Boras and I had no particular love for one another, this was a massive blow to the stability of Keel's inner circle.
"We need to send a message." His Majesty's voice was tight, full of barely restrained anger, and for once it wasn't directed at me. "The best way we can do that is you."
I blinked up at him. "I thought it was decided that it would be best if we stayed out of each other's way?"
"All these months of instruction and you still haven't learned not to question your king?" Keel turned back to Arthos, addressing him as if I wasn't there at all. "I thought you said she understood." Disdain bled through his every word.
"Maybe there's just something about you that brings out the worst in me," I muttered, and regretted it instantly. Why couldn't I stop with the lip when he was around? What the hell was wrong with me?
The look I got from Arthos told me he was asking the same perplexing questions and I felt a rush of shame. If the last half year had given me any perspective it was that I was even more of a spaz than His Majesty was, and here I was proving it all over again.
Keel's eyes flickered brighter for a moment, and then Arthos slid between us. "Stop, both of you. We don't have time for this sort of posturing."
"I'm sorry," I said. "That was completely uncalled for. What do you need me to do?"
"A job and a demonstration," said Keel. His cold, detached tone sent chills down my spine. He sounded like he'd rather be anywhere but here, and I couldn't blame him since I hadn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat. Still, his avoiding of specifics sent up a volley of red flags.
"Do I have a choice in any of this?" I said. "I thought I was being given my freedom - a civilian life. I get the impression that whatever you are here asking me to do leads to neither of those things."
Keel looked at Arthos again, who in turn looked at me, his forehead creased with worry.
"I'm sorry," Arthos said, "I doubt you'll find it comfortable, but it is necessary. You won't have to work with His Majesty, but the illusion of cooperation could go a long way to reducing some of the attacks until we have a more permanent solution. We may have a long history of assassinating and overthrowing kings, but fighting sorcerers, that's a whole different level of risk-taking. If our citizens believe you are his true ally, an extension of his arm and sword, then perhaps we can make that work for us."
I thought back to my history lessons, all those hours Arthos had me propped up in the Nosferatu museum poring over old treatises and proceedings. This is how Nosferatu ruled. By lording over and dominating: terror as an indisputable incentive.
"So the point of this demonstration is to show that his will works through me, that I am a conduit for the wrath of the king?" I posed my question to Arthos, since Keel's stony demeanour unnerved me, and I didn't know whether I should be making eye contact or showing deference or something else altogether.
"She has been learning," Keel said to Arthos.
Is he doing the same thing? I wondered. Could this be as weird for him as it is for me? It seemed impossible.
"Not a lot else to do here," I said, half under my breath. Then realizing how petulant that sounded, I added, "So what's the job part?"
"Surveillance."
"Huh?" What could I possibly watch over? Despite Arthos' promises of thief-like stealth, I would always stick out. Small. Female. Not a vampire.
Arthos appeared to know exactly what I was thinking. "You'll monitor the cameras in the surveillance room. Keep an eye on the king and a lookout for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary."
My eyes flitted to the ceiling where I'd bashed out the cameras Keel had installed in this room and I felt that rush of violation all over again. "No, I won't."
"But who better than you to do it?" Arthos said. "No one will notice you missing from the compound, and you don't hold any allegiances that could compromise the operation. And yes, despite your proclivity for flaming furniture and disrespect, I don't believe you want to see His Majesty assassinated."
No, I didn't, if for nothing more than purely selfish reasons.
"I won't spy on unwitting people - even if they are vampires," I said. "It's not right."
"You won't have to look into any private areas, unless you want to or feel it necessary." Arthos' voice and posture shifted to the one he used when I attempted to change his lesson plans. Patient but firm, veiling the slightest hint of a threat. "Your main job will be following His Majesty from afar as he conducts his daily duties. Look at it as being second set of eyes and when you see something suspicious you'll report it."
The vampire who hated me, who preferred the space between us, suddenly wanted me to watch him? The more Arthos tried to explain it, the more it didn't make sense. Keel would never... Then again, maybe it hadn't been his idea. I looked over at the king. He was staring past both of us, his mouth a thin, hard line. Still, he would never agree, unless... and that's where it all fell apart again.
"You don't have a choice," Keel said, after the silence between Arthos and I had stretched out longer than he had patience for. "Unless your oaths are another Nosferatu custom you have no use for. You pledged me your allegiance and this is what is being asked of you. This is what I'm asking of you."
Damn. Now that he'd asked, he had me. In the end, saying no would be just as treasonous as throwing the chair at him had been. I slumped in my seat, accepting my fate. "Fine," I said. "But tell me one thing: why even come here and treat it like it's some kind of choice when it's not? What's the point of that?"
Keel and Arthos exchanged a look.
"He believes your reactions are as telling as your actions," Arthos said.
"What's that even mean?" I could feel that same old frustration beginning to seep in, tainting everything it touched.
"Enough," Keel snapped, putting an end to my questions. "She agrees. We must move on, there's much that still needs to be done."
Before I had a chance to wonder what any of that meant, Keel's fingers locked around my left bicep and he pulled me up out of the chair. "You're with me," he said, as he steered me towards the elevator. I shot a panicked look at Arthos, but he appeared as surprised as I was.
"Your Majesty..." he said, pausing as if he was unsure of how to phrase his question.
"Go back up to the throne room, Arthos, and devise some sort of explanation for my absence. I'll finish up with this."
"Are you sure? You said-"
"Don't question your king," said Keel in a tone of voice he frequently used with me, but never his advisors. "Go. Now!"
Keel continued to grip my arm as Arthos moved past us into the waiting elevator. I didn't know why we couldn't ride to our destination with him, but the firmness of Keel's fingers not only held me in place but told me not to ask.
"What is required to extend your shield around us both?" Keel asked once we were alone.
"Same thing that's always been required: my blood in your system and some strategically placed on your skin and clothes."
"There is no other way?"
I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the ground. "No other way I know of, Your Majesty. Blood is how magic works, and it's the thing that forms the connective tissue of the bond."
Keel paced halfway across the room then turned and walked back again. He repeated this three more times, his expression pained.
"You don't want to drink my blood." The words slipped out of my mouth as the realization hit me.
Keel spun around, his eyes dark with hunger.
"But at the same time you do."
I heard a low growl erupt from the back of his throat, and I wondered if it was because he hadn't eaten in a while or because he'd gone weeks without biting me.
"The bond messes with your willpower. My sorcerer's blood messes with your willpower." I kept talking. I don't why, but I did.
He tilted his head at me, the movement jerky and more animal-like than human, sorcerer or Nosferatu.
"Sometimes I don't know what parts of it are real either," I admitted, hardly able to believe I'd said that out loud to the one person I was afraid to confess such things to. The months of solitude must have worn down my defenses. "And I'm sorry, for what it's worth. Sorry all of this happened to us." I looked up at him, meeting his coal-black hunger eyes, and held his gaze. "But I'm not sorry I saved your life. And I don't hate you. I should not have said those things."
Was that even true? I'd regretted my connection with Nosferatu Keel so strongly at times it felt there was nothing left to us but those impassible mountains of regret, and the bond's uncomfortable longing.
"And if this is the price to be paid," I said, pausing to sweep my hair off of my neck, "then we must pay it. You must keep the throne, Your Majesty."
I expected Keel's fangs to be in me the second I extended the invitation, but instead some of the darkness retreated from his eyes, casting them a rich burgundy hue. He crossed the room and stood in front of me. The bond thrummed and sang with giddy anticipation. It knew he would touch me soon, and I felt it willing me to close the final inches of distance between us. I refused. This was the king's move to make.
"Perhaps I should assemble a backup security team," he said, voice impossibly low. "Maybe I shouldn't..."
His doubts were startling. What did he think was going to happen if he drank my blood? What did he think I was going to do? What was he so afraid of? They were questions without answers.
"Whatever you think is best," I said, finally succeeding at the appropriate level of deference and submission.
"Spectators are poor for secrecy." I got the impression that he was thinking out loud rather than talking to me.
"I understand," I said anyway.
Our words had dropped to a whisper and it gave the exchange a false intimacy that was both welcome and deeply unsettling.
"Do you?" he asked as he assessed my face for whatever truth he thought he might find there. His unwavering gaze gave those two words had a breadth and weight that extended far beyond their five letters. He was giving me another chance.
"I want to," I said. Our conversation had veered into strange and unexpected places, and all the while the bond thrilled at it.
My neck may have been on offer, but Keel ultimately chose a spot on the inside of my arm, just below my elbow. The angle allowed me to watch him while he drank, his lips working rhythmically at the area his fangs had punctured as he adjusted my arm for maximum blood flow. Once satisfied with the set-up, his eye lids drooped closed. Unlike other feedings, he made no sound or any attempt to influence my feelings about what was happening. The only thing he did was numb the pain of the bite, so instead of a pinch, I received a tiny short-lived burst of pleasure, followed by the bond's bigger pleasure.
And there we stood, mostly facing one another, my arm outstretched at a 90 degree angle, latched in his mouth as he drank.
I wondered if I would have to fight him off, since it'd been so long since he came for a meal, but after a time - long before I felt the slightest bit of faintness - he extracted his fangs and lapped up each droplet of blood until the wound congealed and began to scab and no more came. Then he let go of my arm. It hung suspended in the air for a moment, before I returned it to my side.
"How do you feel?" I asked.
"Like I've been subsisting on dog meat for weeks."
I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I thought it would get easier hearing oneself referred to as food, but it didn't, not really. Fifteen years with humans was a lot of upbringing and conditioning to undo.
"Okay, do the rest of it," he said. "Get your shield up and don't forget to block out the blood scent. We need to get moving. It also needs to look like you're subordinate, so don't fight me."
As he spoke, the feeling of déjà vu was overwhelming. We'd done all of this before in simpler times, but why were we repeating it now? What was he after? Was he really that afraid for his life? He claimed this was about a demonstration and a job, but it felt broader than that. For months Keel had been absent and now he wanted to walk me into the future by recreating history or some facsimile of it? My mind ran up against blank wall after blank wall as it struggled to process everything. Nothing this Keel did made sense. It was like constant whiplash when he was around and his unexpected reappearance only cemented that. I almost wished he'd leave again. At least Arthos and his lessons held some logic.
Keel snapped his fingers in front of my face and I realized I'd been lost to my mental puzzle. "Are you listening?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," I said, and began part two. I sliced open my finger and dabbed my blood on Keel's shoulders, arms and head, pretending not to notice when his breaths became deeper.
Once done, I reached into myself and cast the shield. It was easy now to balance the scent-blocking with the protective parts of the magic. Practice, even as sporadic as it was these days, continued to make me a stronger and more efficient spellcaster. I felt something pulse in the bond, and I wondered if Keel's presence didn't have something to do with it as well.
"It's up," I said. "Can you feel it?"
He nodded.
"Can we try something else?" I surprised myself by even suggesting this.
"No," Keel said with a sharpness not unlike the slam of door, which essentially it was.
I guess my last experiment had been too much after all.
A look of shock must have crossed my face because he softened a bit. "Later, if there's time."
"But it might help with-"
A stern look and a sterner "later," and I shut up.
"Let's go." Keel thumbed the elevator button and the metallic beast rumbled back up towards us.
As soon as the doors slid open, we stepped inside. He pressed the bottommost button on the number pad. One floor below where they kept the human cattle. It was a place I'd never been, not even with Arthos. If this had been pre-transition Keel taking me on one of his educational sightseeing excursions, I'd be peppering him with questions and he'd be answering each of them in far too much detail. It would have felt comfortable, and I might have even found some happiness in that, but instead we descended into the bowels of the compound in awkward silence, staring forward at the highly polished stainless steel walls of the elevator, which allowed for a hint of our reflections to be mirrored back at us. Both our faces were equally rigid, postures stiff.
As the elevator came to a stop at our destination, Keel gave a final instruction. "You are not to speak with me until I tell you that you may."
"I understand," I said.
"Good," he said, and it was time to disembark.
The first thing that struck me as we left the elevator was how big the atrium we'd exited into was. It could easily hold two hundred people. The walls were covered with wood panelling - dark, long, old-looking boards that stretched upwards towards the high ceiling, which was partially obscured by a network of ducts and pipes, and number of bulbous lights that dangled down like the oversized baubles on a Christmas tree. The floor was unfinished, similar to the kind I'd seen in people's basements once or twice. All dirt, but packed down so hard it almost looked like proper flooring, if not for the dust and occasional divots and chunks that broke loose.
"Come," Keel said, slipping his grip to my elbow and guiding me towards the multiple sets of double doors that stretched across the far side of the atrium. They were ornate and part glass, and would have reminded me of old-fashioned saloon doors if they didn't fill the frames they sat in so completely.
We passed through a pair in the middle - they weren't locked - and emerged into another large space, but this one was more of a slow-curving hall that stretched out away from us to the left and right. The barn-wood theme continued in here. Keel kept moving forward until a single door took shape in the gloom in front of us.
"In here," he said, opening the door and releasing my arm, so that I could navigate through. After all the large spaces, the hall we were in now was painfully claustrophobic. Keel and I could barely walk side by side without bumping shoulders. At the end was a light and what looked like another large carved-out cavern. When we stepped out into it, I was instantly humbled by its enormity. We had emerged in a large arena. Stretched out above us were rows and rows of stands. No fancy seats, just wooden benches extending from one set of upwards-leading stairs to the next. Keel and I stood on the ground level, where a gate opened to main floor of the place. My brain put two and two together, remembering everything Keel and Arthos had told me. This was the famed arena, the centrepiece of Nosferatu life, where the fights and public punishments were carried out.
"Take off your boots," Keel said.
"Pardon?"
He threw a latch and the door to the field opened, the whole thing was covered in a thick layer of sand.
"Oh," I said, suddenly understanding, and bent down to untie my laces. I stuffed my socks into my boots, and then placed them next to the door. As I stepped down onto the sand, it felt cool between my toes, like a beach at night. I'm not sure why I expected otherwise deep in the earth where there was no sun to warm it.
Keel was already trudging barefoot toward the centre of the space and I had to jog to catch up. Unlike his hands, his toenails had not formed into claws during the transition, so the footsteps he left in the sand looked surprising human, simply bigger versions of my own. We stopped when we reached the middle and Keel turned in a slow circle, surveying the whole of the arena. Then he shut his eyes and did the turn one more time. When he opened them, he said, "We're alone. You are free to speak."
"This is amazing," I said. And it was. Much of the Nosferatu's underground compound was impressive, but this was truly spectacular. I had no idea how they'd manage to carve such a big chasm out of the earth without a metric ton of heavy machinery.
"Aside from the throne room and the Mothering, this is our most sacred place," he explained.
A shiver raced down my spine at the mention of the Mothering, where the catatonic breeders awaited their inevitable deaths at the fangs of their offspring. Keel had snuck me in there once and the horror of it had scalded itself into my brain. A place I never wanted to end up.
"Our tournaments are conducted here, as are our large rituals, and any executions and floggings that warrant the attendance of the populace."
"And this is where we'll conduct our demonstration?" I asked, remembering that he and Arthos had shown up with a pair of requests, and the job was simply the first of them.
"Yes."
"What will I have to do?"
Keel turned and pointed to the gate we'd entered through a few minutes earlier. "We'll file in from over there. Boras will walk to my right, one pace behind me, and you will walk to my left in the same position. That's Arthos' place so expect a reaction from the crowd, but you are not to acknowledge it. They have never seen a sorcerer included a royal procession and it will cause a stir; that's what we are counting on, in fact. Arthos will follow behind us with the official documents. We'll come to a stop here -" Keel paused to draw an X in the sand with his bare foot "- and Arthos will deposit the books on a lectern. He will then take his place behind it and I will step forward to address the crowd. When I do this, you will not follow me, but rather remain standing with Boras until you are summoned."
I wanted to ask what would happen if Boras wasn't well enough to fulfil his royal duties, but it didn't seem like the right time to interrupt, so I just nodded.
"Then what?" I asked.
"Then you will come forward and we will re-enact the Allegiance Ritual."
My stomach did a flip. My messing that up the first time was largely to blame for everything that came after. "Do we have to?"
"Your initiation was a closed ceremony; Boras, Arthos and I all agree that the greater populace should witness your vows - for utmost effect."
"What if another earthquake happens?" The question came out so quietly that if it weren't for Keel's vampire senses I'm not sure he would have heard it.
"All the better."
"Huh?" It wasn't the reaction I was expecting at all.
"It'll show them how powerful we are," Keel said.
"Oh."
"After the ritual, Arthos will read the formal charges against the accused and present the evidence against them, at which point I will declare my verdict. Usually executions are handled via beheading." Squish. Thump. My mind flashed back to the decapitated head of Harck hitting the throne room floor beside me on my very first day here, and I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and it burned its way back down to my stomach. "But that hasn't been serving so well as a deterrent lately, so this time their fates will be a little more fiery."
It sank in, and the bile surged back so strong that this time I had to cover my mouth to hold back a gag. A sour, acidic burp trickled out instead and I tried not to puke. "You want me to kill them?"
"Just as a small reminder of your abilities."
I couldn't believe the casual way he was discussing this; he took eating more seriously.
"That was self-defence," I argued.
"Yes, and these Nosferatu have made attempts on my life. Should they ever escape, don't you think they'll do so again? Or worse, what if they get out and flee topside and bite some people? Your sentimentality could bring about Extinction Day."
"It's not sentimentality."
"Then what it is?" he said, disapproval seeping back into his voice.
"I'm not a murderer, Your Majesty." Of course that wasn't strictly true, I had taken many, many lives, but it had been them or me. They hadn't been bound and defenseless.
"Yes, you are. You are a sorcerer, hunter of Nosferatu, it's in your blood."
So this is what this is about? I thought.
"No, it's not," I said. "Or have you forgotten I'm half-human, raised by humans? I know it's all nature over nurture here, but that's not how it is with me. When I look at you, other Nosferatu, there is no instinct to kill, if anything there's fear. I never wanted to fight any of you, I just wanted to get away."
Keel looked profoundly disappointed. He wanted a tool, a weapon, an accomplice to his rule, but no matter how hard I tried to turn off my humanity and force myself into that role I always failed, as I was doing right now.
"They tried to assassinate me," he repeated. "You said you came here to help me, you need to do this."
"That's not fair."
"Maybe not, but what is?"
I imagined myself casting my spell in front of hundreds of Nosferatu, having to look into the eyes of the sentenced in the moments before I burned them alive, and then the fire and the melting flesh and the smell that would come with it. "No. I can't." Part of my recovery after the massacre was making peace with what I'd done, and I had promised myself I'd never do it again, not unless it was a matter of life and death. And while this might have been that once, these vampires were now behind bars and no immediate threat to anyone.
"Need I remind you that you serve me and-"
"Stop. I know. I heard it all before: you own me. But you are not hearing me. I can't do this. I cannot kill in front of an audience."
I watched as the disappointment on his face morphed into anger. I was refusing an order - again. I could almost see the wheels in his head spinning: how could he make me do this?
What would it be this time? Another threat to Lucia, or maybe my dad this time? Perhaps he'd just come up with some exquisite new mind game to play with me.
No, this needed to end here. I would not kill for him, not like this. But how could I stop it? I racked my brain, realizing I had seconds, maybe less, to think of something, anything. Then it came to me and I yanked my hoodie and T-shirt over my head in one fluid motion, leaving myself standing there in just my purple bra. Keel's eyes widened, losing a lot of their anger as he took in my sudden nakedness.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I will not murder people like this, even guilty ones, but as Arthos told you, I have been paying attention to my lessons and I realize that in your society that is a crime. So you can just punish me now, because I'm not going to do it. I will take my whipping. Invite whoever you want to watch. I won't even let my magic do its thing. As many lashes as it takes, Your Majesty, but I will not be your executioner."
Keel stared at me. Brief glimpses of hunger and desire flitted across his face, but his mask mostly held. "Put your clothes back on," he said.
I didn't move. "I won't kill for you," I repeated.
"Put your clothes back on." There was a new sharpness in his voice that snapped me into action.
Once my shirt and hoodie were settled back in place, Keel snatched up my arm again and started dragging me back across the arena toward the exit. His sour mood radiated upwards from the painful depressions of his fingers. "Let's go," he said, although we were already going.
I had disappointed him yet again. Yet, this time, I thought I could live with that disappointment.
I was not a murderer. And he would not make me one.