Ava's POV
I stepped outside in the cool winter's air, feeling the hair on my skin rise but more over the fact that William sat there on the porch steps with his head in his hands and his whole body shaking.
"William," I whispered. "William, talk to me."
He kept his head down but stopped shaking while he spoke. "What, Ava? I told you, I need time. I give you yours. You give me mine."
"That's the thing though," I said, sitting down next to him. "Every time I find myself suffering from an emotional breakdown, you come to me. You know just what to say. You know how to make me feel better about myself. To make me feel a little less worthless."
The muscles in his back showed prominently through his thin hoodie. He hunched over like a broken down god. I realized then that I'd never seen William so vulnerable. Ever since I met him, he was the statue holding me up when I felt like nothing. Seeing him break made the inside of me feel like a bunch of hot air—pointless.
"You are not worthless," he sighed into his knees.
"You might think so, but that doesn't change how I feel." I tried getting a look at his face, but he kept it buried in his hands. "I know I can't change how you feel about Der—your father. I know you want time. I know you don't want to talk about it, but...You can't just keep your feelings all bottled up. You're angry, I get that. You've seen how I feel about my mom, and I don't even remember my dad. He's always been a figment of imagination, just someone Val talks about sometime. Someone I can't even tell you what he looks like, what he sounds like."
"It's not the same, Ava," he said, his voice soft and low. "This...man has been watching me my whole life and the one after that. He never came to me. He didn't look me in the eyes until a few days ago when he strolled in with a new title and that smug smile. I didn't tell you what he said when we first met back at the Hunters' base—that he said he knew me. He said that if I looked hard enough I would see that I knew him, too. Like he believed I saw him before."
"Or that you saw some of yourself in him," I offered.
His head shot up and his eyes bored into me like steel. "Don't say that. Dear God, don't compare me to that man. We have nothing in common, and there is no way I want to ever be like him."
"He's your father, William." I couldn't believe I was the one trying to convince William of Derek's goodness now. Not that I fully trusted Derek, but he had save us all. Whatever his motives had been was business of his own, I guess. "Isn't that what you always wanted? The man you always thought was your father, the one who beat you and kicked you out and blame you for something so horrible, no longer holds the title. Doesn't that make you feel a little better? That you don't have to live thinking you might end up like him? That it's not in your blood?"
"Not when the blood I do have is even stranger."
"Then talk to him," I insisted feeling sort of like the pushy therapist or the concerned girlfriend. "I know you want time. I know you want to figure this all out on your own, but you're not going to get very far. Derek sounds like he has his reasons. He sounds so sincere when he says he's sorry. Whether he means it or not, I don't know, but..."
William chewed on his lower lips before ducking his head back down in his hands with a groan. The way he held himself now, he seemed lost. Only a few days ago I found myself in the same position. My mother had lied to me just as his father. The difference though was that Derek helped us while my mother chased at our tails.
"All right then. I'll just...I'll just go." I placed my hands down to push myself up.
Then his hand found mine on the step. "Ava...I don't know what I would do without you here. Especially now. I would probably go insane. I would walk into the sunlight without much thought. I would find myself feeling everything I felt before. You don't want to know the man I was before I met you. He was selfish and cruel and broken. He didn't care about anything. He was lost."
I squeezed his hand and put my other on his cheek running my fingers down his jaw. He closed his eyes and moved against it. feeling the bit of human warmth that still pulsed under my skin. That still pulsed under his.
"You would probably despise the girl I was before. I know I did."
He opened his eyes slowly, thick black lashes as a delicate frame. "I don't think I could ever hate you. Even when you're being stupid and running off trying to get yourself killed. Ever since you arrived, part of me has lifted from the dead—the human part surely brought on by my Hunter genes. It's as if my heart still beats. Like my lungs still breathe. All for you."
I shook my head, my thumb running lightly across his lips. "Glad to know I bring out the good in someone. Lately, it seems like everything around me has been crashing to me feet. Like I have no control over my life. Not since I went to that stupid party."
He took a lock of my hair and wrapped it absently around his fingers. "But if you never went, you might now have ended up here. I would never know the possibility of true beauty in life. I would still be lost."
"And so would I."
All my thoughts from over the past week—all my unsure notions about William, about my feelings towards him and everything else around me—blurred together now. I felt my stomach churn with want—no, need. I needed him now. I needed his hand in mine. I needed his lips on mine. I needed him and all the baggage he brought alongside. We could both pack it up and hide it in a closet somewhere far off. Just for now.
I didn't care anymore. I didn't care about my past or his. About where we came from or all the trouble surrounding us. About the people sitting inside--those who loved and those who hated. About the people out there after us because of what we were.
In the end we were two people brought together by the cruel hands of fate.
Sometimes bad things happened for good reasons.
Sometimes the happy ending had a sucky beginning.
William froze, his forehead on mine, his attention clearly far off. "What was that?"
"What?" I kept my eyes straight forward. Nothing could distract me. I couldn't let it.
He pulled himself up to stand on the porch. "That noise. It came from the woods. Is everyone still inside?"
I pushed myself up beside him. "They should be. Why? It's probably just an animal."
"No." His nostrils flared at the strange scent I recognized. "That smell, it's not animal."
"A human?"
He shook his head firmly, his jaw clenched. "A Hunter. No, multiple Hunters. They...they're here. They found us. Derek's spell must be wearing off."
"Well, let's make him do it again." I wrapped my cardigan around myself feeling my chest flare up with panic. They were here. They found us. We weren't safe anymore. My mother...
My mother.
"Val!"
Moments later everyone who'd been sitting in the house stood on the front porch staring out at the woods. Val came down beside me, eyes wild with anger and concern and fear. Derek also stepped forward, his jaw set just like William's.
"The Hunters," he said. "They came."
"How did they find us?" Angelina asked from the back where she stood with Victor's hands on her shoulders. "You said you cast the spell. You promised they wouldn't find us here. I thought we were safe."
Derek looked down at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. "Sometimes our emotions upset our magic."
Hanson rolled his eyes in annoyance. "So you're saying we're all going to die because your emotions are out of whack?"
"You won't die," Derek told him--told us--as he stood back up straight. "They're not after you to kill you. They want to take you back to the base. They want to experiment. That's all they ever wanted."
"The cure," I croaked.
"The cure," Jane reiterated from behind me. "Do you think they've improved it?"
"Impossible," William finally spoke. "They've been too busy hunting us down. They must've realized whatever they used on Ava didn't work. They just want to capture us and try something new. Lock us up and torture us—see what makes us tick. Why our blood runs the way it does."
Silence surrounded us. We all kept our eyes straight ahead on the woods seeing the line of Hunters appear out of the darkness like ghosts. They all wore their black and denim, hair pulled back, weapons at the ready. They came to fight. They came to win.
Val shifted beside me. "They're here," she spoke hoarsely. "And Mom's right in the middle of it all."
Our mother stood in smack dab in the middle of the group, a few steps ahead of the others. She wore a worn denim jacket over a black T-shirt and black pants tucked into her boots, something the old her would've worn on a camping trip. She had clipped her think blonde hair back framing her face which was stern and determined.
"You have two choices!" she called out across the way. "You can all come with us willingly or we make you."
"Now, Celia!" Hanson yelled back like a drunken man on the street at two a.m. "That doesn't seem like a fair proposition! I thought you liked to see your victims to work for it! Give us a chance, why don't you! You might be surprised."
She smiled wryly. "You know how I am with chances, Hanson. I rarely give them out. That's what my own daughters do, so why not me?" She turned to Val and me, her eyes alight. "Ava, Valerie, you can come with me. We can start again. Val, I'll up your status. I will make you the most prominent Hunter in our world. And Ava, I'll teach you everything you need to know. I'll help you. I will heal you, and you can be with your sister and me. Like it's supposed to be."
I shook my head and chest burn with fury. "I told you. You can't fix me. I don't need to be healed. Being a vampire isn't a disease. You can't just make it all go away."
"Sure I can," she hissed. "I have been studying possible cures all my life. I have been searching for answers long before you were born, Ava. I don't want to get rid of vampires by killing them. I want to make them human again."
"Ironic though, isn't it?" Derek walked slowly down the steps and onto the front lawn. "You want to restore humanity in creatures who may have more in them than you. How can someone so inhuman manage such a thing?"
Her head snapped to him. "Derek, I don't know why I ever trusted you. Why I ever thought your loyalty was with me and the Hunters."
"Oh," he commented, sauntering forward. "My loyalty is still to the Hunters. The Original teachings though. Not the ones you claim to practice. I have always been more of a Hunter than you, Celia. You just didn't know."
Her lips pressed together in a thin line, her expression faltering slightly. "What are you talking about now, Derek? What did I not know? What else were you keeping from me other than your traitorous tendencies?"
I could sense an odd smile turning the corners of his lips. William took my hand whether to settle his own uneasiness or mine. He knew now that the man in front of us was someone important to past—vital to his life.
"You know, Celia," Derek started, shoving his hands in his pockets carelessly. "There were times you didn't believe me. When you didn't trust you. You have quite the eye, always an incredible Hunter, really. Ever since you were born. You did your first spell in your bed at the hospital the day you were born. I saw it happen. I watched you grow up. I witnessed you take the Hunter oath and learn the correct way to hunt and cast spells. I saw you meet and marry your husband and have your children. I saw your husband leave you and how heartbroken you were. How you threw yourself into your work. How you brought your firstborn into the life. How you stopped caring. How you left your youngest behind. I saw it all."
Mom froze, blue eyes wide with clear shock. "How...You can't know all that. I never told you that. I never told anyone that. You couldn't have been there. You're so young. You're the same age as Val."
Derek shook his head. "But I'm not. I have been around for centuries, Celia. I practice the old Hunter ways because I lived them. Because I helped make them."
William's hand tightened around mine. We had already heard this story today. William must have been sickly reminded of what he was—of how much of his life had been a lie. Both of our parents--the ones who were standing face to face right now--had lied to of us. To protect us. But really they'd only destroyed us.
My mother tried resetting her composure, tried to show she wasn't fazed by the truth. "Fine, Derek. You are an Original, are you? Do you think I am scared of that? Do you think the title itself sets fear inside of me? Because it doesn't. I have dealt with Originals before. I know what you all are capable of. No matter what kind of Original you may be, you all possess the same qualities."
"And what might those be?"
Her eyes bored into him, as dark as death itself. "You do what you want. You believe in what you believe. You don't take advice from anyone. You are stubborn and coldhearted. You don't care about others or what state you leave them in. You live by your laws and yours only. You know how to break people, how to leave them in pieces, unable to be fixed. When you hate, you hate. And when you love, you love. Nothing else matters to you." She shook her head sharply, the wind whipping around her like she was the eye of the tornado. "You are incessantly blind to it all. Blind to those who will defeat you in the end."
And then the whole line of Hunters came forward. They seemed to float across the lawn, coming toward us like fallen angels who had been struck by the hand of God, broken by the gates of Heaven.
"Chris, Luke," Val spoke sharply. "Go inside."
"But—" both of them protested.
Jane was the one to put her foot down with a strict, "Now."
Chris and Luke rushed inside locking the door behind them. All left were vampires and Hunters—Val and Derek as our allies, Celia and the others as our enemies. We denied the first option my mother had offered. We would not be taken. Not so easily.
"Celia," Derek said, not moving from his place in the middle of the lawn. "You are making a huge mistake. The vampires don't have to be your enemy, not if you just let them go. Let us go."
"Derek, Derek." She shook her head. "Don't you understand? I am here to make our world better. That has always been my intention. Think of how much peace there will be without vampires going about killing people. Think of how happy everyone will be when we don't have to worry about them anymore. We can all start over."
Derek took a step forward in surrender or determination, I'll never know because the next moment his body crumble to the ground where he seized and gagged. The line of Hunters had stopped with their hands held forward and their concentration on Derek as he writhed in pain.
William froze from beside me. I couldn't bear seeing his face.
"What are you doing to him?" Jane asked, her eyes ablaze.
My mother looked back up with a smirk crossing her lips. "He betrayed me. He may be powerful, but he is still unbelievably stupid. He has been distracted by love—distracted by you vampires. He has come to lose all motivation, everything that ever meant anything to be a Hunter."
"So you plan on killing him?"
She held her head up higher. "If at all possible."
I found myself moving forward as if by some unattainable force. They called my name behind my back. I felt William's hands grip my wrist, but somehow I pulled away. My eyes stayed on my mother, the woman who replaced her. She tried to hide her surprise. Instead she crossed her arms with false dignity.
"Ava, what do you think you're doing?" she asked. "You can't protect him."
I swallowed. "I can try."
"Don't you dare think I won't stop you," she hissed, jamming her finger in my direction like she did when I was the annoying twelve-year-old insisting I hated her because she wouldn't let me go to the skating rink after nine p.m.
"You can't hurt me," I told her, my voice growing stronger. "I am your daughter. You wouldn't."
The facade of a warrior queen--ridden by fury and rage, determined by blood--slipped with her next words. "You, neither one of you—" she motioned to Val "—are daughters of mine. Not anymore. The vampire and the vampire sympathizer. I wouldn't stake claim over either. You gave it up the moment you pushed me away."
Now my heart sang with fire. I wanted to remember the woman who told me bedtime stories, the woman who was so heartbroken when her husband left. But she left me no choice. All I saw now was a monster who hated what I was and everything I now stood for.
"I told you, Mother. You can't change what I am. Hate me all you want. But I am a vampire now. And there's nothing you can do about it."
Just then, Derek's suffering stopped. He collapsed onto the ground in an unconscious heap. The Hunter's placed their hands to their sides, their eyes unwavering from their induced gaze. My mother repositioned herself. I could see now that she held something in her hand. A bottle of black liquid.
No, a syringe.
"Ava!"
I whipped around to William who stood wide-eyed staring at the what must've been meant for me. Then I looked back around to find my mother only inches from me, with the tool at the ready.
"I perfected it, Ava," she whispered, a new, almost hopeful expression lining her face. "You won't think I'm a monster anymore. Not after this. We can be happy again. I can save you."
"No!" I knocked it out of her hands and shoved her to the ground.
But she grabbed my ankle before I could run, pulling me down right beside her. She rolled around so that she crouched over me. Then she pulled at my sweater's sleeve showing the veins at the crook of my elbow.
"I'll save you."
I wanted to kick and scream. I knew that I could knock her off with my vampire strength in a moment's need. But what was the use? She would always come back after me. She tried to deny me, tried to disclaim me as one of her own. She tried so hard to hate me, but really she just wanted her Ava back. Or at the least the little girl she left all those years ago.
I closed my eyes feeling my body go week with exhaustion--giving up. Me, giving up.
Then I felt a new force. The weight of my mother shadowing over me disappeared. Someone else cried out from feet away, a familiar high-pitch scream. I opened my eyes and turned my head.
A body with wild dark hair lay on the grass now right under my mother, who now stood pale faced and wild eyed. The body no longer moved, no longer screamed. It just laid motionless with the syringe sticking out of her arm and all the black liquid drained from it.
Liv.
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AN: Dayemmm...that was longer than I expected. But it finally happened! One more chapter to go and then the sequel's sequel (which doesn't have a title, might I add. Any suggestions after reading the first two?). Hope everyone's enjoying the intense family drama! I know I am.
Songs for the chapter: Burn With You- Lea Michele, We Don't Eat- James Vincent McMorrow, Mother- Lissie