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Of all the ******* idiots to stumble upon this meeting and follow Bob back here, it just had to be Roderic. I swear to god, the list of things wrong with this kid was longer than my arm. I was pissed at Robert, though. I'd cracked his skull against the cave wall and he was kind of oozing our special black blood, but he'd be fine.

Normally, I'm a bit more protective of my own, but if he'd let a ******* blood thief trail him back here, he deserved what fuckery was about to take place. 'You're on your own, Robert,' I thought to myself as I stepped back into the shadows, watching the fight.

Of course mister blood thief bit Bob to start out. That was hardly surprising. It kind of amused me that he was being called a Necurat, though. I really, really needed to make sure these fucks were dead dead when I was done with them, instead of like... semi dead and then come back to life-y as soon as I turned my back. This wouldn't be happening if I'd stuck around an extra hour after accidentally offing this guy. Whoops.

So I just watched. At first, the whole fight unfolding in front of me had as much of an effect as a bad movie. Then Roderic started rolling the **** around like Sonic the damn hedgehog. It took a few seconds, but my mild detachment shifted to amusement and horror all at once. What kind of drugs was this guy on? More importantly, would they work on me? If so, where could I get them?

All I could think of were those stupid Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics. 'Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? It's neither, Nix. It's a cracked out dream and I really hope to **** we're not awake right now.' But of course we were. And of course now that I'd compared Roderic to the blue rodent, my mind was superimposing that damn video game's music over this scene.

****. My. Life.

Or... actually, **** Bob's he was looking pretty bad. How the **** was I shipping him out of town without a goddamn arm?! Ugg. At least Roderic seemed to have had enough of the fight and vanished. Good.

But just in case, I'd had it. "Enough!" My voice reverberated off the stones and for a second, I was worried a few of the stalactites hanging out at the top of the cavern would crack off and impale one - or all - of us.

Just as that worry faded, I felt the pathetic fangs of a blood thief sink into my arm.

Without even thinking about what I was doing, my body reacted. First instinct was to ball up a fist and punch Roderic, hard, right in the nose. I didn't even take a moment to relish the sickening crunch of cartilage before instinct number two kicked in. My power coiled within me a moment before lashing out, sending the thief to the one place my powers always instinctively went: the Killing Grounds.

One second, Roderic was in the cave. The next, he'd find himself in that secluded corner of Thornside Park, standing on the unhallowed, unholy ground stained by the blood of so many vampires. If he wanted blood, he could eat the ******* dirt.

As I shook myself off, idly smoothing over the broken skin on my arm, Robert stirred. He looked like hell and I couldn't blame him. Maybe I should have stepped in before he lost the arm...

"What did you just...? How? I'm sorry." That was all he said as he stared at the cavern floor. He knew he'd messed up, badly.

"That doesn't matter." I waved off the question with an impatient flick of my hand. "You had one simple thing to do - lay low until you got here and you couldn't even do that." Yeah, I was still mad, but I knew this was also partially my fault. "Your actions have caused you to be noticed - you're on the bounty list run by some pseudo omniscient thing that I think wants us all to kill each other. You need to leave town or you're going to die."

He stared at me for a long time. Those dark brown eyes were searching for some kind of answer on my face and I knew there wasn't one. I think he was waiting for me to give in, to smile and tell him this was all a huge joke. But I never did. I guess this was a huge joke, really. A cosmic ******* joke and Robert just ended up being the butt of it. "Going to d-die?"

I'm not sure why that shocked him. He'd just been in a gun and/or knife fight with Sonic. But then, I remembered when I'd first been turned. I remembered the moments of lucidity followed by instinctive insanity. I knew what he was going through - I knew he'd need a while to acclimate before he was fit to fit in.

"Yeah." Finally, my voice softened. "I need to get you out of the city. I'll teach you what you need to know before you leave, but you have to listen to me. You can't leave without an arm, so I'll hide you - keep you safe until you're healed and have a better grasp of things. You have my number - if anything comes up after you leave, call me. And keep a low profile. Do you understand?"

He still looked scared, unsure and seemed to be in pain, but he nodded. Despite my piss poor performance as a sire earlier, he seemed to trust me. All that former cockiness was gone now that his instincts had shut down and he was left holding the stump of a missing arm, facing the possibility of being an amputee. "I understand."

"It'll grow back," I reassured him, then motioned for him to sit down. It wasn't a comfortable meeting place by any means, but it would do for the moment. I was sure Roderic would return and I wanted to be there to end that miserable creature's existence as soon as he returned.

I went about explaining everything I thought was safe to explain to someone I was sending outside of the rift. He was my experiment. Could we survive out there? He didn't know death wasn't permanent here, after all. Once I'd overloaded his brain with information, I handed him a scrap of paper, fae words scribbled on it.

"Use this - read out the words and it'll take you to my apartment. If you know of any other young vampires, take them with you when you leave. I'll help get them out, too. I'll see you tomorrow - rest."

He looked at that bit of paper in confusion, mouthing the strange words before giving a slow nod. "I met a few today... If I find them again, I'll talk to them." He paused, looking me in the eye. "Thank you." A moment after speaking the words on the paper, he vanished.

And I waited.