iii. xxvii. mmxviii
There's a level of trust between Every and the people she once called family that is broken.
I know it's my fault, but she doesn't seem to care. There's only a few in her heart, it seems.
She's been more easily annoyed. I don't know if she's angry with me for my decision, or if she's angry
at them for being hypocritical. She told me to protect Amalea and I understand now she would have been
fine with the doors being closed. Silas told me this, really. Every hasn't been doing much talking.
The shadows take her sometimes and other days she doesn't look like herself.
It's an odd thing, these vampires. Guilt, pain, anger. I've seen all of these emotions play across
her features and one would think that you're able to remove them. She's told me in the past
that other vampires have heightened emotions. I don't think I'd be able to handle it. On the days
where she does speak, it's usually when I find her leaving the apartment.
We've been staying in her family home.
Occasionally, at least. Sometimes, we stay in the treehouse. She summons me to her
when we stay in both. I've been carrying the traps she gives me. "They can hunt us all
they want, but it doesn't change the fact that they're choosing Ariadne over the truth."
It was the most I got out of her last week at the time she handed me a proximity mine and suggested I remember where I place it.
She's different sometimes, colder. There's usually blood staining her clothes;
she's been hunting again, I think. I don't know if it's the men that she's dealing with
whom hired me, or someone else. I mentioned it to her sire that they've been bothering her again.
Our meetings are... well, Every said I'm still alive. He isn't happy, with either of us.
He's yelled at us both. Her, more so, given it seems the majority believe that she's the
one who told me to do it, but I've told him I ignored her because she doesn't make me do
much. Protect, usually, is the main thing she does. He isn't the monster I believed him to be.
He's been listening, but he's willing to talk to us as people, at least. His anger, however,
is something to fear.
The two seem to have an understanding where things have fallen. At least, now.
The night she introduced me, I ended up with a gunshot and she was nearly
thrown out a window. If Every had nine lives, I'm almost positive by now, from her sire alone,
she would be in the negatives. I don't know if she's showed him like she's shown
me and the others, but then again, I think she chooses not to tell me.
There was a moment of silence between the two. A glare exchanged.
She told me to leave without speaking in the way she does when she's angry.
Not telepathically. It was as if she willed me to leave. She was pointed to make sure I was seen
by the cameras in the doorstep, as well.
I don't know what their relationship holds, truly. Occasionally, I believe sire/childe.
Other times, I see them as sister and brother. I had to question if they knew each other before.
I received a snort and then, "The ******** broke my skull after grabbing me by the throat"
in response. He isn't protecting her, it seems and she isn't hiding. At least not to the degree she would
if she were actually hiding. I hunted her down, she did this to me. I'm sure of it.
Paranoid or concerned, I think, are better words. She was like this the day she left for the chambers,
always looking over her shoulder twice. It's more than just the vampires that she's worried about.
On the topic of being worried, I recently joined the militia to combat zombies. She told me that
I was an idiot. I don't know if it was said light heartedly, or if she was serious. Perhaps I am
an idiot to hope that it will do some good. There are more soldiers on the street, too. I was the
one who gave my blood, I might as well do something. She rolled her eyes and told me that I'm likely
to land myself into the hospital again, but if trying to help kills me, at least I will have made up for the lives
that I helped ruin. The lives that we all helped ruin.
I might not have had a decision fully, but I still think I did the right thing.
I fully believe that Amalea would have done it herself and gotten herself killed.