Chapter 29 A Kill is a Kill
POV: Carly
It started innocently enough.
She asked about his mother practicing magic and he answered and she got excited about it the way she always got excited when something surprised her and before either of them had planned it they were deep into a conversation about vampirism that she was not fully prepared for.
"So getting bitten." She said. "That's it. That's how it happens."
"That's it." He confirmed. "No ceremony. No choice. You get bitten by a vampire and the transition begins whether you want it to or not."
She turned that over. "That's terrifying."
"Most things worth fearing are straightforward when you look at them closely." He said.
She chewed on that for a second. "And blood. Why blood specifically. Of all things."
He looked at her carefully. "You sure you want to go down this road."
"I asked didn't I." She said.
He tilted his head slightly. "I don't want to ruin a perfectly good evening."
"You won't." She said. "I can handle it."
He held her gaze for a moment like he was genuinely assessing that. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms and began.
"Blood is the source of all living things." He said. "It makes sense when you think about it that way. For a vampire it's not just sustenance. It's everything. Function, strength, clarity." He paused. "And to complete a transition after being bitten, the new vampire has to take a life. Has to drain a human completely."
She went still.
"You have to kill someone." She said quietly.
"Yes." He said. No dressing it up. No softening it.
"Every vampire."
"Every one." He said.
She sat with that.
He kept going and she could hear the shift in his voice. Something that was not quite pride but was adjacent to it in a way that made her uncomfortable.
"There is nothing like it." He said quietly. "Holding someone's life in your hands. Watching the light go out. Knowing you were the reason for it. You get to play God for one night and it is." He stopped. "Indescribable."
The warmth she had been sitting in all evening cooled.
She looked at him.
He caught her expression and his jaw tightened slightly.
"You said you wanted to know." He said.
"I did." She said. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted.
She reached for her beer and finished it in one long drink and set the empty bottle down and stared at the table.
He watched her do it.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
Then he was out of his seat. "I'm going to get another drink. We can walk around after."
He was gone before she could respond.
They walked in silence for a while.
He had bought her a caramel apple from one of the vendor stalls without asking and put it in her hand and said nothing and she had accepted it and said nothing and they moved through the festival crowd side by side with the music filling up all the space the silence left.
She kept her eyes forward.
He kept his in his pocket.
She knew she was the one who had made it weird. He had warned her and she had pushed and then reacted exactly the way he had predicted she would and now she was walking next to him feeling guilty about it and not knowing how to say that.
She stopped walking and grabbed his arm.
He looked at her hand on his arm. Then at her face.
"I'm not afraid of you." She said.
He nodded once. "Okay."
"No." She shook her head. "I mean it. I wouldn't be here if I was. What you said caught me off guard and I handled it badly and I'm sorry."
He looked at her for a moment. Something shifted but he wasn't satisfied and she could tell.
"You're more self aware than I gave you credit for." He said. "I'll give you that."
"Don't be an ass." She said. "I'm trying."
He almost smiled. "How exactly did my answer catch you off guard? What were you expecting me to say, that I survive off plants?"
"I." She stopped. "I don't know what I expected."
"Yes you did." He said. "You expected me to be ashamed of it. To perform remorse so you'd feel better about being here with me."
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm a vampire Carly. Blood is what I am, not just what I do. I don't have a choice in the matter and I will not apologize for it."
"It's not what you are." She said. "It's what you do. You kill people and you said you liked it."
"Not all of them were innocent." He said, jaw tight.
"That's not the point."
"And you're dating a killer." He said.
She blinked. "Excuse me."
"Lancaster." He said evenly. "I know how the werewolf gene works. I know he had to take a life to activate it. So before you stand on your moral high ground with me, ask yourself why his kill gets a pass and mine doesn't."
"That was an accident." She said. "It's completely different."
"Is it." He said. "Because he told you so? And what about every full moon when he leaves campus. What happens then. What has he told you about those nights and what hasn't he told you."
Her mouth closed.
She had not thought about that.
She had deliberately not thought about that.
"That's." She started.
"A kill is still a kill." He said quietly. "I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying it because you deserve an honest conversation about the world you're actually living in instead of the one you've decided to see."
She stared at the ground.
He was right.
She hated that he was right.
She hated more that it made her think about Tommy in a way she had been carefully avoiding for months.
She looked up. "I still think there's a difference."
"There probably is." He said. Surprising her. "I'm not trying to convince you I'm a good person. I'm trying to convince you that I'm an honest one." He paused. "I could have lied to you tonight. Covered my tracks. Looked better in front of you and protected whatever this is between us." He said it carefully. "But I don't want to lie to you. Even if telling the truth costs me."
She was quiet for a long time.
The music from the amphitheater drifted through the park. Someone nearby laughed at something and the sound dissolved into the crowd.
"I appreciate that." She said finally. "I do. It's just." She looked at him. "At school you're one thing. Out here you're another. And sometimes I forget for a second which one is real."
"They're both real." He said simply. "That's the part that's complicated."
She nodded slowly.
"Friends then." He said. Quietly. Like he was testing how much weight the word could hold right now.
She looked at him.
He waited.
She pressed her lips together and raised one eyebrow and watched the tension ease out of his face into something that was trying very hard not to be relief.
"Don't push it." She said.
He laughed.
She bit into her caramel apple and started walking again and he fell into step beside her and the silence that followed was a completely different kind than the one before it.
Author's Note:
He told her the truth knowing it might cost him everything and she stayed anyway. And now she is walking next to him thinking about Tommy in a way she cannot unthink and I need everyone to sit with that for a second. Drop a like and tell me in the comments, is Niko right about Tommy?