81. An Exile on the Prowl

Luc has literally owned me for so long, manipulating and controlling my every action… At least that’s how it felt, ever since he turned me and trapped me in his coven. Now I’m free, turned loose, exiled… and I have no idea where to go, or what to do with my cursed, immortal existence. I was made for Luc. That has been my only purpose. Even my art… Ever since we met, my every painting and sketch was intended for him to see, to horde and display in his grand and decadent halls. Now I’ve left him forever, and my muse is dead, just like my soul. I’m just wandering the city streets… missing him every minute. The flow of bitter memories has not lessened in the slightest, and I keep replaying his guilting words, *“I can’t get back that piece of me.”* What Roman destroyed, what this life in the coven has conditioned him to be. *“If you ever leave, I’m just... alone.”* I am the only person he has ever been able to show his genuine self to. That is what he claims and… I betrayed him, shut myself away from him, time and again, and now I have abandoned him completely.

But I had to, because we could not keep hurting each other. It was never enough, having a few good days with him, or even years, between all the bitterness and heartbreak. Having scattered hours of open, honest love in privacy of our bedroom just to be talked of dismissively and treated like his sex slave before the eyes of every other.

He would never let me find anyone else to share my true self with. Antonio’s obsessed with me, but he still treats me like a fragile kid, not a capable and hard-edged adult. I can’t stand to be around his fussing most days. Every person in that coven has some false perception of just what I am: from unattainable sex object, to unhinged gunman, or just a base, self-persecuting slut. Luc is the only person who has watched me evolve and accepted my every change, at least for a time. I thought he was growing right along with me these past few years…

But no. He’ll never change. He’ll project whatever lying image it takes to control me. Even setting me free… It has to be a trick. It feels like a manipulation, as if he knew how much I’d miss him from the very first day, as if I would seek out his men and go begging to be back at his side...

Exile from the coven was never paired with any order to remain forever lonely though. I could always visit Leah. We could fuck and both feel euphoric for a handful of hours. Then I could actually sleep for a time, have another happy dream… and probably wake up feeling even worse than I do now. I’d start full on crying, then brooding, and causing her nothing but trouble. Even stopping by that apartment would be causing her grief. I don’t know if Gracen is working tonight or not. If he is, Leah has no babysitter for her six year old son. He’ll be asleep already at this time of night, but I’d wake him up by knocking, and even at his age, he’ll probably start to wonder why I’m always coming by so late…

Gracen is his father – the only actually good role model for him. All I’ve ever done is divide that family and draw Leah away from her committed partner and son, and that was never truly about love. It was just a shallow craving for her blood. And Leah’s love for me… I fear it’s mostly pity. She values me as a confidante from time to time, but she gets uncomfortable whenever I get too dark, when I’m in a mood like this one… I should never have opened up to her in the first place. I should have stopped burdening her long ago. Even Luc has finally snapped, completely sick of my ‘antics’. I can't go back to either of them. I’m an exile. I need to disappear, and even if they genuinely miss me for a time... They will all be better off without me.

I think I’ll leave LA tonight. And I’ll go.. I don’t know, but I have to keep moving. It should really be somewhere remote, away from people… but that could be all the more dangerous. I remain incapable of killing myself, so I have to keep feeding, to ensure I don’t get blinded by hunger and turn feral. I don’t want a prael, no other companions to grow attached to before dragging them down into my misery, not ever again. I drank a rat a few hours ago while sheltering inside a closed down storefront until sunset. It was utterly disgusting. I can get cleaner blood from butcher shops, but that is sure to still taste rotten. All blood other than fresh, warm, human blood is sickening, and after twenty four hours away from the coven, downing nothing but that quick drink of revolting, rodent sanguis… I can smell the people inside near every building I pass. The streets are all but deserted at this hour of the morning, and yet I can taste on the air the flavor notes of every young man and woman flirting and sweating inside these bars and dance halls with body temperatures raised. It would be easy to walk right in, grab up any person who caught my eye, fuck them and suck them down… until there is nothing left.

I’m starving. I wasn’t eating properly even before I left the coven. If I get close enough to anyone now, there is a high risk I will kill them. If that happens in public… If it gets recorded and makes a big enough story, getting on the news again... Maybe Luc would finally be forced to step in and kill me. That’s a tempting thought. After all, I can’t genuinely care about whatever stranger I’d have to drain for that to happen. I’m a soulless vampire, a walking corpse. Without Leah… without Luc… caring is a manufactured feeling of a mind that only distantly remembers how to do so.

I do know my purpose now – to hunt. I locate my prey: one male and one female walking out the back entrance of a theater, and I prepare to make my move.

I can tell myself I’m not a monster, but what I’ve done for years, what I did to my own parents… I could never atone for that. It doesn’t matter what I do. I have wanted to die ever since, and that is never going to change. Just thinking of the expression on my mother’s face as she hung there limp in my hands and the light went out of her eyes…

I lift my revolver, and I open fire.

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