Chapter 41: 41
KAYLA'S POV
My journal entry for the day opened with “Diary: Pros and Cons of Falling for Your Technically-Captor” because if I was going to be shot at dawn tomorrow, it seemed like a good idea to have some kind of structure for the emotional crisis.
I squinted at my list, wondering if I really felt all this or in fact it was just Stockholm syndrome with superior coffee. The rational part of my brain reminded me that forming romantic feelings for someone while they kidnaped you was textbook trauma bonding.
But my remaining brain — and heart — just kept telling me what Alexander and I had was real. We had spent hours discussing vampire politics and what our favorite parts of our respective childhoods were. He confided in me his pain about being caught between species, and I’ve shared with him my experiences growing up as Laura’s best friend under the weight of politics in the Alpha kingdom.
I even sketched out a Venn diagram on the next page: one circle marked “Captivity Bonding,” another “Actual Romance.” In the overlap section were some less vomiting-inducing items including “genuine respect,” “intellectual compatibility” and “willing to die for each other’s principles.”
To be able to see it at that angle — as much as you could when dealing with an execution, I guess — the romance pattern was way bigger than the trauma bonding.
"What are you writing?" Ask Tessa, said my doorframe, at its splendidly opportunistic best.
"An in depth look into my terrible dating decisions."
She perched on my bed, reading over my shoulder with increasing mirth. “You drew a Venn diagram about your feelings for Alexander?”
“I tend to process my emotions through organizational structures. It’s an attribute of character, not a defect.”
"I'm not judging. I made a spreadsheet once that compared the moral imperatives of various blood sources.” Tessa pointed to my con list. “You left out ‘might get me killed at dawn,’ but I suppose that’s implied by the family of genocidal vamps.”
“Well, that’s a little bit more of a scheduling thing than a character flaw,” I said, jotting a note in the margin. “You know, on that note, how do vampires get executed? Is there a ceremony, or is it, as we’d like to imagine, a rather informal beheading situation?”
“Kayla, you’re discussing your own death in dentist appointment terms.”
"Humor is how I process fear. If I’m not joking, I’m screaming, and that doesn’t help anybody.”
Tessa felt silent for a moment then looked over at my journal with the same kind of intensity she used on her medical texts. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I admitted, the fact pressing into my chest like warmth and burden. “It’s piteous and likely stupid, although it appears that my heart was not copied on the memo regarding sensible romantic selections.”
“For what it’s worth, I think he loves you too. I had seen no vampire willing to choose death over family. Our species doesn’t work like that — we care too much about hierarchy and tradition.”
"So I've learned." I turned the page of my journal over, and this one was called “Vampire Politics for Dummies: An Outsider’s Guide to Unnecessary Complexity.”
What began as jottings for myself turned into a full-blown breakdown of the vampire Power structure, broken down by clan and covenant, with charts, diagrams and snide comments. I’d secretly been passing it along to the befuddled young vampires I had turned to in recent decades and who could make no sense of centuries-old political systems.
“You actually made a vampire greeting protocol flowchart?” Tessa inquired, scanning through my scribbles.
“There are sixteen different ways to say hello to a vampire based on his age, status, and relationship to you. Yes, I needed a flowchart. I even threw in helpful notes like “If you offend an elder, make sure to grovel immediately” and “The power differential is inversely correlated with the amount of time a person makes eye contact.”
"This is actually really good. Can I show this to Marcus and Elena? They are not slick in court protocol.”
"Share away”
For the next hour, we worked on the guide together, with Tessa dishing out insider insight and me putting it all into language that outsiders could understand. It was preposterous — composing a guidebook while on death row — but it gave us something constructive that we could be doing, instead of panicking.
"You know what I've learned from being abducted by vampires?” I said, jotting another note about alliance structures. "Yours is a more and less complex species than ours. Werewolves have simple power-based hierarchies and pack dynamics to insinuate. But vampires have all these layered relationships that are about age, lineage, political favors, ancient grudges and also blood type preference!”
“We’ve had centuries to overcomplicate things,” Tessa said wryly. “Immortality will let you spend a lot of time devising absurdly complicated social structureslike the movie ‘Interstellar.”
“But at its core, all the characters are just people who want to belong and find something bigger than themselves. Same as werewolves, same as people. The specifics are different, but the principles are universal.”
"Is that going to be your thesis for supernatural integration?"
"It's not a bad thesis. Nearly all conflicts result from people feeling threatened or excluded. If we designed societies in such a way that everyone felt they were where they belonged, perhaps there would be no need for genocidal wars to determine which species is the fittest.”
Tessa was staring at me as though I had grown another head. “You’re talking about a total revolution of supernatural society.”
“I mean basic kindness with regard to political systems. It’s not radical — it’s treating people like people, no matter what species.”
Tessa didn't have a chance to answer, hurried footsteps sounded down the hallway. She rushed to the door as though in vampire speed and continued listening with her better hearing before coming back to me with a serious look on her face.
"Alexander's execution has been announced. Dawn, public testimony, Prince Darius himself performing.”
The casual delivery schedule I’d been joking about was terrifyingly real. "How long do we have?"
"Maybe six hours."
I felt the panic rising in my chest, about to overwhelm the humor and organizational systems I’d built up as emotional shields. "I need to get out of here. I need to save him."
"Kayla, you can't—"
"Yes, I can. I have to." I was in motion already, gathering provisions and plotting escape routes with the frenetic energy of someone who had just woken up to what they might lose. You mentioned you knew some secret way down to the lower chambers. We can work with that, we’ll make a distraction, possibly — ”
“Alternatively,” Tessa said softly, “we can do option three.”
I ceased my frenzied preparations to see what she was saying. "What third option?"
“The kind that’s even more dangerous than staying or running away. Her face was serious in a way that made my stomach plummet. We can attempt to stay the execution by invoking ancient vampire law. Let’s contest the sentence by trial of evidence.”
"Trial by testimony?"
“It’s an ancient practice, one that hardly exists today, but it’s still actually in force. If the dying vampire’s punishers opt for a pie fight, you have to stop them but may all die in the process. If enough vampires testify on their behalf, Her Majesty has to commute the sentence.” She paused, meeting my eyes.
The implications hit me like a physical weight. “You would have to convince twenty vampires to stand against the queen, and save me and Alexander.”
"Not just me. We. You’ve spent all this time making friends with the vampires across the palace — those servants who gossip with you, guards who have seen you treat people like actual human beings, and young vamps relying on your politics guide.” Tessa's voice grew stronger with every word she spoke. “You already have been building the groundwork for this without even knowing it. “All we need now is to turn it on.”
I glanced at my journal, at the Venn diagram of romance vs. captivity bonding, at my vampire politics guide that had ended up working as a bizarre cross-species Rosetta Stone of understanding. All of it had felt like ways to pass time in captivity, but now Tessa was saying it was all part of something bigger.
"This is insane," I said.
"Completely insane," Tessa agreed. “But it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
I thought about Alexander, who would rather die than betray his convictions; about Tessa, who want to get punished for trying to be my friend; and all the little acts of kindness I received in return as a prisoner. Perhaps, crazy schemes based on personal relationships were just what supernatural politics needed.
“All right,” I said, shutting my journal and standing with determination that wasn't quite real. “Let’s go persuade twenty vampires to become traitors. How hard could it be?”