by Martha Woods
Claire leaned forward in her seat, wide eyed and very much interested in the story. “What happened next?”
“Well, I went there, the vampires showed up to save us all and Tristian made his escape, so we had to go after him again. We were all very tired from it, but we had to get it done otherwise they might get away and be able to do all of it all over again. Did you read about that massacre at the hotel downtown?”
“I… yeah I did actually!” She gasped, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, “Was that you two?”
“Four, actually. Vincent and Joseph showed up as well, Vincent being my other partner and Joseph… well, having one hell of a bloodlust. We made our way through the hotel until we got to the top and came face to face with Tristian.”
I looked over at Damon, asking wordlessly if he wanted me to be the one to give her the rest of the details. He shook his head, readying himself to tell the story that he had been doing everything to avoid remembering properly for months now. “We decided that it should be something that we work out between the two of us, we had too much history just to let Vincent or Joseph rip his throat out and be done with it. And honestly… I didn’t want to chance him getting the upper hand and killing one of them when he was my problem to begin with.”
He leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers along his thighs. “I think I lost track of how many times we shot each other, stabbed each other, punched each other, all I can remember is that he definitely got me much worse than I got him, because I was down on the floor in a puddle of blood by the time we were almost finished. He was going on about killing Amy, even moved to do it if I can remember clearly, so I did the last thing that I could: I took his ass out the window and went right down with him.”
“It was a long drop,” I said, shivering from remembering those first horrible seconds of knowing that he was gone before hearing the impact, “Tristian died on impact, Damon wasn’t so unlucky. Or lucky, considering what it must feel like living through a fall like that.”
“There were bones in my lungs, what was left of my blood was leaking out into the rain, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single part of my body that wasn’t broken almost beyond recognition. I thought that I’d punched my ticket, and honestly I was happy to let that be the price of them being safe.”
“I was crying, Vincent and Joseph were close to crying, we were absolute messes when he finally drifted away. We’d just been talking about having a future together, so to have that be ripped away from us so cruelly… that was just too much, for any of us to deal with.” I paused before telling the rest, even now I didn’t know for sure if a part of Damon resented Vincent for doing what he did, but it was too vital a part of the story to just leave out. “Vincent bit down on his lip, and gave Damon his blood. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, even Vincent wasn’t completely sure about it, but soon enough Damon was drinking back with a frenzy that I’ve only seen in vampires once or twice before. He’d been ripped away from death just as it had claimed him, I can’t imagine what it could have been like.”
Rather than adding onto that however, Damon was suspiciously quiet, a blush dusting his cheeks as he coughed into his palm. “In hindsight he was… more intimate about it than I’d been expecting.”
Claire narrowed her eyes, before letting them go wide and almost cooing, “Awwww…”
“After that it’s been… well, it’s been a journey all right.” Damon rubbed the back of his neck, not quite looking her in the eye but making an effort to still look at her. “I haven’t been dealing with it the best, there are still a lot of nights were I miss being human, but I’m starting to get there, little by little. I just need to not give up hope and withdraw into myself, I need to keep reminding myself that I have people that care about me and who will listen when I need to say something.”
Laughing to himself and finally looking her in the eye, he reached over hesitantly and placed his hand on her shoulder. “What I’m trying to get around to saying is… I know that you probably didn’t have very many people to really talk about how you were feeling, and you definitely didn’t have as lucky a time as I did with who turned you, so if you need anyone to talk to, or just listen while you punch a wall, I… think that I should finally be a brother who gives you that, if you want it.”
Claire didn’t say anything at first, just leaning into the hand on her shoulder and closing her eyes. I can’t imagine how long it’s been since she’s just had someone to be close to, she must have had some friends in the pack but… anyone to really trust her secrets to? To call family? Or was it all just a long parade of loneliness for her, just more reminders of the things that had been taken away from her while everyone else got to experience love?
What did they tell her about Damon? Did they say that he had been killed by the werewolf that turned her? Did they say that he had simply disappeared and no one could find him? That werewolf may have torn them apart and scarred them both in different ways, but these shifters really did nothing but pull open the wounds and sew them up wrong again.
“I used to go to sleep wondering if you might still be out there,” She said, “but I didn’t want to think too much about it, it just hurt too much. My new home was with the pack, I couldn’t allow myself to think of anything other than what I could do to protect them. So I did, and I jumped into every reckless plan, every fight that I could, just so that I could feel like I was being useful to them. And to stop myself from thinking about who I used to be.”
Damon moved in closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, their heads resting against each other as they allowed themselves the moment of feeling some small piece of their lives falling back into place. “I’m not going anywhere Damon,” She said, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, “And you better not either, not anymore. I’ve spent too long without my little brother.”
“Me too,” He laughed, throat thick with tears, “I missed being a little brother. I guess now I’ll be one forever, won’t I?”
She squeezed around him tighter, the first sob of many muffling itself in his chest and her back shaking with tears that had been buried for many years now.
I could have left, gave them their moment of privacy, but somewhat selfishly I wanted to see this too, I wanted to see something genuinely good after all the ugliness that had plagued us lately. So I just sat there in silence, watching a family start to stitch itself back together, after so many years of being torn apart.
Chapter 6
“Wow I… made a bit more of a scene than I wanted to,” Claire laughed, wiping at her eyes as we left my office, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said, “thank you for letting me see you start to heal. I think that I needed it too.”
“My girlfriend is very sensitive,” Damon chuckled, rubbing the small of my back and pressing a kiss to my temple, “She didn’t even want to kill any of you, even before we found out you were walking with them. She thinks that everyone should have a chance to live and repent for past deeds.”
“That’s admirable,” She said, leaning forward and ruffling my hair, “But you should really only give that chance to people who stop adding to those deeds, otherwise you’re just letting yourself be punched.”
“Oh god,” I groaned, feeling myself deflate, “Now there’s two of you, how am I going to survive this?”
“If you think she’s bad now wait until you really get close, she’ll make you regret ever meeting her.” Damon said all of this with the utmost pride in his voice, like he was so happy to have his prime annoyance back in his life. I can’t really blame him, she was definitely growing on me very fast.
But not everything could be laughs and jokes, and the thing we had come here to discuss was still needing to be properly wrapped up. I wasn’t thrilled to have to give everyone a reminder that we were still at war.
“These two hunters that we’re going to try to root out, do you know anyway that we can get in con
tact with them?”
Claire placed her finger on her chin, tapping her foot as she thought over options. “I could try and listen in again, see if I can pick up any clues about who they are that way. But your best bet might be to put bait out there, a few bits of information, maybe a loose woman or two since half of these hunters can’t help but chase after anything with a pulse.”
We both looked at Damon, who raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t judge my past!”
“Well, either way,” She said, smiling to herself, “We can at least hope that they’ll slip up, as long as you keep your people on the lookout for any hunters that have seemed… strange lately, they should be easy to spot. From what I can gather these two are far from genuine spies, they’re more like informants, and in my experience informants tend not to shut their mouths for very long after you pay them.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Of course I am, do you have any idea how annoying it is to deliver money to a bar where the person you’re supposed to pay is standing on the counter screaming to everyone that he’s buying them all drinks because he’s about to make a lot of money?” She shook her head sighing, “The only bonus is that at least I got to take the money back when they connected the dots and took him out back to shoot him.”
“And you think that we’ll have that exact same luck?”
“Normally I would say don’t count on it, but with the general lifestyle that hunters lead, the amount of alcohol that they consume and the amount of women that they are just dying to impress, I’d keep my eyes out. I didn’t deliver the money this time, but there were some rumblings that rations were going to be a little short for the next few weeks, so clearly it must have been a lot of money that we handed over.”
I nodded. “That money isn’t just going to sit in a bank account is it? They have it so they’re going to make sure they spend it.” Turning to Damon, I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess we should make a call to Alexis, she’ll probably want to pass this onto her girls.”
“Her girls?” Claire asked, mock gasping at Damon, “Does my little brother frequent strip clubs now? What would our parents think about this?”
“Dad would probably give me some money, you know what he was like,” He chuckled, stepping forward and wrapping her in a farewell hug once more, “Do you know when we’ll see you again?”
“I don’t know,” She said, “I think that it’d be best to leave it until your little rat problem is taken care of, it was stupid of me to come here in person and risk being seen. I already destroyed the phone that I contacted you with, I didn’t want to leave a trail.”
“Smart, whichever way you decide to get in contact with us again, we’ll be sure to keep our ears open.” I held my hand out, squeezing tightly when she took it in kind. “It’s really nice to get to know you Claire, whatever happens, I hope that you’re not a stranger.”
“Are you kidding me? Why would I ever give up the chance to needle my brother more? I’ve got a few years to catch up on after all, I’m not going to give that up for anything.” She stepped towards the back door, about to leave before she screwed up her brow and turned back to us. “If you’re a vampire… how did you manage to get here in the first place?”
“Trust me,” He groaned, already squeezing himself into the coat and wrapping the scarves around his neck, “You really don’t want to know.”
I dropped Damon back at the apartment, there was no need to put him through anymore misery until night fell, plus the sight of someone entering a strip club in such a big coat was something that always elicited suspicion, I’d read the stories before. Generally it was the staff who were supposed to expose themselves to the clients, not the other way around.
I sent a message to Alexis as I pulled away from the apartment, letting her know that I was coming and to expect a business talk. I didn’t want to interrupt her in the middle of talking to an employee or… a more intimate visit with anyone else, I’d had enough unfortunate interruptions back in college to know that they tended to sour your mood for the next few days at least. The last thing I wanted to do now that we were really starting to like each other was give her a reason to be pissed at me again, that was the exact opposite of how I wanted people to feel about me, call me a diplomat.
Driving alone gave me some time to think to myself, about Damon, about Claire, hell, about everything that had gone down over the last few months. I know that I’m supposed to be supportive of Damon, and I would absolutely give my life to make sure that he was happy if need be, but maybe what he really needed more than anything was to have someone else to help heal, that was always where Damon tended to fare best. If Damon has any flaws, and we all do, his strongest would have to be just how little he seems to think of himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I thought his sense of bravado was always charming, and its effective at disguising anything out of the ordinary if you aren’t looking for it, but get to know him even just a little and it’s apparent just how… fundamentally lonely he is. In hindsight, maybe that’s why he seemed to be the way that he was for so long when we’d first met, always so aggressive and always hot and cold, pulling me towards him one moment and shoving me away the next. Now that I know what happened to Claire, maybe he was just terrified that I was going to end up the same way as her, just another dead woman that he felt he was too weak to protect, maybe he thought that the best way that he could protect me from that same fate was to make himself into a monster that I could turn my back on and feel good knowing that I would never see him again.
Just look at what had happened in the time that we’d been together, all the dangers that had tried so insistently to tear us apart. I still have the scars on my stomach from when he had his mind corrupted, and even though I didn’t exactly want children… the thought that I would never be able to have them still stung sometimes when I lay there in bed. If I never wanted them, I wanted it to be my choice, not anyone else’s, that fucking monster took it away from us, and if there is anything that I don’t regret it’s damning them to the hell that Damon and I dragged Vincent from.
He’s always been the one feeling useless, always the one who’s had to be saved, and the one time that he felt that he could save us it ended up costing him his life, I can only imagine that feeling of failure is plaguing him just as much as coming to grips with his new nature. But now that Claire is back in is life, now that she has just as much to unpack about her existence as he does… I think this could really be a step in the right direction for him, a chance to finally come to proper grips with themselves and heal together, the way that only family can really help you.
Plus it’ll give me someone to annoy him with, that seems to be a good deal for me as well.
“God Damon,” I said to myself, laughing as I pulled into park, “Now that I’ve met her, it really makes a lot of sense why you are the way that you are.”
The club looked the same as always, same tasteful decor and classy women serving drinks, since it was the middle of the day there wasn’t much of a clientele just yet, but those that were here were more talking amongst themselves and accepting drinks with a quiet grace that I only really saw with one group of people. Since they seemed to be vampires, I guess that they didn’t get a choice on spending their time here, at least they were behaving themselves while they were here.
“Amy!” I looked up, already smiling at the familiar voice, “Thank you for calling ahead, I don’t think me or Tabitha would have enjoyed the interruption!”
“Don’t worry about it,” I laughed, “just count yourself lucky that I’m courteous, I could have taken pictures and tried to get a stake in this place.”
“If you actually tried to do that I don’t know if I would even be upset with you,” Alexis said, taking my hand and leading me up towards her office, “And if you want a chance to buy into my business all you need to do is ask, I think I’d like to have someone else to take the responsibility with, it can be a bit dull being
the only woman in charge.”
“I can only imagine.’
The office, as I expected, was empty when we walked in, any previous visitors likely having been cleared in the name of business. That was one of the things that I liked about Alexis, she was good at separating business and pleasure better than anyone that I knew, including myself. I love Joseph, I really do, the meetings at his mansion are some of the most fun that a person could possibly have, but he really is quite useless at staying on track without inviting you to either a drink of an orgy, most likely one followed by the other followed by the other again. We could all stand to take a lesson from Alexis as far as I’m concerned.
“So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about Amy?” She asked, seating herself behind her desk and pulling two glasses out from her drawer, “It sounded serious if you’re giving me prior warning before you come over, you must want me to be completely focused on what you have to say.”
“You would always be completely focused, there was no worry about that. No, I wanted to come here because…” Glancing around, certain that we weren’t being listened to but wanting to be sure that there was no chance anyway, I leaned in and whispered, “We know that there are two spies in our midst, I want you to help me find out who they are.”
“Oh… interesting.” Alexis waved her hand, the air shifting around us for the barest of moments before she gestured at the chair next to me, “Please, sit. My employees are loyal, but now there is no chance of anyone listening to us unless we want, satisfied?”
