Hi,
I just read this amazing quote from Jojo Moyes' "Me Before You". It really fits this chapter and if I was a character in this book, I'd walk up to Anna and tell her again and again - until she believed it herself. I hope you like it!
"Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you."
Have a great week!
Lara
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Chapter 16
"Wouldn't you like to know," I said softly. "Stop beating around the bush and tell me what you want."
The head vampire laughed, then started walking towards me. Soft footsteps. A slow pace. As if he had all the time in the world to unhinge and capture my existence, step by step.
"Someone had the audacity to walk into a coven leader's house and kill him. I highly suspect that the perpetrator was a member of the Inri Brotherhood. I want to know who helped kill those vampires. And I believe you know, little witch."
I narrowed my eyes. "Let's assume I did. What would you do if I told you? And what would I get for it?"
"Assuming you were in a position to bargain with me, which you are not, it would very much depend on your answer, little witch."
He was so close to my walls of air, the cold of the grave grazed them like a wet feather.
"We've got a bunch of rogues roaming the city and an impending rift in the communities that might end in more than riots and looting," I said. "Shouldn't you be more worried about that?"
"I would, if I was assuming the incidents were not related," he said softly. "There is more than one question I need answered, but I want you to give me the answer to this first: In the conundrum of factions and races in this city, where do you stand, little witch?"
When it came to loyalty, Alexander worked along the hard lines of a zero-tolerance policy. Either you were with him, or against him. And that was what he wanted me to do. Spell it out and pledge myself either to him or someone else. He suspected I had a hand in his vampires' deaths. Assuming I could convince him of the contrary, would pledging my loyalty to him be a solution?
Even if I swore to him loyalty now, he wouldn't just let my recent stay with the Inri Brotherhood go. I would be his human servant â under his terms and conditions. Under heel. He would capitalize on my knowledge and understanding of their ways as long as it was useful to him.
Used. Again.
Choosing one side, with the endless obscure set of motives each and every faction had â it was impossible. I couldn't even begin to understand what, or rather, who I was. There would always be a part of me that... that in a way cared for Alexander. No matter what scheming strategist he was, I couldn't blot that out. Maybe because we were bound by blood and illusive vampire magic I didn't understand. Maybe because, on an uncertain, incandescent level, I understood him.
I didn't want the world to descend into chaos. Like him, I didn't want the rogues roaming the city. My hands were stained enough. I closed my eyes against the rising memories of smoke and limp bodies. No act of redemption could undo what I did two nights ago.
I fisted my hands. But I could fucking try. And nothing and no one was going to stop me.
Where do you stand?
"Everywhere and nowhere. Like you, Alexander, I don't want to see the city burn. Like you, I'll do everything I can to prevent it. Unlike you, I'm not doing it for personal profit."
He cocked an eyebrow. "You are not trying to save yourself from the fate that awaits you, should the Circle or the human police force seize you?"
My fingers tightened on the pendant. I had to risk it.
"It's not the human police or the Circle I'm worried about," I said.
Words that belonged to an ancient spell tore from my lips like a prayer.
Alexander blurred into motion, slamming into my walls of air. They shuddered, a small crack appearing in their midst.
I repeated the incantation, pushing forward with all I had. Another shudder. More cracks in my walls. The world around me drifted away as the portal opened. The last thing I saw was Alexander's face. Void of emotion. Beautiful.
The in-between jerked me in violently, took me with the force of a breaking wave and pulled me under. I fought my way through the oncoming hailstorm of motion, disorientation, and nothingness. I fought until I thought I couldn't fight anymore.
The portal spit me out. My skin scraped along rough asphalt and cobblestones as I slithered along, carried forward by the momentum until I bumped into something hard. For a moment all I could do was breathe and wait for the world to right itself again, stop spinning like a mad, out-of-control-teetotum.
I pushed myself on my hands and knees, peering through a veil of messy hair. Out of a no-man's land of darkness that wasn't real, into another assortment of shadows and odd angles. I had an exit strategy, but when I charged out of the sewer system, I didn't have enough time to readjust and hold my grip on the spot I chose. I hastened the spell.
Dangerous as hell.
A sharp sound to my left.
A glass bottle rolling on cobblestones.
Male, drunken-laughter.
And then something else. The soft swish of displaced air. The slow pounding, like the fastened beat of a heart, weighed on my mind. I could sense them without trying hard. Vampires.
I knew where I landed. Out of all places the portal could have dumped me at, it chose this one. I was in the Red Zone.
The Red Zone was an open terrain, a water hole in the desert where vampires and other predators waited for their prey. In most cases the prey was willing.
I got up slowly, staring into the opening of the side street I'd landed in. The pockets of my leather coat were crammed with powerful, illegal magical objects that could do more damage than an army of rogues. I didn't have it in me to open, less step through another portal. A greater part of the big players in this city, no matter their race, wanted me dead or locked up. And I was all alone.
People died because of me, and even more were in danger as long as the Inri Brotherhood was on the loose. This wasn't a dream or a recurring nightmare that would fade in the light of day. This was real.
Atonement for what I did and for what I failed to do wasn't going to undo everything, but it was all I could do. I had a debt to pay â to the city, my city. I could at least try to make things right.
That entailed finding out who killed Alexander's vampires. No matter what lay between us, I would need the head vampire's help to find a way out of this mess. At least I needed him to not want to kill me again. And for that I needed to proof that I did not murder the vampires.
I made my first step towards reality, started walking the streets, hiding in shadows and magic. I thought things hadn't changed since my last unhappy visit in the Red Zone. I learned I was wrong. A few weeks ago the nightly streets were haunted by the occasional rumble of male laughter, the sound of drug-drunk fools, and faint scraps of motion.
Not so now. A new sense of anxiety had settled in. As if the Red Zone was in truth the dead space I always imagined it to be. The streets were even more deserted, flinging the door to wild imagination and paranoia wide open.
I skirted the parameters of the Jolterhead. As unsettling the thought of running into a bunch of vamps was, I couldn't shake the notion that something was off â something worth knowing. I simply had to find out why this zone was in the grip of choking silence. I sensed it in the quiet tension that was all over the place.
Twice I encountered vamps, which had me ending up using the concealment spell again. What I learned during my short tour of the zone made my skin crawl. The news of the vamp murders in and around Alexander's circle was all over town. No one knew the details, but the vamps were restless and on edge, talking the kind of talk preceding the fall of an empire, or a looting.
For the first time I believed, truly believed in something the Raven had said. Alexander was a linchpin, holding together greater parts and factions of the city than I thought. If he fell, who knew who else was going to go down? It was also the first time that I saw a real threat to Alexander. He had shitloads of power, but if a greater part of the vampire community turned against him... The thought of him being hurt, or worse killed, was more than unsettling. It unhinged something deep inside of me that I didn't want to, couldn't explore.
All I knew was that I had to stop this.