again.' His voice faltering, he asked, 'H-have I?'
'I... that's not why I'm so upset!' Rose petals swirled around her body. Her hair began whipping, yet not in time with the strengthening wind.
'Then why are you looking at me like this?' He narrowed his eyes, realizing her reaction was more than horror. 'What is happening to you? To the sky?'
She gazed up at him, her eyes awash in tears. 'Conrad, c-come inside so I can tend to you. I have to t-tell you something. D'accord?' Lightning struck close by.
'No. Tell me now.' Even after what he'd just done, he got that stubborn look on his face.
'S'il te plait, let me just tend to you—'
'Now, Néomi!'
'I... I'll be back.' She unsteadily traced to her studio. It took three tries before she could get hold of the key. When she returned, fear for him sat cold and heavy inside her. 'I-I was giving it to you tonight,' she whispered, offering the key.
His brows drew together as if he couldn't comprehend what it was. Then his eyes went wild. He threw back his head; his unholy roar of fury echoed in the night.
She gasped, energy funneling out of her.
'What is this? Néomi, what the fuck is this?'
She focused on his face, trying to keep the world from spinning. 'J-just let me help you.'
'Don't come near me!'
'Conrad, please, listen! I was going to give it—'
'Bullshit! Cease your lies!' he bellowed.
She squeezed her eyes shut, only opening them once she heard the rattle of chains. He flung the manacles to the ground in front of her.
And then she learned what rage truly was.
Can't comprehend... what I've just learned...
Fury threaded through his veins, drowning out the pain. She'd willfully kept him here. Lied about the key. Again and again.
Not her. I didn't want her ever to betray me.
He could hear himself beginning to speak, but didn't register the words, just had this rage he had to unleash before it seared him inside.
As the rain fell harder, the sparks glittering off her grew more intense. With each word, her face paled, her image flickering even more. Her lips parted as if she was horrified, as if she didn't recognize him at all.
He dimly heard her say, 'Y-you're going to say something you regret, something you can never take back... .'
And then he must have.
'Oh,' she murmured, looking like he'd struck her. Tears spilled from her eyes. Just before she disappeared, she whispered, 'Good-bye, vampire.'
Somewhere out in the night, he heard her crying harder. An answering roar of pain was ripped from his chest.
24
Free of the chains, Conrad could finally trace. He ignored the throbbing from his injury and returned to his cabin deep in the Estonian marshes.
Inside, he peered around. I'm glad she'll never see this.
It looked exactly like a madman's home would—the product of a disordered mind. Esoteric writing was crudely printed on the walls; belongings lay broken, destroyed in countless rampages. Scattered on the floor were books with the pages stripped and crumpled.
Dark sheets haphazardly covered the windows. Demon skulls hung nailed over the door. His furniture consisted of a threadbare couch, a table with one chair, and a mattress on the floor. The only things organized were his weapons, and there were hundreds of them.
Atop the table were the notes he'd kept on his search for his brothers. With his remaining hand, he flipped through them. Just as this cabin didn't fit Conrad anymore, neither did these writings.
He'd tracked the three all over the world, from Mount Oblak in Russia all the way to Louisiana. But the writings no longer made sense to him whatsoever. Because he was different. All Conrad could discern from the pages was an all-consuming need for revenge.
Even that was extinguished.
He lay back on the mattress, but couldn't sleep for hours. Vivid red streaks had begun slashing up his arm as his hand began to regenerate; the pain was punishing.
He'd severed his hand for her. For them. He'd been proud to take the pain. To get a step closer to discovering a way for them to be together.
She betrayed you, willfully kept you a captured plaything. Why was it that everything he gave a damn about ended up stabbing him in the back?
She'd played him for a fool, keeping his mind from hunting. He'd walked around that mausoleum high on her, complacent. Charmed by her every move, he'd been blinded to what was really happening... .
Hours toiled by before he finally passed out.
Sometime in the night, he jerked awake with a yell, cradling his arm, his body slicked with sweat. He'd seen Néomi screaming in terror, trapped in darkness where he couldn't reach her.
She wasn't here with him as she always had been. 'Shh, mon coeur... ' she'd soothed. 'Good-bye, vampire,' she'd said last night.
His brows drew together. Stop thinking about her!
She'd calmed him, surrounded him with laughter. She'd challenged him to rethink his blind hatred. You'll never see her again. Once his trust was lost, he didn't give it again.
He was disgusted with himself. Even after her betrayal, he missed her presence more than he missed his hand.
The silence within her home seeped into Néomi like a damp chill, until she thought she'd lose her mind.
Just as she'd known it would.
For the last three days, she'd aimlessly roamed her halls, a lonely, despairing ghost, filled with regret. And always she wondered where Conrad had gone, where in the world he was at that moment. Was he safe? Healing? Was he drinking from a glass—or from victims?
Is he thinking of me?
She hadn't known it was possible to miss another this much.
He would never return, and she could do nothing but... await. Await the years to pass, hoping for the arrival of someone, anyone.
Néomi was helpless, powerless to alleviate her own misery. She was as pitiful as he'd accused that night.
With a sigh, she exited the house into the drizzling rain, bent on getting the paper. Having long since read the ones he'd collected, she pined for something to take her mind from this.
She had no other escape. She couldn't unburden herself to a good friend or change her scenery. She couldn't drink. There was no television show or good book to absorb her.
At the property line once more, her hopes sank. Tears began to fall for the paper that was well out of her reach.
I'm in the driveway, crying over a newspaper. This was the low point of her afterlife. She was as weak and pathetic as Conrad had deemed her with his crazed, yelling words.
Next thing she knew, she'd be moaning, 'Woowooo.'
To hell with this. She would not mope like a... a damned ghost!
