"Let's go," he roughly pulled her forward.
Her eyes spit violet sparks of fury at him as she tilted her chin, ripped her arm free, and hurried down the hall.
Isabelle tossed her backpack onto the bed and slumped down. The hotel was cold and dreary compared to the warm comfort of her room. Every part of her felt deflated and beat. She felt completely hollow and alone. Vicky and Abby placed their bags down and plopped onto the large bed across from hers.
"Isabelle—" Abby started.
"I don't want to talk about it."
She kicked her shoes off and slumped back on the bed. The sun was beginning to set, but she took no joy in the brilliant colors streaking across the darkening sky. She instinctively wanted to reach out for Stefan, but she refused to let herself do it. He had kept her shut out since last night; she didn't want to meet with the cold wall he’d erected around his mind again. The possibility he could be killed, that she may never see him again had taken firm root. Her concern for him only added to her misery.
"Isabelle." She turned slightly. Her mother stood in front of the door; Vicky and Abby were gone. She was so absorbed in her unhappiness she never heard them leave. "We need to talk."
She braced herself as she pushed herself up. She had been waiting for her mother to confront her about Stefan, waiting to hear her censure of him and to tell her that he was no longer welcome at their home.
"I'm sorry about all of this," she mumbled.
"Why? You don’t need to be."
Isabelle shrugged as she played with a loose thread on the tattered bedspread. "I know you must be angry."
"No Isabelle, you're angry, not me."
Isabelle's head shot up. "What?"
Her mother walked over to sit across from Isabelle on the other bed. "I love you sweetie, but you are very judgmental sometimes—"
"I am not!" she protested.
"Yes, you are. You never fed from humans, you don't believe in it, but you censure those around you who do—"
"I do not!"
"Will you let me finish," her mother said impatiently. Isabelle locked her jaw and nodded briskly. "I know you disapprove of everyone else doing it; you've said it more than a few times. You believe they shouldn't have to, but they've never harmed anyone, and yet you still disapprove of it—"
"They can use bags, like me."
"Isabelle, let me speak!" her mother snapped. Isabelle's eyes widened in astonishment; her mother hadn't yelled at her since she was a child. "As I was saying, you are judgmental. It is their lives, Isabelle, they aren't hurting anyone, and it is in our nature. It's the way we survive. I've never fed off someone because your father has supplied me, but I would if I needed or wanted to," she added when Isabelle opened her mouth to protest.
"They want to," she continued. "Because they prefer it. It is their right to do what makes them happy, as long as they don't hurt anyone—"
"But Stefan did!" she cried, unable to stop herself.
Her mother clenched her jaw as she took a deep breath. "He killed our kind, Isabelle, not ones like us, but the wrong ones, ones like you met at the club. Didn't he tell you this?"
Isabelle wasn't going to admit he had told her, but she hadn't seen the difference.
"I'm going to take your silence to mean he did tell you, and you didn't want to hear it, or you never gave him a chance to explain," her mom said.
"He said something like that," she admitted reluctantly.
Her mother sniffed and shook her head. "Your father and The Stooges have killed our kind, and they did it for me. Were they wrong?"
"Did they do it just for power?" Isabelle retorted.
"No, they didn't. Are you so sure that is the only reason Stefan did it?"
Isabelle's jaw clenched as she met her mother's cloudy eyes. "That's what Brian said."
"Yeah, and I'm sure he always tells the truth. Brian isn't like Stefan, and you know it."
"And how would you know that?" Isabelle demanded.
"Stefan told me you and Ethan could sense something wrong with Brian, just like you could sense it about the ones outside the club. I can't do that; neither can your father, or The Stooges. The only thing we can figure is it’s because the two of you were born vampires, your inherent abilities are stronger than ours. You can detect them somehow, yet you sensed nothing about Stefan."
"How do you know that?" she demanded.
Her mother frowned at her. "Because you would have said something to one of us, or Ethan would have, or one of the others would have told us. Every one of your siblings can sense something wrong with Brian. None of them felt it about Stefan, did you know that?"
Isabelle was beginning to feel like a chastised child, and she wasn't relishing the feeling. "No," she mumbled petulantly.
"You judged him too quickly, Isabelle."
"He killed a man!" she yelled.
Her mother clasped her hands tiredly before her. "Your father killed a man; does that make you dislike him?"
"He did it to protect you!"
"Stefan killed a hunter, Isabelle. It was either him or that man. Who would you rather was alive?"
Isabelle closed her eyes as tears of self-disgust welled up in her eyes. Was her mother right, had she judged Stefan too harshly?
"Why would he kill our kind if it wasn't for power?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"You'll have to ask him."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
She knew her mother wasn't
