AN: Hello! I've been very sick. Had strep throat which turned into a sinus infection which turned into an ear infection, which resulted in me blowing an ear drum and its all been quite miserable. I haven't spent this much time in bed since covid-times. So yeah this chapter was a bit rough for me to write. I'm still not feeling great but better than I was.  (RIP having a shitty income for those two weeks though). In any case I wish you all happy holidays, I know its a bit late to be wishing happy Hanukkah but happy Hanukkah anyway. Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, etc etc. Hopefully I'll be back before the New Year but just in case: Happy New Year too. My resolution is going to be same as last year: be just a bit more crazy.

Enjoy~

---

Blacke barely acknowledged me when I came to stand next to the couch. Even with a prod, all he did was slit an eye open to glare at who had dared disturb him.

“Hey,” I managed timidly. I knew this man was unstable. “I need some information.”

He let his eyes roll back shut and turned away from me. “The hell would I know anything?” he asked. There was a long grumble afterwards I didn’t understand.

“I need to meet with those vampires I sent you to. But I don’t know there exact location,” I explained.

He was still, then slowly turned on the couch to scrutinize me. I didn’t like being under his gaze like this. “What for?” he asked.

There wasn’t much I could tell him other than the truth. “I need to understand the situation better to… to protect myself and others from Demetrius.”

He rolled himself back away from me. “Just don’t go out in the night and he can’t do much.”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” I pointed out. “I don’t need anything else from you, just the address or a phone number or something.”

He sighed heavily and shifted around. It was a great effort for his tired and by-now malnourished body, but he produced a small scrap of paper, not unlike the one I’d given him before. This time, it had the full address scrawled out in an unfamiliar handwriting.

“Be careful,” he managed, his face squished into the cushions.

“I’ll be fine,” I said and turned around to find Mike standing there, arms folded with suspicion.

He arched an eyebrow at me.

“Can you give me a ride?” I asked.

“Why do I have the feeling you don’t want me to know how you’re involved in whatever catastrophe has occurred?” he asked.

“I don’t think you’d understand even if I explained it to you,” I told him. 

He sighed.

“I’ll take her,” Blacke mumbled into a cushion. “Might make more sense that way.”

He slowly expended a tremendous amount of effort to sit up.

Mike was unsure but managed to assert, “I'm going either way.”

Blacke shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I didn't know how I would protest so I let it go. Everybody's safety came before my brother thinking me sane or not.

The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth, but this was for everybody. Not just me. Scarlet and Blacke needed help too. And I didn't know what kind of lengths Demetrius would go to or if he would come after my other family members or not.

Blacke brought us out to his car and I discovered there was only one seat in the entire thing, a bench seat that could barely fit all three of us squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder. The van started with a choking grumble that spewed some noxious fumes onto the road before Blacke pulled away.

I was sandwiched in the middle and Mike picked up an arm, shifting to press against the wall more. “You really should get a less creeper-dude vehicle,” Mike said. “I was kinda terrified I was about to get murdered the first time I saw this thing parked in our driveway.”

Blacke shrugged and pretended to focus on the road.

“Where are we going anyway?” Mike rambled. 

“Some new friends of ours a couple towns over,” Blacke explained.

“Oh,” Mike said, as if that answered all of his questions. He sat there quietly for the rest of the trip until we got to the town house.

I unbuckled myself and waited for him to get out before I followed. Blacke locked his van behind us and sulked to the front door.

He knocked and stood back as Mike and I kept our distance. The door opened to reveal a confused-looking younger man holding a tiny, yapping dog under an arm. 

“Oh hey,” he said, looking first at Blacke, then at Mike and I. “I’m rather confused,” he stated. “Why did you bring…?”

“They asked,” Blacke explained bluntly.

I stepped forward, extending a hand to shake. “I’m Lexi,” I explained. “Scarlet’s my girlfriend and I kinda need some advice.”

The young man sighed before waving the group of us inside.

“I’m guessing…” he said as we followed him in. Another one of these domestic vampires was playing an old X-box system on their large television while a cat was curled up contentedly in her lap. She glanced up at us, looking annoyed at our intrusion, but didn’t say anything and simply cleared out of the room as the young man sat us down. “That you are aware of Scarlet’s condition,” he finished.

“Yes,” I explained. “The details are iffy, but I’m aware of her… needs.”

Mike was looking rather confused by all of this, but didn’t say a word and observed intently.

“I see, so what do you need to know?”

Blacke had already reclined on a couch and was now glazing his eyes over so he didn’t have to pay attention to us.

“Well… so… there’s a bit of a situation,” I said. I hefted by brace-clad arm up. “I was attacked by her… fake mentor,” I managed. “And it’s become necessary—I need to be able to defend her and myself from him.”

The young man stared at me as the gears turned in his skull. “What?” he asked finally, and looked to Blacke for some guidance. “I thought they didn’t know their changer.”

“They don’t,” I said. “But…” I trailed off. These vampires were unaware of Demetrius. And probably of the complicated mess that Scarlet and Blacke had gotten themselves into because of him.

“Ve murbrrd p’ple,” Blacke said from the couch, his voice muffled by an arm slung over his face.

“Huh?” said Mike.

I took a deep breath and glared at Mike to keep quiet for a while. He shut his mouth, swallowing down his question, but he shot me a look that I knew meant he would have questions for me later

“To put it simply, Scarlet and Blacke were left for dead a long time ago and this dude, Demetrius came along and found them and brainwashed them into not understanding anything about how the real world works.”

“Demetrius?” the young man asked, the light a recognition in his face. “As in Demetrius Bludge?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

The young man swiveled his gaze to look at Blacke depressedly sprawled out. 

“So then, you’re Blacke Bludge,” he concluded. “Christ, okay,” he took another breath. “That explains their reaction the other day.”

I nodded. “I was in the hospital because of Demetrius. And now… well… I don’t want anybody else to get hurt. Ever, so that means we probably need to…”

“Kill Demetrius,” the young man finished for me. He swapped into a thinker pose for a long moment. “He won’t be that much more difficult to kill than a normal person,” he said. “I mean, he will be, but a well-placed bullet or a stab through the heart, either one will work.”

“Is that it?” I asked.

“The tricky thing about people like him is they heal very fast. So the injury needs to be lethal. You can’t count on bleeding him out or something like that.”

“So.. beheading would work too, then?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I let out a difficult breath.

“I don’t understand why you feel it’s your responsibility though,” he said. “Let someone… more equipped to deal with the problem deal with him, you know?”

“I don’t think we have that much time before he kills again.”

“But that’s not your fault,” he filled in. “Or your responsibility.”

I bowed my head. “People keep saying that,” I said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I still could’ve…” Could’ve what? Stopped Demetrius before I even knew he was in town? Before I even knew he existed?

There was nothing you or anyone could have done. Officer LeBlanc’s words came back to me—those words he kept telling me, in the days and weeks after the incident that ripped our family apart. Those words I could never let myself believe, even now. The tears welled up behind my eyes, and I bit down on the back of my hand for a moment to shut out the internal pain with external. 

I looked up. The young vampire in front of me was studying my face. “I can do something now,” I said. “Maybe it's not my fault, or my responsibility. That doesn't change the fact that I could still try to stop him before he kills someone again.”

“I see…” the man said. “The best I can advise is to defend yourselves, rather than try to murder him. The latter’s likely to get you killed.”

He stood, signifying the end of the discussion. “But–”

“I don’t want to be a part of a police investigation, so I don’t want to provide any more advice, but…” he turned to Blacke. “I suppose if what you claim is true, you’re going to need help with rehabilitation. That kind of habit is a difficult one to break if you’re not careful. Going cold turkey will cause withdrawal symptoms, but they won’t kill you. Just make you feel miserable.”

Blacke nodded. He hadn’t said a word since his admission of murder. All the while Mike looked startled and angry and very confused all at once.

“We can go now,” I told them. “I know what I need to.”

I thanked the vampire man, who watched us leave with a grim expression while his dog paced eagerly behind him.

We got back in the van and started the drive home. The others were deathly silent and I couldn’t figure out a way to lighten the mood so we simply jostled together in the front seat all the way home.