“It’s a lot… I know,” I tried to assure and calm Autumn as I watched the fear control her.

  Autumn was physically affected by the truth. Her hand recoiled initially, pulling away from me as the words sank in. At first, she couldn’t process the idea, but then things in her mind started adding to it, something she had seen me do, and other things she experienced since meeting me. Her eyes went wide as she knew it was the truth, and the more she realized it, the more critically it hit her.

  She retreated out of initial shock, leaving me on the couch. She bumped an empty glass on the counter as she backed away, dropping and shattering it across the tile. She stumbled past the broken glass with her bare feet, trying to put distance between herself and an entity she now understood as Death.

  She was scared, but not that I would hurt her. I could see in her eyes that she was confused about her reaction, almost moving without thinking, like it was instinct that was trying to keep her alive. The response was a straightforward fight or flight; she was charged with the feeling of facing her demise. Once she understood what sat inside me was a part of Death, her mind tried to escape it. I hadn’t even gotten into the fact that I had a Primeval inside of me… a monster that was entirely centered on the concept of ending things. She wouldn’t even know what that was, let alone the sum of all the parts of this deal. I left it basic for now, focusing on the most powerful facts… The entity was Death.

  “It’s okay, I just,” Autumn's shaky hand lifted apologetically from where she now stood in the kitchen, trying to hold me from standing from the couch and coming closer. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry, I still know it’s you,” she breathed heavily, trying to calm herself. “I know you won’t hurt me...”

  “It’s okay. He told me that I had to find out on my own, and my mind wouldn’t survive it if I were told. You’re probably experiencing something similar, just a lesser degree since it's not you.”

  I had a quick thought to myself and wondered if this is why I could just tell people, but I couldn’t be just told. The personal ownership of this soul-shaking truth was too much to be dumped on one person when it applied to them. I had to slowly make my way into the truth one step at a time, pushing the envelope with each small step in knowledge, until by the time I made it to the end, the truth that I was bound to Death was known… just left unsaid. I wondered what I would have reacted like… based on Autumn’s quick knee-jerk attempt at escaping me.

  “Maybe human thought can’t process something so…” I failed to find the right words.

  “Inescapable,” Autumn said shakily, still trapped inside her mind at the thought of it.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, watching her struggle internally.

  I stayed seated on the couch as Autumn leaned over her arms at the kitchen counter, catching her breath. She kept looking from me to the floor and back again. She rested her forehead on the cold, black marble counter. I think the cold slab helped cool her down as her heart pumped the adrenaline rapidly, stressing her mind and body.

  “Is this how you reacted when you found out?” Her voice shook, still staring at the tiles under her feet.

  “No. Once I stood there, connecting all of the dots… it was like I finally saw clearly. I think being this… thing, having this role, I’ve always struggled to realize it all. Maybe it’s easier for me now because I already experienced what you are going through, but spread out over more time,” I thought out loud from where I sat.

  “It’s funny,” Autumn finally looked up, “everything makes so much sense now.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Mom… Mercy and Phineas… coming back from that place,” she shook her head as she spoke, almost like she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. “It’s like everything… every question we had about you finally clicked into place.”

  I got up slowly from the couch as she stared at the floor. I moved to her silently, hoping I wouldn’t startle her more than she already was; she might just jump out the window. I came up beside her, and she saw my shadow. Autumn looked up with fear in her eyes, still visibly rattled. I eased back a little behind the counter, giving her space to breathe.

  “I’ll leave for tonight. I’ll give you some time to process it and see how you feel about everything. I’ll come back when you’re ready,” I offered Autumn the escape from my presence. I thought it was a good idea.

  She didn’t say anything. She just nodded, still shaking from the revelation. I stepped back, walking to the door.

  I didn’t go to the safehouse. I didn’t want to lie down and rest my eyes. I wanted to be out and free. I felt something change within me. Knowing I was more than a monster, and a part of a primordial system of balance and power over the living world, I felt different. I still felt the monster beneath the surface, but I was in control. I felt closer to the monster… to the Primeval of Annihilation… Myordrakien now more than ever. The lines between us were more blurred than ever. It wasn’t the truth of Death alone that made this possible, but the moment I saw the great chasm, that was my Primeval’s grave, out in the fields of Death's domain.

  I paced the city, watching the people of the world as they lived, totally unaware of what lurked around them. I walked around everywhere, just like in the early days of my time in St. Louis. I walked until I saw the sun sitting high in the middle of the sky. I took a seat on a bench that overlooked a lush green park. People were running around, playing games, walking their pets, and living life.

  I felt a buzz in my pocket. The cell phone Martin had handed off to me before we last parted ways came to life. Martin, on his own free will, got me a new phone with my same old number. He already had all my old contacts in there, like I had never lost them to that lightning blast.

  The text was from Autumn. She was okay and had taken a lot of time to prepare herself. She talked to no one about what I said to her, but she needed to see me again. Her texts were welcoming, but serious. I read the words she texted me, and was happy she was ready to see me again. But I couldn’t focus on her. Just seeing my phone reminded me of why I needed the new one.

  My phone was destroyed in that lightning strike. My mind was back to that night in the storm. Peter was there… he was trying to take me out, and he wasn’t alone. There were two… Someone else was with him. Then… what was that he said to me? He was talking about when I freed Allen. He said something like… ‘I know people… real close…’

  Someone told him about me. If they told him about me… did they also let slip that a Chasse hunting party was in France? How did Peter find out about my real family, back in Texas? Someone was feeding him information… maybe not for everything… but for some?

  The calm demeanor that I had become fond of was fading as the realization was flooding over me. It was replaced by a new outlook. It was anger.

  I only had one place to go in the middle of the afternoon. There was only one person I could trust with my suspicions. The family might not be able to see the threat like I could. Martin might be blinded by his loyalty to them for so long. If something was going on under his nose, like I thought it might be, he might not be able to see it either. I couldn’t go to him. He might give us away before I could figure out the truth.

  I stood below the overshadowing building, searching for the balcony that would lead me to her. The foil bounced the sun’s rays back into my eyes as I found her windows. It was midday, but I was too fast for passing pedestrians to see. I rushed up the side of the building and under the cover of the secluded balcony. I slid the glass door open without trouble. I knew it would be unlocked, just as it was before. When it opened enough, I flashed into the dark apartment, closing the blacked-out glass behind me.

  My foot only moved two steps into the kitchen before I was met by an aggressive response. Alex had her hand around my neck, instantly pinning me to the wall beside her balcony door. A thud reverberated through the walls. Her neighbor didn’t like it, banging back on the wall at us.

  “Keep it down,” they yelled.

  Alex’s blood-red eyes glared into me with mostly rage, but a very small hint of uncertainty.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she ordered an explanation.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said, calmly grabbing her hand and pulling it away from my neck, and pushing her back with my superior strength.

  Her irises leaked blood from their borders, tainting the whites of her eyes with more vampiric power. She knocked my hand from hers and placed her grip back on my throat, locking me against the wall again. Her fangs morphed out of her upper jaw, extending down in a way I hadn’t seen up close, and a quiet hiss and warble escaped her inhuman mouth. Her fangs were longer than I expected. She was ready to kill.

  “I said keep it down,” her neighbor yelled again, banging the wall with a broom handle.

  “Fuck off, Karen!” Alex yelled to her next-door neighbor. Then she talked quietly, right in my face. “If you just wanted to talk, you should have called me. You don’t just come in here in the middle of the day when I'm sleeping. What do you really want?” She ordered angrily, suspecting ulterior motives.

  “Something’s going on, and I can’t go to anyone else. I needed to talk to you.”

  “Why me? Why not Martin?” She couldn’t understand why I’d need her help.

  “Martin may not see what I see. He’s too close. I needed you. Martin might not understand, but you might.” I tried to explain. “It’s not over. Peter’s dead, but there was someone else.”

  “What are you talking about?” She was too angry and too transformed to understand.

  “How about you let me go and I’ll explain,” I offered. “If I came to hurt you, I would just do it. Do you think you could stop me if I tried?”

  Her eyes glowed for a second more, but then faded to her human green. Her fangs retracted slowly, just like mine did, returning her face to the normal bartender I came to know.

  “Don’t fucking tempt me. We’ll never really know until we try… won't we,” Alex threatened the battle between us that I know we were both curious about. She shoved off of me, letting go of my neck. “Don’t touch anything.” She walked off back towards where I knew her bedroom was.

  That’s when I realized she wasn’t prepared for guests. What she was sleeping in was even more revealing than what she wore behind the bar to lure in the young vampires. She was in some very… personal… lingerie that wasn’t meant for me… or anyone, based on her personality. I didn’t even think that shit was comfortable. All of her tattoos on her back and arms were completely visible, along with… most of everything she should try to hide.

  “You don’t think we can be friends?” I joked as she left to put clothes on, trying to piss her off a little.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I saw the same picture sitting on her bedside table before she slammed the door behind her, angry that her den had been intruded on. She didn’t respond. I don’t think she appreciated my joke.

  She came back out of her room in a rush, dressed in what average people would actually consider modest. I think it was her lounge clothes.

  “What is so important that you risked life and limb to break into my place?” Alex asked simply. She seemed as if we weren’t in a battle to fight and kill evil creatures, that she didn’t want to be around me by herself. Even after all we had been through so far, she still acted like I wasn’t an ally, or an acquaintance at the very least.

  “Peter had help. He had it the whole time. I think that’s how he knew things; where to be, who would be there. I think it’s how he knew Allen would be in France way back before he turned him into a werewolf.”

  “What? Who would have been helping him? Who would have known all that?” Alex didn’t believe me. She seemed like she thought I was crazy, grasping at straws when there was no threat.

  “Do you remember that night in the brewery? That vampire that had Clara by the neck,” I said.

  “Yeah, Fitz. Martin used to know him,” she remembered.

  “He looked back at one point, like Peter was talking to him before he showed himself. He asked for Patrick out of everyone else. He wanted him before the killing started,” I tried to build my case to her.

  “Why? What does that have to do with anything? He could have wanted to take whatever kind of weird power that boy has.”

  “No,” I shook my head, pacing around in her kitchen. “It was more than that.”

  “What?” Alex laughed at me, “You think Patrick was helping Peter?” She was amused by how stupid she thought I was.

  Again, I found myself standing in front of someone who was about to laugh me out of the room. I just waited for her to finish and catch her composure.

  “You’re a fucking idiot if you think that little boy had anything to do with the death of his own father,” Alex said, thinking it was crazy. But she wasn’t wrong.

  “Not willingly… or at least not directly…” I assured her. “I think Peter was using him, cornering him in some way, secretly, to get what he wanted.” I corrected her.

  Alex’s face got more serious. Her laughing smile slowly eased back to a straight line.

  “Still, that was his father. Even his grandmother died in the end. Their family lost the most at the end of all this. How could he be a part of that? How could Martin, his own family, or the others not see it if something was going on?” I could tell that Alex was already finding the path of least resistance. She knew that this was dangerous territory.

  “They did lose the most,” I agreed, “but I saw something… a vision.”

  “Damn, who all can see visions these days?” Alex huffed in annoyance that she didn’t have some psychic ability to conveniently give her the answers.

  “I get sent visions from somewhere else, but they're always right. They’ve never been wrong yet. And I saw Peter meet with Patrick. It wasn’t a mutual meeting; I could tell Patrick didn’t want to be there. Peter had a grip on him somehow. But I also could feel it wasn’t the first time. Peter went to Autumn's dorm room at the college and murdered her roommate. He took some of her things and did some kind of ritual… I still can’t figure out what it was. Or if it still even matters. Once he died, that power might have gone with him.”

  Ignoring the fact that I just spilled the beans on a power I had that was unexplainable, she replied, “I haven’t heard of that yet…” Alex thought out loud. “Have they found this out? Does Martin know? I assume it will bleed into his role within the family… assisting with covering using his contacts within the human world.”

  “I don’t know much yet… I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. That’s why I’m coming to you…” I stared at her for a moment. “Patrick is involved more with Peter… I know it. I just don’t know what I should do.”

  She was silent for a moment, walking around in the small kitchen to open a drawer and pull out a crinkling plastic package. It was some sour gummy worms that she tore into enthusiastically, eating a few as she mulled over her thoughts.

  “It’s a big hole, Sam,” Alex told me as she tried to seem uninterested. Maybe she really was. “Don’t go making problems when there aren’t any.” Alex turned from me, walking to her living room to sit down. She seemed like she was over the conversation and didn’t want any part of plotting against her friend's adoptive family.

  “There’s something else,” I got her attention. “The other that was there that night in the storm… when I got struck by lightning; I’m almost a hundred percent sure that it was Patrick.”

  She knew exactly what I was talking about, remembering the Lichtenburg figures that carved across my skin from the strikes that she and Martin saw.

  “Why do you say that?” Alex asked as she slowed and spun her red hair back around to face me.

  “I heard a scream. It was right before the lightning hit me the last time. It was unmistakable… it wasn’t Peter, but someone younger with him.” I told her.

  Alex was looking at my chest, but she was staring straight through me. Her dots were being connected to other things she had seen and witnessed. Probably little things that meant nothing to her before, but now they were being placed into a column that lined up with everything I was saying to her.

  “But even Annabelle could’ve seen something like that. From what Martin told me about her, Annabelle would have seen what Patrick was doing… right?” Alex was fully enveloped in my suggestions. She pushed herself up on the kitchen counter, lost in thought.

  “Peter was cloaked from me most of the time before the end. He could veil himself in a way… or his… benefactor could conceal him from me, and Annabelle. I’m assuming that he could hide what he was doing with Patrick as well.”

  “But you could see him?” she asked, confused and accusatory.

  “Yeah,” I said simply. “I’m… different.” I hoped she would stay on track and not veer off to the new things I was telling her about myself.

  Alex was staring off again, really thinking hard about it all. She was worried about something.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She realized I could read her expression, and she straightened up. “You realize that this is serious. If you're right, then she might be even more dangerous than Peter. But if you’re wrong… how do you think they’ll react? How do you think Martin will react?”

  “Can you see now why I couldn’t go to him. If I brought this up to him, he,” Alex actually interrupted me.

  “No. He wouldn’t believe you,” she agreed.

  I nodded now that she finally understood the seriousness of it all.

  She sighed quickly, “I need a fucking drink!” She hopped off the counter and paced quickly to the fridge, yanking the door open. She grabbed a brown bottle, then looked back at me, “Want one?”

  Before I could answer, I saw her reach into a cabinet and grab a little jar of yellow powder. Alex brought over another full beer for me and set it on the counter. She scraped the bottle cap off and poured the yellow dust into her open hand. She funneled it in with her hand, spilling most on the counter before pointing the bottom to the ceiling.

  She was trying to get the powder into her system as fast as possible. The stress of the knowledge she now knew was actively taking its toll on her. She needed relief the instant she realized my thoughts could very well be true.

  “Fuck!” Alex barked out as she finished the beer, sucking in a breath.

  “Yeah. Things are about to get complicated,” I said.

  I grabbed the jar and mirrored her movements, pouring a handful of powder into the neck of the bottle.

  A little bit of time passed as we drank all of her beer and most of the blazing star. Using the beer instead of the water reminded me of old times. Back when I’d drink with my brother. The taste was different now, but close enough to what I remembered.

  With my normal restraints relaxed around her, I asked, “Who’s in the picture by your bed?”

  Alex was also feeling the yellow herb in her system, and let her guard down a little. “So you did creep around?” She knew I didn’t just grab her clothes and leave before. She joked, but I could tell it was to try and push the subject somewhere else.

  “Your husband?”

  Alex gritted her teeth, wishing I’d stop asking.

  I think a part of her wanted to talk about him.

  “His name was Jerry… we weren’t married, but we were together since high school,” she grew quiet for a moment. “We rode motorcycles… we were even in a club.” Alex laughed, “We even had jackets with all the patches.” She was smiling at some old memories. “I didn’t like it all in the beginning; motorcycles were more Jerry’s thing. But I knew how much it meant to him, so I grew into it. That’s where I got all these,” Alex turned, lifting her sweatshirt slightly, showing me the ink that covered her back and arms. Lots of skulls and flames filled her body. There was a Grim Reaper tucked into her forearm design that made me smirk. It had a full-blown scythe in its hand, the same size as the skeleton. Alex flipped her arm over to show me the inside of her wrist. There it was, ‘Jerry’ right on her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” I honestly talked with her. “I know what it’s like to have to leave the people you care about…”

  Alex looked up quickly, “I didn’t leave Jerry. They took him from me.”

  She said it angrily, like she was still very much affected by what she had talked about.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The ones that turned me into this…” Alex’s eyes were somewhere else again. “There was a bar that the gang went to all the time. It was kind of our place; everyone knew it. Most people in town avoided it. Our guys could be… rough. But they were all good people, just not the cookie-cutter bullshit you see behind white picket fences. They were my family.” Alex made her history very clear. “That all changed when a group of strangers came to the bar. They seemed young and out for trouble. When they came inside, they found a table, sat down, and took over the place. Some of our guys did not like that, so they wanted to rough them up a little bit, just to scare them away. None of us knew what they were.”

  “Vampires,” I put it together.

  “Someone get this guy a gold star,” Alex mocked my comprehension of the obvious. “The lucky ones got killed quickly. Thankfully, Jerry was one of them. I, however, was not so lucky. Me and a friend we’re kept alive. They fed on us for days, slowly sucking the life out of us. I don’t think they meant to turn me, but they were young and didn’t know what they were doing. After a long night of being tortured by one of them, he drank too much from me, and I started to go. I think he was one of the youngest ones, still unsure about how it all worked. He fed me his blood in hopes that it would heal me and keep me alive. I think he was scared to tell the older ones that he killed me by accident and tried anything he could think of to avoid that. I think I was supposed to last them for a while. At that point, my friend was already dead, and it was just me. But I was much more than just a food source… they used me for… other things.” Alex shook her head in regret.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to say… but I don’t. We don’t have to keep talking about it if you don’t want to.”

  “No.” Alex looked to me, “I’m not ashamed of what happened. Once I was… aware,” she tried to make me understand the vampire ways, “I could feel the power inside of me. I still felt weak, but I knew something was different. I honestly thought they’d kill me as soon as I thought back, but I came after them with all that I had. When I killed the first one and drank his life, I felt stronger. I fought and killed them one by one until only one was left. He ran once he saw he had no others to help him. He was too scared to fight me, a helpless newborn vampire.” Alex grinned as she spoke next, “I killed all of his friends, drank their blood, and became even stronger than all of them. The last one got away… I’ve never been able to find him, but I remember his face. If I ever find him, I’ll do to him what I did to them all.”

  Poor Alex… her story was much worse than I thought it was. She still had something hanging over her. One of the monsters that forced this life on her was still out there somewhere. I don’t think she felt like she had closure. A part of her would always still be back there until she could kill the one that got away from her.

  I didn’t say anything else to her about it. I could see she was through talking, so I wouldn’t ask anymore.

  “What are you going to do now?” Alex asked me after a few minutes of silence, returning to our conversation, and the reason I came over.

  I shook my head, “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. If Patrick was helping Peter upset the balance, I would have been sent for him, but I haven’t been yet. If he doesn’t meet the standards, then I’m not sure where that leaves me. I could kill him on my own, but I’m not sure what would happen.” I struggled with what to do. “Would I upset the balance if I killed someone who doesn’t deserve it?” I thought that last part out loud to myself, forgetting she was listening in as I spoke my thoughts aloud.

  Alex was half drunk, sitting on her kitchen counter again, “You just said a whole lot… and I didn’t understand any of it.” Her eyebrows lifted high in confusion. “Well, whatever you figure out, let me know before you get cast out of the family. I’ll need to make sure Martin will keep me on at the bar if he thinks I was in on this. That’s how I pay for this place.”

  “You’re not going to help me figure this out,” I asked her. “I can’t talk to anyone else about this.”

  “Why did you even come here?” Alex asked me. “You could have done this on your own… why did you think I’d help you hurt a human? I only hunt one thing… vampires.”

  I was surprised at her hesitation, but I had ultimately already done what I intended to do here with her. She knew what I was thinking… and that was my ultimate goal. I set my beer bottle down on the counter, adding another to the growing pile of empties.

  I started walking towards her balcony, cracking the sliding door. Sunlight streamed in to light up the kitchen floor, growing and lengthening toward Alex at the counter. She could have moved at any point, and I could have slung the door open, too. She waited… to see what I’d do. I had the power to hurt her in that moment; she knew it, and I knew it. The light would burn her severely if it touched her.

  I stopped the door once the light was about a foot from touching her. Alex’s green eyes were on the floor, watching the approaching sunlight. She looked to me after it stopped creeping towards her.

  “You and I have a lot in common. You hunt a kill vampires. You’re a killer of killers… so am I. We’re a lot more similar than you might realize.” I looked at her open bedroom door to her picture she held so closely. “A lot more similar…”

  I stepped out of her balcony door and slid it closed behind me. I slipped over the edge and fell to the sidewalk below while no one was looking. Then, I threw my hood up and paced away in the encroaching cold of late fall.

  It was fine. I wanted her help, if only to have someone else verify what I was thinking. But my main goal had been accomplished. She knew what I knew. If things went bad, and the family didn’t understand what I’d have to do if I were right, she could at least be there to tell them. She could relay what I had uncovered. Martin would believe her… I hoped.