In Plain Sight (A Hunted Rose)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

What was I going to do?  The first, and seemingly only, option was to go to Liam, but that had its disadvantages too.  He would tell me to run and let him handle it, which I would refuse to do.

I would love to say that when Liam came home from wherever-the-hell he was that he did not find me curled up into almost a fetal position on my bed, but if I did then I would be lying.  I had debated my options – the very limited amount I had – for hours.  Liam hadn't come home until well after dark, and I had been alone with that letter on the countertop mocking me ever since I had gotten out of my shower.  Fear and solitude do not make rainbows and puppies. 

There weren’t any lights on in the house, the only source of brightness the streetlamps shining through the still-open blinds.  I hadn't bothered to close them.  If someone was watching me, which I now knew they were, there wasn’t anything I could do to change that aside from killing them and their employer, and I was trying to be nice.  That meant no more killing people.  Well, as much as was possible.  There are exceptions to every rule… kind of. 

I had to tell him about the letter; that was the one thing that every answer I had come up with revolved around – telling Liam about my problem.  With the hours I had had alone, I must have been able to come up with every single situation possible. 

I was wrong.

“You want me to WHAT!?!?” I practically screamed at Liam, who winced at my shrill tone.

“You should tell your friends.”

“No!”  I was emphatic.  “I will not pull them into this.”

“Rosie,” he stressed my nickname.  “Trust them.  You trust me, and I’m telling you to trust them.  They didn’t turn their backs on you when they found out you lied to them about me, so why would they turn their backs on you now?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically.  “Because they shouldn’t have to take care of my problems for me!”

“Then tell them that the people after you are my enemies, and you need their help.”

“I don’t want to lie to them more,” I said.  “Do you have any idea the guilt and the weight that it places on me to lie to them?  They are my closest, and pretty much only friends.  You are family; I know that you will always be there, but they’re just my friends.”  I sniffed, and continued.  “They don’t have any obligation to help me.”

“If you think that,” Liam said to me in a soft voice, “then you haven't had a real friend before.  A true friend is someone who wouldn’t turn their back to you in a time of need; a friend is someone who will not hesitate to help you when you ask – and won’t ask a single question.  Rosie, a friend is someone who accepts you for all your faults.”

“Liam I think you're getting friends and family confused.”

“I’m getting there,” he said, some playfulness threading into his voice, which remained low to help keep me calm.  “Family… your family is the people who will stick with you through everything, no matter what.  People who are your family know when you need help even before you know that you need it.  Family is someone who will willingly lay down their life for yours, just because they love you.  Family is forever.”

His speech made me realize how lucky I really was to have Liam here with me; I wondered what my life you be like without him. 

“I know I don’t say this the right way a lot, but I love you.”

“I know you do Rosie,” he replied easily, leaning over to give me a hug.  I knew it meant more to him than he was showing.  I normally only said I loved him when I was irritated at him, not in the middle of a tender moment when he really knew I meant it.  That was the thing about Liam – he had been around long enough, seen too much, to be able to wear his emotions on his sleeve.  He was great at putting up a front, that happy-go-lucky guy that everyone else knew, but there were more, deeper levels to him than that.  I knew that he had quite a few friends as he made them easily; he really was a likeable guy.  What I didn’t know was how many of them he actually trusted with his life or the real him.  All throughout his vampire life Liam had been used and abused.  The former because he had crawled his way through the world and make a fortune all by himself.  He had been abused simply because other vampires had thought they were better than him.  Liam had told Cameron and Seth some things that made being a vampire seem like one of the best things in the universe, but the truth was that our society was a cruel one.  I hadn't seen much of it, with Liam protecting me, and with me trying to get as far away from the vampire world as possible.