Chapter Fifteen: A Merry Chase

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(( I promise I can count. Sorry I have to keep changing and rearranging the chapter titles cause I actually can't ))


Over the table, across the library, and stumbling through the halls I'm astounded that the three of them haven't caught me yet. Surely they're quicker. I've seen them run like shadows along the walls. All except Bela who's trailing behind me.

Cassandra and Daniela are ahead of me, I can sense their hearts, but what they're waiting for I'm not sure. That is until I miss the step and skid down the stairs, still bleeding.

"Aunt Donna!"

At this point anyone considered an adult by our family would be welcome. Maybe, just maybe, even Heisenberg. At least I know he'd be able to stop them.

My sisters are taller than I am so my best bet is to scuttle and run under the furniture like an animal at every given chance. Eventually Daniela catches on and follows. Cassandra crashes headlong into the furniture, and so does Bela. It makes me ponder my sanity if the crazy sister is the one who can keep up with me.

Upstairs and outside I don't really catch a break. Cassandra stops and Bela can't even come close to the open door but Daniela is complete unaffected by the bitter cold. My blood, however, attracts those black birds that are everywhere.

"Miss Iulia! M- Lady Dimitrescu!"

A maid notices me jumping, tiptoeing from one parapet to another, leaping into the open window beside where she just was. Even with her swarm Daniela doesn't follow me. It gives me all of a minute or two before I'm running again.

Having seen it plenty of times I leap and slide down the banister, leaping off the platform at the halfway point and bouncing off the couch. My final landing is rough but the maid helps me up. As soon as I'm on my feet again I'm gone.

Still losing blood my vision blurs in and out as I run. After I realize I stopped calling I try again.

"Mothe-"

I'm snatched up off the floor.

"Fetelor nu-ți vei răni sora," Mother growls.

All three settle down, their eyes still glowing red and fixed on my arm.

"And you, tracking blood all over the house. What were you thinking?"

"Bela needs it. They all do if Winters is coming back. Going outside would allow them to escape. I saw Mirana's notes, I've gone over them-"

I'm not entirely sure my words are getting through as mother carries me to the bathroom. She sets me in her bathtub and gets some hot water and bandages.

"Mother-" At which point I realize that I can't actually get out. There's nothing nearby to grab and with the tub sized for mother it's too tall for me to jump out of. Not to mention if I managed it I'd just bruise myself even further.

When mother returns she has one of the drinking glasses from the dinner table. She hands it to me, "Now we're going to do this my way, carefully."

I nod.

It's a very careful process that involves listening to my heart and pressing on my veins. I fill half of the glass and that's as much as mother will allow. She then gives it to a maid to take to Bela.

"Now you need to be cleaned up," Mother picks me up and rests me in her lap. She sighs, "You need to be more selfish, you're not immortal. No one is."

Once the blood is cleaned up mother sits holding me for a long time. She sighs and shudders. At first I miss the drops on my head, but the sniffle tips me off. Mother hugs my face into her neck so I don't see her crying but I can hear it and feel it. There's no heartbeat, just this quivering motion in her chest and uneven breathing. At her age I know there's no explaining trauma and that it's alright to appear vulnerable but it doesn't mean I don't want to.

We eventually emerge and Bela is grinning.

"What is all over you?"

"Snow! Daniela and I were outside!"

Cassandra looks quite bitter, arms crossed tightly.

"Give her a week Cassandra."

I smile, "Then we can all go running around outside and have a proper snowball fight."

As we're all smiling, dreaming of how fun and how cute that will be a door opens in the house. There's the echoing sound of one of Cassandra's snap traps going off but no one screams.

"Mother," I take her arm but she's frozen stiff. Her claws are bared and she keeps us behind her but her feet are planted to the ground. "Let me go see who it is. He doesn't know me yet."

Finally snapped out of her trance mother stares at me for a long time, then she nods, "Lead them deeper inside. Cassandra you are to stay with me."

We split into two groups, Bela and Daniela shadowing me while mother and Cassandra find a place that will be safe and warm deeper inside the house.

Sneaking around through the front corridors I spot a familiar head of long dreadlocks.

"Louis!"

Without thinking I run to him but my friend spins around with a shotgun and bandages wrapped around his bleeding hands. His brown eyes are full of fear and I stop.

"Oh god. Oh god!" Louis sobs, "They got you too. Em-"

"Louis it's okay. I'm okay. I don't know what happened to the others but I'm fine," I explain, the scent of fresh blood tickling my senses.

Louis, who has never been romantically interested in me, looks down and stares. For a moment I forget that where I used to have breasts is now a gaping maw lined with jagged teeth. He's staring at the bristling mouth gaping and breathing heavily as it searches for the source of the blood.

"I'm sorry Emily," Louis pumps the shotgun, "But you're one of them. You're a monster."

"A monster," I breathe, "A monster took away my family. A monster hid behind a human face and human hands and used a garden trowel to tear my sister apart. He ripped my mother's jaw off. He bashed my father over the head to watch what he did to me. I-I was hiding. He couldn't find me. So I watched a monster hidden behind a human skin kill the only family I had left."

Behind him Bela and Daniela are each moving in silently, aiming for a fatal strike.

My hands ball into fists and I shake my head, "I'm happy here. I have a family again. And if loving them and wanting to protect them makes me a monster, then so be it."

Louis levels the shotgun with my head. Pain is rampant in his eyes. So I smile, "Look sisters, your favorite. It's a manthing."

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