Once Bitten *On Hiatus*

𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖞 𝕿𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊

• 𝓜𝓪𝓮 •

Titus explained how to melt someone's mind with so much detachment one would think we'd be speaking about the weather. I listened, my gaze narrowed on him as Gray continued to hold my arms behind my back.

Judging by the way Zero's body healed itself, he'd likely wake up in the next few minutes, which meant I needed to hurry up and do it if I wanted to have a chance to kill Zero before he woke up.

I looked at Meredith, then nodded towards Bea. She reacted instantly, pulling her daughter against her and forcing her to look away.

I closed my eyes and focused on the man touching me. Feeling his arms around mine. And I did what I did with Meredith. I imagined his body - not on the outside, but on the inside. The bones and muscles. The veins and arteries. And I imagined his brain. Not to heal, but to destroy.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. He may have said he'd kill me if he was ordered to, but that wasn't something I did. But Titus knew the way to get to me to make me do what he wanted, and though Noah's arm was likely almost healed by now, it didn't mean they wouldn't do it again and again and again to make me do what Titus wanted.

I knew what this was. A test. Gray was supposed to be taking my powers. There should be no reason why I should have been able to kill him.

But I could. Because I could feel it as I imagined his brain melting like a candle melted beneath a flame.

For once in my life, my mind blocked out the cries from behind me as soon as they started, coating my hearing in silence. I heard nothing. The only reason why I knew it worked was because his grip fell away from me.

When I opened my eyes, Titus had the biggest grin on his face.

I couldn't bring myself to look behind me, or even to the four men at the wall to see their reactions. I didn't want to see any of them look at me in horror at what I'd done. What I was apparently capable of.

Titus had created me, and he had created a monster. These powers were unnatural. There should have been no reason why a single person could melt someone's brain so easily.

Zero groaned and I looked down at him.

Too late. It took me too long to get the courage and follow through with killing Gray.

It took him all of two seconds to wake up and figure out what happened. His eyes flicked down to Gray's body behind me, then back up to mine. Then there was a look of confusion that passed over his features as he pushed himself to his feet.

'I want to understand why,' I thought to him.

He tilted his head. 'You realize this conversation will all be sent back to Titus.'

I nodded, still silent. Titus could know. I didn't think he'd go around shouting from the rooftops why Zero hated me so much.

Before I killed him, I wanted to know why. What flipped that switch in him from someone who seemed to give a shit, to someone who wanted me to suffer? He was never normal, per say. But he never actively went out of his way to hurt me or the people I cared about.

Zero stared down at me for a moment. 'It was always my friends.'

I blinked, confused.

'Always my friends, and never me.' His voice came through angry, though his face remained neutral. 'Tay, then Kite, then fucking Seraph. Seraph, for fuck's sake. Come on, Mae. Out of everyone.'

I couldn't help the frown that curled my lips. 'You killed Noah, my children, and me because you were jealous of the fact that I didn't want you?'

He merely stared at me, then shook his head and sighed like I just wasn't getting it. I wondered if I'd ever understand, and even if I did, would I ever think it would warrant what he did? What he'd likely continue to do if he was allowed to live?

He'd come too far, been allowed to do too much. And I'd been taught the easiest way to kill him. I didn't need the silver knife in my hand. I didn't even need something silver. Silver helped, sure. That's why it took him so long to heal. But I could melt a vital organ and kill him almost instantly.

I stepped up to Zero and placed my hand on his chest.

The fact that he let me after seeing what I'd done to Gray confused me.

"Titus will manipulate you and use you until you're nothing but a husk," Zero's voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it. 

I looked up at him, and to anyone who didn't know what I was doing, they'd think we were close. He didn't have that wicked, evil glint to his eye, or that sardonic smile on his face. He looked almost resigned.

He looked to the wall, likely either at Seraph or Kite - though my bets were on Seraph. Then that smile curled his lips, making chills dance down my spine.

He grabbed my hand and forced me to continue to touch his chest as he pulled me closer. My body pressed against his, and even though I fought against him, he held me tight.

I bared my fangs at him, and he snorted before placing his lips by my ear. "If you kill me, you'll be playing right into Titus's plan. This is a test, Maeve. You're doing everything he wanted you to do and more, and the moment I'm dead, you're his."

I tried to pull away, but he held me tight against him, keeping his mouth by my ear and his voice low. I could barely hear him, and maybe that was the point. The mind reader couldn't tell Titus what we were talking about if we weren't talking telepathically, and if I could barely hear him while I was still strung out on blood, no one else could hear him at all.

"But if I don't kill you, I'm yours," I shot back angrily, keeping my voice as low as his.

He didn't speak for a moment. "You're either choosing the monster that you know, or the monster that you don't. And the monster that you don't know also has my father."

I stared daggers into his shoulder, clenching the hand that was on his chest into a fist. "You also have your father."

"Mm," he hummed. "Not really. Daddy dearest is power hungry and looking for any opportunity to either take the throne or become the face of South District. I come second, as per the usual."

His jealousy was unmatched. I'd never seen someone act out the way they did because they weren't someone's first choice.

I shook my head. "I refuse to be tied down in a cage for you to torture."

Even if that meant Titus would run me dry.

He pulled back slightly to look down at me, his face impassive. These moments were probably the first in an incredibly long time that he didn't look at me with obvious hatred.

"I wouldn't torture you," he said.

I stared up at him in disbelief. So keeping me in a cage wasn't torture? His little room Seraph told me about wasn't torture? What in the world did he think was torture then?

"Would you like to call a truce, Maeve?" His voice was still so quiet, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

Why would I want to call a truce with a man who had spent years - years - trying, and succeeding, in making me fucking miserable? Maybe the monster that I didn't know was better, because I knew what the monster I did know was capable of.

But what would happen if the monster I didn't know would and could do worse than Zero?

I had no fucking clue.