The Rules of the Red - 2014 Watty Award Winner |✓|

Chapter Ten - Part Three

almost pleasurable smile as she observed him. “There’s monster in him, and plenty of it.” she gushed.  “Even more than you’re willing to give him credit for…”

Shira then gave me another one of her funny little smiles, the kind that is given after having dropped a particularly unpleasant bomb on an unsuspecting person. And it was all I could do to push past the dread that suddenly welled within me. I had come on this trip with Tidus determined to show him that I wasn’t really the girl he had mistaken me for. But with spotlight constantly directed towards myself, I hadn’t really reflected on whether I could have been wrong about Tidus. Until now, anyway…

But at the same time, I still feared unjustly mistaking him for the villain of the story. True, Tidus was no hero, but he wasn’t evil.

I hoped.

*  *  *

We returned to our hotel rooms, tired but triumphant. And if what Shira had said about him truly bothered Tidus, he didn’t mention it. Instead, we stood at the bar and he poured the drinks – straight rum this time, with a few cubes of ice in it. I was drained, but the first sip still set me on fire.

“You know, you saved that man’s life tonight.” I began, thoughtfully.

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose.” he replied, taking a seat on one of the bar’s stools.

“Ha-ha, funny. Tidus, why didn’t you just tell me that you can use Glamour on Humans? Or that your blood can heal? ”

“Why would I?” Tidus said, looking irritated. “Do you know what the Humans would do if they found out that Vampire’s blood could heal all the sick and the dying in the world? With that much chaos and destruction, Vampires would become lab rats – nothing more than experiments for the Humans in white coats.”

Tidus chugged his glass and turned to the bar for a refill, looking jaded and Human-tired.

“But you have the power to help so many people. Think of all the good that Vampires could do…”

“Earth is already over-populated as it is. So if we healed every Human in this world, we would destroy the planet, Naomi. How can you not get that?” And he looked at me with disbelief, as if the answer were staring me right there in my face.  

“And the mind control?” I replied patiently, choosing to ignore his bad temper. “Is that real too?”

“Glamour,” he corrected, with a heavy sigh. “But yes, it is similar to mind control. And we all have the ability to use it, but the older the Vampire, the stronger and more effective it becomes.”

“And this ‘Glamour’… can it be used on other Supernaturals? Like Werewolves maybe?” I asked, thinking of Ethan and how he had left so abruptly the night he had followed me in Tidus’ car. He had behaved almost as if caught underneath a spell, just like the bellman who had seen my Wolf’s eyes peering back at him the other night.

Tidus looked as if he were about to speak, but a sharp ringing sound cut through the moment. He fished his phone from his pocket, and glanced at the name that popped up on the screen.

“It’s Claudia.” he said, and I observed his relief with suspicion. “I should take this…”

And with no other choice, I left the room to give him his privacy, wondering what his answer would have been.

*  *  *