Chapter 672: The ‘Talk’
Regret couldn’t have hit harder in the face even if it came barreling in as a train.
Amelia’s got me pinned, pincered, cornered, and along with every other euphemism to eloquently describe my being fucked in this argument.
“What’s this? What is this silence I hear now?” Amelia asked me, probing and poking, growing more infuriating with every word. “Is this hesitance? Reluctance? But just why is that? You do love my sister, don’t you?”
“Course I do...” I muttered.
“Then prove it,” She leaned in, the stark black of her eyes wholly meeting mine. “Do it.”
For a moment it held, for a second my gaze remained raised... and then it fell.
I backed away a step. “It’s... it’s not that simple.”
.....
“Isn’t it?” She quickly chimed, slowly pacing around me like the center of a merry-go-round. “To love only her, to abandon your affections for anyone else. Is that not so simple a commitment, an obligation – to devote yourself to one and only one? No, not hard at all. After all, if what you claim is true... is that not what my sister already does for you?”
Annoying, vindicating, provocative, unbearable... and too, just too fucking right. There was nothing I could say to stop her advances.
Amelia stopped pacing, her stare on mine once more, gleaming, taunting, inquiring, “So why can’t you?”
Yeah, that’s how love is supposed to work, ain’t it? One true love, as it goes... it’s not two, not three, and dare I say it, it was not even four, but one...
And only one.
Yet here I was professing and proclaiming my love to everyone like it was going out of style. Is that right? Hell, is that even fair? From the outside looking in, through the eyes of a sulky vampire hovering by the sidelines... there was just no other answer... even I knew that it wasn’t.
But thinking of Ash, of Amanda, Irene... Adalia... right then, I couldn’t give a damn about what was right, what was fair – normal. I loved each and every single one of them with all my heart.
And for her to make me choose... as justified as she was for doing so, well within the bounds of fair and right... well, like I said before... couldn’t really give a damn no more.
“You can shove it with that ultimatum,” I said, lifting my gaze up towards hers once more. “I’m not gonna consider it for even a second, forget about it.”
“Ah, selfishness, but of course! Not love, but greed!” Amelia gave an audible, derisive snort. “My sister’s love, devotion, you claim oh-so to cherish, and yet apparently it is not enough for you. No, you need more! What is that but not selfishness? Deception? Oh, you disagree, do you? Of course you do!”
I tried to get a word in, push back with a rebuttal. Too predictable, I suppose. Two steps with an interjection like an open book.
“You’ll tell me I know nothing of the truth. Just blind, ignorant me, fabricating the outlandish from mere prejudice, but is it really so? Maybe you are already so deeply ingrained with your insincerity, you’re not even aware of your own lie. Has that thought ever occurred to you? No, I suppose not.”
“Stop talking,” I immediately said, suddenly feeling something large, feeling something heavy bubbling inside me. “Amelia, just stop talking.”
“Or what?” She took another forward step, bringing us within inches of each other. “What will you do if I don’t otherwise? Do tell, won’t you?”
I’ll take any excuse – any. Another word from my lips. A single twitch in her expression. Anger was not an emotion I was unfamiliar with, usually, I handle it quite well. But this hatred, this spite I was feeling inside... rarely do I ever feel it arise, and when it does come...
It makes me want her to try...
A Matriarch, a deadly predator with rarely a matched equal. I didn’t care about any of that anymore, her status, her prowess. Just give me a word, give me a twitch, an excuse...
Anything.
But then before I could get that chance, before anything else could happen, something else happened.
Someone else happened.
“Sister... enough...”
Both Amelia and I turned, both completely caught by surprise – not a creak from the door, a squeak from the floorboards – and yet there she was regardless. Like an apparition materializing from outta nowhere, the draft from the open window billowing at her murky gray locks.
“Adalia,” I muttered, backing away and at once feeling all of my rage completely dissipate. “What are you...? You... did you hear us...?”
It was the weirdest contrast of pairs I’ve ever seen. One cladded in an elegant black, with frills and curls lightly dragging across the floor, while the other wore loose, baggy, swallowed by the vastness of my wooly jacket, to the point where the ends covered over her knees.
“I saw you... go upstairs... and I... waited for you... to come back down...” Adalia said, her ghoul-like gaze flittering in the pale darkness, slowly settling upon her sister. “You... did not...”
“Oh, do forgive me, was I interrupting on something nice, something... romantic, perhaps?” Amelia said, shifting her focus towards the inky silhouette by the doorway. “Indeed, it does sound like quite the event down there. A congregation of human debauchery and noise if there ever was one. Oh, and just look at the state of you...”
She scoffed again, reaching audible heights of contempt that I didn’t think existed. “Remind me again, Adalia, was it not you before that vehemently despise these sort of things the most? Humans, an annoying, trite breed, didn’t you say?”
Annoying breed? Humans? Trite? Adalia said...?
I tried to meet Adalia’s gaze, but it seemed that I had been whisked away from the conversation itself, and for a moment, the two vampires simply stared at each other, one lacking in any kind of reaction, the other restraining from showing more, before quietly, a whisper broke the silence.
“You are... not supposed to be... here... sister...”
“And yet, here I stand regardless... and just what do I come and find for myself exactly? Dare me, sister... go on, ask me.”
“Yes...” Adalia simply blinked. “I... know...”
“Deceits and secrets, sister,” Amelia said, briefly throwing me a dirty look back. “And here I was, believing our bond beyond such frivolous things.”
“You are... upset...” a tilt down, and Adalia’s vacant eyes looked almost remorseful. “I didn’t want... to upset you...”
“And what? By prolonging my discovery, did you think I would somehow be any less upset when you choose to finally put an end to your deception? That when the time comes, I’ll just simply accept this? I’ll never accept this! And you! How could ever have ever allowed yourself to become this?! To brand a human as yours, never would I have thought, I... It’s... it’s utterly incomprehensible!”
“You do not have... to understand it... sister...” Adalia strode forward, speaking in her usual calm. “I want you... to just respect... what I have chosen... for myself... please...?”
“A regrettable choice, unequivocally.”
“It is... not...” Adalia affirmed. “Sister... I... love him...”
“Nonsense!” Amelia snapped, fangs and claws extending out like spikes and needles. “You mean to tell me as emotionally stunted as you are, to its purest definition, that love is within your comprehension? This fast?! This sudden?!”
“Why... not...?” She asked, sounding somehow more curious than anything else. “I love... you... don’t... I...?”
“I am your sister!” Amelia’s glare were as wide and deranged as they could ever be, snapping back to me. “He is a stranger! And at best, a mere acquaintance! He is nothing more!”
“And just what the hell do you-!” I began, but once again, I was rendered nothing more but just a setpiece to this familial debacle, interrupted almost immediately.
“He is... kind...” Adalia said.
“Anyone can be kind,” Amelia retorted. “It is so easy to be kind! How could you succumb to something as simple as-?!”
“Not so easy... to be kind... to people like us...” She interjected and for the first time in what seemed like a long time, Adalia slowly glanced at me. “Yet... he was... even after everything... that happened... he still is...”
But the belligerent vampire continued to remain set in her convictions, seemingly unable to be swayed, scoffing and shaking her head at every point strewn her way.
“So that’s how it started, then, hm? With a little act of kindness...” Amelia rose both brows, arms crossed against her heavily heaving chest. “... and inevitably paving the way for his influence over your judgment, and slowly but surely, you allowed him to distort your view, allow him a sway over your affections, until he finally warped you, convinced you of an infatuation you possess that never at all to existed to begin with. Am I right? Or once again, am I just simply speaking in prejudice?”
For a while, Adalia appear to be mulling it over in silence, before her eyes stirred to life once again, coming to a conclusion.
“It seems... you are right... after all... sister...” She said, slowly tilting her gaze. “You are... prejudiced...”
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