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CHAPTER THIRTY

MADS

Ender falls silent for a moment. “The village was used to supply Abel with humans. They did it for years. Hell. A hundred years? Who knows how long before I killed them. Not long before I attacked, Abel had said there was a vampire working with them. I assumed you were a participant, were you not? Did you truly not know what they were doing? I assumed you were in on it, which is why I taunted you. I assumed you were the vampire Abel spoke of… I mean, you sure wanted to protect those monsters. I’d seen you protect them from another vampire, so why would I ever think you weren’t the one he’d been talking about? ”

I can’t see their expressions from inside the bag and find myself really wishing I could get out, but I guess there are windows someone could be watching us through. I just want to be out so I can comfort Ender if I need to.

“I didn’t know,” Marcus whispers. “I… I thought they were good people.”

“And maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t all involved.

But my life was absolutely destroyed because of them.

They found my brother and gave him to Abel, and because of that my brother was killed, my sister-in-law was handed over as a blood slave before she was killed, and who fucking knows what happened to my niece.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have killed them all.

It had been many years since I’d been handed over to Abel.

Hell, many of them who had handed me over were already dead, but that didn’t mean they’d stopped.

They just passed on the tradition to the next generation.

I will never deny being a monster, but I will tell you that there is generally a reason for it. ”

I close my eyes in the body bag and think about what it would be like to be in Abel’s hands.

To be closed in the darkness like this. Hell, I’ve been in here ten minutes and already want out.

I already find it suffocating… how bad would my life have to be to find solace in it?

To find that my only escape was in the darkness?

“I think sometimes it’s easy to only see things from one point of view,” Finn quietly says.

“It excuses none of my actions. I didn’t say this shit to get you to forgive me.

You wanted to know so I simply let you know,” Ender states, as closed off as ever.

Will he ever decide that he really does want others in his life?

Or acknowledge that he doesn’t want to say stuff gruffly, but he makes himself out to be the bad guy to take the brunt of the blame and just deal with it because that’s what he’s done most of his life?

When I’m finally released from the body bag, I find myself set up in a lab that is quite a bit more complex than the university one.

“Am I safe here to talk?” I ask.

“The room is soundproof and there are no cameras or anything, so you should be,” Marcus says as he shuts the door.

“I was told that the items you might need are in this room. You will have the lab to yourself and everyone is aware that no one is permitted to enter, so you are free to make what you need to.”

“While I work on this… can you all start identifying who is on whose side of the council?” I ask.

“I have a plan, but it will only work if we know who is working for Abel. It’s…

not exactly a plan where I can just go, ‘Whoops, I fucked up, he really was a good guy.’ Because he’s going to be a dead guy if we get it wrong. ”

“I mean… we can’t guarantee it, but we can do our best.”

“I want everyone who we know is on our side to have an antidote before we call for a council meeting. There’s no way Abel won’t show up, and you know he will bring as many of his people along as he can.

Once in the room, I’m going to have everyone who is on our side inject themselves with an antidote before the drug is distributed. ”

“You plan to kill everyone we don’t deem on our side?” Finn asks.

“I understand that you’re part of the VRC, and that…

killing them is an awful thing to do. Trust me, I hate the idea of it as much as you do, but at the end of the day, this drug can’t get out.

If someone is working for Abel, I have to assume they would be willing to help Abel accomplish what he’s trying to do.

He cannot win, Finn. He could eradicate everyone. ”

“I’ll do it,” Ender says. “You get me the drug and I will take the blame for it.”

“There’s no ‘blame’ that needs to be taken,” I counter. “This doesn’t have to fall on your shoulders. Either we’re all in or we’re not doing it.”

“But if they don’t?—”

I shake my head. “It is my drug. And I decide what happens with it. Either we’re all in or we’re all out. Simple as that.”

“Not so simple,” Finn says. “What if we’re wrong about someone?”

Claude holds up a hand. “What if Mads makes enough antidote for everyone in the council? Yes, we are aware that some are on Abel’s side, but not all.

What would it matter if we injected them and they really did deserve to die?

We’d still be removing those who Abel brought with him, and hopefully weakening Abel enough that Marcus and Ender can finish him off.

Without Abel to lead them, I’m confident many of them will fade into the background.

He doesn’t seem to be the type to drag true vampires around with him.

He seems to prefer those who he made, which means almost all of them will be susceptible to the drug. ”

“Right. We’d rather accidentally save a bad guy than kill a good person. The most important thing is that this doesn’t get out to Abel before it happens,” Finn says. “We have to have enough people on our side to inject the council members quickly without making Abel suspicious.”

“How confident are we that we can kill him?” Marcus asks as I see him staring at Ender. “If we lock the place down… will we be condemning everyone inside to death, or do you think we could kill him?”

“What if we lock him in a room with just me?” Ender suggests.

“Why the fuck would we lock him in a room with only you?” I ask in disbelief. “Do you want to risk your life that badly?”

“Of all lives to risk here, yes, mine would make the most sense,” Ender says.

The look I’m giving him has to tell him that I’m not happy about any of this. “Why? Why do you think you’re worth nothing?”

“I didn’t say I was worth nothing. I just said that it’d make the most sense for me to be at risk,” Ender says.

“Why? Because you think your life has absolutely no value? Because you forgot that you have people who care about you? Because you think you deserve to be killed by him? What exactly is it?” I can tell I’m raising my voice because I’m feeling irritated with him, but it’s not my damn fault.

He’s the one over here prepared to just fucking die off for no fucking reason.

“You have help. You have people who can help you stop him, so why take the fall yourself? Yes, you might be perfectly capable of doing it alone, but if you were that confident, you wouldn’t have told the others to stay away. ”

Ender just stares at me, like he doesn’t even know what to say.

I shake my head and turn to the others in the room.

“For now, get us what you can find out about the council members. I don’t want or need any help in here.

I don’t need another soul even figuring out what I’m doing.

After I’m done, I don’t even want it to show what amounts I used so that no one can ever duplicate any of it.

When this is over, this is over for good. ”

“Got it,” Finn says. “Ender, stay in here and protect him. Lock the door as soon as we leave. No one will enter the room besides us, understood?”

“Yes.”

Ender is quiet, and once the rest leave, the overbearing silence suffocates the room, but I refuse to even look at him.

“Do you need help?” he asks.

I ignore him. If he thinks I’m insignificant and not worth living for, then so be it.

I set to work, and this time I have enough ingredients to make a large batch of antidote. It takes longer because I’m making so much, but it’s better to be safe.

“I’m sorry,” Ender says. “I… don’t believe what I said was wrong in any way, but it must have been, so I’m sorry.”

Like he thinks I should forgive him after that shitty-ass apology.

“Mads, I know you can hear me. And I know you can talk while you make this. You chatted away while making a bomb last time.”

Still, I ignore him.

“I said I’m sorry, what more do you want?”

I set the liquid to the side to cool before turning on him. It needs some time before I can keep working with it, so I might as well get this all out in the open now. “Use your brain.”

Then I head into the supply closet. I don’t expect him to follow me, but he does.

“Why do you think I should risk everyone else’s life?” Ender asks.

“Why do you think you going alone is better than working with others?”

“You want me to ask the VRC, all of whose lives I’ve made fucking miserable… you think I should ask them? Apparently, not only did I toss Finn off a fucking bridge, I killed some fucking happy village Marcus loved with all these innocent happy people in it.”

“They weren’t too innocent if they were sacrificing people.

You can’t tell me that tradition went on for that many years and the villagers had no damn idea when most of the village was involved.

You said there were people standing on the street watching it like it was a spectacle.

How the hell could they be considered good people? ”

“I can do this alone. I can kill him, and I don’t need to involve anyone else.”

“Yeah? Yeah? You’re just going to do it all alone? Definitely don’t need me.”

He looks pained. “I need you.”

“Ohhhh, just to make shit for you, yeah?”

“No… Why are you mad at me? I didn’t realize how fucking sick I was of everyone being mad at me until I met you… and it seemed like no matter what I did, you still saw the best in me. But now I’ve even managed to piss you off.”