Page 7 of Those That Are Lost (Hidden Vampires #2)

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I don’t take in a single detail between the alley and the wooden stairs we’re now climbing. I hope Henry has his wits about him because if we’ve been followed I don’t have a clue.

No, all I see is Red.

She’d put her glamour back in place before we’d exited that alley, and with it the invisible barriers too. So now I’m watching a taller, willowed framed expressionless Red saunter up the staircase ahead of me.

She’d ducked back into the tavern to quit her shift early and grab her stuff so her body is now hidden in a padded waterproof coat.

But it's her.

Her scent in my nostrils hits like a drug with each inhale.

Only, I’ve been there, I’ve used drugs and alcohol before when my parents and my pack were slaughtered.

The narcotics never gave me this feeling.

Those drugs numbed me, hid my pain. She makes me feel.

Now that I’ve found her, I don’t plan on letting her go again.

She lets us into a tiny apartment on the fourth floor. It's an attic conversion so the roof is pitched, the only standing room for Henry or me is down the centre of the space.

Her bed is pushed up against one corner of the room, it's a low mattress with a tangle of blankets and pillows. Her walls are covered with further tapestries and rugs. Did she choose these or were they already in place when she moved in?

With a single window and several lamps, it’s warm, cosy. I don’t think she’s been here long, however, as I spot the rucksack still stuffed with clothes at the bottom of the open wardrobe. Either that or she stays prepared to run at a moment's notice.

After managing to speak to her in the alley, words now fail me. I stand awkwardly in the doorway. After all the times I’ve snuck into her previous room, or stalked her without her knowing, I feel like I’m intruding.

“How long have you been working at the bar?” Henry asks completely casually as he shrugs out of his thick coat, hanging it on a wooden rack at the end of bed. He crosses the room and drops down onto a giant green beanbag, the only seat in the space except for the bed.

Red strips out her own coat and gives Henry a suspicious look. She doesn’t know what to make of him.

“A while,” she replies.

“Have you been here since you left Froan?”

How is he doing this? Chatting to her like they’re old friends.

“No.”

Henry slouches more and crosses an ankle over his knee. “So, what have you been up to since you escaped those monsters he called a pack?”

“Henry,” I growl as Red freezes midway through hanging her jacket.

He looks at me and rolls his eyes. “Someone has to get the conversation going. You’ve both gone so awkward. I was expecting fireworks at this meeting, not this.”

We both shoot daggers in Henry’s direction. The thought of pulling her into my arms is exactly what I want to do, but I can feel the barrier she’s erected around herself. I fear if I move too quickly she’s going to run.

A couple more seconds of silence pass.

“Fine, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” Henry stands. “I don’t suppose you have any blood packets, do you Aurora?”

“No.” Red’s voice wobbles. “It’s… it's only fresh around here.” I can’t decipher the look that crosses her face.

Has she been feeding herself sufficiently?

Was the un-glamoured version of herself she showed me in the alley another cover?

Fear strikes me that she’s starving, like how she was in the beginning.

“Have you been drinking?” My concern loosens my throat.

“Yes.” Her answer is clipped but truthful. I relax a little but keep searching her gaze for what she’s not telling me.

“Okay, well, I’m going to go sample a local then. Will that bar of yours still be open?” Henry interrupts our staring contest.

“Yes, it’ll be open for a few more hours.”

With that, Henry grabs his jacket and walks out the door, leaving us alone.

I kick off my boots and coat finally, stepping into the room. Red watches every movement, remaining standing on the opposite side. Her face gives nothing away. The space between us hurts deep in my chest.

“I want to know everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. How did you end up here instead of West Scotia? Have you really managed to find enough blood? Have you seen any other vampires? ”

“How did you get out?” She ignores my questions for one her own.

“They screwed up my feeds. I was fully expecting to die that day but Adicious surprised me. He decided to torture me instead and use my blood as bait to get you back.”

“Bait?” Red swallows in disgust as she says the word.

“Yep. They bled me, and sometimes sliced off flesh, to leave in places they thought you might be, to lure you out with my scent. They fed me enough so my veins didn’t fully run dry but kept me weak enough that I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, or recover with any speed.”

I can still feel the knives against my flesh and the sound of my own screaming fills my ears as I talk. The pain was like nothing I’d ever known. A physical manifestation of the pain in my soul at being separated from the female now in front of me.

“That’s barbaric.”

“It’s about the worst thing you can do to a vampire.

I’d prayed for death initially, and would've welcomed it most days. But then I figured out that if I was still alive, it meant that they hadn’t found you.

You were still out there somewhere, out of their grasp.

” I expect Red to react to that more, but she only gives the barest of nods.

I carry on. “One night they accidentally fed me twice. I got just strong enough to move. By luck, or something else, the door to the cell wasn’t locked and the pack were either all in the common room or out.

I managed to get into the city and find a couple of low lives to drain completely. ”

“You killed people?” She does react to that, her voice not masking her surprise.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, was standing between me and finding you once I was free. I needed my strength fast. So yes, I killed the first two people I thought looked easy in my weak state. I made sure to be in the rough areas of the city but that was my only deviation. They were either dealers or wasters but honestly, I don’t care.

They were on the street and not so high off their own products that it would affect me. ”

“I—” Red goes to speak but stops herself. Does my admission scare her? I want there to be no uncertainty in her mind that I still want her, that I’m here for her. But the walls she’s got around herself are going to take a while to navigate.

“You can tell me, Red. What did you want to say?” I gentle my voice, but leave the distance between us, as much as it pains me.

“I killed someone too.” It's barely above a whisper but I see the first crack in those fortified shields she’s wearing. I desperately want to go to her, my shadows do too but I hold them at bay.

I don’t speak, just wait for her to carry on.

“From Froan, there happened to be a boat ready to depart to West Scotia. I snuck onto it. I was hiding in one of the cabins but someone came in. I remember the hunger and… and then…” She trails off, bringing her hands together to her chest, the right holding her left wrist, she rubs at the skin there.

Her eyes glaze over as if she’s not here but reliving the memory. “I had to throw the body overboard.”

“You did what you needed to survive,” I tell her firmly, guilt eating at me for not being able to be there for her. My muscles tremble with the need to move towards her. I take a tentative step, but she recoils instantly, so I pull back. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is! I killed them. I don’t even remember if they were male or female, or entirely human. I only remember that they weren’t that much bigger than I am and that their blood sang to me the moment they stepped over the threshold.” The guilt is thick in her voice.

“Adicious had starved you. That’s not your fault.” I catch a glimpse of the darkness in her eyes, the depth of it scares me.

“It’s how I figured out I could extend my glamour to change my appearance entirely.

” She moves the conversation on. “I was panicking and needed to hide, then this staff member walked past me and I thought I could blend in like that. I felt my magic flare and when I looked down I’d changed.

I quickly broke into the staring areas and stole a uniform and managed to stay undetected for the rest of the journey.

Since then, I’ve not allowed myself to drop my glamour fully. ”

“Holding it to that extent all the time must be exhausting.”

“I had to, I knew showing my real skin would be too dangerous. I knew Adicious would be looking for me.”

“Was it the real you, in the alley?” Since thinking it earlier I need to know she’s not starving. And now, knowing how much power she’s been using, she will have been needing to feed daily.

“Yes. It took me a while but I have been feeding. You’d only shown me that once and I barely remembered it. I used crowded dive bars and clubs in case it went wrong. I started fights so blood would be shed and no one would question any wounds until I got better at drinking discreetly.”

“Red. I’m so sorry, it shouldn’t be that way.

” I can’t fucking breathe hearing this .

She put herself in danger to feed. Rage I’ve not felt in years resurfaces, the fucking authorities and their bullshit forcing us to stoop to this.

The fucking war that destroyed us and killed the best of us, leading to tyrants like Adicious taking power.

“I used to think losing my father was the hardest thing I would have to deal with.” Red pulls me back to the present.

“Then in that basement, I thought seeing Adicious kill you would be the worst thing. Again, I was so wrong. I regretted leaving you with that pack every single second from the moment I hit the trees. Imagining the ways in which they killed you, knowing it was all my fault...”