Page 61 of Fang Fiction

Beneath the watercolors, Tess noticed a book open to a page with a drawing of an angel. Tess held it up. “Callum, look.”

He walked slowly toward her, leaning heavily on the cane. Tess slid the book across the desk toward Callum. His jaw twitched as he ran his fingers over the drawing.

“Do you think this is why Octavia went to the angel statue the night she left?” Tess asked. She peered at the caption beneath the drawing, but it was written in an alphabet Tess couldn’t recognize.

“No.” Callum’s voice was cold. “I don’t.”

“What is it?” Tess frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Octavia and I…we had a fight that night,” Callum said. He sat down slowly in her desk chair and groaned with relief as he removed the pressure from his leg. “She was, um. Pretty angry with me.”

“What about?” Tess asked. She pulled over another chair to sit beside Callum.

“She was in one of her states, really obsessive.” He shook his head, the memory obviously painful. “And she was convinced she could glamour a suit that would let her walk across the crystal bridge without being harmed by the sun. I told her she’d lost her mind, that nothing glamoured could get you across the bridge or the river, that everyone who’d ever tried it burned to death. But she was consumed, she kept saying over and over that I had to trust her, that she knew it would work. She finally went to bed—at least, I thought she did. But the next morning, when I couldn’t find her…”

“You assumed she tried it.” Tess closed her eyes. “And that she died.”

Callum’s face looked stony, his expression distant. “Yeah. And it was my fault.”

“But why?! You tried to stop her.”

“At first, I did,” Callum acknowledged. “But when she wouldn’t give it up, I told her to go ahead and do it. I said she was as good to me dead as alive, that she was so far gone I couldn’t even recognize my own sister.”

“Oh.” Tess wasn’t sure if she was more shocked by what he’d told her or the fact that he’d admitted it at all.

“Pretty despicable, eh?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said sadly. “It sounds like you were both incredibly desperate. She was going through something terrible, and you were trying to shake her out of it. It makes sense you would snap in a situation that intense.”

“Maybe.” Callum shrugged. “Or maybe it’s like your books say. And I really am a monster.”

Tess felt a twist of sadness for him; she didn’t know what to say.

“Do you…” He looked up at her, and she was shocked by how vulnerable his face seemed, how open. “Do you think it’s true? What Lirio wrote about me?”

“I don’t know,” Tess answered honestly. “Is it true that you’ve killed hundreds of humans?”

“No.” Callum sighed. “I’ve killed forty-three. Not sure if that’s better.”

“You know the exact number?” Tess frowned.

“Not something you tend to forget,” he said quietly. “Especially when you didn’t want to kill them.”

Tess peered at him. “How could you murder someone against your will?”

“Guess I could have given up my life to save theirs, but it wouldn’t have done much good.” Callum shrugged. “If Konstantin wanted someone dead, they ended up dead.”

“Wait.” Tess was confused. “You’re saying you only ever killed humans when Konstantin made you? The books make it sound like—I don’t know, like you enjoy killing.”

“I enjoy killing vampires,” Callum corrected. “That’s who we are, it’s what we’re supposed to do. Natural order of things, isn’t it? If we didn’t kill each other, we’d all live forever, and that’s no good for anyone. But killing humans? There’s no challenge to that, it’s not sporting. It’s just…mean.”

“Doesn’t stop most vampires, does it?” Tess asked. “I mean—sorry, you guys aren’t exactly known for your strict codes of morality.”

“Do you know about Konstantin’s factory? Is that in the books?”

“I know you and Octavia worked there when you were kids. You ran a gambling ring, right?”

“The gambling ring.” Callum laughed. “I forgot that. We rigged it too.”