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Both strong hands pressed on either side of Matt’s head.
I open my mouth to cry out, but Solon is too fast.
He moves his hands with lightning speed and breaks Matt’s neck with a loud snap that fills the courtyard.
The scream dies in my throat.
Matt slumps to the ground, dead, eyes staring up at nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It feels like I sleep for days, but when I finally open my eyes, I’m still in the same clothes as the night before. Still in the black dress with the red roses, the chest covered in dried blood.
Matt’s blood.
I close my eyes, horror rolling through me.
I attacked him. I bit him, drank his blood. I put me and Solon at risk. I lost control of what makes me human, my morals, my guiding compass. I lost everything by sinking my teeth into his neck, all to satisfy my thirst and to let loose my rage at him.
Now I understand the murders that vampires commit. I understand how easy it is to lose control and give yourself over to the power. You think you’re a god, think you’re unstoppable. Think you can drink blood and make the rules because you can live forever.
Last night, that darkness I carry inside me, the darkness that’s only come out to play a few times, flirting with chaos, it made its presence fully known. It became the chaos, out for blood, disregarding everything I thought I was.
A good person.
I am not a good person.
I attacked Matt for more than one reason, and none of them were right.
And now he’s dead.
Another person gone. Sure, he wasn’t a friend like Elle was, though he pretended to be, but he was someone I knew. He was a human being with his own promising life, and my actions took that away from him.
I did this.
People are starting to die around me because of what I am, who I am.
And I have no idea what I can do to stop it.
Then there’s Solon.
After he finished Matt off, he quickly dragged him into the Black Sunshine and then we left. Neither of us said a word to each other on the drive back to the house. I think we were both too shocked and numb and mad.
I know I’m mad at Solon for killing him. I understand why he did it, that he didn’t really have much choice, that reasoning with Matt would have been impossible after I already attacked him. Perhaps Solon could have compelled him, but maybe he’s not perfect either, acting on instinct.
And I know Solon is mad at me. For losing control like I did, for going after Matt in the first place, putting us at risk, and definitely for drinking his blood. Time and time again Solon told me that I was to only feed from him, and here I was caught up in the bloodlust and thirst, drinking Matt’s blood when all I should have done is wait until I was at home to do that with Solon.
In fact, up there with the fact that I got Matt killed, is the fact that I completely betrayed Solon. To him, it’s the same as if I slept with someone else, the fact that we feed off each other, an Ouroboros, is an extremely intimate act for us, and then I went and drank the blood of someone else…he’s pissed beyond pissed.
So much so that when we got back to the house, he went straight up to his room, wouldn’t even let me apologize.
And now? Now what? What the hell do I do?
Solon might have an actual monster inside him, but so do I. It just comes out in different ways.
I have no idea how to make peace with it, or if I even want to. I don’t want to be this person who causes death and destruction in her wake. That’s not what I wanted with my life. I wanted my life to be about discovery and preservation. I wanted to travel the world and unearth mysteries of the past and bring some meaning to our lives. I wanted to give meaning to the dead, to the civilizations before us, and hope we could learn from them.
I wanted so much, and yet that’s not what my life is turning out to be at all. I’m so fucking lost and scared, scared of myself most of all. Sure, I’m having nightmares about Solon’s father and his army of creatures, I’m surrounded by beings that may be hunting me, and there are so many disturbing things to come to terms with in my new life.
