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My breathing is almost back to a relatively normal pace when a knock sounds at the door.
2
Atlas
Ican’t recall ever feeling so…fuck, I don’t know. Angry? Helpless? Disappointed in my own forsaken family? Take your pick.
She doesn’t deserve this.After everything she’s been through—everythingweput her through… If Simon and Lenora are the reason we lose Calla, I will never forgive myself. I’ve lost a lot because of the vampires who raised me—the most notable being my humanity many times over the decades—but I’ll be damned if they ruin what we’ve only just started with Calla.
The strangled, desperate sound Calla makes from behind the bathroom door when I knock shoots a dagger of pain straight through my chest, and I grimace at the foreign sensation.
As the seconds tick by, my muscles tighten, and I knock again. Still nothing. I reach for the handle to find the door locked and press my lips into a thin line. Calla’s heart pounds loud and fast, and the soft sound of her sniffling makes me want to rip the door off its hinges. I’m at quite a loss on what to do with that.
“Calla.” My voice comes out low and even. It likely won’t bring her comfort as much as Gabriel’s would, but I was out of my chair and following Calla before I fully realized what I was doing, besides pissing off my parents further.
There’s movement on the other side of the door, and a moment later, the lock flips over.
I open the door, stepping inside and closing it behind me, and find Calla sliding down the wall until she settles on the floor. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around her legs and looks up at me through damp lashes.
With a sigh, I approach slowly and slide down next to her, stretching my legs out in front of me.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, and I listen to the uneven sound of Calla’s breathing. I want to take away her pain, her fear, her anger… but I also know I’m the cause of at least some of it. And maybe at one point I didn’t care, but it’d be a lie if I said that was still the case. I can’t be sure exactly when the shift happened, but I find myself caring for the human next to me, which is something that hasn’t occurred in a very long time. Perhaps seeing her like this, so scared and vulnerable, is bringing it out in me, but my instinct tells me to protect her at all costs—to show her I will.
“I don’t want to be a vampire,” she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper.
I keep my gaze trained forward. “I know.”
She sniffles. “But I… I can’t… I don’t want to forget you.” There’s a slight uptick in her pulse as she tries to take a deep breath. “I’ve tried, even before this, to think about the future. It was going to come up at some point, but I’m not ready for it yet.”
The last thing I want right now is to let this infuriating little human go, but I can’t help the annoying voice in the back of my head telling me that we never should have had her to begin with. That she deserves so much better than us.
“This could be your chance,” I say quietly. “Your way out. The hunters are still a concern, but we would make sure you were protected even if you didn’t know who we were.” Even as I speak the words, I hate each and every one of them with a burning passion.
Her breath catches. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her shaking her head before dropping her forehead to her knees.
“I want to go home,” she finally whispers, her voice low and thick with more tears. Then she laughs—it’s a humorless, sad noise that gnaws at my chest. “I don’t even know where that is anymore.”
It sure as hell isn’t here, and I’m not going to make her stay here a minute longer.
I get up and extend my hand to her. With a shaky breath, she slides her hand into mine and allows me to help her stand. She chews her bottom lip, blinking at me, which makes fresh tears roll down her cheeks. My eyes flick between hers as I step closer and brush them away.
Calla stands before me like a deer in headlights, clearly not having expected the gesture, and I nearly smile. To be fair, it was slightly uncharacteristic.
“Oh, come on,” I say, trying for a light tone. “Don’t looksosurprised. I can be nice.”
The corners of her mouth curl just a little, but the movement doesn’t reach her eyes. They are still filled with fear and pain, and I’d do fucking anything to take that away if I could—which starts with getting out of here, so I turn to guide her out of the bathroom.
“Atlas.”
The crack in her voice as she says my name stops me dead in my tracks. The absolute power this woman has over me and she doesn’t even know it…
I stand in front of her and cup her cheeks in my hands, tilting her head back enough for our eyes to meet. “I know.” I put as much sincerity into those words as I can, needing Calla to understand that I’m with her.
Her watery eyes flick between mine, her brows pinching together into an expression so desperate I find myself vibrating with anger at myself for allowing her to fall into a position like this. We fuckingputher here, and I take full responsibility for it. Remove me and my twisted family of power-hungry vampires, and Calla wouldn’t be at risk of losing her memories or her mortality.
Her tone is firmer when she says, “I don’t want to go back out there.”
Frankly, neither do I.
