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Now
“You’re back!” Theresa yelled, jumping into Adam’s arms the second he stepped out of the car.
“And you’re on your feet,” he remarked with surprise. “Did I miss something?”
She giggled. “Oh, you have no idea!”
“Wait, before you get into it,” Silver cut in, trying not to show how relieved she was to have him back, “let me get a blood bag to Shauna.”
Adam blinked, sensing the urgency in her tone. “Is she okay?”
“Reese will explain.”
Leaving them to it, Silver grabbed one of the blood bags and rushed into the bunker. She had already turned the heating on, so it didn’t take long to fill the bathroom sink with hot water and use it to warm up a blood bag, stashing the rest in the fridge.
“Shaun?” she called out tentatively as she entered the cell.
The vampire twitched at the sound of her voice, which Silver took as a good sign. The smell of the blood must have hit her after that because she abruptly turned around, her eyes instantly falling on the bag in Silver’s hands.
For a brief moment, Silver wondered whether she might refuse to drink it, but then, she rose shakily to her feet and trudged over. After one long gulp, Shauna lowered the blood bag and licked her lips clean before leaning back against the wall in relief.
“There’s more upstairs,” Silver mumbled, trying not to look at the twinge of red tainting her friend’s mouth and teeth.
This was good, she told herself. Already, Shauna was looking much better. Her eyes were no longer hollow, and color returned to her cheeks. She was also standing straight now, not slumping her shoulders.
“If you’re careful with storage and you ration the supply,” Silver went on, “it should last a few weeks. Plenty of time to figure out your next move.”
“I already know what I’m gonna do,” the vampire replied.
“What’s that?”
“Leave. Start fresh somewhere no one knows who I am.”
Dread settled in the pit of Silver’s stomach. Now or never.
“Shauna, I’m so sorry. I never meant to abandon you.”
“I know,” she said, looking at her with full sincerity. “You were just trying to survive. I don’t blame you for that.”
Silver paused for a moment. “But you don’t want to come to the sanctuary?”
“No offense, but I’ve had enough of communal living.”
That stung, but Silver couldn’t really fault her on that. The sanctuary was nothing like the estate, that was for sure. But as much as Silver loved it and everyone else in it, she didn’t always approve of Levi’s methods. Things hadn’t been all that breezy between them when she last saw him, after the job in Ireland.
But now wasn’t the time to think about that.
“I’d rather find my own way,” Shauna was saying. “Better to be a wild vampire than to have to answer to some cruel, sadistic bastard.”
At this, Silver hesitated. Shauna may have seemed earnest, but Silver couldn’t help feeling like this was a punishment of some sort. She’d really been hoping Shauna would stay with them—with her. She had even spent a considerable amount of time describing the sanctuary to her while they waited for Adam, hoping it would convince her to give the place—and the people—a fair shot.
Hearing her old friend make different plans shattered that hope. Plus, there was still the ever-looming concern that letting Shauna go off on her own would be a mistake.
The latter seemed to read her mind just then. “You can ask.”
Silver blinked, staring back at her old friend before finally addressing the elephant in the room. “How do I know you won’t hurt anyone?”
Taking a deep breath, Shauna stepped back into the corner and leaned against the wall. “Do you know what my first impression of the estate was, when you and I first got there?”
This made Silver frown, and the memories of that time resurfaced immediately. Back then, she had been terrified beyond measure. She’d had a panic attack so bad that walking through the wards around the estate, which momentarily numbed newcomers’ emotions and silenced their thought process, had actually been a reprieve.
But Shauna had been different. Even on the drive there, she’d been so calm. She had remained level-headed for weeks, secretly planning a way to get herself and Silver out. It had always puzzled Silver how the older woman could have done that, but she’d been so caught up in her own fears and worries, she never once asked.
“I thought it was a cult,” Shauna revealed. “Run by delusional, fanatic junkies. I didn’t believe a word they told us at orientation; I thought it was some sort of brainwashing initiation. But then, they fed on me and... well, you remember the rest.”
Vividly. Their first feeding test had uncovered Shauna’s scheme to escape. Got her thrown in the dungeons where she was tortured for days.
“It’s terrifying, even now, to go through that,” Silver pointed out. “But you never showed fear until the first test.”
“It wasn’t my first time being kidnapped. I’d gotten out of plenty of bad situations before. I thought I could do it again.”
Silver had thought something like that at the time. “This is all very illuminating, but what does it have to do with you not hurting people as a vampire?”
Shauna sighed and shook her head. “You don’t know anything about my past, girlie. Violence was part of my family before I was even born. I grew up with it. I’ve lost a lot of people I care about because of it. The estate didn’t seem all that different at first, so I didn’t take the dangers seriously until it was too late. Since then, I’ve seen even more shit than I had in all the years before Grace took us.”
She paused for a moment and closed her eyes, shaking her head as if to rid herself of some dark thoughts. Silver wondered exactly how bad Shauna’s past had been, before and after the estate. But if she wasn’t going to volunteer that information on her own, Silver wouldn’t demand it of her.
“My point is that I’m done with violence. I want to do things differently now,” she declared, and then she let out a resigned sigh. “But I also know words don’t mean shit in this world, so... go ahead and do your thing.”
Caught off guard, Silver could only blink for a moment. “What?”
“You can’t trust what I say, but you also think it’s wrong to go into my mind to make sure I mean it. It’s okay, I give you permission.”
Silver paused, itching to do her thing, as Shauna called it, but hesitant nonetheless. What if this was a trick?
It couldn’t be. Shauna hadn’t been a vampire long enough to develop her mental defenses.
So, Silver came closer and dove right into her memories. What she found, though brief, was darker and more elaborate than anything she’d ever suspected.
Shauna’s family was entangled in organized crime. Her life had been marked by enough loss and brushes with death to last several lifetimes, yet it had made her strong, a survivor in every sense of the word.
Her time as a servant had been a thousand times worse. Her old defenses were powerless against the supernatural world, and she’d been way out of her depth for the first time in her life. Helpless as she was, there was nothing she could do but submit and try to rise through the ranks as best as she could.
And yet, despite everything she’d been through, despite developing a fierce instinct for self-preservation, it didn’t strip away her compassion or her moral compass. She didn’t just want to save herself; she wanted to protect anyone vulnerable to the kinds of dangers she’d been through. That was why she’d kept Silver safe when they met, and it was that same drive which drove her now. She wasn’t motivated by revenge like Adam or Silver, which was a big part of the reason why she didn’t want to stay with them.
That, and she didn’t believe they would succeed.
Resigned, Silver pulled out of Shauna’s mind. She wondered what kind of life awaited her friend. Reconciling her sense of morality with her body’s new needs wouldn’t be easy, but Silver had already seen such a success story in Hisa, so she knew it was possible.
“As soon as you feel better, I’ll drop you off at the nearest city,” she said. “And I’ll help you any way I can. I’ll teach you how to get blood without hurting anyone.”
Shauna took her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “Thank you.”
“But you know if you mess up in any way, I’m coming after you.” Silver used a slightly teasing tone, to soften the blow of the very real threat.
It made Shauna chuckle. “I would expect nothing less of the mighty Silver.”
Silver smiled back, but the moment died down quickly. “Before I let you go, I need to make you forget a few things. If he ever finds you,” she trailed off.
“He’ll get in my head and figure out what you’re up to,” Shauna finished.
Silver nodded.
“I get it.” She let out a sigh and crossed her arms. “But don’t take anything else out. I don’t want to forget everything about today.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll just be the stuff about the sanctuary and what I’m planning to do. You’ll know something is missing, but also that you trusted me to take it away,” Silver said. Then, she opened the door and walked into the cell. At Shauna’s questioning look, she explained, “It helps if I touch you. Less draining for me.”
“Ah, okay.”
Silver raised her hand, but she paused before placing it on Shauna’s forehead. How bad would it be to form one more memory before ultimately removing it? It might leave Shauna with a sense of hope, even if she wouldn’t remember why.
“I am going to kill him, Shaun. It’s not just about revenge; it’s also for you, for Adam, for anyone who didn’t ask to be dragged into this life. I’m going to set you free.”
There was a pause, and then Shauna gave the most genuine smile Silver had seen on her in a long time. “I guess I’ll know when you do it. Come find me then, and I’ll buy you a drink.”
