How to Train Your Vampire

I was startled awake from an uneasy sleep by Scarlet bursting in through the door. I blinked wearily as I sat up. It had been hard sleeping in the hospital and still hard sleeping at home as I continued to get used to the brace on my arm, and the now constant throbbing pain in most of my body.

Scarlet buried her face against my chest, trembling in horrible waves.

“Ohhh,” I pulled her into a hug. I wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong but I knew it was bad. “I’m here,” I reassured her.

She continued shuddering with her sobs for quite a while unable to annunciate her words.

I smoothed her hair back and encouraged her to breathe. When she finally started to compose herself I gave her a tissue and helped her sit upright while leaning against me.

“What's wrong?” I asked softly.

She shook her head as a fresh wave of sobs racked her body.

“I– I didn't want this,” she managed and blew her nose. She swallowed down some of the emotions and managed to take a shuddering breath. “I’m— horrible.”

“I don't think you're horrible,” I soothed.

“You don't know the things I've done— the things I enjoyed doing,” she broke down again at that last one. “I enjoyed—” several rounds of nose blows and trying to breathe later. “I enjoyed hurting people and I never even had to do it so it–it was me all along. It was my fault and I'm the evil one and you should just shoot me and get it over with.”

I pulled her back into a hug. “I'm not gonna do that,” I soothed her. She didn't have to do what? Who had she hurt? It took me a minute to remember all of the circumstances and the look on Demetrius' face when he had addressed her. It had not been a kind fatherly/mentorly look. More one of disdain and foul thoughts. “Did he lie to you?” I asked.

She managed a nod. “But I should've known. I should've put their lives before mine.”

I pet her a few times again. “You didn't know.”

She was inconsolable for a long time, finally settling into the bed, curled up, still shivering occasionally and slowly cocooned herself in my blankets. I got up,  not feeling tired anymore and wandered out to the kitchen. 

I found Mike there, comforting Blacke though I could tell he had no idea what was wrong and Blacke simply looked incredibly numb to everything in a very concerning way. 

With a fresh glass of water in hand, I returned to Scarlet and urged her to sit up and drink but she stayed away from me, even flinched away when I tried to gently peel back some of the layers separating us.

It was clear she needed some emotional space so I claimed the thin sliver of the bed she hadn't expanded into and sat next to her while she processed feelings.

My stomach felt sick. I only had a brief encounter with Demetrius and could tell quite plainly he was not a good man but there was a difference between killing out of necessity and killing for pleasure. And a massive jump from killing for pleasure and convincing others to kill for him, as some kind of twisted game.

As much trauma as I had been through, I couldn't begin to imagine what was going through Scarlet’s head right now. She had to feel guilty like I couldn't even imagine. All I could do was be here for her, nothing else I tried would do anything except convolute her feelings even more.

I let her do her thing, settled in and tried to think about how the hell to fix this situation. I couldn’t do anything about what had happened in the past. But Demetrius was still out there, still hurting people. For his own pleasure. That fact was sinking in more and more. And the very serial killing manner he had taught Scarlet and her brother couldn’t have just developed out of a need to feed on blood.

And vampires were made… by drinking vampire blood. Serial killers were sometimes… cannibals… The pieces were very clear. He was a complete sociopath.

And he had to be dealt with.

By any means possible, as soon as possible.