Author's Notes:
- English is my second language, please forgive me for any mistakes.
- I'll edit this chapter in the future if anything major regarding Lysimachus is revealed in the next chapters of the book.
- This chapter is about Kamilah experiencing the first effects from bounding. Next chapter will be more interesting, as Amy will be an adult.
Disclaimer: Bloodbound and all the characters belong to Pixelberry Studios
~10 years ago~ - New Year's Eve - 10:30 p.m.
"You don't have to spend Holidays alone, locked in your office," Adrian said. "We could spend it together."
"Oh, Adrian. You don't understand..." Kamilah thought, placing two glasses on her desk. She grabbed a bottle of vodka in one of her drawers and filled them.
"One for me. One for you, brother."
Holidays were a tradition mortals celebrated by reuniting their families. It brought her some painful memories. It reminded her of her deceased twin brother, Lysimachus. So she would spend Holidays antecipating all the job for the next few days. It felt better this way. It kept her distracted.
"2053. Can you believe that?"
She drank her whole glass in one sip. Then, she drank her brother's.
No one would ever fill that hole in her heart. No one. As much as Adrian reminded her brother, he would never replace him.
She remembered perfectly each word Amethu used to announce Lysimachus had been killed in battle. She remembered how she fell on her knees, sobbing to the point she was unable to breath. Yet, she couldn't remember details of his face, the tone of his voice or even his smile. Her deepest memories of him slowly faded away from her mind, year by year.
She poured more vodka in her glass. While she was still capable of feeling sadness and emptiness, she couldn't cry. It had been centuries she wasn't able to shed a single tear. Another part of her humanity that had disappeared.
A loud banging noise pulled her back to reality. Someone was knocking the building's front door repeatedly.
"Damn it, Adrian," Kamilah complained. "I told you I want to be alone."
She ignored it, closing her eyes and coming back to her brother's memories.
More knocking.
Kamilah rolled her eyes and walked to the elevator, then to the building's front door. She couldn't see anyone through the glass. She opened it.
"If that's a prank I'm going to..."
She looked down to see a young girl, shivering with cold.
"P-please l-let me in..." she begged. "I-I'm f-freezing."
Kamilah signalized she could come inside.
"What do you want?" She asked, impatient.
The girl didn't answer. Her lips had a purple coloration and she was having a hard time to breathe.
"Oh my god, you're literally freezing," Kamilah noticed. "Come with me, we need to keep you warm."
She placed her hand gently on the girl's back to conduct her to the elevator. That's when she felt it. The electricity wave, running through all her body. It couldn't be...
"What's your name, kid?"
She took off her jacket and handed to the girl to wear.
"A-Amy."
With so many buildings in New York City, she chose hers to ask for help. I couldn't be just a coincidence.
Once they arrived in her office, she placed Amy in front of the fireplace.
"I'm going to get you a blanket and some coffee."
Amy nodded.
In a couple of minutes Kamilah was back.
"Here," she covered Amy's body with the blanket and offered her a mug. "Are you feeling any better?"
Amy took a sip of the black strong coffee. Her face suggested she didn't like how it tasted.
"No hot chocolate?" She asked.
"Sorry, this is all I have."
Kamilah crossed her arms and analyzed the girl for a few seconds. That's was definitely Amy. Amy, the bound. She could recognize it in her eyes.
The girl remained in silence, observing every detail of her surroundings.
"What were you doing? Walking on the streets, in the cold, at this time of the night, huh?"
"I-I... I was lost."
Kamilah could tell she felt a little uncomfortable with her question. Amy avoided eye contact and her expression changed. She seemed to be lying.
"So... to or from?" She decided to speculate.
"What?"
"Are you running away to something or from something?"
"Is it that obvious?" Amy scowled.
After a moment of silence, she finally answered Kamilah's question.
"Both."
"Huh?" Kamilah did not understand.
"I'm running away from my family, from school... from that stupid small town!"
"The usual," Kamilah commented with some sarcasm.
"And also to," Amy continued. "I-I don't know, I just... love this city. I want to live here more than anything else. Something seems to pull me, attract me to New York. I can't explain..."
"Interesting."
After she first met Amy, she did an extended research on bounding. There wasn't much she could find, but Amy wasn't supposed to experience any of its effects until she reached adulthood. Once that happened, the bound would only get more and more intense and become love.
"Not if I find a way to break it," Kamilah thought when she first read those lines.
"I was stupid, right?" Amy lamented.
"Well, you almost froze to death and now you're in a stranger's office... You could've gotten in a lot of trouble, kid."
Feeling better, Amy finally got up and started walking around.
"You're not a stranger. You're Kamilah Sayeed."
Kamilah gasped. How did she know her name? Didn't the debriefing work on her mother? Did she find out who saved her that night?
"How do you..."
"It's on your office's door," Amy finished.
"Oh, right," Kamilah sighed relieved. "I still could kill you, you know?"
"You won't."
"And how can you be so sure?"
"I don't know," Amy smiled. "I just... feel safe here with you."
Kamilah fell silent.
Amy kept checking every part of the office, the shelves, the desk, looking through the windows. She finally sat on Kamilah's chair.
"Were you waiting for someone?"
"No."
"Then why there's two glasses here on your desk?"
"Are you always that curious?"
Amy laughed.
"So, kid," Kamilah changed the subject. "Now you're feeling better, let's go. I'll take you to the police station and they'll drive you home."
The last thing she wanted was to get on the road with Amy. Or meet Amy's mother again.
"Can we just wait for the fireworks? Please?"
"Fine. Then you'll go."
"What have I gotten myself into?" Kamilah thought. She had everything planned. All she had to do was to avoid anything that could lead her to Amy's life again. Now she was bouncing around her office.
Amy started to look at her. Straight in the eyes. She felt like Amy could see every piece of her soul. Every defense, every wall she spent centuries building, were being slowly destroyed by that child's presence. She felt vulnerable, exposed.
"Was that your brother?" The girl broke the silence.
"What?"
"That you were waiting for."
Amy was the kind of girl who would not give up on answers. She reminded Kamilah of herself.
"Uhh... he's not coming. He's dead."
Amy looked at her, eyes wide in surprise.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay, Amy. It has been a long time, I'm just having one of those days."
"Because of Holidays, right?"
Kamilah nodded and stopped near the window, looking at the sky pensive. She checked her watch, it marked 11:50 pm. Ten more minutes and she'd see herself free from that girl. When she noticed, Amy had approached.
"Will you watch the fireworks too?" She attempted to start a conversation.
"No," Kamilah replied, not even looking at her.
"Come on, it's beautiful."
"It's only noise, light and smoke."
Kamilah left Amy alone by the window, sitting on her chair. She stared at her watch until it finally hit Midnight. The fireworks started. Amy's eyes glowed in emotion.
"Kamilah..."
"Okay," Kamilah rolled her eyes.
She joined Amy, watching as the sky exploded in colors for the next few minutes. Amy's excitement and joy somehow made her smile. Made her feel... human. What was the last time she experienced some happiness? She couldn't remember. Her happiness had been buried over 2000 years ago in Egypt. Everything else she felt as a vampire, was just an illusion.
"Did you make a wish?" Amy asked.
"What?"
"Every New Years's Eve at Midnight I make a wish. Don't you?"
Kamilah shook her head, still smiling.
"You're an interesting human thing. I like your optimism."
"Well, you don't always have to be negative about everything, right?"
She was right, even thought Kamilah would not admit. Maybe the whole bounding thing wasn't so bad after all. That night was the first time she actually felt something. Amy somehow made her feel connected to her humanity.
"Hey Amy," she called, noticing the girl was distracted, looking for something in a backpack she brought with her. "We should go now, your parents must be worried."
"They probably didn't even notice yet."
"I doubt it," Kamilah said, sitting close to her on a couch. "Their house must feel too quiet without you."
Amy laughed.
"Oh, I found it," she pulled something out from the backpack. "Here. Have a chocolate bar."
She handed it to Kamilah.
"That's sweet of you, Amy. But..."
"It's my favorite," Amy insisted. "You'll never know if it's your favorite too if you don't try it."
"Okay," Kamilah agreed, unwrapping the chocolate bar and taking a bite.
She peeked at Amy's backpack. She could see a few clothes, a couple of books and some food.
"So, this is how you'd survive in New York."
Amy smiled, allowing her to take a closer look.
"Potato chips... chocolate... and a book."
"Hey, it's not any book," Amy complained. "It's the book of the moment."
She showed Kamilah a copy of Twilight.
"Never heard of it."
"It's a love story. About a mortal that falls in love with a vampire."
"Oh. It won't end well, I'm sure."
"Wrong," Amy told. "Why don't you read a few pages? I'm gonna... rest a little bit."
She yawned and laid on the couch. Kamilah went to her desk, to give her more space.
She ran her vampire eyes quickly through some pages of Amy's book, thinking about how Adrian would love that.
"Sparkle in the sunlight?" Kamilah read to herself. "Insulting!"
She turned her attention to Amy. The girl had fallen asleep on the couch.
"Time to take you home, kid."
Kamilah's phone started to vibrate. She eye rolled, wondering why she didn't turn it off. It was a text:
Council meeting. Tomorrow.
A woman was "accidentally" turned during a Christmas Celebration and they expected her to clean up the mess. As always. Then, things would get tense between her and the other members. There was always the risk of a war.
She looked at Amy again. If The Council found out about the bound, she'd become Kamilah's weakness. If someday they planned to destroy her, they'd know exactly where to start.
"I don't want to feel this," Kamilah thought. "Not again."
She carried Amy to her car and placed her comfortably on the back seat. She drove to the next Police Station. Before leaving the car, she pressed her fingers against Amy's temples.
"I'm sorry, this is the best. For both of us."
She hesitated for a moment, then she proceeded.
"Forget about tonight, Amy. You never met Kamilah Sayeed. You had a fun day in New York... you saw the fireworks. After that, you fell asleep on a bench, a guard found you and brought you to the station. And... be happy."
She carried Amy in her arms to inside the station.
"Hello, this girl ran away from home and stopped by my office, asking for help," Kamilah told a police officer. "Her name is Amy."
She placed Amy on a bench, inside the waiting room.
"Okay, I'll need more details. Where exactly did you find her?" The guard asked, taking notes. "Miss?"
She looked up from her desk, Kamilah had vanished into the night.
And Kamilah never heard of Amy after that. Not until...
8 years later... Ahmanet Financial - 2 p.m.
"Ms. Sayeed?" The secretary called.
Kamilah took her eyes off the computer screen to pay attention.
"Would you like to meet your new assistant?"
"The one Mannon Financial recommended?"
"Yes."
"Sure, tell her I'm ready to meet her."