Chapter 3
Authors Note: This chapter takes place after the battle at Antigen, where Selene rescues Eve. All you need to know, is Selene found Eve, and there was a battle in the garage at Antigen. Sebastian is a worker at Antigen who helped Selene because Sebastian's wife and daughter were vampires who were killed by Antigen in the purge.
My mom made eye contact with me across the parking garage where the battle had taken place. It passed between are eyes as we thought the same thing: you're safe.
I watched as my mom walked past the car she had flipped over with one hand to save me. The strongest emotion I felt was confusion.
My mom put her arms around me, and I returned the embrace. No one in Antigen had ever held me. "You came back for me" I cried into her shoulder.
"I said I would"
"Selene" Sebastian called, standing and holding his broken arm. "You should go"
"There's a safe house not far from here" David said, appearing beside him.
"Go" Sebastian said. "I'll send them on a different path, buy you some time"
"Thank you" my mother said to him. "Come on" she said to me. "David!" She added sharply.
"Were going back in?" David asked as we followed my mom at a quick pace.
"We are"
We stopped walking at an empty ice chamber, a one that looked like the one my mom had been held in. I gasped as I was taken through the back of my brain, into another's eyes.
"What is it?" My mother asked. "Michael?"
I nodded. "The roof" After I had seen through my father's eyes, I felt my first feelings of interest in him. This was the man who had my eyes, the man who had my mother, and the only other existing hybrid on earth.
I ran after my mom as she strode up the stairs, then crossed the roof in minutes. She looked over the edge, to the city stretching below us. I reached for her hand, like I would hold Caretaker #7's when I was outside and vulnerable.
I saw David standing behind my mom, surveying us standoffishly.
It hit me. "Your alive?!"
David grinned at me. "It's a lot harder to kill a vampire than you would think"
I wrapped my arms around David, in the same gesture my mom had down in the garage, and was relieved to feel his thick muscles around me. I loved his sour smell, like dirt and blood. I found myself eager for this new thing called human touch, never given in Antigen. I felt as if there was a large whole in my body, and every time I was touched it was like sunlight flooding a tunnel, but when I was alone the whole felt infinite, and a part of me knew it could never really be filled.
"I did have a little help from your mom though" He said as he released me. "She could have as easily been a coven's doctor as a warrior"
My mom wore a trace of a smile. "Yes well, when you've been fighting for centuries there comes times when healing is necessary" It was strange to see how soft my mom's demeanor was as she looked at David.
I was almost more relieved to see David than I was to see my mom. Part of this came from watching him die in front of me, but also I felt safer with him, and he had developed in my heart to what I thought a father figure would be.
My mom looked down at me. "Mostly it was Michael who did the healing though" She stroked my hair. "He was the more gentle of the two of us, I would have to say….like you" There was love evident in her voice, but whether it was for Michael or for me or for both was unknown.
Then her posture straightened and she addressed David. "We need to find a safe place for you and Eve to rest while I find Michael"
"NO!" I protested. "You have to let me come! I'm helpful, I mean, how will you find him without me?"
"Selene" David said. "I won't argue with you if you insist, but I think it's safer if we all stick together"
Selene nodded curtly. Then looked back at me.
"We should be leaving" David said, noticing how preoccupied my mom was. "Sebastian can only hold them off for so long"
We returned to the garage, where David busted the window out of a small light blue car. He mumbled that it was probably the only one without an alarm. My mom sat with me in the back, while David drove. I was exhausted and grateful that she put her arm around me, so that I was leaning against her. I was still unsure of when and how I could get the human touch I craved. Her arm reminded me of the metal rings they used to hold me down during operations at Antigen, restraining, but more for your protection than anything else. I could feel that her body was stiff, and she kept scanning the windows.
"First chance we get, we should ditch this car" She said.
"That's exactly why it's the best car" said David. "They would never guess you would drive it"
"You see anything?" My mom said to me. I realized that ever since she rescued me, her tone towards me had been gentler. Perhaps the fear of losing me had changed her.
"No" I realized that my voice was a lot softer and higher than my mom's or David's.
David drove by the street in front of Antigen, at my mom's request.
"Selene, he wouldn't have stayed here, and we can't either" David said at the stop light.
"No…but I know where we should go, the hotel, where me and Michael were staying"
"Won't that place be watched?"
"No one knew we stayed there"
"What about the coven?" David said tentatively.
Selene frowned, and she adjusted a curl that was out of place in my brown hair. Really they all were, my hair was smeared all over my face. "After we search for Michael, we will spend the night there…but only and only if they accept Eve, and I will never let her out of my sight this time" My mother gathered all of my brown hair into her hands and let it fall down my back. "But only one night. Then it will be time for me and Eve and…Micheal to live on our own"
Selene kept telling David which way to go on the road. Eventually, David parked the car in a small parking lot, next to a brown, worn looking building. I felt excitement rising in my mom, as she relaxed her hold on me and slowly got out of the car. I had never seen a building as beautiful as this. Antigen had been shiny, white bright fluorescent lights, and harsh smells. This hotel smelled of wood and smoke, and a thousand other things I couldn't name, all I knew was that they were darker smelling, like grey, or brown, or dark green. It was like if you took the extreme of Antigen, and what I call vampire-Antigen, and you drew a line down the center, this would be it.
I hated seeing my mom search the hallways of the hotel again, this time in a faster, agitated way.
"We can't wait for him" Selene said finally. She took her knife and etched an S into the door of one of the room's. I wonder what good it would do, even if Michael had known we had been here.
David seemed to have a better understanding of the situation than I did. "Michael's a smart man," He said. "He'll find you"
I fell asleep in the car ride to the coven. This time my mom's arms were looser, weaker. They reminded me of the blankets and pillows in Antigen, the only soft things in the place. Except Caretaker #7, but I deeply regretted the thought. I dreamed that Caretaker #7 was telling me that her heart was not cold, that it was broken. Then she laughed, the horrible sound that had told me that me and my mother were going to die. I ripped her head off, and her blood poured all over me. Then I saw a blond boy, holding her dead hand. He looked up at her bloody neck. "Mama?" he asked innocently.
I woke up panting and sweating. It hit me like a long piece of wood to the head in one of my training sessions with Caretaker #1. My mom saw my tears. She wiped them away. "It's okay, it's okay…"
Sensing my mom's discomfort with tears, I gained control of myself. Then I saw Caretaker # 7's dead head in my hands again, and I buried my face into her side and sobbed uncontrollably, feeling my tears wet the slippery leather. "It's okay…its okay, I'm here" She rubbed my back.
I remembered how I would share my emotions during sessions with Caretaker #6. How he would look at me blankly, write everything down, and then tell me what I was supposed to feel. I wanted to do something like this with my mom, after all, she was like all seven Caretaker's to me.
"It's Caretaker #7!" I said. "I k-killed her!"
My mom didn't say anything.
I felt David's larger hand on my arm, as I cried harder.
"Eve" David said. "Why don't you explain to us what Antigen was like?"
"I was well cared for there" I said quickly, not wanting my mom or David to think I was ungrateful. " I had seven Caretakers, who attended to my every need" I felt myself calming as I spoke of my former home, in a way that I hoped would have made them proud. I still felt the Caretaker's eyes on me. Perfectly watched.
"Caretaker #1 assessed my pain and strength tolerance, it was very important that I met his standards, that I could fight, I did usually, I really tried, I did!" My mom had stopped rubbing my back. "Caretaker #2 bathed me, made sure I was at good sanitary levels. Caretaker #3 was in charge of my diet, I didn't drink blood there…Caretaker #4 attended to injuries, mostly those caused in strength and pain assessments, because they were good Caretaker's so I was rarely injured outside of protocol, and when I was it was my fault, mostly. Caretaker #5 took care of tissue samples that they needed from me, Caretaker #6 was who assessed my emotional level, whether or not I was feeling the right emotions you know? Sometimes I didn't score the highest marks with him…but I tried! …and Caretaker number seven was…was my teacher."
Both David and Selene were silent, and very still. I wondered what I had said wrong, I had tried to sound grateful. It must have been because I had killed my own Caretaker, the one who had taught me since I was a baby, how to walk, talk, what colors were, and many other things, including my favorite thing to do which was reading. I did not want my mom to think I would turn on her if I got upset at her care.
"The only reason I killed her" My voice felt like tears were pushing it up. "Was because she was going to kill you!" I tried to defend myself.
My mom's upper lip was curled in disgust and she had released her hold on me. I looked desperately at David. David gave my mom a long and hard look. He continued to look at her as he spoke. "You were raised by them, of course you cared about them. It's not your fault they betrayed you Eve"
David pulled me into his arms. "You were only trying to save your mom"
I could not feel comforted, because my mom still thought I was a monster. I felt the touch of two fingers on my shoulder, then the entire hand. "Eve, I'm not mad at you, it's only your Caretakers are the—I mean I'm only upset with your Caretakers" It was my mom's voice, and hand.
David transferred me into my mother's arms. She did not hold me very long before saying. "Come on Eve, we will talk more ounce we are safe inside the coven"
"Selene" The coven leader greeted my mom curtly. We stopped, leaving about sixth feet between us and him. My mom had her arms around me protectively, and David stood slightly in front of me on the other side of me.
"We only need a place to stay for tonight" Selene said. "Then we will be on are way and give your coven no farther trouble"
"And I will to" David said.
The coven leader looked at his son with anger in his eyes. I thought he was going to tell David that he couldn't leave, but instead he just sighed. "Very well…"
David led us into a room and closed and locked the door. There was only one bed, but my mom refused to have us sleep in separate rooms, so the three of us shared it, like a family would, she explained.
"Tell me more about your past" She whispered into my ear, when the sheets were over the three of us, me between her and David.
"Tell me about yours" I said.
She sighed. "The human part? Or the killing vampires for centuries part?"
"I just need to understand your world" I said. "My world, I need to understand the world that I now live in"
So my mom told me. We really didn't sleep much. We talked for hours. David closed his eyes after adding a few comments to our conversation though. I didn't want to sleep. The last thing I wanted to do was dream of Caretaker #7. I think my mom wanted to make me feel better, by telling me about all the people that she had killed, but still, it was different somehow. The lycans that I had killed, blended into a sort of blob of guilt that I could ignore in my mind. Caretaker #7 though, was like when Caretaker #5 had accidently dropped a knife during a procedure, and hadn't noticed. When I stood up to go back to my room, I had stepped on it and it had gone inches into my foot. That's what Caretaker #7's death was to me: a knife that I would step on when I least expected it.
Authors Note: Please Review! :)
