The Missing Link
Warnings: Language
Chapter 9:
Ever since that particular scene outside the church with Ayumi and Hagi, Saya felt unnerved. Like the threads that weaved into her treacherous life were coming undone with each pull. Hagi and Kai were most certainly the underlying support system for her, but these new threads...Ayumi, Hakuro, Amalia and Sofia...all they did was shake her and make her feel less secure. Soon her entire life would be unwoven if she didn't stop it, if she didn't stop the madness...
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Joel, you're beginning to annoy me," A cold voice stated flatly in a thickly accented English.
"I beg your pardon, Señorita?" Joel replied, his German accent very fair.
"Hakuro had two children, but I only see one little girl running about free as a bird. Where's the other? Did you think I wouldn't notice?" She replied with her thick accent. It was Spanish--Southern Spain if Saya was into betting like her chamber maid.
The woman was tall, with dark hair swooped up to reveal the back of her black and lacy dress. Joel was standing with his back to the barely cracked door and was a few inches shorter than the fierce woman. All Saya could see from the small crack in the door was a set of icy violet eyes that sent a series of chills down her spine.
"I don't know who you think you are, Señorita Ama--"
"Do not interrupt my rhetorical questions, Joel! Look, I don't care if you've locked the other in a basement to rot away in a hellish confinement. However, I do care about the fact that you're lying to me. I don't take to lying very well, you see. I was the one who brought--"
"Child, what you doing?" The housekeeper asked, grabbing her wrist. "Your father will kill you if he finds you peeping in on him and that lady. Now go on! Get! You have your dance lessons to get to!"
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
The pair of brown eyes belonging to Saya snapped open and she scanned her surroundings. The crackling fire was a soothing sound and Ayumi's deep blue eyes glowed in the light. "Welcome back." Ayumi's voice had a hoarse and raspy sound to it, so she coughed to clear it. "You sort of passed out. Hagi carried you for a while and then we figured it was time for you to rest."
"I passed out?"
"Yeah. Have you been getting enough blood lately?" Ayumi asked, creating a few lines in her forehead and in between her eyebrows.
Saya shrugged and rubbed her forehead.
"I sent Nathan out to look for the next town and Hagi's getting more firewood. Go back to sleep, Saya."
"I'm fine. I don't need you to tell me to rest. I just need a little food." Saya mumbled.
Ayumi rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Sure. And then when you die from not getting enough blood, what the hell am I supposed to do about your Chevalier? Just stop trying to rebel and drink some of his blood when he gets back. I can't have you dying on me in the middle of this because of a pro--"
"Hypocritical as always, Ayumi." The calm voice interrupted.
"Sofia?" Ayumi called out into the woods.
"You betcha. So why don't we tell Saya here about how it is you're a hypocrite and she might as well ignore everything you say." The woman just laughed quietly. "Why don't you tell her about your hand and how it is exactly that you got to fighting Hakuro's Chevalier and killing him? That's a great story to hear."
"Perhaps you should show yourself instead of being a coward!" Ayumi snapped irately.
"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but Ayumi's miserable attempts at provoking me won't! So let's just go into how it is you detested your bloodthirsty side!" Sofia chirped. "Or how it is that you denied the blood because you were afraid of becoming a monster. Ayumi, you call me a coward, but let's face it. You're the biggest one of all. You screw around with your niece's lives, kill your sister and run away from her Chevaliers and leave yours to clean up the mess, you refuse to admit you need help and you almost got Miguel killed. How do you sleep at night? How do you even look at yourself in the mirror? You are a monster. Sure, you don't look like a Chiropteran or anything disgusting like that, but you are--without a doubt--a monster wrapped up in a human's body with a pretty face and some pretty eyes. And the one thing you fear most of all is someone getting close to you. You know why? Because you're a coward!"
"I'm not a coward!" Ayumi screamed, opening her eyes.
Saya looked at her cautiously. "Are you all right?"
"No. I'm not."