Boy, they sure do a lot of crying in this chapter. I noticed that right after I finished writing it. Hmm . . . I better change that before this story turns into a bad soap opera.

When I was little, I thought soap operas were shows where people would sing opera songs about soap.

Anyway, please review! Reviews are always welcome, no matter what.

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Ten: Close to their Thoughts

Don Martin jogged hurriedly down the sidewalk, thinking about how badly his wife was going to chew him out when he reached home. He was late. It was dark out, and little white stars were already appearing in the sky. The streetlights were all lit.

"You . . . you there," a soft voice suddenly called out to him.

Don paused and looked around. Truze was a city, so the streets were never really bare, but none of the people around seemed to be waiting expectantly for an answer from him – nor, in fact, did they seem to have noticed a voice at all. Don concluded that it was just his imagination playing tricks on him and started moving.

But then the voice beckoned again. "Stop! Come here."

Again Don halted, his heard turning. He was certain this time that he'd heard someone's voice, but no one nearby seemed to have noticed anything. Feeling somewhat stupid, Don spoke to thin air. "Me?"

"Yes, you." A different voice spoke this time – it was very high and creaky. "Get over here!"

There was a dark alley nearby formed by the narrow space in between two tall, intimidating buildings. The strange voices had come from there.

Don Martin wasn't a bright man. It didn't cross his mind to blanch at the idea of entering a dark alley at night to greet seemingly disembodied voices. The instant he entered the inky blackness of the shadowy alley, Don lost his sight with no light to guide him. It was like he'd stepped into a black hole, or a new universe entirely. No other humans seemed to be around anymore. He was alone.

Then the creaky voice spoke again. "Good. Stay there, would ya?"

"Huh? Hey wait a minute; why – AAUGH!"

"Be quiet!" the softer voice pleaded. It came from right behind him. Don could feel the owner's arms thrown over his shoulders – that was why he'd screamed.

"What are you doing to me?" Don demanded.

"Stop struggling, please, I'm not trying to hurt you."

"WHY?"

"Shut up, Kalista!" hissed the other voice. "Do it already!"

The thin tips of two sharp objects suddenly touched the skin of Don's neck, causing him to panic, but then the unidentified weapon withdrew so abruptly that the person behind him probably had whiplash.

"N-never mind," he heard the girl – it sounded like a girl – gasp. "I can't do this."

"No!" yelled the squeaky high voice. "Of course you can! Take his blood, Kalista!"

Were they trying to kill him!

"Don't do it, Kalista," Don begged, grasping at straws. "Don't let him control you."

"Shut up. You don't understand what you're talking about," the creaky voice ordered.

"Yes, I do! You're trying to make this girl do something wicked!" Don accused angrily. "You sick monster."

"No!" he shouted.

"Yes," she whispered. "This . . . this is wicked, isn't it?"

"Oh, for crying out loud," complained the former. "Kalista, stop it! Quit thinking! Just move! Just do it! Come on!"

"Don't do it, Kalista!" Don implored.

But then the creaky voice abruptly changed tactics. "Please, Kalista . . . ."

The weapon returned to Don's neck. It didn't pull back.

He tried screaming, but his voice was lost. His world vanished without a sound.

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Kalista stared down, horrified, at the immobile man lying unconscious at her feet. The sharp, maddeningly sweet taste of blood in her mouth was quickly replaced by bile as a sick sensation rose in her stomach. Dizziness assailed her, and she stumbled, leaning against the hard brick wall of the building behind her.

Jewel swooped down then, settling on the man's face to erase his memory. She didn't glance at Kalista.

Sylvester Rowning emerged from the shadows. He didn't look angry or disappointed. He just looked . . . confused. Questioning.

Somehow, his bewilderment felt even worse than the world's worth of fury.

Kalista shook her head miserably. "Never again," she whispered.

Syl looked blankly at the fallen man beside her. He looked away. Then his eyes met hers. And then he said, "I don't understand."

He was just a child.

"I can't do it!" Kalista lashed out violently. "All my life – Mom – humans are all supposed to be my equals! I can't hunt them like – like – like they're beneath me or something! I don't care if they still live, I don't care if they aren't hurt that much, I don't care if they can't even remember being attacked – I'm a monster, and this is wrong!"

She buried her face in her ice-cold hands and cried.

Time passed. Of course it did. Time was an unstoppable force – it always passed, no matter what.

It felt like forever had gone by before her sobs finally slowed down a little, and Syl gently pulled her hands away. "You ain't a monster," he said very quietly. "But you ain't human either."

Jewel spoke. The human's memories have been erased. Let's go home. She sounded empty.

"Come on," Syl requested. His voice was soft and weak; he almost seemed to be in some form of shock.

But Kalista just shook her head and stayed down. Syl kept his eyes on her and didn't say another word.

The minutes kept ticking by. Warm wind blew. The breeze caressed Kalista's face, soothingly, reminding her that not everywhere in this world was in chaos. Inexplicably, unbelievably, she started to feel herself calming down slowly.

"Carol Belle, huh?" Syl suddenly piped up. "Sounds like the kind of parent who actually knew what she was doing."

Kalista released a pent-up sigh that she hadn't even known she was holding. "Yeah, she's awesome."

"Forget everything you ever heard from her."

"?"

You need to feed, and you can't go through this drama every time you hunt, Jewel murmured quietly. Carol Belle was a good person, definitely, but she thought she was raising a human. Her ideals aren't the ones a vampire should know. I know it sounds awful, but you have to go back on her. You're a vampire. You can't keep humans so close to your thoughts.

The warm wind kept blowing, but this time Kalista felt mocked by it rather than comforted. "Look, fourteen years is a long time," she stated angrily. "Do you really expect me to forget everything I experienced in my life before, like it doesn't even matter?"

"Yeah, 'cause it doesn't," Syl said. "You might as well have been dead before."

It felt like he'd punched her. Her blood froze in her veins, chilling her and bringing prickly tears back to her eyes.

Syl did a double-take, looking alarmed. "Are you okay? I take that back!"

"You can never take that back," Kalista cried shrilly, her vision being blurred by a veil of tears. She swiped at them with her hands, but the tears kept marching on. Syl's apologies continued flooding forward like a waterfall.

"Admit it – you know I'm a screw-up," Kalista choked into the cold hands that'd returned to her face. "I got it. Fine! I don't care. You're right; I might as well be dead."

"No, that ain't what I meant!" Syl exclaimed in dismay. "I mean – you know – I . . . ." He hesitated for a few seconds, deliberating anxiously. When he finally spoke again, his voice was almost as uncontrollably passionate as Kalista's. "Zero leaves me alone in that old abandoned building all the time. I don't mind, really, because I know he'll always come back. But it's still lonely! Really, really lonely."

He looked pleadingly down at Kalista, his brown eyes shining with some unidentifiable feeling. "That's why I was so happy when Zero told me he was bringing you here to Truze City. I thought I was going to have a new friend. Please stay alive, Kalista. If not for me, then for someone else. There must be someone that you want to be alive for."

"Someone that I want to be alive for?" Kalista echoed hollowly. "Someone for whom I'd be willing to hurt fellow humans over and over again, just to preserve my own pathetic life?"

But then an angry thought burst unannounced into her brain, shouting furiously at her. Mom! it yelled.

Yes, Kalista realized. Mom. She'd stay alive for her mother. She'd do anything for her . . .

I promised her I'd see her again someday.

Am I really willing to break that promise?

No . . . .

"That human over there was right, huh?" Syl intoned brokenly. His voice was completely flat, devoid of all emotion. "I am a sick monster."

"No way," Kalista immediately exclaimed. "Never!"

He cocked his head to one side, seeming dizzied by her abrupt change of mood. "Oh, good, you're calm again." Out of the blue a smile returned to his face, albeit a much weaker one than usual. "You know what, Kalista? You're actually coping better than Zero did when he first awakened."

"What, really?"

"Yeah. I was only, like, six during his awakening, so I don't really remember anything that happened. But his blood preference is grief. I figure that should tell us something."

A sudden realization struck Kalista. "Come to think of it, where is your brother? I haven't seen him since he stormed out on me last month after my interrogation."

Syl appraisingly eyed Jewel, who was fluttering overhead. "You know where he is, don't you, Jewel-girl? The day after he left you came back without him."

Jewel very dryly replied, Zero has asked me not to disclose his whereabouts to either of you.

Syl shrugged. "Okay."

Kalista blinked. "You're okay with that? Aren't you afraid he won't come back?"

"Are you kidding me? He's a seventeen-year-old vampire. He's perfectly safe."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what - ?" Syl halted in mid-sentence, apparently realizing the answer himself. "Oh. No, I'm not worried about that. I just told you, didn't I? Zero may take off all the time, but he also always comes back. He could never leave me forever."

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The last person Carol Belle wanted to see on her front doorstep was Nicky Williams, and the last thing she wanted that feisty young girl to be doing was looking for Carol's daughter. Carol knew full well that Kalista's best friend never did take no for an answer. Alarm bells had sounded in her head the instant Nicky had showed up and asked if Kalista was home.

In her mind, she'd known since the instant Kalista left that one day this moment would come. One day she would have to stop camping out in her house. People would start wondering where her daughter was, and she'd need a legitimate excuse ready. After all, she could hardly tell them the truth. Well, actually, technically she could, if she didn't mind being locked up in a madhouse wearing a straitjacket while Luis Mendez repeatedly exclaimed I told you so from now until the end of time.

She hadn't yet thought up her legitimate excuse, and futilely attempted to buy herself time to think by very slowly pouring Nicky a glass of orange juice that the girl repeatedly stated she didn't want. Nicky, however, quickly tired of the charade.

"So come on, Carol," she said, irritation in her voice. "What's with all the edginess? Something's up, isn't there?"

No fool here.

"I just want to know where Kalista is," Nicky said gently when Carol remained silent. "Please tell me, Carol. You can trust me."

Kalista had sworn her mother to secrecy. Carol couldn't say anything. But, at the same time, she had to say something. Unfair seconds raced by like lightning.

"Come on!" Nicky snapped. It was apparent now that her patience had already worn quite thin even before she'd shown up at Carol's house. "If something's wrong, I want a part of it. You can tell me anything – it doesn't matter how hard or painful it is. I care about Kalista too!"

Carol felt something welling up inside her. She gazed with suddenly blurring eyes at Nicky, moved by this display of devotion to her daughter. To her embarrassment, Carol realized that tears were trickling from her eyes.

Nicky noticed. She sat down on the couch next to Carol and put her arm over Carol's shoulders.

"What's wrong?" Nicky murmured.

"Kalista's gone," Carol whispered.

Nicky tried not to make her reaction obvious, but Carol could feel the kid's lanky arm slacken over her shoulders. "What do you mean by that?"

"She ran away." Surely, this was the best way to lie: insert as much of the truth into it as possible. Kalista had technically run away, hadn't she? "Just upped and went. I never could do a thing."

"Oh my god. Carol, you have to do something! Call the police! Put up missing person posters! Ask everyone you know if they've seen Kalista! Start –"

"No," Carol said tiredly. "I can't. I shouldn't."

"Yes, you should!" Nicky argued heatedly. "Trust me on this one, Carol. I know what to do; my uncle's a policeman."

"So is my brother-in-law. But that wasn't what I meant, Nicky. Kalista had a reason for running away."

Nicky's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah? And what's that?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't know why Kalista ran away. But I think there must be a reason out there somewhere – I just don't know it. And that's fine, because I don't need to know everything."

At this point, Carol dared to risk a glance at Nicky. She was startled to see tears quietly tracking down the young girl's face, which she made no move to wipe away.

"You can't be serious," Nicky said, but her voice was feeble. "You can't just let Kalista get away. She needs to come home."

"Yes, Kalista does need to go home," Carol stated resignedly. "But her home isn't here with me. That's why I'm not fighting to bring her back. As her mother, I know when I have to let my child go."

Nicky's green eyes were wide open, and her trembling fists were balled up so tightly that her skin turned white. The she leapt to her feet and yelled, "I just don't get what's up with you grown-ups! Don't be such a tragic hero and fight for what you really want!"

"What I really want is for Kalista to be happy," Carol said wearily. "Leaving me is fine if she achieves that."

"No, it's not!" Nicky fiercely exclaimed, and then she made a beeline towards the front door, stomping angrily the whole way.

Just as she moved to yank open the door, Carol spoke again.

"Wherever she is," she murmured, "I'm sure Kalista has you close to her thoughts, Nicky."

Yet again Nicky became immobile for a few moments. She turned around slowly. Carol just sat there, holding her gaze.

"Y-yeah," Nicky finally said, sounding defeated. "I'll bet we're both real close to her thoughts right now. She'll be close to mine; that's for sure." She hardened her stare. "Just so you know, Carol, I'm going to keep looking for Kalista no matter what you say."

Carol nodded somberly. "Of course."

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Eileen Rowning stared out though her window and into the starry night sky, nervously twirling a lock of her silver hair around her index finger. She gazed anxiously at the sky, her unease peaking when she spotted the familiar form of her bat flying towards her. Auster had finally arrived.

She threw her window open and Auster perched onto her windowsill. The weary bat gazed up at her with careful, glittering black eyes. As expected, a small folded letter was tied to his back. Eileen gazed at it, afraid.

"Well?" she said, her voice high with trepidation.

Auster shook his head sadly. Sorry, Madam. Same thing as always, he murmured.

"Oh," Eileen managed to say. "I see. Well then." As she untied the letter from Auster's body, she reflected that this really shouldn't be anything new. Zero had been rejecting her written pleads of peace for many years now. Sometimes she wondered why she still bothered to keep sending letters.

That, she supposed, was one of the drawbacks of being a mother. It really could be hard to get one's child out of their thoughts.

Fingers trembling, she unfolded the little scrap of paper and began to read. Zero's curt message this time was more or less the same as all the others.

Forget it, Eileen. You're just wasting ink. We will never forgive you for what you did to Ruth– period. Syl and I are never coming back.