Chapter 11

Humans and monsters

"Portal me the fuck out of here." - Ceres asked, wiping away her tears. Raven's face was showing a little bit of caring, but not too much, so she wouldn't lose her charm.

"The only portal I can make right now will take you to Taiyang and no way in hell I'm having Adam Taurus looking for you at his place."

"Then portal me to Qrow."

Raven crossed her arms.

"I won't. Adam will come here to look for you and I'm not risking him going rampage in my camp. You stay here until we make sure he's gone. Then I'll portal you out of here."

Raven noticed Ceres' hands were shaking.

"Did you take your meds today?"

"I didn't." - Ceres calmed her arms - "I'm not staying here. I'm sorry Raven, you can portal to me if you need my help, but I'm taking my car and leaving."

Raven sighed.

"Okay. Just don't do anything stupid."

Yeah, buying four bags of Dust – two sedating, two stimulating – was no doubt stupid and Ceres couldn't argue with that.

But she was alone and she was finding it very hard to cope with her life in healthy ways. So she crushed the Dust and snorted it right away.

She was not sure where she should go. She had the car, she could go everywhere she wanted. But right now Ceres wasn't sure if she really wants to go anywhere.

She dissolved some of the sedative in tap water, filtered it and proceeded to inject it into veins in her left arm. Sweet rush swallowed her and Ceres threw herself on the hotel bed, embracing the warm feeling of the drug.

The Dust took Adam away from her thoughts. And she was eternally grateful for that. It was so painful, saddening and distressing to think about him. About his red hair, those funny horns and about the water he used to give to her.

But Adam hasn't changed a bit. He was still abusive, he was still a toxic piece of shit. And it didn't matter for her what he has done for her. He tried to kill her. She felt it in his mind. He aimed to kill. He trampled their life. He trampled every warm feeling she had about him.

Adam was wandering through the forest, fighting his own mind. He was fighting the slow realization of truth and of what he had done.

Ceres, of all people, has left him and it was his fault. And judging by how firm she was about it, she wasn't going to accept Adam in her life anymore.

He really did not learn anything from his relationship with Blake. He destroyed his relationship with Ceres the same way.

"I am your friend you stupid goat idiot!"

Well, there was one thing Adam learned. Not to go after Ceres. She made it very clear she does not wish to see him again.

And once again, he was alone.

Ceres woke up devastated. She was completely naked in some kind of junkie den and next to her a couple of people were lying on the floor.

"That was one hell of a party, I can't remember shit." - she said to herself and started to look for her clothes.

One of the bodies, as Ceres noticed, was particularly cold. She checked the pulse and there was none.

"Well shit." - she hissed and kicked the other body. The second body was warm enough to be alive, but judging by lack of reaction it wasn't going to wake up either way.

Ceres tried to find her scroll but after a couple of minutes it became clear to her it was stolen. She took the scroll that belonged to someone on the floor and checked the date. Six freaking days. She was partying for six days straight and she couldn't remember a thing.

She formed a line from Dust leftovers and snorted it. After a moment her mind become clear again. She took a bag of Dust out of someone's pocket, stole someone's coat and left the den.

It was a cold morning. She realized she was starving so she bought a cinnamon roll in a bakery using some stolen money. Her stomach was squeezed from hunger.

She trembled in sudden realization she was in Miva again.

"So partying and traveling, huh?"

She had no idea where her car was and she was too weak to steal again, so she just slowly chewed on her roll thinking what she was supposed to do now. She had one bag of Dust, no car and a little money. She knew she can't fight the world in the state she was now. The other thing she knew she couldn't stay in Miva because of the guy that took a bit too much and was now a rather disgusting corpse.

It was not the first time she woke up next to dead bodies. It was quite common among sedative users to overdose and die.

Ceres directed her steps to parking lot. She had really nowhere to go and if she wanted to go somewhere she needed a drive.

"Excuse me, sir." - she gently asked her victim, and when the man turned around, her pupils disappeared - "Could I have your car keys?"

The man blinked.

"Of course, I should have thought about it earlier." - the man said, handing her his keys.

"Thank you." - she replied and quickly altered his mind to not remembering her face. The man blinked a couple of times and left.

Ceres got into the dark-green car and drove out of the parking lot. She decided to go back to her old house – that was the only thing she had left.

Adam was hiding in an abandoned factory. He could not risk being found by White Fang members. They surely had found their catatonic friends.

"You were trying to kill me. You wanted to kill me."

"No, I didn't." - he cried to himself but he already knew she knew the truth of his mind. And the truth was he wanted to kill her and Adam couldn't face it. But he slowly started to realize what kind of person he was and it almost tore his heart apart. Ceres knew the truth and tried to stay with him and he had trampled everything.

He wanted to see her. He wanted to see her so desperately he stole a motorbike and headed straight to her home.

Their home.

He believed she's gonna be there. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell her. There were so many things he should have done and so many things he shouldn't have. Adam took his blindfold off and drove straight to their place.

But by the time he got there, she wasn't there anymore.