After apologizing again upon awakening, Satoshi didn't speak to him for the next week. He stayed in his room and didn't look at Krad when he came to feed him. On the fourth day since their return Krad heard him retching in the bathroom, and the next day was the same. He was purging every meal that was given to him. Krad confronted him on the sixth day, but he still wouldn't speak. When he threw up afterwards, Krad locked the door to his room. The next day there was vomit all over the carpet, and Satoshi looked very, very pale. Krad lost his temper, then, and after feeding him once more in the same day, he did not reverse the command state. Satoshi stayed listless and obedient. His sire swallowed his sentiments and stayed with him through the day, listening to the boy's even breathing. He knew that Satoshi would hate him even more for controlling him, but the child was killing himself. He determined to talk to him as soon as he had enough blood in him to get up on his own. His bulimia had made him almost as weak as he had been in the woods.

After two days of mental slavery, Satoshi was released from obedience. He blinked a little at first, his eyes unfocused, still in a slight stupor. Then the daze passed and he turned to look at his captor.

"You monster."

Krad was surprised at how much the words hurt. The first six months of Satoshi's new life, curses and screams were all Krad had gotten. He still had never expressed affection or positive sentiments of any kind, but Krad had at last gotten the feeling that he wasn't exactly hated anymore. The words opened the old wound and it stung more than he was prepared for.

"You made me like this." He had said that before, too, but this time he spoke with a conviction that came from experience. His voice said, "I know now what you've brought me into, and I hate you even more for having that knowledge."

"You couldn't bear it alone, could you? Monsters want to make more monsters, and now you've gotten me and I—" He was almost crying. Krad didn't move. "I…" The tears that streaked his cheeks were red with blood. He wiped them away and stared helplessly at the smears they made on his fingers. "I'm so much worse than human."

Krad hadn't seen him cry in over a year. Unable to bear it any longer, he moved to the boy and put his arms around him. Satoshi didn't shove him away, but he didn't react either.

"If you want to help me so much, why won't you kill me? Or let me die." The tears were striping his face with red, staining his eyes with the tinge of blood. "That's all I've wanted from the start."

Krad's instincts as a sire were telling him the boy was a danger to himself, that he needed to be subdued, controlled. The fiercely protective feelings that were born into a sire when he made a fledgling were always very strong, and Krad knew he gave into them more often and more completely than the vast majority of his kind. But Krad was also very accustomed to ignoring powerful instincts, and he knew that Satoshi would be even worse off if Krad used his powers as his sire to control him again. So he did nothing, only listened.

"When I apologized, it wasn't for leaving. I was sorry that I lied to you to do it. But it doesn't matter anyway. No matter what I say, it doesn't matter to you. I'm just your pet."

"My son," Krad murmured, and he felt the boy tense in his arms. He knew the feelings between sire and fledgling were reciprocal, to some degree, and he also knew that Satoshi was uncomfortable with the unwilling subservience he felt to the older vampire. He didn't want to feel like a child, but the dependence and affection—even trust—were there from the moment he was turned. After all, Krad had brought him back into the world.

They sat in silence for a while. Satoshi began to scrape the dried tear tracks from his cheeks.

"You're not my father." He said it flatly, quietly. Krad blinked with the sting of emotional pain.

"I know."

"My father is dead. So is everyone I knew. So am I."

"No, Satoshi, you're not—"

"I'm dying, then, and you won't let me stop. You won't let me finish dying, Krad."

Krad hugged him tightly, he couldn't help it. "No, no, no, little one, no, I don't want you to die. You're alive, just different. I made you that way to save you—"

"I've heard it before, Krad!" Satoshi's voice rose suddenly; he was yelling now. "You couldn't ask me if I wanted this, but if you could and I said no, you would have let me die." He had ripped himself from Krad's arms, was repeating Krad's words in a harsh, tearful tone.

"Damn it, Krad. You know, at first I thought you were lying. I didn't believe anyone could be that stupid. But now, well, I don't know. Maybe you really do think that someone out there might have answered yes. But Krad, I know damn well that no one in this world with a soul would have agreed to become this…monster, even if the alternative was death. I would have taken years of torture instead of living like this, with the knowledge that every day I live means more lives taken. Every day I spend in misery in this worthless life is paid for with the blood—the literal living blood—of a happy, precious, wonderful human being who sees the sunrise every day and thinks nothing of it. Do you understand that misery? No. You lied to me. You were never human. No matter how much you smile, no matter how kind and self-sacrificing you are to me, you'll never be more than a monster. Because you may think I'm great, but every other person on this earth is dirt in your eyes. You can pity me, pet me all you want but the fact is. You. Are. A. Murderer. They're nothing better than animals to you, but a million of you isn't worth one of them. And that's why, no matter how long you keep me here, no matter how patient you are, I will never submit willingly. I will never kill, and I will never drink your foul blood without you forcing me into it like you have every day for the last two years. If it takes centuries I will wait it out. And then I will kill myself, because the only good we can do in this world is to cleanse it of our evil."

A deafening silence filled the room in the wake of Satoshi's tirade. His eyes continued to glow so bright that it hurt to look at them. Krad stared into those eyes, his mouth open slightly. He suddenly felt very tired.

Krad opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing.

Satoshi's fists were red from clenching.

Satoshi turned away.

Satoshi left the room.

Satoshi left the mansion.

Satoshi left his sire and his safety and went out into the young night to wait to die.

Again.