Chapter 16 – The Discovery

Amelie's POV

Before I could process what had just happened, the vampires in the room began to march in single file through the door that we had come through previously to get into this current situation. None of us moved, but we all stared and Claire, each trying to get her attention.

We didn't.

She kept her eyes glued on the floor and her face well hidden from all of us. One thing that I could see was the continuous flow of tears that fell from her face and onto the floor in a repeated pattern.

I wanted more than anything to go over to her and comfort her, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But I knew that if I did, Sam would bring back the vampires and kill us here without hesitation. And I couldn't do that to Claire. She was sacrificing herself for us, and while we allowed her to do so, we would save her.

When every vampire had exited the room, it was only Sam, Claire, Myrnin, Oliver, Shane, Eve, Michael and myself remaining; even Morley had left us all in privacy. Nobody knew what to say, we all just looked at Claire, hoping that she would show us some sort of reassurance – that she had a really clever plan in action so that we would all get out of this alive, her included.

However, when she eventually looked up, her eyes were filled with tears and sadness, and her hands were shaking slightly. She didn't want to do this, but she was brave, and she knew that if she were to not do this then we would all die; and she wasn't willing to risk that.

"Oh, please! Can somebody break the bloody tension; it's getting stuffy in here." And then Sam gave a small giggle. "Oops, seems like I just did. Well then, does anyone want to offer a goodbye to their dear Claire?"

We all turned to look at Shane, but while his eyes were focused on Claire, they held no emotion. This just made Claire's tears fall quicker, and made comforting her more of a priority than me surviving.

"I do," I said, and quickly walked over to Claire and held her face in my hands when she turned to look at me. "You don't have to do this, Claire. We would all be perfectly happy to continue fighting."

"Amelie, I do have to do this. If we were in Morganville, and someone was threatening to kill all of us unless you allowed them to kill you – because you're already a vampire – would you say yes? And I mean this in the way that we were so outnumbered that we would all be dead in the next twenty minutes or so."

She did have a point, a point so valid and clear that it made it hard to argue with her. "Yes. I would. But were I sacrificing myself, it would be a completely different situation."

"Why?! Why is it so terrible that I risk my life so that you can all live?" she demanded.

"Because you are only eighteen! You have your whole life ahead of you and you are willing to throw it away for the people you care for, which shows the bravery that lives within you. But that's the difference, Claire. As you all discovered earlier, I have been alive – well, undead – for years, centuries, millennia, and if it were me throwing my life away, at least I could say that I had lived a long and eventful life."

"Yes, you're right. I am only eighteen. I do have many years ahead of me. But you are wrong when you say that I couldn't die and say that I lived a long and eventful life. I came to Morganville almost three years ago. My motive was to attend TPU, and later attend MIT. I have done both! And meanwhile, I have helped to discover the cure for the vampire disease, I worked for a crazy ass psychotic vampire – no offense," she told Myrnin, "I have attended my dream school. I have created an invention that could completely change the way vampires and humans interact (which led to a total screwed up mess that we don't need to bring up in this conversation) and I lived as a ghost for almost a day – I mean, who could put that in their CV? And I got married, for God's sake!" She turned around in a fit of adrenaline and strode toward Shane with determination. "I found the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with at an extremely young age, and that person, that person is you, Shane. I found you and I married you and I loved you and was loved by you more than many people in the world could ever dream of. You saw me in a way that no one else ever could have and I am more than grateful for your love and for your support and I will take that with me to my grave – literally – and I will cherish the fact that I had you in my life for even these few years." When she finished her speech, she continued to look into the eyes that offered her so much love and concern that I had to look away. And after a few seconds, she turned back to face me and walked toward me again. "My point is, while I am only eighteen years old, and while I have only been in Morganville for three years, I feel like I've lived there my whole life. And I feel that I lived a full life there... because I did. All of the achievements that I made, I would never have made had I not come to Morganville at the very beginning."

And by just seeing the fierce look on her face, I thought it best not to argue with her.

But then she fell.

Well, it was more like she collapsed. First her legs went and hers arms flailed in the air, and then she was lying on the floor and moaning in agony.

"Claire?" Everybody questioned at exactly the same moment; Eve, Shane, Oliver, Michael, Myrnin, me.

"What's going on?" Shane demanded as I sat next to Claire and asked her, "What hurts?"

She couldn't seem to speak, but ended up clutching her stomach to answer my question. I raised her top up slightly and saw nothing that appeared out of the ordinary, and then she turned her head to side and opened her mouth. Fortunately, Myrnin moved out of the way in time when Claire threw up, and I just wished that Sam had been sitting there and was instead hadn't moved in time; but I had no such luck.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?" Sam's voice echoed through the room, and when I realised for myself what was going on, the words blurted out before I could stop them.

"She's pregnant."