Chapter 18 – A Dark Future

Amelie's POV

Shane took my place and I stood and walked over to where Sam stood just five metres away. His face was masked, no emotion showing through his time of thought. "What have you decided?" I asked him, and after waiting so long after saying that I started to think he wouldn't answer. But he surprised me.

"I have decided to let her decide," It was a riddle, one that he knew full well that I understood. He was giving me a chance to tell everyone exactly what was going on in dear Claire's head. But I couldn't hurt Shane at this moment.

Grabbing onto the sleeve of Sam's favourite shirt, I dragged him silently away from the group of my loved ones and outside the door that had caused so much chaos. "And what if she does not decide what you wish her to? What then? There are always two possibilities shown, you know that."

"If she decides to keep the child then I shall not stand in the way of her decision. But she will be putting a curse upon a child that does not deserve such a curse." He was looking me right in the eye now, his gaze not quivering even slightly. It could have been thought of as nerve-racking, but it just gave me more of the determination I needed to destroy him.

"There would be no curse were you dead, but sacrifice has never been your strong point."

"I will not die so that she will survive."

"Exactly my point, you can't even sacrifice yourself for the love of family. You're pathetic and we both know it."

"It is not love. Not one single part of this is based on love. And we both know that she will choose what I wish of her, because if she does not..." He finished, leaving me to fill in the gaps.

It was true, Claire was smart and she would discover that having this baby was not at all a clever idea. But she wasn't just smart, she was loving and caring – and something that he didn't know – she was a child mastermind. We had the advantage in this certain situation; where Claire believed that science had an explanation for everything, she also knew that there were some things that science could just not explain – well, that's what she had thought. Now she knew that science was the very thing that had made me what I was today.

That did not matter at this precise moment, what mattered what misleading Sam and saving the child.

Then everything would be how it was supposed to.

Shane's POV

She seemed like one of the mannequins that we had walked past together – pale, pretty, and cold; paler than the clouds that never found their way to Morganville, prettier than even the prettiest celebrity, and colder than the secret room in the Glass House.

God, I missed that place. And then I laughed at myself – silently, of course. If I had been told four years ago that in four years time I would be happily married to the love of my life, had a place to call home, and had friends that were vampires... I would have laughed at them and then punched them in the face for disturbing my playstation game.

But they would have been right. Claire is the only person that I have ever loved, and my love for her is so unconditional and pure that she had filled every hole that had once lived deep within my heart. And I did have vampire friends – hell, my best friend had been a vampire for quite a while and I had come to terms with it – and I couldn't say that Amelie was the worst person in the world, even Oliver (though only when he was in his happy place) and occasionally Myrnin – when he didn't seem to be trying to steal my wife from me.

God, my wife. I had always believed that I wouldn't be able to find someone that would meet the required specifications, but she had somehow managed, and I could never put into words how happy I was that she had.

But now I was sitting on the floor and holding her unconscious body that was apparently carrying my child, and I was scared as hell that she wouldn't wake up, though I wouldn't admit it. And even if I did, everyone would tell me that it would all be okay, that we wouldn't let anything happen to her...

But what if we already had? There was a vampire that wanted to turn her standing... somewhere – he had been only a few feet away before but he seemed to have disappeared, along with Amelie. I hadn't noticed until now, but Eve, Michael, Myrnin and Oliver were the only people left in the room aside from me and Claire. All were in different positions, in different places, doing different things.

Eve was sitting beside Claire's feet with her legs crossed and was patting her knee in a drumming rhythm.

Michael was lying beside Eve with one knee bent and his right arm on his stomach. He seemed to be playing an imaginary guitar but very discreetly – meaning that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't looked directly at him.

And then there was Myrnin. He seemed to be pacing around the room over and over again, looking for some sort of escape or something that he could do to help us – to help Claire. And Oliver had found a chair somewhere in the bare room and was sitting on it as if it were his own personal throne.

Well, that was all the observation I was up for, and I couldn't think of anything else to distract me from the inevitable. So I looked back down at Claire and caressed her cheek, hoping that she would wake up soon.

Claire's POV

Everything seemed perfect. I knew it wasn't real, but I also knew it was real, or at least it could be. God, it was so confusing! Nothing seemed right but at the same time everything was right.

But then it changed. Where it had been a lovely yellow room before, it was now once again submerged in darkness. And where Shane had stood beside me as I held our baby, I was alone yet again.

As I had done the first time, I turned to look behind me. Standing in the exact same position was the Glass House door, and the only thing I could think of to do was open it. So I did, but what I found on the other side wasn't what I had expected or hoped for.

Unlike before, the hallway looked haunted, and the walls didn't just need painted, but totally renewed. Walking forward, the pantry on the right didn't have the same familiarity as before. And when I looked to the left, the cabinet was chipped and had lost a leg. I started to see spots in my moment of panic, and then I remembered that it wasn't real. Even if it seemed real, it wasn't.

So I continued through the hall and moved into the living room. The sofa lacked its usual inviting look, and the armchair was worn and filthy. It seemed like where before the house had been alive and colourful, it was now a scene from an old black and white movie.

And then two people stumbled downstairs in a hurry when the phone began to ring.

"Hello?" Michael said. "Yeah, that's me." Eve stood at his side and looked at him as he received more information from the other end of the phone. And then he dropped it.

It fell to the floor, along with any emotion that he had held onto before. "What?" Eve asked Michael, shaking him when he wouldn't answer. She let go of a heavy sigh and picked up the phone that Michael had dropped.

"I'm sorry. Michael had to go do something." And she seemed to crease her eyebrows in annoyance because she hadn't come up with a better excuse. "It's Eve Glass. What's happened?" And as she received the same information that Michael had only one minute before, her face took on many mixed emotions before finishing with a simple sadness.

"No," she whispered, "Absolutely not. You're lying. They can't be dead, no." The person at the other end of the phone must have carried on talking because now Eve started to shout into her end of the phone call, "No! They are not dead! She is not dead and neither is he! They are both very much alive and they have just had a baby!" Tears began to fall and she whispered finally, "Stillborn."

Michael took the phone away from Eve and ended the call. They were both crying, and I knew exactly who they were crying for.

In this dream, I was dead. And so was Shane. And so was our baby.

"Amelie was right," Eve said to Michael, her words filled with regret. "God, Michael, we let Claire..."

"Stop it. You're beating yourself up for nothing. Yeah, Amelie was right. Claire had known she was right and she kept the baby – because that's Claire. Or, at least, that was Claire."

He stopped and they spent the next minute in silence before Eve said, "That means Sam is still alive."

"Yes it does. But that's not our problem, not anymore."