Chapter 24 – Two Directions

Amelie's POV

I walked along the corridor until I reached a dead end, and then I turned to my right and followed the corridor that led on. I continued in this sequence until I knew I was a fair distance from the others and sat on the floor in the complete darkness.

I thought of the smug smile that had been plastered on his face, the way he had looked at me as if he could read my mind – which he could, just not in any sort of magical way. It was just because he was thinking the exact same thing.

I could see in my companions' eyes the question that they were desperate to ask. He didn't understand why I hated him like I did. I was certain that they all despised him on some level for what he was aiming to do to the child that grew within Claire, but I had hated him for centuries. Although, if I told them that, they would question the 'centuries' part as I had supposedly locked him away before I ever had the chance to hate him, but I had hated him before I locked them all in the Crypt to suffer. I had hated them all.

He had taken Sonya from me and concealed her somewhere that I would never be able to find her, and even after years of torture, he wouldn't tell me where she was. In all this time, she would have starved, would have looked anywhere and everywhere for something to feed on.

Although, just before I had locked them all in the Crypt I had realised that he had killed her. He hadn't taken her somewhere to emotionally wound me, but had instead killed her so that I was left unprotected. And even if he hadn't killed her – which I was sure he had – she would have probably committed suicide in her years of loneliness and misery. She had only been a newly made vampire at the time.

But he knew I always thought about what had happened to her, what he had done to her. Everything he did back then was done to hurt me, because it had been me who gave the child away when he wanted to keep him and try to protect him ourselves, it was me who had hurt him in the first place, and he had vowed to make my life misery for it. I hadn't gone with them to kill innocents; I had stayed as a servant to create their weapons. I had not been allowed to speak; I was always to stay silent. And when they suggested going up against his father and mine, I couldn't stay silent any longer. They beat me terribly, and I hated them for it to this day, but I had managed to lock them away. However, they still did not understand how a poor and helpless Amelie was able to defeat her entire group of people.

Well, I hadn't, not on my own. I had requested help from my father and his followers, and I still regretted it now as much as I had then. Sam hated me for that – for locking him and our people away for such a long length of time – and I hated him for everything he had done to me before that. When I had given our child away, my aim had been to make things better for both us and the child, though I had just ended up making it worse.

And now I wanted two answers, but I couldn't question him without being questioned myself. So I sat on the ground and considered my options.

Claire's POV

Amelie had long disappeared from my sight and now we all stood in silence. Looking from one person to the next, we could see that we each felt uncomfortable – uncomfortable definitely not being a strong enough word. Along with that, we were afraid; afraid for each other and for Amelie. Whatever had made Sam and Amelie hate each other so intently was obviously something terrible.

"Well, who is going to be the one to break the silence?" Sam queried, and then sighed. "I have really got to stop doing that." He shook his head. "Well? Will you go after her or shall I? I must warn you that if it is the latter the results will not be pretty."

I was the first to move forward so that I could hurry past him before he stopped me. The others followed, and Sam didn't make a move towards me or anyone else. I was incredibly thankful for that.

I started to run through the corridor. Amelie was nowhere in sight and I was beginning to worry. When I reached the end, I saw that there were two directions that Amelie could have gone in; right or left. I didn't know which way to journey so I waited for everyone to catch up.

Shane was just seconds behind me, and Michael was just seconds behind him. Eve had her back toward us but was travelling in our direction. She must have been checking that Sam was not following. I began to wonder where the vampires were, and then I turned to see Oliver, Myrnin and Miranda standing behind me, staring at me.

"Myrnin, you come with me and Shane down the corridor on the left. Oliver and Miranda, you go with Eve and Michael down the corridor on the right." They all nodded their heads at me and we separated quickly.

We hadn't come through this corridor on the way here, so we weren't surprised when we didn't recognise the main attributes that this hallway had. Instead of worrying, we ran.

Shane's hand seemed to find mine in the hurry and Myrnin was kind enough to stay at a quick human speed. We came to a total dead end containing only doors. And behind one of those doors was a person screaming, although we didn't know which door the sound came from.

"Well?" Myrnin asked.

"It might be Amelie," Shane noted.

"No, Amelie doesn't scream," Myrnin replied obviously.

"Everybody screams under horrifying circumstances," I stated.

"Well, what door must we open first?" Myrnin asked me, and I turned to Shane.

"You choose."

He pointed toward the only orange door that stood beside him, and said, "Whoever they are, they're definitely in here."

I took a step forward and was intercepted by Shane standing in front of me. "No, no, no, no. We don't have a clue what's behind that door, all we know is that it has the possibility to burst any person's eardrums. I'm going first and you are going to stay behind me with Myrnin."

"What if something bad is behind that door? What if it hurts you?"

"Then Myrnin will take care of you and the baby."

"Don't say that!" I ordered, almost yelling. However, the journey here had taken too much breath.

Shane stepped forward and took me into his arms. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just being realistic."

"Why don't I just go first to save all this trouble?" It was Myrnin, and Shane and I nodded our heads and stood back.

Myrnin walked forward and swiftly opened the door...

...And met the fist of an extremely angry female. "Ouch!" He yelped before falling to the ground. He was still conscious, but the girl seemed to be very strong.

The anger drained out of her in seconds and she looked at Shane and I. We were standing in front of her with stricken expressions on our faces. "Who are you?" she asked us. And then she stepped forward, intrigued, and gasped. "You are human. You must go, both of you."

I stepped closer to her but she looked at me with bright red eyes, "Go! If you don't I won't be able to stop myself from killing you!"

I glanced at Myrnin, who looked as frightened as I felt. He would be okay, he was a vampire, and he couldn't be killed by an angry girl with strong fists. So Shane and I bolted, running as fast as we could from the starving vampire. We didn't scream, because we knew we weren't in danger. She didn't want to hurt us, so she would restrain herself until we were far enough away that she didn't smell our scent any longer.

It hadn't been Amelie – where Amelie had warm golden hair the girl was a silky brunette. Her eyes were blue (before they turned red from at the scent of our blood) and her skin was pale – no surprise there, she was a vampire. It was clear that she hadn't fed in for a long period of time, so she needed blood; lots of it. And we were going to help her get it, just not from our veins.

But first we were going to follow the route that the others had taken because I was now certain that Amelie took the same path. And she was going to tell us exactly what Sam had done to her in the past to make her hate him so much.