Chapter 26 –The Reunion

Amelie's POV

"Amelie?"

"Sonya, it's really you," I whispered. My voice sounded muffled as my forehead rested on her shoulder.

"It's really me." She sighed heavily and whimpered slightly. "I'm hungry."

"I know, Sonya, but you have to stay strong. I heard what you did for Claire and Shane, which was amazing. We will get you blood very shortly, I promise, but for now you will need to go without." And just as I had intended, Sonya relaxed in my arms. What the creator says, the created does. Some creators sometimes use it for their own personal purposes, the selfish vampires that were raised in disastrous environments and took advantage of all the perks, but the likes of me didn't enjoy making other people do things for their own use. However, in cases such as this, we need to help the ones that we previously created. If I tell her to stay strong and not crave for blood, she will stay strong, and she will no longer need blood until the craving becomes stronger than any sort of compulsion could be.

"Who are Claire and Shane?" she asked, and I stepped back and turned to where they stood.

"Sonya, meet my friends. Claire, Shane, Eve, Michael, Myrnin and Oliver, meet Sonya. She was the first person that I ever turned into a vampire, many hundreds of centuries ago, although I did not believe that she was still alive. In fact, I believed that she had been murdered by Sam."

"Is he here?" Sonya instantly asked, and she suddenly became nervous. Well, of course she did! Sam had kidnapped her, he hadn't killed her, but he had hidden her somewhere that I would never have thought to look...

The place we had grown up; the place that we wanted no memories of.

I hesitated before replying, "Yes, he is. But everything will be okay; I will not let him touch you."

"He might kidnap me again."

"As I said, I will not let him touch you. I just found you again, I will not lose you so soon after."

"Well, well, well." It was Sam, and I did not dare let my gaze stray from Sonya's emerald green eyes. "I guess I arrived in the spit of time. So, we all found Amelie, did we? And now Amelie has found her dear Sonya. Oh, this is a very emotional reunion, I must say."

Without turning, I replied, "What are you going to do, Sam? You have already done everything you can."

"Do you really believe that?" And we both knew that I didn't. He could be planning to kill Sonya in front of my eyes just after I had found her (though I would not allow that) or he could take any another of my loved ones. And when that thought entered my mind, I turned quickly on my heels to ensure that everybody else was still safe and alive.

There was Oliver and Myrnin and Miranda – whom I had rudely forgotten to introduce to Sonya – and there was Eve and Shane and Michael and... Where was Claire? She had been there just two minutes before. Panic flooded my body faster than a tsunami would fill a very small house. I looked at Sam and saw that he held Claire roughly by the arm and had a knife in his left hand. Claire tried to break free from his grip, but her struggling wasn't strong enough compared to a vampire's strength.

I noticed Shane follow my eyes, and he gasped when he found their destination. "Claire..."

"Let her go!" I yelled with a fierce glint in my eyes. "Tell me what you want and I will see what I can do, but for now you must let her go!"

"I'm sorry, dear, but what I want is not up for negotiation. What I want is to make your life misery, your present life rather than your future, and I need this young girl to complete the task."

"What task?" Claire asked. "What sort of task needs someone to die?"

"You mistake what I say, young girl. I do not intend to kill you, and I wish that I did not have to hurt you as you seem a delightful and intelligent young girl. Nonetheless, Amelie just used what we call the beauty of 'creator's compulsion' to take away the hunger that writhes inside of Sonya." He turned to Sonya with an evil smile that only someone with his dreadfully cold mind could muster and said, "But I did not starve you for so long just to watch Amelie calm the craving. I intended not for you to suffer but for you to make my life easier." He lifted the knife and cut Claire's neck, deep enough that she screamed and blood spilled from the wound.

And then Claire was released as Sam fell to the ground. Shane now stood in Sam's place. He was cradling a baseball bat that I had no knowledge of seeing in the past. He threw the bat to the ground and took Claire into his arms, rocking her back and forth as she shed a few tears.

Meanwhile, I turned to Sonya. Her eyes had gone from an amazing emerald green to a deep and fiery red that was as bright as her hair.

"Sonya, don't think about the blood. Think about me!" I tried to catch her red eyes but she was staring straight at Claire. And then she started to walk forward. "Sonya, listen to me. You don't have to do this. You can cope. I taught you that so very long ago, do you remember?" But even tugging at the heartstrings wasn't enough to put her feeling of starvation to rest.

Sam laughed as he rose from the ground and walked toward Sonya, meanwhile mocking me. "Amelie, you must know that when a vampire is hungry, the scent of blood is much stronger than any compulsion that could be used."

I ignored what he was saying and continued to plead with Sonya. "When we get out of here, which won't be long, you will have as many blood bags as you wish. I will even allow you a one-night human spree. You just have to stop."

I seemed to have gotten through to her slightly as her expression changed from determined to confused. The red in her eyes was fading back to the beautiful green that had first brought her to my attention.

"What is going on?" Sam demanded, his brow was furrowed and his arms crossed. He uncrossed them so that he could point directly at Sonya. "Compulsion is not strong enough to compete with the cravings of blood."

Sonya turned to him and snarled at him, showing fang. "Compulsion may not be stronger than hunger, but there is a saying. It goes a bit like this, 'love can conquer all!" She zoomed away from all of us and grabbed the silver stake. Then before any of us could comprehend what she had just done, Sonya stabbed Sam directly in the heart.

He screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor, knowing that he had just lost at his own game.

Everyone stared speechlessly as Sonya brushed the imaginary dirt off of her trousers and clapped her hands together like one might do after building a house. I hadn't noticed what she was wearing before, but she seemed to be in a gothic outfit, all black and white and red. Her bright red fake nails were obvious when she was clapping her hands together.

"So," She began as she looked up at her small audience, "Are we getting out of here or what? I am starving, and I can only fend off my craving for so long when there is a bleeding girl standing only a few feet away." She looked at Eve and smiled, "Nice outfit."

Eve smiled back and replied, "I was just thinking the same thing."

Sonya held out her hand and said, "I'm Sonya Rosser, well, Sonya Bishop really because I changed my surname when I was turned."

"Rosser?" Eve asked.

"Yeah. And you're either Claire, Eve or... Yeah, you're either Claire or Eve. So which are you?"

"I'm Eve Rosser, well, Eve Glass really because I changed my surname when I got married.

"Rosser?" Sonya asked, and then a smile of recognition spread across her face.

"I was starting to wonder how you were both so similar," Claire remarked, but I could tell that she was absolutely serious because it was the truth.

"Did you know that we were related?" Eve asked me.

"I didn't even know that her last name was Rosser, I just always thought of her as Sonya Bishop, although now that I think about it Rosser suits you so much more."

We all laughed – whether it was relief, or happiness, or the thought of going home, we laughed. It felt normal, even when everything around us was so wild.

"Really guys," Sonya interrupted when she herself stopped laughing, "It's not long now before I totally vamp out and chop all your heads off."

She was most definitely a Rosser, and honestly, I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought like that before. I must say, I had always thought that Eve reminded me of someone, but I had never considered Sonya.

"Alright then, everybody. Let's go home!"

"Oh, and before we do, who are you?" She asked Miranda, and I looked over at her to see the heartbroken expression on her face. She obviously hadn't been laughing, she had probably been staring in shock as her creator had a silver stake plunged into his heart.

Myrnin was the first to speak up, "This is Miranda." He walked over to where she stood and took both of her hands into his. "I am extremely sorry for what happened to Sam, but you know as well as we do that it was for the best."

She looked up at Myrnin with a smile wider than any smile I had ever seen. She nodded her head and replied, "Yes. He was a monster, and even when I believed it myself, he had a hold over me. When he's dead, that hold will most certainly be gone." Myrnin was obviously thinking the same thing as I was – it wasn't as easy as that – but he just looked back at her with a kind and comforting smile.

"Are we going now?" I asked, and my reply was a loud chorus of 'yeah' and 'woo.'

We all cheered and applauded as we made our way – hurriedly – through the corridors that led to the exit. Every vampire we passed on our way looked at us with faces of confusion – both at the fact that we had vampire light source and the fact that we all looked so happy at this very unhappy time – and we told them about the inopportune predicament that Sam had unfortunately gotten himself in to.

And when we said this, they darted for the direction we had come from.

I couldn't remember ever being this happy, or more to the point, I couldn't remember ever being this unsophisticated and casual. And I have to say, I was enjoying it!