Chapter Twenty-Eight

Revenge

I'm not sure what it was, but learning against mind orders was as though I were doing it for a cause. It was as though I was preparing myself for a major mind battle, but I didn't know with who. I spent weeks, everyday using my day with Evanen to fight against his orders, which were slowly becoming more powerful and eventually were turning to things I wanted to do. Still, I fought against each one until it would no longer take a good few minutes to break off the order, but seconds. Even Evanen seemed to find these lessons tiring in how he had to eventually throw all his might into it, but I still had to fight it off. I lost a lot, but Evanen seemed really proud in how I had turned out.

"What's the thing you want most to do right now," Evanen asked me, reaching the end of the lesson as he could do.

I gulped uncertainly, thinking about myself at the moment. Seriously, I wasn't too sure what I wanted except that I was really tired of fighting against his orders, so I sighed. "I want to stop fighting you off," I responded shortly, and he smiled.

"Interesting," He said, "Because I want to stop ordering you. Which means that in this order, I'll have to put all my might into ordering you to stop fighting me because I don't want to even order you anymore, and you'll have to put all your might into fighting off that order because you want to give up." I laughed at this situation, but figured it'd be a good enough end to the lessons. But of course that last test lasted forever, which meant we'd keep doing it over and over until I got the concept completely down. That itself seemed long enough of a lesson that it took forever to reach the end of all the training against mind control. I didn't want to think anymore after this.

When Evanen was satisfied, he started just ordering me to do things regularly and off the wall to see if I had the training burned into my soul. Apparently I did because now I could just shrug the order off shortly without much thinking put into it. I wondered if I could ignore any order coming from the other household, such as Drewdon. I had only met him once, but his way of ordering didn't seem too nice. I wondered how surprised he'd be if he tried to tell me to "Be Quiet" or to "Calm Down" and I just told him to shove it. I admit, I wouldn't, seeing as his eyes still haunted me whenever I thought about him. Creepy yellow eyes. I felt like shuddering.

Evanen had gotten me skittles one day, and I was leaning against the corner of the bed post, popping them into my mouth joyfully. I loved skittles, but especially the orange ones. He was on the opposite side of the bed, amazingly away from me, and was looking at a blue skittle suspiciously. I figured he was trying to figure out what exactly it was about skittles that made me so happy, and he placed it on his tongue slowly. Then he just left it in his mouth, as thought trying to taste something not there.

I hesitated, "Do vampires not taste food?" Evanen swallowed the skittle absently, no longer trying to do whatever it was he was trying to do before looking at me just as absently. There was another odd thing about his behavior that day. He seemed out of it, but he was looking at me either way. For a moment, I just stared back, waiting for an answer, which came after a good length of time.

"Well, your human food tastes weird," Evanen stated slowly, "All I can taste is the mass amounts of sugar, fake flavoring, and some random bits of stuff placed into it which makes it taste completely horrible. It's like eating plastic. Why do you like it so much?" I hesitated, looking at the skittle in my hand in confusion.

"Maybe it's because you can taste everything clearly, and that includes every piece of extra stuff in it you're not suppose to taste," I said slowly, before looking up at him, "Maybe you can't taste it all together like we can, but every part of it separately, which I must state probably wouldn't taste too good." I assumed it would be better to ask a vampire who had once been human about food differences because the only thing I could get out of Evanen is that it was weird, seeing as he never had tasted food like humans had. I started to say something else when I realized that Evanen hadn't responded to my assumption. I paused, peering at Evanen as though something in his presense would tell me why he was so quiet.

"What are you thinking about," I asked, only realizing right after I said this that it was the most girly, girlfriend/boyfriend question that existed. I had refused so long ago to ask people that question, and to just stick with 'Waddup' or something. It was too late now, but luckily Evanen would be the last living thing to know about anything to do with relationships. He seemed to settle something within his head, and he moved his way over to sit beside me as though anticipating something great to happen. I just looked at him before finally breaking, "What?"

"What do you think about a gift? Something that will help you feel better about all that's happened to you," Evanen asked cryptically. I thought about what type of gift would make me feel better about what all had happened lately, but nothing actually came to my head. I didn't even want Mikel to come back in fear of his utter disappointment in me. So instead of thinking about what I would think would make me feel better, I thought about what Evanen would think would make me feel better. Probably Mikel's finger or something of that sort.

"What is it," I asked relunctantly, willing to deny whatever gift Evanen had in mind.

"A surprise," Evanen stated, and he smiled into the distance of his thought of pleasing me. I stared at him suspiciously as he lightly crushed skittles within his fingertips absently. For a moment, I wished I had the same power as Jove because at that moment, I would have latched onto Evanen's face and forced him to let me know what he was thinking. His so-called "gifts" only left awkwardness and painful nervousness.

"I don't like surprises," I warned him, when really I usually do like surprises, but there's a difference between Evanen surprises and pleasant surprises. I just told a little bit of a white lie so as to avoid what would definitely be unpleasant.

"We'll see," He responded shortly. The moment after he said that, there was a low rumble outside of what must have been thunder. I paused, irked at the perfect timing, but also questioning my mental state to trust if it was real. After a moment, there was another small rumble, and I perked up. I waited for a moment until I could hear another rumble before freaking.

"Oooooh, rain," I said excitedly. And then I shoved Evanen. "Rain. It's raining, right?" I remembered that once when it was so rainy that the sky was a blinding grey, I had wrote a poem about rainy days. If I'm not much mistaken, it was basically about how rainy days flooded my thoughts until I was utterly depressed, which clearly told how much I didn't enjoy them. In fact, the last lines had been something like 'And I cry when grey cries'. But the thing was, I hadn't seen rain in so long.

Evanen seemed startled at my sudden bouncy state. "Yes. And?" I jumped off the bed and ran towards the door, but in a flash, Evanen was blocking it. "Where do you think you're going?" He said it as though the rain brought some voodoo over humans and made us go perform some foul duty or something. I tried to get past him, but he didn't move out of the way.

"It's raining," I said, now becoming angry, "Move it, buster, I want to go look." After a moment, I added, "You can come." And we were suddenly going down the stairs in a rush. Well, I was in a rush, and I burst out the front door and straight into the pouring rain. It was actually turning pretty cold, but I didn't really care much. I looked up into the dark sky, not able to actually see the rain, but feeling it pour over me. And then for cliche means, I twirled in a circle.

"What month is it," I asked Evanen curiously.

He wasn't in the rain, but standing at the door boredly. "November... just began not too long ago. November 5th, thursday night. It's almost the 6th." He looked around, and I was thinking about my birthday, which was coming up pretty soon. I'd be turning eighteen around December 20th, which I never found too good of a thing because it was only five days before christmas, and therefore instead of getting more presents, my dad tended to combine my Christmas with my birthday. I started shivering, and when I turned to say something to Evanen, he was no longer in front of the door. I turned a full circle, but he wasn't anywhere. I hesitated.

When I looked off to the distance, now clear to run, I looked around. Nobody was around me, so it looked like a pretty easy escape. But now I was confused as to why Evanen had left me out here, when I could have easily just bounded off without a second thought. Then again, he probably knew me more than I figured he would because I just turned around and headed back into the house. When I looked around, nobody was there, so I moved towards the kitchen. There was orange juice in the refridgerator, which was pretty sweet, and I sat down to drink it at the counter. It merely took a couple of seconds before I noticed the hidden door on the wall, and I was no longer thirsty anymore.

I got up and decided to head back to the room. It was still oddly dead in this house, but then I figured it was because Mikel was gone and everyone else was probably out hunting. When I reached the bedroom door, I hesitated for some reason, as though something was telling me not to go in there. But after a moment, I pushed the door open.

The first thing I saw was the silver dagger I had used to kill D.J. on a desk, laying on top of a cloth easily. But that wasn't as odd as when I looked towards the bed to see Evanen holding Katha down on the floor, with his knee on the middle of her back and her hands held together at her wrists by his grip. Automatically, I started to turn to run away because this did not look like a pleasant scene, but Evanen looked towards me and smiled as though he had been expecting me.

"Here she is," Evanen told Katha with a sneer, and I hesitated. "Shut the door, Hailence." I wasn't sure what was happening, but I figured Katha was probably up to something and got caught. I shut the door slowly before turning back towards them.

"What's going on," I asked Evanen slowly.

"Revenge," Evanen stated, and Katha broke into gleeful laughter. I was still a bit confused, but he continued, "It's your gift. You finally get to get back at Katha here for all she's done to you." I looked at Katha, who was still hooting away even though I couldn't see how she could get air in her lungs to laugh. Then I looked at the silver dagger on the desk, and put the two together.

"I don't know about this," I said, backing up uncertainly. Katha laughed even harder than before, but Evanen didn't loosen her one bit. Apparently, he did know, and he was certain that I was going to get my revenge today.

"Hailence, just think about it," Evanen merely said, and I looked at Katha again. I thought back to the first time I heard Katha's voice. 'What the hell are you doing?' She had hated me from the start, claiming jealousy. I thought about her sob story of being a leper, and her chasing me through a window. Then I remember her attempt to get Mikel to feed off of me when she heard him refer to all the ways I was beautiful to him. I clearly went over all her glares, her attempts to kill me, and finally got to the one that hurt the most. The one where she tricked me, handed me to Trenton, and basically killed what flesh of Mikel I could have had. And so I wondered, what harm could come in getting a bit of revenge? I had thought about it plenty enough, so why not give Katha what she deserved?

I moved towards the silver dagger, picking it up in my hand. The one I had to kill my own friend with because of Katha. I turned, and Evanen had pulled Katha to her knees, keeping a good hold of her hands behind her back. Katha cackled at the sight of the silver dagger, and said, "Oh, like you'd actually try to hurt me? Puh-lease, you wouldn't do it if I was tearing you to pieces." And she laughed again. I took her in, her green eyes gleaming, her blonde hair a bit of a mess due to Evanen, and her thick, red lips broke into a smile. I smiled in return.

"I killed D.J., so what makes you think I wouldn't kill you," I asked curiously, just as though I was asking Evanen or Mikel about a certain power vampires had that I didn't quite understand. Katha let her laughter fade a bit until she was back to glaring at me. It was a drastic change, and it made my heart start to pound, but I didn't move back any. Instead, I looked at Evanen, who nodded for me to continue. I moved towards Katha.

"Stop," Katha ordered, the first order that I had ever heard from her that splashed into my thoughts dominately. I repelled them easily, though, shocked myself by how easy it had been. And then I continued towards her. She frowned, no longer sure of herself, "I said stop." I shoved the order away, easier than most of Evanen's orders because there wasn't enough power behind them and I didn't want to stop. Soon I was standing directly in front of her.

"That's not going to work," I stated shortly. Katha looked at me in disbelief, and I lifted the knife to look at it. "It's weird how you vampires are so strong, but something so simple can hurt just by touch. I mean, you can stand touching a stove top, but you can't handle silver. Hmm." And I pressed the flat side of the blade against Katha's cheek. Automatically, she burst into a most horrible scream that made me withdraw and back up. I hadn't expected so much pain to come from Katha's mouth, and it scared me. Why did I have to do this anyway?

"Finish it," Evanen said, holding Katha up so that she wouldn't get away, which she was clearly trying to do. Only this time she no longer seemed to be an evil, playful bitch. Instead, her eyes were sharp with such rage, and she sneered in such anger that it was clear to see her fangs sharp in her mouth. The thing I focused on the most was the wound on her cheek, where the silver had burned through her skin to show the flesh underneath. It made me feel sick just to look at it.

"I don't think I want to," I responded to Evanen's order, stepping back even more.

"I'm going to kill you," Katha roared, struggling even more to reach me and finish the thing she'd wanted to do from the start.

"Kill her," Evanen ordered, putting all his might into containing her. I looked at the silver dagger still in my hand, now completely certain I couldn't do it. It wasn't as though I didn't want revenge, but the thought of me going around killing everyone in the name of revenge felt wrong. What if I ended up as bad as a vampire? I couldn't do that.

"Evanen, I can't," I said in a pleading voice, as though I was the one being killed.

"Do it," he ordered again.

"No," I snapped, and started to drop the weapon. Katha went into another one of those cackles of hers that always scared me, and it seemed to last forever, as though she had found me the most hilarious joke she'd seen. And then she was talking instead of Evanen.

"Go on, kill me," Katha said, and she burst into more laughter before she could continue. It was a kind of laughter that brought Kyler to my mind, when she would just burst at such a small thing. She'd always referred to it as 'breaking her giggle box', and it was an infectuous state because not too long later, I would start laughing just as hard. Only there was something more about Katha's laugh, as though she were about to do something horrible to me by having me kill her. "Do it!"

"Do it," Evanen agreed again.

Before I could deny this time, Katha stopped laughing to glare at me. She reminded me of the exorcist girl, except in a prettier state besides her cheek. "Your D.J. friend was so sweet," Katha said darkly, confusing me as to why she would compliment D.J. "Sooo sweet, and thick. It was almost like chocolate, except with blood." And she ran her tongue over her top lip deliberately before bursting out into more evil laughter.

"Shut up," I yelled, "Shut up!"

She continued to laugh, adding, "You should have heard him." And she raised her voice mockingly, "Where's Hailence? Where's Hailence? Oh she was just the most beautiful girl and I miss her soooo much..." Katha cackled at the memory while I seethed. All I wanted to do was shut her up. I would prefer to live with Cecilian forever over being around Katha for an hour.

"Shut up," I growled.

"And he was sooo sad when he found out all the things Evanen was doing to you," Katha hooted.

"I said, shut up," I snarled, getting quieter, but tightening my grip on the dagger.

"And he was sooo scared of aaaalll the vampires in the house," she continued.

"Shut your mouth," I whispered.

"Which is why it was so enjoyable to watch him wriggle and scream when I changed him," Katha sneered, and that was it. I swung the dagger around with such rage, and it slit across Katha's neck without a struggle. It took only a minute for me to realize that all I had done was shut her up, and that she was still alive. She widened her eyes in such shock that I could suddenly see what I assumed would be the human girl she had been. Then before anything else could be done, I thrusted the dagger forward, slicing it through her chest and into her heart. Immediately after, I let go of the dagger, backing up in shock. Part of the reason of my shock was because I had actually killed Katha after all the times I imagined doing it, but I believed the real shock of it was because Katha's skin started peeling away, followed by her flesh, until the only thing left was a heap of her skeleton and the clothes surrounding them. There was no ash or anything, which I didn't exactly think would occur after D.J. died anyway.

Evanen, who I had nearly forgotten was there, bent down and started stuffing Katha's bones, clothes included, into a bag in such a blunt way that it was offending. But I wasn't going to say anything. I killed Katha, after all, so what would I say? 'Show a bit of respect, Evanen'? It was a bit too late for that. I sat down on the ground instead, watching Evanen swipe what was left of Katha up before disappearing out the door. I continued to stare at the spot Katha had been. There was no evidence left except for a bit of blood that had spilled through her clothes that was barely visible, and the dagger that Evanen hadn't picked up yet. Once again, it's blade was clear of all blood. There was an object who didn't have to worry about shedding any leaves of its past away. It was just as fresh and new as if it hadn't ever been through anything.

Meanwhile, there I was, looking down at my hands to find Katha's blood had escaped onto my skin, unable to have the priviledge to be free of anything I had done. A person could spend their whole life wishing for the chance to shake off what past experience staining their life. I could think about wanting to be a tree forever, but all I'd be doing is sitting in this room, waiting for winter so that everything could just go away and leave me as new as the silver blade. Except it'd be a wait that lasts forever because people like me never get that chance. All we're left to do is dream about it, wait and wait, until the only thing we're left doing is bleeding for a winter that will never come.

Evanen interupted my thoughts by appearing in front of me, gripping my upper arms. I burrowed my eyebrows, pulling my eyes from the blood on my skin relunctantly, to look at him. "Go take a shower," he ordered, which I thought was a very unappropriate solution to my problem, but then I wasn't thinking too straight any longer. "I need the clothes you're wearing." This was more odd than the previous insistance, so I continued to frown in confusion. Evanen shook my shoulder lightly before saying, "Go take a shower to get rid of the mess on you, and give me your clothes so I can get rid of them." Oh.

I nodded, and stood up to go take a shower. I took noticed to the equipment Evanen had with him, which included fuel and a lighter. He had already started lightly sprinkling the fuel on top of the blood stain on the carpet. Apparently just cleaning it up would be enough, but then these were vampires I was thinking about. So I ignored it, and went to the bathroom. I didn't even look into the mirror because I didn't want to know what I looked like. Instead, I just stripped, covered myself with a towel, and held my clothes out the door for Evanen to take. Then, I proceeded to wash away the evidence which I couldn't get rid of in my mind.

In the middle of taking a shower, a disturbing thought came to my mind. This was suppose to be revenge against Katha, but I wondered if she had known that I would no longer find it as revenge once I'd done it. What if she had been laughing because she knew she would probably give me nightmares for the rest of my life, which was as good as destroying my life as she could get? Maybe I hadn't won revenge against her at all, but helped her hatred in me for nothing. The only thing I could think of with this whole mess was one word: useless.