Chapter 19:
Myrnin's POV:
As soon as I return to my laboratory, I focus immediately on the issue at hand: finding a way to resolve Sam's issue with retaining blood. This is the only thing I can do to try and regain the standing I had before, not only in Claire's eyes, but in Amelie's also—especially Amelie's. It pains me greater that Amelie, my longest, most dear friend, hates me, than Claire; after all, we are only at the beginning of our journey, are we not? I have plenty of time to change her mind about me, to make her realise that what I have done has not been to harm people, but to help them; that, I can make her see.
I just don't want this to be the end of the line for the relationship between Amelie and myself; we have been friends for so long, through some of the most difficult and challenging stages of our lives, and for this to be the last contact we have…it cannot be. And this means that I must focus solely on ensuring that Sam is once again himself before I return to making Claire understand where her heart truly lies—it is only right. I cannot justify to myself bringing Claire back to me before solving Sam's issue, given that Amelie is right: it is my fault that he is in his current predicament. I could have done so much…but I didn't; I forgot, and that is inexcusable.
And so this is what I must do.
~x~
Hours pass, and I become completely absorbed in my work; nothing matters to me but the science of Sam's body and running experiments to try and affect the rate of digestion; there is nothing else in the world but this.
The phone Amelie insisted I have has rang numerous times since I sat down in here to work, but answering a call from someone I most likely do not want to speak to is not important; not unless it is someone calling to inform me that Sam has made a miraculous recovery will I care—and I'm not going to check it to find out.
Work is the only thing to keep my mind from wandering into the questioning line of what if: what if Sam doesn't get better? What if Claire never understands why I have done what I have? What if this…place is the only place I am permitted to be for the rest of my life, to live here alone without company as my punishment for what I have done? What if…?
I can't think of this, hence the need to work and work, not even taking breaks as the experiment works its magic; as it runs, I studiously monitor it, making unnecessary notes about the rate it digests, and whether or not the addition of certain chemicals and vitamins influences it—and if so, by how much in which direction. It is rather mundane science, editing a system to ensure that it operates at what is considered to be normal.
It's not until I feel the summoning of a portal, its formation built with ice-cold tendrils that are instantly recognisable as Amelie, do I allow myself to look away from the work bench and to think of anything other than the matter at hand. There is a new pressing matter, one that needs addressing:
Why is Amelie, someone who professed to never desire to speak to me again merely hours ago, in my laboratory, with a look of stricken fear on her face?
"I am not here to see you," she says, clarifying her presence here slightly. "I am here…because I received a message earlier. And it isn't something that we should be pleased about, Myrnin."
This, no doubt about it, scares me; whenever Amelie feels the need to be scared, the rest of us ought to have ran a long, long time ago. She doesn't understand fear the rest of us do—I suppose it has something to do with her age and how long she has lived a life of power and security—and that is therefore an issue. Whatever it is, it is bad; I can feel it just from the way that she is looking at me. Gone is the complete and utter hatred for me; now, there are more pressing emotions in her face: the aforementioned fear, and a concern for…me?
I know what this is to do with—I just can't admit it. I can't allow myself to think that something has happened to Claire (Amelie wouldn't be here for any other reason, I know that) because then where will I be? I will be a broken man (vampire) who has only science to live for, science being something that was previously shared with the dead girl who I have feelings for. Life wouldn't be liveable, I'm certain—yet I am far too much of a coward to take my own life.
"If you are here about Sam, then I am almost finished with the first stage of his treatment," I say, deliberately ignoring what Amelie said. It's the only way to avoid the possibility of thinking what if? "It will be ready for collection—for I presume that you do not want me anywhere near your abode—within the next hour or two, so your beau will be ready to do whatever the pair of you desire by morning. I can only once again apologise for—"
"Myrnin!" she snaps at me, stopping me in my tracks, and for the first time, I notice a piece of paper enclosed within her hand. "It is most definitely not about Sam, though I am pleased with your progress. This is about—"
This time, it's my turn to cut Amelie off, though I know from past experience that this isn't the safest option. "I don't want to know," I say to her, my voice sharp. "Whatever she—or whomever—is doing, I don't care. It isn't my problem any longer; you ensured that!"
Amelie's eyes narrow as she looks at me. "You are now blaming me," she states simply, in a way that means I cannot say anything in response, even to agree. "Your loyalty and mannerisms towards me need work, Myrnin, as does your ability to inform me of things, yet that is not the case. Would you like to know that Claire, your so-called love, has been kidnapped by none other than Oliver?"
I stop what I'm doing and freeze, my eyes locked into Amelie's. She isn't lying; she isn't trying to make me feel as she has—she is telling the truth. Oliver has kidnapped Claire. Why?
Without realising how, I fall to the ground, tears streaming down my face, yet Amelie does nothing to help. She merely watches me.
I've never felt so alone.
Claire's POV:
No matter how much I struggle, I can't get my hands out of the tight knots Oliver has tied them behind my back with; even forcing myself to take deep breaths and think about the situation logically doesn't help. I am trapped here, to die, and nobody knows I am here besides Oliver—and he isn't really going to tell my friends that I'm here, is he?
Oh, I forgot. I have no friends…at least, no friends who care about me enough to even notice that I'm not in my room, let alone that I've been kidnapped by a psychotic vampire who turns out to be in love with Amelie. That is the most surprising thing; I knew that he loved her, and that she most likely loved him, but I didn't realise that he loves her enough to kidnap the apparently most important human in Morganville, in order to try and barter for an exchange: Amelie for me.
He is absolutely stark raving mad if he thinks that Amelie is going to try and get me back in exchange for giving up Sam, someone she's only just gotten back! I mean nothing in the grand order of things; true, I did save the town on numerous occasions, most of them being to do with Amelie's father, but that doesn't equal to anything compared to being given something back that was originally believed to be forever lost. I'm a rude, insolent human to Amelie, and she's only put up with these traits for so long because of what I've done; I probably had marks on my wrists from when she grabbed me at the ball, a few nights ago. She's done with mollycoddling me (if that's what you could call her forcing me to work for the insane scientist who was affected by the disease) and now, my survival doesn't matter to her.
"Ahh, you're finally seeing sense." Oliver's voice appears suddenly, he having left the room a while ago, and I start slightly, realising that he's referring to the fact that I'm no longer struggling against my bindings. "Amelie has been informed of your predicament, and the terms have been set for your release. All we must do now is sit comfortably…until I get peckish again, that is." He smiles at me, and I shiver involuntarily; he's flashing fangs, and the only image in my mind is him standing over me, biting me whilst I scream—he's already bitten me today, I was just thankfully unconscious during it.
"It won't work," I spit at him. "Amelie doesn't care about me; I'm nothing to her, compared to Sam. Look how easily she left you! There is no way that I'm wanted more than Sam is. So you need to get yourself a new plan, Oliver, if you want Amelie back—ever heard of a thing called flowers?" I'm being deliberately sarcastic (perhaps too much so, given the circumstances) but I can't help it; it's too compelling, given that he's kidnapped me and is basically threatening my life.
Before I even see him move, Oliver's standing before me, and his hand flashes through the air to slap my face. It stings where his skin contacts mine, and I know that he could quite easily have broken something with that swing—I'm lucky he hasn't. As it is, it feels as though I'm about to pass out; everything's going dizzy, and it's an effort to breathe properly.
"Did I ever specify that it would be Amelie who wanted you back?" Oliver smiles at me, and it takes me a few minutes to process what he's said.
But when I do, I understand what he means immediately.
"No," I whisper, barely audible, "No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" You can't do that, Oliver! It wouldn't be fair—please, don't make Amelie choose between keeping Myrnin sane and having Sam. It's not fair!"
He smiles, an evil, vindictive emotion spreading across his face, and I realise that I was wrong to ever consider that he had changed; he is still as evil as he always was. "Well, I would word it more that Amelie needs Myrnin, and she won't do anything that could alienate him from her—that means that, although she won't want you, she will want you back for Myrnin—meaning that I shall be reunited with her once more. You get to return to your love, and I get Amelie. It's a simple win-win situation."
I shake my head as forcefully as I dare, given that my head continues to feel as though it's going to explode. "You don't understand, do you? Amelie doesn't care about Myrnin, not really; she has her town's security systems and even if they fail, Morganville doesn't need to exist any longer! She can run off with Sam and be happy, even if Myrnin is destroyed, even if I never leave this room alive. This town isn't what drives her; now, that would be Sam, and there's nothing you can do that can make her change her mind." It breaks my heart to say this, to acknowledge that the chance of me getting out of here is smaller than the chance that pigs can fly, and I have to fight to ensure that the tears don't stream down my face; I don't want him to see how admitting this has broken me. "And anyway, Myrnin doesn't love me that much—he'll move on; I don't love him, he doesn't love me, not really." It hurts me to admit this, too, but I do it; it's my only potential way to get out of here.
This time, Oliver ups his smile—this time, I get a laugh out of him. "Yet Claire, the person you presumed that you meant the most to—evidently the one you care for the most—was Myrnin. You didn't even think of Shane; the first person you thought of was Myrnin. You thought about me wanting to get at Amelie through him, which I admit is rather obvious, but not as obvious as love: you think of the person you love the most when you could be putting them in grave danger."
He's right. Of course he's right, but why, how, can I admit this? All I have done is try to deny how I feel, try to imagine that the kisses never occurred, so how can I now, in what are potentially the final hours of my life, admit that I was wrong, and that Shane and Myrnin were—are—right? It's not often that you can say both Shane and Myrnin agree on something, but they do…and all my denying it has done is cause even greater heartache for all three of us, even though I've been let off from most of it. I've destroyed two of the people I love the most—and now, I may not even get a chance to say I'm sorry.
"Why do you want to do this?" I whisper, though there's no need to: I know the answer. He wants Amelie back, and this is the only way that he knows. "Can't you just accept that she's not with you? Do you have to hurt her, hurt Myrnin, hurt…other people?" my voice breaks on the final word, and the effort to keep the tears in is even greater; it takes almost all my concentration, and yet I still don't succeed. My vision is blurred, causing me to quickly blink and try and dislodge the drops, so that I can see the man—vampire—who could potentially kill me.
He shrugs. "Myrnin did that to me by not telling anyone about Sam; he has put me down for my entire existence, and whilst I know that I am better than him, it is hard to put up with the insults after a certain period of time. More than that, if he had told me—or even Amelie—that Glass would return, I would never have allowed myself to—never mind." he suddenly snaps the final two words, his voice prior to them having grown slightly softer, and I hesitate, almost torn between despising him and wanting to feel sorry for him.
The ropes that bind me remind me that I ought to despise him, even if I understand why he's doing this, in a twisted way—I do hate him, I do. He could kill me, destroy everyone I care about and potentially even break Amelie, if he manages to get to Sam.
I hate him.
"Well, I hope you enjoy destroying Myrnin," I manage to whisper, a lump forming in my throat. "Because Amelie isn't going to cave, not for me, not for a human—I'm the only person you're getting, Oliver. It can—it will—be no other way."
He grins again, flashing fang, and thankfully, he remains on the other side of the room. "For your sake, Claire, I hope very much that you are wrong…though it could be interesting to destroy Myrnin…"
For the first time in many months, I'm stricken with fear.
I'm not getting out of this.
Myrnin's POV:
"What do you mean, we're not giving into his demands?" I snarl at Amelie, minutes after I manage to pull myself together enough to analyse the note Oliver has left for us. "He wants…what does he want? I don't really care what he wants; he will kill Claire if he doesn't get what he wants!"
She shakes her head slowly, and I feel a surge of irritation that she doesn't understand what Oliver's like, until she clarifies her movement, "I know what he will do. I just refuse to do this. I refuse to acquiesce to his request. I refuse to…barter."
Unable to help myself, I throw one of the tables over onto its side, shattering dozens of test tubes and even breaking one of the table's legs. I don't care. He's going to kill Claire, to destroy me irreparably, and yet Amelie refuses to do anything. Why?
"I cannot, Myrnin," she murmurs, and I realise too late that I must have spoken aloud, as I have often been prone to do for many centuries. "She cannot…she is not…comparable to what is at stake. I cannot do this."
"WHY?!" I yell as loud as I can, shaking my head and pulling it about by my hair as I do so. Amelie winces slightly at my volume yet I don't care; as she continues to refuse to answer, I grow more and more furious, casting my arms across the tables to clear them, destroying everything bar the product I created for her beau. "Why won't you save the one person who means anything to me in this living world, Amelie?"
She hesitates. "I cannot. You may not launch a mission to save her, Myrnin, I merely came here to inform you as to why Claire would no longer be present on the town's data system."
I narrow my eyes; she's telling the truth. And just like that, the fight's taken out of me; before I even consider attacking Amelie, I'm broken, crumbling to the floor—and in this moment, I feel the icy aura around me. Amelie has been doing this to break me, pushing her power into me to ensure that I do not do what I considered for a moment: to break her as she has broken me.
"In that case, consider this town's defences—anything that I have done—defunct," I mutter through the tears that have begun to fall once more. "If you don't at least tell me what you think Oliver wants, then I will not do one single thing for you ever again. You can leave me here and never bother to come back—and cancel the blood delivery service."
"Don't be melodramatic, Myrnin," Amelie replies, evidently not understanding how serious I am being.
"I guarantee that I am being most deathly serious," I say in response, and suddenly, Amelie understands.
She flashes across the room to be standing in front of me, above me, towering over me, and she looks almost torn, almost as though this is a hard decision. "I don't want you to hurt, my oldest friend," she says quietly. "But I cannot lose him again, I cannot."
And it's in this moment that I think I understand what Oliver wants.
"What does he want, Amelie?" I question again, however, on the chance that I am wrong—oh, how I hope I am.
She looks me in the eye, and I crumple completely; I am right. "He is proposing a trade—Myrnin, he wants me to leave Sam, in order for Claire to live.
"He wants me to choose between my happiness—and yours."
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