This idea came from the Vampire Diaries, which I unashamedly watch obsessively. It comes from the idea that vampires can disconnect from their emotions at will. This erases feelings like pain and loss and grief, but also like love and hatred, fear and guilt. Basically it makes you feel nothing but fleeting feelings. Humanity can be switched back on, but only through a specific trigger, or trigger, something that even with no emotions, the person feels for deeply, so deeply that they will still feel for it or them if made to focus on it long enough, which eventually leads to them feeling other emotions as well. Hopefully that helps and this isn't too confusing.
81. Dark
Somewhere, deep inside of him, he's wondered what it would be like to turn off his humanity.
The others, Percy, Annabeth, Hazel and even Piper, they'd all done it before. At least once in their long (or new) vampire lives.
Really, Jason was the only one who hadn't.
Frank, poor, human, fragile Frank, is begging with him not to.
"Reyna wouldn't want this Leo."
But that wasn't true, was it? Leo thinks. Because Reyna had been alive for more than 700 years now and she had told him all about the time she'd switched off her humanity.
Of course, he hadn't expected to actually see it himself. But now that she had once more flipped the switch she was ruthless and conniving and dark. She hurt people simply because she was bored- and it's pretty hard to trick an ancient vampire who's much stronger than the rest of them and used to every trick in the book.
Her only weakness, she'd told them, was Leo. Leo was the way back to her humanity- and she hadn't wanted it back.
So she'd captured Hazel, Frank's girlfriend, Leo's friend, and the rest of them were scrabbling to catch up and figure out why- because Reyna had been Hazel's friend too- until Reyna told them.
She would kill Hazel unless Leo turned off his humanity. Because without his humanity, she reasoned, he wouldn't be the person she fell in love with.
(Leo didn't know if that was true. All he knew was that he still loved Reyna, even without her humanity, despite the awful things she was doing.)
"I have to." Leo said. "She'll kill Hazel and then move on to somebody else if I don't."
"Leo-"
"Don't let them stop trying to bring me back Frank, keep trying. Because then I'll get her back again. I swear."
"Leo, come on man-"
"Leave," Leo said. "I don't know if I'll hurt you after. "Go find Annabeth or Percy. Ask them to help. They should be able to figure something out."
"They're in New York right now-"
"Bring them back!" Leo said. "And tell Jason and Piper to get over here. They'll be able to help me."
"But-"
"Go, Frank!"
"Okay," he said. "Okay. We'll get you back, Leo, I swear. And Reyna too."
"I hope so," Leo whispers, but it's so quiet he knows Frank won't hear.
Frank leaves and Leo waits until he hears him drive away before relaxing.
And then he does it.
He flips his humanity switch.
And after that? He feels numb. Distant. Nothing gets to him, he doesn't feel emotion over anything. His emotions are gone.
Fine, he doesn't really care about that either. Some things feel good, some don't.
Seeing Reyna after he flips it, feels good.
She can tell the second she sees him because she lets Hazel go. Hazel tries to stay, to talk to Leo, but he rolls his eyes and he can see it dawning on her too, as he speaks harsh, uncaring words to her. He knows the second she figures it out.
Her heart starts to beat faster, louder, and Leo laughs at her fear of him.
Reyna looks him up and down carefully until, finally, she smiles.
"Ready?" She asks.
"For what?" He asks, bored now that Hazel's gone.
(Safe. To Frank and the rest.)
Reyna's grin is wicked. "To have some real fun."
He looks up at her and slowly meets her grin with his own. "Of course."