It was another empty room without an enemy in sight. Bela couldn't have been more relieved as she and Ethan finished combing through it. Just like before: a deserted office after a short hallway. The lobby of this building was so large in scale that it made the blonde question just how intricate this place was. Whatever direction they took must have led them through an administrative complex, but what did she know?
She didn't know anything about these kinds of things. Her life in Castle Dimitrescu had been spent absorbing information from books, but never applying it. She could read about city structures all day, but when she finally found herself in one, she had no clue where to start.
Her mind was kept in a simple state.
If there were infected in her path, she and Ethan would kill them. If not, then she could focus solely on what she had to contend with, until they ventured off further again.
The man set down his gun as he began to open up some of the drawers to the desks that were around. The lantern light that the blonde held kept the room illuminated in its yellow tinge, but she had to remain close for him to get a better angle on what was around them.
In truth, she didn't mind.
"What are you looking for?" Bela asked as she watched him pull each one out.
With a short groan, Ethan shook his head as he closed the one that his hand was holding onto. "I was hoping to find a pistol, or something like that in here."
"What makes you think you'd find one of those?"
"Well, this is a police station, right?"
She shrugged her shoulder. "If you say so."
Ethan opened up the final drawer. Nothing. "I guess I watched too many cop movies as a kid. Officers would always have their guns stowed away in a drawer. They'd open it up and look at it now and then" He grumbled a small laugh to himself. "Probably as they lamented on some cases they couldn't crack. I don't know."
Bela set the lantern down on the desk and leaned her hip against its edge, placing her sickle beside the light. It freed up her arms so that she could cross them, allowing her to get comfortable, given that they would be here for another minute or two. By now, she and Ethan were only a few feet apart. "You're not making any sense to me, you know?"
"Yeah," he said as he straightened his body. "I'm probably not. Didn't make much sense to Mia, either."
She rolled her eyebrow. "Your wife?"
"Mhmm…" Ethan assumed the same pose that she had. It had already been fifteen minutes since they left that other room to clear out more sections, but he needed another break. The argument that he and Bela shared earlier had zapped enough of the energy from his being. His adrenaline had been cranked up high as soon as the door to this space opened, but upon realizing that it was only them inhabiting it, that energy rebounded.
Bela was quick to pick up on his body language. She could see he was tired, but any deviation from his 'survival mode,' as she often viewed it, left the floor open for a different side of him to be seen.
Admittedly, it was a side that she was beginning to enjoy.
She still couldn't figure out why she was becoming more attached to his company. Her best guess was that when he wasn't fighting for his life, or going through some post-traumatic stress-induced episode – the man was quite pleasant to speak to.
She also thoroughly enjoyed the small compliments that he would occasionally toss her way. It soothed her soul to hear that she was doing good at something, and the positive reinforcement kept her mind at ease. It would never be as fulfilling as those from her mother, she thought, but in this nightmarish world, it was enough.
It was no wonder that Kyia gravitated toward him, also…
Bela's hands drifted upwards to her triceps as she peered over at him from the edge of her shoulder. "What was she like…if you don't mind?"
Ethan's attention snapped to her immediately. He looked like he had been caught completely off guard by her question. Why would Bela ever care?
It was an odd change of pace for the normally villainous blonde woman, but if she wanted to learn more about his family, then maybe her mind was beginning to humanize them. She had already informed him that she and her sisters had nothing to do with Rose. He still wasn't completely certain whether he believed it.
If that baby could have been anywhere, it would have been in that castle, right?
Then again – that entire village was full of dark secrets.
With all the chaos that had taken place before his arrival, Rose could have been in any one of those places. If that tall bitch didn't have her, then that bird lady could have handed the child to one of those other freaks. Between them all, the vulgar man in the trench coat may have been his next best guess.
So many possibilities, all in a world away from this one. He needed to stop thinking about it, for now. Maybe, he decided, talking to Bela about Mia might do something good – as long as he kept his mind off everything that followed.
"Mia? Oh, she was great," Ethan spoke tamely as he reflected on his old memories of her. "I could talk about her all day. She's one of those people that makes you realize that you never really had your head on straight until you met them. That's the kind of person that changes your life, and you never see it coming."
Huh…why does that sound so…good?
She gave a faint nod, her fingers tightening against the arms of her robes. "Hmm…lovely. How long were you and her together?"
Ethan chuckled as he peeked up at the ceiling. "God, she would kill me right now if she was here. We met in college, some many years ago. Life's just gone so fast. We got married almost ten years ago. Damn it, I'm not ready for math."
Bela pulled an amused grin along the side of her cheek. "Math is something I do." She involuntarily shrugged her left shoulder. It had to have been nerves, for whatever reason. "Did Mia like math?"
"I don't know," he said. "She was better at it than me. That's why I let her handle the bills and finances. I just picked up the groceries and fixed whatever broke along the way. If your computer ever goes down, I can handle that."
"Computer?"
"You don't know what –" Ethan had to stop to remind himself that this was a woman who lived in a gothic castle that had to have been centuries old. Even the technology of the village that she resided near was lacking in most aspects. Aside from some vehicles, necessities, and a few other things, it may as well have been locked in the early twentieth century. To expect her to understand anything about computers was a tall order in itself. "It's a device with a screen and a keyboard. You can connect to any…"
The look of confusion on her face was only growing by the second. This wasn't going to click with her.
Ethan shook his head and decided to bury his efforts. "It's not important. Mia took care of her strengths, and I held onto mine. That's what relationships are all about. You work with your partner throughout life, for better or worse."
"Yeah…" Her right hand rubbed her arm as softly as she spoke. Bela's eyes drifted toward the ground before she picked her head up and parted her lips. "Sounds like a lot of fun."
"Mia was fun," he replied with a nod. "She was really fun. We hit it off quite well when we first met. She was always telling me to get out of my room and do things. Still don't know why she picked a nerd like me, but she did."
Bela hummed again as she stood there. It was like she was trying to drum up something to say, but she couldn't figure out the correct words. The blonde wanted to be able to relate to him, but a relationship was something she never had before. The thought alone of being with a man was repulsive, back in her castle, anyway. Her mother had drilled into her head the idea that the only thing a man would want would be her body.
She trusted her mother's judgment, and so did Cassandra. Daniela was always the odd one out in that aspect, but despite her eagerness to interact with men, her nature always got the better of her. They would be swiftly killed, and that was it.
"Sounds like she loved you," Bela remarked.
Ethan got quiet for a moment before he sighed and brushed his thumb against the edge of his nose. "She did."
"I just wanted to ask because I wanted to know a little more about you, to be honest." Bela couldn't believe that she had just said that, but in lieu of the lie she had handed him about Rose earlier, keeping a pattern of honesty would perhaps take the sting off of that act. "I don't want to bring up what was said back there, but you just made me want to know what your life was all about…before all this."
Ethan turned to her with an inquisitive glance. It was a friendly one, no doubt about it. Still, the man's eyes spoke of regret, and in mixing with his lips rolling in, he had to have been surprised to hear her say all of this. "Is that the truth?"
"I…I wouldn't lie to you." She dug the front of her foot into the ground. "It's the truth."
With a slow breath, Ethan rotated his body so that his back was now against the edge of the table, just like her. The two stood parallel to one another, both gazing straight ahead, with only a glance or peripheral peek to highlight the one they spoke to.
Ethan topped off his lungs before he went still. "I'm sorry about all that back there. It's just that –"
"It's okay," Bela cut his sentence short. "You don't owe me an explanation. It's over. That's all that matters to me right now." She took a breath as well. "Fighting with you, ugh, it's not something I enjoy. I hate yelling, if you wanted to know. Back in my castle, I took care of most of the work, while my worthless sisters would go about their messy habits. It got frustrating sometimes, and I've found myself short on my temper as well."
"Did you and your sisters fight often?"
I wish we didn't. What happened to us?
"It depends," Bela said. "Some weeks there may be a little disagreement here or there. Other times, hmm…it's just one after another."
Why am I telling him this? He doesn't need to know anything about our personal lives! But, what does it matter? Are we ever going to get back to our world, anyway? I don't have to get too detailed. It does feel nice to talk to someone about it, I'll admit. Much better than being alone.
"I never had siblings, so I can't say that I know what it is like to go back and forth between one another with issues at home." Ethan kicked his foot gently as he brushed off his past concerns. "I mean, having a brother would have been nice. I always got bored being home alone."
Bela broke the tension with a laugh. Ethan glanced over at her, where he saw her noticeably wide grin encapsulating those flashy, white teeth of hers. The blonde's dark lips were plump, and when she pulled them apart, her smile was striking.
As much as he loathed her sadistic nature, seeing her happy was something to be sought after. When it came to not understanding things about oneself, that was his territory. Why did he want to bring out that look on her?
"Oh, then you haven't had sisters," she said. "Ugh, maybe it's not so bad, but when you're the oldest, you find yourself always taking care of their mess."
"So, you're the oldest, and therefore, you take it upon yourself to do that?"
"Well…" She tilted her head. "Mother expects me to. I naturally own that role, so, I must."
Ethan nodded as he meticulously dissected her words. There she was referencing 'roles' again. Just like she stayed adamant about killing him when they returned, she also assumed the tasks she was burdened with, simply because she was expected to. The woman had admitted that she didn't want to kill him if she didn't have to.
In that regard, was she happy with her life?
"I guess that must be what you and your sisters argue about?" Ethan asked.
Bela's glance drifted away from him as she stared at the wall. Her smile began to fade, and she sighed a low breath. "Unfortunately."
Castle Dimitrescu – December 3rd, 2017
"Ugh…really?" Cassandra rolled her eyes as she and Bela stood around the shattered bottle of wine on the ground. "Can you just tell one of the servants to do it?"
"I've already sent all the servants to their tasks, Cassandra." Bela's irritation was slowly beginning to seep into her words. She made it clear to accentuate her sister's name, informing her that this was not something insignificant. "If I pull one of them away, then their job still needs to get done. Do you want to have dinner on time tonight?"
"Of course I do," the brunette replied.
"So do I, and so do mother, and Daniela." Bela could not take her eyes off of the spilled liquid that was now making its home on the upper balcony floor. The stains had to have been growing harder to wash away by the second, she thought. "If the servants were around, then fine. They could take care of it. But, when I am on my way to check up on them, and I have to stop to clean up something that you did, it takes time."
"Ugh…" Cassandra didn't want to hear it. She tossed her hands up in the air and curled her lip. "Here we go again."
The blonde was not in the mood for any argument tonight. The day had already been filled with a ton of demanding duties that were still not finished. The last thing that she wanted to do was get into it with her sister over a simple mess that could have been cleaned on its own.
But, what else could she expect from Cassandra? The woman was as messy and as lazy as they came. If she wasn't gorging herself on food and wine, she was either complaining of boredom, or actively causing havoc – just to keep herself occupied.
It was the total opposite of what Bela wanted. She used to hope that those bad habits of hers would go away, but they withstood the test of time. It seemed like this would be the way Cassandra was, and that irked her to no end.
"Exactly, Cassandra! Here we go again!" Bela was starting to yell, which did not sit well with the middle child. The brunette never took it lightly, and she would always fire back with the same energy, if not more. Regardless, the eldest daughter was at her wit's end with this, and it was the blatant disrespect that she responded with that ticked her off. "When is anything ever going to change with you? Do you ever wonder why mother always yells at you?"
"Oh, like you're so perfect?!" Cassandra suddenly snapped. This wasn't just her typical response of aggression. Bela had to have struck a nerve. She pointed her finger directly at the blonde, coupled with a hateful curl to her fiery eyes. "Why do I always have to be the one to change? You're really going to get on my case over some damn wine bottle?!"
Bela clenched her teeth and bit her tongue before this got worse. She did not want to have this discussion, either, but a shouting match between her and her sister was more detrimental to her schedule, rather than a mere cleanup. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to leave Cassandra without some parting words to set the record straight.
"You know what? Just go! I'll clean this mess up myself! I'm not in the mood tonight, sister. The best thing you could do is to just stay away!"
"Fine!" Cassandra was visibly annoyed, even to hear that she didn't have to clean up the wine. She knew Bela's actions were not black and white. There was always an underlying meaning to them, and the blonde wanted her to venture off with a sour note in her head. "You go have fun. Perhaps mother will see you and praise you, just like you want."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Go tell her about how bad I am, and how you're cleaning up my mess because you are the perfect daughter." She pointed at the glass-covered puddle. "Go on! That's what you want the most, right? That's all you care about!"
With a groan, Bela scowled at her as she pointed to the doorway that led to the armory. It would be better to just have Cassandra reside in her little hiding spot until dinner arrived. At the very least, she wouldn't be messy there. "I want you to just cut down on the disasters before dinner. Go take another bottle of wine, if you truly need one right before we eat. Just don't drop it this time."
Cassandra remained silent as she cast a scrutinizing stare at her older sister. Those amber eyes studied every fiber of the blonde's being as the two stood across from one another. Sensing that her words may have been genuine enough, the brunette opted to just take the easy way out. "Deal."
"Goodbye, Cassandra…" Bela turned her attention to the puddle, just as her sister went back into the wine room to retrieve another bottle without a single reply to be said. A mop and bucket would be needed to salvage the stains and collect the glass fragments. She hoped that the damage to the floor would be fixable, as the various states of disarray that the castle had seen over the last few decades were nothing to be proud of.
It seemed like the family was more focused on food, instead of living standards. As much as she wanted to change things around, her mother's needs always came first and foremost. Everything else would just have to wait.
Once Cassandra had journeyed off to her area, Bela found herself swabbing the floor, mumbling her discontent, "Like I don't want to just sit around and enjoy wine all day? I'm the only one who cares around here."
The shards of glass swam about as the mop pulled them across the floor. Bela reached down to hold the bucket beside them, using the head to scoop them inside. Once the broken bottle was consolidated, she continued to cleanse the floor as best she could. The stain would thankfully leave little to remain, but the time that she spent taking care of it was time that she wouldn't get back.
As Bela packed up her things and got ready to return to what she had to do, she couldn't rid herself of the resentment that she felt toward Cassandra. She wanted to strangle her for the way she was acting, but it wouldn't do anything to alter her behavior.
You're so self-centered, Cassandra. You think the entire world has to make room for you. Stop acting like you get singled out all the time. You do this to yourself!
"Argh!" She stopped short of kicking the bucket across the ground. It was so tempting to just grab a bottle of wine for herself and kick back, but the thought of Alcina raging at her for slacking off kept those ambitions at bay. She wanted to hear her mother praise her, and a scolding would not be devastating.
For the sake of the greater good, she picked up the bucket and went on her way. Dinner would be soon, and she could only hope that her mother commended her on tonight's efforts.
That was the only thing that she looked forward to tonight.
Serpenmoor
"Petty little arguments, more or less," she explained. Ethan's interest was still high, given how he must have wanted to know what deficiencies her family held. He wasn't about to hear any stories about some of their worst fights, and to save her reputation and image, Bela opted to change the subject. "Sisters will be sisters, but I enjoy my role in the castle."
"What do you do, primarily?"
"I manage everything," Bela said pridefully. "I watch over the staff. Make sure things are done to standard. Our wine garden would be nothing if I didn't take care of it during the summer."
Ethan couldn't rid his mind of all the dark truths about what she was telling him. He had seen the bodies of the men strung up atop the posts. The corpses inside the wood barrels, placed inside a win-filled room, spoke for themselves. The soul-crushing cry of an unseen woman as he first stepped into the castle echoed within his head. Not a single servant was to be found during his time spent inside that hellhole.
Bela spoke of 'responsibility' as if her lifestyle didn't demolish the innocent and repurpose them into delicacies and beverages for these supposed noblewomen to enjoy. It sickened him, but he struggled to match the blonde in front of him with the blonde who had so violently attacked him when he went there.
She wasn't quite the same anymore – that much was clear.
"I guess you're looking forward to the summer then?" Ethan tossed that question out to see what she would say.
Not only did Bela shamefully turn her eyes away from him, but she also spoke with a weak tone, uncertain of what lay ahead of her in the coming months, "Yeah, I guess I am."
Just what he expected.
"There are no servants left in your castle, are there?"
She still would not look at him. Ethan blew some air out of his lungs as the silence progressed.
The man added on to what had already been said, "Not a single one made it out alive?"
She did not utter a word. The blonde was growing uncomfortable with the conversation. In tiny, little micromovements, she began to distance herself from the man she stood next to. It would not place her away from the boundaries of sound, but the small measure served to make her feel like his questions were less 'in-your-face' than they were.
They were questions that she would have gleefully responded to back in that dungeon. Now, after all that they had been through together, she didn't want to talk about them. Did she regret her actions? No.
Not completely.
But after what this city had tossed her way, she knew what it was like to be afraid. What made things harder was the fact that she could see how much Ethan hated her cruel side. Again, something that she would have laughed at back in her world.
Too much had changed.
Ethan brought his hands into his pockets. He tried to remain casual, hoping that it would appeal to her to open up. "I only ask because there is no one left alive in your village."
You think I don't know that, you stupid –
"I don't make the rules, didn't I tell you that?" Bela responded.
"Yeah, you did."
"Good." She picked up the lantern without hesitation. "Now, let's get on with what we have to do. We might as well see what's on the other end of this door. We've made it this far, and I don't want to stall our progress with these conversations."
With her light being his guide, Ethan took hold of his gun and followed her along as she approached the next door. Eager to shut everything down, the blonde held the light in one hand as her other grasped the handle. Before he could give her the signal to turn it, her hand was already cranking the knob.
"Wait," he whispered. "Just, wait."
Her amber eyes shifted in his direction with a glimmer of impatience. "What?"
Ethan motioned for her to back away from the door, and believing that he was aware of something that she had not detected, she obeyed his direction. As soon as the two were a few feet back, his hand reached out and touched her shoulder.
Instinct called her away, and she jolted back as quickly as it landed on her. Her teeth bared with a fleeting frustration, Bela put a pause on her outburst as she glared at him, processing every little thing that she could, so that she could form the most educated opinion.
Ethan curled his remaining fingers together as his hand returned to his side. "Look, I'm not going to fight with you, alright? I'm not trying to accuse you of…damn it."
Exactly: don't sugar-coat it.
Her crimson lips split as she moved back to the table that they stood at. She placed the lantern back down and resumed her previous posture, only now, with a hefty mix of depression. Ethan joined her immediately, and it was then back to the fleeting glances and quiet breaths.
Am I just going to keep going back and forth with him on this? Why did I even bother coming back here? I don't want to talk. I just want to move on and go to the next room. We'd have this whole damn building cleared if I didn't choose to spend my time wasting my breath.
Ethan cradled his firearm in his hand; holding it by the barrel as he angled the buttstock along the floor. The awkwardness in the air was apparent to him, also. He had to push through it. "I've never killed anybody in my life – that wasn't also mutated into some kind of monster, or something like that."
With a closed mouth, her head bobbed with a hollow laugh. "Congratulations."
"I'd be lying if I told myself that I was a stranger to violence."
Violence is your second nature, Ethan. I guess you've finally realized that.
Bela turned her eyes to him. Her dark lashes fluttered with a ray of hope that the bridge between them would grow shorter. It had to. She knew that he did not want a killer in his life. Perhaps, he was trying to find some common ground between them.
Why did that matter?
The blonde gave a firm stare as she furrowed her brow and pressed her lips. They then split, only to close again.
What am I going to tell him?
"I'm trying, okay?" She spoke. "I'm not going to go through another shouting match with you. I don't want to, because we've already had this discussion. You and I are not meant to be partnered together…like this. Now, we can –"
"Bela, I understand that."
"No." She pinched her eyelids shut and rattled her hooded head around. "Can you just listen to me right now?"
Ethan withheld his voice. She sounded so much like Mia.
With the floor all hers, Bela recomposed herself and spoke to him again, "If you're going to ask questions about me or my family, you're going to get the same answer. Do you still smell the blood like I do?"
"Yeah." The truth hit him like a truck. "I still smell the blood."
Ethan knew that as much as he tried to humanize her, the horrors of her castle were also part of her doing. She was being gracious enough to admit to it, while at the same time, attempting to be anything close to 'normal' for him. Her motives were unclear as ever, but he felt like a fool for allowing his concerns about her to evolve to this point.
The answers were already there.
"So do I," she replied. "Vikcia, whatever she is, she doesn't seem too different than me. I've seen what she can do to someone. The only difference is that you can talk to me, and I will confer with you about how you feel about me slitting your throat. Now, I'd prefer to have you on my side during this nightmare. When we get back, I want nothing to do with you, for both our sakes. But, until then, you need to accept that I'm not the kind of person that you'll like. Spare me the breath of answering what you already know."
She talked like an exhausted person. Bela's emotions were often secure, but she could jump into the ocean of unpredictability when pushed to do so. This was a last attempt to steer away from what happened back in that other room. Ethan had seen the way she teared up when he yelled at her.
For someone as self-centered as she could be – some of those tears looked like they were made for him.
She would shake whenever he mentioned the pain of his daughter's fate lying in question. Other tears would drop when he insulted her morals, and the rest might as well have come from stress.
No monster had ever cried in front of him like she did.
Neither would they seek a resolution.
Ethan took one of his hands out from his coat pockets and hovered it around in between them. "You're comparing yourself to Vikcia? No. You're nothing like her. Vikcia wouldn't talk to me. None of those fucking Lycans spoke to me. Most of the monsters I have seen do not speak to me."
"Vikcia speaks," Bela stated. "Hardly, it seems, but she speaks. Do you really wish to use that as a rule of thumb for whether or not something is a monster? That's poor judgment, Ethan."
"Remember when you were in that room, crying to yourself? Did you hear the way you sounded when you lashed out at me back on those streets?"
Is he seriously –
"Just stop it, Ethan! Just give me one damn moment of peace, for once in my entire life!" Her fists clenched against the top of the table, but she did not plan to throw them at him. It was all desperate words from the heart, and they spoke louder than any action would.
Just as she was able to end the conversation right there, Ethan said something that froze her soul more than the snowy wind could ever, "You remind me of Mia. Mia wasn't a monster."
Wait…what did I just hear?
"Uhm," she stammered, stumbling on every response that she could think of. "What?"
Ethan hoisted some of the mental baggage that weighed him down more than any supplies he could have scavenged. If he wanted to reach her, he would have to level with her. Or, at the very least – she would be the one to level with him.
"Mia and I had our fights," he confessed. "Shit, some of them were worse off than others."
Ethan…
He continued explaining himself as she watched on, "Things would be rocky, from time to time. She worked for this trading company, and that would sometimes keep her away on business trips for two weeks, or sometimes longer. I married her after the fact, so I should have accepted the reality, but, I don't know. I guess I was expecting the 'commitment' aspect of marriage to change things."
Ethan stopped speaking for a second, his eyes shifting around before they finally came to a close. "In 2013, she told me that she had to go on another business trip. She was back for a week after being gone for three. Now, this one was going to last for a month, maybe a little longer. Long story short: it turned into one hell of a fight. I wanted her to be around more, to find more time for us. She defended her career, saying that she didn't want to lose everything she worked hard for and that things would one day change. This lasted for a few hours. We'd break away and go about our tasks, but the fighting would pop up again. It finally got to the point where she told me to get out, and I remember telling her, 'If I did, it wouldn't make a goddamn difference.' The fighting got so loud that she finally cracked. Mia was just sitting there, crying to herself as I walked out the door. I wanted to turn back and sort things out, but…I just had to leave. I was so angry."
Yeah, that's anger. It just makes us stop caring about what we have in front of us.
Ethan shuddered as he breathed in. He had something that he needed to get off his chest, and the woman next to him – a killer, made of flies – was the only person right now he could trust with it. Trust was a thin line in times like these, but it held itself together like it was made of steel. Bela had earned this form of trust by being honest with him. She deserved honesty in return, he thought.
"So," Ethan said, "I got in my car and drove off. I texted this girl that I worked with, Rachel, and I asked her if she wanted to meet up to grab some dinner. I didn't have romantic feelings toward her. Well, I guess I was beginning to like her a little. Anyway, we met up at a diner and ordered some food."
Bela tried her hardest to understand some of the things that he was telling her. As much as the verbiage of technology and modern life escaped her library of knowledge, the core purpose of this meeting was clear as day. "What happened then?"
"Nothing," he responded. "We talked for a bit and enjoyed our food. She went back home and so did I. Mia was already cooking food for us. Her eyes were still pink from all the crying. She asked me if I wanted to eat something, and I said no. I just went to bed, or, at least I tried. I just sat there in the dark, while she ate by herself in the living room. I think I could still hear some whimpering in between the sound of her spoon against her bowl. She ended up going on her trip, and I stayed by myself."
"What about that girl?"
"Rachel?" He raised and then lowered his shoulders, defeated by the mistakes of the past. "I never contacted her again. I just wanted to feel like someone cared, just for one night. I would never have kissed her or anything like that, but to have a conversation like the way Mia and I did when we first met…that was what I wanted. I never told my wife about that night, and I feel like total shit because she would never keep secrets from me. Now, she's dead, so who do I tell besides you? That's a pretty fucked up thing to do, isn't it?"
Bela shook her head, not knowing what to say. "You're asking the wrong person, Ethan." It was a cold response and a tough one to swallow, as well. As the man leaned back and stewed in his past dilemma, the blonde beside him began to consider that something could be done to at least make him feel a little bit better about the choices that he made.
"I once read a book on philosophy, years ago," she stated. "I was bored, and Daniela wouldn't stop pestering me about the meanings of her books. It made me curious, so I decided to look into people's ways of thinking. Interestingly enough: a lot of what I read was about regret. You feel regret for what you did, right?"
"Mhmm, a hell of a lot," he replied, visibly agitated at himself.
"Think of regret as a series of thresholds, okay?"
"Okay."
Bela involuntarily broke a smile as she began to recite some of her favorite passages from the book. It enthused her to discuss this with him – even more so that he was actively listening. "Once you cross a threshold, you can never go back. You can only cross greater thresholds. You climb the ladder until you go as high as you can go. Regret is sowed the moment you cross the first threshold, but if you stop there, you don't solve the problem. It doesn't get better. But, you stop it from getting worse. Imagine if you kissed her."
Ethan nodded. "Good point. That would have been way worse. It was the principle of why I was there, but my actions, I suppose, didn't cross that kind of line. I still crossed a line, though, and a big one. But…thank you. It's all in the past, and it's done now. Your book taught you well."
She giggled a bit to lighten the mood. "I can rest easy knowing that it was money well spent."
"You must have a lot of it," he replied.
"Our wealth doesn't always get me what I want."
Ethan jokingly scoffed. "Rich girl blues."
"Shut up." Her giggling continued – this time, bringing out a chuckle from him, too.
It was a nice little moment they shared, away from the troubles of everything around them. Ethan's story about the fight with Mia, and his subsequent actions after, would not escape the blonde's mind, however. It was a complex explanation of his life, and it shed a great deal of light on a man who days ago, was nothing more than a meal awaiting death. The fact that he opted to tell her any of this at all was mind-boggling. What made her so deserving, she wondered?
After their laughter died down, Bela cleared her throat and turned her amber eyes toward him. "Can I ask: why did you tell me that?"
Ethan's chest rose and stayed there for a spell. "Well…" The air rushed out of his lungs. "Leaving you in that room, crying like that, it just reminded me of that night. I didn't know what was going to be on the other side of that door. All I knew was that leaving you alone wasn't going to make anything better. I guess I can apply that shitty night to the rest of my life from now on. If I get a second or two to think about the negatives, then maybe I can avoid them."
"Huh." Bela nodded, considering how he had allowed her to hold such a mantle in that regard. Maybe, she thought, she was overthinking it. Couples fight. So did strangers. Enemies fought the most.
It begged the question: What were they?
Were they friends now? She didn't know for sure. She was also too afraid to ask.
Against the backdrop of being given such disclosure, Bela found another odd feeling brewing inside her. Whatever it was, it reminded her of the lie that she had told the man regarding his daughter. Lies came in many forms, it seemed. Ethan lied to Mia about what he did, simply by just not telling her. It had to have been eating at his heart.
He stepped away from the table. "You can also say that I wanted you to know that you're not the only person in this room who has done something that another would consider 'bad.' So, who am I to judge?"
Bela kept her expression neutral. His words were comforting, but the foundation of them didn't sit right with her. "You're going to equate eating with a different woman as the same thing as killing one?"
"No." He shook his head, understanding where she was coming from. "I'm not. I felt like a piece of shit for a long time because of that. I'm not going to try and make you feel bad, either. Ugh, damn, none of this makes sense." He shuffled his feet. "I'm just happy that you and I are talking more. The more I hear from you, the less I see you as that evil woman from before."
"Is that so?" Bela twiddled her thumbs as she stood against the desk. Her eyes sheepishly turned away from him, and if he had kept his gaze on her, he would have seen the quick grin that her mouth pulled into. It was gone in a second, but the blonde found solace in the idea that she wasn't a soulless witch to him anymore. Just as she had started to find him as more of a person than prey, it was good to know that the same applied to her.
"Yeah," he replied. "I don't want to be your enemy, Bela. We have an entire city that wants to kill us. Let's not kill each other."
Yeah, let's not.
"You must have won your wife over with your words."
He chuckled a bit. "And a fancy dinner."
She nodded with a faint smile. "Fancy dinners are nice…"
Spurred by the moment, and her guilt over her previous lie, Bela decided that she wanted to keep up on this track record of honesty that the two of them were building. If he could open up to her in such a way about things that bothered him, then perhaps, she could do the same.
"Hey, if you got a minute, I wanted to ask you about something going on in my life," she stated.
Ethan was already on board. With a swift nod of his head, he responded with an eager breath, "Yeah, sure!"
Okay…I can do this…
"Well, when I was telling you about my sisters and I arguing, I wasn't being completely upfront. It's not really about me, or, I don't think it is…"
"What happened?" Ethan asked.
Bela recomposed herself. She straightened out her body, understanding that she was about to do something that she had never done before. Opening up about these kinds of things was difficult. Up until now, she figured that she would've gotten by just fine on her own.
She was a smart woman, she believed. She could eventually figure it out, hopefully. However, her faith in such a result had waned throughout the last couple of days in her world. Serpenmoor just accelerated the inevitable, and now, she found herself willing to ask an outside source for assistance.
It's just ironic that she now looked to Ethan – of all people – to give her an opinion.
"Cassandra had been very angry, more so than usual," Bela stated, recalling the recent string of conflicts that the brunette had been getting into with her siblings. "The winter usually is the worst time of year for her. But, I don't know what happened. This winter, she just got worse."
"So, this was another fight that you and her had?"
"No." She shot down that idea. The weight of the truth loomed in her chest. This wasn't something that she had planned on talking about. "My youngest sister, Daniela, had broken a trophy of hers by accident. Cassandra found out and started shouting at her. Nothing unusual, for her. Later on, mother paired them together to clean up the library. I was busy ensuring that our dinner was prepared, and when we were finally called down to eat, I saw Daniela just looking so defeated. We all sit and Cassandra is gleefully eating, while my other sister is just sitting there. I could sense that Daniela was being overly cautious around her."
Ethan appeared concerned, despite himself never believing that he would have given a single damn about any Dimitrescu family drama. But, with Bela now showing a lighter, more serious side of herself, it was something worth caring about. "What did she do? Did she just continue yelling at her in there or did she –"
"I think she hit her," Bela admitted. "Yeah, she had to have. Daniela asked to be excused from dinner, which she never did. Cassandra just laughed and started eating Daniela's food. I had a hunch at the time, and I couldn't stand how Cassandra was acting, so I left too. I tracked Daniela down, but all she wanted to do was go back to the library. I could tell how depressed she was, and I knew Cassandra had to have done something bad. I spent the next few days trying to talk to my sister, but she never confessed to it. The last time we spoke, it was another, terrible fight, and that's it. Now, I'm here."
The blonde sighed as she lowered her shoulders in defeat. "I just don't know how things got to that point. I feel like it's my fault, like I didn't do enough for both of them. I'm the oldest, so I bear the burden of the castle." She rolled her lips and repressed a tear that wanted to come out. "Maybe, I'm just not a good sister. How do I even help her?"
"Well, shit…" Ethan had not expected her to say that. It only furthered his opinion that she was more human than anything else. Even though she was a killer composed of flies, who slaughtered people for their blood, she was also a young woman still trying to find her place in life. She held onto her insecurities, just as much as she cradled her values.
That was Bela Dimitrescu.
The eldest daughter – and his best ally.
"Yep…" She somberly agreed.
"I can't say for sure why your sister may have done that," Ethan told her. "You say that she's been like this for a while? Maybe, she isn't happy with her life? There has to be some underlying reason. One of my old coworkers had a brother who repressed a ton of shit. He ended up turning to drugs and if I remember right, he went to jail. He gets out and enters a treatment program. Turns out, a relative of theirs had been molesting him when he was a child. Kept it to himself all those years and it finally caught up with him."
He reached over to the lantern and rotated it around for no other reason than to occupy his nerves. He saw her hand reaching for it too, only to pull back when she noticed that he was already there.
Mutual stress mechanisms, it seemed.
Ethan ended with his best answer, "There must be a reason why your sister was so angry. If she's not talking about it, she's definitely keeping it in. The fighting might just be a reaction. You said a broken hunting trophy spurred all that?"
"Apparently…" Bela shook her head. "But, she has many. You're right: It has to be about more than just that."
"When you get back home, talk to her. Try to fish out whatever it is that's causing it."
I've tried that before, Ethan. You have no idea how much I begged my sister to just tell me what was going on with her. Ugh, this isn't your fault. I really should have paid more attention to her. I hope she's okay, wherever she is."
"I'm going to have to," Bela said as she pushed herself away from the desk. "I've got a lot of things to figure out when I get home. But, I'll have to put them aside for now. Maybe, we both should."
"I think so." Ethan couldn't just let his daughter go, but, Bela had a point. Focusing on the past was not going to change what happened in this new world. Their little talk had helped soothe some old wounds, and he hoped that would carry him forward for a while longer.
As he watched the blonde pick up her sickle and straighten out her robes, he tried to think back to the first time he saw her – sadistic and vile.
Now, she didn't look anything like that woman, despite wearing the same garments. She might as well have just dressed up for the occasion, as she seemed like any other human. He liked that.
"Thanks for…listening to me," she told him. "And, for what you told me…good luck. I don't know if that's the right thing to tell you, but I wish you good luck. Our problems are ours and ours alone."
"No, you're right," he said, standing up as well and taking hold of his gun. "Luck is all I'll ask for. It's worth more than cash right now."
"Rich girl blues?" She repeated his earlier quip at her livelihood.
"Better than Serpenmoor shadows," he joked. It earned a laugh out of her.
"I'll take my rich girl blues, then." A wide, calm smile spread across her cheeks. She cast her delighted, curled gleam at him, and the two allowed each other's eyes to lock during the amusement. It was an enjoyable moment for Bela. In that brief period, when she stared at him, she didn't have a single care left in the world.
Neither of the two saw how their short, quiet laughter made them feel. It was all in good fun, and fun did not vet those who participated. Ethan chose to let his walls crumble for just a bit, and once the woman beside him did the same, everything that followed just felt natural.
The one thing that really stuck out about Bela was that smile of hers. It truly was a beautiful one – and it reminded him of Mia's.
On the other end of the door, a quick dash of footsteps was heard nearby. Suddenly, whatever had been running began to scratch at the wood barrier between the two rooms. Bela and Ethan jolted back but calmed themselves once they determined that the mass of the creature on the other end was not going to allow it to break through.
It sounded small, yet nimble. The scratching…Ethan had heard a rhythm like that before. It was so fast and frantic, yet, deliberate.
The man lowered his gun. "Is that a…"
A series of barks broke out. Aggression was the driving force of its cry. It had to have been a dog. While a hound was nothing compared to the flesh-eating Lycans that roamed the valley of Bela's village, Ethan recognized that even a simple dog could still be a threat. He loved the animals with all his heart, and to think about having to shoot one was something that he did not want to do.
Then he heard the barks die down into a growl, then a snarl. Something began to gurgle behind the dog's throat. Its breaths were heavier than a normal animal its size. Ethan listened to the patterns of its footsteps again. It sounded like all four paws were on the floor – but something was still scratching at the door.
The gurgling bellowed into a hiss. Even the animals weren't safe from infection in this world.
"Never mind," Ethan decided.
Bela took up her sickle, waving it by her side as she faced the door with him. She held onto the content feeling that he had left her with. The smile on her face was survived by the tiniest curve at the corners of her dark lips. "Talking was fun. Back to it, then?"
He re-shouldered the twin-barreled weapon, mentally readying himself for the next fight that was about to go down. "Back to it."
Hopefully, this fight doesn't take too long. I want to talk to you some more.
Ethan gestured toward the door. "You got it?" The blonde followed suit, taking hold of the knob and preparing to turn it. The moment it opened, whatever was on the other end would be met with the full force of the man's firearm.
Bela couldn't help but release a breath of confidence.
Look at him.
"After you," she said as she threw the door open.
NOTES:
Inching closer toward the inevitable.
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Bela's feelings are growing further as she begins to open up to what she doesn't know she wants. I wanted more dialogue between these characters, besides arguments. Nineteen chapters in and it's a slow burn, but every flame is worth the wait.
I wanted to delve deeper into Ethan's mind. Is he oblivious to some serious things? Yeah, I think so. But, I wanted to make him as human as possible. From his rageful tension regarding Rose, to the regrets of a nearly decade-old choice, he is being just as fleshed out as Bela.
Bela has her own set of problems, and Fragmented Flies readers will already know what's up with the Cass/Dani incident. Bela is trying to mend a broken sisterhood, but she knows she is partially to blame. Cassandra may have come off as unlikable, but she is also feeling depressed and ostracized, afraid to admit to her mistakes because it would validate the self-loathing she feels.
This series is about the viewpoints of three sisters with a shattered (fragmented?) existence, bound together in a mixture of fantasy, love, horror, and death. Bela and Ethan are at the forefront of an unconventional and unpredictable romance, facing the darkness of their past and each other.
Will they make it back to their world, or will their lives end in this one?
Wherever they go – they will never be the same again.
So, what to expect in the next chapter? An infected dog.
Okay, maybe a little more than just that. Expect another chaotic fight, involving a new take on RE dog horror (no Dobermans, sadly). A little more Bela/Ethan bonding, perhaps? What is Kyia doing, anyway? We'll find out. A little more lore, and some direction. Trust me, something pretty significant is well on its way.
I'm expecting this story to be about 50 chapters long, so we'll be nearing the halfway point soon. Plenty more Bela/Ethan, Kyia/Ethan? (Uh oh!), new horrors, Vikcia, and some emotionally dark and intense chapters ahead!
Hope you're all hyped, because the next set of chapters comes out on the 23rd. Oh, that's right! A double release!
Follow this story on Archive of Our Own to check out the newest artwork released, depicting Bela and Ethan in their moment of happiness together!
I just wanted to say that I deeply appreciate all of you and the immense support that this story has received since its launch! You keep me going every time I turn on my computer or open up my sketchbook. I've met so many awesome people who enjoy this work, and as an aspiring author, I couldn't be happier with the feedback. Seriously, thank you so much! I wish you all a great weekend and hope you stay safe out there!
Can't wait to see you all again soon! 😊