The Realm of Truth (Book 1) [In the process of editing]

Chapter 24: Blood for Blood

(Damien's POV)~

I stayed in the truck and waited for what felt like forever. Nothing happened in the next 10 minutes or so and I was just wondering what was taking those two so long. I turned off the radio as well. Nothing interesting was happening on the news either to listen to. Boring.

I sighed, and opened my compartment by the passenger side. There, I noticed a small picture of me and Odette from a year ago hanging from a couple of paperwork inside. It was on my birthday. Odette tried to smash a piece of cake into my face and I tried to back off from her. We had the camera set to take the photo automatically after 5 seconds so neither of us paid attention.

It was those memories I will cherish. Those days were peaceful, if anything else. Odette was still getting used to living with me and I was still getting used to her secret. I would remember Odette asking me about my family on my birthday, but my parents were dead. Both died from a car crash.

I was the only one who survived.

She would respond by saying, "You know you're not completely alone, right? We're both in the same boat. You have me. Im your only family, and we have to stick together."

I tilted my head back against my headrest and smirked. Once I put the picture back, I jumped. I heard something being loaded in the back of my truck. I watched a tarp being pulled over and I looked to see that Odette and Esme finally came back.

Odette climbed in the front and I looked at her worried. She had blood splattered over her clothes and on her arms. Through the rear view mirror, Esme looked like she went through the same thing.

"What the heck did you do?" I asked.

"Go, go, go." Odette said quickly, and I ignited the engine. I started making my way out of the lot and we headed back downtown. I hit a bump on the road and heard something thud in the back of my truck.

I didn't ask questions. It took about another half an hour back. When we arrived at the Hawthorne hotel, we parked in the lot by the kitchen area.

"Damien, you can come with us now. Help us load the bags in." Odette said.

"Bags?" I pulled the tarp away from the truck. It was evening now and the sun was starting to set. "You guys stole blood bags from the drawing lab?"

"Stealing is a strong word." Esme said. "Why don't we say, they...lent it to us." Her and Odette exchanged looks and smiled.

"You convinced them to give it to you willingly?"

"Convinced them...killed them." She said, shrugging, and my mouth gaped open. "Used a little bit of my power to make sure they didn't see Odette coming by inflicting pain on them."

"You realize that's wrong and illegal right?" I said slowly, in case they didn't catch on.

Odette grabbed a full sack of blood bags from the back of the truck and hauled it over to Ambrosius. "Well done," he said.

"There's plenty more where that came from, uncle." Odette said. "And we have some bodies in the truck that need to be...disposed of. They tried to get in mine and Esme's way."

"Excellent, my pupil." He sounded delighted and I helped grabbed another sack of blood bags to him. "Damien, would you grab one of the match lighters in the kitchen? It's already there on the counter next to the fridge."

I nodded and walked over to where I needed to go and came back out and a pile of bodies were already waiting for me to incinerate them. I lit the match and I stared at the pile of bodies. I silently said a prayer, even though I'm not religious, I wanted to be respectful.

We all ended up walking away after that was taken care of and at the end of the night, Ambrosius made sure we had a room for the night at the hotel. I've been starving, so we ordered room service.

~~~

"What was that about?" I asked Odette when we settled down in the bedroom. "You acted like you were a different person."

"I told you," she said, walking out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her. "We just needed to do some errands. Hey, you want do a haunted tour tonight?"

"Those weren't errands, Odette." I said and she sighed, lying down on the bed next to mine. We had two single beds for the both of us, which I didn't see the reason why. She doesn't need sleep.

"Relax. We got the job done. It was as easy as pie."

"Okay..." I said slowly. "But that didn't tell me anything about what you guys did."

Odette looked at me and then she went to the bathroom to change. "Okay. So Esme already told you part of it. Yes, we killed the workers there. I had Esme inflict the pain on them so they wouldn't see me. I needed a distraction. Others could probably hear the screaming, but every time we had somebody walk in, I just took them out, too."

"Do you hear yourself talking?" I asked, and she gave out an aggravated sigh. "Did the blood get to your head?" I walked over to the bathroom but she shut the door on me. I placed my hands on the door. "Listen, I know you don't want to hear it, or admit it, but I love you, Odette. I don't want you turning into some monster I'm unfamiliar with."

The door was thrown open. "No." She said, her voice powerful enough to make me back off. "Do you see what's happening? I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm saving my family, they're down on supplies and they're low in numbers. You can't tell me to not help them and turn into some monster that I already am. Sophie showed me that I need to embrace who I am, and look at what's happening, Damien. I am doing that and I'm with a family of vampires that can help me, too. I'm not alone anymore, Damien. I have a family."

I backed off and held up my hands in defense. "I'm not saying you can't help them. I just think that it's wrong to help them this way."

"Haunted tour or not?" Odette asked. She pulled her black hair up in a ponytail.

I hesitated in answering her, and I nodded. "Haunted tour it is."