Empire of Vampires ✔️

Chapter Sixteen

Marie was, in fact, telling her brother to calm down.

He had shown up at her dorm at the crack of dawn and dragged her to the empty common room, just to go on and on about Andrew.

'Didn't you get any rest last night? You look terrible,' she said, eyeing his wild hair and jittery hands.

'REST?! How could I rest?' he demanded, 'For one, I couldn't stay in the dorm because Andrew is actually terrified of me now, and for another, I had to clean up the crime scene.' He glared at her for this was something that she never helped with.

She rolled her eyes. 'It's not such a big deal, I'm sure he's fine.'

'He's not fine!'

'It's not like you threatened to suck him dry, did you?' She narrowed her eyes at him and then smirked irritatingly. 'Haha that came out wrong, I meant suck up all his blood.'

'I know what you meant,' James snapped, not in the mood to be annoyed by his tiresome sister, 'And no, of course I didn't threaten to kill him. In fact, I specified that I wouldn't.'

'You specified? What exactly did you say?'

'I said, "I'm not planning to kill you, you know," and then I said that there's nothing to be afraid of,' James repeated.

'Jeez James, that's hella creepy. No wonder he's scared of you now.'

'What? Why?'

'What do you mean "why"? What's wrong with you?' She flicked him hard on the forehead but he didn't even feel it. 'What did he even reply to that?'

'He said "uhh, thank you."'

'Wow.'

James just stared at her.

'You know you're dumb right?' she asked, 'I don't think someone absolutely terrified of you would just say "thanks" when you creepily informed them that you're not "planning" to kill them.'

'I'm sure he was just not in his right mind when he said that,' James replied, feeling a bit miffed.

James realized that Andrew had sort of sounded like he was kidding when he'd said thanks but James had been too upset at the time to realize it; and then he had apparently acted creepily, according to his sister.

'Anyway, I could see the fear etched on his face,' he added miserably, 'It was me that he was afraid of. I must have looked like a horrific monster.'

'I think you just looked creepy,'

'You're so unhelpful.' He glared at her.

'It's just that your face looks creepy sometimes,' she explained, 'It's not your fault. But you do get really intense when you're upset about something, I'm quite sure he misinterpreted it as anger.'

'I was only angry at myself,' James mumbled, feeling guilty that he had frightened Andrew with his volatile emotions instead of just talking it out like how his sister would've done.

'Come on,' Marie said, getting up and dragging him to his feet, 'Let's just go talk to him.'

'I think we should just give it a little time,' James balked.

'Absolutely not,' Marie said sternly, 'We need to go put his mind at ease after you terrorized the poor boy-

'I didn't mean to,' James groaned, allowing her to drag him back to the dorm that he'd been avoiding. She barged in in her usual manner without bothering to knock.

The room was bare.

James blinked to clear his suddenly foggy mind. Andrew's posters still covered the walls from ceiling to floor. His clothes were still piled on his bed and stuffed in half open drawers, in a way that had extremely agitated James earlier, but he realized he had somewhat grown used to them. His jacket was thrown untidily over the chair and his bag was in it's usual place- left open on the ground.

But Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

'He ran away,' James said faintly. His head felt dizzy and his stomach felt sick.

'He's just not in the room right now, it doesn't mean he ran away,' Marie pointed out vexatiously.

'Of course he ran away! How could he stay?' James paced around his terribly empty room. 'It's too dangerous for him here, he had to leave,' the vampyre added darkly.

'Do you think he'll tell anyone... about us?' Marie ventured, a hint of worry now adorning her usually carefree features.

James made no reply, having moved to the window to glare off the face of the cliff.

'Shouldn't we go look for him?'

'He's better off without us, wherever he is,' James replied shortly.

'But shouldn't we... you know, silence hi-

'What the hell is wrong with you?' James interrupted, quickly spinning around to fix a deathly glare upon his murderous sister.

'It was just a suggestion.' Marie quirked an eyebrow, watching her brother's reaction with utmost nonchalance.

'You suggest that we hunt him down and murder him?' James demanded hotly.

'Calm down, I was just kidding.'

'That's NOT funny.'

She grinned suddenly. 'But don't you want to go chasing after him to protect him from the lily killer?'

James face paled to a deathly white as he remembered the lilies that had appeared on their windowsill. Could it really be a coincidence?

'Just think about it James,' Marie egged on, 'Andrew is out there somewhere, alone and scared- with a murderer on the loose!'

'We're the ones he's scared of,' James pointed out miserably, 'And he's right to be- after you suggested we off him...' he trailed off.

'Oh come on, you know I was kidding,' his sister said breezily, 'We only kill bad people, James.'

'And who are we to decide who lives and who dies?'

It was the question that haunted him.

'You think we're worse than the murderers we kill?' Marie shot back, 'We do it to protect.'

'We do it to feed,' James corrected her, 'We're not saviours.'

Marie sniffed in distaste. 'Well, I, for one, would hunt down and kill murderers, even if I were an eternal and didn't need to feed-

'Like the lily killer?'

'It's not the same, those are innocent people, James! Do you really want to waste more time arguing about this when Andrew's- Oh wait, he's not gone; ha shoes are right there.' She pointed at a pair of sneakers placed haphazardly on either side of the room. The used socks were still stuffed inside.

James annoyedly shook out the socks into the laundry basket and then placed the shoes neatly side by side. He tried to placate himself with the fact that at least the dirty clothes were in the basket where they belonged.

Marie rolled her eyes at her neat-freak of a brother and sailed out of the room.