For Centuries - Season 3 [Completed]

Episode 13

"The Apologist", R.E.M.

I could not sleep all night. I sat on the couch, waiting for Aidan to come back. Late in the morning, I finally heard the key in the door. Aidan entered and sat next to me. He seemed tired.

"Tell me everything," I said.

"Stanislas, my sire, is in town." I waited for him to continue. "He's a very violent vampire. He wants power more than anything. When he changed me, I became one of his favorites. We were all high on his blood and, as a consequence, under his influence. But to be honest, it was not just that. He was strong, charismatic, intelligent and with a degree of arrogance that only his beauty could match."

"You were in love with him?"

"Love isn't the right word. It was purely toxic, an obsession. One day though, he decided he had enough of me. He just banned me from the group of his followers. My entire world shattered." Aidan sighed and turned his head away from me. "I don't know which time was darker, with him or without him. You have to understand, I didn't know how to be a vampire by myself. Stanislas was all I knew. I missed him. I was scared, angry, alone and disoriented. The only thing I had left was the euphoria of blood. And I fell into a spiral of violence."

"Is this when you encountered James' family?" I asked carefully.

"Yes." I took his hand. He kept on: "Stanislas crossed my path a few times since then but he ignored me. Now he's here, and for whatever reason, he decided he was interested in me again."

"So you went to see him last night?"

"Yes. Nawel brought me a ring with his sigil. It was an offer to be his again. He probably learned my life had changed and he just wanted to reassert his power over me."

"Why did you went and see him then?"

"Because he is unpredictable and dangerous and I couldn't let that unanswered. I knew he would not hurt me though. It's all a game for him."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I didn't belong to him anymore. He laughed. He can't imagine that I'm not going back to him if I have the chance. He told me he could see into me, the real me. He told me I needed him."

"It did not get to you, right? You know you are not the same person as you were."

"No, I know." He hesitated and after a silence he opened his hand showing a small bottle filled with blood. "But he gave me that. You have to get rid of it because I'm not sure I can."

I took Stanislas' blood to the kitchen right away, emptied the bottle in the sink and destroyed it. Then I went back to Aidan in the living room and I put my hand on his arm.

Aidan continued: "He said he will be leaving town soon, and that I could join him."

"Do we have to worry?"

"I don't think so. You don't understand, he doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about anything. It was just yesterday's entertainment for him. And tomorrow he's going to have something else in his mind, and then he'll be gone, and he'll forget all about me again."

"If you say so."

But I was not entirely convinced.