The Vampire's Rival

When the past is just a chaos of entropy

"I've missed you at our pool these last couple of nights," I said, walking up to Jamila. "It's a pain to clean blood and mud from a white T-shirt in a rainforest. How the hell do you do it?"

Jamila chuckled. "Lye. I make it using the campfire ash and soak the shirt in it for a few hours."

It was after breakfast and Jamila was relaxing against a tree with a cup of something warm. She usually spent all breakfast time making sure everyone else was fed and then she'd take a few minutes alone afterwards to have her own a little bit away from camp. I joined her, sitting up against the buttress roots of a large strangler fig.

"I should have known you were cheating! I rubbed my knuckles raw, and now my shirt has new blood stains," I said, sullenly.

Jamila spat out her tea and laughed at me.

"I've missed that laugh too, even though this one is at my expense," I said with a smile. "And you haven't needed our sessions lately. Having Hadley back... it's working for you. You must be over the moon about it."

She didn't immediately respond.

"Yeah," she finally said, her smile turning sad. "I guess."

"You guess?"

"I mean... I'm glad she's awake," Jamila said, absently circling a finger around the rim of her cup. "But... she's different, you know?"

I didn't know. She hadn't given me the time of day.

"In what way?" I asked.

"She told me she loved me."

"That's great!"

"No, it isn't. Her eyes were dead when she said the words. She didn't really mean them. I wish she hadn't said anything."

I didn't know what to say to that.

Jamila turned to face me. "Do you think you can do that thing you do to my mind to hers? Figure out what's wrong? Fix her?"

I sighed. I'd thought about reaching into Hadley's mind more times than I could count.

"Not without her agreeing to it, like you did." I replied. I turned my gaze to a line of ants marching across the forest floor. "But that can't happen if she won't say a single word to me."

Someone walked over to where we were.

"There you are, Jay!" Crystal said. "Hadley was looking for you. For everyone. She's making some kind of announcement."

We followed her back to camp.

"My men and I aren't going anywhere with you, Hadley," Teroi was responding to something Hadley had said.

Hadley's face was blank, but the tension between the two lovers was palpable.

"This is the only way, Teroi," Hadley calmly said. "Unless you want to face the monsters in these woods on your own, the Wildlings are our best bet."

Ah. Hadley had finally made her move. She'd decided that we were leaving the hot springs to keep searching for the Wildlings. It wasn't surprising. We were all pretty much just waiting for her to tell us when and where. Why was Teroi fighting it? What alternative was there? Lujeo's Enclave was under Sleritu's rule now, which made it the last place for the humans to try and go back to, and Trisca's Enclave would be the same soon. They had no choice but to find the Wildlings. They couldn't stay here forever. There was evil in these forests. It had found them once, as Mrs. Smith, it would find them again, probably as something much worse.

"If there are monsters out here," Teroi said, tersely. "They're not the only ones."

He pinned his gaze on me and I stared right back, making sure my expression gave him no reason to recant his words.