Bloody roses

14: Raincloud

Lacrimă’s body was moving on its own. Her feet were tapping the ground rapidly, and her hand couldn’t stop twirling a strain of hair. But her stomach was the worst. Had she swallowed butterflies, or why was there this feeling of something fluttering? Adding to her misery, she could not control this feeling. It just came whenever she… thought of Faust. His piercing poison eyes, his glasses, his ear piercing shining in the moonlight, his midnight black hair… 

Why was she feeling this way? How could she stop acting so immature?

Maybe Vlad knew.

..”You can do better than Faust”

Okay? What on earth did he mean? Was it because Faust was only a lesser vampire? Her mind remained filled to the brim with unanswered questions.

The next morning can only be described as pure chaos. Charles overslept. Therefore, Vlad was still asleep, Faust never went to bed, there was no breakfast, and Lacrimă had to feed the pets. That moment, she finally noticed how much she and the others depended on Charles. He did everything for them, but his job in town had been tearing on his energy earlier. A lot of his patients had come down with the new illness, and poor Charles was but a bundle of nerves. His eyes mirrored concern, his smile seemed forced, his clothes were dishevelled, and he was trembling anytime he went to town. 

Lacrimă was sitting close to a window, playing the piano. The music had been giving her inner peace. Her mind could voyage through the scales, make her fingers dance over the keys, and explore the world she imagined, not held back by the castle walls. The vampiress had long forgotten time, playing for hours and hours. To an extent, even Marshmallow couldn’t hear her music anymore. She thought of everything that had happened recently. Her father’s death, the hunters, the woman that had called her a monster, Aimé, Charles' smile, Vlad’s hugs, Faust’s non-hateful looks. Still, one phrase stuck in her head. When Vlad had called her the bacterium responsible for putting them in danger. Humanity was good, until they got sick.. from her. Was she responsible for everything that had happened? Was she the bacterium causing the sickness that caused Faust and Charles to have so much pain? 

The full moon shone brightly over the castle. Lacrimă’s fingers froze. He had come for her, finally. Her eyes raised to the moon, the same moon that had witnessed her father’s death, the moon that had guided her to Paris. The moon was almost always present, watching her. Like her father did, when she was back in the cottage. If she focused, she could see a man. On the moon, who had been her only friend for a long time. A man in her sacred place. There was only one answer. Mihnea had seen her slack off and become weak. Now, it was time for her punishment. The girl’s back burned already like under a whip, her throat was parched as if she had been starved, and her body was motionless like it was restrained. All noise around her bled out like the hunters had, leaving only her heart bumping painfully fast. Fast, like it was running, fleeing from her father. But he had always caught up to her, and this time, he would, too. She had lost the race before taking the first step. 

That position was what Charles found her in, having returned from a stressful night. He had red eyes from crying about one of his patients. She had trusted him, trusted in his abilities as a doctor. And he had failed. Failed again, not even being able to apologise to her now lifeless body. The former executor couldn’t protect anyone, could he? Maybe that was just his destiny… 

When he saw Lacrimă in such a vulnerable state, he felt even more helpless. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he not touch her, or hug her, or…

Charles was clueless, so he just let his instincts take over, throwing himself in Lacrimă’s arms. She didn’t run from him like the people of Paris had. She stayed, maybe due to her comatose-like state, but Charles didn’t care. After all, he deserved this, right? After all he did, for everyone, he deserved a small break.

Lacrimă felt a small ball of warmth free her from the nightmare, and as she finally opened her tired eyes, she found the little ball of sunshine personified as Charles curled up in her lap, sleeping. She didn’t know why, but she started smiling. That Charles trusted her that much.. after all she had done, she didn’t deserve it, not at all, but she greedily took it. Her arms wrapped tightly around Charles, noticing the still visible tears on his face, she felt something inside her chest rip apart. The always-cheerful Charles had cried? Was she really that bad that she could make him cry? 

Ironic, as life is, Faust found Lacrimă just in that position, clutching Charles, sleeping with a tearstained face. It threatened to break the iron cage he locked his heart in, deeming it indestructible. What was going on? Love, that was something purely chemical, something he had always seen himself above. But looking at the vulnerable figure of Lacrimă clutching the even more vulnerable form of Charles.. that was simply too much. The cage cracked, tore, and broke. A chemical reaction, that it was, but strong as the one to create life itself.

And so, Faust missed another opportunity to study a pureblood’s bone structure, heading to his lab to pick up his abandoned research on Rouge.