My Vindicators

Chapter 13-Vengeance

"After we killed her, we began a crusade to find others like ourselves and make sure that they were not harming children. It has been a long bloody road to get here, but we have built an empire and a business. We help run foster parent agencies and ensure the children are cared for properly. The foster agency that was over you and Beth has been taken care of. It turns out that they knew the homes they were placing children in were bad, but the foster parents were giving them a kickback for it, and they looked the other way." Yoongi says, shaking his head.

"We run several businesses, and we have employees whose sole purpose is to find vampires that are not following the rules," Jin explains.

"Occasionally, we deal with the odd human that is unfortunate to land on our radar," Tae says, winking at me.

Joon comes and kneels in front of me. "Having said all of this, please do not put us on a pedestal. Make no mistake, Amy, we are not claiming to be good people. We have killed innocent people, although it has been a long time. That was more so when we were learning to control our instincts. We have made bad decisions and done horrible things. Sometimes our emotions or instincts can still get the best of us." He side-eyes Jungkook, who looks down at his feet. "We are not good people, and perhaps we should have had this talk before we turned you, but what's done is done." He takes a deep breath and looks me in the eyes. "I cannot promise you that we will never do bad things again." He chuckles lightly. "We were human, after all. But if you are going to be a part of our lives, that means that you will be a part of this aspect as well. I am not going to sit here and tell you what you can and can't do. I ask that you keep an open mind and let us show what it takes to stay on top and that you join us there."

"What Joon is trying to say, sweetheart, is that we cannot promise you to always be the good guys. But we can promise to love and protect you with every fiber of our being. We promise to treat you like the queen that you are and make sure that everyone knows to treat you the same. No one will ever hurt you again, and you will never want for anything, material or in any other way." Jimin says, looking at me fondly.

I look around the room at each of my guys, no, my kings. I have had to do some shady stuff to keep Beth and me safe over the years. I have also seen the worst of humanity. Adults who are supposed to be protecting kids in their care, abusing and raping them, taking advantage of them in any way. I know that I should be scared or disgusted at his confession, but I find myself oddly at ease and empowered. I will never be that helpless little girl again, and maybe I can enact some revenge of my own. I must say I am maybe even a little turned on at the thought that I have seven vampire kings willingly pledging themselves to me, some on bent knees.

"Please say something, baby. What are you thinking?" Hobi states nervously.

"I have had to make decisions and do things in my life that I am not proud of to eat and keep me and Beth safe. No one can tell me that I did wrong because they were not in my situation." I stop and look around the room, making sure to make eye contact with everyone. "Who am I to judge you for what you have had to endure to survive?"

It is as if the entire room was holding their breath and just breathed out collectively. Joon takes my hands in his and kisses the backs of them.

"I know that there may come a time when we do something you may not agree with or not like. All I ask of you is that you communicate with us. I can imagine that in your life, it has been easier to run away or avoid a topic, but that will do nothing but cause a rift between us all."

I nod at him. "Then I want to ask something too. I have lived my entire life in the dark. I don't like secrets. So I ask that there be no secrets in this house. I don't care what anyone fears the consequences are, no lies and no secrets."

Everyone agrees around the room, and then suddenly, there is a dogpile on the couch with me at the bottom. Each one trying to make some sort of contact with me. I can't help but giggle. As they begin to go back to their seats, I seek the courage I need to ask my next question.

"I do have something else I would like to say, or rather ask." I stop and take a deep breath after looking around and seeing that I have their full attention. "I want to clean up the leftovers of the foster care agency. I want to go and find everyone that ever put me in a situation where I had to earn my keep."

Jin looks at me and tilts his head. "What do you mean, earn?"

I look at Jungkook, and he is livid, knowing what I am about to reveal. I look down at my hands. "When I was around 11, I went to this foster home. It was so nice. The nicest I had ever seen. I was the only girl. There were 2 other foster kids. One was a baby, and the other was a boy around my age. He never spoke and would never make eye contact, but I thought that maybe it was his personality or just his life. I mean being a foster kid is rough. I was there for about a week and thought I had hit the jackpot. We ate at the table as a family for three meals a day. I always had clean clothes. They were still hand-me-downs, but they might as well have been new. We could watch TV and were treated like one of the family. I had my own room, and they didn't even have a lock on my door."

"Wait, you had foster families that kept a lock on your door?" Hobi asked to which I just nodded.

"About a week later, I was in the shower and heard the door open. It wasn't uncommon for the mom to come in and grab my dirty clothes or bring me a towel, so I didn't think anything of it. I was rinsing my hair and heard the shower curtain move. When I opened my eyes, the dad was watching me shower. He said he was just checking on me, and it wasn't a big deal but not to say anything because the foster agency wouldn't like it, and I would most likely be moved. It was so nice I didn't want to go anywhere, so I kept my mouth shut. A few days later, I woke in the middle of the night, and he was sitting on the end of my bed. Said he heard a noise and was checking to make sure that everything was ok. I laid back down, and he laid down beside me and told me to be quiet.

That was the first night he...touched me. Said his wife was sick and that he needed to be able to feel good after all the good he was doing for her and us. It started over clothes, and then he progressed to under my clothes. I was terrified they would move me somewhere worse, so I never said a word. Then a few months later, she had to go to something for work out of town. He came in the middle of the night like usual, but this time he made me take all of my clothes off. He tried to r-r..." I can't get it out. "Josh, the boy my age, came into my room to borrow a book and caught him. Apparently, he had been doing the same thing to him, and when he saw what he was about to do, he pulled him off of me and ended up getting it instead of me. The next day I was moved to another house."

There is silence in the room. Tears are streaming down Jungkook's face and Joon walks over and rubs his shoulders. He takes a shaky breath.

"That's what changed my mind about you. I thought that you were making up that you had been in bad situations because you smelled a meal ticket. When I fed on you the first time, you were thinking that you were finally going to be at peace because you would be dead. I wanted to know why you would feel that way, and since you didn't know how to protect your thoughts, I went digging. I s-saw it all happening. Like a movie on fast forward. All the abuse, all the things he did to you."

"That wasn't the first or last time I was told that I had to earn what I was given. Even Pam would occasionally slap us around and call us ungrateful for the few scraps she threw our way."

Yoongi reaches over and takes my hand. "I told you that I would give you what you needed to get your revenge, and I stand by that statement. We support whatever you feel you need to do."