Who's to judge?

Chapter XII

My Vigor, he was finally standing in front of me again. My fingertips tingled, my pulse raced. I wanted to get into his arms, to feel his skin under my fingers again, but I also wanted to run away, to hide from his suffocating gaze.

He was wearing dark jeans with a brown sweater that was a little too big. In his hand he held one of those big plastic cups filled with still warm coffee. His eyes were riveted on me, breathing deeply and slowly as if he was trying to calm himself. When I opened my mouth to say anything, he swung his arm and threw his cup at me with all his might. It missed me and landed on the ground behind me with a loud thud. I froze completely and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Out!"

He roared. His dark, husky voice echoed throughout the house. Like a statue, I stood rooted to the spot. Nothing moved anymore, I was afraid, or was what I felt pain? The pain of being rejected.

"Get out!"

He continued to yell. I could also hear sadness in his voice. I didn't take my eyes off him, but his eyes were desperately trying not to look into mine. My shaky legs took a step towards him, which he immediately noticed and started yelling again. "Don't come near me!"

"Talon..." I whispered his name, not wanting to upset him even more. His red eyes glowed as he said menacingly, "Don't put my name in your mouth, you've already lost that privilege."

Fortunately, the fullblood and the mixed came through the door. Talon grabbed the fullblood by the arm and growled, "Why is she here?"

The Fullblood, who was smaller than Talon, looked briefly at me, then back at Talon, and said casually, "Because she asked." They seemed to know each other well enough for Talon to talk to him like that. He'd never been one to make friends quickly. The first time we met, it took him weeks to tell me his name.

The young mixed walked past the two men, as if this altercation was an everyday occurrence, and stopped at the new body. He started asking questions about where we had found it, how we had found it, but I couldn't answer him, my eyes riveted by Talon's hateful gaze. As he stomped out, I realized I had been holding my breath. My instincts told me I had to go after him, I had to stay with him, I needed him so much. But that desire was stifled by fear.

I turned to the other two, who looked at me expectantly. After clearing my throat, I said, "The pattern is always the same, but we need to somehow find out who this lady was so we can figure out what connects her to all the others. We could ask around to see if she might have gone missing, but I don't know enough about this area to do that."

I tried as best I could to direct my thoughts to more important things, which didn't work as I would have liked, because both men in front of me looked at me questioningly. The questions they wanted to ask me were not about the corpse or the murder cases, I could feel it, so I said to them, "Go ahead and ask, I can feel your looks and they are annoying."

The mixed smiled apologetically but said nothing, the fullblood was different.

"Why did you leave him?"

This question sparked pure anger inside me, but I didn't let it come out.

"That is something between me and him. Can we worry about something else now?" My irritated tone was unmistakable, so the fullblood frowned and the mixed hastily started talking. "We've lived here for a while, so we could ask around a bit, but I doubt anything will come of it. The vampires in this area don't like people meddling in their affairs." I nodded. We had to find another way, or better, another place.

"There is certainly a place around here where the vampires meet more often, hidden from the humans. Kalma told me that Derrick, before his time in the precinct, met with a group in a certain place, if we go there, we could start searching there."