10:30, The Day Before Yesterday

Book 2 Chapter XIII - The Sleeping and the Dead

Shoutout to -shinhye for agreeing to critique this chapter.

Chapter 28 - The Sleeping and the Dead

The mess hall wasn't quite as crowded as it had been the other times she'd been here. When talking about a room this size in a place filled with so many people, all "not quite as crowded" meant was that it had gone from having the approximate population of Enniskillen to having the approximate population of Lisnaskea. An exaggeration since there weren't even one thousand people here, but that was the best way to illustrate it. And when you had such a large number of people anywhere, you'd inevitably have noise.

Dani grimaced as the noise hit her like a brick wall the moment she walked in the door. Beside her, Hazel flinched and moved as if to cover his ears before stopping himself.

As Dani sat down at one of the tables and Hazel gingerly took the seat next to her, looking like he wished he was a million miles away, it suddenly dawned on her just why he was there: he was, essentially, a prison guard.

"I'm not going to run off again, especially not at this time of night," she said wearily, so drained by the day's events she couldn't summon up enough emotion to be offended.

"Why?" Hazel asked.

"Because it's night, and for humans that means it's dangerous." Really, how could he have lived for however long he'd lived without figuring this out?

"No, why did you run away in the first place?"

Here we go again, Dani thought gloomily. Can't these people talk to each other?

"I thought I saw my brother. I wasn't thinking clearly. End of story."

"You were thinking clearly enough to invent some sort of plan, however absurd, and carry it out." Hazel twisted around in his chair so he was facing her instead of the empty chairs opposite. "So, why did you think of it in the first place?"

Now there was a tricky question. He'd been there when she explained how she met David/Lucius in the first place and how things had gone downhill from there, hadn't he? She was almost sure he had. Unless memory loss was endemic among the Sinistrahs, he should remember how Edward caused her parents' deaths.

"Because I want revenge."

Hazel frowned. "A lot of people want revenge. It's at the bottom of the vast majority of crimes. I don't think you'd like the company wanting revenge puts you in."

Dani took a bite of toast so she would have an excuse not to answer.

The vampire took the hint and said no more about it.

After a moment's silence broken only by Dani chewing and the conversations around them, he said, "What's Lucius like when he's... the age he should be?"

Dani swallowed so quickly that she almost choked herself. "Don't you know?"

He shrugged. "I haven't seen him for over a hundred years."

Good gracious. To think Great-Aunt Lillian used to complain about not seeing her relatives more often than once a year when there were people out there who hadn't seen their relatives for over a century...

"He's grumpy, sarcastic and thinks he knows better than everyone."

Hazel laughed at this candid description of his twin. "Some things never change. Do you know why he became a teacher? It's an odd choice, since he hated school so much when he was younger."

"I think he still hates it, and he did his best to make sure we hated it too." David/Lucius's first day of teaching came, unbidden, to mind. "And most of us ended up hating him, too."