"Please explain to the committee how you not only failed to recognize the signs of an immune, but also left him alone to wander and to be taken by the undergrounds."
There were twelve vamps on the committee and I swear each on had asked the same question I had been asking myself for the last two days. What the hell was wrong with you. Of course they said it in a much more professional and worldly way.
"As I said before, I couldn't tell. He didn't have any of the signs for an immune. Nothing was off about his scent or his eyes." As time went by the details seemed to get foggier and foggier, maybe he had, had some speckles in his eyes and I just didn't notice? Maybe the liquor had masked his scent? Internally I shook my head. I was a good spoter. I knew who to bite. I was good, wasn't I?
"Yes, however we find that hard to believe. Although you being an exceptional detector does make it much more intriguing and suspicious."
That was the only thing that kept me from falling to my knees pleading guilty and begging them not to stake me then and there, I was good. I always had been, and if I didn't see the signs they couldn't have been there. Right?
"Do you have anything to add before we deliberate?" the fat vamp on the end looked at me with disdain. How I wished I could tell him to get a fucking subscription to Jenny Craig and fuck off.
"No." I probably should have made one last plea for my life, but it all seemed so pointless. If I was going to be staked I might as well do it with some pride and dignity left intact.
"Very well. The committee will discuss your future, and give you the verdict after lunch." The head vamp looked at me with pity in his eyes, if it were up to him we wouldn't even have these meetings we would just be killed in the middle of the streets like they did in the old days. If he had any say in it I wouldn't see the evening.
Once the committee was gone the rest of us gathered our belongings and walked out of the court room.
"That was brutal." Rico was by my side. He had been so against me turning myself in. He had wanted to just go under the radar. We both knew that wasn't possible, the committee had connections everywhere. But thinking about one last night with Rico snuggling in our bedroom made my chest ache.
I shrugged "I told them the truth, hopefully they believed me. Maybe if I'm lucky they'll use the pink sparkly stake." Stop deflecting Jules I told myself. If only I had a better understanding of what should be a thought bubble and what should be a speech bubble. Maybe Rico wouldn't have the pinched angry face nearly as often.
"Why do you do that?" He huffed in annoyance.
"Do what?" I couldn't muster a flirtatious response, it really had been a brutal trial.
"What do you always make light of a serious situation? You could be killed today! You would literally lose everything because your sense of right and wrong is so fucking weird! If you just took the feeders they gave us you would be fine, we would be fine. Why don't you seem to even care?" He was teary eyed as he hissed at me. It finally clicked that I wasn't the only one who could lose something today.
I looked up at him and touched his face. Were we going to have a moment? Like one from the movies? "I'm hungry." and I ruined it.
He took a deep breath and shook his head. "Okay."
He didn't take my hand as we walked to the cafeteria. I picked up some O neg. and a twisty straw. As we sat down I saw Rico had bought everything he could find. He bought a mixture of human food and blood. Maybe he was a stress eater and I just didn't know? It was a pretty fucking weird combination though; pizza, blood, mashed potatoes and platletes.
