Alethea has always been awkward - eccentric, even. On a typical day she spends her time cloistered inside a tiny apartment hiding from the world she doesn't really understand. When her therapist encourages her to push herself outside her comfort zon...
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While Roran was gone my outrageously distrustful brain started to over-think things a bit. Or a lot. Every five seconds my mind would play out one horrifying scenario after another until I was pacing the floor and tearing at my hair like a maniac. The fact that I was stuck in a tiny cave wasn't exactly helping to reduce my rising panic either.
What if Roran had planned to leave me here all along! What if he was bringing back his monster friends to make me their next meal? He had killed those lycans without a second thought; who was to say I wasn't next?
Okay, so technically he had given me a tiny knife to protect myself, and he had given me some information about purgatory, and maybe he had left me in a safe cave full of weapons, but in the end how much did I really know about him? Not much at all.
He was a monster, I knew that.
Not to mention Roran claimed he had been here for over 500 years! He either had to be super powerful or super evil to have survived that long in this place. My paranoia had me leaning toward super evil.
But each and every time I would try to leave and make a move toward the waterfall, my rational side would send out the reminder: better the devil you know, Thea.
It was really annoying, especially since my rational side didn't seem keen on giving advice on how to survive if he actually was a devil.
One thing was for sure, until I knew more about this place and the monsters that lived in it then nowhere was safe. What I needed to do was find my own safe place, similar to this cave, but without a certain phoenix with questionable morals. Since I was a vampire I wouldn't need to sleep or eat. I could hole up in a hidden shelter and listen for as long as it took. Eventually I was bound to overhear someone talking about the way out. And I would find the way out –without being buddy buddy with monsters and without this soul stealing business.
I didn't plan on taking the offer from Moroi when he came calling for me in three days. Soul stealing wasn't for me. Neither was drinking blood. Ugh.
I picked up one of the blades from Roran's pile on the floor and tucked another one into the waistband of my tattered jeans. It couldn't hurt to have a back up, right?
Taking a deep breath, I peeked my head out of the waterfall and took a look around. No evil beasties in sight. Now all I had to do was find a safe hideout.
For a moment I considered returning to the catacombs, but the thought made my stomach churn. Lying next to dead bodies had been disgusting and I didn't plan on doing it again unless I absolutely had to. Besides, Roran would probably come looking for me there.
The corridor around his cave was quiet. I crept along as silently as possible and squinted into the darkness surrounding me. It was kind of a pain not being able to see where I was going. I mean it's not like I was asking for 21st century technology down here, but had no one ever thought to put up some torches or lanterns?
