Blood on Roses [COMPLETED]

Twenty-Seven: Friendly Fire

"Just because you embrace your dark side, doesn't mean your light is dead."
~ Alecx Harris

TWENTY-SEVEN

The gears in my head spun rapidly, but it was no use. I couldn't come up with any excuse. There was no way I could convince Roman that I didn't just call him by his dead twin's name.

Roman grabbed my arm and recklessly teleported onto the roof of a nearby high-rise building.

"I've had this suspicion for a while," said Roman, trembling. "Selective memory loss isn't the cause of the gaps in my memory, is it?"

Even if Roman were to know the truth, I shouldn't be the one to tell him. It should be a responsible, authoritative figure like Harvick or Josephine. They kept it a secret from Roman to maintain his mental health and protect his fragile soul.

But he also deserved to know the truth about himself.

I softly shook my head. "Since two years after your incident, you've shared the same body with Ashton. He controls it as his own, and he uses telekinesis."

Roman leaned back against a pillar. He always had a subconscious feeling that his twin returned. It must be painful, knowing that his brother still existed, yet he could never interact with him as he did before.

I recalled that Zach appreciated the fact that I not once appeared sympathetic when he told me his tale. I was the same. I suppose Roman wouldn't be any different. No self-respecting person liked the feeling of being pitied.

That being said, I wasn't sure if speaking my mind was appropriate for Roman's situation. After all, he just absorbed a shocking revelation.

"Why did you tell him?"

I looked at Ashton's accusing glare with tightly-knit eyebrows. "Roman always had a feeling that you were there. He was just too afraid to admit to himself, and since no one said anything, he dismissed it as the shadows of his past haunting him. He doesn't deserve to live painfully for the rest of this eternal life. At the very least, he'd know that he's not alone. Since you can see things through his eyes, I'm sure he can do the same for you, too."

I lost my train of thought when Ashton's unsmiling expression didn't waver. His blank stare made me nervous enough to come to a pause.

Did I say the wrong thing?

Unexpectedly, an amused smirk drew at the corners of his lips. One look at that coy expression told me that Roman only pretended to be Ashton so I'd speak up.

In an instant, we arrived back in the living room of the base. Roman promptly let go of my arm, but the amusement didn't leave his face.

"I finally understand why Zachary's so infatuated with you," he said out of the blue, then teleported away.

I was glad that he left. With a comment like that, even my bloodless cheeks would suffuse with color. Darn! Was Roman always that cunning?

After lying on the sofa for several minutes, staring at the strangely fascinating ceiling, my thoughts drifted to the events of these past few days.

I realized that everyone still believed that I possessed dysfunctional intangibility. If Harvick hadn't spread the word, he and Ashlynne were the only two beings on this planet who knew my real power.

My ponderings were interrupted by a painful grumble in my stomach. I knew the feeling of hunger as a human, but a vampire's craving for blood was like a human without a bite of food for three days straight. And it hurt. Real bad.

It'd been nearly fourteen days since I turned. Ever since Josephine reasoned that my limit was fifteen days, I'd been drinking water with the condiment mixed in it once a day. The discomfort subsided, only to return a few hours later.