The Living Game

Epilogue

"Theodore Christopher Noot! I will come over there!"

I laughed, turning around behind me to see Theodore with an extremely guilty look as Kiera pulled a piece of popcorn out of the front of her shirt. I giggled and turned back around.

The movie theater was relatively empty, only the four of us and an elderly couple. The movie we were seeing had been playing for a week or so, so everyone had already seen it.

There was a very flustered laugh from behind us and I giggled again, looking at Alek with a suggestive look. He turned around, half a smile on his face. "If you two start going at it, I'm out."

Theo roared with laughter and Kiera giggled nervously. They were almost too much to handle, with their kissing and giggling and goo-goo eyes all the time. They'd been like that since the day after the garage. Theo had heard all of the things Anna said to Kiera and had asked her about it in the hospital, asked if it was true. Kiera had told him that she did love him, she always had, but of course she hadn't turned Anna to try to get with him.

After she explained the whole story to him, he apologized for acting like a jerk after it had happened and then they had gotten together after that. Ever since, they had been inseparable and more mushy than a middle school couple. It was adorable, though, so I put up with it.

After the kidnapping, we had decided to go after Anna. We were still researching her and trying to find out more about what she had done with her life, where she had lived and where she might have gone now.

Jamie had a trial and the council had decided against burning him at the stake. Instead, they had decided life imprisonment would be sufficient. Alek was allowed to visit him in prison but he hadn't done so yet and I wasn't sure that he ever would. I didn't really want him to. He was still his brother, but after what he had done, I wasn't sure if he should be allowed to see his family again.

Eliza had been utterly heartbroken when we had told her what he'd done. She didn't believe it at first, said it couldn't be true. After she had accepted it she had cried and cried and asked us over and over how she could have missed that. How he could have been living with her and she didn't even know.

She and Alek had been much closer ever since then. I think it's partly due to what happened but also because of what Jamie told Alek in the garage; Eliza had loved him more than Jamie, he had always been her favourite son.

He had been more or less living with me but he had gone to her house for dinner several times and had officially introduced me to her as his girlfriend. She was the one watching Jace tonight so that we could go out to the movies. She had watched Jace several times, when Kiera was out doing something and I needed a babysitter. Jace loved her. She baked him brownies and let him watch whatever movies he wanted. He still said she wasn't very good at playing with his toys but she was learning. He was trying to teach her how to make an explosion noise so that she could make it when his train derailed and crashed into something.

Theo, Alek and I had essentially dropped out of high school. None of us had been back since the kidnapping. I had wrestled with the idea of going back but school just didn't appeal to me anymore. Alek thought that I should continue with my senior year, so that I could at least get my diploma once, but I didn't value his opinion on that subject very highly considering he had seven high school diplomas. 

I just didn't see the point of going back to school when we were planning to leave for a few weeks to track down Anna, anyway. As soon as we found out enough information to know where to start looking, we were gone. We were leaving Jace in Eliza's hands, telling him that we were taking a small vacation for a few weeks.

I wasn't really clear what we were planning to do with Anna once we caught her. We wouldn't kill her, I wouldn't allow it. I assumed we would have to bring her to the vampire prison where she would await trial, same as Jamie. I don't think she'd be as lucky as Jamie, after she ran off.

Alek had now resigned himself to hunting animals with me. We would occasionally drink a blood bag, when we didn't feel like going out hunting or couldn't leave Jace. He had completely stopped hunting humans, although he was toying with the idea of feeding off of humans the way his mother did.

He had yet to try it, since he wasn't really sure he could do it and he knew that the death of an innocent human may actually weigh on his conscious now. Theo had also given up killing humans, although he was still feeding off of them. Kiera was much more practiced in the way of feeding off of humans but not killing them so she had been going hunting with him and teaching him how to stop.

Jace had grown a lot since the kidnapping. He knew what happened to him but I had told him that he wasn't supposed to tell anyone. I had explained that a crazy man had kidnapped him and Theo but we had saved them and the man was in jail now.

After the kidnapping, he had started to look up to Theo, in a way. He had chopped his hair short, so that it looked like a lighter version of Theo's. I think he thought of Theo as sort of an idol or a hero because Theo had been kidnapped with him. We had told him that Theo was the one who took down the bad guy and we just helped him.

 My parents had been hanging around a lot more than usual lately. My mom had even become sort of nice towards me. They were still kind of on the frtiz but I thought it seemed like they were trying to fix things between them. They were living together, at least. Even when they went away, they no longer stayed in separate hotels.

My mom had warmed up to Alek almost immediately. And after she did, she started to get annoying very fast. She was always asking where he was, if he was coming over to the house, if he was joining us for dinner. When she and my dad were at the house, Alek preferred to stay at his own house, not wanting my parents to know that he frequented my bedroom at night.

The movie trailers started playing and Theo and Kiera got quiet. Alek looked over at me. "What are you thinking about?" He asked.

I shrugged. "The future."

He smiled. "Am I a part of that future?"

I nodded, "Unquestionably."

He leaned in to kiss me but before he could get there, a head popped up right between us and started pretending to kiss the air, making very loud kissy noises. I reached up to hit Theo, laughing.

When he sat back, we all laughed and I looked around at my friends and boyfriend, thinking how lucky I was.