The Daylighter Chronicles

Chapter Seventeen: Eastside Angel

Eerie

It has been weeks since I almost, maybe, might have died, again, and the winter, although it was trying to hold on, was slowly losing its hold to spring. Ethan and I still hadn't talked about his wanting to run away with me, and I don't want to tell him that every time I call him or show up at his place I'm afraid he won't answer or he will just be gone. He wouldn't tell me that night why he felt the need to run, but I think that his past is coming for him, but what I do know is that he is only still here because of me. I know I should just end things with him and send him on his way, but I have learned something about myself the more time I spend with him, I am extremely selfish. I can't let him go, even though I know that he is in so much danger by my side, so I have decided to train even harder than I did when I thought that I would lose my mind to the voices. I need to be stronger to protect the ones I care about from the things that go bump in the night, which also means I need to feed regularly.

I've found the perfect part of town that never seems to have a shortage of scumbags that I can feed off, and then make them confess every bad thing they've ever done to the police. Kai thinks that I am beginning to lose my mind, that I am training too hard, and I know that he is terrified that something will happen to me, or worse Ethan because if something happened to him I would become unfixable. I suspected before the night that the playground became our place that I was in love with him, but it was too soon. I didn't truly know him, now I know that I can't live without him. Maybe it's because of my being a vampire, maybe it is making these emotions feel like more than they really are, and maybe I don't care because this is the first time I can ever imagine feeling this way.

I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand as I growled,

"Again." I watched as Kai sighed and ran his fingers through his sweat-drenched hair,

"I think you've had enough Eerie. We've been at this for hours." I glared at him as I placed my hands on my hips,

"I will tell you when I've had enough, Kai. I need this. I need to know how to control myself when I am fighting the order." He scoffed, not for the first time about this whole ordeal,

"I still don't get why. Why go through this when all they want is for you to be dead, why do you care if they live or die?" I sighed as I wrapped my arms around myself,

"I get that we have to kill the nightwalkers since they are pretty much dead anyway, but the order, they are men that eat and breathe, and they are doing what they think is right. So I honestly don't think that I could kill a person, and I would rather not live with the guilt of doing it by accident." He rolled his eyes but crouched into an attack stance as he asked,

"What about the man that killed you?" I gave him a half smile that never reached my eyes and matched his stance as I said,

"There are worse things than death." Kai just cocked his head to the side,

"You would know." I scoffed,

"Are you trying to bore me to death with you talking, or are you going to actually make a move?" He smiled that half smile of his that let me know that there was something up his sleeve, but because this was also an exercise in my beating him without my abilities I just had to wait to see what he was going to do,

"Now, now, have I taught you nothing? You must always keep your opponent off center. If they like to chat, be stoic. If they are silent, never stop talking." I smiled then,

"Unless you're pissed." He nodded,

"Unless you're pissed, all bets are off then." I attacked then, just when he was off center, right when he knew I would attack, so I slid onto the floor and kicked his feet out from under him. Once he landed I didn't give him a chance to move before I grabbed his arm and locked my legs around it and began to pull. He cried out and yelled,