Hunter ✔

The Black Diamond of All Traitors

There was a Pastor in Westwood. The Pastor would talk a lot about love and forgiveness. Our community understood love, but I think the one we always struggled with was forgiveness. How could we forgive someone or something that had ruined our lives? My mother told me that if we lived our lives hating someone that we would end up being the ones being hurt. Bitterness soiled your life and it would end up breaking you down. Bitterness was like having the worst kind of disease and it would slowly kill you from the inside. In the end it took your life and the lives of those around you. Yet my mother is dead, killed by the very beasts she would encourage me to forgive.

I do not really know why I decided to go to the cellar and see Arya alone. I think a part of me just wanted to confront her. She was one of the reasons that everyone I loved and cared for is dead. As I walked down the stairs to the cellar I thought that maybe another part of me wanted to see what they had been doing to her. I wanted to see if she was in as much agony as I had been for a year.

They kept her locked away in a deep dark room in the cellar. I had blatantly refused to go in there until now.

The only other time I was forced to be there was the night that they had captured her when my father told me to help carry her into the cellar. There were two human guards stationed outside of the room. They looked weak compared to the Vendurian guards. They had pistols strapped to their waists.

"I want to see her." They looked at me nervously. "Do I have to call my father and tell him that you refused to let me in?"

They let me in reluctantly and I almost squirmed back out of the room.

The smell of blood made me nauseous. The guards locked the door behind me with a resounding crash. Arya was strung up and she looked horrible. Her skin was sagging and she looked dehydrated. For the first time since I met her she looked ancient. Her eyes were blood red as she stared directly at me. Her lips were split and she gave a crooked smile. It was one of those smiles that revealed to you that the person was planning something.

"Did you come to gloat boy?"

"No...No...I..." I stepped closer and the veins around her eyes turned pitch black. They were starving her I realized with shock. I knew what it was like to slowly starve. Starvation in my mind was one of the worst methods of torture.

"I wish I could let you go, but there is a chance that you will tell Estelle where we are. I cannot let you do that. I cannot let you put everyone here in danger."

"So what do you want then?"

"I...I want to go back to Estelle..." For a second I thought that maybe I could go ahead with my strategy to offer up myself and that maybe Arya would help me.

"Is that so?" She laughed and groaned as if in pain. "That was a lie boy. I can always tell when a human lies. You of all people should know that."

"Look into my eyes then. I need to go back to Estelle...I have not...been able to stop thinking about her. I think...I think..."

"That you love her? I am not falling for it." She gave a course laugh and the chains rattled.

I suddenly came to the conclusion that I was not going to go through with my plan. Did I honestly think that I would stand a chance against Estelle and a whole house full of vampires? All likeliness is that if Estelle was to ever get her hands on me again that I would not make it out alive. I guess my father was right about one thing. The truth was that it was nothing more than an idea. Sacrificing myself so that they could gain the upper hand.

"Okay. You are right...I do not want to go back...My father wants to keep you here like this to starve...They will not stop hurting you. Why do you not just tell them what they want to hear? Then they would give you a merciful death. A part of me will always hate you and Estelle but I would not wish this on my worst enemy..." It felt worse seeing her like this, because deep down I believed that my father already knew where Estelle was and he was just toying with Arya. He was cruel enough to do something like that.