76 Apart
"Sometimes... The greatest wars are won with silence." Casimir told me over the uproar of the club. I turned my head to face his direction.
"I'm hurting him, Casimir. I didn't even tell him that Jonathan is my drudge." I confessed and watched the teenagers dance.
I should be there. I should be one of them. Where would I be now if I refused Henry's invitation to join him at the Halloween party? Where would I be if Henry had never met Vlad? Would I be human, a slayer with Joss, or would my connections to the vampire world lead me to vampirism anyway?
"There is nothing you can say to him that will make him change his reaction." He placed a hand on my shoulder and I felt suddenly empty. I felt like my soul was ripped away with Vlad as he exited the Crypt.
"Want me to go with you to talk to October?" Davide offered with a sympathetic smile. I shook my head.
"I'm not worried about October. Just Vlad." I paused and then turned on my heel back into the room. I was followed but I didn't bother to explain what I was doing. I took my phone off the lounge chair and I opened the window that lead outside.
The window was in the back of the building. No one could see it and it was small but large enough for me to make it through. I stepped out and floated onto the roof of the club. I was away from the pumping of the club and the meaningless words of my vampire friends.
I dialed Henry's number and spoke as soon as he answered. "Vlad knows everything."
"What?" He asked in confusion.
"The goths from school brought him to the Crypt." It felt odd to call them as a group rather than their names, but he had no idea who they were. "He saw me perform and followed me. Casimir told him everything and we talked about it. Everything seemed fine until I told him about Jonathan."
"Whoa, Mina calm down." I took in a deep breath. Then I thought I heard a noise but I ignored it. "So where is he now?"
"He went back into the club and then out for fresh air. Probably hungry. I offered him blood but he ran off."
"Where are you?" He asked and I told him I was on the roof. Then my Aunt called him and he had to go. I hung up and felt a sudden ache. A familiar ache. An ache I felt many times before. I went to the edge of the roof and saw Vlad standing in the alley. He wasn't alone.
"Snow...?" I whispered to myself as I saw a girl hugging him. It looked like Snow. I felt a green flame spark to life in my gut as I watched her hug him tightly to her. Then I squinted my eyes and saw something that caused my jaw to drop.
Vlad kissed her crying cheek and I felt my stomach curl in my body. His lips then slowly fell to her jaw and planted a soft kiss there and my pained soul felt like it was engulfed in an inferno. Then he placed one, last kiss on her neck and goose bumps erupted followed by a cold chill all over my body. My eyes started to leak the moment his fangs punctured her skin.
Vlad was becoming the very thing he didn't want to be. I knew as well as anyone that Vlad never in his entire life wished to drink from a human. And here he was, draining the goth girl from my favorite club. I cried for the last bit of humanity left in Vlad as it died with every drop of blood in Snow. I cried for our fight moments before. I cried for every passing moment in my life since I met Vlad Tod. Then I stopped crying when I realized one fact.
That should have been me. It should have been me that he bit. It should have been the AB negative blood from these veins that he should have drank. All the time, words, and moments wasted to have him drink my blood instead of hers...wasted. I wanted to be the first human for him to bite. I wanted to save my blood for him. I wanted to have that connection to him. But...that wasn't me. That was Snow. It's wasn't me he held, it was Snow. It wasn't me he was killing, it was Snow.
