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Apo? Expected. Cleo? Expected. Avid and Drift? Out of the question. Pyro? Owen didn’t want to believe it but at the same time, wasn’t surprised. Shelby though, her betrayal? That stung. Pyro had been meeting with humans under Owen and Scott’s noses, lying about it, telling the humans about the “safe” mineshaft the vampires were supposed to have as a backup hiding spot. Scott had let him off too easily. But Shelby. Shelby turned Avid. Avid. Of all people—and they lied to Owen’s face about it. She was trying to “protect” Avid? Him? What about her family?
Owen clenched his jaw.
Neither Shelby nor Pyro wanted this family. Not really. They kept secrets, they lied, and Pyro had the nerve to disrespect Owen.
“I know you have no power over me.”
Owen may have shown interest in Legs’s cure but he wouldn’t betray the vampires for it! He wouldn’t give up his family for it. Apo and Cleo hated him, hated their family. And there was Scott. Owen could at least trust that Scott would never side with humans. But Pyro and Shelby were Scott’s fledglings, Scott cared about them in his own subtle twisted way. Scott didn’t care about Owen, only his use to the coven.
There was no family here. Owen laughed to himself. Stupid. How could he not have learned? His young self hadn’t fit in with kids, he hadn’t fit in with adults, and he didn’t fit in with monsters. His hand would never fit into someone else’s, and there would never be room in a graveyard for his headstone. Oh, but Owen was certain that a stake would fit snugly in his heart soon, stabbed through his back.
Owen stormed into the castle, where Scott, Shelby, and Pyro stood speaking. Owen had seen himself out for a walk, which had been enlightening. Scott’s eyes landed on Owen first, squinting. Pyro and Shelby turned next—the look on their faces mirrored those of the townspeople. Much like the faces of Avid and Drift in the morning, when Owen chased them out of the forest. Pyro had been so smug before, so full of himself—so unaware of just how easily Owen could and wanted to make him regret it. Pyro stepped a bit behind Scott.
“Owen,” Scott said. “Nice of you to join us again.”
“You,” Owen pointed a claw between Pyro and Shelby, “need to pick a side. I won’t spare you when I attack Oakhurst.”
Scott crossed his arms, displeased, but he side-eyed the fledglings like he agreed.
“I am on your side,” Shelby said, “but—but I don’t want you to attack Oakhurst. We don’t need to.”
“I need to,” Owen spat. “This town has taken another family from me. They’ve convinced you that there’s something wrong with you now. They’ve convinced you to lie to us.”
Shelby stepped forward, hands over their heart. “I’m sorry I lied. Avid was asking to be turned and I thought maybe, eventually, everyone who wanted be a vampire and everyone who wanted to stay human could stop fighting—we could all be your fam—”
Owen lunged for Shelby. She gasped, backing into the wall, as Scott intercepted Owen’s claws. Owen hissed as his wrists were caught in a tight grip.
“These are my fledglings,” Scott said lowly, squeezing Owen’s arms, prodding them with his claws. “I will protect them.”
“Your fledglings betrayed us,” Owen spat. “They don’t want to be your fledglings at all. They want to be a part of Oakhurst.”
“I’m sorry,” Shelby said meekly, standing next to Pyro. “I’m really sorry Owen, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Scott squeezed Owen’s arms, drawing his attention back. “They’re new to this, Owen. The humans are making them false promises. They will learn.”
I’m new to this.
Owen pulled back, sneering. “They want to leave you.”
“Owen, I want to be a vampire,” Sheby started again, “I just… I have friends in Oakhurst.”
“Friends?” Owen laughed. “Your friends want Scott and I dead.”
“You killed twenty-eight thousand people.”
Owen shook his head, backing up further. Shelby thought he deserved it. Oakhurst killed first. Oakhurst killed Louis and they did it for no reason! Louis hadn’t hurt anyone—he had saved Owen—he accepted Owen when no one else did and they killed him and they expected Owen to celebrate. The people of Oakhurst cheered that they’d saved him. They ‘saved’ him by killing his last chance at life, his last hope, his last and only love. And they used the wood Owen collected for the town to do it. So yes, Owen massacred the town, then had nothing left. He slept hoping he would die.
“Owen, where are you going?” Scott asked.
To do it right this time.
Owen turned into a bat with a flutter
“Owen!” Shelby called. “Oakhurst doesn’t deserve—”
He flew as fast as he could so he didn’t have to hear Shelby’s awful pleading. He fell out of his bat form early, shaking with rage, landing in the thick of the dead woods. Owen screamed. He screamed and he raked his claws across the nearest tree, then the next. Bark broke off in chunks, splintering against the ground. Owen trudged deeper into the woods, cracking his hands against woods, chipping his claws.
“Why?!”
Owen slashed the same tree twice, one wild swing after the other.
He’d finally had something. Scott shared the blood from Pyro that first night, Scott invited Owen live in the castle—called it theirs. Shelby had been excited to be turned, she was going to use her abilities to prove that werewolves were real. Owen laughed with Shelby—enjoyed her company! There had finally been people—multiple—who were willing to befriend him. Or, at the very least, be near him.
Oh, and he’d gone and attacked her. If the vampires hadn’t wanted him before, they’d hate him now. Stupid. He couldn’t have attacked Pyro at least?
Owen snapped a thick branch off the next tree. With the claw of his pointer finger, one by one, he cut the twigs, bumps, and leaves from the branch. Then, he began sharpening one tip to a point. He peeled the outer layer of bark strip by strip, flick by flick of his claw, relishing each little splinter that lodged in his skin. Thousands of little stakes for his thousands of little sins. Owen raised his finished product, making sure the point was straight, sharp enough, smooth enough.
Even if he killed all of Oakhurst again, it would rebuild itself. Because it wasn’t the town that was the problem, it was people, and people were selfish. They couldn’t let dead things rest. Owen could kill them all, humans, fledglings, and he could try to kill Scott, and it would all leave him right where he’d been two hundred years ago. Alone, trying to die.
Owen poked the top of the stake, pleased at its pinch in his skin.
Two hundred years ago, after the massacre, Owen had gone to sleep. He was only a new vampire, a day old, in fact, so of course he hadn’t known that the only way to die was on a sharp wooden skewer. And there was no world where Owen purposefully burned himself to death. He didn’t want to know what Louis felt. He couldn’t bear to think about it.
Owen turned the stake toward himself.
The sky was dimming, the sun was about to start setting, the red moon was rising. Trees rustled, and leaves rolled across the ground, but Owen’s useless breaths were the loudest. His hands stung from striking the trees, his fingers were bloody from sharp bark, and his claws bore scuff marks and serrations.
Owen touched the point of the stake over his heart. In the middle of his chest, slightly left. There was no doubt that as a vampire he would have the strength to push the stake all the way through. Having endured much heavier loss than blood, and much worse pain than punctures, there was no doubt Owen had the will power, too.
Owen resented how happy his death would make citizens of Oakhurst, but he relished their disappointment in his escape of their so-called justice.
He twisted the stake against his chest to whittle a hole in his shirt. Quickly, the twisting turned into piercing, turned into digging.
“Owen!”
Everything, wrenched out of his hands again.
Owen looked up, meeting the eyes of Legs, the doctor. Legs ripped the stake away and tossed it behind him, now he was holding one of Owen’s wrists, much gentler than Scott had earlier.
“What were you doing?” Legs whispered.
Owen observed the hand around his wrist, then said, dazedly, “You’re a smart man, Legs, I think you know what I was doing.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Owen had said the same thing to Legs, once.
“Legs, it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Owen, we can talk.”
“I want it to be this way,” Owen said. “What are you doing out here alone?”
Legs slowly reached for Owen’s other arm, though Owen wasn’t sure why. Legs had no chance of holding Owen here, of stopping him.
“I was coming to the castle. I wanted to talk more.”
“Owen, I can help you.”
“You can’t help me, doc. I’ve tried.” Owen looked down the steep hill. “I can’t even die right.”
“If you go into that castle right now, I almost guarantee Scott would turn you or straight up kill you,” Owen said.
“I was looking for you, not Scott.”
“People can change, Owen,” Legs said.
“No,” Owen sighed, “no. The human race has been the same. The entire time. Before I was a vampire, you were a cold and harsh presence, and even after… you’re the same.” Owen looked away again. “But I’m not a monster, Legs.”
“I never called you one,” Legs said quickly.
Legs took Owen’s other wrist, just holding it. The touch was overwhelmingly unfamiliar.
“Why me? What more could we possibly have to talk about?” Owen asked.
“I wanted to offer my help again. The townspeople are more open than you know,” Legs swiped his thumb over Owen’s arm, over some of the bandages. “I’m not trying to get you to take the cure.”
Owen stared in disbelief at the hands on his hands. At the thumb, brushing delicately over his arm, his bandaged arm, where he hid gnarled flesh.
“I’m not sure what else there could be for you to offer me.”
“Why don’t we start with a bandage for that wound,” Legs looked pointedly at the bloody spot over Owen’s heart, “and somewhere to rest?”
“What if you could save all of them?” Owen asked.
“What if I could save you?” Legs said back.
Owen shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”
“I like how I am now a lot more than what I was then,” Owen had said.
“What if you could have the best of both?” Legs asked. “Be better, be healed, not have to be in pain, but not have to do that at the expense of others?”
Owen clawed through the neck of a chicken waddling by. “You think you can heal me?” He picked it up by the head, eyes on Legs, and sucked the blood out of its neck.
“I think I can try.”
Legs shook Owen’s hands, making him blink and refocus. There was something so fascinating about Legs’s hold on his wrists, the way he was touching what made Owen disgusting to humans, how he was doing it purposefully. But for what purpose? What did Legs get out of helping Owen? There were other people he could help, people who wanted it more.
“Some people aren’t worth saving.”
“Some people are.”
Owen tried to break away, but Legs held his arms tighter. “I told you once, Owen, I think there’s more humanity in you than you want to admit. That part of you, the real you, beyond the survival and the desperate need for control, or revenge, that you is worth saving.”
“But not the rest of me, hm? The part of me that killed twenty-eight hundred people? Because that’s who I am, Legs. I did that and you can’t pretend I wasn’t responsible just because I had trauma.”
Trust.
“You can prove it,” Owen said. “I know a way you can prove it.”
Blood dripped down Owen’s chest, catching in the fibres of his shirt. The horizon glowed orange, broken by the tops of trees and silhouettes of birds. Or bats.
“Let me show you.” Owen stepped forward. “No turning necessary.”
Annoyingly, oh so unfortunately, Legs did not look afraid. Cautious, maybe. But he was not afraid of Owen, which meant Owen had to put in the effort of trying, because Legs was being honest. He wanted to help and Owen was too desperate for any kind of company, any sort of kindness, or next chance, not to seize it.
“Take this,” Owen said, handing an axe to Legs. “Strike me with it. I’ll show you.”
Hurt me, Owen thought. Show me you don’t like doing it, then I'll show you I won’t fight back.
Legs took the axe and threw it away. “I do no harm.”
“People only have one life,” Legs started carefully. “You can’t help that bad things happen to you, and sometimes bad things turn people down dark paths. But it’s your only life, it doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t be able to redeem it, to live it well.” Legs ducked to meet Owen’s eyes. “Don’t you want to be redeemed?”
Owen clenched his fists and pulled out of Legs’s grip, stumbling backwards with his fangs bared. “I don’t care! I don’t care!”
Legs raised his hands.
Owen held Legs’s shoulders, watched the man tilt his head to the side. Owen moved one hand to Legs’s chest, and was careful about sliding his fangs in. Careful about keeping them still. He drank until it would have been too dangerous for Legs, he pushed the drinking as far as he could to see when the doctor would abandon his patient. Legs didn’t pull away, and Owen didn’t turn him.
“I just wanted to be happy,” Owen hissed, throwing his arms out. “It doesn’t matter if I’m redeemed—if I killed people or not—because I’ll never be happy!”
“You can be.”
Owen dugs his claws into his own arms to keep them at bay. “I can’t.”
“You have help this time.”
“I had Louis.”
At this, Legs paused. Finally, Owen had struck him wordless. Finally, Legs couldn’t say anything that forced Owen to have to keep trying. To wonder if things could change.
It was terrifying when Legs opened his mouth again.
“You have him, still.
Owen shook his head harshly, squeezing his arms until blood trickled out. “No.”
“Louis, when he made you a vampire, left you with another chance. He intended to help you heal, to give you a good life. I don’t intend to let his efforts go to waste.”
Owen’s head fell with a choked sound, then the rest of him fell. His knees struck the dirt and roots, mixing with the sound of Legs’s quick footsteps. Owen curled over himself, releasing his arms to dig into his sides instead. It was numb. It was all so numb like he’d been begging for his whole life.
“Owen,” Legs said softly, touching his shoulders. “It’ll be okay, stop doing that with your claws.”
When Owen thought he couldn’t handle the touch on his shoulders any longer, Legs pulled him closer and wrapped his arms around Owen. The exhaustion pooled in Owen’s chest, making him slump, dragging the claws out of his skin. Legs’s arms warmed the tense spot between Owen’s shoulder blades, and lay across the rest of his back. The pressure was steady and gentle. It gave Owen goosebumps, and when Legs squeezed, he had never felt more held together. Legs’s heartbeat against his chest was loud, and strong, and fast, and proof that they were here, doing this. Maybe Owen didn’t want Legs turned, he’d have to hear that heart stop.
“I want to get you to my house,” Legs whispered. “If I tell the townspeople you’re letting me help you, they won’t bother us.”
Owen shook his head and mumbled. “I won’t betray Scott. I won’t work against him.”
Scott was… a liar, a manipulator, and a killer. But he was none of those things toward Owen.
“We can talk to Scott too. We don’t have to be at war with each other.”
Owen pressed his forehead against Legs’s shoulder, praying it would be a step too far, that Legs would back off, realize he’d taken on more than he could handle, and Owen wouldn’t have to keep trying. But legs just moved one hand to the back of Owen’s head.
“Scott is… completely self-interested,” Owen said. “He won’t spare Oakhurst unless there’s a benefit for him.”
“And if I offered him food? Regularly?”
Owen’s arms sprang up to wrap around Legs, reciprocating the hug with urgency. “Don’t. Don’t let him drink from you.”
“Why not?”
“I—he may not be as gentle about it as I was. I don’t want him to end up hurting you.”
Owen lagged a few seconds behind his own words. Had he really said that out loud?
Legs sighed, then slid his hand off Owen’s head to rest on his back again. “How long will it take for your wounds to heal themselves?”
Owen shrugged. “An hour?”
“Come back to town with me, so I can see that you’re better. Let’s talk to the townspeople. Let’s give Louis what he wanted for you.”
Oh dear.
Owen sluggishly lifted his head to meet Legs’s eyes. “This is my last attempt, Legs. If this doesn’t work out I’m not trying again.”
Friends. Family. Life.
“That is more than fair, Owen.”
Legs stood up first, pulling Owen’s bloody, clawed hand with him. Legs didn’t let go of his hand, even when they reached the town.