I didn’t budge an inch, all my muscles locked up, afraid of how she’d react if I moved.
She then leaned forward slightly, resting her forehead between my shoulders against my bare skin. I flinched from the touch, my anxiety spiking.
Neither of us said anything for a painfully long few minutes, before she finally whispered against my back. “Are you alright?”
I shook my head, my words finally coming out in a rush. “I didn’t know that would happen,” I said urgently, afraid she wouldn’t believe me. “I’ve…I’ve never been hurt before. There have been a few times I accidentally ran a knife over my finger, but it didn’t even break the skin.” I sucked in a sharp breath as my eyes began to sting — because I wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe to be around me. “I guess a gun is different,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Gabriella. I really am…a monster.”
She didn’t try to deny it, instead asking a different question. “Do you think…you could control it? If you got hurt again?”
I was quiet as I thought about it. “M-Maybe,” I admitted in a shaky voice. “I think it just took me by surprise. Getting hurt like that, getting shot, and then the urge that came with it…” My voice trailed off.
“And your body has already healed itself?” she wondered quietly.
“Y-Yes,” I managed. “I’m pretty sure that drinking…” I couldn’t say it.
I lifted my head a little and peeked through my fingers at the pool of blood on the ground next to the dead body. Unlike just a few minutes ago, I didn’t have the urge to drink it anymore, which I assumed meant that I’d been satisfied the moment I consumed enough to heal myself.
However, the sensation of drinking blood had been unlike anything I’d experienced before — the dark crimson fluid never made it to my stomach. Instead, the moment I swallowed it, it felt like my body absorbed it directly into my tissues, creating an overwhelming warmth that spread all throughout my insides.
I removed a hand to wipe my mouth, discovering that there didn’t appear to be any blood on my face either, even though I was certain I should be covered in it — drinking blood from a gaping wound wasn’t like drinking from a straw. It was more like drinking from a water fountain or watering hose.
Gabriella must have realized I was looking at the body, because she lifted her head off my back and whispered to me again. “Can you turn around, please?” she asked politely.
I turned my head to glance at her from the corner of my yellow and black eyes, before slowly complying, shuffling on my knees so that I was sideways compared to her. I then sat on my heels and averted my gaze.
She was now physically above me, since I’d sat down, while she remained on her knees. She seemed disapproving of the fact that I wouldn’t look at her, but I couldn’t be sure. At least, not until she commented on it.
“No, look at me,” she demanded.
Slowly, I focused up at her, sincerely feeling ashamed. Because I was no different than the man who I just killed. My eyes widened in shock when I realized her emerald gaze was endearing.
“You saved my life,” she whispered. “Again. Thank you. You have no idea how terrified I was when I realized it was going to happen again.” Her face scrunched up a little as tears appeared in her eyes. “So thank you.”
“I know,” I whispered, referring to her fear. “I could smell it.” I then sighed heavily. “I really am sorry.”
In response to my words, she abruptly sat down on her heels and leaned toward my chest, twisting as she did so. Shocked to have her suddenly falling in front of me, I quickly reached out and collected her in my arms, pulling her face against my bare chest.
She looked up at me shyly, her cheek pressed against my dark gray skin. “Thanks for catching me,” she whispered.
“Are you alright?” I asked in concern, wondering if she almost passed out.
She nodded immediately. “Yes. I just thought you might be unwilling to touch me unless I made you.” She smiled slightly. “And I can’t easily make you when I’m handcuffed,” she teased, her smirk growing larger, before her expression turned solemn. “I can see you feel horrible about it, but I don’t think you should be. You were going to have to kill him anyway. It wasn’t like he was just going to leave us alone. He’d probably keep coming after me for the rest of my life. And no one would believe a cop was a serial killer — not when there isn’t any solid evidence.”
I stared at her in disbelief, mostly surprised that she’d anticipated how I’d react to her asking me to hold her. And then I was pensive as I considered the rest of what she said. “I guess you’re right,” I admitted, focusing on her vibrant red hair strewn across my arm. “But still, I think how I kill matters. I don’t take pleasure in it — that’s why I just stab them in the heart. To get it over with. I feel like it’s a lot more humane than snapping a neck or stabbing them in the head. I’m not trying to make them suffer. I’m just trying to stop them from taking someone else’s life.”
“Which!” Gabriella said forcefully. “Is why you are not a monster!”
I stared at her, blinking a few times as I examined her determined expression, realizing she knew exactly what was on my mind. “Oh,” I finally said. “I guess…maybe you’re right.” I looked away as I thought more about it, but she wasn’t done.
“You see that man? Look at him,” she demanded. She waited for me to comply before continuing, once I was grimacing at what I’d done. “That is a monster. A real monster, in human skin.” She then paused to let that sink in. “What you look like, or even what you need to eat, isn’t what makes you a monster. It’s what is in your heart…and you have a good heart.”
I was still grimacing as I glanced at her, prompting her to continue.
“Kai, you might look like some kind of devil to most people, but you have a good human heart. Whereas that man looks like a good human on the outside — a cop of all people — but there’s no doubt he has the heart of a devil.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?” she asked innocently.
I found it difficult to believe she needed clarification. “For…for saving me,” I realized. Because if I’d found this out about myself under different circumstances, discovering that I might need blood in certain situations, then it probably would have placed me at a crossroads where I would have been thrust into a world of self-loathing…
I mean, what if the first time I got hurt like this was when I was around my sister?
And if it did happen around someone other than Gabriella, then this was the kind of thing that would have made me run away from home. It would have made me leave my sister, for fear that I might hurt her. To protect her from the monster parading around as her little brother.
But Gabriella had just saved me from that fate, carefully guiding me toward the realization that I was a monster-killer, rather than a monster myself.
“I really wish I could touch you,” Gabriella unexpectedly whispered. “Do you think you could try to find the keys to these things? I think my hands are falling asleep.”