Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - In the Forests of the Night

"I like them this way." I laugh, looking into the shattered mirror. My once misty reflection is now completely gone, but I can see myself in my mind's eye. My hair is still tiger striped, and my eyes are as golden as my silk tank top—the color they were when I was alive, before vampirism darkened them to black. I run my tongue along my teeth, licking off the last traces of Aubrey's blood.

Jager disappears, and I realize that almost everyone has left. Tossing a black strand of hair off my face, I feel for the first time a familiar aura in the back of the room. I remember it from a letter I received recently, a letter with a tearstain on the page.

"So my stalker would visit me in person," I say to his back. In this light the blond hair looks almost exactly as my own once did. I reach out with my mind, and even though I cannot read him I realize what he is. I remember the Triste witch who had been in the Cafe Sangra, who had given a note for Rachel to his vampiric victim.

I did not think much about it at the moment, but now I wish I had. I swear, suddenly realizing the truth I should have realized long ago.

"I was hoping I could convince you not to follow those creatures…but I guess it's too late, isn't it?"

I remember wondering why I never heard him fall.

"Rachel — " he starts to say.

"Alexander, don't talk to me." He has waited three hundred years to tell me he is alive? I damned myself years ago. I had—or thought I had—nothing left to lose, then. All the years I was alone. All the pain he could have spared me…

What pain has he known? I never went back to my father, because I did not want him to see what I had become. Had I known my twin was alive, and immortal like me, would I have chosen to spend the years with him? Would he choose to spend them with me, knowing I'm a monster?

He turns around, and for a moment I look into golden eyes that are mirror reflections of my own. But then he looks past me, at the area where Aubrey and I fought. I see Alexander's gaze linger on the blood that pooled on the ground when I cut open Aubrey's shoulder.

"Why?" he finally asks, his voice soft. "There had to be some other way to deal with this."

I look into Alexander's eyes again and see the judgment there. It does not matter that I am his sister. He does think I am a monster.

I laugh, and Alexander flinches, because it is a bitter sound. "Would you rather I just let Aubrey get away with it?" I say. "I thought he killed you, you know. Did you want me to just forget that? Or did you think I could turn the other cheek and ignore murder?" Alexander looks away for a moment, pain filling his features as he hears my scornful use of words from the Bible, which he always held so dear when we were children.

"I thought you would hate me for what I had done," he says.

"And just what have you done ?"

He pauses, shaking his head, and then reluctantly meets my gaze. "After Lynette was burnt, I would have done anything to protect her. I prayed that I would learn how to control my power, and …" He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. "A woman heard me praying. A Triste. She taught me more than I ever wanted to know about the vampires and every other monster on this Earth. I listened because she also taught me how to use my gifts."

From a curse to a gift, I think. Does he still consider himself damned?

"A few nights before Ather…changed you… I caught her trying to feed off Lynette. I stopped her, but…"

I can guess the rest of the story. Ather is too proud to let anyone take away her prey without seeking revenge. She changed me to hurt Alexander, because my faithful brother would be torn apart by his sister's damnation.

Alexander pulls his gaze from mine, and this time it falls to Aubrey's blood on my hands. "Rachel, how could you do that? I never thought I'd see you with blood on you, willing to kill another. You walk with them as if you are one of them."

I could argue — after all, I did not kill Aubrey—but I do not.

I loved Alexander long ago, and I suppose I still do. But things have changed in three hundred years. At least, I have changed. Alexander does not understand.

He tried to protect me once. He tried to keep me away from the darkness and death, because he did not want Ather to change me into what I now am. He tried, but he did not succeed, and there is no way to undo the damage that has been done since. I have been a monster too long, and as much as I care about him, I cannot change my nature now.

My golden brother still does not belong in this dark world. His sister is dead, long dead, and I cannot bring her back to protect him from all the pain I know seeing me has given him.

The only way I can protect him now is to make sure he never understands how easy killing can become.

"Alexander, listen closely. Rachel is dead," I say, forcing my voice to be cold so that he will not argue. I speak quietly, driving my words to his brain. "I am one of them."

I consider the words as I say them. It is true — I am one of them. But no one—not Aubrey, not Ather, not my father or brother— controls me now.

I could have killed Aubrey. I could have used my strength to be like him. But I remember my humanity.

I am one of them.

But I am also Rachel.

I am Risika.