“You are a monster.” Kanin’s deep voice droned in my head again, as I forced myself to move, to walk away. “You will always be a monster, there is no turning back from it. But what type of monster you become is entirely up to you.”
“The mighty hunter,” I quipped as we snuck out the backdoor, escaping into the yard. “He can take down vicious rabids and rampaging boars, but one old lady can make him flee in terror.”
“One scary old lady,” he corrected me, looking relieved to be out of the house. “You didn’t hear what she told me when I got up — you’re so cute I could put you in a pie. Tell me that’s not the creepiest thing you’ve ever heard.” His voice climbed a few octaves, turning shrill and breathy. “Today for dessert, we have apple pie, blueberry pie and Ezekiel pie.”
“You don't dwell on what you've lost, you just move on."-Allison”
“Did he teach you how to bore you opponents to sleep? Because I think I missed that lesson - Allie”
“The closer you got to someone, the more it would destroy you when they were inevitably gone.”
“And sometimes, hope is the only thing that gets us through the day.”
“We are vampires, Kanin had told me, on one of our last nights together. It makes no difference who we are, where we came from. Princes, Masters and rabids alike, we are monsters, cut off from humanity. They will never trust us. They will never accept us. We hide in their midst and walk among them, but we are forever separate.
Damned. Alone. You don’t understand now, but you will. There will come a time when the road before you splits, and you must decide your path. Will you choose to become a demon with a human face, or will you fight your demon until the end of time, knowing you will forever struggle alone?”
“Hunger flickered, always there, but I pushed it down. I was a vampire. Nothing would change that. But I didn't have to be a monster.”
“Words define us,' Mom continued, as I struggled to make my clumsy marks look like her elegant script. 'We must protect our knowledge and pass it on whenever we can. If we are ever to become a society again, we must teach others how to remain human.”
“He smiled, a real one this time, though his voice remained teasing. “So, what do you think I am?” Naive, I thought at once. Naive, brave, selfless, incredible and much too kind to survive this world. It’ll break you in the end, if you keep going like this. Good things never last.”
“He suddenly leaned in, and his fingers brushed my cheek. Warmth flooded my skin, and I frozen, waiting for him to pull back.
He didnt. The tips of his fingers lingered on my cheek for a moment. Then, very slowly, his hand slipped forward, the palm brushing my skin. Frozen, I stared at him, watching his face as his fingers moved from my cheek to my forehead to my chin, like a blind man tracing someone's features to see them in his mind.
"What are you doing to me?" he whispered.”
“Yes, poor Darren, forced to cook and clean and do other unmanly things. Next thing you know he’ll be wearing an apron and popping out babies.” He snorted as Darren turned and did something with his hand. “We’re friends, but we’re not that close, Dare.”
“It is useless to offer words of hope when you have none yourself.”
“I would not suffer anyone to endure the path I walk. My road must always be traveled alone.”
“I wasn't thinking of his blood, rushing just below the skin. I wasn't thinking of his heartbeat or his touch or the pulse at his throat. Right now, all I was thinking of was Zeke.”
“There will come a time when man is no longer concerned only with survival, when he will once more be curious as to who came before him, what life was like a thousand years ago, and he will seek out answers for a hundred years or so, but humans' curiosity has always driven them to find answers.”
“It seemed Lady Luck hated me worse than usual.”
“Sometime in your life, Alison Sekemoto, you will kill a human being. Accidentally or as a conscious, deliberate act. It is unavoidable. The question is not if it will happen, but when.”
“A silent road stretched before me, damp with rain and littered with cars. As I watched, pale figures began to slip through the trees or claw their way out of the earth. Rabids edged onto the pavement, filling the road, their hisses and snarls rising into the air. Their empty white eyes blazed with madness and Hunger, and they began to sprint forward . Reaching back, I drew my bladem feeling it rasp free, gleaming as it came into the light. Looking up at the approaching rabids, I smiled.”
“My emotions still held a stubborn hope that humans could be loyal, that they could hold out against the promise of an easy life. But I knew better.”
“Oh, come on. I want to see the big-spiky-ball thing."
"You do not need a flail." Kanin scowled, as though imagining what I could do with it.”
“Fine." I glared at him and shook my head. Stubborn idiot.
"But at least try to look a little more raider-ish, okay? We don't want to attract attention."
Zeke's snort sounded suspiciously like laughter. "Allie, you're a beautiful, exotic-looking vampire girl with a katana. Trust me, if anyone is going to attract attention, it's not going to be me."
I didn't answer as we crossed the flimsy, creaking bridge into the lair of the vampire king. If Zeke had asked, I would've said that I was thinking of how to find everyone, but that wasn't entirely true. I was thinking of the others and how I was going to get them out alive...but I kept being distracted by the thought that Zeke had called me beautiful.”
“I got you here, like I promised I would. I wish...I wish I could've seen your Eden, but this place isn't for me. It never was. I have to find my own place in the world."
Bending down, I brushed my lips to his. "Goodbye, Ezekiel,”
“I recognized it instantly. It was a made-up story, a fantasy, the tale of four kids who went through a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a strange new world. I'd read it more times than I could remember, and although I sneered at the thought of a magical land with friendly, talking animals, there were times when I wished, in my most secret moments, that I could find a hidden door that would take us allout of this place.”
“Having a weapon you do not know how to use is better than having nothing at all, but not by much. -Kanin”
“Just…tell me I’m not crazy,” he whispered. “That this…isn’t as insane as I think it is”
…
“I don’t know … Maybe we’re both a little crazy.”
“I can live with that.”
“Jeb regarded me with n o expression. "Do you believe in God, Allison?"
"No," I said immediately. "Is this the part where you tell me I'm going to hell?"
"This is hell," Jebbadiah said, gesturing to the town around us. "This is our punishment, our Tribulation. God has abandoned this world. The faithful have already gone on to their reward, and he has left the rest of us here, at the mercy of the demons and the devils. The sins of our fathers have passed to their children, and their children's children, and it will continue to be so until this world is completely destroyed. So it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, because He is not here.”
“Growing up on the fringe, you came to accept hard truths. Nothing was fair. the world was cold, unforgiving, and people died. it was just the way things were.”
“As I smiled and followed him to where he had set up watch, I couldn't help thinking that this boy - this helpful, friendly, genuinely nice human being - was probably going to get me killed.”
“It was fine and good to be defiant to the end, but it was better not to get caught in the first place.”
“The burning eyes did not come back, but memories did, came flooding in. The words. Always the words. Divorce.”
“We don't get to chose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it.”
“No one expected you to amount to much," she told me. "Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.”
“Dear God!”
I screamed and buried my face in my pillow.
“What?!” I heard him ask. “Did you see a roach?”
“Why are you naked?!” I did not dare to lift my red face.
“Huh. Is that all?” he asked. “I always sleep in the buff. I don't know how you can stand all that clothing.”
“Unbelievable.” I said, and without looking at him I pulled myself up and stomped to the bathroom.”
“But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously...”
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