A Puppet on Strings || Alistair & Zofia
Location: Streets of Oldtown Timing: December 8th, evening Parties: Alistair (@deathsplaything) & Zofia (@zofiawithaz) Summary: Zofia goes out to kill someone she swears is her captor, but Alistair stops her before she goes too far.
She had them pinned against the wall. To the odd passersby it would probably look like a lovers embrace. Except for the fact that Zofia’s teeth were firmly planted in the man’s neck, and his gurgled, whispered pleas.
It looked just like him.
Just like him.
She’d been minding her own business, getting herself a damn drink and then there he was. Next to her at the bar, talkingtalkingtalking, offering to buy her a drink with that same smile- that same smug grin that had leered down at her as he dug and carved for answers she didn’t have and wouldn’t give. Talking, taunting, sitting next to her.
She wished he’d been the one she killed when she escaped. But this was her chance. This was it- he was so foolish, following her outside, letting her get close, going into an alley with her. She didn’t care if it hurt, if the blood burned- she’d bite him anyway just because she could. She’d sunk her teeth in deep, surprised to find his blood didn’t burn. So she drank. Drank and tried to fill the Sofie sized void in her chest. The one that still thought of Cassius, of her clan of everything that came before.
Then her jaw opened. And she was pulled away.
She snarled, confused as to just the fuck was happening. Zofia went to launch herself back at him, but she felt stuck. Like a spider’s delicate webs had stuck to her limbs and were controlling her.
Like a puppet.
She felt like she was restrained again. Like she was back there. Had this all been a cruel dream? A joke? Had she never escaped to begin with? Fuck that, fuck all of that- she let out a scream, frantic to be free of the trap.
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He had been walking home from making the bank deposit, something he didn’t do often, but Alistair had insisted after Melody had to tend to her daughter at home who wasn’t feeling well. So with Brutus in hand, he was simply walking home. The sun had already gone down and the bank was just about to close as he arrived. He had almost gotten home when he heard it. With his hearing better because of his loss of sight, he heard whimpering, and not the kind one wanted to hear. Not the good kind.
Using Brutus to see, he almost groaned aloud when he saw her. It was Zofia. Of course it was Zofia. He had to think quickly if he wanted to stop her from killing the man. He hesitated, and for a moment he wondered if he should stop her. No, he had to act. Closing his eyes, he channeled into the magic around him, feeling the surge hit him as soon as he tapped into it. Alistair put a hand out in front of him, and threads of a pale green smoke began to encompass Zofia, attaching to her body like threads. This magic wouldn’t last long, but enough to yank her away from the man. He pulled his hand back, and it yanked her away. The as soon as it had been cast, the magic disappeared. Alistair opened his eyes. He felt his own energy dissipate.
“You can’t just kill people because you feel like it.” He called out to her, arms crossed over his chest. “And you’re going to get yourself into more trouble if you keep doing that.” He wagged a finger at her, advancing closer like a viper about to strike. The man had long since crumpled to the ground. Alive, but barely. “Dammit, Zofia. I took a chance on you and this is what you do with your time?”
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Him.
She knew him. But he wasn’t from before, he was from after. Why was he here? Maybe it wasn’t a dream- she had gotten out, she was free. Emotions spiraled as she kept chanting the four letter word to herself in her mind: free.
He was… scolding her? Why was he scolding her, she wasn’t a child. She was easily six times older than he was and he was wagging his finger at her like she was a naughty child with her hand in the cookie jar. “You knew what I was when you took a chance. And I can kill people if I feel like it when they-“
A groan sounded from the other end of the alley, and Zofia’s focus shifted back to the man on the ground. It was almost done, she could finish this. The vampire shifted, ready to strike again.
But then she saw the man’s blood streaked face. She really saw it.
And it wasn’t her captor.
It was someone else entirely. Someone who had the same eyes, perhaps, the same smile…but other than those small details, there was no real resemblance. Her mind had been prepared to condemn him to death for a sin he hadn’t committed. Her eyes widened, and she stared at what she’d done. She pressed bloodstained fingertips to her mouth in horror.
“Fix it.” She whispered, frantic eyes darting to the blind man and his dog. “I have to fix it. I’ll fix it- you should go. You should go, it’s not safe. Bad things are out this time of night.” She clearly wasn’t having a sane enough day to be around people, and she didn’t want to hurt someone who’d done her the kindness of offering her shelter.
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As Alistair held Brutus’s harness a little tighter, he waited. Thankfully, Brutus wouldn’t let harm befall him, but he wasn’t sure if the dog would have time to register it. “Take him to get help and then meet me at the flat. We have things to discuss.” His tone indicated that this wasn’t up for debate. This was a demand. “Don’t make me have to do that again.” He then spoke in a quieter, more desperate tone. It was strange that he was so hard-pressed about controlling the undead and raising the dead when he easily sacrificed people to save someone else. But even still, it was his line in the sand he didn’t like to cross.
“I can’t fix this mistake. The best you can do is get him to a hospital and leave him there.” He turned around to leave, shaking his head. “Come on, Brutus.” He murmured to his dog, who began to guide him back toward home. Whether she would join him there remained to be seen. As he walked home, he couldn’t help but feel even more idiotic than before. A vampire was going through something, and he let her into his home. Alistair always knew his inability to leave people to struggle would do him in, but not this quickly. She needed real help, and he couldn’t give it. He didn’t know anyone that would be equipped to help her. Then again, he was sure the therapists in Wicked’s Rest had seen some serious shit.
He needed answers from her that she hadn’t been willing to give in the past. But now, now that Alistair knew she was killing people? He had to do something. He just hoped it didn’t have to be in the form of her as a sacrifice. “Don’t be a fool,” he muttered to himself as he walked. No, he couldn’t do nothing. Not anymore.
Time passed Zofia in a blur. Her mind registered the words he said, at least partially. Dropping a man at the hospital unexplained wasn’t usually an easy task, but when his neck looked as though a hungry animal had gone in for a taste it made things more difficult. She’d made quick work of it, quick as she could. Moving quickly enough so that no one would pay too much notice to ‘the Samaritan dropping off the man’. The blood soaked Samaritan who’d been responsible for the whole affair.
She left the hospital and made her way through the darkened alleys of town, trying to get her head on straight. It had looked just like him. Sounded like him. It was him, it had to have been- and yet it wasn’t. She should have known the instant his blood touched her tongue and she’d gone unscathed. And yet she’d just gorged herself. Zofia pressed herself flat against a cold concrete wall, willing her thoughts to still. And what if he had deserved it. If he had been a terrible person. She ought to have finished the job- it was a waste that she hadn’t finished eating, what was she doing ?!
She was of two minds. One that felt remorse, and one that regretted the interruption. The interruption… How had she stopped, she wondered? Alistair. His words in the alley suddenly clicked into place. Turning on her hell, she changed directions, heading to his flat.
She stood outside the door for ages, trying to decide if she’d knock. Cursing under her breath, she rapped her knuckles against the door and waited.
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After waiting for what felt like years, Alistair finally heard a soft knock at the door. Yep, that was definitely her. He got off the couch and walked across the flat to open the front door wide enough to let her in. “Start talking.” He insisted as he shut the door behind the footsteps of those who had walked into the flat. His tone wasn’t angry, though it was tense. He was withholding judgment until she told her story. He did not explain his power or that he controlled her.
In the center of the living room, the rug had been pulled away to reveal a spell circle. It was nothing special, just a large sigil drawn in white paint on the hardwood floor. “I won’t use it if you don’t give me a reason to.” He explained, knowing it would be the first thing Zofia would notice. “I’m sure you have questions for me as well.” He spoke with a huff as he sat on the sofa, Brutus lying down at his feet. He said nothing, only waiting for her to start talking.
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Zofia barely walked into the flat. She crossed the threshold, but lingered near the door. She wasn’t about to allow herself to be trapped, not again. And the tension in the air made her feel like the cage was swinging overhead, just waiting for her to step on the trigger.
Then she saw the sigil. She didn’t know what it meant, or what exactly it would do, but she figured she probably didn’t want to find out. Her eyes tracked him as he made his way to the sofa, sitting with Brutus at his feet. He was probably watching from the dogs perspective, making certain she wasn’t about to strike.
She stood in silence, trying to find the words to explain herself. She wasn’t certain where to begin. Zofia swallowed, eyeing the door, debating whether it would be better for her to just flee. “I thought he was someone else. He was someone else- the same face. It was him, and then it wasn’t.” She knew she wasn’t making sense, but rational thought had long since parted ways with her.
“He was sitting there pretending he hadn’t stood there with that smug grin for months- because he didn’t- but I thought it was him. I thought he was there, taunting me. I should have known, the blood wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t him.” She leaned back against the wall, the pressure of it there doing little to soothe the mounting hysteria. Zofia kept wiping her hand against her coat, willing it to be cleansed of the blood that stained it. “I just…. I was like a puppet… How?”
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Before he could stop it, a frustrated noise escaped Alistair’s lips. “That’s not an answer.” He growled. “Who is this man you thought he was? What did they do to you?” He knew he was pressing into something that shouldn’t be pressed, but he was frustrated. “I can’t do shit if you give me nothing to work with!” He threw his hands up, then slapped his thighs as he brought his hands back down. He let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Something happened to you. You went missing long enough for your clothes to be in tatters. Start there, what happened?”
Alistair felt like he was trying to grab hold of air the way he was getting fistfuls of nothing from her non-answers. “Who is him?” He asked again, this time in a much calmer voice. “Sit on the couch with me. Take a deep breath.” He patted the empty seat beside him. He wasn’t going to get anywhere by getting angry with her. If anything, that would drive her right out of the flat and back into the night. He wasn’t about to have her hurt another person.
When she began to get sidetracked by asking him about how she had been controlled, he felt his frustration rising again. “I’ll explain that later. After you tell me what caused you to attack that man.” Alistair raised a brow, silent and expectant. Brutus, meanwhile, seemed to be perfectly content at his owner’s feet, eyes closed as he snored softly. He couldn’t help but envy his dog, sleeping soundly through what was easily the most frustrating thing he had dealt with all month, and he dealt with a lot.
The more her panic grew, the greater Alistair’s frustration seemed to get. She knew she wasn’t helping him to understand, not with the fragments that her mind kept circling like a starved vulture. Zofia sunk her teeth into her lip, trying to distract herself from her racing thoughts with anything. And then his tone shifted. Calm. Coaxing. She eyed his hand as he patted the empty spot beside him.
Zofia slowly inched closer, until she was perched on the far edge of the sofa, keeping a healthy space between them. She figured from where she was, she’d only need a few steps to make it to the door. Or, if it went horribly wrong, she could try to go out the window. She sat still, breathing to center herself rather than out of necessity.
“I don’t know who they are. I don’t have a name.” She sighed, rubbing at her face. The dog was asleep, so she didn’t need to worry about him seeing her streaked with a strangers blood and deciding she looked like a monster and that he should find a stake.
“You know about vampires.” Her voice was hollow. As though she could give nothing but the facts of the matter. “So I assume you know about clans. I was part of one in France. Someone has been hunting us for years. I didn’t realize…” she paused, shaking her head. “I was a foolish young thing. You’re impervious to illness, to age… you cheat death and see empires rise and fall. You sit in the lap of luxury and enjoy, never wanting, never hungry, no need to hunt, to fight to survive. And you don’t see the curtain falling.”
“They killed my sire and her husband about sixty or so years ago.” She closed her eyes. “They were like parents to me. I didn’t realize we had been in any danger until they didn’t come back. Henri- one of the other members of our little family, he and I ran for another ten years. We didn’t know if there was anyone left other than us, and if there were they’d probably gone into hiding. And then Henri vanished… I assumed they got him. I haven’t seen him in half a century.”
“I was here in town. I had a life here, I was safe here. I had a new family here I had love.” Her voice wobbled. She smothered the sliver of Sofie that cried out as her story was told. Zofia continued, her voice carefully neutral. “In the summer, they found me. I suppose there are still others they’re chasing, others more dangerous than little Sofie DuPont.” She spat the name out. Like it had betrayed her. Like the kindness and trusting nature of that woman had been her downfall. “So they took me. And I sat alone underground, in the dark for months. They tried to get answers and I didn’t have any. They thought I was holding out. So they kept trying… new methods. Of getting me to talk. One day they made a mistake, and I got out. I took their numbers down by one when I left. I thought it only fair.”
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In truth, Alistair didn’t know all that much about vampires. Just the basics: they were real, drank blood, and didn’t like the sun very much. He didn’t bother to explain this to Zofia but attempted to keep up all the same. This clan was a family, then. A family that had been hunted to extinction. He frowned as he took in the new information, head dipping as he processed it all. He didn’t interrupt her as she told her story. It tugged at his heartstrings and left him wanting to take her hand in reassurance. But who’s reassurance? He lifted his hand and slowly drifted it toward the direction of her voice and found it good enough when it landed on her shoulder.
Sofie Du Pont was a new name that she used in malice. It differed from the name she had introduced herself with, Zofia Kowalska. “So this old you, this Sofie Du Pont.” He began, keeping his hand stead on her shoulder. “She was hunted along with the rest of her clan.” He began to repeat the facts back at her to ensure he was getting it all right. “And she was captured and tortured for information. Information she didn’t have.” His frown deepened, and he shifted his weight as he let his hand drop to hers. “Sofie Du Pont died then, didn’t she? That old life she had, it was lost with her innocence.”
He knew what it was like to be hated for what he was. He hadn’t been hunted for sport, but he could understand it to a fraction. “Zofia Kowalska, your real name, then.” He deduced as he crossed one leg over the other. He focused on the sound of Brutus’s breathing momentarily before continuing. “So this person you attacked, you kept saying he was this guy he wasn’t. Your tormentor?” His voice was quiet, as if he feared saying the wrong thing. “I can’t say for certain if these hunters are still around. I’m sure you did a number on them.” He frowned, knowing that housing her could spell trouble for him in the long term. But he’d never turned someone away before. He always helped. “I’ll keep you as safe as I can here. Look into someone to do some basic protection magic around here.”
Alistair sighed, realizing it was his turn to explain things. “I told you before that I wield magic.” He began, shifting his body in the direction of Zofia’s voice. “I’m a necromancer.” There, he had said it. No going back now. “Death magic, if you will. And since you are dead, I can control you if I need to. Because I saw you killing someone, I used it to get you off of him. It's not a big ritual. That comes with sigils.” He gestured vaguely at the ground, referring to the spell circle he had drawn out on the floor. The paint was raised, undoubtedly so that he could feel where everything was. “What I did back in the ally was a very temporary spell. The more complexities I put into it, the more effective it can become.” He removed his glasses, revealing the burn scars covering the top half of his face. “The glasses I wear are enchanted. They hide the sacrifice I gave to heal someone.” He didn’t mention that it hadn’t worked. “The way I use necromancy is to heal people. But like all magic, it comes with a big price tag.” He put his hands out before him, tipping them like a scale. “To heal someone,” he raised one hand higher than the other, “another must take on their wounds.” He lofted the other hand high. “Balance must be maintained. Necromancy is all about balance. To bring someone back from death, another must die.” He fell silent, waiting for her to say something. “Now we know each other better.”
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Her eyes opened as the weight of a hand settled on her shoulder. She flinched in surprise, but she didn’t pull away. It was like having a tether for a boat in a storm so it didn’t drift off and get dragged out to sea. “They were French, I lived in France for the most part… I was a new thing. I thought a new name fit.” Her eyes settled shut when his hand found hers, recounting the end of her story. Zofia let out a ragged breath, leaning back into the cushion of the couch, wishing it would magically open up and swallow her whole. “She did. She’s still in here I think… like a ghost in a haunted house. She drifts through sometimes. But I can’t be her anymore.”
“My birth name, yes.” She confirmed. They sat in silence a beat before he continued. As he spoke, Zofia’s heart ached in her chest. The gentleness is what broke her. She sniffled, pulling herself away from comfort she did not deserve. “It wasn’t him.” Guilt dripped from her words. “I thought it was him, but it wasn’t… it was so real though- I.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “He looked like who I assumed was the leader of the operation.” Her voice was void of expression as she fought to keep herself stead, hastily swiping at tears before they could fall. “I only got out because they’d only left one behind to guard. They didn’t think I was a threat. If it had been more than one. I’d likely be making my eternal resting place on the inside of some bastard's vacuum cleaner.”
Her eyes darted over at his offer and she shook her head. “I’m more trouble than I’m worth. I may too by on occasion, but I will not stay long enough to bring trouble to your door. You don’t want to deal with these people.”
Zofia watched carefully as he explained his side of the story. Her heart ached a little as he half explained what had happened to his eyes. She hoped that whatever he’d saved for the cost of his sight, that the price had been worth it. “Could you have borrowed from me?” She asked, unsure of how it worked. “To fix him? Or no, because I’m not alive, technically.”
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Alistair thought for a moment. It was easy to separate the person he was before he lost Mikael from the person he was after he lost him. After all, it had been defined by more than just losing him. The loss of his sight had defined it, and as a result, a loss of the career he had left his family for. “I get it,” he spoke, voice almost a whisper with how quiet it was. He didn’t talk about this stuff. Not even Melody knew much about his time before Mikael. All of it was just too painful for him. What he’d lost, the treatment given to him by his parents, all of it. “She’ll always be there, even if you don’t want her to be. She’s who you are, even if you don’t want to see it. She’s still you, but she’s been molded by trauma.”
“No,” Alistair spoke as she recounted the man she had attacked. “He wasn’t. You have to learn not to trust your own mind for a little bit.” He frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I had a partner. We were together for eight years. Not the point. Point is, he got taken one night by a deranged psycho who wanted the family secrets. He got hurt, and I couldn’t save him. I kept seeing the man who hurt him all over the place, but it was never him. I was so hung up on finding him that I lost myself for a bit. Took a while to pick up the pieces.” He blinked, eyes glancing over in her general direction. “It’s okay to take a while to pick up the pieces, Zofia.” His voice was gentle. He didn’t know if she would be receptive to his words, but he had to try at least to appeal to the part of her that wasn’t driven mad by bloodlust.
“I know I don’t have to help you, and I know the dangers. But I took you in, I don’t intend on casting you out just because a spooky bad guy is after you.” Alistair waved a hand, the notion itself ridiculous to him. “If you’ll let me, I’m here to help. It’s kinda what I do.”
He frowned as she asked if he could have fixed him. “No, when they’re that hurt, it takes a one-to-one comparison. If he were human, I’d need to use a human sacrifice. If he were a fae, I’d need a fae. So on and so on.” He took a moment, adjusting his position in his seat. “In the shop, I have a back room. I heal people there. Some don’t know the extent of the damage they do to someone else to heal them. Others do and just don’t care. I take the bad people and use them as sacrifices for the more mundane healings. When it’s more complex, things get dicey. Sometimes, I get lucky, and I have the correct species. Sometimes, I don’t. Sometimes people die anyway when a spell doesn’t go right.” He pointed at his eyes when he referenced a spell not going right. He slid his sunglasses back onto his face after pointing to himself. “I’m not letting you leave just because you don’t think you’re worth saving. I think you’re worth saving, which must count for something.”
‘I understand’ always felt like one of those things people said to be kind, but they didn’t really understand. Not this time, though. Zofia didn’t know what had happened to him in his life to know what it was like to be haunted by the ghost of who he’d been before, but he described it well enough to know it wasn’t just an attempt to make her feel better. The more he talked, the more pieces of his puzzle began to fall into place. She couldn’t imagine losing a partner in that fashion. But she knew what it was like to lose people she cared for. Knew that one day or eight years or half a century later, while it might become less sharp with time, that pain never really went away. Not fully. And there were still days where it hurt as badly as the day it had torn her heart apart.
Slowly she began to unwind from herself, to come out of the corner of the sofa she’d tucked herself into. She didn’t know if this was magic too. He could control her if he wanted to, and she supposed that ought to make her angry. Angry enough to lash out at him. But then the image of an innocent man’s bloodied face appearing from the haze she had been in crept across her mind. Zofia could deal with being controlled a little, she supposed. If only to protect her from herself.
She blinked, looking at him in surprise. “You just. Have a stock of bad people on hand? For healing purposes? What determines a bad person?” A soft, crazed giggle erupted. “If you didn’t know my story would I be bad? I’m certainly not good.” Her mind trailed to the handful of lookalikes she’d drained out of hunger and some half crazed attempt to get a message across. That was just her need for blood tangling with the pain that Cassius had seemed to move on without looking for a way to help her. And she still didn’t feel guilty about it. She didn’t feel much of anything about it, and she knew she ought to.
Worth saving. Those words rattled something deep inside her. “Why?” She asked, her voice unsteady and thick. “What makes me worth saving?”
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Pulling a face, Alistair shook his head at her words. “I wouldn’t call it a stockpile. One at a time, really.” It was strange to talk about the truth of what he did. If the wrong person found out, surely he’d be run out of town or worse. He then thought for a long moment, frowning. “The people I deal with don’t have redeeming qualities.” He spoke bluntly as he got more comfortable in his seat. He didn’t seem to know how to sit properly in a seat without splaying his legs out and leaning back with an arm against the back of the couch. “They’re werewolves that constantly kill, vampires that have lost themselves in their bloodlust.” He raised a brow, expression pointed. “You haven’t lost yourself to it. You’re just…” he waved his hands in the air as he tried to devise a way to put it. “Just a touch traumatized.” He gave a wry smile, knowing it wasn’t an elegant way of putting it. But he was never one for elegance, anyway.
“What makes you worth saving?” He questioned back at her. He thought for a moment, wondering if there was a way not to say what he felt deep in his gut. “What makes you worth saving isn’t about you.” He confessed, knowing he was helping her for purely selfish reasons. “I helped you because no one was there when I needed help.” There, he had put it out into the open. She could either accept that or she couldn’t. Either way, he had spoken his truth. “Despite everything against her, I recognize someone who survived and crawled her way back out from six feet under.” His words were gentle as if he were afraid of spooking her. “So yes, you’re someone worth saving. You just may not see it. May not want to see it. And that’s okay. It’s something to work towards as you try to get yourself back on your feet.”
She wondered if he’d still say the same thing if he knew about the handful of Cassius look-alikes she’d left strewn about town. Zofia doubted he’d be able to find a way to call that redeemable. The first few days of freedom had been difficult. She’d been on edge. She still heard people that weren’t there, still felt eyes on her no matter where she went. Some primal part of herself told her to drink, and some scorned, betrayed part of herself told her to make a point. She shifted, uncomfortable as her train of thought led her to question what exactly about her was redeemable. She took the thought and stuffed it far away in a dark corner of her mind to address it some other time.
And yet there he was, continuing to talk and taking that box that she’d hastily tucked away in the shadows of her mind and shining a spotlight on it. She let out a long, heavy sigh as she studied him. He’d clearly been through the darkness before. He seemed to have come out the other side in tact. The ghost that haunted her thoughts reached toward that, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t too late to turn back from the ledge she’d found herself at the top of. “If I found them,” She started slowly. “And I was certain I was right. Would you still stop me from finishing it?” From putting the damn nightmare to an end. Maybe then she could rest easier. Maybe then she could rebuild with the confidence that she wouldn’t have to burn the rest of the world down to protect what was hers.
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The necromancer fell silent for a long moment, expression unchanging as he digested the information that Zofia had given him. “I know you’re a vampire. I know you need blood to live.” He began, mulling the idea like a sommelier tasting a good wine. “But you don’t need to kill ‘em to do it, do you?” Alistair was trying to prove a point. “You can choose to fight what you’ve become or can’t. In which case, I feel a need to step in.” He decided honesty would be the best choice of action in this situation. He didn’t know what she could do, and maybe he was a complete idiot for taking the woman under his wing. He was projecting his shit onto someone who couldn’t even distinguish real life from her demons. “Fuck.” He muttered to himself as he made the revelation.
“You tell me everything else you’ve done. Going to have more than just those hunters showin’ up on the bloody door.” Alistair grumbled to himself as he stood up to start pacing around. He was a fool for pitying someone he should’ve walked away from. She’d have more than just the slayers that wronged her in the first place if she didn’t begin to clean up her act. “Make an effort to stop yourself from killing innocent people like you did tonight. And you’ll tell me who else you’ve been killing while at it. Otherwise, you get the fuck out of my flat, and you never come back. Do you understand me?” He raised a finger toward where he thought she may have been, but it was a bit off the mark, pointing to the right of her instead of directly at her.
He took a second to realize what he had just said and relaxed. “Sorry, I’m just. I’ve had a long day.” Of course, Alistair had a long day. Today was the anniversary of Mikael’s death. He didn’t talk about it. He never talked about it. Not even to Melody. “It’s a bad day for me. Memories of things best left to forget, you understand.” He fell back onto the couch, having half a mind to march to his room and hide for the rest of the night. “But I need you to understand that killing people won’t fix your problems. Killing the right people might, but you’re still going to have the same trauma. You might think it’ll fix you, but it won’t.” He swallowed, eyes a million miles away. “Trust me.”
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Zofia thought this must be how cornered animals felt. As he spoke, his ire seemed to grow. Moving as quiet as she could, she got back up off the couch and took several steps back to position herself in front of a window. He demanded the truth. Honesty. And yet he’d already said that the kind of beasts he kept caged away were ones that had lost themselves to bloodlust. If she told him the truth, there was a high chance she wound up puppeted into walking down to his shop and sitting herself down in his back room, waiting for some more deserving soul to have her life force siphoned away to heal their own. She’d go right back to being trapped.
But he asked her to trust him.
She hadn’t been able to trust anyone in so long. Not even herself. Some part of her still wanted to believe that maybe she could trust something. Even if it was a total stranger who’s dog seemed to like her for some inexplicable reason.
“I couldn’t drink from hunters if I wanted to,” she muttered, eyes flicking around the space as she weighed her options. Out the window? Tell the truth? Risk the magic sigil on the floor? “Their blood is like acid to us.” Zofia didn’t know why she was explaining all this. Maybe she was just stalling for time. She understood having bad days, bad months, bad years- bad moments full of bad memories she’d love to leave behind in the dirt. But would rehashing them make any of this better? Would telling him what she’d done make either of their bad memories quiet down for a moment? Her eyes settled on Brutus, faithfully sat next to Alistair. Was she really about to tell him what she’d done because she trusted the dog? The vampire sighed. Maybe she had lost her mind. She pressed her back to the glass of the window, prepared to shove herself out it at the first sign of danger.
“Three dead.” She said quietly. “If you think my state of mind is poor now, it was worse a few weeks ago. I’d been left for dead and I thought someone would have come looking for me but he-“ she swallowed, realizing there were so many missing puzzle pieces for him. “I had someone, before. They moved on in the months I was gone. They said they looked, said they’d tried, but they replaced me.” A chill crept into her voice, her eyes downcast. “I came back, and he’d moved on. And I…” she shook her head, not wanting to elaborate. “They looked like him. They weren’t. They never could be. No more dead after the hunter when I escaped and those three.” She held her breath, waiting to see if she’d have to run.
_______
There was a long stretch of silence after Zofia told him the truth. He looked over to the window, able to see her outline because of the street lights that shone through, casting her silhouette. He could see light and shadow–Not well, but he could. He took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It was a lot of information to swallow. “This man that you…” he trailed off, that wasn’t a good way to put it. Start over. “This man, is he in trouble? Do you think you’re capable of killing him?” Alistair needed to know the answer. He needed to know if he was boarding a serial killer or not.
“Three,” he whispered, rubbing a hand over his face and shaking his head. Three was a lot. Hell, one was a lot, but he wasn’t about to admit that when he had a sizable portfolio of injured or dead people, all in the name of fixing someone else. “Three’s a lot, Zofia,” Alistair murmured, still rubbing a hand over his face as he took in the details. He lifted his head skyward, staring up at the ceiling for a long time. He said nothing, only stood there, lost in thought.
“I’m not innocent from killin’ people neither, but that doesn’t… that was in malice, not survival.” Alsitair's shoulders slumped, and his head turned back toward her as he continued to digest. “I’m not gonna make you one of my victims.” He spoke, deciding he needed to get that out of the way before he continued. “I’m not going to control you again unless you try to kill me or someone else important to me. Or another innocent.” He tilted his head side to side as if weighing his options. “Don’t. Make me regret helping you.” He finally said, voice serious. “Get help. Serious help. Talk to a therapist about what happened to you. Don’t tell them the vampire and murder details, but fuckin’ talk to someone. Because the more you bottle this shit up, the worse it will get for you.” His eyes were wide as he stared into space. “I…” he trailed off again, pursing his lips as he struggled to get out the words. “I’ll help you. But you have to help yourself, too.”“No.” The answer came out surprisingly easy. Even if she wanted to hurt Cassius, he had an Elder Vampire who’d destroy her before she could so much as touch a hair in his head. But she didn’t. She’d been scratching at her own hand like a tragic character from a Shakespeare play, wishing she could find a way to turn back the clock and take it back, or find some way to absolve herself of that sin. “No.”
She watched him as he processed the information. Tried to determine if his breathing had changed, if he’d shifted, if his fingers had moved in any meaningful way. She waited. And waited. And then he said the words she needed to hear.
Zofia’s tightly coiled nerves loosened a touch, slouching against the window. “I won’t hurt you.” She didn’t have the energy to sound offended or hurt at the implication that she’d aim for him. If they hadn’t met the way they had, it would have been possible that she’d set her sights on him for a midnight snack. But since she’d been back, he was one of the few glimmers of light she’d found. Him and that dog who sat and watched them both. They’d been kind. She needed that, after so long in the dark. She didn’t want to risk the little twinkle of light going away.
“Okay.” It came out just above a whisper. She’d agree. If only to keep the speck of light.
“Right,” Alistair spoke, un-crossing his arms over his chest and shuffling his weight from foot to foot. He could sense her mounting distress and unease. This man she spoke of wasn’t in danger so he could rest easy. “Come here,” he said, voice soft. He held his arms out, knowing that the last thing Zofia needed right now was to be pushed away further. He wouldn’t hurt her, and he wanted to show her that.
She’d agreed to go and see someone, someone that wasn’t him. He couldn’t help her like that. He wasn’t put together. He couldn’t even get to see a counselor, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. She’d see him as a hypocrite and not do what he told her to. His arms remained outstretched, and for a moment, he thought about dropping them. But if his hunch was correct, he expected her to reciprocate the hug he offered her.
Zofia stared at him. He was standing there, arms outstretched. His voice was gentle. Her eyes strayed to the sigil on the floor. She took a hesitant step toward him. He didn’t move to activate it. She took another step toward him. He made no move to control her.
Trust me. The words rattled around in her chest before lodging itself somewhere behind her collarbone. She kept taking quiet steps toward him until she was a foot away. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe- waiting one second longer to see if he’d change his mind, to see if the little light would snuff itself out.
He stayed, arms outstretched.
Zofia stepped into the embrace, still poised to run at the first sign of a change of heart. It still didn’t come. She wrapped her arms around him, trying to settle into the feeling of letting herself be comforted again. The two words that had settled behind her collarbone felt warm. Like the truth. Like the right choice, for now at least. So she stayed, and trusted him.
——-
Alistair began to channel magic into his grasp as soon as she embraced him. The tendrils, like smoke, began to converge towards Zofia. He could do it. All he had to do was cast. He swallowed, pushing Zofia away with a frown. “Step out of the circle,” he warned her in a broken voice. “And you should…” he frowned, quickly stepping out of the spell circle. ”You should probably find somewhere to live that isn’t with a necromancer that could control you.”
His eyes flickered back and forth as he tried to get his head on straight. He didn’t want to control her, and every nerve ending in his body was screaming to cast that spell. “You have forty-eight hours to collect your things and find somewhere else to live.” Alistair gritted his teeth as he spoke, running a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, but it’s… it’s for the best.” He paced back and forth through the apartment, realizing he could be making a big mistake by not holding her back.
“I’m sorry, Zofia. You deserve to be in the care of someone who doesn’t have the potential to control your every move. I’m not good to be around. I didn’t think this through, and it’s on me.” He groaned, warring with the thoughts in his head. “If you need sanctuary at the shop, let me know. But I don’t think that you living here is a good idea.”
She was forced back, whatever brief comfort she’d found in being held quickly fizzling out like a candle in a rain storm. There it was. There it was. She smiled a bitter, sad thing. He’d witnessed the monster and no matter how many arrows the beast had in it’s hide, he was prepared to fire another volley at its heart. At her.
Zofia moved out of the circle.”Save your apologies.” She didn’t bother to put any energy behind the statement. The words tasted bitter as they fell from her mouth. “I’ll be gone tonight. Won’t have to worry about whether or not the big bad beastie is lurking in your guest room any longer.
The corner of her mouth ticked, and she stood up taller. “I don’t need to be in anyone’s care.” She hurried to the guest room and threw what little she had into a bag. She walked back out into the space, taking a good look at the man. He’d do it, wouldn’t he? Control her. And what then? She’d be trapped again. A different sort of trapped, but trapped nonetheless. And she had promised herself that she would not let herself be trapped again.
“I hope you have a nice, long life, Alistair.” She said, anger coloring the edges of her voice. “Lovely meeting you Brutus.” She nodded to the dog. At least the dog had liked her. Before the necromancer could change his mind, she got out of the apartment as quick as she could. When she’d finally put a good amount of distance between herself and the flat, she let out a frustrated scream. Starting over, yet again.