-Kira-

I didn't like how he followed silently five feet behind me as I approached the white brick house.

No snide comments, or cheeky remarks. Nothing.

The one time I did look back at him he was just blandly looking this whole area over like he does with basically everything else.

Which was really ruining the excitement I should be feeling walking up to the house I knew so well, or just the general freedom of getting off of that damned floor.

He said he didn't plan on being a part of it, yet insisted to stand by and watch?

I didn't understand his plan until he just kept walking once I approached the front door. Down to the side of the house where he wouldn't be seen by someone opening the door, and could simply turn and be out of sight.

Trying to make sure I don't just up and run, huh? As if he couldn't just track me down and take me back.

Whatever. He isn't the main event of this day, this was.

I straightened my back and kicked the vampire from my mind, the faint smell of home I could grab just being outside lifting a relieved smile onto my face.

Finally... I'm back. Even if just for a moment I'm back.

The life I started with wasn't completely out of my grasp. Not yet. Now I had hope.

I stood forward onto my toes to knock on the door, rocking back and forth from my heels back to my toes the more the excitement got to me.

I get to feel his warmth, I get to see him again after all this time, I get to hear his voice finally!

My heart continued to thump during the minutes it took before the sound of the door unlocking.

I thought it was going to leap from my chest the moment the door opened, and out emerged the object of my affection, the source of my fight to get out of this situation.

His short, copper hair showed the bedhead I was well acquainted with, the hazel eyes he'd just finished rubbing growing wide at the sight of me for a split second before they narrowed.

I staggered at the shift change, at the complete opposite of the expression I was expecting.

Where was his excitement? His relief? Any part of mirroring what I was feeling after being away for this long?

"Damn," Was the first thing he said, his mouth twisting into a sour expression, "Didn't think I'd ever be seeing you again."

Like getting punched in my throat, I wavered, drawing back at the words just spoken to me.

"What... What do you mean?" A little nervous excuse of a laugh bubbled the end of my sentence, pleading for that tone of his I'd been clinging to.

For the man I've been hyping up ever since I got thrown into this.

Please...please I needed this so badly.

He didn't say much through his disturbed confusion, looking down at me like the nothing I'd become since the last time I saw him.

He couldn't know what I'd been through, and maybe that's why it made me feel so exposed, so frozen and taken aback.

The ice-cold gaze of a man I was expecting warmth from... Where was it?

Where was any of it? Why now was he looking at me like the last years of our lives didn't happen?

He was upset, and when he was upset all I'd have to do was offer him something that I knew he wanted.

I knew that I joked about it on the way over here, but-

A curt sigh was the first thing to escape him, rubbing a hand down his mouth.

"I would have thought you were smarter than this, you know."

What?

I didn't get an opportunity to respond before another voice cut into the conversation.

"Gabriel," I voice called from behind him, sounding inebriated amongst the drawn-out coo of the word.

Drunk at this hour... or maybe it was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Either way, the voice grew a face as she stepped into view, stepping up behind him and slinging an arm around his shoulder with a soft giggle, "Who's here- oh!"

My heart stopped dead in my chest, lurching up into my throat.

I knew her. I didn't know her name, only that we went to school together at some point in the past.

"Kira!" She beamed, her dirty blonde braids bouncing with her dramatized movements, "Long time no see!"

She recognized me too then...

Gabe just barely turned his head towards her in acknowledgment before returning to how he was.

Unchanging, shameless, utterly void of anything close to the anguish boiling over within me.

Why was she-? Why was he-?

I couldn't make coherent sense of anything I was seeing or experiencing, all I knew was that I ached all over and that there was a hopeless ball knotting in my throat.

He'd already moved on... how? Why?

It hadn't been that long! Not long enough for me to have moved on after the other person just suddenly disappeared!

"Oh come on, don't turn this into something bigger than it actually is," He started, crossing his arms, "If you couldn't tell by now how I felt about you then that's your own fault."

"How you felt about me?" I repeated with a near whimper, grabbing my opposing forearm in one hand.

Now he was edging on the verge of anger behind his eyes, and I felt myself almost wince at the sight.

"Oh please," He groaned, now speaking with the precise bite of pent-up annoyance, "You were so goddamn clingy and I couldn't catch a fucking break from your non-stop complaints I couldn't give less of a shit about. I was almost happy when you first disappeared because I thought that you'd finally gotten yourself a friend or something else to spill your woes to."

I couldn't breathe. It felt like a blade to my chest the more he spoke, the more he tore down everything left that I had built.

Clingy? Complaints?

Of course, I was- or maybe a little more than I thought I was.

I couldn't stay home with my dad... not after a vampiric visit, or the injections, I had to get out. I had to have somewhere else to go to for comfort and Gabe was always there! For years!

Why now? Why now after all of this time was he-

"Then news got out about your dad. I figured you'd followed him in death or at the very least had the brain capacity to flee elsewhere before the vampires got to you. Either way, I knew you were gone from my life so I took that as it was and got on with it. I didn't want to see you again knowing what your name now carries."

I could only barely find the relief inside me that he didn't speak that name out loud, trying in vain to use that to cover the sting of the rest of his words.

Just like that... just like that he was done? After everything else?!

My eyes began to sting, and the air became harder to take in. It felt like my entire world was finally collapsing and leaving me with nothing. Nothing left to hope for.

"My... my calls?" The words were pathetic. Near silent pleads for understanding I regretted the second he rolled his eyes with a scoff.

"They were a sign that you were alive at least, and that's all I took them for."

All this time... All this time and now...

"Then why did you," My voice broke, shattered even, "Why didn't you just-"

"You were an available fuck, Kiari. I didn't want to give that up unless I had to. We all knew your family was psychotic anyway, so I knew it was only a matter of time before you got dragged into something and away from me, so I saw no point."

That was it. That was the last possible jab I could take before crumbling into nothing right before these two. All of it tied together with my old name and I was left with a gaping hole in my chest.

All of this, the last of my hope from my old life standing here and reducing me to... a clingy, annoying, available fuck.

"I-" I couldn't get any words out. I couldn't think of anything more to say, but just felt like I needed to say something.

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real!

After everything else that's happened to me, this was too much! It was too much for me to be dealt with!

I fought and fought to try to hold myself together, to, if nothing else, leave with some minuscule semblance of composure.

It wasn't going to work. The longer all of this sunk in- the longer I stayed within view of these two the more everything began to choke me and-

"Hey," The voice stunned me, more than the hand being set softly against my lower back, "I finished what I needed to do. You ready to go?"

Lucien...

I had half the mind to be surprised and deeply embarrassed by his sudden inclusion, but the tone of voice in which he spoke wasn't one I'd ever heard.

Calm, almost... consoling.

It was like a droplet of peace fell and calmed the air just feeling the attention get pulled off of me and my shortcomings for a moment.

I could look to see that no eyes other than Luciens were on me, and with that I pulled in a much-needed breath.

The way Gabe now looked at him was interesting. His brows furrowed and mouth just slightly open the longer his eyes searched him, and his head lifted to search over Lucien's stoic face.

"Woah," The girl on his shoulder laughed out, eyes completely round with a big, impressed smile.

"Who the fuck are you?" Gabe spoke first with a different kind of angry tone.

I felt myself shrink back into the hand on my back at the sudden differing tension thickening the air again.

There was a silence, one I could only hear my own heartbeat through.

It was enough to have me tighten my shoulders and instead just stare down at the concrete walkway we stood on.

I didn't know what he was going to say, or how it was going to reflect on me. It could make this whole thing so, so much worse.

"I'm the one that found her that night. She's been staying at my place to cooperate after her time in the hospital."

My brows rose and a quiet breath found its way into my lungs at his words.

He was... playing along? With my stupid plan?

I didn't know how to feel about that, all I knew was that right now at this moment I was grateful for the intrusion.

For the distraction... to get the focus off of me and allow myself to try to grasp for my wits and contain myself before things got worse.

"And you are?" Lucien pushed with just the slightest point to his words.

I could only flicker my gaze a half second to see his face, the slight angle in his brows while he looked down at the two in front of us.

There was a hint of offense in Gabe's eyes, one whose origin I didn't understand given all of this new information.

"What? She hasn't talked about me?" He queried, laughing to himself like there was no possible way the answer was no.

Which... he was right in assuming.

"Can't say she has," Lucien lied. Flawlessly enough that I had to remind myself that it wasn't the real truth.

My cheeks and weirdly my chest burned, my head scrambling for a new course of action.

The tap of his fingertips against my back was the only guidance I had in this.

Yeah okay... maybe I could get out of this with a little bit of pride left.

With the contacts shielding the vampiric-giveaway color of his eyes, and the way he was speaking to hide his fangs, these two had no reason to think he wasn't human... This was truly the best-case scenario I had to work with.

They wouldn't recognize him. Everyone here knows the prince as having pitch-black hair and golden eyes.

My embarrassment- my further embarrassment for what had happened to me after my dad's actions had been spared for now. I at least wasn't getting kicked while I was already down.

Lucien continued, "We were simply out shopping when she mentioned making a detour to an old friend," There was a pause where in my periphery I could see Lucien look Gabe over, surely taking in the nearly four inches of height this vampire had on him.

The slight squeeze against my back made me turn to face him, surprised to see a lack of the 'I told you' expression I knew by now would be waiting for me.

"Gotta be honest with you, Kira, I expected more. The company you seemed to keep just keeps getting more and more questionable," His tone just barely strayed from its typical one to show that we were buddies, though I knew by now what it would sound like with his true cadence, "You could do a whole hell of a lot better."

My lips pressed together, adding an extra layer of shame.

A broken heart, crushed dreams, and now this.

Gabe, however, didn't like that one bit, stomping a foot forward before beginning again.

"Who the hell do you think you are talking about me like that-"

He got cut off by the girl pulling him back and leaning forward with her still-showing, drunken smile.

"Kira holy shit you can totally have Gabe back if you wanna switch!" She giddily beamed, still staring right at Lucien.

I felt myself straighten, churning my sadness into anger and frustration as I'd done so many times before.

"What?!" Gabe bit out, shooting a glare at Lucien and switching it between the three of us.

"Helloooo," She enthusiastically drawled out, hooking her arm around his neck to keep him there, and used the other hand to point at Lucien, "Are you seeing him?! That man is beautiful! Kira come on!"

The man beside me breathed out a single laugh while the one in front of me's anger continued to multiply.

"Believe me, dear, you could definitely do better too." Lucien spoke to her in that same consoling tone he took earlier, "Men who see themselves as kings above others often need reminders of what it's like to be powerless. Don't keep fueling this kind of behavior."

"What the- Fuck off man!" Gabe barked, the tone causing me to take another step back.

Lucien's hand stopped me midway, and I used his presence to stabilize myself

He just simply clicked his tongue, tapping his fingertips against me again before his hand fell away, "Yeah I think we will. I believe we've both seen quite enough."

I swallowed hard while he turned to me, gesturing his arm out for me to go first.

"Kira," He spoke my name in a way that portrayed that same thing.

Something in me clenched, but I was too terrified at this moment to explore it and risk the complete emotional breakdown I knew was going to come sooner or later. But for now, I had to keep it together.

I took a last look at Gabe, letting the truth as it settled into my brain for good.

There was nothing left for me in the life I had before.

I felt that before but now it became so much more real. I had no one, no plan, and no possible outside help.

He just barely looked at me once before focusing back on glaring at Lucien, and with that, I tucked my head and walked back the way I came with the vampiric prince only a single step behind.