When our lips parted, we stared at each other for a few moments. I could sense the guilt he was feeling. I knew Derek. I knew that he was beating himself up over what had just occurred.

“I love you,” I assured him. “Nothing’s changed.”

A bitter smile formed on his face as he nodded. “That just makes me feel more like a monster, Sofia. Like I don’t deserve you.”

He walked away and just as I was about to hold him back, he used his lightning speed to get away from me.

I stood rooted to my spot staring at the direction he went off to for a few minutes, wondering if I should follow him. When I was about to make a run for where I thought he was headed, Gavin held me back.

“Let him go. There’s no way you can catch up with him.”

“I think I know where he went.” The Lighthouse. I realized then that I had no idea how to get to the Lighthouse without Derek. There was no way I could make the hundred-foot leap down the fortress without him. I looked Gavin’s way. I had actually forgotten he was there for a while. I sighed. He looked nothing like my best friend, but he reminded me so much of Ben and how easygoing things were when I was around him. This time, however, Gavin was looking at me in a different way—like he was in a daze, blinking several times in disbelief.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he finally spoke, amazement evident in his voice.

“Anything like what?” I asked.

“That! Sofia, the way you get to him…it’s amazing. What were you humming? Will it work on all vamps?”

“It was a tune Derek made up on my birthday. We danced to it while were at the…” I caught myself, remembering that no one apart from me and Derek knew about the Lighthouse. I creased my brows at Gavin and quickly changed the subject. “Can’t everybody do that? Calm a vampire?”

“Calm a vampire?!” Gavin spat the words out like it was the most laughable thing he’d ever heard of. He shook his head profusely as he snickered. “No…not everybody can do that. When a vampire loses it, they lose it. Of all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a human survive a vampire attack unscathed or unbitten when the vampire goes into blackouts. The vampire attacks, destroys, ruins. Only their own kind can stop them, and it’s usually through bloody violence, but you…” He stared at me like I was the most magical thing he’d ever laid eyes on. “It’s like you put a spell on him. How did you do it?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, still feeling the longing ache I had for Derek. “I just matter to him I guess.”

“That’s really what amazes me. Why do you matter that much? What do you have on him?”

I ask myself the same question every day. I hated the idea that I could be important to him only because of the prophecy or the fact that Vivienne lost her life in exchange for mine—thus, securing my value in Derek’s eyes. “We’re in love,” was the only answer I could think of that would satisfy my own insecurities and doubts about why Derek wanted me around.

“Yeah? Well, I hope the love lasts. We could use someone among us capable of taming the prince…”

At that, it was my turn to scoff. “Derek isn’t some beast that ought to be tamed.” I was surprised at my own indignation. The word just rubbed me the wrong way, because it reminded me of Ben calling himself my Prince Charming and me his Rose Red, only for me to end up with the Beast. “Derek is many things, but he isn’t a monster.”

“Sure. If you say so.” Gavin lightly chuckled. He crossed his arms over his chest, both of us still looking in the direction where Derek went off. “Remind me again why you’re avoiding him…”

I gave Gavin a long, thoughtful look before deciding that I could trust him with what I knew. “I think this is something we ought to talk about in private.”

We ended up meandering along the woods—not the safest place for humans at The Shade—on a long route to The Catacombs. That’s where I hesitantly told Gavin about the plan to have another culling.

Most of the walk consisted of a question asked and answered, then immediately followed by a long, tense silence, before another question could be asked. By the time we reached The Catacombs, both of us were heartbroken.

We were already on the level of The Catacombs below where my quarters were when a beautiful young woman with black hair, pale skin and stunning moss green eyes approached Gavin.

“Hi, Gavin…” she greeted shyly as she fidgeted with her fingers.

Gavin’s sharp eyes softened at the sight of her. “Hello, Anna…how’ve you been?” he asked in a manner so patronizing, it was almost as if he was talking to a child.

I then remembered what he told me before when he was talking about Migrates used and discarded by vampires who once professed love to them. I could introduce you to one. Anna—stunning beauty, but degraded to nothing but a whimpering child.

I stared at her, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. Gavin was right. She was gorgeous, but her eyes—though beautiful—were vacant of life. I wondered what the vampire could’ve done to her to make her thus. I also wondered who the vampire who did this to her was. I quickly got my answer.

“They took my doll…” Anna told Gavin. “Felix gave me that doll, and they took it. Felix will get so mad…he always gets mad when I lose things and I get in a lot of trouble for it.”

“Forget Felix, Anna. He won’t cause you any trouble anymore,” Gavin assured her. “Now tell me…who took your doll?”

“The guys…”

Fury sparked in Gavin’s eyes. “What guys? They were in your cell? Did they do anything to you?”

The thoughts that flashed through my mind at what Gavin was implying made me sick.

“The guys who visited this morning, of course,” Anna explained, a flash of fear glazing her wide-eyed and innocent countenance. “They took my doll. I want my doll back.”

“I’ll get it back, Anna…” Gavin’s lips tightened as he nodded in assurance. “I promise.”

Anna threw her arms around Gavin and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you!” she exclaimed happily before skipping off to wherever she spent her time.

Gavin’s eyes were glued on her, the expression in his eyes torn. “She shouldn’t be living alone, but she refuses to live with anyone else. She has it in her head that Felix will return and she doesn’t want him finding her with another guy. She’s still afraid he’ll hurt her.”

“The guys she was talking about…do you think they…”

Gavin shook his head. “Best not to talk about such things. This is what life in The Catacombs is like, Sofia. Get used to it.”

“If anyone’s abusing her, then something has to be done about it, Gavin.”

“She’s crazy, Sofia. She doesn’t even have a doll. You can’t really trust anything she says and to spend our energy on following her around to see if anybody’s taking advantage of her is futile. Besides, what do you intend to do if such a thing was happening?”

Tears began to moisten my eyes.

Gavin heaved a deep sigh as he once again looked in the direction Anna ran to. “Sometimes, I think it’s better to die at a culling than to live like this. You should’ve known Anna before she went insane. She was a lot like you. We were actually convinced for a time that Felix truly loved her…he definitely had us fooled. Eventually, he gave in to his nature—blacked out—and turned on her. When he returned her here, the vibrant, kind and beautiful Anna we all knew was gone. All that’s left is what you see now—a shell.”

I hated to ask, but the words came out before I could stop it. “Do you think Derek could do the same thing to me?”

“I would’ve said yes if I hadn’t seen what happened earlier today, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe you and Derek really are different. For your sake, I hope that’s true.” He stared at me for a couple of seconds, and turned toward the staircase that would lead to the topmost level where my quarters were. He then shook his head before grabbing my hand and pulling me toward another direction. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s time you find out what’s really happening here in The Catacombs.” He then stopped and faced me intently. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

“Of course.” I nodded.

“Good, because if you tell a soul—especially Derek—about what I’m about to show you, make no mistake about it, Sofia…I’ll kill you myself.”

CHAPTER 23: DEREK

I would’ve gone to the Lighthouse, but considering all the times I spent there with Sofia, it hardly seemed much of a refuge when what I wanted to escape from were thoughts of her. Thus, I ended up at Vivienne’s greenhouse instead, busying myself with tending to the plants and trying to recall lost, but precious, memories I had of my sister.

If gardening was some sort of therapy for Vivienne, it certainly wasn’t doing the same thing for me. Everything just reminded me of Sofia and what had just occurred at the outskirts of the Vale.

At some point, I just got frustrated with trying to get Sofia off my mind and miserably failing at it. I returned to the penthouse, head hung low, afraid of what I was capable of doing to Sofia. The darkness had never taken over me while she was here. I thought, and I assumed even Vivienne thought the same thing, that her presence kept the darkness at bay.

That was the first time I realized that Sofia was always going to be in danger while she was with me. I could snap any time and destroy her. How on earth was I going to live after that?

I stepped into my penthouse, riddled with conflicting thoughts, and found Claudia conveniently sprawled on one of my living room couches, waiting for me.

“It took you long enough…” She smiled.

“Claudia? What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Well, I’ve been wondering how you were coping after your lovely pet left…” She stood to her feet and slunk her way toward me.