CHAPTER ELEVEN

Life Choices

Being let out of the south gate was easy, with Warren by her side. The guards didn’t even question why he wanted to go out there. So, at Warren’s command, the sheet of steel peeled open, and they walked out into the wilderness together. Their path hugged the wall until they’d found the brook where it flowed from the other side and followed it towards the lake as Warren promised.

When they arrived on the water’s shore, Karou quickly abandoned her shoes and submerged her feet. “Ah! It’s freezing.” She squealed gleefully as she paddled. “But… I suppose it’s not so bad once you get used to it.” Karou reached down to roll her jeans up her legs so she could wade in deeper. Once she submerged herself to her mid-shins, she turned and looked at Warren with a smile. “Thank you for bringing me here. Are you coming in too?”

“You’re welcome.” He muttered, distracted by how she appeared in the sunlight; it highlighted the warm brown tones in her hair. “Uh- No, expanses of water, and I don’t get along.” Warren declined her invite and strolled the shore six or seven feet from the edge instead. Karou’s shoes hung from his hand by their laces.

“Suit yourself; it’s refreshing, though.”

“As long as you don’t catch a cold.” He warned; her fragility was never far from his mind. Somehow a mortal girl had ended up in his care, and though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, he did care.

“Warren, it’s July!” Karou chuckled, kicking water in his direction. “Relax, will ya?”

It was a short twenty minutes until Kaoru decided the numbness rising up her legs wasn’t pleasant. Even in the middle of summer, the water was too glacial to enjoy for long. She’d started to shiver, and Warren had fought the urge to ask her to get out sooner; he didn’t want to seem controlling. When she finally gave in and waded out of the water towards him, he suggested she use a nearby fallen tree trunk as a bench. Before she slipped her wet feet back into his shoes, he produced a pair of gloves out of his jacket pocket and insisted she use them to dry herself.

Karou found Warren’s small acts of kindness heart-warming. “Thank you,” she said, sliding the oversized woollen mittens onto her hands and began to wipe the water from her feet and lower legs. “Is it weird that I thought you’d be the type to wear leather gloves?”

“I have a pair of leather driving gloves, but they’re pointless these days; cars are heated.”

Karou giggled at how practical his answer was. Before she could ask for her shoes, Warren had taken a knee and held them out to her. As she slipped her feet into one and then the other, she asked, “Why didn’t you want to come in the water with me?”

“You enjoy making me repeat myself, don’t you? I might be a systematically dishonest person, but I didn’t lie, Karou,” Warren told her off, but it didn’t stop him from tying her shoelaces for her.

“So, you’re scared of water?” Karou asked, trying to keep any judgement out of her voice.

“Yes, I have been since I was a boy.” As though his answer wasn’t intriguing, Warren sat beside her and explained, “I almost drowned in the bath when I was five or six,”

The root of his phobia caught Karou by surprise. “Is that why, back at the unit, such a luxurious bathroom doesn’t have a bathtub?”

“No.” Warren chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not scared of bathtubs anymore, just large expanses of unpredictable and deep water.”

“It must’ve really traumatised you.”

“Hmm, well, phobias are irrational fears. I know that what happened is unlikely ever to recur in adulthood, but I still can’t bring myself to venture into deep water. I never learned to swim, never even dared try. In the 20s, some of my friends had yachts, but I’d never go boating with them. Even large bridges over rushing water make me nervous.”

“It’s only human to be scared of something.”

“… But I’m not human.”

“You were when you were five.” Karou smiled at him warmly.

All while he’d talked, he’d been staring at the object of his fear, the water, but at her compassionate words of understanding, Warren met her eyes. To show how he’d appreciated her kindness, he smiled softly, which caused Karou’s own smile to erupt into a grin that made her blue eyes twinkle.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Karou asked, knowing she was pushing her luck because he’d already revealed quite a bit, but getting to know him had gotten addictive. Now she knew a few of his secrets; she wanted to know them all.

Hunched over his knees, with his elbows rested upon them, Warren returned his focus to the still lake. The silence between them stretched on for a slightly uncomfortable length of time, and Karou had begun to wonder whether she ought to apologise for pushing boundaries. She thought maybe she’d upset him, but then he said, “My mother used to bathe my brother and me on the porch during the summer. She’d fill buckets with water and leave them out in the yard to warm up in the sun; that way, she wouldn’t have to waste firewood heating pots and pots of water on the stove.”

“Robby had gotten into the tub before me on that day. My mother was washing me when we heard Robby start yelling from inside the house. He’d been sent inside to be dried by my father in front of the fire, and he must’ve done or said something to make him angry.” There was another long pause in which Warren seemed to be contemplating what he was about to say.

“My father had a short fuse and nasty temper. He hated that Robby wasn’t like other boys… From when he was old enough to express himself, he was very effeminate. I mean, he knew he was a boy, but he saw no wrong in liking dresses, dolls and such like. His friends were exclusively female. My father thought he could beat his queerness out of him.”

“My mother left me alone in the bathtub to go defend Robby, who was getting an ass whooping. I panicked, stood up to go after her, and slipped in the tub. When I tried to find my feet, it was as if the water wouldn’t let me.” Warren sighed. “For years after that, I was a very dirty little boy.” He smirked over his shoulder at Karou, but his expression didn’t inspire a smile from her. She looked sad.

“Did he beat you too, your dad?”

“Why’re you worried about that?” Warren asked, but Karou didn’t offer an answer in return. She just held his gaze with that same sad look in her eyes and waited. Eventually, Warren said, “Yes, he did. I’d take beatings for Robby and my mother if I got the chance. But… I wasn’t always there to stop him from putting his hands on them.”

For a while after, they both stared at the lake in convalescence. They were both victims of parental abuse, and despite all their other differences, at least they had that in common.

When he felt enough time had been spent wallowing, Warren stood from the log and nodded in the direction of the Compound. “We should start walking back; the sun will be setting soon.”

Karou nodded in agreement and followed along behind him silently. She couldn’t help mulling over Warren’s childhood recollection; it had dampened her spirit.

The closer they got to the gate, the less peaceful the silence became; it grew stifling until Warren couldn’t take it anymore.

“Karou.” He stopped dead and turned to face her. “Don’t dwell on what I’ve told you. My father paid for ever laying a finger on his family - I made sure of that.”

Karou met Warren’s eyes, and even though they were inky black and hostile, she could tell he meant to be kind.

“I-… I just don’t get why people bother having kids if they aren’t even going to try to be decent parents. Like, I wasn’t a bad kid, yet mine still couldn’t even be nice to me.”

“Neither was I. I was just too much like my mother. He could never accept that he had two sons, and neither of us resembled him in the slightest. Guess he felt that he had no heirs or legacy to leave behind and punished us for it. My mother made up for my father’s lack of love tenfold. She was a wonderful, kind, warm-hearted woman.”

“I’m glad.” Karou smiled weakly. “I wasn’t so lucky.”

“I know, and for that, I’m sorry… but it’s all behind us now.”

The hour or two they spent by the lake had come and gone. As Warren had said, they made it back to the unit a half hour before dark; the sky was still burnt orange though the sun had dipped below the treeline.

Inside, Karou flung herself onto the couch with a dramatic sigh. Their day had been fun, and it would be nice to remember Warren by it when he was back to being his usual icy self. Of course, it was also bittersweet given their conversation and because she figured his amicable mood wouldn’t last.

Warren disappeared into his office as soon as they had gotten back home. His thirst was starting to get to him, and he didn’t want it to taint the rest of his day off with Karou by constantly eyeing her neck hungrily. On his return to the lounge, Warren took up his usual corner seat on the couch and looked over at Karou briefly when he placed his tumbler of blood, which he’d wrapped in heat packs, onto the coffee table. “I only drink it cold if I’m desperate.” He explained before she could ask.

“That makes sense. It’s a little different looking at it now that I know where it came from.”

“Hmm, it makes you wonder why people say knowledge is power.” Warren dipped his finger into the thick red liquid to check if it was at his preferred temperature yet. It wasn’t, so he withdrew his fingers and nonchalantly sucked the blood from it.

“You always have something witty or insightful to say,” Karou said, watching him from where she lay. Her eyes paid particular attention to what he’d done with his finger.

“Comes with being old...” Warren chuckled, flopping back against the sofa, spanning his arms down its back.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You always go ahead and do what you want anyway, so why ask?” He shrugged but seemed to be giving Karou an allowance.

“I’ve wanted to all day, but I didn’t want to ruin your day off.” Karou rolled onto her side and curled up with her cushion. “Do you have a reason-...”

“- If you’ve waited that long already, we can talk about it tomorrow instead.” Warren cut her off halfway because he had a feeling he knew the nature of her question, and she was right; talking about it would’ve soured his day with her.

Their evening passed as usual, with a movie playing in the background. Between scenes, she’d glance at him as he took sips from his warm bloody beverage and took note of how his eyes gradually changed colour. Before long, they were a healthy-looking and wonderfully crystalline shade of blue.

Eventually, Karou fell asleep. While Warren drank a glass of scotch to chase his other refreshment, he left her sprawled on the couch and relaxed a little before he was ready to sleep too. He contemplated waking her but disturbing her for the sake of her walking to her room when she’d exerted herself trekking through the woods that afternoon seemed petty. So, after his usual internal debate, Warren decided to pick her up and carry her to bed instead.

The way her head lulled into his chest and how she nuzzled into him brought to mind the morning. Paused before her bedroom door, he glanced at his own. He imagined a possibility, but before he allowed it to form fully, he set her down into her bed and covered her with the quilt.

I’ve touched you a lot already today... Perhaps too much.

When turning to leave, Warren noticed the messy state of her desk. He expected to find a mass of artwork and half-drawn sketches but had to double-take the titles of the books she had stacked there instead. Stepping closer, Warren saw a few books lay open with pages marked by torn strips of paper. He wasn’t usually one to pry, as he valued his own privacy, but her chosen topic of research alarmed him. A notebook accompanied her reading material; without thinking, he picked it up and leafed through it briefly before leaving the room with it.

~*~

“I don’t know what I find more disturbing, the fact that you’re studying me or that you’re essentially plotting suicide.” Warren rebutted as he waved the notebook at her - it was the one he’d lifted from her room.

Warren had spent the last few days reading her research, and his frustration had been mounting. Initially, he’d planned to skim through her morbid journal before stealthily returning it. He’d gain the upper hand with inside knowledge, and then, at his leisure and preferably casually, he could bring up her plans and dissuade her peacefully. Now that she had a collection of information about vampires, he hoped her wild curiosity had been satisfied, but her intentions became apparent the more he read through the pages. Her annotations and commentary were particularly disturbing.

An argument had started over dinner. Who had started it? Warren couldn’t remember, but she had pressed his buttons, and he’d quickly lost his temper. Karou was quick to defend herself and was as feisty and unyielding as ever. With his plan to peacefully discuss the issue out of the window, they’d been at it hammer and tong for about twenty minutes - yelling back and forth over the kitchen island.

“You had no right to look through my things, Warren!” Karou cried; her hands had become animated.

“I’m not defending myself on that charge, Karou, it was a disrespectful thing to do, but you’re getting away from the real point here...”

“Well, what else did you expect me to do? You won’t talk to me about it, so I’m not going to get any information out of you, am I?”

“Why are you so fascinated with this? It’s morbid…”

“Look, you’re not even answering my questions; you’re just asking more questions! So why should I bother to answer yours?” Karou shouted, “I want to belong somewhere. I want to feel strong for once.” She reasoned, praying he would show her some understanding.

He didn’t.

“It’s suicide!” Warren snapped.

By now, his fangs had bared without him noticing. “I had no choice but to become what I am, Karou, and I would rather have died. This isn’t a life someone should choose. Immortality has been romanticised - it isn’t like that in real life. It means you get to watch those you care about die. And trust me, you won’t feel so strong when you become a slave to bloodthirst. It won’t feel worth it when the corpses start to pile up, and your humanity is stripped from you and right and wrong are blurred beyond recognition.”

“It’s not suicide - it’s transformation!” Karou glared at him from over the kitchen island, which she slammed her hands down into as she made her point. “You’re not dead, Warren, even if you have chosen to live in a tomb by yourself. Has it occurred to you that not all sired vampires feel like you about their life or chose to live it like you either? I’ve been reading about Coven’s, y’know?”

“You have no idea what Coven life is like,” Warren growled. He found the fact that she thought she was making a valid point infuriating. “Nesting vampires form dehumanising habits. Obsessive, destructive, and psychotic behaviours start to feel normal. It’s unhealthy. It’s suffocating.”

“Of course, they’re dehumanised; they’re not human...” Karou rolled her eyes and sighed. Now, more than anything else, she was exasperated that she couldn’t get through to him. “Why can’t you just give me your unbiased opinion and let me make my own choices? You know why I want this…” Her voice lowered to a desperate whine since she’d stopped yelling.

“It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’ve already made up your mind. Hasn’t anything I’ve shown you put you off?” Warren challenged, equally as fraught and desperate.

“You mean the display you made of your leeching machines? There have always been slaughterhouses, Warren. What mortals do to animals to survive is probably far less civilised than that. Besides, people have never done me any favours; no one ever saved me from my parents, so why should I care? All my life, I just bumbled along, kept my head down, and been a good girl despite getting everything other than a reward, but I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to take my life into my own hands and make a change. I want to be in control for once.” Karou spoke passionately, Warren could admire that, but he still thought she was pursuing this recklessly for the sake of adolescent rebellion.

You’re a tenacious little thing. Warren thought bitterly and shook his head. Proving him right, Karou narrowed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest in determination.

“There are other, less deadly ways to take control of your… destiny, Karou.”

“Still, you don’t get to tell me how I take control. I am grateful for you not getting rid of me, but I won’t live under your thumb Warren; that’s not fair.”

“Have you thought about how you’re going to feed yourself once you’ve made this ‘transformation’? You can’t feed from the people in this Compound, Karou. I won’t - No, I can’t let you; it’s my responsibility to ensure their safety. Have you even considered that you’re going to need someone to Sire you in the first place?”

“I haven’t given too much thought about who I’m going to ask. The only vampire I trust is very much against the idea,” Karou snarked. “How are all the other vampires that live here kept fed?”

The fact she trusted him made him bristle. She’d made it clear that she still had no concept of how dangerous he was. In reaction, Warren stiffened and bolstered his façade. He’d decided, under no uncertain terms, that Karou had to remain at a distance, and if she wasn’t going to take heed of all his warnings, then he’d have to take responsibility. First of all, that meant he had to end this discussion immediately.

He might have stopped yelling, but the way his voice transformed into a low growl that rumbled from his chest when he said, “I would never lay a fang on you, Karou, much less Sire you; let me make that perfectly clear,” was more terrifying than his earlier outburst.

Those harsh words successfully stopped Karou in her tracks but didn’t extinguish her will to continue fighting.

“But before you get any ideas that you could possibly make this change without me… To answer your other question, I feed them. REDford sustains around eighty per cent of the world’s vampiric population, and like everyone else, the Compound’s vampiric residents pay for its products.”

“So, you’re going to use my poverty against me, is that it? You’ll happily spend your mountains of money on food that doesn’t hinder my stupid intolerances, but you won’t feed me with something you have in good supply if I choose to become like you? That’s just petty!” Karou was back to raising her voice.

“Yes, I would much rather spend money on your diet if it meant keeping you alive!” Warren argued, only to be cut off by another of Karou’s angry verbal eruptions.

“Oh, and about that ‘not laying a fang on me’ threat… Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about biting me! You’ve insinuated that you might plenty of times and that you’ve wanted to... Mr, I smell like fucking sunshine!”

“Now, who’s using one’s weaknesses against who? Just because I think about it doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

“I wish you would!” Karou blurted.

The moment it had left her lips, she wished she hadn’t said it; the look on Warren’s face was that of devastating defeat. Karou’s readiness to make the admission just proved the depth of its truth, and it was cutting.

The combustion behind their argument had run out, and a long convalescent silence came. Warren simmered down with a great huff and a stagged sigh and took a seat at the kitchen island. He closed his eyes tight and held his head in his hands; he felt lost and still desperately wanted Karou to change her mind.

Seeing Warren like that stalemated Karou and made her feel guilty that they’d fought. She hadn’t meant for her rebellious spirit to upset him so much. Caught up in his sullen emotion, Karou took her seat across from him again and lowered her tone.

“Does it hurt?”

Warren looked over the counter at her from under his brows, questioning,

“Biting, I mean.” Karou clarified.

Although he wasn’t raging mad anymore, he was still annoyed, and his head hurt. Still, he was willing to talk, if only to change her mind; he hoped a gentler approach might prove successful. “I was never bitten as a mortal, but I imagine it’s painful, yes.”

“Does it not hurt once you’re a vampire, then? If you weren’t bitten before, I figure all the scars on your neck came about afterward?”

“Are we really talking about this?” Warren sighed and dropped his hands from either side of his head to fold them onto the counter instead.

The look on Karou’s face had softened. If he was honest, he was a sucker for how she nibbled at her lower lip and tipped her head to the side with such innocent intrigue.

“It doesn’t necessarily hurt when you’re vampiric, but yes, all my scars came about after I was sired, mostly my fledgeling years when I nested with several others, including Ellis. Only she bites me these days...”

“What does it feel like once you’re a vampire, then? Y’know, there isn’t first-hand information like this available in books. Maybe... something you tell me might make me change my mind?” Karou lent further over the counter and was feebly trying to get Warren to open up and answer all of her nitty-gritty questions. “And why do you only let Ellis bite you?”

“Oh boy, we really are talking about this, huh?” Warren combed one hand back through his hair. “I’m still a bit uncomfortable knowing you have notes about me in this book...” He tapped his index finger off its cover. “…My eyes, my scars, my fangs, what else have you been looking at?”

“Uh-...” A blush rushed into Karou’s cheeks, bright as a pink sunset and just as hot. Her mouth hung slightly agape as she glanced at her notebook, wondering just how much of it he’d read.

“Well?” Warren pushed.

“You’ve seen my scar, so what’s the big deal?” Karou looked down into her lap and started picking at her nails out of anxiousness.

“Both times I saw it, you chose to show me. You dropped your towel on the couch, and then you took your shirt off when you were in my bed.”

“That was perfectly innocent! Besides, it’s not like you were looking at me like that. I had sunburn, and then my back hurt.”

“Wasn’t I?” Warren stared hard at her, and she dared to look up from her lap to meet his gaze, a little shocked by what he was insinuating.

“That’s a low blow Warren.” She figured he had to be joking, poking fun at her appearance in some way. “I won’t do anything like that again, okay? I get that it’s ugly to look at.”

“I got over it pretty quickly,” Warren admitted truthfully and dryly while he watched her wilt in front of him. All the vigour she’d had in her fight disappeared. He always managed to bring her down so quickly, and he hated himself for it.

You are a callous bastard; deflating her esteem so you can manipulate her is beyond despicable. You’re no better than her parents...

“Besides, you haven’t seen all of my scars.”

“You mean the one on your leg?”

“All of my clothes cover that...” Warren suddenly felt unnerved. How far did her studies of him go? He’d been berating himself for his deplorable manipulation of her, but perhaps she had the upper hand after all. Effortlessly, she had him floundering. “For you to have seen it, I would’ve had to have been naked because it’s high on my thigh. Did you lie about looking away when you saw Ellis and me together?”

“I- I promise I did look away! I haven’t actually seen it. I just know it’s there from when I had to get blood from your safe - you were holding your hand on it over your pyjamas.”

Warren visibly relaxed relieved that his dignity was still intact. “It’s a flaw of my Siring and, frankly, the bane of my existence.”

“How come it still hurts? You’re Siring was so long ago...”

“It hurts when I don’t keep myself fed. Most of the time, the damaged tissue continuously re-heals, but when I’m thirsty, it regresses. It’s been known to open back up.” His nose wrinkled at the thought of the ugly wound.

“At least if you feed yourself right, it doesn’t bother you.” Karou forced a smile. “Warren if-... If I get someone to Sire me, would you hate me?”

“I won’t hate you; I just don’t think I’ll ever understand your reasons.”

“And what about… blood?”

“It’ll be up to your Sire to feed you, but if you choose someone careless, I don’t think I could watch you starve.