Chapter Text
I walked over to the wine-coloured sofa, sat, one leg crossed over the other, and waited for Kate and Daniel to enter. Daniel came first, obviously disliking the idea of telling his eldest the truth of his life -well more undeath but you understand. Kate came second, a steaming mug of green tea in hand, with an expectant but distrusting expression worn on her face.
“So are you going to tell me or just glare at the floor like a petulant child,” that last part you directed at her father, who was, well, doing exactly as she said,”or are we just going to ignore everything that happened this evening,” that last part was laced with a heavy dose of sarcasm, reminiscent of her father in his youth, not that i would ever tell ether such a thing.
“Why don't you sit down first, you might need to,” Daniel spoke from where he sat on an arm chair.
She sat her tea on the coffee table then practically flopped onto the sofa she had slept on earlier, knocking a few cushions off on her way down. Noticing my expression she smiled,” stop fretting I’ll sort your precious organisation before I leave." She truly was her father's daughter.
“Are you two going to talk yet or do i have to ask questions to help you loosen up first,”she looked between us and sighed,” ok then,”she turned to look at me,”why do i know you? and how the hell do you look the same as when i was 4.”
“Because I don't age and haven't since 1535 when I was 27.”
Her jaw looked as if it would drop to the floor, if she didn't have so much control over it. Her shock was also evident in her mind, thoughts flying at an impressively rapid speed.
“I was also present at the time of your childhood till you were around 16 and I had to leave,” I shot a glare over at Daniel.
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He had known me as a child and dad had known him when I was a child, that meant he had knowingly let a child near a killer, a man who had killed a child, his step daughter…
“He didn't know I was visiting you. He may be a bit reckless but would never purposely endanger his daughter,” there was a fond smile on Armand's lips as he talked of my dad.
“That never stopped him from hurting me, his intent never changed what he did” a small rush of anger pulsed through me,”he still left, if you could even call it that he was never there in the first place.”
“You have every right to be angry at him but don't he already hates himself enough for what he did to you and your sister, even if it was mostly my fault, i selfishly dragged him away from you, jealous of him leaving, it’s my demon, it’s why i killed claudia.”
“Your step-daughter Claudia?” I looked at him, really looked, I saw a crushed boy, not old enough to know pain, not as a facade of innocence but as the truth. Looking at him now he never reached 27, maybe not even 18, well not as a human at least.
“What are you two on about?” Daniel looked between the two of us, evidently confused.
“Doesn’t matter beloved,” Armand dismissed Daniel.
He looked so different now, his eyes dulled by welling red tears; no longer the bright orange I remember from my childhood, but sad so sad like a child who had lost something so close to them. He barely looked 16, the age I was when he left the first time, when I was so lost in my own identity, but his had been changed and stripped from him so many times by then. For the first time since I met him I felt truly sorry for what he had been through, even if I didn't know what happened to him.
I felt his eyes on my, piercing into my brain reading my thoughts. He was crying properly now, blood streaming down his face.