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Realization only truly sunk in when Oakhurst's walls could be seen from a distance.
She'd ran. Just as Drift always seemed to, she'd ran.
It was as though it'd been rooted in her nature. Drift Veylocke ran. It was a fact that could be repeated over and over again, just like the fact that her pale skin came from her father, her brown hair and hazel eyes from her mother and her cowardly demeanor from herself.
But could she truly be blamed?
(Yes. Yes, she could.)
She'd first ran away from vampires when she'd been thirteen, fresh out of the orphanage and under Morcant's care, being told about their family's organization alongside her older brother.
She did not believe it, at first. Of course she didn't—vampires! Vampires, seriously?—but then there were vampires and Morcant was right and her parents were drained of their blood and gone, gone, gone—
And then she was climbing out her window and becoming a city girl on her own. And then she worked odd jobs and paid off an education in investigation, for some reason, trying not to think about the fact that her older brother must've gotten it for free working under a bullshit organization.
Then it wasn't so bullshit. Because victims were showing up drained of blood.
And there was a blue orchid at her door.
She ran.
Of course she did. The first time she'd done so, she'd been able to rebuild her life just fine, hadn't she? Nothing came good of vampires, and she knew this from when she was eleven, hiding under her bed trapped within her older brother's arms, hearing the screams of her mother. She'd known this from when Morcant pulled them aside and told them about the organization. She'd known this when she ran away to become a street rat by fourteen. She'd known this when the first victim showed up.
She'd know this when she heard someone ring her bell and then she was on her own doorstep with strangers walking past, a flower by her feet telling her that any of them could be a vampire and that she was done for—
So she ran. Of course she did. And now she ran towards Oakhurst, the mud sticking to her boots and the wind sending her trench coat flying behind her, a wooden ruined wall visible on the horizon, and a horrible feeling of hope welling within her chest. She wasn't starting from nothing, now, like she was when she was just a little girl. She'd be back on track in no time.
Until the next vampire came around and ruined her life. Then... then...
Well, her track record wasn't looking great for her to confidently assume she wasn't just going to run.
and...then... well. Then she'd met Shelby.
"But what if the monsters are just people, though?" she'd asked. She'd lied. She knew they weren't always, and she always ran from when they weren't.
But she just... Shelby seemed so young, with star in her eyes and passion evident in her every move. She wasn't going to stop her from looking for Bigfoot—not like she had evidence he existed, she only did for vampires—she was just warning her. Trying to get her to back off.
She'd be thankful. She just had to hope she would be. Because if she wasn't, then she was just like—she was just like—
She couldn't think about her brother.
Not now. She begged.
and such, the universe played a trick on her.
"Hey, are you okay?" A voice—was it Avid? Avid his name was?—asked, but Drift could not hear it. She could not. Not when there was a ringing in her ears that sounded all too well like her mother's screams and her father's eyes were looking right back at her.
Abolish Veylocke. The butler.
What a joke.
"It's nice to meet you," he lied, because he did not meet her. Drift did not care to know whether the nice part was a lie or not, because it all came down to the same—he was lying. She saw it in the way his gaze lingered a second too long on her. She saw it in the way he held out his hand and lingered on the touch for a second too long.
"Drift," she introduced herself, though she would be damned if she ever said her last name. Not like her brother did. "Nice to meet you as well."
She did not notice the tension they both emanated to be so high. She did not notice that nobody spoke while their gaze lingered on each other. Her father's skin, hair and eyes, her mother's polite posture and her father's figure...
She tried not to see the mixt bag of her parents' attributes that she could barely recognize after them being dead for so long now. Just as she tried not to when she looked herself in the mirror, with her mother's hair and eyes, her father's skin, her father's slightly crooked posture and her mother's figure...
She turned. "Avid." She called out the first name she could think of. "You were saying?"
It wasn't nice of her. It put the man on the spot. He was fumbling around with his own words trying to change the subject in a way that wasn't abrupt such as how Drift did it now.
But he did it anyway. He started speaking of vampires—just her luck, really—and she had to groan alongside the other new town members and secretly be glad for the distraction. She had to assure that no, vampires were not real, while she felt her brother's eyes boring into her skin. She had to—she had to.
So long as she stayed with Avid, Abolish wouldn't come near. Avid was loud and her brother was quiet. He would not like his plans to be disrupted by the man's loud demeanor.
She tried not to think about what his plans may even be. Because if she even put some thought into it, then the answer would come out clear as day, and that single fact alone would be enough to make her run again when she didn't know if she wanted to, when...
When what?
It did not matter. Drift wouldn't approach Abolish—but she wouldn't run just yet.
Even if his mere presence screamed vampires.