The next morning when I awoke I felt instantly better. The aching and burning was gone. And my head felt fine. The world didn’t spin and the wall’s stayed where they were. I had no idea how long I’d been slept for, but I could see sunlight streaming in through one of the windows. It looked like midday light. Maybe that was the time, I couldn’t be sure.
I pulled myself up onto my elbows and looked around. I saw Callie, smiling at me softly in the chair by the bed. Her face still had worry lines on it and I could see the sadness behind her smile.
“Are you feeling better, sweet girl?” she asked, leaning forward.
I nodded my head. “Much.”
“I’m glad.” She brushed my hair, that had fallen into my eyes, off my face, then reached over and took my hand. She held it gently, as though she was afraid she’d break it. “I am so sorry, sweet girl. I can’t even begin to tell you how much. I should have been here for you when you got hurt.” She squeezed my fingers. “I feel like I’ve let you down.”
“Oh, Callie, no you didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered if you had been here. There was nothing you could have done,” I told her. Callie was a crier. When she was upset she bawled. And I didn’t want her to now. I wanted to make her understand and keep her from feeling sad. I wanted to make her feel better.
For around half an hour, we sat and talked. Well, I talked mainly, she cried. I explained how I felt about things, basically giving her the same speech I’d give Claudia and Logan the day before. She took everything in, making comments here and there.
Eventually she stopped crying and wiping her eyes, looked at me. “I’m still so sorry. I feel like the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve had to deal with things like this. Constantly having to worry about wether he will come back after you. It’s not fair.”
It wasn’t fair, I knew that. But that was life. It wasn’t always easy and it certainly wasn’t always fair. You simply had to fight through the bad parts, so you could be rewarded with the good. I was only beginning to realise that now. And I did have some good things in my life. People who loved and cared about me. My mind flashed to Logan and I felt myself blush. Both old and new.
“We’ll vanquish Micah. I promise, we will get him.” She told me, perhaps thinking that’s where my thoughts were.

“I know we will.” And I did. Somehow I was absolutely positive we would. I glanced around the room and spied the bathroom door. “Actually I’d really like to take a shower.” I felt like it had been years since I’d last showered.
“Sure. Do you need help?” she asked.
I flinched internally. “No, no. I’ll be okay on my own,” I told her quickly. The last thing I wanted was help showering. And I honestly didn’t need help. I recalled how I’d been in the last day or so. Everything that had happened after the Micah attack. God only knew what state I was in when I was just starting to heal. I must have looked so broken. I thought about throwing up in front of Logan and then collapsing into him later. I wanted to save whatever was left of my dignity. I sighed. I guessed there wasn’t much left to save anyway.
Callie left me alone, promising to find me some clothes and to come see me later.
The shower did me wonders. It was just what I’d needed. It ended up becoming the longest shower I’d ever taken. I just couldn’t feel clean enough. I wanted to wash away any reminders of Micah and everything that had happened.
When I eventually emerged from the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel, I was pleased to see that Callie had retrieved my overnight bag from the back of my car. It was sitting on the edge of the bed. I smiled. Callie knew me well. I hadn’t wanted to get dressed into something tight and body hugging. I’d wanted comfort. And she’d known that. I dug through it, eventually pulling out a long, black, gypsy like skirt that sat just below my knees, and a tank top.
Then, dressed and feeling better that I had in days, I set off down the hallway. I was looking for Claudia, glancing though any open door as I passed. I stopped when I got to one of the study rooms. Smaller than the foyer, but larger than any of the bedrooms, the walls were lined with case after case of books. There was a desk in one corner and a large, black couch that sat in the middle of the room.

And Logan was sitting on it. He too, must have showered while I’d been asleep, because he was now wearing his dark blue jeans and a blue t-shirt. He was sitting on the edge of the couch, staring down at his father’s dagger. He was flipping it over in his hands. His face was slightly hard, yet expressionless, and his eyes were thoughtful.
“Hi,” I said carefully, stepping into the room.
“Hi,” he answered, briefly looking up. His eyes drifted over me, then back down to his dagger. He sounded distracted. Then his eyes shot back up to me, as if only then realising who he had spoken too. “Hey. What are you doing up? Shouldn’t you be resting?”
I shook me head, brushing him off. “No, I feel fine. Completely fine. Even my bites gone.” I pulled all my hair over onto one shoulder and bared my neck on the other side. “See?” The skin where I’d been bitten was completely smooth and flawless. Not a single mark or scar.
Logan’s eyes lingered on my neck. “So how’s your shoulder? Is your wound alright?” I asked, taking a shaky breath. There was something very intimate about the way he was looking at me.
He shrugged, shaking his head. His hand went to his right shoulder, and he stood up off the couch, placing the dagger into his belt. “I had it looked at and got a couple of stitches. I’ll live,” he answered. “It doesn’t even hurt. Doesn’t feel like it was dislocated at all.” His tone was very clipped and short. Oh, I thought. He’s in one of those moods now.
After everything that had happened lately, I just had to ask. I wanted to know. “Are you mad at me? Have I done something wrong?”
He stared back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Not everything is about you Roxi,” he said coldly.
I stared at him, feeling angry. I’d had just about all I could take from is attitude. His constant personality switches left me more confused and with my mind racing. He changed every two seconds, sometimes right in the middle of conversations. “Fine, Logan. I’ll see you later.” I turned and headed towards the door.

“No wait,” he said. I felt him move towards me.
I stopped where I was, near the door, and turned back to look at him, my eyebrows raised. “Yes?”
His eyes were still hard, but the expression on the rest of his face had softened. His lips weren’t hard anymore and I found myself thinking how surprisingly soft they looked. What would it be like to kiss him? No, no, no! My mind screamed at me. Don’t think like that, you idiot. He’s being an absolute jerk.
He continued to look at me, his guard shooting up again. “You know what? Never mind,” he said.
That was it! I wanted answers once and for all. “No!” I turned around and slammed the door shut, throwing the lock over. The books on the walls shook with my force. Then turning around, I looked directly into his eyes and advanced on him.
I walked right up to where he stood near the couch, turned to look at him and exploded. “Logan, I am absolutely sick of your attitude. You change it every two seconds. You can never just be the same person and your personality changes are giving me whiplash. What is your problem?”
He face lit up with anger. “My problem?” he shouted. He moved towards me, stepping close. So close that I found myself backing up until the back of my legs hit the couch and I could go no farther. My face must have looked shocked. I was stunned by his anger. He looked dangerous. He looked like a vampire hunter.
His face softened, seeing mine, then he turned and stepped away. He was running his hands through his hair. His back was to me. “Arrrgh! The problem is I finally see the difference.”
“Difference?” I was confused and my anger was slowly disappearing.
He turned and faced me, his eyes on fire. “The difference between you and Micah. Between what you are and what he is.”
I stood staring at him, thinking about his words and their meanings. I felt myself getting angry. And hurt. He’d hurt me. What he was saying hurt me. Couldn’t he see the difference before? Had he really thought that I was anything like Micah? I thought he could tell?

He looked at me, at my expression, and seemed to replay his words in his head. He took a small step back towards me, shaking his head. “I see who you are. I’ve always known that you’re nothing like him. What I mean is, the whole covenant. The difference between the two types of vampires.”
Oh my god, I thought, but I was still confused by his actions. “Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked him.
“No, it’s not a good thing,” he shrieked. Then his face changed and his tone becoming unsure. “Maybe it is, I guess. I don’t know.” He walked towards me more and stopped. “You’re making me question everything I’ve ever known. All I’ve been taught and all I believe. I doubt the way I’ve acted and my actions.”
His face changed again and he looked miserable. “I keep thinking about the person I’ve always been. You told me it’s a grey area, and I can see now that you’re right. But I’ve never even questioned it. Never. I look at everything from a hundred different angles and points of view, and I’ve never once stopped and looked at this in a different way. I’ve never wanted to. Until now.” He paused and took a breath. “I keep running over in my mind all the vampires I’ve vanquished and all the lives I’ve taken. I don’t know if I can live with thinking that some of them may have been innocent lives.”
Innocent lives, I thought. He’d actually said it. He didn’t think that all vampires were monsters. The thought made my heart fly. I thought about it, and suddenly all his actions and moods made sense. He’d been the way he had been because he was seeing things, things with us, and about us, which went against everything he’d ever thought. We were making him question who he was. And everything he’d believed ever since he was a little boy. He was confused and he’d been fighting all along. He’d been fighting himself.

He was still staring at me, waiting for me to understand before he continued. “I just don’t know who I am anymore. Or what I believe.” He stopped, taking an extremely shaky breath. “I don’t know who my loyalties lie with anymore. The hunters, the people I’ve always stood by ... or you.”
His eyes reached deep inside me and seemed to grab my heart. They made it race and sent my mind spinning. Thousands of questions raced around my head. And I groped for one. Anything that I could use to finally settle something I needed to know. I found one, although what I said didn’t come out exactly as I’d planned. Which in the end, turned out to be just what I’d needed. “But you hate vampires,” I blurted. “You hate everything we are,” I paused lowering my voice until it was barely a whisper. “I thought you hated me.”
I stared across at him. His eyes flew wide with shock and something so deep it made my heart ache. “Hate you? God no, Roxi! I could never hate you.” He launched forwards, stumbling slightly. “I’ve tried. I have. It would make things so much easier, make my doubts go away. But no matter how hard I’ve tried to hate you, it doesn’t work. I don’t think it ever will.”
I stared at him for a second as my whole world spun. I had no words. What could I say? Did he understand what his words meant to me? I tried to grasp a question. A way to ask, and not sound completely insane. I never had a chance to ask though, because before I could get a single word out, he had closed the distance between us and kissed me.