"Do you have a death wish?" Ragon asked Bell when they were back in the car together.
Cambridge drove behind them in Clyde's car, with Larissa, Sandra and Thomas for passengers. Both Clyde and Sameth followed the coven on foot, ensuring that the group were not followed. As soon as Ragon had heard Bell's recount of the events between her and Kiara he knew the terrible secret he had been keeping from her was out in the open.
He muttered instructions to the members of his coven, rushed Bell from the Elders estate, and hurriedly took the keys from the valet, screaming out of the driveway, past the high iron fence and into the night.
"She told me what happened to my parents?" Bell said flatly, and then thing that that she had been dying to ask burst from her, "why?"
"I don't know why she killed your parents..." Ragon began, but Bell cut him off.
"No. That's not the question. The question is why didn't you tell me?" Bell said, the anger so close to spilling over.
He had expected this.
"I wanted to," he began, uncertain how he could make her understand. Ragon sighed.
"But you didn't. I don't have a death wish. I had to know, I needed to know. You're a vampire. I get that you don't care about anything living, but these were my parents. Because of Kiara I missed out on a childhood; she took that from me," Bell said.
"I tried to tell you," Ragon confessed, "but every time I went to..." he paused, "I didn't want you to hate me." He has just been told that he doesn't care about anything living....and no reaction?
"Hate you; for saving me?" Bell asked incredulously, unable to make sense of Ragon's lame justification.
"Hate me, because the reason Kiara killed your parents was so she could lure me back to her," Ragon said sadly, connecting the dots that Bell had failed to.
"She didn't take me to lure you back; she told me that she wanted me dead," Bell said, and then added, "you tried to tell me?"
"In the alley way after..." he began, but Bell cut him off once again.
"That's what you meant the first time you went hunting with me, at that club, when I asked you why you choose me and you told me that I was special. That's when you should have told me," Bell said.
"You weren't special because Kiara had taken you; you were special because I wanted to save you. You were crying when I took you from her, screaming, and the moment I held you in my arms you quietened.
I felt you fall asleep as I raced you away from her, and for the first time in many, many years I felt something. There you were this bundle of life, not recoiling away from me, not shivering at my touch, and you made me feel alive; like it was ok for me to live again. You don't know how hard it was for me to let you go, to give you to the orphanage. But I knew I couldn't look after you, or give you a proper childhood. I watched you go inside, and unable to look away, I watched you grow up.
I was determined to keep you safe, and kept you always in my sight; it was selfish, but I needed you," Ragon said, suddenly stopping as he remembered Bell's words: 'she took me to kill me.'
"Why would Kiara want to kill you?" Ragon asked out-loud, more to himself.
"She said she had promised to," Bell replied.
"Promised who?" Ragon asked in fear.
"She didn't say, she was too busy trying to rip my throat out, like she did my mothers," Bell responded coolly.
"But how did you get away?" Ragon pressed.
"I already told you," Bell replied, unable to see why this of all things was what he was asking.
"I don't understand; she froze?" Ragon asked.
"Yep, just like a statue," Bell replied.
"How did you do it?" he asked.
"I don't know how, I closed my eyes and then when I opened them she was stuck in pause," Bell said.
Ragon considered her words. Most concerning to Ragon was what the hell had happened to Kiara. Was she still frozen at the Elders Halloween party? Did Kiara know that it had been Bell who had stopped her? Had the Elders perhaps found Kiara? Were they, at this very moment, questioning her to find out what had happened to her? Would the Elders be coming for Bell now?
All of these thoughts troubled his mind, as he pulled into the driveway, there were too many questions.
As soon as the car stopped Bell jumped out. Sandra was beside her in a flash, and soon Clyde and Sameth ran up to her too. They were looking at her with concern. One of her angel wings had been crushed by the way she had sat in the car, and it hung down low, giving her the appearance of a wounded bird.
Bell was not oblivious to the way the rest of the coven watched her, but she wasn't in the mood to talk to any of them. When Ragon opened the door a few moments later she moved straight inside, heard loud music, and gasped.
"What the hell?" she said.
In the living room was Patrick dressed as a zombie sailor, and Ryder wearing a pirate's costume. They were playing twister, their arms and legs wrapped intricately around each other, placed on various shades of coloured circles. Both were laughing comically, and Bell noticed with a pang of discomfort, that one of Ryder's arms had a large bite mark just over his wrist.
"What?" Patrick asked, looking up at her in surprise, "I told you I was ordering in. Did I miss something?"
It was all too much. Bell flung her mask on the floor and ran for her room. As soon as she was inside she broke down. For a moment she sat heaving on the floor, her legs pulled up tight to her chin as large tears spilled down her face upsetting her mascara. A small knock at her door caused her to pull her face up, but she ignored it. She didn't want to talk to anyone.
Another knock came, and Bell trying desperate to organise her thoughts managed to punctuate her sobs to say, "what?"
