Chapter Twenty-Seven (Daimonas)

Two weeks later, and Dominik still wouldn't tell me anything.

School had gotten easier and I was finishing my homework, keeping my grades up and apparently all the teachers liked me according to the phone call the school made to Newell, who was also surprisingly proud of me.

But even with all that good stuff going on, I felt guilty and just flat out terrible. Because every time I went to go find Dominik, I'd find him getting beat up or having his things stolen or people mocking him. Even Jason, who returned from the hospital, continued his daily duty of tormenting Dominik. The human doctors had come up with some weird, long explanation that I can't even begin to understand to explain the random nosebleed.

But I knew what it was.

And there was a part of me, the scary part, that didn't regret doing it and would be willing to strike again if given the chance. That scared me. It was the same harsh bloodlust I remembered from my time in Julian, and the same bloodlust that I felt from Voltaire when we'd run into Vladimir.

Nobody else heard or saw Voltaire the way I did. My senses instantly picked up on him. Voltaire was extremely powerful because of all the years he spent inside Vladimir, feeding off him. Voltaire held a heavy, sickening bloodlust in him that made me understand why it was so easy for Vladimir to kill people. It wasn't Vladimir killing people.

It was Voltaire.

Humans thought my species were dangerous and evil beings, pure and simple. They thought we crawled out of a dark abyss in the ground and wanted to devour them and their babies, which wasn't true at all. My species didn't care for humans... But we did get bloodthirsty if offended.

And Voltaire was offended by my presence. He hated me because if I could train my powers, naturally I would be more powerful than him. According to Anoki, our powers evolved with each litter our mother coughed up. If that were the case, I'd be angry if Anoki came around me because he'd be stronger than me and he could kill me.

I came from a really dysfunctional family, I thought miserably as I walked down the hallway, rubbing at my temples as I carried my math book in hand. I was coming around the corner when someone smacked into me. I winced and dropped my book, jumping back to see Dominik. His nose was bloody and the bruise on his cheek was an icky yellowish color, but now another bruise was welling up near the side of his head, turning an angry purple. He looked like he was about to cry, but he didn't say anything to me, just rudely shoved me aside and continued running to the bathroom where he disappeared.

I frowned, stooping to get my book and go after him when I saw Jason coming around the corner. He almost smashed into me, then pulled up short. He narrowed his eyes and curled his lip as if he saw a cockroach on the floor.

"Get out of my way." He ordered. I glared at him, snatching up my book and standing up straight so we were eye-to-eye.

"No, because you're going to go back and hurt Dominik." I snapped. A muscle under Jason's eye twitched and he ground his teeth together. I could see the fire snapping in his eyes, urging him to hit me. But I didn't want to start anything, so I turned sharply on my heel and went toward the bathrooms. I waited for Jason to follow and try to stop me, but thankfully, he gave up and went back to doing whatever buttheads did in their free time.

I came into the bathroom as quietly as I could. I could hear him coughing and choking, making me grimace as I made my way down the line to stalls to see him inside, sitting on one of the toilets with toilet paper held to his nose. It kept getting soaked in blood, though, so he'd throw it away and get some more. Tears were glittering in his eyes, but to his credit, he didn't let them fall, not once.

"Are you okay?" I asked quietly, even though I knew it was a dumb question. I'd seen humans ask it anyway on movies. Dominik peered at me past his hair, then just gave a short nod as he wiped at his nose. He touched it for a moment to make sure it had stopped bleeding before he slowly got up, touching the side of his face with a grimace.

"What happened?" I asked. I expected him to avoid my question, like he always did, but surprisingly, he gave a sniffle as he went to the sink to clean off his face.

"I was heading downstairs to the office to ask for a late slip because Jason had kept me from my last class, but he cornered me on the stairs. So I ran here because it was the closest bathroom, but it was kind of stupid." He murmured, wiping his wet hand on his nose to clean off the blood. I grabbed some paper towel and came over with it. He turned to me and let me wipe the blood off his nose and mouth.

He just stood there, eyes tired and empty. I felt a pang go through me at the sight of him like this. He'd given up on everything. He didn't try to stop Jason because he didn't care anymore. I kept wondering if what Newell said might be true, that maybe Jason and Dominik were dating, and of course, there was only one way to find out.

"Are you and Jason dating?" I asked after a while. Dominik's eyes widened for a split second, before he averted them, reaching up to take the paper towel from my hand and wipe at his nose gently. He didn't answer me, which didn't surprise me because he'd been avoiding me for the past two weeks. I frowned.

"Dominik, I want to help and I can't do that if I don't know what's going on." I insisted. Dominik shook his head quickly, wiping the last of the blood off his face before he dropped his paper towel in the trash can.

"You can't help, so stop trying," He returned in frustration, fetching his bag from the stall, "I've gotten used to the way things are now. They can't change anyway. Nothing can change..." His voice trailed as he stopped for a moment, staring at me. I stared back, frowning in confusion, before he shook his head and shrugged his back onto his shoulder, sniffling a little. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes as if he were struggling to keep tears at bay.

"Please, just leave me alone," He begged at last, turning to face me, making me stiffen at the look of pain on his face, "Please. I just need things to stay they are." I gritted my teeth, clenching my fists.

"You don't deserve this." I protested, taking a step toward him, but he withdrew sharply to the other side of the bathroom.

"You don't know anything." Dominik snapped, then rushed out of the bathroom. I sighed, running a hand through my hair, frustrated. Why wasn't he talking to me? Didn't he trust me? I wouldn't hurt him, not like the others. I thought I had shown him that, but it was like he was scared to see it.

I reluctantly grabbed my things and headed out. When I came downstairs, ready to go home, Dominik was nowhere to be seen. I waited around for another ten minutes, watching the janitors emerge to start cleaning up the school. I decided to just go home. Dominik would probably get in trouble for ditching me. We were strictly told not to go home alone or come to school alone, which is why they had set up the buddy system in the first place, but I wasn't worried about myself. I was worried about Dominik.

I left the school and headed down the street toward my flat, hoping I could talk to Newell about it again. I had brought it up a few times over the past few days and Newell kept telling me to stay out of it. He just didn't want me to make friends is what he wanted. In case we had to abruptly leave like we did before, he didn't want me to make a fuss about having to leave more friends behind.

I was halfway home when I saw Dominik. My heart was relieved to see that he wasn't with Jason or any of Jason's minions. But it ached to see that he was curled up with his knees to his chest. He was sitting outside the old church that was near my flat. I didn't think Newell would get mad at me for going over there to talk to Dominik, so I crossed the street and approached him.

I knew he saw me, but he ignored me anyway and just sat there with his back against the stone wall, arms around his knees that were hugged tight to his chest. His eyes were red, unshed tears begging to fall, but he just blinked them away rapidly as I came over and sat down by him.

Neither of us said anything.

We just sat in silence, listening to the leaves of the trees rustle and flutter. A few broke off the branches and scattered to the ground to join the rest of them. The air was chilly and I was thankful that the uniform jackets were a bit thick to protect against the cold. Though there was a hint of something smelly, probably a dead pigeon nearby because they tended to get hit by cars a lot around here, the air was also filled with the smell of leaves and crisp apples from the church that collected them for the homeless. I could smell the smoke from the fire inside and car gas as cars cruised by on occasion.

Beside me, Dominik sat motionless, staring at the leaves that danced in the wind, then settled in the bright green grass. He blinked tiredly, resting his mouth against his arm, cheeks and nose pink from the cold. The bruise on the side of his face from a couple weeks ago yellowish to join the purplish red one closer to his eye on the side of his face. He didn't even push up his glasses that were sliding down his nose.

"You could get in trouble for not waiting for me, you know." I said quietly at last. Dominik's eyelids fluttered for a moment before he lifted his head to look at me. Then he looked away, down at the leaves, picking one up and twirling the stem between his fingers.

"Sorry." He said softly. I nibbled my lower lip, watching him twist the stem of the leaf before letting it go so the wind could take it spinning across the steps of the church.

"Dominik," I began, gently, watching him lower his eyes, "I know you probably don't trust me. Two weeks probably isn't enough for you to know me... So, I figured if I told you about myself, maybe you'd be more comfortable with me? You don't have to tell me everything about you either. Anything you feel comfortable with when I'm done." Dominik hesitated at that, but said nothing, so I decided to begin.

This was going to be so dangerous. Newell would hate me if I told Dominik everything about me, including the fact that I was actually a demon, a parasitic demon to be exact, that lived inside someone else for the first two years of his life. I was going to be turning four soon. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that in four years, so much had happened to me.

In four years time, I was born from my mother. I fought my siblings to find a host and managed to take place inside a pureblood vampire named Julian Alexander Grey. I spent a whole year trying to develop inside him without his knowing. I slipped up a few times, making him hear noises that were actually inside his head and not outside it. He finally figured me out after a year of hiding and from there, the battle against Zephyra began.

Zephyra at first hunted down Julian and his family for revenge on killing their leader. When they found out that the power source they'd been searching for lived inside Julian, they hunted him down and I was tricked into taking a solid form. The moment I did, I realized my mistake. I had appeared in Orion's arms and his face was the last one I saw before I slipped into a coma-- something natural to my species once we escape our host with a solid form.

I woke up a week later and found myself inside a sterile white box full of some cold, soothing liquid, but even that didn't make me feel better. I was trapped. I was boxed in. I was being poked and prodded. Zephyra took my blood, through needles and through drinking it. They knocked me out and did surgery on me a few times, taking samples from my body to try and figure out what I was exactly.

After a year, I managed to escape and find Julian again. I found out that Zephyra had killed his mother and almost killed the rest of his family. I found out that his boyfriend, Adam, had been turned into a halfblood to save his life. After another battle against Zephyra, I was trapped again and when I tried to escape, I was pinned down by two vampires I had never met before, or at least, I don't remember meeting. For the first time, I had felt powerless and weak. Two vampires that were supposed to be nothing compared to my species managed to force me into submission and it scared me.

I didn't like the way it felt. Even now, almost a year later, I could still feel the way their hands felt on me and burned me. The way their nails sank into my flesh, fangs brushed my throat, bodies felt against mine. People always described sex to me as something beautiful and amazing and romantic, but none of what I experienced was any of those things. It was scary and disgusting and painful. I could remember the smell of my own blood, the putrid stench of my own fear suffocating me.

And then suddenly it turned worse. While I was thankful that they were pulled off me, I could still feel them and even worse, I could hear their sharp screams as Vladimir shredded them. He didn't just kill them; he mutilated them in a way that scared even me. They weren't even recognizable when Vladimir was finished with them.

And Vladimir had shot me before. He intended to kill me that way too, or so I thought. He had reached his hand out to me and instead of looking terrifying and angry, he was relaxed and gentle as he helped me away from that hell.

Even though Vladimir gave me away without a second thought, I would forever be grateful for what he did for me back there. He'd even taken the time to tell me what had happened and that I wasn't dirty, even though I kept telling myself that. I had felt so gross, so used, so weak and pathetic, but Vladimir was there to assure me that I wasn't, that it wasn't my fault, none of it was.

And all of that pain rolled up into one had been smashed into Dominik. I recognized this kind of pain, this kind of loneliness and powerless ache.

And I wanted to tell Dominik about all of it. I wanted to tell him about my struggle to learn about everything, but a little voice in my head warned me not to and I had a feeling it was Starling's. He knew better than to risk being exposed to the humans. While we weren't too worried about being killed, we were more worried about being treated as science experiments and not living creatures.

So, I tried telling Dominik everything in a way that didn't make me look like a freakish demon, even though it ached that I couldn't tell him the truth.

"My mother gave me up," I told Dominik, making him frown a bit as he looked at me, obviously surprised that I was talking to him about this, "She gave me to someone else, but they didn't want me either. They gave me to someone else, who then passed me off to the parents I have now. Nobody wanted me and I sometimes still think it's something I did. Maybe I wasn't good enough or maybe there was something wrong with me. I'm not too smart. I don't know what a lot of things are and I always ask questions. Maybe that was why nobody wanted me. Because I was stupid and annoying and..." I hesitated before continuing, forcing myself to speak.

"And dirty. I didn't think anyone would want me. Even the parents I have now. I'm always scared they might give me to someone else. I'll never have a home of my own. But they haven't gotten rid of me yet, so maybe I am doing something right." I admitted with a shrug. Dominik chewed his bottom lip, then looked away.

"Sometimes I wish my parents would get rid of me." He whispered. I looked at him, confused.

"Why would you say that?" I asked. I couldn't understand the idea of anyone wanting to leave their real parents. Didn't they have a home with them? Didn't they love each other? But then I remembered Starling and his parents, and Newell and his parents, so maybe not everyone loved their parents. Obviously Dominik didn't as he clenched his fists against his knees, his teeth gritting before he slumped back against the church in defeat, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back against the wall.

"I'm tired of coming home to the same thing that happens at school," He breathed last, his shoulders drooping as if he was relieved to finally say it aloud, "My parents weren't always like this. I remember my mum used to be very happy when she saw me come home from primary school. She would have cookies waiting. Cinnamon cookies with vanilla icing. My father used to have a very good job. He'd always give me a few pounds so I could buy sweets or crisps... But I don't know what happened to that." He looked down at the grass now, eyes sad as he picked up a tattered leaf that trembled in the wind when he held it up to spin it by the stem.

"Mum stopped making cookies and my father stopped going to work. Mum got sick. She started seeing weird things. She thought my father was trying to kill her and she didn't think I was her child anymore. She said I wasn't her child, that someone took her real child and put me there to replace him. My father made her go to the hospital. After that, it was just my father and I. Even though he never said it, I knew he blamed me for my mum." He murmured. I frowned.

"But you didn't make her sick." I said. Dominik let go of the leaf so it blew away, then he turned to stare at me.

"How do you know that?" He asked in a whisper. I blinked, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"How do you know I didn't do it? What if I did?"

"I don't understand. What did you do to make her sick then?"

"I don't know," Dominik admitted, looking down again to rake his nails through the grass, "Maybe I said something or did something that made her sick. Maybe I really am someone else's child. I can't remember what my earlier childhood was like. I just remember cookies and crisps and sweets, but nothing else, really. Maybe my mum isn't really my mum and my father isn't really my father. I want it to be like that, so that maybe... maybe there is a family out there that's mine, that is looking for me and wishing they had me back. I used to tell myself that when I was little, but as time went on, I realized no one was looking for me, no one was missing me. I really was the child that my parents didn't want around." I didn't know what to say to that. It made my heart ache and I wanted to hug Dominik, but I knew better, so I sat in silence as he sighed, resting his unbruised cheek on his knees as he watched his nails comb the grass.

"My mum came back from the hospital a couple years ago. Just when I was turning thirteen. I was waiting to get back the woman who made cookies and looked happy to see me, but she didn't. She was skinny and pale and angry all the time. She hated my father for putting her in the hospital, so they always fight. And she hated me... so much. She still believed I wasn't her child and whenever I told her I was, she'd start hitting me and threatening me."

"'If you don't bring back my baby, I'll rip you to pieces', she told me. And my father thought it was my fault she was like that. It was like he started to believe I wasn't his son either, so he started hitting me too. They pretend they're holding me hostage until the strangers who took their real baby bring him back."

Dominik fell silent, staring across the church yard at the street. I grimaced, but said nothing.

So that's why he didn't go home. And my only guess was that the bruises on his back, the burns, not all of them were from school, but from at home too. I wanted to cry for him. I wanted to take him home with me and show him that there were people out there that would love him. If Newell and Xed could learn to care for me, they could learn to care for Dominik too, right?

"I should go." Dominik said at last, getting to his feet. I blinked and quickly got up too, watching as he gently pulled his bag over his shoulder as if he were in pain, which I didn't doubt for a second.

"Where are you going?" I asked, worried. Dominik hesitated, then shrugged.

"Probably the park." He answered briefly.

"Will you be okay alone?" I asked. Dominik just gave me a quick nod, then headed to the sidewalk to leave. I watched him leave, sighing quietly before I crossed the street to my flat. As I approached, I heard an interesting sound. It sounded like a piano. It was a delicate and beautiful sound. It was slow and dainty. There was a faint hint of sadness to it. I wandered into the house, ignoring the smell of food that was sitting still warm on the island counter for me. I followed the sound upstairs and found myself standing in the doorway to the office, which had been completely cleaned out and replacing the desk was a black piano.

It was brand new and sleek, beautifully painted.

Newell sat on the cushioned bench, his fingers flying over the keys. Xed stood nearby, leaning on the wall, his eyes closed as he listened with a look of complete serenity on his face. Newell continued to play until the song was over and he looked up to see me in the doorway.

"Daimonas, Xed has food sitting downstairs for you... Are you all right?" He asked with a frown. I didn't know how to answer that. Part of me was okay, but another part of me wasn't.

I had gone from person to person over time. And I finally ended up with people who cared about me.

They were both looking at me, confused and worried.

Dominik would never have this, not so long as he stayed with his parents. And I felt guilty for being relieved that it wasn't me in his shoes. However, I wasn't going to let Dominik be trapped with those people who called themselves his parents.

One way or another, I was going to do something.

I was going to help Dominik.