Stained By Sin

FIFTEEN

Elara stood frozen, confused. Her total focus awhile ago was shattered by the sudden speech of Nero. Her body was still tense, but her mind had started to loosen up a little. She glared at Nero, angry and confused.

What on earth was this guy talking about? Suddenly going on about how he needed to do something for the entire vampire clan? What was that thing he needed to do? To kill her family? To annihilate almost every one of them? How was that for the entire vampire clan? Weren’t the Crow clan part of all the vampires? Was killing them also for them?

As Elara stared at Nero, she realized that she had actually been speaking out loud. Nero stood across from her, looking at her with guilt. He didn’t try to defend himself. He just listened and accepted every word that she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Sorry?” she muttered.

Before she could even think about it, Elara felt her body moved on its own. She was already crossing the room, walking towards Nero without her realizing that she was doing it. However, the desire to kill him was no longer there. That desire was now overridden by her anger, and the need to tell him all about it.

She stopped in front Nero, body shaking with emotions. She slapped him without a care of how he would defend himself. More than blades and punches, it felt like slapping him was the best action that would make her feel better. And it did. Somehow, throwing that first slap opened a dam inside of her. Whenever she threw a punch or a knife, it instinctively make Elara put up even more walls, hiding her feelings deeper in her heart Punching, kicking and wounding someone meant that you were in a fight. And in a fight, you need to be tough. But that slap was the opposite. Since wasn’t an automatic thing she would do to defend herself. It wasn’t something she would do to attack someone. That slap was an action caused by her emotions, and it also triggered her walls to all fall apart.

As she stood in front Nero, her palm stinging from the impact, she felt like crying. No. Not felt like crying. She felt like she was already crying, but no tears were coming out. She felt like she would start sobbing any minute because it was getting harder and harder to breathe, but still, there were no tears. She had no tears left for her to shed.

Instead, her slap turned to punches. As Nero stood there without defending himself, only waiting for her to move again, Elara lost all rational thoughts. She punched him, not the normal, offensive punch, but a messy one. There were no thoughts behind her attacks. No strategy on where to land one so she could knock out her opponent. She was just throwing punches for the heck of it. It was as if for all the punches she throw, one of her suppressed emotion comes out. Her anger, her grief, her sadness…

Nero, on the other hand, did nothing to protect himself. He accepted all of Elara’s attacks, just taking a step backwards every now and then from the impact. His eyes looked at Elara in surrender as he waited her next moves. He was just there, totally in her mercy.

The one-sided fight continued for a couple of minutes, with Elara wordlessly attacking Nero, the only sound coming from her was her breathing and occasional grunts from moving too much. When Elara tired of her attacks, she stopped and looked down on Nero, who had just fallen on his knee on the ground. His breathing was irregular, probably from controlling the pain that he was feeling. Even without proper thoughts behind her attacks, Elara’s punches were still strong and surely painful. Bruises were starting to appear on Nero’s pale skin, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth when Elara punched him on the face.

He looked at her, waiting. There were no trace of anger in him. Just acceptance.

This effectively made Elara lose her anger. As she looked at him, all beaten up, not even trying to fight back, the anger she had felt just vanished. She couldn’t maintain her anger when the person she’s beating up wasn’t even fighting back. No matter how angry she was, it just wasn’t a fair fight.

As the adrenaline from her emotions leave her system, Elara felt her fatigue from moving too much. Her knees started to weaken, and she swayed before falling on the floor.

She knelt in front of Nero, breathing heavily. Now that she had beaten Nero up, most of her pent-up anger was gone. She still despised him, that’s for sure. She didn’t think she could ever forgive him for what he did. But it wasn’t like before. She didn’t want to kill him at first sight.

Maybe this turn of events was for the better. Now that she had released most of her anger on him, she would be able to think more clearly now whenever he was involved. Especially now that she needed to escape from here… to protect Jaiden.

“Why?” she muttered, glancing at Nero who was staring at her. “Why didn’t you fight back? Where was that brutal man who murdered my family?”

She wanted to scream the words at him, but she had no energy left. Instead, her accusations was delivered in almost a whisper, her voice cracking every now and then/

“That guy does not exist,” Nero answered, looking at her straight in the eyes. “He existed only once, just to complete a necessary fight. It was a kill or be killed situation. But he was no longer here.”

Ordinarily, his words would anger Elara again. It would send her in a mania, and would probably start attacking Nero again. But now, she was just drained. A while ago, she was bursting with emotion, but now, she was empty.

She stared at Nero, no longer feeling anything. She was numb. She didn’t know what to do next. Nero probably realized it as well, because he stood up and walked towards her. He was still shaky, probably hurting from Elara’s attacks. He stopped in front of her then offered a hand. Elara ignored it. She just continued to stare at the floor, not moving.

Then, she felt an a set of arms sweep her up from the floor, carrying her towards Cairo’s bed. She wanted to fight back. No way would she be carried like this twice. Well, that’s what her pride was telling her. However, she was already too tired to do anything. Instead, she relaxed in his arms. She closed her eyes as she was being carried, and while she was being carefully placed on the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she heard him mutter again. Then, he was gone. She could no longer feel his presence nor smell his scent. The moment he disappeared, the only remaining scent was Cairo’s faint one. And if she concentrated even more, there was also the hint of Xian.

Drained, tired, and alone, the tears that wouldn’t come out before started to fall now. She sobbed quietly, crying with her eyes closed. As she bid goodbye to her brothers one last time, she slowly drifted off to sleep.