Elena.

I pulled back, and we silently walked to his car, parked a little ways away, and without another word we headed back to his home.

As soon as we walked inside, Molly ran up to me, enveloping me in a hug, when i finally looked at her, I realized she had been crying. I gave her a weak, reassuring smile, which was all i could manage.

I hadn't brought any belongings with me, so Leverett and I waited for her to bring dry clothes for me from her closet. As I watched Molly walk upstairs to her room, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leverett look at me with an intensity that I'd never seen him muster before, he wasn't even trying to hide it. When Molly disappeared in her room to look for the clothes, I felt a hand pull me towards a couch hastily.

"You fed," Leverett began, sitting down on the couch across from me, "on a human," he declared, no longer looking at me directly. "more than one, too."

"It was in self defense."

"That is still never a reason to do that. You could've injured them enough to get away." He scolded, making me bite my lip as I felt some drops of rain from my hair fall onto my lap. He cleared his throat and started to speak again, but in a softer tone. "I don't want you to make the same...mistakes that I did. Just because we were made to be killers, it does not mean we have to be."

I finally looked up from my lap, and got startled to see that he was looking directly at me, something he rarely did. He had just shown me in a small dose of how caring he could actually be, but I knew it could only just be a facade. His little speech said everything that was needed to say, so I stupidly just shook my head.

Molly came back down, with a long sleeve forest green dress. I nether felt coldness or warmth anymore, so she really must've picked it for aesthetic reason, which I found pointless but nevertheless thanked her for her thoughtfulness. She gave me another hug as she brushed my hair away from my face in a way a mother would.

"Meet me in my study when you're done changing." Leverett said from behind me.

He went straight to his study as I went upstairs. He wasn't wet because it had stopped raining for a while and he had been in his car either way.

After I'd dressed, I went to the bathroom for a towel to dry my hair, which was in its natural, jet black color. I jumped back a little, startled, at you girl looking back at me from the mirror. I could hardly recognize my own reflection, I was practically looking at a stranger. All the little roundess i had left in my face from childhood was completely gone, and my once soft gray eyes were now cold, all innocence that had been left in them, gone. I looked at my neck, which had subtle gray marks on it, which was bruising that I was sure was left from the fight i'd had with Shadow. The bruise had been hidden before from the shirt I'd been wearing, but completely exposed now that I was wearing the v-neck dress.

I knew that I'd spent more than enough time in my room, so I took the towel with me as I went downstairs to Leverett's study. Molly was in the kitchen, smiling at me as I knocked on the heavy wooden door.

"Come in." I obliged and saw Leverett standing next to his desk, a hand lightly placed on it. This seemingly calm state he was in unsettled me, I'd never seen him this way. "When you come in here, you don't have to knock...this is your home now- I mean- if you want to stay..." He said, stumbling over his words.

"Yes. Yes I do want to stay." I hadn't realized until then that it was one of the first times I had ever smiled in front of him, and I was only dimly aware at that moment that he saw and noticed this fact as well.

"What happened to your neck?" He asked with what sounded little interest, sitting down on one of his lounge chairs. I decided to stay standing, keeping my back towards him as I pretended to look at his books, which would make it easier for me to lie to him if he couldn't really see my face. I wasn't going to necessarily going to lie, but leave out most of what happened.

"After you'd gone, I went up to see Kadin."

"What about Ryan?"

"I didn't see him." I replied sadly, an emotion I didn't have to fake. I knew that if Leverett knew I'd seen what he had done to Ryan, he'd keep his guard up if I acted kindly towards him, which would be strange and suspicious. I told him about going to the hotel, about how Mrs. Goodman showed up, and Kadin and I getting separated as we got away from her, and the Shadow.

All the while I was telling my story, from his profile I could see he was listening intently, asking a few questions here and there, hardly interrupting, up until I started talking about the shadow.

"Did...it have a name?"

"Yes. Lucerne." I'd stopped pacing around the study, to see his face contort into an expression of pain. I walked up to him, and hesitantly moved my hand to his shoulder, and as I regretted it and started to move back, he took my hand and held it for a moment, looking away from me distantly, and he suddenly started to squeeze it, to a pain were I almost cried out in pain. He let go and curtly apologized, and said nothing more as he blankly looked straight ahead of him.

We were silent for a long time, so I felt it was best to leave. When my hand was on the door handle, he said something I didn't catch, so he repeated himself.

"I knew him. He was one of us...and they took him....changed him into a monster."

I walked around to his armchair. He slowly looked up at me, and in that moment I saw something I'd never seen in him before...vunerability.

Before I could stop myself, I kneeled down and wrapped my arms around him, and without hesitation he did so as well and he held me tightly as I felt a single tear wet my shoulder. And the next thing I knew, his lips were on mine.

I kissed him back, with all the love and passion I only dreamed of ever possesing. We kissed for what seemed moments, but he gently pushed me away. I looked at him, puzzled and hurt, waiting for his explanation."

"I fought with everything I had for this to never happen. From the moment I saw you, and got to know you, I just...tried to push you away. I don't like feeling weak...and you're the only one that does that to me."

"Don't push me away," I said, cupping his cheek with my hand, "I...I love you." I said, saying each word truthfully, and for the first time, to anyone.

"I love you too," He replied, kissing me again.