Blanket of Fear

As the days passed after Eliza had let Zack see into her mind to view the nightmare that had plagued her, everyone noticed that things started to change with the two of them. They were slow, barely-there changes, but they didn’t go unnoticed. Eliza had started becoming withdrawn from everyone except for Leana and Nicole. Zacky had started protecting her more, keeping her near to him at all times and refusing to leave her in bed alone at night. No one knew why things were changing, though one person had an idea of what was happening.

He had seen it before, and it worried him. Matthew, of all of them, had picked up on the subtle changes in his brother’s and Eliza’s personalities and the way they did things. He knew he wasn’t trusted in this house; that Zack hated him enough to want him to die, even. But he did know that, the more time he spent here with Avenged Sevenfold and their allies, the more he understood that all the years he’d been a vampire had been spent doing things the wrong way. He had hurt people, and he shouldn’t have. Seeing the way these people interacted made him want to make a change, and he knew he had to try.

He paid special attention to Eliza, more so than anyone else. He knew that something was going on with her. He knew that she had seen something; that someone was about to hurt either her or Zack. He knew that his younger brother didn’t remember it, but Zack had acted this way when Matthew had been getting ready to go through with his actions on their parents and sister. Zack had stayed close to them, as if he were almost instinctively trying to protect them.

But if there was one thing that Matthew had learned in his years as a vampire, it was the fact that your loved ones couldn’t always be protected. He knew that that was especially true when the person that was going to hurt them was in the midst of everything; when it was a person you trusted, perhaps more than anyone else. And he knew that if Zack didn’t do something other than stay by Eliza’s side, they were both going to end up getting hurt.

He knew that protecting the two of them could be his first step in finding salvation for the things he had done in his life. He knew that nothing he did would ever earn Zack’s full forgiveness. He knew that nothing he ever did would ever earn the forgiveness of whatever God might exist. What he had done was simply unforgiveable. But Matthew was a man who believed that he could become a better person. He was a person who believed that perhaps, if he did enough, his brother may trust him again. And that was what he was going to do.

He needed to find out what Eliza and Zack were holding back from the rest of the group. He needed to figure out who was going to hurt them; who was threatening their existence. He knew that whoever it was had to be working in some way, shape, and form for Sean Castro, and he knew that that meant it was a very deadly thing he was undertaking. But if it was for his brother’s safety, and Eliza’s wellbeing, he needed to do it. Zack had gone through enough torment in his life, and Eliza was important to Zack. If he lost her, Matthew doubted his brother would move on. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“What are you doing?”

Matthew looked up, pulling himself out of his thoughts long enough to see Joel standing there, and he blinked before shrugging, looking back out the window he had been looking out to see Eliza and Zack sitting on a small, homemade bench made out of a fallen log they’d found somewhere in the surrounding woods. Neither of them looked as if they’d slept much, if at all any, and it made him even more worried.

“Thinking,” he told the man, looking at him briefly. When he saw the concern flash across the younger vampire’s face, he just shook his head and then cleared his throat before continuing. “Not about sabotage, don’t worry.”

“Then what were you thinking?” Joel asked him, folding his arms tightly over his chest before frowning. He knew that Zack had agreed to keeping Matthew here, but he didn’t trust the elder vampire. It was enough proof for him that Matthew wasn’t trustworthy when Zack told them that the elder Baker had slaughtered his family without blinking an eye. He cleared his throat and then glared at Matthew, waiting for an answer.

“There’s danger,” Matthew said quietly. He didn’t know if he should be sharing this with Joel, but right now, neither Zack nor Eliza was letting anyone in on anything. And Matthew knew that would be their downfall. If he could get Joel to listen to him and agree to the small plan he had thought up, he was sure he could at least save their lives.

“What do you mean, ‘danger’?” Joel asked, giving Matthew a strange look. Matthew sighed, and then grabbed the other man’s arm before pulling him towards an empty, windowless room on the inside of the house so that no one would overhear what he was about to say. He didn’t want to risk anyone getting back to Zack and Eliza with what he was going to say, because it would only mean bad things.

“Zack and Eliza are hiding something from everyone,” Matthew told the smaller man before sighing, pushing his hand back through his hair. “I know I haven’t given anyone any reason to trust me, especially with my past. But right now, all I want is to make amends with my brother. And keeping Eliza safe will help me do that, at least in some small way.”

Joel sighed and then leaned back against the wall. He knew that everyone here, for the most part, distrusted Matthew. They didn’t like him any more than they liked Leigh, and they didn’t know what to think of him. Jacoby and his clique thought he was here to turn traitor for Sean again, and Matt and the others in Avenged Sevenfold were of the opinion that once you turned on your family, there was no honor left in you. Joel himself wasn’t quite sure what to make of the elder Baker brother.

He himself had made mistakes. He had done things he knew were dishonorable; things he knew had hurt people he was close to. He could understand Matthew on some small level. But he didn’t know if he could actually trust the man. Matthew had taken everything to a completely different level. He had slaughtered his family, leaving only Zacky alive. He didn’t know if one could truly be classified as sane after doing that, even if they were a vampire. And he didn’t know if he’d be letting Zack down by placing trust in him. On the other hand, however, he wanted to help keep his friends as safe as possible. He might not know Eliza very well, but she was close to Zack. And that was all that mattered to him.

“What do you want me to do? If Zack’s hiding it, there’s no way he’s going to let anyone find out,” Joel sighed, deciding that just this once, he could give Matthew the benefit of the doubt. “What are we supposed to do? Huh? Just ransack their brains or something like that?”

Matthew groaned, not knowing what he himself was supposed to do. He just felt an underlying sense of danger in the air. Something didn’t sit right with him. Call it instincts, he thought to himself, and he had never ignored his gut feelings. And his gut was telling him something was wrong.

“I don’t know,” he told Joel before looking him straight in the eyes. “Just…keep your eyes open. I’m not asking you to do anything. I an see it in your eyes that you don’t trust me. Just…please, keep your eyes open.”

He didn’t say anything else before turning to walk out of the small room, needing some time to think to himself. As he was walking to his own small bedroom, he stopped when he heard a female voice talking in a hushed voice on a phone somewhere behind one of the doors in the hallway. He knew who it was, and his eyes narrowed in anger when he realized that the woman talking on the phone so quietly was someone that he needed to watch out for. His senses weren’t so strong that he could hear the other person on the end of that phone line, but he knew beyond any doubt that whoever she was talking to was trouble. And that wasn’t acceptable for Matthew.

That woman was putting the only family he had left in danger, and he’d be damned if he let that happen. He would kill in cold blood before he let something happen to Zack and Eliza. He knew it didn’t make sense for him to feel so honorable right now, and if he were honest with himself, that feeling might vanish tomorrow. But right now, in this moment, his main priority was going to be keeping his brother safe. And that meant keeping his eyes on the woman he’d just heard.