As She Fades

"Put to rest
What you thought of me
While I clean this slate
With the hands of uncertainty.

So let mercy come
And wash away
What I've done.

I'll face myself
To cross out what I've become.
Erase myself
And let go of what I've done.

For what I've done,
I start again,
And whatever pain may come,
Today this ends.
I'm forgiving what I've done!"
- Linkin Park

Antony regarded Skylar for an awkward moment, doing his best to cow the boy with a cool stare, but beyond briefly meeting Antony's eyes, then dropping his gaze to the floor, Skylar made no move. Finally, after a further moment of contemplation, Antony crossed the room and eased the door shut. If they were already going to be stuck in here together and unwilling to budge, why not take advantage of it?

For Torryn's sake, he'd do anything. Even suffer through a civil conversation with this whiny little bastard.

"So," he started in a voice that even he thought was too gentle, "what exactly did she mean when she said that you were seeing the Lord for 'imaginary sexy time' with her?"

Skylar wouldn't raise his eyes from the floor as he grumbled, "I think you know what she meant."

"I do, but I want to hear it from you."

"I went to the Lord," Skylar explained, continuing to stare at the floor as he sank onto the edge of the bed. "He let me relive…some things. Whichever things I asked. But as it turns out, he was also combing my memories for some weakness of hers that he could exploit." He sighed, resigned, and shifted his gaze to his hands. "But yeah, mostly just the…things."

Part of Antony wanted to give in to the jealous rage that bubbled in the pit of his stomach and tear Skylar's head off, but the other part of him, the bigger part, wanted only to make Torryn happy. With a forced sigh, he leaned against the wall beside the door and crossed his arms over his chest, allowing his gaze to drift over the clean white of the ceiling. "I don't understand why you would resort to something so…" He paused, searching for a word less disparaging than the dozens that currently swam through his mind — gross, disgusting, questionable, immoral, disrespectful, wrong, completely fucked up — but he quickly gave up. "Just what the hell did you expect to accomplish? What the hell happened to you?"

Skylar shrugged and dropped his head into his hands. "I was…I guess I was desperate. I knew it was stupid and dirty and completely wrong when I started doing it, and I knew that every time I stopped in front of that damn house, but I just couldn't stop myself." He fell silent then, and though Antony was sure that there was more to it than that, he let it go.

"Are you going to stop yourself now?" he asked softly, focusing intently on the human across the room from him.

Again, Skylar shrugged. "I want to, and I know I should, but it's…it's something I need in my life, you know? It's the only thing that makes me feel right, like I've got something going on in my life, like I'm doing something more than tripping all over myself in an endless cycle of Arena-sleep-classes-Arena-sleep-classes."

While the sentiment of his little speech made him shudder inwardly, knowing too well that feeling of hopelessness, of a circular living, Antony couldn't help asking in shock, "You're taking classes? You're actually in college?" Skylar finally met his gaze, nodding solemnly, and Antony felt a fresh stab of surprise. "Really? What are you majoring in?"

"Engineering," Skylar answered, and Antony physically drew back in shock. But engineering is for smart people. Before he could verbalize this sentiment, Skylar asked softly, "Did you really kill someone?"

Now it was Antony's turn to avert his gaze. "Three people, actually. In a blood orgy. With Becca."

"Are you shitting me?" Skylar gasped.

"Yeah," Antony murmured, meeting the boy's wide eyes with a twinge of guilt. "It was bad. And it didn't help that I'd been seeing dozens of women a week since Torryn left. I was —" He paused to laugh bitterly at himself, returning his gaze to the ceiling. "I was hoping that I might fall in love with one of them and forget about her, even though I knew full well that it would never go beyond blood, maybe sex. Over the past couple of weeks, I think I've made the absolute worst decisions that I'll ever make in my life. No wonder Torryn left. I'm a fucking Adam Sandler-level manchild."

They lapsed into silence, and Antony let his mind wander. He should've listened to Becca when she told him to stop acting like a child with a blood problem. She should've stopped me that night I invited her to my room. But he knew that it wasn't her responsibility to keep him in line. He couldn't blame her for taking advantage of him to fulfill her own longings. God knew he would've done the exact same thing had the roles been reversed.

Note to self: Listen to your underlings. To your friends. Their advice might save your ass someday.

"If you'd been able to live your way through college," Skylar began softly, jerking Antony from his musings, "what would you have majored in?"

Still staring at the ceiling, Antony smiled to himself. "I never decided." He chuckled to himself suddenly, meeting Skylar's grimly curious stare with a wry smile. "You know, I never told Torryn this, but I actually did apply to college. A few of them, actually. I was going to do a bit of exploring, take a few classes just for the hell of it — conveniently whichever ones she was taking at the time." He eased his expression into blankness, trying to keep the sadness that tightened his gut from showing on his face. "I got accepted to most of them, too. I was still putting off a meeting with an adviser at her campus when I…" He looked at the floor at Skylar's feet, a twinge in his chest nearly stopping him short, but he went on in nothing more than a whisper. "I didn't want to make her sad."

Out of the corner of his eye, he studied Skylar's face, expecting to see pity, condemnation, something, but there was no judgment in his expression. There was sympathy, yes, and sorrow, but it seemed genuine, supportive, even empathetic.

We're on the same level, Antony realized with a shock. We've both hit rock bottom.

Maybe we're not enemies, after all.

Skylar chuckled sadly. "We're kind of pathetic, aren't we? Desperately trying to replace Torryn, trying to fill a void in our lives that we shouldn't even have, putting ourselves and others at risk constantly because we just have no other way out…"

Antony laughed. "Yeah." His smile faded, and he forced a stale sigh. "We should talk to her, try to get all of this sorted out. She deserves better than this."

Skylar nodded and got to his feet. "Agreed, but I need to get in some sleep first."

"Yeah, I guess we'll get back to this later." Antony pushed himself away from the wall and pulled the door open. "Goodnight, I guess."

Skylar smiled halfheartedly as he made his way into the hall beyond. "More like good morning, really. Later, bloodsucker."

He disappeared down the stairs, and Antony smirked to himself as he flipped the light switch in Torryn's bedroom and stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him. Dick. But maybe he was all right. After all, the only thing Antony really knew about him was that he was as fiercely protective of Torryn as Antony himself was, and that was a hard trait to condemn.

I really do know nothing about him, Antony marveled as he made his way into his own bedroom, flipping the light on to see that his room was squeaky clean and blessedly free of blood, as usual, no matter what tricks his guilty mind would try to play on him. An engineer? How the hell is he smart enough to be an engineer?

Just as he was about to close his door, a thought struck him — Becca. Rage flowed through him anew as he remembered her words: "She put herself in danger, and I won't risk my ass to get her out of it if she was too stupid to avoid it to begin with."

Too stupid to avoid it? Too stupid to save people? Angrily, he threw the door open and stormed down the hall.

She'd better be gone, or she'll wish she had been.

-?-

Torryn knocked lightly on the door, her eyes on the sunrise to the east, naturally drawn to the pale blue and vivid oranges that stretched across the horizon as if the gray of the rainclouds had never been there. She wasn't expecting much to come of this, anyway. What self-respecting werewolf would be awake at seven o'clock in the morning? Even she shouldn't have been up at this hour, and she was just a measly half-human.

And a teenager, she reminded herself. I'm supposed to sleep forever. And honestly, she wished she had the option right now. She didn't want to have to keep lamenting her broken relationships with those stupid boys.

When the door opened, she turned from the sunrise to find Raphael towering over her and looking no more disheveled than usual, and she cocked an eyebrow up at him. "I didn't think you'd be up this early. I was prepared to spend a few hours sleeping in the car."

"I don't sleep much," he said, turning and heading back into the house, and she took that as her cue to follow. "Why didn't you just sleep at your own house until you thought I'd be up?"

She sighed and shut the door behind herself. "The two biggest sources of problems in my life were squabbling in my room, so I decided to throw a fit and leave."

"And you came here?" He flopped down on the couch, snatching a remote from the table and turning off the small TV in one corner of the room. "You need healing, then?"

"Yeah, but not much." She sat down on the couch across from him, plopping her duffel bag full of cash on the cushion beside her, and he eyed her for a moment before getting to his feet and taking his usual seat on the coffee table in front of her.

"So," he began in a tone that bordered on mocking, resting a warm hand on her cheek just beneath the spot where a cut still stung, "how did things go with the Lord?"

The warmth that bled into her cheek as her gash mended was just as pleasant as always, but even that couldn't shake her shame, and she looked anywhere but at his face. "About as well as you expected, I guess," she grumbled. "He wasn't interested in making a deal, he overcame me, and Skylar had to save my ass again. Oh, yeah. Did you know that he's been seeing the Lord for weeks now to relive his memories of all the times we had sex?" she added in a faux-cheerful voice born of frustration. "It's great. Plus, a couple of nights ago, Antony decided to bang Becca and kill three humans, all because he was mad that I had sex with Skylar. I guess the twenty women he'd been with this week weren't enough for him. But hey, at least Skylar managed to get him to come to the rescue of the Progeny I failed to save, so it wasn't all a waste."

"Yeah," he said, and there was no new emotion to his gruff voice. But when she met his eyes, she saw an emotion just short of concern in those pale depths. "That's part of the reason I'm already showered and dressed. I helped him get the Progeny to a safe location." He let his hand rest on her stomach now, and as heat tingled through her insides, he said, "I can see why you chose to leave them. I'm not so sure they're very safe to be around right now."

She sighed. "I don't know what to do about them. I don't want to cut them off entirely, but you're right."

He shrugged, his hand sliding up to rest on her ribs to concentrate a fiercer heat there. "All you can do is give them some time, just like you've been doing. If they can't figure themselves out and take back control of their own lives, they'll never stop being a danger to you, a source of constant angst."

"I just can't help feeling like this is my fault," she admitted with a shake of her head. "I mean, I'm the one who caused these problems, so shouldn't I be the one to solve them? What good will staying away from them do?"

He placed his hand on her calf, and she guessed she'd failed to notice yet another bruise. "Don't be so conceited. I'm sure you're a fantastic girl and all, but no woman's so perfect that men get addicted to them and can't live without them. They aren't frantically searching for a way to replace you because you were their goddess. They're searching for a way to replace you because you happened to be the only good thing either of them had in their lives — the light at the end of their respective tunnels at the end of the day, so to speak." He took her hands in his now, resting his thumbs over her scraped knuckles, and she shuddered at the intimate heat.

"Let's face it. Neither of them were leading the most pleasant of lives to begin with. Antony's been bullied by his undead dad for years, he's had undeath and an entire coven thrust upon him along with the responsibilities that come with keeping the Arena running smoothly, and from what I understand, Skylar's been providing for himself for quite some time. He's been alone. He's been working and going to school and taking care of himself since he was old enough to. And now that his main method of making money has become the Arena, he's literally fighting for his life every night, going to bed by himself, and getting up to do it all over again. And lemme tell ya, I know a thing or two about that lifestyle." He shook his head and dropped her hands. "It's hard to be packless, to be, for all intents and purposes, alone, when you're spending your evenings fighting. And to not even start out that way but to lose the one pillar of support you had so suddenly and to someone else? Yeah, that kid's got to be miserable."

He rose from the coffee table and sat on the couch across from her, though his eyes never left her. "Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you were their reason for getting out of bed in the morning. With you gone, they're turning to more questionable means of comfort, and that is not your fault in any way. You walked away from them because their constant cat fights over you weren't doing anyone any good, least of all you, and you were right to do something to stop it. If you continue to give them space, especially if you've pointed out what dipshits they're being, they'll either sort themselves out or not, and either way, you'll know who does or doesn't belong in your life." He shrugged. "Just an old man's opinion. I don't know your entire life story, but I know enough to say that you've always been surrounded by toxic people in toxic environments, and now that you have the resources to stand on your own if you so choose, I don't want to see you fall back into such a situation just because you think it's your fault. Don't let them drag you down with 'em. Don't let anyone into your life if they don't deserve you."

Torryn couldn't keep herself from cracking a smile. "If only you were a few years younger, Raphael," she teased, and he laughed, something she rarely heard in its genuine form.

"More like a few decades," he drawled, "but I'm glad to know I'd have a shot."

She chuckled, prodding her stomach in search of any missed wounds, though she knew she'd find none. "So, since we both seem to have some time to kill, would you mind telling me about the big boss masters around town again?"

"Why?" he asked, suspicion adding a harsh edge to his voice.

She shrugged, now gingerly poking at her arm, giving her somewhere else to look that wasn't him. Even she wasn't sure what she was planning just yet, but she knew that he would never approve. But she needed some way to make up for her failure with the Lord, didn't she? Some proof that she could do something that she set out to do? "I think I need to be reminded of why it's a dumb idea to go near them. Maybe you can talk some extra sense into me after what happened with the Lord."

For a moment, he was silent, and she could feel his gaze heavy upon her, but he finally spoke. "The Lord, Yaphet, Levon, Diederick, and Emmeline. You know where to find them — where not to go. The Lord is an unusual case of a human being turned into a vampire, which explains why he has that grand power of his that allows him to bring his victims' memories to life — carried over from his human days, as vampires are very rarely born with any abilities of their own — but the others are average undead who have either been born into a position of power or who have fought tooth and nail to reach the top. They're all immensely powerful, but I believe it's universally agreed that Yaphet and Levon are at the top of the food chain while Diederick and Emmeline fall just below with the Lord at the very bottom." He paused, staring off into space, seeming to be searching for what to say next. "I guess Emmeline would technically have a place with Yaphet and Levon, if you take into account the incredible size of her coven. Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. They're vampires. They kill people, and they're to be avoided at all costs."

"Do any of them keep Progeny, you think?" she asked, finally meeting his gaze, and he shrugged.

"Besides the Lord, I don't know of any that do. I've never heard of a particularly strong Progeny presence in this area of the country, which isn't saying much, considering Progeny are a dying breed all over the world these days. The Lord is lucky to have found any for himself."

He has to be lying, she thought darkly. Master vampires are always interested in Progeny. Her mind lit up suddenly. And if any of the masters around here were to have them, it would be the one with the biggest coven to feed. Emmeline. Emmeline would be her best bet for redemption.

"Thanks," she said aloud, smiling. "I don't think I'll be running off to clash with any of the other masters for a long time. How much do I owe you?"

He held up a hand. "Not a thing. Your injuries weren't extensive enough to warrant any payment." But she could see something unfamiliar behind those eyes of his — relief? Gratefulness? Oh, Jesus, she thought in shock as realization dawned on her. He's pulling that 'I'm just glad you made it out alive' bullshit on me, isn't he? She wouldn't lie, though. Something warm and fuzzy trickled through her at the thought of someone really caring about her, especially in a way that wasn't freakishly territorial. "Have you slept at all, by the way?" he asked, and she lurched back to reality to find him searching her face carefully.

"Uh, does being unconscious for a few hours count as sleeping?"

"Not even a little bit," he answered flatly. "Why don't you get some rest here? You know my rooms are always open to you."

"Really?" she asked, stunned, and another warm-fuzzy emerged to nestle in the pit of her stomach at his nod.

"Of course. Take as long as you need. And if you get hungry, you're more than welcome to whatever I have in the kitchen."

A lump formed in her throat, tears already creating a threatening burning at the back of her eyes, and she laughed at herself. "Thank you, Raphael."

He looked away from her uncomfortably, taking the remote from the coffee table and turning the TV back on. "No problem. Just go get some sleep already."

She laughed again, wiping at her eyes as moisture continued to gather, and stood. "All right." She made her way to the stairwell, but she paused with her foot on the bottom stair and looked back to him. "Thank you, Raphael." He met her gaze hesitantly, and she smiled. "Seriously. Thank you. For everything."

"Don't make me regret this," he said in fake threat, and her chuckle echoed on the stairs as she made her way up.

Kind people would be the death of her — and she would be the death of him.

-?-

Leaving the guest room that Becca had long overstayed her welcome in, Antony started down the stairs, his teeth clamped together and his features tightly drawn. All of her belongings were still strewn about in a tidy mess — clothes, shoes, books and papers — but she wasn't sprawled on the bed in that over-sexual way of hers as she normally would've been. Maybe she got the hint, he thought as he turned down the hallway and headed toward the kitchen. Or maybe she just knows that I'll be looking for her.

Sure enough, the moment he stepped into the kitchen, he saw her sitting at the dining room table in the chair furthest from the door so that she faced him, but she didn't raise her eyes from the book spread open before her on the table. The pages were still glossy and unmarred, the binding barely creased from what he could see, and his flare of anger at the sight of her paused for an instant. Is that…one of Torryn's textbooks?

He came to a stop at the edge of the table, only feet away from her, but still, she wouldn't look up. A quick glance around the kitchen told him that they were entirely alone, free even from the living vampires who had a tendency to stick around, and he turned back to her with a glare full of unrestrained hate. "Why are you still here?" His voice was soft, quiet, but in that very particular way that told of the deceitful calm before the storm.

"I've been reading one of the books I borrowed from Torryn's bag," Becca replied neutrally, and the sound of her foot tapping an easy rhythm beneath the table grated on his nerves almost as much as her tone. "I really hope she doesn't need this one today, since it doesn't seem like she'll be coming back before class."

The strain finally showed in his tight voice as he asked, "Why are you still in my house?"

She finally raised her eyes to his, her foot ceasing its light tapping on the tile, and he saw that the usually lively brown was dull, pointedly dead. "Are you even going to ask her why she was at the Lord's house to begin with?"

"She wanted to free the Progeny. What's the big deal?" he said, attempting calm but failing as a nagging voice at the back of his mind reminded him that she was right. He had no idea what had made Torryn rush in to save the day so suddenly.

Becca returned to her book. "Psychology is quite fascinating, you know, especially considering how much it's grown since my day. You should take the time to study it someday. Lord knows you've got a while."

"She wanted to free the Progeny," he repeated, more forcefully now. "She's been wanting to do that for a long time. That's it. That's all."

Her rhythmic tapping began again, and her eyes continued to leisurely skim the pages that still lay open before her. "Have you checked her trunk lately? Have you bothered to ask her what she really does all evening? Have you bothered to pay any attention at all to the pretty girl you claim to be so in love with?"

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

She forced a noisy sigh through her nose. "She's been playing with vampires for quite a while now, judging by the amount of weaponry and dried gore in the trunk of her car. Were you really so wrapped up in the smell of sex that you didn't notice the stench of blood and bits of body that filled the whole damn vehicle?" She turned a page casually, but she lowered her voice, her tone growing dark. "I don't think she deserved to be saved last night, Antony. I don't think she'll ever deserve to be saved again, not now. Not if she's going to be out playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer every night."

Antony's muscles tightened, and guilt rolled through him like a riptide. How had he not noticed this? How had he known so little? But he showed only anger as he growled, "Leave."

Vacantly, she met his eyes. "You need me here, Antony. You need my knowledge of this world and my insight into the nature of the vampire. Lord knows you're clueless about it, yourself."

"Do you want me to kill more?" he snapped. "Is that it?"

"That's not what I mean," she said with a shake of her head that sent her rich blonde-brown hair swaying.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Look, Antony. I think Torryn's a great girl. I really do. But is she really right for you? For your world? For our world?"

"Leave before I make you leave," he said lowly, clenching his fists at his sides.

She gave him an icy smile as she rose to her feet in a fluid, graceful sweep. "I wouldn't be so sure that you could. Just because you've inherited a master's throne doesn't mean you're truly a master, Antony dear," she all but purred, her soft fingers trailing along his jaw as she glided past him. Her cold touch slipped away, and she added casually over her shoulder, "It's daylight and I have nowhere to go, but I'll consider packing my things for later."

For a moment, he was frozen in place — all but his fingers, curling tighter and tighter until his nails were burrowing into his palms. He barely noticed the sting, however, as he strained to hear her footsteps through the blizzard of thoughts that pelted his mind. She'll consider packing her things? After saying that she doesn't think Torryn deserves to be saved? After trying to convince me to push Torryn aside so that she could slip in to steal my reign more easily?

He heard the click of her door shutting through the fuming haze of anger that clouded his senses, and he swept out of the kitchen in a fury. I'd better see her ass walking out the front door tonight, or we'll just have to see who the stronger vampire is.

A faint sense of worry brought him a moment of clarity, and he glanced at the front door as he started up the stairs. I hope you stay out late, Torryn, no matter what it is you're doing. I want to be awake to protect you — from her.

There was no guarantee that Becca was planning to harm her, but he'd never seen her show this much nerve before. He didn't know much about her at all. He didn't even know why it was she stuck around other than out of an attraction she claimed to have for him.

Just what are you trying to pull here, Becca? What's your endgame?

If she wanted his rule, she was more than welcome to have it. But if she wanted to get rid of Torryn…

He'd kill her. He'd kill anyone.

Hell, he'd kill everyone — and then some.