Why did you ask Leo to take you to his place after we found you? Why can’t you look me in the eye?
Why do you think? I countered, annoyed at the intimacy of speaking telepathically. I put the wall back up.
He started pacing and raked his hands through his hair. “Look, Karli. Something happened the night I found you. Something really bad happened. But I need you to hear me out before you say anything. I can explain everything but you need to give me that chance.”
I held up my hand. “Don’t, Vance. You don’t need to explain anything.” My damn eyes filled with tears again as I thought about it but I refused to let them fall.
He stepped forward and tried grabbing my hand but I backed away from him. “Karli, yes, I do need to explain this. I need to tell you what happened. I can’t keep this from you in good conscience.”
I moved behind Leo’s desk, because I couldn’t stand being so close to him. ‘In good conscience’ my ass. His conscience didn’t seem to bother him while he had his dick inside that bitch. “No, Vance, you don’t.” My tears started to fall despite my best efforts to contain them. “You don’t have to explain because I saw everything.”
His body tensed. “What do you mean you saw everything?”
I felt the blood rush to my face as I seethed in anger. I pushed Leo’s desk chair away from me and shouted, “I mean, that Maria thought it would be fun to videotape your sexcapades and then make me watch the whole thing afterwards!! Let me tell ya, Vance, it was a real eye opener. Not only did I get to enjoy hearing you tell her how much you loved her over and over again, but I got to SEE how much you loved her over and over again!!”
He paled. “Karli, you don’t understand. I don’t know how she did it, but it was as if it was the day she left me. You don’t know how many times I had dreamed of her coming back to me over the years saying those exact things. She made me feel as if no time had passed. It was before you were even born! It was like I had never even met you! I wasn’t in my right mind!”
I held my breath while trying to formulate my words. In barely more than a whisper I said, “That’s just it, Vance. You were able to forget I even existed. The more I think about it, the more I realize that she was right. You never stopped loving her. You’re never going to have room in your heart for anyone but her and it’s not fair to keep dragging me along for the ride.”
“What?” He started moving towards me but I held my hand up in warning, prompting him to stop. “Karli, no, that’s not true. I don’t love her! I love you! My God, didn’t this week mean anything to you? How can you not know that we were meant to be together after everything you learned about your parents? About your destiny? Didn’t it teach you anything?”
I stopped crying, refusing to let him see me crack anymore. “Yes, Vance. It did teach me something. It taught me that fate, or destiny, or whatever bullshit name you want to call it doesn’t exist! If it had, this whole situation with Maria would have never fucking happened!”
“Karli, baby, don’t---”
“Don’t you dare fucking use a name for me that you used on her!” I moved from behind the desk and started shoving him towards the door. “You know what? Don’t fucking even think about using any name on me! You don’t have the right to even think about me! I don’t exist to you, remember?”
“No, that’s not true!” he shouted. “Karli, just listen---”
“Leo, get in here now!” I screamed, knowing his vampire ears could hear me from wherever he was in the building.
Within seconds the door burst open. He rushed into the room and asked, “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Leo, just stay out of this,” Vance barked. “This is between me and her. Just leave us alone to work this out.”
“Is that what you want?” Leo asked me.
“No. I want him to leave. I want him to leave now.”
Vance came up to us and tried shoving Leo out of the way. “Leo, I said to fucking stay out of this.”
Leo whirled around and in a blur, had Vance pinned against the wall by his neck. Vance’s face reddened as his air supply diminished.
“No, Leo!” I screamed. “Don’t hurt him! I just want him to leave!”
Leo removed his hand from his neck and said, “You heard the lady. She wants you to leave.”
“Make me.” Vance said something in Latin which threw Leo onto his desk, scattering all of the contents onto the floor. Leo got up with his fangs fully extended and launched himself onto Vance.
“Omigod! Stop it, you two!” I tried breaking them up but they were going so fast I could barely figure out who each one was. Finally, I wedged myself in between them just as I was being blinded by a flash of light. I felt something hard smack into my chest right before I was thrown into the air back into the security monitors. I slid down the wall as pieces of plasma screen rained down on my head. “Uh, what the hell was that?” I moaned, trying to shake off the dizziness and the ringing in my ears. They both ran up to me with panic in their eyes.
“Oh God, Karli,” Vance said. “I’m so sorry. That was meant for Leo. Oh baby, please tell me you’re okay.”
I don’t know how I managed it with all the fuzz in my head, but I somehow summoned the strength to glare at him for calling me baby again. I looked and Leo and whimpered. “Please, Leo, I just want to lie down. Please just take me back to bed so I can lie down.”
“Are you sure, my love?” he asked. “Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?” He started picking pieces of the monitors out of my hair.