Alex moved across the city like a shadow that couldn’t be seen by anyone in the early morning hours. She never slowed or veered from her path directly to her apartment as I watched her through my pulses.

  Autumn, Martin, and all the rest of them stayed at Carter’s house. None of them followed Alex when she moved. Though I did sense Alex speaking with Autumn before they parted ways. I obviously couldn’t hear or know what was said, but the way they parted made me think that Autumn knew that Alex needed to disappear for a while.

  Whatever they had gone through as they cleaned up and managed the bloody carnage I had left behind for them all had put them all through the wringer. Real dick move on my end, I know, but I was still coming down off the rage and killing urge once I hit the go button. I had to leave and give them time to process what I had done… and what it really meant to see the truth of what I was.

  Now, I was thankful that Alex was coming. I needed to speak with her.

  After some time, Alex made her way to the outer wall of her apartment complex. She scaled the rough material, climbing past other balconies in a flurry of speed as her light feet landed on the same balcony where I had come through. The moment her feet hit the ground, she stopped. She could sense me. She knew that I was inside. If it were my scent, or the presence of the monster… I was unsure. But I could tell she knew I was there.

  There was a moment of hesitation, but then she returned to normal speed and slid the door open. Early morning sun peeked in through the crack in the door, illuminating the living room, but not revealing me. I sat on top of the kitchen counter, waiting in the darkness. It was only a second before Alex had closed the door, submerging the apartment in blackness and zipping into the kitchen with a rush of silent speed.

  Alex appeared in the dark in different clothes than she had on the last time I saw her. She must have showered and changed at Carter’s house because she smelled faintly of their house and of Autumn, as she was wearing some of her clothes. I think I even recognized the purple and black plaid shirt she was wearing. In classic Alex fashion, it wasn't buttoned all the way, revealing a slight glimpse of her… ample assets. But with the way she was moving, I doubted anyone besides Autumn saw her that way before she was back in seclusion. Well… what she thought would be seclusion.

  Alex’s eyes were steady, her mouth was closed flat, and her heart beat just ever so slightly harder at the sight of me in her kitchen. He red hair hung freely behind her, almost slicked back from the rush of blurring through the city to get home. Her pale skin looked so soft, and smelled clean. But… there was something in her green eyes that looked hesitant to start talking. I think she wasn’t sure how to start… or what to even say exactly.

  “Sam…” she started, but trailed off.

  I think she was shocked and unprepared to see me so soon after watching me do what I did.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude on your space… I just had to catch you… alone,” I assured her.

  She caught my meaning, “Alone?”

  I cut through the bullshit and just started.

  “I needed to check on you. I want to make sure you’re okay. I’ve been gone… for a while. You had to do things to protect the people I care about while I was gone… don’t think I don’t see how much it affected you. I do,” I assured her.

  She tried to shake it off, “I know you do, Sam… I just…”

  I interrupted her, “We haven’t had a chance for it to be just us since I’ve been back. Everything's been so hectic… so rushed. Not to mention how bloody that last part got,” I admitted that I knew it was a lot.

  Alex nodded with a straight face and slowly sighed. “It was,” she nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Sam… I would have killed them many times over for coming for Autumn and her family like that. Clive and the rest of them were monsters… that I agree on. But the…” Alex struggled to say it; not because it was hard for her to think about it, but I think she was fearful of making it seem like she was trying to label me as something evil. “The humans… Jane’s family… that was… hard for me to process.” Alex looked down at the linoleum floor as she nodded internally.

  “I know…” I agreed softly. But then I hardened myself. “But they made their choice… and I made mine. If I hadn’t put a definitive end to them… all of them… it would only leave complications. Even the ones who weren’t all in with Clive… they weren’t all in with Jane. IF they came after the Chasses like that… they’d do it again… even if it was under the umbrella of someone else.” I scooted off the counter to stand in front of her, eclipsing her height with mine now that I was on my feet.

  “I agree,” Alex said, knowing it was true, but still hanging onto the fact that I had not just killed humans… but humans that were unknown to us.

  “But… even more than that, once I had decided, I needed to show them. I needed to show you,” I put all of my mental and emotional weight into my words, really trying to make her understand.

  “Show me what?” Alex asked, her relic-fused heart beat slightly faster.

  “That I finally admitted to myself what you had been preaching to me for so long. To show that to the Chasses. That I’m a monster… I wanted them all to see the full extent of it. Not the version I show them… but the brutal killer inside of me. That part… will never change. Not until I finally die… and pass on to the next…”

  Alex stepped back from me, not to get away, but to lean against the counter across from me. She took some deep breaths before speaking again. It worried me.

  “I know…” she paused there for a moment. “I know that thing you have in you won't stop… because I feel the thing inside of me. I still believe that too… we’re monsters… I am too, Sam. I may not hunt humans, but I’m a killer… a monster. Even more so now than ever before.” Alex looked up from the floor and into my eyes. “It just keeps growing… getting worse and worse. I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep this thing inside of me,” Alex motioned towards her chest to the relic of Hunger.

  I cocked my head to the side as she fell into a deep spiral of emotions.

  “I know you protected them… did what they could never do to people they knew… people they thought maybe they could save from Clive’s influence. But I… I wanted to do the same thing.” Alex admitted it, and it looked like a part of her died. There was a sheen that fell across her face when she admitted it. “I wanted to do it… But I couldn’t. I was too scared to, Sam. When I saw you tear into everyone… I was… happy! I was so thankful that you did what I couldn’t! What does that make me?” she asked as bloody tears welled up in her eyes.

  I shook my head and reached out to pull her into me. I squeezed her tight, putting one hand on the back of her neck and the other on the middle of her back. “Hey… we both know what we are… nothing has changed. You’re still you, Alex… just stronger.”

  “No… It’s not just that, Sam. I feel myself losing the battle inside. I feel this thing trying to turn me into something else… something other than myself. I know I saved Autumn by turning her, but that was something I swore I’d never do. I know you may not understand the gravity of that… but changing her took something from me I’ll never get back; and it all started with this relic. I should never have been there,” Alex said, speaking of the moment the curse had taken Autumn. “I should be dead… so many times over by now. But… but this curse… this blood,” I felt her lift her arms behind me like she accused the very liquid in her veins. “It’s taken everything from me… even my own resolve… my willpower that has held the monster at bay for so long. The relic’s tainting me, Sam.” Alex almost whimpered as she wept into my shoulder, “I don’t want to be like those elders… those abominations. I just want to be me again.” She cried in the dark of the kitchen.

  I didn’t know what to say. I came into this thinking that the focus would be on me and the things that I had done. But I was so far from what was really going on. Alex had finally hit her limit, and she was breaking. I didn’t know what to do except hold her tightly and try to be the one person in this world that could see her for who she truly was in this moment, when she couldn’t see herself anymore.

  After a few minutes of listening to her cry with shaky breath, Alex pulled away from me. She placed her hand against my chest and pushed away from me.

  “I need something from you, Sam. Something only you can give me,” she said as she raised her other shaky hand. She placed it right in the center of her chest.

  Terror gripped me as I thought she was about to ask me to kill her. To give her the death that she craved so badly in her darkest moments. Thankfully, her words spoke differently.

  “Destroy this thing! Kill this relic just like you did with the others. I can push it away… I've done it before… right after I made Autumn. I wanted to get rid of it when I knew it was changing me. But… it just comes right back. It’s like… it knows me, and it won't go away unless I pass it on to someone else… or I die.” Alex shook her head almost violently. “I can’t give this power to anyone else. It’s too much… too dangerous. It needs to be destroyed!”

  I took a slight step forward, “You can do that? Push it out of you?”

  Alex nodded quickly. “I can let it go… but you need to do it as you did to the elders. I saw you destroy it… I’ve felt you destroy another.”

  “But what will happen to you? Will it hurt you… to lose this thing? Will you survive it?” I asked, with obvious fear in my voice. I even felt a knot grow in my throat as I felt like I was losing something in my relationship with her. It was some kind of connection we shared that we were both tied to Primeval power in a way. More than that, though, I was scared she would die from such a loss, because she had changed so much.

  “Honestly… I don’t know,” Alex admitted, but there was no fear in her voice; almost a fuck it, let's find out, kind of mentality. Her mind was set. “I can’t go on one more day with this inside of me, Sam. It has to come out,” her words were deadly serious. There was no room for anything else. She was done carrying the relic around with her.

  I wasn't ready for this. It was such a drastic turn from what this meetup was supposed to be about. But… was it really? It was so I could see her again… spend time with her... just us. That’s exactly what this was, and I was helping her return to the true Alex. Well… the Alex I had known before she tied her fate to mine by walking into the depths of the earth with me.

  I nodded, “Okay. I’m scared,” I admitted. “But I’ll do it… for you.”

  I prayed in my mind that she would survive this. I couldn’t lose her. I needed… wanted her with me.

  Alex stepped away for a moment, closing her eyes and centering herself with a breath. There was a visible strain on her face as she quickly began trying to push the relic out of herself. I had so many questions about what she was doing and how she even knew how to do it, but there was no time for all that.

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  Then… the room began to shake. The vibrations erupted from Alex and shook the few cups and decorative things around the kitchen. Plaster cracked above us on the ceiling of the kitchen, crumbling down in pieces the size of nickels and dimes. That ringing vibration I had become accustomed to started shaking my very being as a red glow emanated from Alex’s chest. It was like she had a light under her skin, and it was shining through the flesh hidden by her purple and black plaid shirt.

  Alex grabbed the neck of the shirt and pulled at it, exposing more of her chest and neck as she exposed the glowing object within her body. In what looked like a searing pain, Alex gritted her teeth and winced in agony while trying to remain silent, only gasping through the pain as wave upon wave of anguish passed over her fanged face.

  Her eyes were fully bloody and glowing red, and those same black lines were present, but they seemed more alive. It was like they were trying to find more purchase, like they were grabbing on and not wanting to let go as she mentally forced the relic out of her.

  Then, like the relic was made of an ethereal mist, it passed through the flesh of her chest and came out in the open. It hung in the air, separate from Alex, and thrummed with a power that reminded me of the feeling of the red, hazy atmosphere of the pits. It was hungry… starving, and ready to devour. It was devouring Alex’s mind and her will. It had to go.

  Alex was still straining, obviously still connected to the crimson fang that floated between us. She had fallen to her knees, her arms still grasping the collar of her shirt as she squeezed her fists together. She was keeping it at bay. I noticed the object slip back and forth in the air between us, which allowed me to see the battle between her and the relic as visible motion. It was fast, back and forth, and one that wouldn’t last long if I wasn't quick.

  I reached out quickly and plucked it from the air. When my hand wrapped around the warm and electric surface of the uneven fang-like object, Alex visibly relaxed. Her hands fell to her sides as she stumbled to her hands and knees on the kitchen floor. She wasn't fighting it anymore. It seemed like it had let her go.

  The black lines of corrupted power had let go of her and weren't present on her face, eyes, neck, or chest as before. It almost seemed like she was back. The true Alex had returned, just the way she was before. She was an Anthropophagous vampire… nothing more, and nothing less. I sent out a wave of my Primeval pulse sense through her body, and I didn’t feel that same resonance from the relic. Its taint on her was gone. All of that resonance was sitting in my very hand. Though I could feel the tug in my hand, trying to make its way back toward Alex.

  Alex looked fine, completely fine, and I was thankful. I just prayed that it would stay that way.

  In a motion that was very unceremonious, I pulled Death’s blade from the ether and slashed its edge across the relic. I made sure to consume the power of Death from the blade as I pulled it so it wouldn’t reach out and claim Alex as I destroyed the relic. However, my new body and greater control made all of it possible, and in a quick glint of supernatural steel, the relic of Hunger… was no more.

  All that lay in my hand now was an almost black, lifeless tooth with a deep scar running diagonally across its body. It was dead… one more piece of Hunger cast out into the world to continue the process that Abel spoke about. It was done.

  Alex collapsed to the ground the instant I swiped my blade across the relic. She fell out in a huff, breathing out all of her breath, and for just a moment, her heart stopped.

  I clenched my teeth and was ready to dive bomb her and start giving her mouth-to-mouth. But…thankfully… in only two seconds, her heart started beating again. It was almost like her life force rebounded after the separation from the Primeval force that had supercharged her. She was still unconscious, but she was alive. And I was thankful.

  “Keep it down!” a woman yelled from above. That same neighbor I had heard exchanging banter with Alex from my many trips here before.

  Without thinking, I replied, “Fuck off, Karen!”

  I had been sitting on the floor beside her for about half an hour, just listening to her breathing. It was good to hear. I was so worried that separating her from the relic would have done something that would be irreversible. The relic had healed her from certain death down in the pits, and I was worried that it might revert her to that or something. It didn’t make much sense, I know, but this wasn't an exact science. Plus, I tended to think of worst-case scenarios, so many other terrible outcomes plagued my mind until it was done, and I could hear her breathing.

  Randomly, Alex stirred, and she lifted herself from the ground. She lifted her head to see me sitting beside her on the floor, only leaning against the cabinets. Alex pushed up and shifted her legs around to sit on them. Then she started examining herself.

  She lifted her hands, felt up and down her arms. Then she scoured the surface of her chest with her palms, trying to feel inside herself or something, like she could feel if the relic was still inside. She felt nothing. There was no response… only silence. Alex looked at me apprehensively, in disbelief at what she was realizing.

  “It’s gone…” she said blankly. Then again, “It’s gone…” A smile slowly formed on her lips like it was meant only for her. “I’m… me again.”

  I smiled slowly, but she didn’t see it. She was staring off into space as the realization hit her. She was beyond words for a few minutes. She fell back on the linoleum, spreading out her arms and legs like she was getting ready to make a snow angel or something.

  She stared at the ceiling and just lay there. She was silent; only breathing filled the kitchen. She’d bring her hands onto the top of her head, running her fingers through her hair, and then stretch back out, breathing heavily from the excitement… or relief… it was hard to tell what she was feeling exactly.

  I felt weird sitting up and watching her lie out flat on the ground, so I took a page out of her book. Laid back just like she was, sprawling out and staring at the ceiling.

  I glanced over to my left and saw the faded relic just sitting on the linoleum. It was so different now… so inert. It used to be something so precious to the monsters down beneath the city. They clamored over each other for it, slaughtered each other for it. Now look at it… It was nothing.

  I looked back up at the ceiling, but before my eyes even focused on all the missing flecks of plaster, I felt Alex shift over on top of me. She was so fast, so jarring in that moment that I was unprepared. She leaned down quickly and kissed me all over my face, neck, and mouth. She didn’t say any words; she just latched onto me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered in that moment.

  I didn’t stop her, I only leaned into it, and pulled myself into the very thing I wanted. I just wanted to be with her.

  Over the course of the next few hours, in what I scarcely remembered was actually the morning time, Alex and I made every inch of her kitchen our bedroom. Karen, her upstairs neighbor, beat so hard on her floor at times that more plaster fell from the ceiling. Alex and I both got into yelling matches with Karen through the ceiling. We laughed about the whole thing as we continued the physical connection… in many different ways.

  Parts of my mind wandered throughout it all, questioning if we were just blindly rushing into this and not questioning things that had happened: like talking more about what I had done on the Chasse property just hours ago, the relic I just destroyed, how she felt now that she was back to just being an anthropophagous vampire, what we were going to do next, nothing important. We just fell into each other hard… as the only thing either of us needed in that moment was the other.

  Much… much later, Alex and I had propped ourselves up against the bottom of the oven, leaning into each other closely. We had collected a few blankets and cushions from her couch to act as pillows during all the rushes of passion, but we remained on the kitchen floor. Neither of us had clothes on, and we were just lying next to each other, half covered by the blankets, staring at the ceiling again as we both ate from a bag of sour gummy worms.

  “I think I like the blue and yellow ones the best,” I offered an unbidded opinion to Alex, who was staring at a half-red, half-yellow worm she had held up to her face.

  “Agreed,” Alex said as she bit the red end off the candy worm.

  There was a moment of silence as we ate the candy. I think for a few minutes we were both lost in our own minds, both thinking about the things we knew we had to talk about. Things were different now, not just with the obvious, but with what would happen now that everything had come to the point we were at.

  I think she could tell I had something big on my plate that I needed to get off.

  “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?” Alex asked as she shifted her gaze to me. She seemed lighter now… unburdened by the things I knew had been weighing her down.

  I sighed as I finished the last gummy worm, knowing it was time to get back to serious topics. I didn’t want to, though. I just wanted to drag out this day with her and make it last forever.

  “I’m… I need to… go home. I’ve known for a while, but things were so… chaotic. I’m coming up on some time, I think, that I can try and… reintroduce myself to my family back in Texas.” I looked over to her quickly, just waiting to hear her start talking about how I shouldn’t put myself around them. I knew she would tell me just as she had before that we were monsters, and I shouldn’t…

  “When?” Alex asked when a calm look on her face.

  “What?” I asked, stunned.

  “When are you going?” she asked again, not a hint of resistance on her face, but a faint shimmer of something else. Sadness, maybe… regret… I didn’t understand the look at all, but then it was gone.

  “Soon. I don’t want to waste any more time. I don’t know exactly how much more time I have until Death sends me for something,” I said.

  “You think it's safe to leave everyone here?” she asked.

  “The Chasses will be safe… Autumn will be safe…” I assured her. “But… I was hoping you’d come with me…” I suggested, terrified that she’d say she couldn’t leave Autumn now that she had someone she was bound so closely to through the sire bond.

  Alex looked straight into my eyes and smiled in a way that took my thoughts for a moment. She looked… so human. Like she was happy, and completely unscarred from the world and what it had done to her. She nodded before saying, “I’m always going to be with you!” She nodded as she spoke the words, leaning into me again, and kissing me deeply.

  Her crimson hair spilled over her shoulders as her blanket fell away, revealing more of herself again. I didn’t hate that.

  “We need to be with the ones we hold closest… before death separates us,” Alex said as she pulled away and covered back up. “I want you to have time with them… with all of them.”

  Fuck yes! I never in a million years thought she’d say yes to this. Honestly… this was beyond anything I ever believed was possible. From the vibes I was getting from Abel, something terrible was going to happen, but he couldn’t be further from reality. It led me to more questions about the validity of the things he said.

  I’d have to be careful about him. But… I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a good guy… and he was here to help me.

  Then, Alex asked me a question as she trailed a finger down from my ear to my chest.

  “You should go talk to Autumn and her family. Let them know that we’ll be leaving. I’m sure they’ll want to know, and you’ll want to have a moment with them too. I think they’ll need it after…” She didn’t have to say it.

  I knew how they were probably still reeling from the death I dealt in the back of their property.

  I nodded, “Yeah… I do want to talk to them. Let them know I’m leaving this time. That’s not usually my way of rolling out, so it will be nice to actually give a goodbye this time.” I had to catch myself before I just tried to leave. “Well, shit… I guess we can't just leave right now.. .can we?”

  Alex smiled in an unfortunate way, “Nope. No more day walking for me. But don’t let it stop you. You go… you're closer with them than I’ll ever be. I can still communicate with Autumn through the sir bond, so we don’t need to say goodbye.” She was so calm and collected about the whole thing that it just blew me away.

  “As long as you feel fine not going in person, I’ll go alone,” I nodded in agreement.

  “Good. I have things I can do here anyway. Things to settle before you get back. But…” Alex hesitated for a moment. Then she slowly started speaking like she was thinking really hard about many things. Her eyes darted all over the place, and I could tell she was in a million places at once. “Give me a day… stay with them until tomorrow… and then when the sun sets again… I’ll be ready.”

  I wanted to ask her what she had to do, but I could tell that she had a storm of emotions just beneath the surface. I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to pry. We would have all the time in the world here soon. She’d tell me in her own time.

  I nodded silently, and she smiled.

  “Thank you, Sam. You really have no idea how much my time with you has meant. I never expected you…” She smiled at me, and a faint trickle of blood slowly tried to fall over the edge of her eyelid.

  She wiped it away quickly and punched me in the chest. “Now get going.” She laughed.

  “Ow… shit!” I laughed, batting her hand away.

  She acted like she was going to do it again, and we wrestled on the kitchen floor for a few seconds before getting serious again.

  “Don’t act like that hurt, you drama queen. Get some clothes on with that weird thing you do now, and get out of here,” Alex smiled as she waited for me to summon the clothes that I had dispersed with a mere thought.

  “Alright…” I nodded. “Go go gadget… clothes,” I said with a stupid look on my face as darkness shrouded me in a haze of shimmering shadow. Then, like magic… the power of this Primeval body morphed its own power and physical form into the appearance of clothing. The same typical jeans, boots, hoodie, and coat that I normally skulked around town in.

  I leaned in and kissed Alex one last time, and then I made my way out of the sliding glass door, leaving her to her own goodbyes. The next time I saw her, we’d be leaving this city to go do something that terrified me. Showing myself to my loved ones... when they thought I was dead.

  I would need all the help I could get.