I’d still be human.
But I haven’t regretted being a Made since the moment I opened my enhanced eyes.
The reality is that Ophelia made her choice. She took things too far. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It’s a horrific reality. But not everyone turns around from it and makes someone else kill innocent people who are simply guilty by species.
Ophelia made a choice.
Still, I can’t quite find it in me to hate her. Despite all of her terrible choices, I don’t know that I hate her.
Do I forgive her? Absolutely the fuck not.
Will we ever go back to what we were? Nope.
But once, she was everything to me. She was home
Each step toward the hospital feels heavier than the last. Not physically—my new body hums with strength—but the emotional drag is suffocating. I have no idea what I’m going to say to her.
But she’s alive. That matters.
I round a corner, the hospital coming into view. It’s quiet down this road, and it’s nice having a clear sidewalk to myself.
But as I go to step off the curb and cross the street, I freeze. Literally, my feet won’t move. My brows furrow, and I look down. Both my feet remain planted firmly on the sidewalk. And no matter what I do, I can’t fucking lift them.
Holy shit.
My throat tightens, and a sweat breaks out across my entire body.
And then I feel it—a presence. Heavy. Focused. My spine tingles, every hair on my arms lifting.
I’m not alone.
That’s when the world tips. It’s like vertigo hits me, but I don’t feel like I’m actually in danger of falling. But it’s like everything spins slightly and tilts sideways. The sidewalk around me dulls. Colors blur. Sound drops away. The chatter of the cityfades until I can only hear my own heartbeat, thudding like a drum inside my ribs.
She stands across from me. I didn’t see her arrive.
There’s a woman standing on the sidewalk. She stares at me with fixed eyes, her gaze heavy and unrelenting as she studies me. She is ordinary and extraordinary all at once. Neutral slacks. Pale blouse. Hair the shade of dirty snow, pulled into a bun. Her presence hits like a pressure front. Dense.Wrong.
I try to blink, to clear the haze crawling into my mind. My thoughts feel sticky, half-formed, like trying to wade through wet cement.
"You’re different," she says. Her voice is cool silk wrapped around a knife. "Not quite like them. But not human, either."
My mouth opens, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t focus. Her eyes—fuck, what color are her eyes? I can’t remember even though I’m looking at them.
“She never mentioned this,” the woman says, never looking away. I try to blink, to make my brain clear, but I just can’t. “We spoke about you at length. You were a solid presence in her life. Until you fell in love with the very thing infecting our city.”
“It was you,” I say as it hits me. The therapist Ophelia saw, the one who specializes in vampire trauma. The one who helped Ophelia influence Ares. “Do you even know what you did? What you helped Ophelia do? People are dead now, and my fiancé will have to live with that guilt forever.”
A small smile crooks on her lips, though I can’t even tell if they’re full or wrinkled, if they’re pale or colored. “In the end, the balance must be kept. The scales tipped too far years ago, they were too imbalanced recently. They remain imbalanced.”
And there I have it. The confirmation that this woman is indeed responsible for Aleah and Duncan Steele losing the majority of their family. She is the one who infiltrated their uncle, and made him kill every one of their family members.
“Imbalanced,” I say. I stay rooted in place, unable to move an inch. “What do you mean by that?”
“Numbers, girl, it’s not that complicated,” the woman says condescendingly. “There are far too many vampires in the world to begin with. There are cities around the globe infested with them. But New York, my home, is one place I can do something about. Where I can help with… crowd control.”
I shake my head. “You realize these arepeople, right? Good people. And you get to be the judge? You think you get to play god? More blood is on your hands than any of those vampires.”
She offers a smile, though it flickers in and out of my brain in real time. “You’re young. Inexperienced. You have yet to see the rot they have caused over decades. The power they’ve seized. I don’t ask you to understand. I simply thought I would give you time to give the rest of them a warning.”
