Broken (The Captive #5.5)(19)

She released a small snort of laughter and idly kicked her feet at the water again. "I don't blame them."

"Neither do I. Things will be fairer this way, there won't be just one voice representing us all, but many of them."

"None of it really affects the village vampires," she replied.

"What do you mean?"

She gestured at the woods around them. "Ours is a different world than yours Atticus. We obey the laws because the retaliation for disobeying them is swift and brutal. We pay the taxes for the same reasons, but otherwise your world doesn't coexist with ours. They don't know; you don't know that the taxes are breaking most of us and that sometimes the laws must be broken in order for us to survive. We're all extremely careful about keeping our race a secret because that keeps us all alive, but sometimes mistakes happen.

"Many of us are excellent thieves, as you've witnessed, because that is how we are able to survive." She gave him a smile as she waved her delicate fingers before him, but her eyes were troubled as they met his. "Sometimes we slip up though, as you know I once did. If it hadn't been for Matilda, I may well be dead now. It is allowed for us to steal from humans. However, if a vampire is caught stealing by the humans they will be put to death by the vampire community. Any mature vampire that actually gets caught stealing from a human is no thief in my book though. They shouldn't be stealing if they can't escape detection from a human," she murmured. "Humans also don't have the money that our kind does and I know that some vampires have been driven to stealing from other vampires in order to pay their debts. That is a crime that is also punishable by death, but that is a death no one wants."

She shuddered and began to wring her hands before her. "No matter how much I may need money one day, I would never stoop to stealing from our own kind."

He understood her reasons why. A vampire caught stealing from another was placed on the rack for a week, before having to endure living and sleeping in a room where the floor was lined with broken glass for another week. During this time they were denied any blood but their starvation didn't matter as the final steps of their punishment was disembowelment before finally being drawn and quartered by horses. His hand clenched around hers, he would never allow such a hideous death to happen to her.

"There are others of us who aren't as strong, children who are punished when they shouldn't be. It's unfair to lock them up, but it's better than when they are slaughtered outright for losing control and having their fangs extend in public or in front of one of the King's Watchmen," she continued.

Atticus couldn't tear his gaze away from her as he absorbed all of her words. He'd never really thought about what her world was like; he'd never stopped to consider how the village vampires lived before meeting her. Of course, he knew they existed but he'd never spent time in the villages before.

"I've seen the Watchmen kill a child before," she whispered. Her eyes were haunted when they came back to his. "The child didn't even change into his vampire form first; the man was just being cruel. The death and brutality rate amongst the villagers is extremely high; they're constantly fighting with each other and some of the Watchmen enjoy abusing the villagers."

The idea of her growing up and living in such conditions was intolerable to him. "Why do you stay?" he inquired.

"Where am I to go? There are other villages but I've moved through most of them in this country and they are all much the same. Camille isn't fully grown yet and I couldn't travel to the continent without her, ever."

"You've thought about leaving then?"

"Often."

The idea of her leaving was even more unpleasant than the thought of her residing within the villages, but then he most likely wouldn't be staying in England either. His father hadn't said what he intended to do next, or where he planned to go, but though he and Nyles had been born in this country, they also preferred Italy to England. His father wouldn't want to stay here, and normally Atticus would be eager to leave too, but he found he wanted to spend time with her.

While he'd been gone his desire to see her again hadn't lessened in even the smallest measure, it had only intensified. It had been a miserable twelve days of separation from her, and when he'd found her here, half dressed in her white chemise and sitting on a log, he'd briefly thought that perhaps he'd stumbled across his own angel.

Or perhaps she was the devil; no one else had ever made him feel this tormented before. All he wanted was to touch her, all he craved was to feel her skin, and yet sitting beside her on this log and holding her hand was just as magnificent as kissing her again had been.

"Where would you go?" he asked.

She frowned as she seemed to debate what she would tell him. "France," she finally said.

"And what is in France?"

"Not my mother," she said with a wan smile. "And she'll never return to it."

"I see." A fish jumped from the water, drawing his attention back to the stream. "And what will you do there?"

"I don't know but I suppose that's the point of starting over, isn't it?"

He got the feeling there was more to it than that but she wouldn't meet his gaze anymore as her eyes had become focused on her feet. But then, what did he know, he'd never had the chance to start over nor had he ever thought about doing so. "I suppose it is," he agreed.