Page 93 of Now Comes the Mist

“Let her speak—” Jack begins.

“Can you control your hunger?” Dr. Van Helsing asks. “Your fangs? Can you be sure?”

They are all talking at once, Quincey and Jack arguing, the doctor asking questions, Arthur crying on the bench. But even so, Mina’s words come through the commotion clearly.

“The old Lucy never liked children.”

Everyone falls silent again.

“What was that, Madam Mina?” the doctor asks politely as though they are having tea and he had simply misheard a conversation. “What did you say?”

“The old Lucy,” Mina says, her quivering voice rising as she looks at me, “never liked children. You thought you could hide it, but I knew you too well. And now that you have forsaken us to be a monster …” She breaks down sobbing once more, prostrate with grief.

Arthur sinks down and wraps his arms around Mina, cradling her like a child as they weep. It is the way he might have held me, with tenderness, with protection.

He will never hold me like that again.

The sudden realization, and the certainty of it, is like a dagger ripping me open from chin to belly, spilling my heart into the night air.

Vlad was right. Arthur and Mina will not accept me. The two people I love most in all the world would rather give me up than open their eyes to my new existence.Monster. My own dear and beloved Mina, for whom I would give the last drop of my blood, now thinks I am a monster, and even Arthur—who had loved me with every fiber of his being—would choose Mina over what I am now. They have rejected me, body and soul.

Quincey lifts his guns higher, Dr. Van Helsing raises the bundle of garlic, and Jack pulls out his own gun and points it at me, his hand trembling.

They have seen the wrath upon my face. Perhaps blue veins skittered around my eyes or my fangs in my wet red mouth caught the moonlight. I will never know, for I cannot get close enough to see my reflection in their eyes without one of them destroying me. But then my rage subsides, and hurt takes its place. The pain of Arthur’s and Mina’s rejection washes over me like the ocean, drowning me in the undertow. I have never felt more alone. I give in to my own silent tears, knowing that if Quincey shoots me again, I will not move this time. I will let him kill me.

But he does not shoot.

It does not matter, for I know that this is goodbye.

“I have been lonely all my life,” I say, my voice breaking. I avert my eyes from the fear and hatred I know must be in their faces. “Not even those who loved me could understand what I wanted: a full and rich life on my own terms. To be loved, but also to be free. And now I have that freedom, but I have lost you all forever.”

The silence stretches on.

When I look up, I do not see loathing, not even in Quincey. I see an impossible sadness.

“Thank you for trying to protect me, Dr. Van Helsing,” I say softly. “And thank you, Jack. And you, Quincey. You are the bravest men I know.” A lump moves in Quincey’s throat. I turn to Arthur and Mina. “I love you more than I can ever say. I will love you for all my existence. You will never have to see me again. I will make certain of that. I am going away for good.”

“I don’t think we can let you do that, Lucy,” Dr. Van Helsing says quietly. “If we let you go and endanger more lives, we would be aiding and abetting the beast that infected you.”

“Then what, Doctor?” I ask tiredly. “Will you kill me yourself? Or will Quincey do it?”

“No!” Arthur shouts. “Don’t touch her, either of you! Let her be.”

“Arthur, you heard the doctor,” the cowboy says. His voice, so cold and full of hatred before, is as thin and fragile as thread now. “We have to destroy her, or she will kill again.”

“Don’t, Quincey!” Mina begs. “Don’t!”

My heart lifts for a fleeting moment. Arthur and Mina still love me, no matter what they say. They cannot stand to see me killed. I look Minastraight in the eyes and then Arthur. “I love you,” I say once more, with all the feeling left in my cold body. “Goodbye.”

“Lucy, wait,” Arthur says with sudden desperation. “Don’t go yet. Lucy, wait!”

But I am gone. I sweep the mist around myself and slip back into the mausoleum, where I sink against my own tomb and cry and cry until I am empty of tears, empty of emotion.

There is a movement in the air.

I look up to see Vlad watching me from the shadows. His face wears no expression, though I know he has seen and heard everything.

“Well? Go on,” I snap. “Insult me. Berate me. Mock me. Tell me that you were right and that you always knew better than me. Rejoice in their rejection of me.”

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