“Shhh Ari, let her sleep. Poor thing looks like she can use it.”

The pressure on my leg abated, and the tiny pitter-patter of Mushroom-gremlin feet faded away towards the living quarters. I had never been asleep, but I clutched the blanket, rolled over, and snuggled myself deeply in its comforting embrace all the same.

Everyone was already up. That was unusual for me. I was not one for lounging around in the morning, and even two decades of pretend-sleeping in order to fit in had not managed to change that. The floor wasn’t even a comfortable place to relax on, but I was still going to enjoy every last minute of this peaceful perfection. Before my thoughts started spinning again and I would have to confront my life.

Ah.

Jinxed it.

As unexpectedly amazing as this was, lying here in Meg and Gery’s place without a care in the world, it was only temporary. I could not ignore the choice I had to make any longer. My secret would leak to the rest of the world sooner or later. Either I could leave now, get a head start on the Inquisition. Or I could stay a little longer, enjoy the company of people that accepted me for as long as I dared, at the cost of some of that head start.

I doubted there would be much difference in the outcome, no matter what I chose. The Inquisition would not tolerate a… a vampire here. I would be hunted, chased with everything they could bring to bear. I would die no matter what I chose. It only made this choice all the harder. My life was already over. It was everyone else’s I was toying with now. Despite how professional the Inquisition usually was, accidents did happen to people that associated with vampires.

I sighed. I was well and truly awake now, and there was no more point in trying to pretend otherwise.

“Come, sit, eat.” Meg pulled back a chair and patted its seat the second I walked in on their breakfast.

I was torn. I was really, really, torn. I did not want to ruin this wholesome family moment. I also did not want to subject myself to the vile taste of normal human food. It wasn’t their fault. This was all me again, me and my stupid body. No matter what I tried, it would stubbornly keep telling me that whatever food they heaped on my plate, that it really wasn’t edible.

Last night I had avoided these embarrassing moments with a whole charade, telling everyone that I was staying over for dinner with someone else. I was honestly surprised that no one had found out yet by now. Getting away with that kind of thing for breakfast was not going to work.

In the end, wholesome won out. I could not bail on Meg and Gery here. I would simply have to tolerate the terrible taste and inevitable nausea for their sake. They deserved as much.

The wholesome, perfect breakfast did not last long. A slice of bread, wet with drool, sailed through the air and ended up right next to my plate. The nibble giggled as if catapulting his food across the room was the funniest thing in the world.

Meg merely shook her head and took her fifth stab at keeping the nibble’s chin drool-free in just as many minutes.

I glared at the soggy mess as I took it in between two gloved fingers and moved it a little further from my own meal. Then I blanched as, barely sparing it a glance, Gery scooped the bedrooled loaf into his mouth.

Ari, seeing the look on my face, nearly spat out her drink. Meg’s face darkened but instead of a scolding a titter escaped her lips. Ari chortled. The nibble giggled some more and slapped the table. When Gery bellowed out a laugh even I could not stop myself from joining in.

We all stifled our laughter and resumed eating. Occasionally, in between bites, I shot a glance at Meg. I still hadn’t gotten an answer for that mysterious exchange that had happened between Rafe and Reya right after I nearly walked out in the middle of my talk with them. That very unnerving change in Reya, from confrontational to caring, it had somehow been related to Meg.

Too weird.

Or no, I did know. I merely disliked the answer enough to pretend I had not gotten one. They thought I had been turned, they thought a vampire had done this to me, a poor, defenseless ten-year-old girl. Reya sympathized now, because she had stopped seeing a friendly demon, and had started treating me as a traumatized child.

Not a kid!

In the end, I did not see much difference in the way Meg treated me, so I decided not to push the issue. The fastest way to convince these people that I was a responsible, 24-year-old adult was by continuing to behave like one.

Breakfast over, I collected the few meager possessions I had strewn across the floor, and put on my new clothes. Meg really had come through. She had created me a tailor-made outfit, one that fit instead of one that I pretended fit.

I counted out coins, both for the clothes she had tailored me, as for those I had borrowed and that were now in an unreturnable state. Meg protested loudly at my payment. I kept placing coins on her table until her protests turned from polite refusal to genuine affront. I had promised to pay her right from the start, and it was past time I made good on that promise.

“You really are leaving now, aren’t you?” Meg asked after she swiped the payment off the table.

“I suppose so.” I nodded.

“You don’t have to leave, you know?” Meg tried one final time.

Aaaah… don’t make it harder on me.

‘s hard enough as it is

“I’m a demon hunter Meg, what am I going to do here?” I shook my head. “Those ahuizotl were this town’s demon-quota for the next five years. There is no job for me here but being a burden on you all.”

“We could find you something?”

Like what, washerwoman?

Nebby’s job?

I smirked.

“What’s that smile?” Meg chuckled.

Aaaah… she saw that, didn’t she.

“Just realized I’ve done more washing of clothes in my week here than I’ve done in the past two months.”

The Academy doctor had made one final attempt at convincing me. To his disappointment, I had kept up my refusal. After he left, Rafe and Eryn turned to me. Before I left this town there was one final thing I needed to do.

I had discussed it with Rafe, and while we both agreed that it was not likely to have much of an effect, it was something I felt had to be done. It was my mess, and I could not keep pushing this responsibility to Rafe and Reya.

“You ready?” Rafe asked me.

“No,” I admitted, looking off in the distance.

“Hah. Me neither,” he echoed, scratching at the stubble on his chin as he shook his head. “You don’t need to do this, you know.”

“No Rafe, I do.” I sighed. “What I have done is terrible. He deserves an apology.”

“Don’t expect him to reciprocate,” he cautioned me.

“I will settle for him not trying to kill me.” I shrugged off his warning.

And then we were off, to Onar and Shae’s place. I had left my stuff with Meg and Gery for now. I would be back for it shortly. I had no intention of running away in secret this time. My departure from this town would happen normally. No more running away in the night. I even had Rafe and Eryn with me to ensure that I would be able to apologize to Onar properly. And say goodbye to Shae, if she would still allow it.

“Eryn and I have been talking. Room’s free again now that the doctor’s gone?” Rafe offered shortly after we had set out.

I halted, looking up at Rafe.

The man, noticing that I had stopped walking, turned around.

“Do not do this to me Rafe,” I pleaded. “Meg and Gery I can understand, they are… naïve. But not you. Leaving here is hard enough as it is.”

“Just letting you know that you don’t need to leave, not right now at least,” he offered. “If you’d take over Nebby’s chores, then me and her can finally get to logging like we’re supposed to. Would offset things enough that I might consider giving you the room for free.”

I gave him a pained look. I did not need to act for that. In fact, it was keeping myself together enough not to collapse right here and now that was the hard part. No, that wasn’t right. The hard part was that I wanted to say yes, and damn the consequences.

I had spent all my life hiding, had spent all my life knowing that this day would come, the day where I slipped up. I had always known that I would die, that it would be soon, and that it would not be on my terms. Yet even with that knowledge, dying a pointless death like this, I was not ready for it. But if it had to be in a town full of people that cared for me, in a town with people that I might even come to call friends, then that was more than I could ever have hoped for.

“You have told me yourself you can’t keep this secret Rafe. Every day I stay is a day I can not spend running. They will come for me, and they will kill me,” I stated. “People might die.”

I hoped he got that. I was not people. But if I was here when they found me, if they found out that these people had harbored me, then someone might die, because they had been too kind.

He could not ask me again. He could not. If he did then I might say yes, for no matter how hard I tried, I was not human. When offered a chance at happiness for another’s death, I might just take that chance.

To my despair, he did understand.

“That risk is ours to take Vale.”