In the hotel that we were staying in, they thought I was his mother. The receptionist certainly did, and giving me the keys to our room remarked what a beautiful son I had. The other guests had proclaimed Michael angelic; an old lady even patted him on the head, smoothening his unruly blonde curls and smiling at him. I had sucked in my breath, then, praying for him not to react, to not even look up.

He didn’t, though I breathed easier only when we were upstairs, in the room I had rented for the night. He had followed me silently, that lady still crooning over him, clutching my hand with his own in an iron grip.

I had shrank away at first, and saw the hurt in his eyes because of that. But I hurt, too, somewhere underneath the numbness and detachment. I was screaming, deep inside, and doing more than just cringing: I was hiding in the most obscure, rarely visited corners of my soul, trapped between love, hatred and fear of the one whose hand I now held - who held mine, more - and who was barely, just barely, still my little brother. It was hard to remember that last bit, though.

Michael went to sleep soon, undressed in a pajama and slightly feverish, in the bed we would have to share. He insisted I tell him a story, but a normal one, not one of the monster ones he used to be so fond of. And so, sitting on the very edge of the bed - he noticed that too, and his face fell - I had to spin a tale of a daring, brave knight who saved princesses in oppression and fought victorious battles.

“But vampires don’t do that, do they?” he asked sleepily, turning to face me. He looked me straight into the eyes, dark black meeting light blue. “They do bad things. But I wouldn’t want to do bad things, Aine. And I-"

I will see your footprints on the moss. I will see the trail of your thoughts, and I will smell your fear. I will hear your breaths begin to rag. I will hear your pulse quicken.

I am stronger than you, Aine.

I can kill you even before you will know what is happening. I can drain your body of every drop of blood it possesses. I can kill you, and I want to. It’s what I’ve been made to do, dear sister. To slit your throat, to rip it apart. To rip you apart.

And if you scream, no one will hear you.

“… I wouldn’t hurt you, Aine,” he finished miserably, and I snapped out of my trance as he pulled the covers over his head. That was what he had said yesterday in a squeaky, pathetically childish voice, after chasing me through the forest. He apologized later, and was apologizing now. I steadied my breath and leaned over to take the sheets of his face and saw a wretched, wretched expression.

“I know, sweetie, I know,” I said simply, hesitating, and then leaned down and kissed him on his soft cheek. A tear fell from his eyes and dripped onto my lip, and I tasted the salt in it. Hot, so hot with the fever was his skin… “I know.”

Then I stood up, and a tar gaze trailed me for some time, before his eyelids became too heavy. I closed myself in the bathroom, locking the door behind me and splashed cold water over myself, delighting at the sudden coolness. The hot water was filling the bath tub, making the mirror go hazy.

Wiping it so I could look at my reflection, even I couldn’t blame anyone for taking my seventeen year old self for Michael’s mother - I could barely recognize myself. I had shadows under my eyes, purple bags; slight worry lines, ones that should have not yet made their appearance were visible here and there on my no longer milky, but now distinctly grayish face.

I wondered if there was something symbolic to it, to those people in the hotel comparing me to Mother. Would I die, like her? Would I die in the same way, with the blood sucked out of my veins? I took a deep breath, and held it; it almost hurt to exhale.

But I had to live, never mind that that holding one’s breath to death had proved a feat far beyond my ability - I did try, in the beginning, when all this started. Live, though, I had to, because who would Michael have left? With who’d he escape from home, travel from hotel to hotel, run from Mother’s rigid, dead body on the kitchen floor? From her open, surprised light blue eyes slightly parted lips? He’d be alone; I couldn't leave him alone.

Maybe Michael would have enough sense and self control not kill me, if only for that reason.

I fell asleep, I think, in that bath tub; if not for the slight knocking to the bathroom door – to which I had no time to answer - I probably wouldn't have woken. But I did, and heard the echoes of a rattling knob, not of mine, but of the outer one. Of the room in which Michael was, or should be.

I froze, unsure of what to do, dread trickling up my spine.

Then, carefully, I raised myself from the now icy water, and dried myself swiftly, putting on the already laid out nightdress. There was a lump in my throat, and I faltered before unlocking and opening the bathroom door. I stood that doorway some time, not daring – not wanting – to open my eyes; but when I finally did, it was an unwelcome, though not very surprising sight that awaited me.

The unmade bed was empty, the covers strewn on the floor.

I stared and stared, dazed, not knowing what to expect, but instinctively thinking the worst. Who did he meet on the way up? Whose smell could he have remembered?

The answer came fast, and I had to sit down, putting my head between my knees to send away the nausea. The queasiness in my stomach did not stop, however, though after a few moments the sensation of faint sensation in the pit of my stomach, and the bile I felt in my mouth, passed.

The old lady who had tousled his hair. That was where he was.

I was led thoughtlessly, mindlessly, out of the room and down one flight of stairs. It was instinct, mayhap, that pushed me to make those steps, that showed me the way to room number sixty six; a distinctive, but blurry memory of her standing in front of us in the queue in the lobby, and receiving keys to that room. Intuition, that told me they would not be locked and what to expect on the other side.

She was there, as I knew she would, sprawled on the floor. She had been already pale, then, when we had first met her in the lobby – when she had ruffled Michael’s hair and perhaps called him an angel - but now the unnamed woman’s skin was ghostly white. Grey wisps of hair were glued to her face and her eyes closed; the expression she wore was a queer one, something between surprise and slight distress. There was hardly any blood anywhere, just at the tips of her lips and where the crimson drizzled down her neck. That neck was torn, ripped.

I thought about her children, if she had any. About her grandchildren. About things she would never do, never finish. About the people who would miss her, who would find her tomorrow…

“Michael,” I called, once inside; my voice hoarse, broken. The lump had enlarged itself, and I now found it hard to speak. “Michael, I know you’re here!”

There - a limb sticking from of the velvet curtains covering the solitary window, no longer pallid and feverish but flushed, rosy. I walked up to him and tore the drapes away, revealing him, and stared. Then I faltered, and took a step back, my hand covering my mouth as my gaze jumped from the corpse to my brother. The woman was massacred, and every time I returned to Michael, I saw not the nine-year-old boy that he should be, but red stained teeth, a blood-smeared face and splattered in crimson hands and once light blue pajamas. There had been a smiling sun on those pajamas, once, but now it was invisible underneath the blots.

“Aine, I didn’t want to,” he said quietly, eyes as wide as Mother’s favorite tea cups. “I didn’t…” his voice trailed of and he took a few steps forward, hugging me. I simply stood, numb, not aware of his arms around my waist. I shuddered and broke free – Michael instantly pulled back – and threw bed sheets over the dead body. Then I turned, and watched him again, my lips slightly parted. I had the lady’s blood on myself, too, now.

It was cleaner than last time, I thought, still dazed and unable to say a word. Cleaner. Now there was no blood on the walls or floor, just the slightest bit on her face. Only that throat - that stood out, the imagine flowing before my eyes. And one hand, as if he had started from there, teeth slashing from wrist to palm.

“I didn’t want to,” he repeated, pleading. I took a deep, shuddering breath. Silence rang, as heavy as the loudest shrieks – it was as if I was screaming, though I didn’t utter a sound. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice low. With a slow motion, he wiped his bloody mouth with his sleeve.

I didn’t answer for a long, long time, still numb, but then lied. What else was I supposed to do? Tell him that I was terrified? Tell him that when I so much as glanced at him my hands shook so badly that I could barely control the steering wheel? That I was at my wits end? That I had no more tears left? That I had goosebumps over my arms and I was trembling? That my head throbbed, that blood pulsed in my ears and that every time I took the shallowest of breaths my chest hurt?

“No,” I replied finally, looking into his dark, dark eyes. That begging note was in my voice, too, because I wanted to not only convince him, but also myself.

“Yes you are,” he said, and I saw him twist the rim of the sheets with which I had covered the corpse. When he let go, it was in shreds. He had went there, some minutes previously, and sat at her side.

“No, no I’m not!” I shrieked, even though I had meant to answer calmly. But I so desperately to believe it what I said; I wanted him to believe, too. I couldn’t, though, and neither could Michael.

“Aine…” he whispered my name, and hugged his knees. He was shaking, now, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to him, to embrace him, or comfort him in any way. “I really didn’t want to…”

“I know, Michael, I know,” I said, choking. I knew, yes, but did that change anything? Did it, really? He killed her, and it could have been me, yesterday, in that forest, him saying all those horrible things. It could have been it, and that was the worst of it all - somewhere inside I was happy that it was that old lady, not me.

“I didn't want to. I - I wasn’t myself anymore.” His voice was cracked and he started to twist the sheets again.

“I know,” I said again, not looking at him.

“It won’t happen again, I promise.” Michael stopped and took a deep breath. He paused, as if waiting for me to say something. And I wanted to, I really did – but what could I say? Nothing, without the risk of a scream coming out, and so I remained quiet, eyes as big as his. “I promise,” he repeated when I did not reply, his eyes haunted. “Please, please trust me, it won’t happen again. I promise.”

“I believe you, Michael,” I said slowly. I didn’t.

I can kill you even before you will know what is happening. I can drain your body of every drop of blood it possesses. I can kill you, and I want to. It’s what I’ve been made to do, dear sister. To slit your throat, to rip it apart. To rip you apart.

And if you scream, no one will hear you.

“It’s…” His hands shook. “It’s hard. Every time I see people – every time I see you – I hear them. I hear hearts beating, and I feel blood running through their veins.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Aine, it’s hard. I - I-” The tips of his lips went up, as if in an attempt of a smile. But there was blood on them, that old lady’s crimson tears. I couldn’t bring myself to smile back.

Michael? Or a vampire, a monster?

He had screamed with me, that first time, when he killed Mother. Shrieked, and shrieked, and cried with me, till both of us had no tears left, and no strength to sob. We had hugged each other then, and sat there, by her dead body, for hours.

No. It was Michael, a scared little boy. Michael, my little brother, who could not help what he was. Who deserved to have someone have faith in him, to have a shoulder to cry on, to kiss him a goodnight and soothe him out of nightmares. Michael, not a monster.

“Everything will be all right,” I said numbly, but my eyes wandered without my will to the form underneath the sheets. A hand was sticking out. Pallid, white, ripped, with no skin on the palm. “Everything will be all right, you hear me? Everything will be all right…” I repeated the words as if in a daze, because by doing so I would make them come true. I etched them into my mind, each syllable a painful, bleeding cut, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

And if you scream, no one will hear you.

I took his hand, and wiped his face on my nightgown. It left smudges on the soft material, blemished of red. “Come on, we have to get out of here, sweetie.” As I watched him nod at my words, I thought I’d tell him to take a bath, and throw away the bloodied clothing, later.

And before closing the door behind me, I cast one last look at the corpse, wondering how much time I had before I would be one, too. It was, I knew, only a matter of time.

EDIT no 10? - Italics work, though you still have to imagine that the "you" in the "rip you apart" part is not indeed in italics. And that this part is separated from the story.