2 chapter 1 | inhuman

There are things that can never be outrun. The past is one thing. The military's elites are another.

When they catch her, she is locked in a small, dark room and told to repeat the events of the failed mission over and over again. When did she notice the sniper? The minefield? Did Raphael Wilson die before or after Sebastian Taylor? She talks and screams and cries until her voice runs hoarse, until her hours are filled with their dead eyes and the taint of blood in her lungs.

"I'm going to show you a series of pictures," says her interrogator.

Endless.

Page after page, her squad's final moments stare back at her.

Elinor covers her face with shaking hands. The memories fill her veins with ice, but it's more the implication of what this means. "You... you think I'm responsible for this... that I'm a traitor?"

Her interrogator gives a cold, clinical smile. Professional to the bone.

"We are exploring all avenues, Lieutenant Commander Fiennes. Please, begin speaking."

These are stories that she has carved into her bones. Alone, she carries them, and finds that they weigh down on her shoulders like the weight of the world. When she closes her eyes, she remembers Seb's bright, sparkling smile, Tanner's contagious laugh, Rat's sneaky but endearing ways. She will remember the lives they have lived and try to pretend that these memories are not overshadowed by their deaths.

The results of the investigation come out after a few weeks, but to her, they feel like years. Her colleagues shed the suspicion in their eyes and treat her with the sympathy of those who are the last remaining member of their squadron. But by then, it is too late.

It wasn't your fault, they say.

It was an elaborate trap planned by the enemy, they say.

This is something that they will never understand.

Elinor files for honourable discharge. When the request is approved, she leaves in the middle of the night with nothing but her dog tags around her neck and gun at her waist. She burns her spare uniforms in a bonfire on the outskirts of camp, heedless of whether it makes her a target to snipers. She is long past caring.

She wonders why she was the one given a second chance. Rat is the bravest, Tanner the most ambitious, Seb the kindest. No one will miss her if she is gone. And yet she is the one who resurrected from the flames.

She tries not to think about that strange, yearning hunger that aches deep inside of her, which she suppresses with the images of her squad's faces. But the more she tries not to think about it, the more it becomes apparent that she is no longer as she was.

She is no longer fully human.

Many types of foods make her nauseous.

Even the food that she can stomach will not fill the gaping void inside of her.

When she stares at people long enough, she can make out small wisps of pearlescent light emanating from the centre of their chests. It pulses with a myriad of different colours. When she concentrates on it, that small ball of light forms starts moving towards her throat, like a moon caught in a planet's gravitational attraction. Her target's face becomes abruptly blank and dazed, only to become confused when she lets go and retreats in horror.

She is a soul-eater.

With that knowledge, Elinor disappears. She ignores the calls of her friends from the army, heedless of the unread messages and voicemails piling up as she huddles in the corner of a small, abandoned cottage, her fingers fisted into her hair as she trembles quietly until the sun comes back up.

She doesn't expect anyone to find her.

Except someone does.

It is a stranger. A man wearing a black windbreaker perches on the windowsill, one leg casually tucked against his chest, the other dangling on the wall. He is handsome in a wicked way, the slant of his eyes lending an air of mischief and malice to his demeanor.

"You are a Newborn," he says, drumming his gloved fingers casually against his knee, then stops and frowns. "Where is your Sire?"

At this point, Elinor has not showered in a week and smells like sweat and fever. She would normally be embarrassed to death to appear like this in front of a handsome man, but she is too tired and weak to care.

"My what?" she croaks out, lifting her head slightly off of her pillowed arms.

The man raises his eyebrow in disbelief.

"Wait, you don't know what you are?"

Elinor closes her eyes, losing interest in the conversation.

"I eat souls," she says. "What else is there to know?"

There is a light thud as the man jumps from the windowsill and crouches beside her. "Oh, don't be so melodramatic," he chides. "We don't eat souls, just emotions. Now, of course... sometimes we can take too much by accident."

"I killed my teammate."

"If he was weak enough to die like that, he probably would have died in the first place."

Elinor doesn't reply. The man sighs. Before she loses consciousness completely, she feels him pick her up and cradle her against his chest. His voice is a soothing rumble.

"Well, I've got you, Newbie. I'll be your Sire now. My name is Vince - remember it."

In more ways than one, Vince is the one who saves her life.

.

.

.

When she wakes, she feels better than she has in a long time. Her skin is scrubbed until it is fresh and pink, the tangles in her matted hair gently coaxed apart, and she wears new clothes that feel soft and silky on her skin. With shaky legs, she walks into the washroom and stares at her reflection.

She looks no differently than before, save for the dark circles beneath her eyes.

Her fingers trace over her small nose and peach lips, tangling with the cascade of red hair braided loosely over her shoulder. Her skin is tanned from days under the sun, and her large green eyes, once shaded with innocence, appear darker in shade. Her body is lithely built, like that of a dancer's, and the calluses over her palms and fingers speak of her expertise in both saving and taking lives.

When Vince walks in and sees her startled expression, he rolls his eyes and gives a dismissive wave.

"I wasn't the one who changed your clothes, don't worry." Then he mutters under his breath, "Not that there's anything to look at."

Abruptly, Elinor's eye twitches.

"Who are you?"

"I told you already. My name is Vince."

"How did you find me?"

"The smell of a Newborn in distress is pretty potent to old timers like me," says the man who doesn't look a day past twenty years old.

"Newborn? I'm twenty one..."

"Wow, you really don't know anything." With a sigh, Vince pulls up a small chair and straddles it on either side, his crossed arms resting against the back of the chair. "Alright then. You and I," pointing at his chest, then at hers, "are Empaths. We are humans that have died and were resurrected with the blood of another Empath - your sire. For the most part, we're indistinguishable from normal humans."

"So we're zombies," Elinor says flatly. "Zombie vampires?"

Vince wrinkles his nose.

"That's such a derogatory term. Empath is much cooler. Plus, we don't eat brains or drink blood or sparkle in the sunlight. We feed on emotions. Happy, sad, anything works, but the more intense the better."

Elinor thinks of Tanner's dead eyes and digs her fingernails into her palms, hard enough to draw blood.

"Why are you helping me?"

Vince pauses. "I didn't have a Sire, either," he says after a few moments, his tone complex with emotions that Elinor cannot describe, "It was... not a particularly positive experience. I hoped you wouldn't go through the same thing."

It has been a while since she has seen simple kindness.

"Thank you," she says, and it is genuine this time. "But I still don't want to do this. It may be better if you just kill me."

"Now what did I say about the melodrama? I haven't finished explaining yet. Yes, you can siphon emotions off of regular people, but you can get them off corpses too. But only, er, very fresh ones. A bit of emotional residue lingers on them after death."

Elinor thinks for a few minutes, then slowly nods.

"I think... that would be okay."

Vince exhales, his shoulders loosening in relief. "Excellent. Well, I gotta get back the others notice I'm gone. You can stay here as long as you like. Melly is the one who runs this safehouse. I've already programmed my number into your phone. Call me if you need anything."

"...how did you get through my security?"

It is a military grade phone too.

Vince looks offended.

"You call that security?"

As he's clambering over the windowsill with preternatural grace, he suddenly pauses, the lightheartedness evaporating from his face.

"One last thing..."

Elinor faces him, puzzled.

"Yes?"

"Don't get close to the humans. Don't let them know what you are. There are Hunters that kill Empaths like us, and if they knew that you were one of them..."

"Alright," she says. "I won't."

"Swear it."

The intense fire in his eyes makes her abruptly realize that she's been treating him like the kid he appears to be, not the old, nigh-immortal creature he claims that he is. Slowly, she nods.

"I swear it."

Years later, she would wonder if Vince made her swear it because he knew she would break her promise.

.

.

.

Melly is the one who helps her get back to civilization. She appears to be in her forties, with a strong build and confident stance. She grumbles a bit about how Vince 'always picks up strays and leaves them hanging,' but she treats Elinor kindly. Soon, a second number is programmed into her phone.

It takes her weeks to become accustomed to being in crowds, although she is never fully comfortable with them. It always feels as though they will know that she's not human anymore, that she's a parasite that preys on their kind, however nicely Vince packages the stark truth. But she adapts.

She finds a job as a forensic pathologist at St. Andrew's Hospital, the largest hospital in the city and one of the most renowned in the state. It is not difficult - the hospital had tried to recruit her once, when she was fresh out of medical school, and lamented that she had decided to enter the military instead. They are more than happy to welcome her into their team.

The morgue becomes her sanctuary. She has been surrounded by death for so long, become so intimately acquainted with it, that it is the only place where she feels at peace.

This is how she expects to live out the rest of her days. Go to work. Avoid her colleagues. Go home. Call Vince every once in a while. Rinse. Repeat.

Until she meets Thomas Richter.