Chapter 32

Monday November 10th 2014

Cesare's shirt was spotted with water from his still wet hair, but other than that, he'd managed to get himself clean and dressed. It had taken him about an hour, but he'd done it on his own and that was a battle he'd been sure he'd lose. The doctor said it would be days before he was out of the wheelchair and even longer before he was back to normal. Being disemboweled didn't just heal in a few days.

Wheeling himself out of the bathroom, he stopped in the doorway at the sight of Alexandra. She sat on the bed with his ratty duffel bag leaning against her leather backpack. Rising with a smile, she set the book bags down on his lap and took the handles of his wheelchair.

"I wasn't expecting you," Cesare said quietly.

"Well Commander, you said I could be anything I wanted. I woke up this morning and decided I'd be the friend you've always been to me," Alexandra said, pushing him down the hall.

"Commander, huh?" Alexandra wheeled him out under the speculative eyes of the nurses. Without doubt, it would be the top gossip of the day, how the deadly Dracul was looking after the school cripple.

"If you can call me killer, I can call you Commander," Alexandra said. "We knew you wouldn't stay in the hospital, so I worked it out with Miss Raven last night."

Picking him up without even pausing to set herself, she carried him down the stairs outside the infirmary. He loathed this, being at the mercy of anyone, suspended in the air with nothing below him but hard stone. He'd never been good at depending on others, and this hadn't helped.

It was bad being at a school with killers looking for easy meat. But the humiliation of needing a babysitter to get to class seared the scared flesh of his heart. "I hate this ..." The words were laced with disgust as they boiled out of him.

Alexandra pushed him along the path in silence. "This would be where I say I understand, but I don't. Vampires either get better in seconds or die."

"How does that work?" Cesare asked.

"We regenerate like werewolves, but in our case, it's fueled by blood. As we use our power, the blood grows thinner, requiring us to feed. A vampire can drain their body dry, killing themselves trying to heal or powering the Blood Arts. So, when we get hurt, we either heal or die," Alexandra explained.

"Being helpless …" Cesare's words trailed off, touching on memories he wouldn't share.

"I'm happy this happened." Cesare looked up at her incredulously. "Not that you got hurt, but being able to be here for you. You've had my back for months and I've let you down every day. That's not who I want to be. This is who I want to be, and your injury helps me prove that."

It truly was an ill wind that didn't bring something good to someone. Every lost job is someone's good luck, sick people are a doctor's money makers, the dead are loved by morgues and still born babes are a shrink's best friend. All blessings are born in someone's pain.

Conversations stopped mid-word when they wheeled into the cafeteria. A rush of fevered whispers filled the silence, every head tracking the two outcasts. Alexandra pushed him into the breakfast line and handed him his tray.

"What do you want?" Alexandra asked quietly. The other students in line melted away under the stares of the school, leaving only them.

"Whatever you're having." He'd eaten worse, and it cut short the humiliation of having the school watch someone fill his tray for him. Alexandra swallowed her next question, loading up the trays with sausage, bacon, and ham.

She rolled him up to the loser table and sat down next to him, both drowning in the susurration of whispers. "You want to say grace?" Cesare asked. Alexandra tried to keep her smile dignified, but it stretched beyond control, showing a glowing eagerness. That Cesare had thought of her while buried in his own shit meant a lot to her.

My Lord God

I give thanks for my friendship with Cesare

and the happiness true friends bring.

May we take this food into our bodies and your grace into our souls

I ask that you lay your healing hands on my friend

May he know your mercy and love as I have.

Amen

"Amen," Cesare echoed.

Taking out their books as they ate, Alexandra went to work tutoring him. There was a lot to catch up on. Until now, he'd barely kept his head above water. He could answer the questions, but it was an animals understanding, memorization without knowing. And without true understanding, he was a circus dog barking tricks for his betters. Alexandra had worked hard the past few days, crafting a plan to not only improve his work, but teach him something more than answers.

Anastasia walked into the sea of malice born whispers, snakes of spite snapping and greedy fangs aching for sweet flesh. Gasps rang out as they caught sight of Blaez on her arm. His face was swathed in gauze. Only red-veined eyes and blood-red lips peeked out of sterile bandages. Bulges, like malformed mountain ranges marked his body, areas of bleeding damage and raw wounds demanding extra care. He held onto Anastasia with a hand thick with white wraps while dragging one leg behind him. He looked like a bus had hit him, then backed up and parked to make sure he stayed down.

Grim and possessive, the harem circled them. Taking the wolf to the lunch line, Anastasia helped him get his food. Always close, her hands reached out to steady the tray when his own faltered. It was an eerie echo of what Alexandra had done for Cesare.

The vampire wheeled him out of the lunchroom early, wheels squeaking in the still room. Students moved aside for them as they went down the hall. Hugging the wall, eyes down or cold with calculation, the kids stayed silent as they passed.

Cesare was surprised to see Elizabeth waiting outside her room for them. She watched as they made their way to her, stark relief in her eyes. Fear and pain savaged him with every second, barbed humiliation cut his soul in every pitying look cast his way, but he wasn't the only one to feel terror's cursed blessing. She held the door open for them, reaching out as he passed to run her fingers through his hair. It was the reassurance of life.

A table stood in Cesare and Alexandra's normal place. Alexandra wheeled him into the empty spot and unpacked their bags. "How did it go?" Elizabeth asked as she sat behind her desk.

"Quiet. They don't know what to make of the fight. No one knows what happened. All anyone's saying is Cesare locked with Blaez. Some think it was over Anastasia, or even me. All anyone knows is they crippled each other." Alexandra spoke quietly as she set out her and Cesare's books.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No one wants to destabilize the packs by letting out what really happened. Not only do we have the Thagirion preying on students, but we have a student who made a weapon that kills werewolves. No, everyone's served far better by letting the gossip mongers make up a story."

Cesare had his head down over his books as the rest of the class filtered in. The one time he looked up was when Anastasia walked in. Her eyes looked everywhere but at him, darting over the students, plants, stygian birds and cruel runes. She'd done what everyone always had—dismissed him as nothing. Worse than the pain of his wounds, it pierced his heart. Venom, hot and acidic, boiled through his body.

Wheeling him to Viktor's class, Alexandra tightened her hands around the handles. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

It was the tenth time she'd asked in the last hour. "Yes, I'm sure. I'll go straight from here to my next class. I can take the long way without the stairs, should be able to get there in one piece." It would be easy to get upset. He'd run his life without asking permission, had walked the streets, fucked and been fucked up. He'd never been a winner, a failure in flesh and diseased meat, but he'd owed no one and listened only to himself. Just because he couldn't walk without doubling over in pain, didn't mean he was brain dead.

The door opened as they reached it, Viktor filling the threshold, a scowl carved into the feral lines of his face. "Don't worry vamp, I'll make sure he gets to his next class in one piece."

Alexandra reluctantly let go of the handles with a snort of laughter. "Better people than you have thought the same and been proven wrong. I thought there was no way he'd get hurt while I was watching over him. Look where that got me." She set off down the hallway, muscles tensed as trip wire along her shoulders and spine stiff with the resolve to not look back.

"You have no idea what kind of trouble you're in with that one, kid." Viktor rolled him into the room, kicking the door shut behind them. "You need help changing?" It was said without a hair of judgment or pity to cloud the issue.

"I can manage. It's not pretty, but I get it done." Already, he was pushing himself toward the changing room.

He came out with a face flushed from just how long it had taken him. It was bad enough he was a fuck up when he was running on all cylinders. Now he was worse useless, he was a burden. And life had taught him burdens get dropped, cast aside with anger and relief.

Sitting down on a bench, Viktor motioned for Cesare to join him. "We can't stress your abdominal muscles or pec's. That leaves us with isolation exercises." Viktor's mouth twisted with distaste. "I don't like to train in isolation, it's a sure way to fuck up your balance and get overly muscled. But in this case, I think it might be a good thing."

"You don't have to sugarcoat it. I'm useless and I know it."

Viktor stopped what he was going to say. "Why do you say that?"

"I'm in a wheelchair. I can barely wipe my ass without throwing up in pain. I can barely dress myselt. It's a good thing I can aim, otherwise I'd piss myself."

"You look at this as a failure, don't you?" Without waiting for his agreement, Viktor continued, "You pulled a tie against a creature you had no business fighting. You're a smart kid. You know survival is as important as the kill. But that's not what this is about."

Viktor gestured at the wheelchair. "This is your low point. You're crippled and vulnerable. The girl you love is taking pipe from another guy, the same one that cut you open and left your guts on the ground. Everyone but the crazy think your worthless, a disgusting piece of shit better left in the gutter that birthed you. You got every reason to hide your head." Viktor held Cesare's eyes. "But that's what you can't do. This is the time to fight, to claw for every scrap of power you can steal. We fear life's hammer as it breaks us. But when the blows have stopped, is when we realize the maiming shaped us into something beautiful. A sword forged in the furnace of our own agony, every imperfection broken off and every flaw hammered out. Embrace this time as the making of the man you'll be."

Viktor outlined the new workouts. It was a drastic departure from what they'd been doing. Until now, they'd worked on raw power with full body movements. Now, they'd focus on arms and legs, isolating the muscles to prevent any more damage to his core. Viktor was quick to point out that this allowed them time to work on specialized muscles they'd avoided in favor of increasing raw strength.

Cesare had thought it would be platitudes and tiptoeing around his injuries. Instead, Viktor pushed him even harder, asking for every bit of his anger and determination. By the end, Cesare was coated in sweat, hair slicked back and dripping. Cramps ran up his arms and legs, the muscles twisting in pain as they tried to repair micro tears.

"You want me to walk you to your next class?" Other students had flooded into the room, the Second Year class Viktor taught after Cesare.

"No. I got it," Cesare said, wiping his face.

Viktor raised an eyebrow in question. "Fine, but if you get hurt, your vamp will have my hide."

"She's not my vamp." Cesare's hands trembled as he pushed himself toward the door.

"Anyone told her that?" Viktor shot back, already moving to greet his students.

Cesare wheeled through the crowd of Second Years. Some of them moved out of his way easily, others did so reluctantly, and then only because Viktor was watching. Tougher than the First Years, they weren't scared by a mysterious fight.

Tamlin wasn't waiting at the door. Wheeling himself into the classroom, there was still no sign of the weathered man. Cesare slowly turned the wheelchair, taking in the silent room. The long windows brought in what little fall sunlight remained, showing the growths of sweat stains that dominated the blue mats they trained on. The wooden Muk Yan Jong stood silent in its corner, blood marking the post where he'd screwed up on a strike.

All of this faded as his eyes fell on the dark wolf stretching languidly as it rose, incandescent yellow eyes brimming with barely contained power. Standing, its shoulders stood taller than Lady Kali, easily over five feet. Its head added a good foot onto that. Black as old sin, it was a void in the autumn sunlight as it moved across the room with pure, wild grace.

Locking eyes with him, it dominated his existence. Under its elder glory the school's majesty was revealed as the gap-toothed smile of a whore, its pockmarked face and greedy eyes showing the truth of its fleshy birth in the minds of degenerates. Stones quarried centuries ago from mountains of hoary malice and formed by hands of practised cruelty and mastery into soaring towers of black spite, the mammoth creature that was Primrose shrunk away from the wolf's apocalyptic reality. The horrors that infested the castle for thousands of years were less than ants, there mark on the world, their history, their power, nothing more than faded footprints in sand next to the ocean of the eternal the wolf embodied. It opened its mouth in a lupine grin as feral amusement glinted in its eyes.

Leaning down, the predator brought its face inches from Cesare's. A huff of amusement blew his hair back, amusement threading wild eyes birthed in savage hungers. It's sadness warped the real, pulling at his mind like quicksand, summoning memories of suffering, of burning days of sun and violation wedded to laughter, questing fingers and screams of pain. Its yellow eyes traced the path of the jagged tear in his flesh, his shirt no bar to its sight. The rules of reality rewrote themselves to the whims of something profoundly other. Emotions too primitive—too real—moved through the creature as it stood there, eyes delving into Cesare's soul.

Breaking the spell, the wolf turned away in disappointment. Gliding across the floor in eerie silence, it returned to its square of sunlight. There was something that it wanted from him … something important and somehow, someway, Cesare had been found wanting. A part of him wanted to yell after the creature in anger. Another part wanted to cry, to beg it to come back and take another look.

"You got in over your head." Tamlin's voice came from behind him.

Wheeling around, Cesare faced the dark eyed man. "Yeah. But I didn't have a choice."

Tamlin snorted. "You're too smart for that excuse to work. You had choices, and made the one you wanted to make." Tamlin held his hand up, killing his words before they could birth. "I don't care for you lies and excuses. In the wild, there is only the living and the dead. You know what you call the injured in the wild?" Tamlin waited. "Food."

"You're not in the human world. Primrose is every bit as wild as the Serengeti, and the rules of the plains apply. The weak are food. You can't afford to be weak." Tamlin looked pointedly at the wheelchair. "You thought it was worth it. Seduced by the story of the lone man who stands up for what's right, no matter the cost to himself. The dead don't hurt, it's the ones you leave behind that pay for your choices. It's a selfish choice, Cesare."

Tamlin knelt until they were face to face. "A predator doesn't fight against superior odds, doesn't pick fights with stronger creatures. Even lions hide in the trees when a herd of angry water buffalo come through. Survival means making choices devoid of honor or morality. To a wild creature, getting back to their pack and cubs is more important than proving their strength. Pride doesn't feed a family. Take this to your meditation. If you'd died, what would have happened to those you care for?"

Tamlin gave him time to digest his words. It wasn't often that he talked, but when he did, it was worth thinking on. Viktor had been right; survival was a win, but Tamlin was right too. He'd gone into the fight against Blaez at top form. Now he was crippled and weak, easy meat for the other students. And if he'd died. Elizabeth, Anastasia, and Alexandra would have paid in pain for his choice.

"Enough. Since you're in the chair, we'll practise close work. A skilled user can paralyze a man without having to use more than his hands. While you're not that skilled, there is no better time to learn."

Tamlin pulled over a chair. Joining hands with Cesare, they worked. It was a long process. Usually holds and grips that dealt with the hands, fingers, and arms were added as they worked on other things. Today was different. Tamlin had a seemingly inexhaustible source of holds and strikes used at close range.

Cesare pushed himself out of the room with cramped hands that throbbed with pain. He never would've believed you could have that many holds that only dealt with the joints in the fingers, hands, elbows, and wrists.

Wheeling down the hall, he'd gotten no more than five feet before Alexandra came bounding up the stairs. She took them four at a time, fleet and sure as a jaguar in its jungle.

Hanging her leather backpack on the back of his chair, she took the handles firmly in hand. "You could've waited for me. Some idiot thought I'd want to talk to him about my paper." From her tone, that would be the last time the would-be suitor tried to start a conversation with her.

"I would've waited at the stairs," Cesare protested.

"Sure you would've," Alexandra said. "Now, where to? Library? Lunch Room?"

Cesare was silent as Alexandra carried him down the stairs. "The training area."

She wheeled him silently through the halls. Neither of them paying attention to the lane that opened for them. It wasn't until she'd set him down outside that she found the words. "You know she won't be there."

"It's not about her. I can't control that. What I can control is what I do." He wasn't sure if he'd pulled off the confident and controlled thing.

After they'd gone through the corridor of thorns, Alexandra let go of the handles and took out two books from their bags "If we're going to be here, we can start on the reading assigned." She handed him his book, having already opened it to the chapter. "If you come up against something you don't understand, ask."

Every few seconds he'd find himself looking up at the entrance, the book lying unread and forgotten on his lap. No matter how long he stared, no one came through. Alexandra got up and brushed off her skirt after an hour. "She's not showing, Cesare. Can we go? We still have a lot of work ahead of us to get you on track."

"Give it another thirty minutes."

Alexandra looked at the entrance with a sigh. "Why are we out here? The real reason."

"One of my first memories is being curled up into a ball under a mound of garbage. I was holding myself tight, whispering over and over 'I love you. I'll never leave you, Cesare.' Saying it because I needed to hear it, and no one else would ever say it. That was me, discarded, cast away as nothing. Not worth loving. Not worth helping, not even worth a smile. If she comes here and I'm gone, she'll feel like that. As if I'd cast her aside. I won't do that to someone I call my friend."

Alexandra looked away with wet eyes. "Why do you do this, help us when it's you who needs help? She should have been there for you. She should have stopped him."

Sighing, he put his book back into his bag. "I don't need saving, Alexandra. I've lived my life without anyone's help. I don't need you to protect me. I don't need you to give me money or cuddle me to sleep. I've made it this far by myself, and I'm certain I can make it the rest of the way. If you want to go, then go. I'll figure it out from here."

Kneeling, she met his eyes. "I'm not trying to be a bitch. I'm trying to understand. I know you don't want to hurt her feelings, but Cesare, you've done more for her than anyone had any right to expect."

"I told you, you can be anything you want to be. When I wake up, I want to be the person who wouldn't turn their back on me," Cesare said quietly.

Alexandra gave a single nod. "Okay, Commander. You say we wait? We wait." Her smiling eyes shone with unshed tears as she picked her book back up.

Anastasia never showed.