Vampiric Feelings, Part 1

And just when I thought I'd heard it all… 

Should I have seen this coming? Was this ever to be a likely notion I was going to eventually entertain sooner or later? Have I just simply been blind to all the signs? 

Or had Amelia just completely lost her mind?

"You're stunned," she said, a simple enough observation to declare that her sanity was definitely, unbelievably, still intact. "A response of which I cannot possibly fault you for. It is entirely warranted. And yet regardless I must ask… do make haste coming to terms with it all. This indignity… the shame… truly, I'd rather not do something I may regret." 

It was like someone was slowly clamping down on her throat as she spoke. There's swallowing your pride, and then there's just outright choking to death on it—like, I don't think I've ever seen a person in this much utter agony from simply asking for help.