Dawn is Breaking 4

CHAPTER 4



Dawn woke up to a hot, sticky wind blowing the old, creaky bell back and forth. Her eyes felt dry and gritty from crying herself to sleep that it made it difficult to open her eyes. When she did she saw her big, comfy blanket that she always brought up to the bell tower when she came on watch was draped around her.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking around her she noticed that dawn had come and gone, it must be about 8am she thought, she missed her watch. Dawn scolded herself for sleeping in; everyone had to do their part for the tribe, what happened last night was no exception.

Thinking about the night before brought tears to her eyes once again. She wiped away a tear running down her cheek and sniffed, she was about to get up when she noticed someone sitting on the edge of the roof, her spot where she keeps watch. Goren, she started to panic and thought about quietly sneaking away down the stairs before he noticed that she was up. She scolded herself again; he deserved an explanation… one that she couldn’t give him.

Dawn took a deep breath and went to sit next to him; she hugged the blanket tight around her shoulders to comfort her. She sat and stared out over the city, she wasn’t going to break the silence first, as stubborn as that might have made her she didn’t care; she couldn’t explain what she did but he could.

Only a few short minutes later Goren couldn’t take it anymore, he felt so bad, so guilty for what he had done to Dawn, yelling at her like that, it ate him up inside so much that he didn’t sleep the whole night. After he had gone inside last night, to look for her, he knew where she had gone. Straight to the bell tower, when he got there she was already asleep. Goren stayed and watched over her, took her shift for watching when she didn’t wake up.

He looked down at his hands, fiddling with them in his lap; Dawn looked down at his hands and watched him play with them, she saw that his right hand was covered with dried blood and badly bruised, he didn’t seem to notice at all but it looked pretty bad.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

Dawn felt that overwhelming feeling of guilt again, the second time in two days and both with Goren, this really has to stop she thought. She felt another tear roll down her cheek.

When Dawn didn’t speak Goren continued, talking to his hands in a whisper.

“I’m sorry for what I did, for… getting mad at you. It wasn’t so much that I was mad exactly just… scared.” He looked up at her, “I don’t know how much you remember but you were… different. Dawn you scared me, you scared me a lot. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I have never yelled at anyone like that before, I’ve never felt like that before, but I do expect an explanation.”

That’s not too unreasonable, is it? He does deserve an explanation, Dawn decided; I could use an explanation too. I have to find Ariel; if there is anyone who should know something about this it has to be him. Ariel… thinking of him gave her butterflies like always.

Goren was still looking at her, waiting for an answer, she meet his gaze and replied, “I’m sorry Goren,” She said, shaking her head, “I can’t give you an answer. I have no idea what happened last night and I do remember, I remember everything… I’m sorry for what I did to you,” Dawn raised a hand to Goren’s face, lightly touching one of his cuts, the cuts that she gave him, but when her hand met his skin he flinched away. She felt a pain in her chest; like someone had cut her heart out, the look on Goren’s face… he was afraid of her. What had she done to him?

“Goren I’m sorry…” She tried lamely.

He shook his head at her, “No. Don’t.” He warned and gave a weak laugh, “You don’t get it do you? I know when you’re lying to me and you have been doing it a lot lately. Why won’t you trust me?”

Dawn just stared at him, “I do trust you Goren.”

“No, no you don’t. Not anymore.” He stood up from the ledge and paced around the bell a few times. Dawn wiped a hand across her face, she didn’t realise how much she had been crying.

When Goren stopped pacing he said, “Tell me who Ariel is.”

Dawn froze, the sound of Ariel’s name made the butterflies in her stomach go insane, and at the same time goose bumps rose on her skin from the way that Goren said his name; almost spitting it out, he didn’t even know him… neither do I, she thought. I know that just thinking of his name makes me blush, I know that looking into his lion eyes makes me flinch and shudder and want nothing more than to run into the safe confines of Ameretat, I know that his touch makes me fantasise of so much more… I don’t know him at all, she concluded.

“I don’t know who Ariel is.” She said silently, praying that Goren could accept that.

He couldn’t. “That’s not what your face tells me.”

Dawn looked out over the city again and contemplated; should she tell him? She wondered… the image of Goren flinching under her touch came back to her; she couldn’t live with herself if he hated her because of this, what ever it is. As much as she felt drawn to Ariel and wanted nothing more than to be near him, touching him, knowing that Goren had negative feeling towards her was breaking her heart.

So Dawn told Goren everything. What happened on the hill, everything but the feelings that she felt for Ariel. When she had finished Goren was silent, he was pacing again with his hands on his hands on his head, and his confused face was on. He had no idea it was like that. How could it not hurt her? Any normal vampire would have either taken her away into the city or killed her right there…

“Goren, say something.” Dawn said, watching him pacing was making her nervous as to what he was thinking.

He sighed one of his sighs and sat next to her, his hands now rubbing across his face before he spoke. “So… you didn’t see it last night?” He finally asked.

Dawn shook her head, “No. But I had a feeling that he was there. I can’t explain it, I felt like something was sort of… pulling me.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“It was the same feeling that pulled me up to the hill, the hill that he was on.” She was still sitting and playing with her hands feeling nervous.

After a moment of awkward silence Goren took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was pleading for her to tell the truth. It was killing him that she didn’t trust him enough with this.

She felt a tear run down her cheek, “I was afraid. I didn’t know what it meant. He should have killed me Goren; I was so sure I was going to die.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. She was afraid, but not for the reasons Goren would think. Dawn was afraid that if she told him about Ariel he would go looking for him… and kill him, Ariel should have killed her, any other normal vampire would have but she wasn’t afraid of that either. The thought of Ariel killing her was… exciting, that was what frightened her the most, up on that hill she was ready to die, welcomed it even; because it was Ariel that was going to do it. There was no way she would tell Goren that, he wouldn’t understand…

“What about Reagan?”

Dawn was stunned out of her thoughts by the sudden change in subject, “What do mean?”

“It didn’t kill you and Reagan is still alive… barely, but any normal vampire wouldn’t have bothered to throw her back inside the grounds of this place with blood still left in her body.” Dawn winced. “I’m still trying to decide which way is more human… I think this is worse.”

“What are you saying? You think Ariel did this?” Dawn couldn’t believe that Goren would even consider that Ariel did it. She was shocked and it showed very plainly on her face and Goren noticed it.

“Why do you always call him that?” He was starting to yell again, it was making him furious the way Dawn spoke about the monster, like she respected it or worse worshipped the thing. There was more about it that she was telling him.

“Because it’s his name!” She yelled back.

“I can’t believe you! After what it did to you, to Reagan…”

“He didn’t do anything to Reagan!”

“You said yourself that you felt it was there. How can you be so sure?”

“I…” Dawn stopped. What if Goren was right? She wondered… No, Ariel wouldn’t do that. Why wouldn’t he? Because I have feelings towards him? Feelings that I can’t explain? Him being a vampire gives me no logical reason why he wouldn’t have done it… I did feel him there…

Dawn felt her heart being ripped out for a second time, the thought of Ariel hurting someone other that herself was… unimaginable. She could barely comprehend it. She felt like she was being betrayed by him for hurting another and she felt guilty for betraying him for even considering that he did it. There was only one person who knew the truth… Ariel.

“Why are you so quick to judge him?” Dawn wondered, but this not the right time to ask such a question. Goren’s expression went from sadness to disappointment and stopped at contempt.

He stood up quickly and said in a deep voice, “Why do you care so much about it?” When he saw Dawn’s cheeks go bright red he knew. “You have feelings for it, don’t you? All those times when I saw you smiling at nothing… you were thinking about it?” Goren could not believe it, he had suspected of course, he was very good at reading people but he had hoped that just this once, he was wrong. All of those times since the hill when they had been together, she had been thinking of a vampire?

This was not going the way either had planned. Dawn became just as angry at Goren as he was at her, if he wanted to do it like this then so be it. She stood up in front of him and looked him in the eyes.

“Why do you insist on calling him ‘it’!”

“Because that’s what it is Dawn! They’re not human, they are pure evil, demons dressed up as one of us! Have you forgotten what they did to your family? You and Rose are the only ones left!”

“You don’t think I know that! I think about my family every second of the day, and Rose is just another reminder of everything that I have lost! “

Waiting at the bottom of the staircase to the bell tower, Rose heard everything. Her aunty, the only thing left in this messed up world that she loved, the one reminder that she had of her mother, didn’t even love her back. She turned and walked away crying.

Dawn and Goren didn’t hear or see Rose and Dawn continued yelling not knowing what was coming out of her mouth, “Ariel is not part of my family, he isn’t part of my former or present life. He makes me forget about everything and I love him!” Once she had finished she was breathing heavily, her breath stopped only when she realized what she had just said.

“Rose loves you. Does that not mean anything to you?” Goren said silently, he was shocked to hear Dawn say something like that.

But Dawn didn’t mean it… did she? It just kind of slipped out, got caught up in the moment… she didn’t mean it… She couldn’t speak anymore, she was frozen.

Goren was shaking his head, “Your choosing a vampire over your family? Vampire’s don’t love Dawn; they have no soul… remember that when you’re making love with it and it kills you.” He said, partly mocking.

When Dawn said nothing he nodded, getting his answer, and made his was down the stairs. She wished he had yelled that last bit at her, silent Goren was a hundred times more deadly than when he was yelling. This thought scared her, a lot.