Forever for Rose

Chapter Eight.

Dalton storms angrily up the empty corridor and I shuffle along behind him, trying to keep up.

"I'm sorry." I apologize and he turns to look at me, his thick brows knitted. "I didn't mean to make another mess for you to clean up." I explain as he turns back and continues to walk, but slower for me now. "I just had to say something though. Like he said in there, some of them might not have a whole lot of knowledge about vampires like I do, which is why it is so not ok for him to be preaching supremacy and all that other garbage. There is more than one way to be a vampire." I sigh.

He glances at me for a second, keeping that stone faced expression firmly intact.

"Your parents?" He asks as we turn a corner.

I nod. "Yeah, I mean, my dad lived this way for a long time, but my whole family is only dependent on the synthetic blood. Well, Octavia drank from Logan until the day he turned, but they were in a committed relationship and now they are both fully synthetic blood too."

"And you?" He asks, looking at me for an answer.

I purse my lips and sigh. "I have no intention of ever drinking human blood if I decide to take the change." I shrug. "I don't mean to offend you at all, it just isn't something I really support."

He stops for a second. "What do you mean if you decide to?"

I roll my eyes. "Everyone always assumes that that is what I want, but I haven't made any choices yet. I mean, obviously I don't want my parents to have to watch me grown old and eventually die, but I have to make the choice for myself, not everyone else." I explain as he starts up walking again, a perplexed look creeping into his eyes. "That's why coming here was so important to me. I'm pretty sure I will change eventually, but I wanted to come here to be sure. I needed to see this place, and this world. I want to know exactly what I'd be signing up for before I make a lifelong decision."

He nods his head once, letting his eyes stray down to the ground as we walked. "Must be nice to have a choice." He sighs.

I stop walking and he turns to face me, his golden gaze flitting to mine.

"I'm sorry you didn't get to choose." I tell him honestly, reliving the vision of him being jumped by that man who bit him viciously. He looks confused until I tilt my head to the side. "I saw it..." I explain and he looks annoyed, but not as angry as usual. "I hope those people got what they deserved."

He shakes his head. "I killed them far too quickly."

We fall quiet, just standing in the middle of a dimly lit corridor and he finally looks away from me to look up and down the passage, sighing quietly.

I let out a little laugh. "Are we lost?" I ask and he rolls his eyes, a whisper of a smile almost winning out over his frown.

"Of course I'm not lost, I'm just..." He looks back up the direction we came from. "I wasn't paying attention."

I smack his shoulder playfully, making him give me a crazy look, then start walking back the other way to where the lights are a little brighter. "See," I laugh. "I'm not so bad if you actually talk to me instead of being such a grumpy gills all the time."

"A grumpy gills?" He shakes his head at me, looking away quickly. "Maybe you should let other people tell you that you aren't so bad instead of you announcing it like that."

"Well?" I ask. "Are you going to admit it?" I wait patiently but he doesn't say a word. "See, that's why I said it for you."

We walk in silence for a few minutes, then he rubs his chin and glances at me. "What did you mean earlier?" He asks. "You said you didn't want to offend me when you said you don't support drinking anything but the synthetic blood? Why would that offend me?"