Fallon, photos on Flickr

It would seem that I can run no longer. My past has caught up with me, and threatens to swallow not only me, but my entire family whole. I have died twice, and yet even death will not prevent Rothschild from seeking me and trying to destroy everything I hold dear. That Russian that he has employed has infected Fallon with some sort of virus, something that will kill her in a matter of months if the cure is not administered. He has the retrovirus, of course, and is willing to negotiate a trade, but the price he is asking is too much. The money he wants is not the problem. A drop in the bucket, compared with what I would normally expect, but he wants a night alone with Fallon, to do god knows what to her in some sick experiment. The man is fascinated with her blood. It made me wonder, in a way, if he suffers from a similar condition as me. However, it became readily apparent in a fight with him the other night that he is not. Or if he is, he is weak. I would kill him, but Fallon would surely die.

I will offer him a counter. My blood, instead of hers. A lovely little trick, since I can claim to have the same genetic mutation as she. From what I know, considering that my blood has been stolen from the veins of others, I do not think it will show anything unusual. However, I do not think he'll take it. It must be hers, or the childrens'. Neither am I willing to risk.

Should he not take the bait, I have two other options to consider, both with heavy prices as the toll. One is obvious: make Fallon what I am. It would be little difference from she is used to, save for the liquid diet, but I think she could even get used to it. However, I am reluctant to do it, for some strange reason. I would have offered it to Laz freely, without thought, and yet now that I am given time to think, to consider, I find that it is a curse with which I don't wish to burden her.

That leaves confronting Rothschild myself, to negotiate with him in hopes that he will rein in his wayward operative. His problem is with me, and so I want him to leave my family out of it. If he wants me, he'll have to work for it, but no one else is to be brought into it.

This situation, of all those hardships that have settled themselves upon my back, threatens to bring me down, enough to make me desperate enough to simply give up. Had I not had a family to think about, to worry over, perhaps this would be easier. And perhaps I would not be vulnerable to that other side of me. The side that lacks any of the humanity to which I cling so desperately.

I find it hard to hang on to that humanity; harder still to control the beast that lurks within me, and brings himself out when I am at my weakest. He knows no limits, this part of me. His appetite is voracious, seeking to sate his thirst for blood in any way he can. Even by killing, which thankfully, he has not done recently. He drives me to do things that I would not normally, such as pursuing women for more than just feeding. It is a lack of concern for anyone but himself.

I remember each and every one of his exploits. Everything that is said, done, and to whom. But what is more disconcerting is that I know, deep down, that is no mere case of split personality. It is me. As much as I try to deny it, and pass it off as short periods of insanity, I know that it is simply the new me that lies within the ruins of a shell that was once human.

And so it would seem that I fight two battles. One against an old foe who seems to be waiting around every corner, trailing me with startling accuracy. The other against a devil who lurks just out of my frame of reality, having found the perfect hiding place until he is ready to come out and storm the city in search of his next fix.

What frightens me is that the latter is a battle I feel I can't win.

fallon bowman 9 by charlottepiercing