All In Bullet Time, Baby

“We had it figured out, didn’t we?” Eddie smiles at Amir, who hums in agreement. “What we needed from each other. Our proper roles. A less dictatorial approach to the coven is embraced by mon chéri. The kind of balance we needed.”

“Ah, July 1949, the reading room.” Amir dreamily smiles as Dolly folds her hands and listens to the conversation happening in front of her.

“We broke into the same library every night that month,” Eddie weaves this beautiful story that she doesn’t really care for, “hypnotized security, flipped the lights, laid our backs on the long tables, and stared up at the ceiling.”

“Hot.” Dolly dryly remarks as she reaches for her pen.

“Iron pillars holding up terracotta domes, a light trick that made the ceiling appear higher than it was.” Amir dreamily remarks before Eddie turns his attention to Dolly.

“And why not pass a month that way?” His smile, however, slowly begins to fade. “An effortless, eternal life ahead of us… just the two of us.”

He’s thinking of you and Harper. How those dates with Amir didn’t fix the hole in his heart that the two of you left with Harper’s dismissal of him, and the severed bond you now shared with Eddie that was no longer romantic, according to your own words. 

…He has regrets, but who wouldn’t?

“It’s funny,” Eddie muses, “trying to remember what occupied someone’s time when they were ignorant to the plotting around them.”

God, I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Not when I spent last night analyzing that audio file from 1975–

“–Grab that.” Dolly leans in towards the computer, not noticing how Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed.

“We didn’t know that Drysdale…” He trails off, scanning Dolly for some emotion or thought that he’s unable to find with a quick assessment, “I’m sorry, what are you grabbing?”

“Hmm?” Dolly can’t help but play a little dumb as her pen works as a transmitter that places her exact thoughts upon the paper that’s in front of her, “Oh, it’s just a note to my assistant. It’s nothing.”

“What did you want to grab, Dolly?” Eddie says, with a low tone of voice that makes the hair on Dolly’s neck stand at attention.

I won’t let him fuck with my hand again. We’re done with that.

Amir looks on with nothing more than vague interest, discarding the tablet in front of him in favor of listening to Dolly and Eddie.

Shit, I’m caught. I might as well tell him…

Dolly sighs, rolling her shoulders back as she plays back the part that she wanted to dissect later, on her own time.

“Eternal life ahead of us…. Just the two of us. It’s funny, trying to remember what occupied someone’s time when they were ignorant to the plotting around them.”

“Grab that.”

Dolly watches the confusion form on Eddie’s face, so she tries to explain herself.

“It’s a thing with syntax. Indefinite and impersonal pronouns. ‘Someone’, ‘they were’, ‘around them’. It becomes a third, separate person in the conversation. We stop talking about ‘I’ or ‘me’.”

“...And?” Eddie still doesn’t see why Dolly’s launching this sudden pronoun lesson upon him.

“You’re circling something,” She sees no reason to do anything but shoot straight with Eddie at this point, “You’re getting close to something you want distance from. Language as a chicken exit on a roller coaster–”

“–Or,” Oh, here comes Mr. Orange-Eyes-In-Shining-Armor to save the interview, “it’s been a day since Eddie slept, and a vampire of his age is worn out from fighting the narcoleptic pull of the sun.”

A day? Did their argument go for that long?

“Or that.” Dolly takes a sip from her water as Real Assad brings a group of young men in brightly colored jumpsuits into the dining room area.

What the fuck is this?

“Ah,” Amir turns his attention away from Dolly, “You must be the Hanks.”

“They are, sir.” Assad bows his head as Amir stands and approaches the group.

“So you’re the guy?” The shortest one, named Hank — Wait. Hanks, as in plural. …They’re all named Hank. Not confusing at all. — asks.

“You’re gonna chase us down in your Jimmy Choo sneakers?” The blonde Hank adds on. “Sick.”

“Shall we take our business to the living room?” Amir gestures for the group to exit from the same entrance that they came from, and Dolly nearly jumps out of the skin when the Hanks scream at and high-five each other before they exit the space.

Well, all of the Hanks except the one in the red jumpsuit.

“Who are they?” He gestures to Dolly and Eddie before Amir places a hand on Hank’s shoulder and steers him out of the room. 

“They are not your concern.” Amir then looks to Eddie before he takes his leave. “If you’ll excuse us?”

Eddie nods as the pair exit the space, followed by Real Assad right behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Dolly blinks, a little flabbergasted, “What was that?”

“Amir rarely eats.” Eddie calmly responds, like this shit is normal. “So, when he does eat, he prefers to hunt for it.”

“And in large quantities.” Dolly mutters under her breath before she raises the volume of her voice. “Do those gentlemen know they’re lunch?”

“Are you recording?” Eddie shoots back before Dolly shakes her head.

“No.”

“The Hanks know that if they make it, on foot, to the Brandenburg Gate before dawn, they’ll be paid enough money to do…” Eddie trails off for a moment. “Well, most anything they want.”

That, of course, naturally leads Dolly to another question.

“Has anyone ever cashed in?”

She already knows the answer, but there would be some satisfaction in hearing Eddie say it.

“Often, Amir carefully chooses someone based on the harm they do the world with their… profession.”

Right, but those guys didn’t seem like the type to smuggle drugs or sell illegal weapons.

“And, when he can’t find an arms dealer dumb enough to answer his ad?” Dolly looks to the doorway, then to Eddie.

“Someone half in love with an easeful death.”

Ah, adrenaline junkies. Explains the jumpsuits.

“He’s ditching us.” Dolly notes, pivoting the subject slightly.

“He’ll be back in two or three hours, depending on how fast they can run,” Eddie shrugs, “He’s not violent when he hunts.”

Orange eyes. An open window that allows San Francisco air into the damp, unclean apartment.

“Uh-huh.” Dolly then starts to record her own voice on her laptop. “Follow up with the vampire Amir about diet and exercise. And, once again, we have Eddie, alone with himself. So, everything is in its right place before the theater burns down.”

“In middle school, you stole your dad’s Playboy magazines. Sold them at recess.”

“I’m sorry!”

That was… that second voice, it wasn’t Amir. That was Eddie.

“Little dirty, little deceitful, but it’s enterprising. Is that what makes you fascinating?”

“The coffin!”

Eddie’s voice again, on the second line. Why? Why him? Where are you? Where’s River in all of this?

“Dolly?”

“In high school, you told a boy you’d only do him if he had a paper bag over his head. He agreed, and you did it–”

“Dolly.” Eddie’s voice makes her eyes flicker to him before she flips through the notebook in front of her, landing on the page where she’s taken notes from her own memory of what happened in San Francisco in 1975, as well as the recording she listened to last night.

A dim, drab, poorly-decorated room. Hands all over my body. Eddie comes in, we talk, he argues with Canary, his fangs in my neck, then…? What then?

“How long is your boyfriend’s lunch again?” Dolly feels her hand go to the pocket of her grey cardigan before her fingers trace over the hotel key.

River knows where Canary is, and she was there for that fucking interview. I can kill two birds with one stone.

“Two hours. Three, at the most.” Eddie answers, and Dolly is quick to close all of the files on her computer relating to Paris before she taps the notebook in front of her with her pen.

“Let’s change it up.” Dolly suggests. “I was goin’ over my notes last night. Somethin’ he said on his initial flight to the bookshelves caught my ear. ‘This time, I won’t save your life.’”

Dolly removes her glasses from her face as Eddie sighs, a pained expression painted onto his face.

“Amir saved you from me in 1975, after Canary left…” He struggles to place that final word, but he manages to get it out, “me. She left me.”

“Yeah, you bit me, I blacked out. He ripped you off of me, dumped me in a drug den.” Dolly recalls as much of the story as she remembers. “Five hundred years, hundreds of thousands of kills. How often has Amir spared a life?”

Dolly knows she has Eddie pinned when his gaze bounces all around the room, searching for answers in the modern paintings that hang on the dining room walls before he finally gives in and answers her question.

“Amir could see I was partial to you. Amir preserves my happiness, even when I don’t or can’t,” Eddie quietly says, “He had a hunch you might prove fruitful in later times.”

That sounds like corporate slop, vampire edition.

“Okay, sure, let’s go with that,” Dolly can’t exactly argue since she doesn’t remember much about that interview, “Our first interview… to be honest, Eddie, it’s a fog. I mean, it’s the seventies. It’s all a blur. I woke up in a parking lot in Milwaukee once, don’t know how I got there–”

“–What’s the question, Dolly?” Eddie cuts her off, and she closes her eyes before taking a breath in, then out.

“Canary and I had drinks, she paid. We, alongside River, cabbed to your place on Divisadero, she paid again.” 

“That’s what she told me when I got there.” Eddie plainly states. “Where are you going with this?”

“I have some… outstandin’ questions about 1975,” Dolly finally decides to come clean, “Like… Why did Canary talk to me in the first place? Why did you come in like hell on wheels after we…?”

“After you what?” Eddie wears a shit-eating smile as Dolly rolls her eyes.

“Don’t make me say it, asshole.”

“You were the one who asked about San Francisco, and if I were you, I think that’s the part I’d want to remember–”

“–Fuck, Eddie, those Hanks will be dead in three hours. You’ve made me an accessory to murder, and you’ve had like, what, twenty sessions and almost three weeks of my time?” Dolly then fishes out her trump card — that godforsaken hotel key card, given to her by River — from her pocket before she waves it in front of Eddie’s face. “I want two hours for me. I’d like to know, for me, what happened between all of us, okay?”

She slams the key card down on the table before she slides it towards Eddie.

“Plus, if you tag along, you can ask River whatever questions you want about Canary,” Dolly tries her best to sweeten the deal, since she would like to walk into the lion’s den with someone else by her side, “And I’ll back you up, Eddie. We started this interview as a last resort to help you find your wife, and, goddamnit, I think you do deserve to see her again, if only to apologize for your shitty behavior towards her.”

“I…” Eddie’s fingers carefully trace the edges of the card before he nods. “I’ll call for a driver. Pack your things and be ready in ten.”

~

The car ride to River’s hotel is painted in meditative silence. Dolly and Eddie sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the backseat, with Dolly holding a satchel that contains her laptops and various paper notes from her sessions with Eddie and Amir, and neither of them can see the driver due to the tinted window that divides the front seat from the backseat.

Dolly can’t even see outside of her passenger window, since that’s blacked out, too.

It makes sense, though. A business deal might run late, and this will keep Eddie from disintegrating in the sunlight.

Eddie’s been focused on that key card for the whole trip, tracing the logo of the hotel over and over again with his fingertip, as if it’ll make the car go any faster.

Big city traffic, I get it–

“–Can I ask you something?” Eddie quietly mumbles, lacking any of the natural confidence or charisma that he has in his Berlin penthouse.

“Shoot.” Dolly looks over, and she immediately sees how relaxed he is, when compared to how high-strung he was around Amir.

Interesting…

“What do you remember about Canary?”

“Me?” Dolly’s perplexed by Eddie’s question. “Why?”

“Last night, Amir said…” Eddie shakes his head in subtle frustration. “He remembers her worst actions, and he thinks that’s who she is, but I don’t… I can’t… Canary wasn’t mean or vengeful or spiteful. She was hurt.”

He pauses for a moment.

“Volt, Harper, and I would lash out when we were hurt, and it wouldn’t mean anything, but when she does it… she’s a monster.” Eddie’s eyes shine with tears as he makes eye contact with Dolly. “Canary’s not a monster. She’s kind, smart, beautiful, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She gave hope, happiness, daughters…”

Eddie bitterly chuckles before he places the hotel key card in-between two of his fingers, presenting it to Dolly so she can hold onto it.

“I just want to know that someone else thinks the world of her, since Harper isn’t here anymore. That someone else cares for her well-being, and thinks she deserves nothing but the best from the world.”

“That’s… sweet, Eddie.” Dolly glances over to see Eddie raising his eyebrows at her. “No bullshit. I mean it. I see why she fell in love with you, and stayed with you for fifty-five years. She loved this part of you. The part that just loved her, as she was.”

“I’ve always loved her–”

“–I saw her last night,” Dolly confesses, and a weight feels like it’s been lifted off of her chest when she says that, “I didn’t see see her, but it was just as you described, with Volt in Paris. She was there, but not really there, y’know? It’s probably the Parkinson’s, but–”

“–I’ve seen her so many goddamn times. In my bed, in the corner of the room, in the hallway, where her laughter bounces off of the walls,” Eddie chuckles to himself, “Canary doesn’t taunt me. Not like Volt did… does. He does.”

“You’ve seen them both?” She quietly asks before Eddie nods. “I’m guessin’ you like seein’ the Mrs. more than the Mr.?”

“She’s kind to me. Kinder than I am to myself,” He hurriedly says, “She shows me the good in the world, the good in–”

“–yourself,” Dolly finishes his statement, “I remember that much about her. Beautiful, smart like a whip, sassier than I could ever dream of being–”

“–last night, when you saw her…” Eddie fidgets with the ring on his left hand, one that must be associated with you, “what’d she say to you?”

“Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape.”

Dolly, immediately, paused the recording after you started it.

“Are you here, or am I…?”

“Hallucinating?” You tilted your head at her before you shrugged. “I don’t know, are you?”

Dolly rolled her eyes as you wore a cheeky smile.

“You look like you haven’t aged a day.”

“You look like you’ve aged for the both of us.” You laughed when Dolly tried to smack your arm, but her hand went through your skin and hit the couch with an unsatisfactory thud.

Well, that answers her question. You’re not here, but why are you… here? In her mind?

“Is this some weird vampire-mind-projectin’ bullshit?”

“No, this is all you.” Your eyes then went to her computer screen. “You should listen to that recording, then talk to River and Eddie. They’ll clear up the fog around our first interview.”

“Our only interview.” Dolly corrected you. “You’re a ghost. Gone like the wind. Why haven’t you communicated through your mind to Eddie? You two come from the same Maker, so you should be able to–”

“–Dolly, I blocked him out a long time ago.” You frowned as you spoke. “I don’t think I’d know how to find his voice amongst the crowd anymore. Even if I did… what would I say to him?”

“Are you sure this isn’t you? Are you sure you’re not in my head?”

“Maybe you’re the first person who’s got the right version of me in their head.” You hummed. “I’m not saying this for my health. You get the answers you seek, and you get one step closer to finding me.”

“You? How does going over our interview in 1975 help me with–?”

Dolly couldn’t get the question out before you disappeared. Go figure that the most useful vampire to her interview would be an apparition of her mind.

“She pushed me to see River, with that spunk that you adore.” Dolly calmly says, leaving out a bit of information from her conversation with you… or not you, since you were simply a figment of her imagination. “Are my answers to your satisfaction?”

“They are,” Eddie pauses, “but I don’t get why you–”

“–a Hamilton reference. You know, the Broadway musical that went…” She shakes her head when he blankly stares at her. “Nevermind. I forgot that you’re uncultured. …Speaking of questions, do you mind if I ask you one? Off the record, of course.”

“A hardball?”

“Would you expect anything less from me?” Dolly fires back, causing Eddie to snort lightly. “It’s somethin’ that’s been buggin’ me for a while. In Paris, and even back in New Orleans, she was workin’ on this novel that was based on her romantic experiences with you and Volt, but that book, as far as I know, never got published. What happened to it?”

“I wish I had a concrete answer for you, but I don’t. There could be copies still floating around in Paris, but I think most of them burned in the fire,” He smiles when Dolly’s gaze goes down to her feet, “Yes, that fire. She never spoke directly to me about what happened that night, but between drunken confessions and what she mumbled in her sleep, I was able to piece together what happened.”

“...You’ll tell me about what she did when we get there, right?”

“I will,” Eddie agrees, but with a single condition issued from her lips, “but you have to promise me that it won’t change your perception of Canary. She was in so much pain, with so much grief in her heart, and she acted accordingly.”

“I can’t promise you anything ‘til we get there–”

“–Dolly, I’m not asking you as a reporter or a journalist,” Eddie admits, “I’m asking you this as a friend.”

Friend is… a word that describes a relationship dynamic. Not my word for our relationship dynamic, because I’d call him more of a pain in my ass–

“Sure.” She shrugs noncommittally before the car comes to a stop. “We’re here. You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever…” He trails off when Dolly’s door suddenly opens, revealing a bubbly, black-haired woman that Eddie and Dolly both assumed was dead, “Merde.”

“Penelope?” Dolly says in disbelief, and the woman in question, now with icy-blue irises instead of her brown ones, excitedly nods before she sticks her hand out towards Dolly.

“In the flesh!” She taps the oversized red glasses that hang from her yellow blouse instead of her face. “Never knew that vampirism was the cure to nearsightedness! I do miss eating like a mortal, though… but Ms. River said that I will grow to enjoy blood as much as I enjoyed human food!”

That’s… optimistic.

“So you’re one of them now?” Wary of holding a fledgling’s hand, after hearing of how you and Eddie struggled to control your thirst for blood for the first few years of your existence, Dolly brushes past Penelope, ignoring the hand that’s outstretched towards her. “No offense, I just… prefer my neck without holes in it.”

“I’m not like other fledglings. The older a vampire is, the stronger their fledglings are. I’m more in control of my hunger than other vampires my age,” She grins as she fixes a few stray strands of her black, curly hair, carefully placing them behind her ears, “I can walk in the sun, too.”

“A nepofledgling, then.” Dolly chuckles at her own joke as she waits for Eddie to join her side.

“How…” Eddie stares at her in amazement as he exits the car. “I thought Amir–”

“–Oh, yeah, Amir,” Penelope frowns, “He drained me and left me for dead in a dumpster. River found me shortly after, and she turned me into a vampire. Isn’t that cool?”

“It’s… somethin’, alright,” Dolly stares at the towering building in front of her, “Did River send you to us as our escort through the Overlook Hotel?”

“This isn’t anything like a Stephen King novel, I assure you,” Penelope says before she turns on her heels and races into the building, “C’mon, she’s been waiting for you two!”

“I have a… weird feeling about this,” Dolly drops her voice to a near-whisper as she walks side-by-side with Eddie, “not bad, just… off. Something’s off.”

“Is it bad that I agree?” His lips twist off to one side. “We crossed paths in San Francisco a few times, and I… she’s always been off to me, like she’s hiding something from everyone, but–”

“–sayin’ anythin’ would be like firing a cannon through a glass castle.” Dolly jokes. “I thought the same, but I was young, dumb, and sexually repressed, so I didn’t really give a shit.”

“Do you three end up…?”

“No, but we got close to it,” Dolly chuckles as she enters the hotel via the door that Penelope holds open for her, “To be honest, I really thought we did, but I think I’d remember somethin’ like that more… vividly.”

“Did you want to?”

“I’m not answerin’ that question, Eddie.” Dolly huffs as Penelope races past her and Eddie to hit the up arrow near the elevators. “That’s personal.”

“We’ve spent, what, like twenty sessions going into my personal life?” Eddie flips Dolly’s earlier point back onto her, and she realizes how annoying it is to be outwitted by him. “Give me five minutes, for me.”

“Fuck you for usin’ my words against me,” She crosses her arms as she watches the elevator doors on her left open, “but, remember, you asked for this.”

“I like what you’ve, uh…” Dolly, with the naivety of a twenty-five year old, set her bag onto the table before she removed the strap from her shoulder, “done with the place. Gettin’ some bail bondsman, post-divorce vibes.”

“My husband owns a few of these places.” You approached Dolly first, placing a hand on her shoulder as River closed the door to the apartment, to keep the three of you away from prying eyes.

“Oh, yeah? How many?” Dolly asked before you tilted her chin towards you, leaning in to brush your lips against hers. 

“Many.” You grinned before you pressed a chastise kiss to her lips. “You like asking questions, don’t you?”

Stunned, Dolly didn’t respond for a few moments until she dared to kiss you back. You laughed merrily, a sound that Dolly wanted to choke on until the end of time before you grabbed her hips and swung her around so you could pin her back to River’s chest.

“Are you and your husband, um…” Dolly pulled away, looking from you to River in rapid succession, “Are you two real estate moguls?”

“Oh, we’re a lot of things.” You answered before you pressed open-mouthed kisses down her neck as River worked to remove Dolly’s black leather jacket from her body. “You’re okay, baby. We’ve got you.”

“Shy?” River whispered in her ear, tossing the jacket on the counter before her fingers ran down the buttons of Dolly’s grey blazer. “Tell us what you want.”

“I…” Dolly’s completely flabbergasted, unused to this type of attention, especially from two very attractive women, and she wasn’t quite sure how to answer or what to do with herself. Where should she put her hands? Is it okay to touch one or both of you? Why’d you both jump her bones the moment the door closed behind River? “I don’t–”

“Ah, I see.” River left Dolly with a parting kiss to the cheek before she took the mortal’s hand and guided her to the only bedroom in the apartment. “You need something to help you loosen up.”

Dolly couldn’t help but observe her surroundings as River leaned on the dresser behind her, fingers subtly reaching for something that was behind her back as Dolly stared at a certain object in amazement.

A coffin. Right there, next to the queen-sized bed. But why? Why would you need a coffin when there’s a perfectly good bed in the middle of the room?

“Does that scare you, honey?” Your honeysuckle voice floated into the room before you appeared in the doorway.

Dolly doesn’t want to fuck this up. This might be a little unnerving, sure, but what’s wrong with a couple of hot women having some weird interests? Everyone’s got their quirks, right?

“So, you climb in it, close the lid, and bang?” She looked to River, who couldn’t help but let an easy smile float onto her face.

“Sometimes.”

Dolly then bent down to inspect the coffin further. It’s lined with green interior fabric that’s many shades darker than the wallpaper surrounding this very bedroom. It had a handle on the inside, which she thought was funny, but she didn’t think much of it at the time.

“Okay.” Dolly pulled herself from her crouching position. “I mean, I’m into counter-cultures. So… am I the first girl that you’ve brought back here?”

“The fifth.” River honestly answered before she presented a small, handheld suitcase to Dolly with the lid closed.

“Backgammon?” Dolly inquired, which caused you to laugh. “That’s wholesome.”

“Old-timey fun from the Sasanian Empire.” River then opened the suitcase to reveal a number of contraptions and needles lining the suitcase, but Dolly was way more concerned with the white, powdery substance that was contained in a circular, see-through container in the middle of everything.

“Cheeseburgers or chicken chow mein,” You joked, “take your pick.”

“Drugs?”

“It was the seventies, Eddie,” Dolly rolls her eyes, “everyone was high on somethin’. Don’t be a prude.”

“I’m not being a prude,” Eddie chuckles as the elevator slowly goes up to the top floor, “When I first saw you, I didn't expect you to be the type to–”

“–take a Pixy Stick up the nose? Go on a girls-only skiing trip?” Dolly bluntly says. “Everyone had a drug of choice. For some, it was sex. Others, alcohol. My drug, uh… was a bit more literal. Anyone who had any fun, back in my day, did a little cocaine in their free time.”

“...I didn’t do any cocaine.”

“Huh.” Dolly grins before Eddie scoffs.

“Dolly, you–”

“–should be getting back to the story, since you wanted to know about this so badly.” She cackles when she can practically see fumes coming out of Eddie’s ears. “Where was I?”

Dolly snorted, coughing for a brief moment after she did one of the five lines that she had set up on the kitchen table. River sat next to her, playing with Dolly’s dyed hair as you stared out of a window with a burning, yet untouched cigarette in your hand.

“All your slickness at the bar,” Dolly noted, seeing how your shoulders were ever-so-slightly slumped, and your figure lacked the confidence that you had once so boldly displayed to her, “all that’s gone.”

“What do I seem like now?” You said, still turned away from Dolly as you stare at the streets of San Francisco through one of the two windows in the living room area.

“A veteran of many wars,” Dolly sniffled before she set the rolled piece of paper in her hand aside, “it’s yours, if you want it–”

“–cocaine’s a fun person’s drug,” You mused, “I’m not fun.”

“Alright, suit yourself.” Dolly then proceeded to do another line before she looked back up at you. “Y’know… I prefer you like this. All dark and real. Maybe I could… cheer you up?”

Dolly then suddenly stood, on wobbly feet, before she stripped herself of her blazer.

“And then you walked in.” Dolly finishes as she exits the elevator, behind Penelope yet in front of Eddie.

“And then I walked in.” He repeats.

“Fuckin’ cuck.” She grumbles under her breath, but Eddie — damn these vampires and their stupidly good hearing — still manages to hear her speak.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She waves him off. “It’s nothing. Penelope, what room number are we looking for?”

“One-Three-One-Five,” Penelope raises an arm, to point at a door on the right side of the hallway, in the distance, “right at the end.”

“More walking.” Dolly groans. “Goody.”

“Old bones?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Dolly lashes out at Eddie, who puts his hands up in defense. “I don’t need pity from the vampire who hasn’t felt back pain in a hundred years.”

“I do remember what it was like to be human, Dolly.” He mutters. “Not all of us are heartless monsters.”

Now Dolly feels bad. Really bad.

“Eddie, I didn’t mean–”

“–it’s fine. No harm done.” He remains quiet until everyone reaches the entrance to River’s hotel room, and he gestures for Dolly and Penelope to enter before he does, “Ladies first.”

“What a gentleman.” Dolly sarcastically whispers before she presses the key card to the door handle, and a small buzz lets her know that she’s been granted entry to the space.

Well, here goes everything.

To her surprise, the door swings open before she can place a hand on the silver door handle.

“Ah, I see Penelope escorted you to me. Good job, honey.” River purrs, sending electric shivers down Dolly’s back as Penelope slips past her, so she can stand behind River. “Please come in. I asked for a suite so we have some privacy and a place to chat. Feel free to set your things on the dining room table, Dolly. My space is your space.”

“Long time, no see,” Dolly says before she remembers that Eddie has no idea about her little meet-up with River two days ago, and that he should continue to remain clueless about that meeting, “Sorry, time has gotten away from me. Mind’s a bit of a mess from the interview.”

“That’s alright, Dolly.” River reassures her before she turns to Eddie. “And I’m glad to see you too, Eddie. Though I wish it were under… different circumstances.”

“You know why I’m here.”

“All in good time,” She nods, “I promise. I’ll tell you about everything she’s been up to since that night in San Franscisco… speaking of which–”

“–you knew I’d come to talk to you about that,” Dolly guesses, “and you knew I’d bring along Eddie since I need answers from both of you.”

Maybe not Eddie, but… I don’t know. He’s been somewhat useful in helping me interpret Harper and Canary’s diaries.

“You got me,” River then sticks her head out into the hallway, looking left, then right, “No loverboy?”

“He’s out hunting.” Dolly offers a short explanation which seems to satisfy River, for the moment.

“Good, good. Shall we?” River escorts Dolly and Eddie inside of the space before she firmly shuts the door behind them. “Take all of the space you need for your laptop and notes, honey. We’ll begin when you’re ready.”

“Actually,” Dolly pauses to admire the spacious hotel room — it’s indeed a swanky suite that’s outfitted with a kitchenette, a living space, and a bedroom for River and one for her new fledgling, “This is staying off the record. I’m satisfying some… personal curiosity, if you will. Eddie and I were doin’ some reminiscing about the parts that I do remember–”

“–the fun parts?” River swiftly moves towards the dining room table, sitting furthest from the door before she gestures for Dolly and Eddie to sit across from her.

“Yeah,” Dolly blushes, “Somethin’ like that.”

“May I add some context?” 

“What context could possibly–”

“–Canary and I were recently reunited in San Francisco… a few months before we met you, actually.”

Dolly scrunches her eyebrows before she looks at Eddie, who nods to validate River’s words.

“You didn’t leave Paris with them?” Dolly questions.

“The circumstances didn’t allow it,” River vaguely maneuvers around the fire at the theater, which Dolly mentally notes for later, “I spent twenty-five years trying to track her down, but then I got a lead from…”

She shakes her head, waiting for Dolly and Eddie to settle into their seats before she continues on.

“I’m sure Dolly has already figured this out,” River shoots the mortal in the room a wink before she focuses on Eddie, “but I work as an… informant for an organization. A powerful organization that deals with the affairs of vampires. I worked the occasional odd job for them before I was assigned my most recent — and important — job.”

“Canary,” Dolly flips to a new page of her notebook so she can record this new information, “your job was to keep watch over Canary.”

“Study her,” River corrects, “As far as my knowledge goes, Eddie, your wife is the only vampire in the world who was turned when she was pregnant. Your arrival in Europe, back in the fifties, caused a lot of uproar, and word quickly spread of the American vampiress who had a child in her stomach. Some called for a public execution of such a monstrosity–”

“–what?!”

“Stay with me,” River holds her hand out to Eddie, trying to offer him an olive branch that he most certainly does not want after being told that his wife was going to be killed for something that wasn’t her fault, “I, however, offered a different solution to this problem. Killing her wouldn’t do anyone any good. Finding out what differences her body had to a normal vampire–”

“–she is a normal vampire.” Eddie argues, glaring at River’s outstretched hand. “You’re talking about her like she’s a lab rat for you to poke and prod at.”

“What was she to you, then? A doll for you to drag around and play with until the next important man gave you a scrap of his attention?” River fires back, immediately shutting Eddie up. “Anyways, I came to Paris on behalf of my organization, under the guise of being a flourishing vampiric artist, and my original intent was to use my… connection with Amir to get to Canary. I’d then spend a few months with her, trying to see what made her so special, but I… overestimated my immunity to the charms of another.”

“I’d spent the majority of my vampiric life alone, minus the occasional dalliance and my time spent in the Roman coven,” River explains, “I never realized how… isolating such an existence was. Plus, the vampires who had been spying on Canary, Harper, and Eddie vastly undersold Canary’s magnetic personality to me. The spark was instant, the attraction undeniable, and my mission was quickly compromised. The objective truth I promised to those above me would be tainted with my own biases.”

“You fell in love,” Dolly comments, “How sweet.”

“After a few months, I was supposed to report back with my findings; instead, I sent a letter that contained a plea with my superiors to spare her life. It was… messy, garbled with falsified information and emotional turmoil,” River wears a rare smile on her face, “but it worked, under a very specific set of conditions. The most important was that I was to care for Canary for the rest of her immortal existence. She was my responsibility now, and when she disappeared after the fire at the theater, I had quite the predicament on my hands.”

“...Does Canary know this?” Eddie dares to ask.

“At first? No,” River quickly answers, “but the truth eventually slipped out. It wounded her, as it would wound anyone, but we worked through it.”

That… is really vague, when compared to her previous explanations. That can’t be the whole truth.

“May I offer anyone a drink?” Penelope sets a large container, filled to the brim with a red liquid that Dolly assumes is human blood, onto the table. “It’s pig’s blood, Mrs. Molloy, I swear by it–”

“–teach your spawn that it’s rude to read other people’s minds.” Dolly hisses before River dismisses Penelope with a flick of her fingers, and the mortal-assistant-turned-vampire slips into one of the two bedrooms, leaving Dolly alone with River and Eddie. “Get to the point, River. We don’t have all night.”

“I was desperate to find Canary, and even more desperate for my organization to not find out about her disappearance, but they did, and they even offered me assistance in finding her,” River returns to her original point with ease, “With their help, I was able to locate her with ease.”

“And then happily ever after?”

“Not quite, Dolly,” River wistfully says, “She wasn’t as happy to see me as I was to see her.”

It poured.

River remembered how her umbrella struggled against the heavy rainfall that nearly tore through the fabric due to its intensity. Yet, she was still out for a walk. Still out looking for something.

…Someone.

She didn’t know this city. Hell, she barely knew this country, yet here she was, aimlessly stumbling around and hoping that the information given to her wasn’t a complete joke–

There. In the distance. 

While other people ran for cover in buildings or under awnings, trying to hide from the rain before they got soaked, one person didn’t. They sat on the steps to a half-constructed apartment building, letting their clothes and hair become damp as their gaze remained focused on the road in front of them.

It was still nightfall, luckily, but daytime would be fatal for the vampire across the street, the one that River’s spent a quarter of a century looking for.

She quickly crossed the street, ignoring how a car or two honked at her because they nearly ran her over, before she took steady, easy steps towards you.

“You’ll catch a cold.” River said once she was close enough for you to hear her.

She still lingered a bit farther from you than she’d like to be, but she was unsure of your reaction to her after… what had occurred in Paris with you, Eddie, Harper, and Lucinda.

Especially since she was there.

“You should go,” You muttered, rainfall smearing your makeup, “I might do something rash if you stick around me.”

“I heard about Paris–”

“–I don’t want you here,” You plainly said, eyes briefly meeting River’s blue ones before you looked away in disinterest, “You were there when Harper… you were powerful enough to stop them. …Why didn’t you stop them?”

“I could not prevent it.” River then took another step forward, so she could hold the umbrella in her hands above you and her. “I would’ve been shunned, or killed–”

“–My daughter and her companion are gone,” Tears streamed down your cheeks, “and I have nothing left of her but her words and the dress that she… she…”

“You’re right. I’m making this about me when this should be about you,” River chose to sit next to you, once you scooted over enough for her to take a seat at your side, “There’s nothing I can say to take away the pain that lingers in your heart. You deserved more time with Harper, and she deserved to experience the world as it is now.”

“I think… that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” You sniffled, placing your head on River’s shoulders as she moved some of the wet hair from your face. “It’s like the rest of the world has moved on, but I can’t. She was everything to me, and I wish I could tell her that I love her — that she was so loved by her father and I — one last time.”

“She knew that. I think the last thing she felt was the love the three of you had for her.” River paused. “If that offers you any comfort.”

“I don’t think Volt–”

“–Don’t make any harsh assumptions.” River cut you off. “At a later time and date, we can discuss what went awry that day.”

“I know what happened, River, but it doesn’t change the ending. Harper’s gone, my marriage is in shambles, and I… I’m lost. I’m lost and alone and I don’t know if I want to be here anymore.”

“I know, lapinou,” River placed an arm around your body, and you collapsed into her hold as sob after sob tore through your body, “I’ll table that discussion for another time. For now, I think we should focus on you. What can I do for you, Canary? How can I help?”

“Stay with me.” You mumbled into her chest. “Don’t run off with someone else, ‘cause you think it’ll heal the hole in your heart.”

“I will.” River reassured you. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

“So you two ended up patching things up, water under the bridge,” Dolly concludes, “When did you two start seeing other women?”

“It started out as nightly hunts, but then we started finding women at bars and, well…” River chuckles. “You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t.” Dolly deadpans. “I don’t kill people for fun.”

“It wasn’t for fun. It was a necessity–”

“–so what you did to me was a necessity–?”

“–that was Eddie, not me or Canary–”

“–are you two going to do this the entire night?” Eddie interrupts Dolly’s argument with River, and Dolly scoffs as she folds her arms over her chest.

“How the tables turn, Eddie.”

“This is not like–” Eddie starts a defense, but he decides to let it go, “This isn’t about me or River. What do you remember about the night that you spent with River, Canary, and I?”

“Well, I remember you walkin’ in,” Dolly then looks to River with a grin forming on her face, “and how that ruined the fuckin’ vibe.”

“What are you doing?”

Dolly, in her drug-fueled haze, thought you or River were the one to ask her that question as her grey blazer dropped to the floor.

“Fulfullin’ my side of the social contract.” She cheekily said, not expecting a male voice to respond to her.

“Do you normally interview your subjects with your shirt off?”

“Shit!” She scrambled to gather her top from the floor as you elegantly walked from one of the windows to the foyer of the apartment to greet your husband, Dolly guessed, based on the way that you pecked his cheek the moment his hands met your waist.

“Hi, my love,” Your voice was calm and even as you spoke, lacking any of the affection that you had been showing Dolly and River all night, “How was the art show?”

“Amir told me you were out with a reporter,” Eddie dodged your question as he spoke, “I thought she would’ve been–”

“–not her, Eddie. She’s different,” You looked back at Dolly, offering her a sweet smile before Eddie pressed a kiss to your lips, which seemed to catch you off-guard, “Eddison, you’re early.”

“–I missed you, sweetheart.”

“You could’ve waited.” You murmured, placing a hand from his chest as Eddie swiped the cigarette from your other hand. “Hey–!”

“–I’ll come back when you’re done with,” He glanced at River, then Dolly, “whatever this is.”

He broke away from you, placing one last kiss on your cheek before he walked towards the door.

“Or,” Your voice dropped to a near-inaudible volume, “you could stay.”

Eddie immediately turned around.

“You want me to stay?”

“Only if you want to stay,” You countered, “if you want to be here with me. I understand if you and Amir have somewhere else you’d rather–”

“–I’ll stay, mon ange,” Eddie’s hand reached for yours, and you giggled when he pressed a long kiss to the palm of your hand, “if you want me here.”

“I do, Eddie. I really do.” 

You then guided Dolly back to her seat at the table, where she happily enjoyed some affection from River via head scratches or small pecks that led from her cheek to her neck, before you were pulled into Eddie’s lap after he sat at the other end of the table to the two women that you had been spending the night with.

Dolly noted the shift in energy in the room, from something new, exciting, and sexy to a subtle, domestic, warm air that surrounded everyone in the room. Her gaze went to your thighs — because goddamn — where Eddie’s hand traced small circles over the fabric of your dress. He took advantage of your positioning, kissing the side of your exposed neck so you’d laugh and shyly hide your head in the crook of his neck.

The two of you, for a lack of better words from Dolly’s end, looked perfect together. 

Before long, Dolly found herself reaching for her tape recording, and she quickly set it up to record before she spoke to the device.

“Eddie and Canary Watts, from New Orleans. The two of you specialize in low-end real estate?”

“Eddie likes to predict what overlooked products will flourish in time: low-end property, little-known art.” You romantically described as you ran a hand up and down one of Eddie’s forearms, happily taking a puff from the cigarette that he passes to you. “Worth is often miscalculated because of–”

“–hue?” Dolly asked, and you shook your head.

“Minor factors.” Eddie spoke next. “You can squeeze profit out of that margin.”

“So did the three of you gravitate–” Dolly watched River shake her head, seemingly uninterested in being interviewed, so Dolly quickly course-corrected, “two of you gravitate to San Fran as a hub for homophiles?”

You chuckled a bit before you answered.

“Paris, in the 1940s, with its permissive laissez-aller sexual atmosphere, was the more…” You looked at River knowingly, “formative liberation for me.”

Dolly took a swig of her beer, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Take this seriously.” She looked you up, then down. “The 1940s? You barely look old enough to drink.”

“I am.” You pouted, which made Eddie turn your face towards him with two of his fingers before he softened his gaze.

“You look good, angel.” His gaze then moved down your body. “Really good–”

“–stop.” You whined, carefully pushing away his head before he chuckled. “It’s embarrassing when you do that in front of other people.”

“You love it,” Eddie said, with nothing but love in his eyes for you, “You love me.”

“...I do, don’t I?” You whispered back as Dolly pressed one of the buttons on her tape recorder, which opened the hatch where the tape was supposed to be recording this conversation.

“Shit,” Dolly smacked her forehead before she stood, not noticing how you, Eddie, and River exchanged looks, “I forgot the tape.”

Dolly raced over to her satchel, digging through her things as you called out to her.

“We’re vampires, y’know?”

“Okay,” Dolly grinned when she finally fished a clean tape from her bag, “I mean, I’m really interested to know why you believe that.”

You laughed that warm laugh of yours, a sound that made Dolly’s heart pound, before you appeared right in front of her, as if you ran from the table to the kitchen area in less than a second when that is literally impossible for any human to do. She jumped, gasping for air as she backed into the stove behind her when you opened your mouth to her.

Are those… abnormally large teeth hanging out of your mouth?

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

To Dolly’s absolute horror, like this could get any fucking worse, River and Eddie appeared to have those same fangs in their mouths.

Uh-oh. This is bad. Like really, really bad. Like, Dolly might be really dead in about thirty seconds bad.

“Are those fangs?” She gulped for air as you placed your hands behind your back, smiling at her like nothing at all was wrong.

Like this was everyday, normal behavior for you.

“Hi, honey.” Your sweet voice now sent shivers down Dolly’s spine.

“Fuck…” Dolly couldn’t believe what she was seeing, “are you the Zodiac killer?”

“Oh no, Dolly,” You turned on your heeling, calmly walking back into your husband’s arms as you climbed into his lap, “I’m something way more interesting than that. We all are.”

With shaky fingers, Dolly undid the cellophane over the new tape before she threw it into the machine, now wanting nothing to do with River as Dolly flinched every time the vampire tried to touch her.

Dolly tapped one of the few remaining lines on the table with her finger before she put the white substance in her mouth. Then, as a chaser, she grabbed a cigarette from the open box on the table, lighting it with relative ease despite the fear crippling her every movement.

She took a puff from the cigarette, releasing the fumes into the air as you leaned in towards her.

“Don’t be afraid,” You tapped your fingers against the table, to a rhythm that no one knew except you, “just start the tape.”

Dolly was not a dumbass — she understood that this is kind of a hostage situation, so she did exactly as you said.

“Okay. It’s on now.” She had a few questions prepped for you, but this new development had completely thrown her off her game. “Uh… First question. You and your husband weren’t always vampires, were you?”

“No.” Eddie placed a loving hand on your side, pulling you closer to him. “I was a thirty-seven-year-old man when I became a vampire. Canary was–”

“–twenty-seven,” You sternly glared at Eddie, rendering him temporarily speechless, “when I was turned.”

“She lied.” Dolly murmurs, looking at her notebook like it holds all of the answers. It doesn’t. “Why would she lie?”

“To make herself sound older–”

“–to make me look better,” Eddie has no problem talking over River, “She didn’t give a shit if people thought she looked young. That woman does not have a vain bone in her body, River.”

“I… know,” River struggles to answer before eventually accepting that he’s right, “I just put myself into her shoes and thought about what I would do if I was her.”

“If everyone thought like Canary,” Eddie wistfully smiles, “the world would be a lot better of a place.”

“And how did it come about?” Dolly asked the next question that popped into her mind. She was flying by the seat of her pants, but it seemed to be working… for now.

“There’s a… simple answer to that,” You bit your lip, “I don’t believe I want to give simple answers. I wanna tell the real story. Our story.”

You grabbed Eddie’s hand for support, and he gave it to you. Dolly had a good feeling that he’d give you the world if you asked for it.

“You smoke shaky cigarette after shaky cigarette,” River notes, watching how Dolly’s left hand subtly quakes, like a tree in a hefty breeze, “You shook more then than you do now.”

“What I remember most, other than that the three of you were aliens, five feet from me,” Dolly shoots back, really wishing that she had one of those cigarettes at this very moment, “was how eager Eddie and Canary were to spill. No coaxing on my part, no journalism per se.”

“You were terrified of us, Dolly.” Eddie places a hand behind the back of his chair as Dolly narrows her eyes.

“You two were lonely, Eddie. Lonely and trapped in a marriage that wasn’t working, despite how hard you both tried to make it work.” 

“It was gratifying for them to tell you what they were,” River jumps in, if only to prevent Eddie’s heated gaze from frying Dolly into a literal crisp, “after mingling with humans for so long.”

“They weren’t thrill-seekin’. They were flounderin’.” Dolly asserts. “Tape after tape of emotional upchuck. Bouncin’ off of each other’s thoughts, finishin’ each other’s sentences, but anyone with a pair of eyes could tell that somethin’ was off between the two of you.”

“I was scared she was going to hurt herself, after what happened to Harper, so maybe I held on a little too tight,” Eddie admits, “but I needed her. More than I needed anyone — or anything — else in the world. If she died, I don’t know what I’d do with myself. …How could I go on living when my heart stopped beating?”

“...That’s why you asked me if she was alive, the night I arrived in Berlin.” River recalls.

“I needed to know if that was the reason she stopped writing to me.” Eddie stuffs his hands under the table, but a quick peek tells Dolly that he only did so to hide how badly they shook. “I don’t need Canary to love me anymore — that ship has sailed, and I don’t deserve that kind of affection from her anymore. I want to see her for myself. I want to see if she’s happy and well, if she still smiles and laughs after everything she’s been through.”

“Canary’s… better. Better than she was in Paris and San Francisco. I don’t think she’ll be happy until she sees you again,” River confesses, which causes Eddie’s ears to perk up, “she talks about you every day. The dates you used to go on together, the things you’d tell her before she went to sleep, the gifts you gave her when she wasn’t feeling well. If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”

“Right,” Dolly feels bad for interrupting, but she kinda wants to get things back on track, “that’s good and all, but–”

“–what’s the next thing you remember, honey?” River quickly asks her.

“A lot of talkin’,” Dolly clicks her tongue, “but most of what I remember is Canary slanderin’ Volt.”

“He had a dark pull, a numbing effect on the senses,” You pointed at Dolly, now pacing the room as you spoke to the reporter, “He was a handsome Satan.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dolly nodded in agreement, “I know the type.”

River was mostly silent through the exchange, simply watching the three of you interact for… kicks? For laughs? Dolly had a really hard time getting a read on this woman.

“When you stripped away his superficial charms,” You spoke animatedly, using your hands to gesture wildly around you, “beneath his flimsy gentleman’s veneer… Volt was trivial, vapid, vulgar, maniacal, blind, sterile, and contemptible!”

“Big time asshole.” Dolly stood up, stretching her legs from sitting too long as Eddie reached his hand out towards you.

“Pretty girl, please sit down, I don’t want you on your feet if you’re not feelin’ well–”

“–At times, he would appear frail and stupid to me. A man made of dried twigs with a thin, carping voice.” You continued your tirade, ignoring Eddie as you raced over to shut the two windows that could potentially let future sunlight into the space, “And for all that Volt boasted about his love of music, he played without an iota of feeling. Nothing! No one home, like an automaton, plunking away at the notes with all the emotional acuity of a monster!”

“Yeah, but you and your husband were suggestible,” Dolly countered, “I mean, he lured you in, you know? He’s a faker, but you figured that out. By then, however, you’d paid a biblical price for your first European love.”

You stopped in your tracks, your gaze hardening as you focused in on her.

“I’m sorry,” She immediately backtracked, “I didn’t mean to–”

“–that was astute.” You glowed as you gave Dolly praise, and she relished in that shit.

“See? You were nimble-minded, even back then.” River points out.

“I was a moron.” Dolly bemoans before Eddie shakes his head, a faint smile on his face.

“Not to Canary. She thought you were brilliant.”

“Will you, uh…” Dolly shyly looked away from you. “Do the fang thing again?”

A smile forced its way onto your lips before you obliged her requests, happily displaying your fangs for an audience of one who grinned like the sight of your sharpened pearly whites was the best thing in the world.

Dolly laughed merrily, as did you. 

“I love that!” She then turned to the tape recorder. “Just for reference, that was Canary Watts just now, makin’ her fangs… come out.”

The tape recorder clicked, causing Dolly to groan in annoyance.

“Shit. The tape ran out. It’s just a small, thirty-minute thing.”

“If I had been an actual journalist and, you know, not fried off of coke and ludes,” Dolly has no problem dunking on her past self, “I would have realized what a dangerous, unstable group of individuals I was with. Because, the next thing that happened was Canary detonating because of you, River.”

Sunlight was now trying to make its way into that very apartment, but your earlier actions had prevented you and Eddie from frying up in the sunlight. The man in question had yawned nearly a thousand times at this point, and he was eager to drag you into bed so the two of you could rest.

River, on the other hand, seemed to be unaffected by the lack of sleep. She snuck off earlier, when you were introducing Harper to Dolly, and she returned with a small letter in her hands that neither Eddie nor you saw, but Dolly clocked in right away.

“I sat on that bench in Jackson Square,” You solemnly said, “watched Harper disappear into the night.”

“I’m kinda with her.” Dolly was now laid out on the couch in the living room, occasionally watching the tape recorder to make sure that the device captured all of your words. “Get off that bench, sister.”

“I pictured her on the platform,” You continued on, disregarding Dolly’s interruption, “boarding her train, carrying her off into her future. A future I would be absent from.”

“Or,” Dolly mumbled as she brought the cigarette to her lips, “you just pick yourself up.”

“Stay behind with Volt and Eddie. I knew within seconds it was the only choice, the wrong choice, but I chose it anyway–”

“–and then what?”

“Then… what?” You responded to Dolly, finally, leaning against the wall as you fought tears that threatened to fall from your eyes. “I had nothing. Nothing but the bench I was sitting on. So, I stayed there for longer than I should’ve before I took the long way home. All I had to do was stop a few times, and I wouldn’t make it home before the sun came up. Let it bleach my bones, purify the putrid soul–”

“–What, you were just going to end it?” Dolly stared at you in disbelief. “I mean, what about life? Like, joyrides and night swimmin’ and marriage and cancer, and all of that ‘til the death rattle. We gotta carry this shit, and you had a ticket out. You’re tellin’ me that you were just gonna throw it away? I–”

“–Don’t.” You turned cold, rather suddenly. “You’ve overstepped.”

“Listen, obviously you didn’t do it,” Dolly stood, approaching you despite the warning you issued from your lips, “but you were given the gift, and I’ve been hearin’ you bitch the night away about it. Since you use the past tense about Harper, I figure she’s…”

“She’s what?” 

“Well,” Dolly was starting to feel a little threatened, “I can see where this is going, and I–”

“–And what?” You hissed, but you couldn’t approach Dolly anymore since River had intervened, placing herself between the two of you.

“You aren’t mad at her. She wants to be turned. That’s where this conversation is headed.”

“She wants…” You pointed at River, then yourself. “This?”

“I’d give it to her,” River shrugged, “wouldn’t you?”

You didn’t directly answer River, but you did slowly nod after an uncomfortable moment of silence.

“Besides, if you want someone to be mad at,” River placed that letter against your chest before she smiled at Eddie when he frowned at her, immediately recognizing the parchment that was in your hands, “I think that anger would be best directed at the man who hid that letter from you for nearly thirty years.”

“...Eddie?” You looked at him, anger wiped off of your face, to be replaced with a heartache that seemed natural on your features. “What is this?”

“I can explain–” Before he could reach you, you tore the letter open, easily digesting its contents as your eyes slowly scanned the page that you held in your hands, “–merde.”

The room went eerily silent as you read, mouthing along to the words before you placed a hand over your mouth in shock.

“Where’d you get this from?” You asked. “And don’t you dare lie to me–”

“–Roget and Associates.”

You paused, letting Eddie’s answer permeate in the air for a moment.

“When?”

“In 1945.”

Your face went through a variety of emotions within a few milliseconds. Grief. Anger. Misery. Sadness. Rage. Hatred. Heartbreak.

And then you started laughing. Not the sweet, bubbly laughter that lit up the room — no, this was dry and callous and cold. 

“Thirty years ago… Did he write you one, too?”

“Canary, please–”

You held a finger out towards him, stopping Eddie from coming any closer with that single motion.

“–Not another goddamn step until you answer me, Eddie. Did Volt write you a letter like this one?”

“...Yes.”

“Do you know what’s in this letter?” You held the parchment between two of your fingers. “Is that why you hid it from me?”

“I didn’t want to pry,” Eddie’s harsh gaze then went to River, “Where did you find that?”

“You’re not as secretive as you think you are, Eddie.” River noncommittally answered before she placed a hand over Dolly’s chest, pulling her away from you and Eddie. “Don’t get mixed up in this. It won’t be pretty.”

“What do you–” Dolly started, before you interrupted her.

“–for the longest time, I convinced myself that it was just Volt. That every coincidence or misremembered occurrence was just my brain trying to cope with everything that I lived through. …Everything we lived through. But it wasn’t just him, was it?” You accused. “And Volt didn’t change you. You’ve always been a liar and a cheat and an assshole, and I was too young and naive to see it. Is that why you chose me in the first place? Because it’d be so easy to trick a girl who’s never been respected or loved for who she is into loving you with sweet words and honeysuckle, falsified promises–”

“–I didn’t trick you. I fell in love with you, Canary–”

“–No, you didn’t.” You argued right back to Eddie, not giving him time to build a defense. “You fell in love with an ideal. A woman who never truly existed, one that I had to mold myself into in order to get some scraps of affection and praise from the first man in a position of power who respected and saw me for who I was.”

“I didn’t want you to change. I like you for who you are.” Eddie stepped forward, defying your earlier order. “I loved you in New Orleans, I loved you in Paris, and I love you now, in San Francisco.”

“Love me? You don’t even like me, Eddie!” You screamed at him. “You don’t even know my real name! You just know Canary, the girl who stumbled into your care, begging for work. The girl who fell in love with you because you were kind and respectful and different. You were different… you were supposed to be different, but deep down, you’re just like every other man that I’ve met. The only difference between you and them is that they don’t pretend like they’re not monsters. They know what they are, and they’ve accepted it.”

“You never told me your real name–”

“–that’s not the fucking point!” You threw your hands into the air, fingers tightly gripping that letter that Volt had written for you. “You didn’t ask. You never asked. You assumed that I wanted to erase my identity and become a new woman under your care. Fuck, Eddie, I was barely a woman when we met! The older I get, the more I realize how young I was when we first met. You took advantage of that–”

“–I didn’t mean to–”

“–intent doesn’t change shit, Eddie. You manipulated and took advantage of a young woman who trusted you. I know I came onto you, but you can’t blame this — us — on me. You should’ve said no. It would’ve saved us both a lot of heartbreak.” You spat out.

“So you regret the past fifty years?” Eddie questioned, and your silence was deafening. “You regret meeting and falling in love with me–”

“–I regret trusting you. I regret believing you when you told me things that were too good to be true. I regret…” You finally let blood-red tears fall down your cheeks. “I regret the choices that we made that got our daughter, our Harper–”

“–What happened in Paris wasn’t our fault–”

“–is that what you tell yourself so you can fall asleep at night?” You asked Eddie. “Our bullshit got in the way of her life, ‘til the very end. Everything we did led up to that moment in time. Don’t you think about what you could’ve done differently? Don’t you hear her sweet voice in your head, trying to tell you that everything’s okay when it isn’t? Don’t you see her shadow in every room and her bright red hair in every crowd? Don’t you hear her words in the mouths of the youth that wander these streets, completely unaware of how fragile their mortal lives are?”

“Every night, I hear her scream your name before I wake up.” Eddie muttered, eyes glassy with tears that match yours. “I think about her–”

“–that’s new.” You scoffed. “You didn’t give a shit about her when she was alive.”

“She brushed me off, time after time–”

“–And you took that as a sign to give up, rather than reach your hand further out?” Frustrated, you rushed over to the table before you slammed the letter down on it. “You don’t get it, do you? Let me spell it out for you plainly, since you can’t see it for yourself. Harper wanted you to choose her. She wanted you to choose us over another–”

“–I did–”

“–Yeah, you did. When no one else was around,” You pointed out, “You chose Volt, over us, time and time again. You chose Amir over us, again and again. Same shit, different guy, Eddie! You can’t help but have your cake and eat it, too.”

“It wasn’t just about Harper.” Eddie said. “You wanted me to pick you over someone else, when I didn’t want to pick sides.”

“You’re goddamn right I did!” You appeared to be at your wits’ end with your husband. “I'd choose you over anyone else. God, Eddie, I'd choose you over humankind, if push came to shove. My world revolves around you, but I hardly feel like a passing thought in your mind at times.”

“You're all I think about.” He didn't hesitate in refuting your last point. “I don't like lying to you, but I do what I have to, in order to protect us.”

“Protect us?” You repeated with a dry chuckle. “What the fuck does lying to me about the day we got married — not the day we were supposed to get married, the day we really did after Volt supposedly injured me — have to do with protecting us?”

“...Is that what's in that letter?”

“I don't know, Eddie,” You played stupid, folding your arms over your chest, “why don't you tell me if that's the truth, or if it's the shit you force-fed me after I was concussed. …Oh, and feel free to tell me about the night Harper was turned, or the nights leading up to when I was turned, since you left out a few details when you told Dolly about what happened.”

Eddie went slack-jawed before he raised his eyebrows at you.

“So you're going to believe Volt over me?”

“A classic out of the manipulator playbook, Eddie,” Dolly says, enjoying how he physically cringes at his past actions, “nice one.”

“Volt was a bastard, a self-absorbed egomaniac, a narcissist with a vendetta against anyone who he perceived as a threat,” You listed Volt's faults so plainly, for everyone to see, “but he wasn’t a liar. He didn’t lie to me, unless you forced his hand.”

“You eviscerated Volt for three hours–”

“–you want me to go into you next? Do you really wanna talk about how much of a spineless coward you are when you’re around another man who gives you a crumb of attention?”

“You sound like him when you get angry, and it’s an ugly look on you, Canary.” Eddie harshly said, which caused you to smile victoriously.

“Finally, a bit of honesty from you! Took, what, fifty years to finally get you to say something that feels real?” You backed off of Eddie, letting him read the letter that set you off in the first place. “I am not a perfect being, Eddie. I have faults — plenty of ‘em — and you’re right to point them out. I’ll take your honesty, even if it hurts. That’s what I want from you.”

“I won’t hurt you.” Eddie shook his head. “I won’t break your heart, or belittle you–”

“–because you think you’re better than me! That’s your problem, Eddie. You act like you’re better than me or Volt or Amir when you’re not. You are just as shitty and fucked up as the rest of us!” You took a deep breath in, then out to balance yourself. “I’m sick of your shit, Eddie. I’m tired of arguing in circles with you. I’m tired of being lied to and manipulated for my own well-being, according to your logic.”

“Canary–”

“–I tried — I really tried — to make things work with you. I took a long look at myself and tried to fix what was wrong with me so we could be happily married.” You placed a hand on your forehead, tapping your foot on the ground to relieve some of the stress from your body. “I was a good wife to you. I took care of you when you weren’t feeling well, I stayed with you through thick and thin, and I loved you with every bit of my heart. I was a good mother to our children, and I tried my damndest to give Harper a good life, even when the universe seemed to be out for her blood. I sacrificed everything for you, and it still wasn’t enough for you. What more of myself could I give to you, besides my heart served on a platter for you to destroy? Why wasn’t I enough for you?”

“You were enough. You are enough. You will always be enough for me.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around your wrist after he walked towards you, trying to bridge the great divide that formed between you and him during this argument.

“Why can’t you mean what you say, my love?” Anger dissolved from your body, replaced with a strong misery that swept over your face, causing your strong posture to deflate once more. “Why can’t your actions match your words?”

“This isn’t about me, is it?” Eddie surmised. “I know you’re still angry about Harper–”

“–don’t bring my daughter into this.” You snapped at him before your gaze fixated on your wrist. “Let go of me. Now.”

“Canary, we can talk about this–”

“–I’m done talking. I wanna leave,” You looked at Eddie with desperation in your eyes, “You have a chance to do the right thing, Eddie. Don’t make this any more painful than it has to be.”

“I…” Eddie trailed off, fighting an inner battle with himself that is quickly won by the side of him that you don’t like. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“You had a death grip on her wrist, and she pulled away from you. You wouldn’t let her go,” Dolly winces as she recalls the memory, “I still hear that poppin’ sound in my nightmares. That must’ve been painful, even for an immortal vampire.”

“A broken wrist heals in a few days for a vampire,” River explains, “her heart, however? That pain took decades to recover from.”

Your shriek of pain was what finally snapped Eddie out of his daze, and he immediately let go of you when you sobbed from a mixture of physical hurt, heartache, and fury.

“Canary, angel–” He reached out to you, to help you with your injury, but his eyes widened with realization when you scampered away from him in fear.

“–No. Don’t get any closer,” You choked out the words, “You’ve done enough.”

There was no more theatrics from you, no more harsh words issued from your lips. You were done with this conversation, once you said your piece. Dolly could easily see that you had burned off the decades of resentment building within you, and what was left was a broken woman who just realized that staying with the man she loves is a death sentence. He won’t mean to, but if things don’t change, it’ll happen someday, when you least expect it.

You ran into the bedroom, shutting the door behind you before you loudly weeped against the door. The next thing anyone heard from that room was the ripping of papers from the spine of a multitude of books, journals, or diaries — Dolly wasn’t sure, since she wasn’t in the room — that you owned. You did this for a while, with your feet shuffling against the ground since you couldn’t stay put to save your life, before you emerged from the bedroom with bloodshot eyes and a journal in the grasp of your good hand.

Without another word from your mouth, you chucked that diary at Eddie’s head, but you missed by a country mile and hit the wall on the other side of the room. 

“Fuck you,” You whispered, “for stealing my life from me.”

You then opened up the palm of your injured hand, revealing a set of house keys. 

“These will be under the house mat when you get home tomorrow. I’m taking Harper’s journals with me, and I’ll…” You sniffled before you wiped a stray tear from your cheek. “My journals are yours. Do whatever the fuck you want with them. Burn them, keep them, read them, publish them — I don’t give a shit. You can exploit my pain however you wish, but I will protect my daughter until my dying breath. Until I can see her again.”

With all of that said and done, you tried to leave.

“Eddie, walk with me here.” Dolly taps her pen against her notebook, as she wrote the Sparknotes of her recollection of that night on a piece of paper so she could keep track of those thoughts while she spoke. “You broke Canary’s wrist on her dominant hand, yet you claim that she was the one to attack you and give you those scars on your chest, right? So, did she attack you with her non-dominant hand and get stupidly lucky, since she couldn’t hit you with a book that she threw from that hand, or–”

“–I remember her face, and it felt like her hand was the one clawing into my chest, but I…” Eddie runs a nervous hand through his hair, “I don’t think it was her.”

“That’s right, Eddie.” River nods in agreement. “It was me.”

“You have to let her go, Eddie.” River placed a hand on Eddie’s chest, preventing him from moving closer to you.

“She’ll be gone–”

“–She has to go, and you know it.” She argued back.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Don’t make me use force.” River bared her fangs, gripping Eddie’s shirt tightly until he hissed back at her. “Fine. Then you leave me no choice.”

“Canary screamed when my nails went through your flesh, and she fled the apartment shortly after.” River finishes. “There was a sewer system attached to the basement of the building, and she hid there until nightfall. Eddie and Amir were still distracted with you, Dolly, so I grabbed Canary as soon as I could and we left the city, right after she grabbed Harper’s belongings.”

“Where’d you go?” Dolly’s inquisitive nature gets the best of her as she steers the conversation away from San Francisco once again.

“Everywhere. Nowhere. We got lost for a while, wandered through civilization, tried to find meaning in a world of endless suffering and agony,” River’s face suddenly heats up as she speaks, “Sorry. Canary’s rubbed off on me over the years. Perks of being so close to someone you care for. …I see some of her mannerisms in you as well, Eddie. The head nods, the facial expressions you can’t hold back… it all comes back to her, doesn’t it?”

“But you ended up in Canada.” Eddie draws attention to your current location, avoiding discussing you for a moment. Dolly can practically smell the guilt on him, so it doesn’t surprise her that he’s not jumping at the bit for information on you right now.

“We did, by her suggestion. A cottage in the middle of nowhere. Two bedrooms, one bath, an office for me and for her.” River describes her current abode in choppy yet descriptive clauses. “A garden in the back that’s dedicated to her little family and to the ones she’s lost. A bench where she sits and lets time pass her by. It’s a part of the quiet, peaceful life that Canary never got to have when she was with you.”

“It’s the least she deserves, after everything I put her through.”

Eddie’s admission does surprise Dolly — well, mostly the use of I instead of blaming someone else — but she can’t help but feel a little bad for him. It’s clear to her that he’s changed since that fateful night. Less selfish, less prideful, more reserved and thoughtful than what she remembered him as.

Don’t get her wrong, he’s still got a long way to go, with a lot of sins to atone for, but it’s a start. A start that you’d surely recognize and embrace when the two of you finally came face-to-face.

“However, before I left, I did offer Eddie one last thing,” River abruptly pivots back to Dolly, casually patting the girl’s hand like she doesn’t remember what comes next, “you, honey.”

“You’re injured,” River traced the bloodied lines that she just left on Eddie’s chest before she spun him towards Dolly, “You need food. Just don’t… kill the girl, alright? I like her.”

“Spoiler alert: He did try to kill me–”

“–I was upset–”

“–Why’d you take it out on me?!” Dolly sneers at Eddie. “I mean, I would’ve understood it if Canary attacked me. I basically told a suicidal woman who was reaching out for help to cheer the fuck up because life couldn’t be that bad if you lived forever.”

“It was an overreaction on my end.” Eddie confesses.

“I’m not sure if killing me was a totally warranted response to my idiocy.” Dolly drums her fingers against the table before she chuckles. “I mean, I deserved to have my ass kicked for the sheer number of times I said, ‘And then what?’”

“All the drugs in your blood, it all went back into me–” Eddie speaks, overlapping Dolly when she continues to poke fun at her past self.

“–Cornertstone of prize-winnin’ journalism right there–”

“–it’s probably why I can’t remember what happened after Amir–”

“–and then what?” Dolly mocks herself in a high-pitched voice before she opens the lid of her computer. “I, um…”

I have to tell him about the recordings eventually.

She quickly types in her computer password so she can open up the home screen, loudly clearing her throat as she searches for the audio files of their interview on her computer.

“A hesitation–”

“–shut up.” Dolly shoots River down before she quickly finds what she is looking for. Bingo. “I have a surprise for you, Eddie. A curveball which will seem like less of a surprise, and more like an ambush.”

Dolly then turns her computer to Eddie, who stares at the screen in confusion for a few moments before it clicks in his head.

“Is that our original interview?”

“A few hours of it, yes. I thought I only had a recording of one tape, but…” She shakes her head, “Nevermind. Turns out, I had a copy of it saved in the cloud.”

“You’re a liar, Dolly–”

“–so are you, Eddie. Whether you acknowledge it or not. You wanna point fingers back and forth at each other, or do you want to get back to business?” Dolly waits for an objection from Eddie that never comes before she continues to talk. “Do you remember the last nine minutes, with Betty Hutton drownin’ out the indecipherable moaning and yelling?”

“Yes.” Eddie sharply answers.

“My researcher, uh…” Dolly quickly comes up with a lie that seems suitable for this occasion. “assistant is a bit of an audiophile, and she cleaned it up a bit. Press pause at the betrayal of it all, and listen.”

Dolly presses play, and the sounds of teeth mangling flesh can be heard from her computer. A lamp is knocked to the ground, making a hellacious crashing sound in the background as a younger version of Dolly moans in pain, over and over again. There’s a couple more harsh thuds, which Dolly assumes is her getting slammed into this or that piece of furniture by Eddie as he drank from her, before a door can be heard opening in the background.

“Eddie?”

A new voice entered the apartment, and Dolly experienced a new kind of pain as she was ripped from Eddie’s jaws before she was slammed into a nearby wall, creating a small crater where her body hit the surface.

“That wet thud?” Dolly points out. “That’s Amir saving me.”

Eddie was thrown to the other side of the room, and he stumbled into the kitchen before Amir glared at him from the other side of the room.

Between the festering anger from your earlier argument with him, and the drugs and alcohol flowing through Eddie’s system from Dolly’s blood, he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he was looking for a fight with Amir. Maybe he brought it upon himself.

“What?” Eddie hissed, becoming more upset when the other vampire doesn’t respond. “What?!”

“It’s morning!” Amir opened the curtain of one of the windows ever-so-slightly, showing Eddie the strong daylight sun that filtered through the apartment with ease.

“I lost time. Things got a little heated–”

“–with a mortal girl. Things got heated with a mortal girl!” Amir angrily pointed at an unconscious Dolly who was slumped against the wall. “Where’s–”

“–gone. Long gone. And she’s not coming back.” Eddie’s lip trembled as he spoke of you. “I don’t think she ever will.”

“Huh,” Amir had no reaction, choosing instead to drill into Eddie, “While you were here, I was picking lint off of the sofa at home!”

“I asked you to join me–”

“–the night’s gone. The room’s soiled,” Amir vaguely gestured to the ripped pages of your diary that are scattered around the living room, alongside the table that Eddie flipped as he drained Dolly, “and, once again, I’m here with mop and mindlessness to clean it up.” 

“So the room got dirty, so what?” Eddie didn’t see what Amir saw. “I’ll clean it up.”

“No! I clean it up!” Amir yelled. “You make the mess, and I clean it up! Mark it in the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Eddie’s tri-annual fuck off and find me with apologies to follow.”

Eddie laughed, wiping some of the blood off of his chin.

“I’m sorry–”

“–Seek comfort in the arms of a woman who doesn’t want you, in lowlifes and unfortunates and broken children, that’s fine.”

“Fine?” Eddie scoffed. “The fine that doesn’t sound like–”

“–but revealing our nature to a reporter your wife — ex-wife, as it seems” Amir made a correction that stung Eddie’s soul, “met in a bar ten hours ago? What if it was published?”

“The girls were having some fun, and I joined them–”

“–You don’t have enough to fear from Paris, after what your wife did?” Amir hissed.

“I was in the middle of ending things, when you showed up!” Eddie threw his hands into the air as Amir continued to argue with him.

“You’d have been passed out on the floor next to her, Eddie! Out on your feet from the drugs you stuffed her with–!”

“–Oh, this is boring!” Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re boring! You are so boring!”

“And here come the drugs.” Amir scoffed as Eddie got into his face.

“Colorless, flavorless–”

“–up the fangs, down this road–” Amir sounded bored as he went back-and-forth with Eddie.

“–dull, unimportant–” Eddie jabbed his finger into Amir’s chest.

“–into the heart and off with fingers, feet and wallowing brain–”

“–dull nights, dull weeks, dull months, dull as fuck!” Eddie waved his hand around Amir’s face in a circular, exaggerated motion. “Suffocation by the world’s softest, beige-est pillow! The ten hours I spent with that girl were more exciting — more fascinating — than decades with you!”

Eddie panted, walking away for a moment before he looked back and saw Amir’s jaw set in anger. A subtle expression, but one he knew well.

“Oh, there it is! The half-blank, half-apocalyptic look. But what does it mean tonight, huh?” Eddie taunted. “Does he want to lick my boots, or chop my hands off? Is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight, huh?”

“Okay,” Amir relented, but only for a moment as he reached for one of the tapes that Eddie knocked over earlier, “Okay, perhaps, but am I as boring as the blather committed onto the ferric tapes of your fascinating girl?”

Amir sat down on a couch that had gaudy designs on the cushioning, even for the seventies as he mocked Eddie.

“‘Oh, it’s so, so hard to be me.’”

“Did you say that you were picking lint off the sofa earlier?!” Eddie backtracked while Amir continued to storm forward in his verbal assault.

“‘It’s so hard to kill humans. I can feel their feelings as I drain them!’”

“You sat on your hands, and put your ear to the wind–”

“‘–Everyone I know wrongs me, and nothing is ever my fault!’”

“Okay, okay,” Eddie then glanced at Dolly, who was still knocked out and not with them, before his gaze returned to Amir, “let’s wake the girl up, and let’s try you.”

Eddie had done this dance with Volt a thousand times over in New Orleans. He knew how to go low and hit where it hurts most.

“‘I’m the vampire Amir,’” Eddie ridiculed Amir with a terrible impression of him, “‘and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch!’”

Not to be outdone, Amir launched himself into an impression of a southern accent that was scarcely found in Eddie’s voice after being removed from New Orleans for so many years.

“‘My momma and daddy never loved me, so I groomed a young woman into becoming my bride–’”

“‘–Vampires who murdered my daddy made me–’” The mockery continued to fall from Eddie’s lips, so Amir shot back with another bullet aimed at Eddie’s chest.

“‘–but I couldn’t make her love me, so I baby-trapped her with a little girl and pretended like that fixed things when it didn’t–’”

“–pretend I didn’t have a dick for two-hundred and forty years–”

“–mon ange was my daughter was my sister was my throw pillow when he wouldn’t look at me kindly,” And there was the killshot from Amir, “Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt, Volt!” 

“I talked shit about him the whole time! So what?!” Eddie argued before Amir fully snapped at him.

“The name!” His scream shut Eddie up. “The name! It went unuttered in our home for twenty-five years, said over and over again until it was pounding in my brain like a hammer.”

“Our problems,” Eddie weakly said, “Aren’t about him–”

“–You threw Canary’s name around just for cover, but it always circled back to him.” Amir threw out his observations of Eddie’s behavior. 

“I love her–”

“–but she doesn’t love you more than she loves Harper, and that’s why she left you.” Amir’s words caused Eddie to recoil. “She doesn’t love you like he did, nor like I have.”

“I know,” Eddie softly murmured before he exploded, “I know! I know… thank you for saying it.”

Eddie’s vision swam as he backed into the kitchen, mumbling to himself all the while.

“It’s all creeping back. Paris, and the… what, what, what? But there’s… all of it coming back,” Amir stared blankly at Eddie as he rambled on and on and on, “Paris… Paris, the girls… they–”

He paused, looking up to the ceiling as the drugs made him hear two young, sweet, feminine voices.

“Can you hear that? Can you hear her?” Eddie asked no one in particular. “My girls, my daughters… they’re calling me.”

Eddie then suddenly rushed out of the apartment.

“I think that’s you running out of the room,” Dolly says, as she hears two doors open, then close in the recording that’s playing, “Hear that? A second door slammed, further off. What’s that second door slam?”

“I don’t remember,” Eddie quietly says, “I don’t remember any of this.”

“First door opens,” Dolly plays the audio clip again, so she and Eddie can hear the sequence of events once more, “slam. Footsteps. Second door slams, metal door. Amir calls your name–”

“–Eddie–!”

“–He runs after you. Metal door opens to screams,” Dolly pauses so Eddie and River can hear the horrific screams of pain in question, “A few more seconds, tape runs out. Where is Amir following you, Eddie? It’s morning. You went out of the room.”

Eddie opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

Dolly plays the recording back again.

“Door opens.” She times her words perfectly with the audio being played. “Slams. Steps. Metal door–”

“–Eddie!”

She stops pressing Eddie before she pauses the recording. She knows that he’s the one screaming. She knows what Eddie did to himself. It’s what anyone would do after losing someone they loved with all of their heart while their mind is fucked up on drugs.

“...I walked into the sun.” Eddie murmurs.

“You remember that?” Dolly approaches the conversation softly, noticing how Eddie’s put his guard down and is now being a lot more vulnerable.

“I’m remembering it now.”

“Let me ask you a really loaded question, Eddie,” Dolly leaned closer to him, a tiny smile on her face, “And then what?”

Skin burnt to the color of pitch. Char coming off of Eddie’s body. Pain calling endless to Eddie, like a siren, like a noise in his body, as he writhed around in that bedroom, in that dull, lifeless apartment.

“Pieces of my life, gone.” Eddie places his hands flat against the table. “I knew who I was without those pieces–”

“–Wait,” Dolly tells him, “sidestep the big picture. Get the story straight first.”

Amir walked into the bedroom, with an air of uneasy calmness about him, before he stared down at Eddie’s half burnt-off face. 

“The pain.” Eddie moaned while Amir continued to — literally and metaphorically — look down upon him.

“Must be exquisite.” 

“What happened?” With the drugs out of his systems via trial by fire, Eddie was having trouble remembering what happened after you…

“You drained a drug fiend. You said the worst things you’ve ever said to me–”

“–No, no–” Eddie didn’t want to believe Amir, but in his heart, he knew that Amir was telling the truth.

“–And then you ran outside. Now, you’re a convalescent.”

“So… so…”

“What is it?” Amir almost appeared to be taunting Eddie as the latter reached out his hand, as an olive branch to the former.

“I’m sorry–”

“–A meaningless word. Utterly meaningless.” Amir walked to the foot of the bed, so Eddie could peer out of the doorway as Amir spoke. “The floor slants slightly north. The girl’s blood flowed that way. We should fix that before we sell.”

Even though one of Eddie’s eyes were burnt shut, he could see that Dolly was tied to a chair in the middle of the living room with a gag in her mouth. How long was Eddie out for?

“...She’s alive?”

“The girl? The fascinating girl?” Amir spat out as the chair that Dolly was tied to was levitated in the background by Amir’s powers, bringing Dolly into the air as her whines were muffled by the rag in her mouth. “She’s fine.”

Up, up, up she went, nearly hitting the ceiling before Eddie said something.

“Don’t–”

“–she’s just fine.” Amir reassured him before the chair slammed onto the ground, knocking Dolly onto the floor with a hellacious thud. 

“Don’t.”

“Oh, she’s fine.” Amir repeated, and the earlier impact must’ve knocked the gag out of Dolly’s mouth as she now loudly screamed when Amir lifted her into the air once again. “You’re fine!”

Again, she was brought to the ground with a harsh amount of force, causing her to softly whimper as Amir continued to dominate the metaphorical stage.

“This is fine! We’re all fine!”

Dolly went up into the air, then back down yet again.

“You two kept me in that apartment for how long?” Dolly asks.

“You were there–”

“–I don’t remember.” Dolly confesses, which causes a silent River to quirk an eyebrow up in interest.  “That’s why I’m asking. I can remember a few things, like…”

When Dolly was brought to the ground yet again, she looked into the eyes of a cellophane-wrapped body.

“There was someone else there,” Dolly says, “A cellophane corpse on the floor.”

“A neighbor saw you while he was taking out the trash.” Amir explained to Eddie. “I had to chase him down.”

Amir then walked to the foot of the bed.

“The floor slants slightly north. The girl’s blood flowed that way. We should fix that before we sell.”

“There’s a TV in the corner, near the corpse.” Dolly recalls. “Some kind of sock or shoe commercial, or a news report. There’s sheets of plastic tarp, some duct tape, and bleach. Surely, I’m next.”

“Amir!” Eddie weakly called out for his partner as Amir strolled into the apartment’s living room.

“I can see him walking out of the bedroom.” Eddie builds off of Dolly’s memory. “I can hear you, but I can’t see you. The doorframe is blocking you.”

Amir looked at Dolly, as a predator looked at his prey, before he quickly disregarded her, more interested in something that was under the TV.

“Amir puts the table back and finds the recorder under the TV. Brings it to the table, and… huh.” Dolly clicks her tongue as she can practically see him in front of her, doing exactly as she says. “Ejects the tape, flips it over, and… presses play?”

Your voice played from the machine, which caused a deep scowl to form on Amir’s face.

“I hear Canary’s voice on the recorder, and all I could think of… was that he was going to…” Eddie can’t force the words out, but Dolly doesn’t need mind-reading powers to know what he’s thinking at the moment.

“A fresh young girl, that was his favorite food,” Your soft voice explained via the tape, “but the triumphant kill for a sadist like Volt was always a young man. You’re not a man, but with your intellect… you would’ve appealed to him in particular, Dolly.”

Amir stood still, having no reaction to the words that came from the recording.

“You see, they represented the greatest loss to Volt, because they stood on the threshold of the maximum possibility of life.”

Dolly, now gaining some consciousness and control over her body, began to slide away from Amir as he seemed distracted by the recording. She could always buy new equipment, but her life–“Rest.” Amir suddenly said, and Dolly knew the phrase was directed at her, but she wasn’t really going to listen to him, was she?

“Of course,” Your voice continued to echo around the walls of the apartment, “Volt didn’t understand this himself. Volt understood nothing.”

“Curious.” Amir remarked before he paused the recording.

“Amir stands over you,” Eddie says, transfixed by the memory that Dolly’s brought back from the depths of his mind, “He’s commandeered your body.”

“Rise.” Amir commanded, and Dolly’s body rose to her feet without her putting in any effort to move her limbs.

…She couldn’t feel them. He had complete control over her body. He could do anything he wanted to with a broken, bloodied girl who had two pin-sized holes on the right side of her neck.

“Amir,” He formally introduced himself to her, “From the bar. I came to fetch Canary before River waved me off.”

“I can’t… move.” Horrified, Dolly tried to flex her pinky finger, but even that movement wasn’t allowed under whatever spell Amir had cast over her form.

What kind of vampire is this fucking guy?

“Move your body?” Amir’s gaze then dropped to the floor before it floated over to the corpse by the TV, which made Dolly start to shake.

“I don’t want–”

“–to die?” Amir anticipated, orange eyes snapping back to her. “On that item, I think I know something you don’t.”

In the background, Dolly could hear Eddie moaning in pain, but she wasn’t really concerned with the fucker who took a chunk out of her neck when there’s another fucker in front of her face who seems more unstable than Eddie.

“I’m told you’ve lived a fascinating life.” Amir said, breaking the silence.

“I never said that.” Dolly argued, causing Amir to shake his head.

“No, Eddie did. Canary appears to think the same, if her words are anything to go by–”

“–leave her alone, Amir!” Eddie yelled from the other room, but it was unclear if he was talking about you or Dolly.

Dolly wasn’t stupid. She knew it was about you.

Amir slammed a chair down in front of her before he turned off the TV, circling the chair with slow, deliberate movements while his eyes stayed trained on Dolly.

“You held Eddie’s attention. He confessed his innermost secrets to you, by proxy.” He gestured to the tape that he had just played.

“I just wanted drugs.” Dolly admitted, trying to say whatever will get her out of this situation alive, even though the probability of such a thing happening appeared to be slim-to-none. “We didn’t even have sex–”

“–River and Canary have brought one-hundred and twenty-eight girls here–”

“–they said five–”

“–and you’re the first they didn’t consummate and drain. You even kept Eddie’s eyes on you for a while. That makes you special.” Amir explained.

“Please, Amir, I’m just a shitty little kid from a little southern town called–”

“–that warrants investigation.” Amir cut her off.

“I could be on my knees in a second.” Dolly said, and that seemed to spark some vague interest in his eyes as he sent her to her knees with a tiny, downwards head tilt.

“Bartering with desire. Is that what makes you fascinating?” Amir crossed his legs as he flexed the fingers on his right hand, subtly warning Dolly that he could do whatever he wanted to her, and she was powerless to stop it.

“River and Canary didn’t even want me in the end, and Eddie only had eyes for that woman!” Dolly yelled as Amir stood up and walked towards the abandoned bag that she had left on the kitchen counter. “I mean, look at my neck! I’m fuckin’ bleedin’ down to my ankles!”

He fished out the tapes that Dolly had used for interviews prior to this one from her satchel.

“Vera–” He read the label on one of them as Dolly offered a meek explanation.

“–she’s a single mother. Works in a titty bar on Market Street.”

“Kevin.” Amir set her tape aside, moving to the next one.

“Some Vietnam vet who lives in The Castro with his Vietnamese refugee boyfriend with no legs.”

Amir then proceeded to open up the casing to the tapes one-by-one, rapidly unspooling the filament before he discarded it onto the floor.

“Do you think, in all of these spools, you’ve arrived at some ineffable truth?”

“No,” Dolly earnestly answered, “it’s all bullshit.”

“An instinct to self-efface.” Amir furrowed his eyebrows before he returned to his seat at the table. “Is that what makes you fascinating?”

“Okay, yes,” Dolly agreed, but only because she thought that was her best selling point, “I’m good at gettin’ angles, gettin’ people to open up. …I can’t feel my body. It’s freaking me out.”

“Please leave the girl out of this, Amir. It’s what Canary would’ve–”

Eddie was cut off by the bedroom door slamming shut, forcefully closed by Amir’s strange powers.

“You’re going to teach me how to be fascinating.” Amir told her, digging through the depths of her mind before he forced Dolly into a sitting position, like a wall sit without a wall to support her body against, “In middle school, you stole your dad’s Playboy magazines. You sold them at recess. A little dirty, a little deceitful, but it’s enterprising. Is that what makes you fascinating?”

From Dolly’s perspective, the open window appeared to paint Amir in a heavenly glow, but this man was anything but heaven-sent.

“How are you…?” Dolly could feel him knocking things loose in her mind, yet she had no idea how he was doing so.

“In high school, you told a guy you’d only do him if he had a paper bag over his head,” Amir continued his rampage through Dolly’s memories, “He agreed, and you did it, even as he cried. A splinter of coldness in you? Is that what makes you fascinating?”

“My legs are starting to cramp.” Dolly whined, uncomfortable in the seated position she’s in, without a seat to comfort her body.

“Even her transgressions are ordinary, Eddie!” Amir called out to the man in the bedroom. “The pinhole’s closing back up–”

“–Okay, it’s you who’s fascinating!” Dolly suddenly shouted. This must be what he wants, right? To be the fascinating one in the relationship? That’s why he keeps asking her the same question over and over again. “You can read minds, right?”

“Eddie thinks I’m boring.” Amir hissed, leaning closer to Dolly. 

“Dude, I have a Charlie Horse, left leg–”

“–Do you find me boring?”

There isn’t a right or wrong answer there. There’s just the one that will keep Dolly alive, and the one that’ll get her killed in an instant.

“No.” Dolly firmly said before she began to sob from the extreme pain coursing through her lower body.

At this point, she might ask him to end it, rather than continue this torture.

“Do you want to hear my story?” Amir asked her.

“Yes, yes!” Dolly nodded at him. “Yes.”

“My first memory. I’m being run down by slavers in Delhi. My second…” He trailed off as Dolly shook like a leaf in the winds of a hurricane. “An eager black hole. I’ll keep digging.”

“But I’m not–”

“–I’m not hopeful there’s much more to you, Dolly, other than a hole.” He degraded Dolly before he stood once more, casually throwing the wrapped corpse over his shoulder like it weighed nothing before he left the apartment.

The last thing he heard before he left was Dolly’s shrieks.

“I was in Zheleznogorsk to interview an operative for the KGB. Halfway through, I tried to go to the bathroom. He’d locked me in, and then I figured out that I was the one being interviewed.” Dolly suddenly says, derailing the conversation as Eddie offers her a sideways glance.

“Your point?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t a point,” Her gaze hardens before she angrily spits out her next words, “other than fuck your boyfriend.”

“Rage is an imprecise emotion.” River points out before Dolly loudly scoffs. “If Eddie was in perfect health, he would’ve reached out and–”

“–Spiro Agnew.” Dolly scrunches her eyebrows, suddenly pulled back into a memory before her companions called out her name. “On the TV.”

“Dolly? …Dolly!”

“Washington insiders are claiming this Saturday evening that Vice President Spiro T. Agnew may be close to resigning, in light of ongoing investigations.” Dolly had multiple bruises and lacerations covering her body as she listened to Amir mutter about something in the background. “Federal prosecutors will soon present evidence to a Baltimore Grand Jury over…”

“Yes, I’m with him now.” Amir said, and to Dolly, it seemed like he was talking to someone else… in his mind? “I won’t say where.”

“Saturday,” Dolly confidently says, “It was Saturday, but we met on Tuesday. So, I was the house pet for what? One, two, three, four days? Your boyfriend, Eddie… was in a trance of sorts.”

Dolly squeezes the stress toy in her hand that River had offered to her once she stopped zoning out, and she appeared to be nearly strangling the poor Siamese cat with her iron-clad grip.

“I don’t know–”

“–think.” Now, Eddie’s the one pushing her. Talk about the tables turning. “We don’t have much time left. Amir will be home soon. Try.”

“You fucking try,” She hisses, “You were there.”

“Go back to the chair, the TV,” He coaches Dolly, who attempts to close her eyes and put herself back into that memory, “what was on the TV–”

“–this stress reliever thingy is bullshit.” She slams the cat down onto the table before she gives it an apologetic pet, feeling a little bad for being so violent towards an inanimate object.

“You’re in the chair,” Eddie tries again, softer in his approach this time, “the TV is on…”

“Amir, can you come?” Eddie beckoned Amir forth with his words as Dolly’s eyes stayed glued to the TV, her butt firmly placed upon that chair. “I can’t get up. It hurts. Everything fucking hurts. Put me in the coffin.”

“Coffin,” Dolly finally strikes gold in her memories, “Yeah, it’s you. You keep saying coffin. My… nose is bleeding?”

“Where are you?!”

Finally, Amir was pulled from his trance with that plea, looking at Dolly with annoyance and irritation in his gaze.

“The pain is back.” Eddie continued on. “It’s like I’m still burning. Amir, put me in the coffin, please!”

Amir sighed, walking towards the bedroom while Dolly watched him.

“Yes.” He answered Eddie’s cries for help with a single word while Dolly crouched down, trying to sneak out of her chair.

“Thank you.” Eddie said, and Dolly ran for the hills before Amir stopped her with a single word.

“Rest.”

Her head hit the wall with a bang, and blood streaked down her nose as she slumped against a wall that was at least a few feet away from the damn TV and chair set-up that Amir had going on.

Once that was buttoned up and taken care of, Amir carefully set Eddie in the coffin before Amir sliced his wrist open, offering a blistered and bruised Eddie a sip of his blood.

Eddie took what was offered, and Amir, in return, saw this as an opportunity to speak.

“I listened to the tapes. All of them, twice. Volt, Volt, Canary, Volt, Volt, Canary, the occasional Harper, but it always circled back to him–”

“–And all we said about him was trash.” Eddie said in-between drinks from Amir’s wrist.

“Yes, you said that, but why?” Amir wondered aloud. “It’s not exactly how you’ve talked about him to me. Did I catch you in a fantasy, where the girl somehow fumbles her way to publication? Where Volt strolls past a bookstore — a book with her words in them displayed in the shop window — where he buys himself a copy, reads the nasty embellishments uttered by Canary and supported by your mere presence in the room where the interview took place, and comes chasing after the two of you again, reuniting the three of you until death truly do you part?”

Amir snatched his wrist away from Eddie’s mouth.

“If you want the insanity back, if you wanted escape from this prison of empathy I’ve locked you away in,” Amir’s hand lingered over the burns that went down Eddie’s face and chest, before his hand went to the claw marks that were, by a miracle of God, untouched by the horrific burns, “all you had to do was ask, Eddie.”

Eddie’s stuttered breaths are the only sound in the room as Amir pulled away from him fully, staying crouched by Eddie’s coffin-side as he spoke.

“A final act of service I’d like to perform before I…” Amir looked pitifully at Eddie. “I leave you to yourself. I know where he is. I found his voice among the many. I told him I was with you.”

Amir closed his eyes, assumedly trying to find Volt’s voice again as Eddie shook his head in disbelief.

“No, he isn’t there–”

“–I told him you were thinking of him again,” Amir said to the voice inside of his head that Eddie was not privy to, “He’s waiting for you.”

“No, don’t say anything to Volt,” Eddie pleaded with his lover, “I don’t want anything from him–”

“–this is your chance, Eddie. I am your Maker’s voice.” Amir paused, listening to what the other person — Volt — had to say. “Eddie… mon chéri, you wanted to say something to me? …Why are you ill? What’s happened to you? I…”

Amir hesitated on the next thing that Volt — if that truly is the one that Amir was communicating with — said. No words came from the man as his jaw trembled with fear, anger, misery–

A burnt hand came to cup Amir’s face, rubbing slow, comforting circles into his chin.

“He was my Maker. It’s nothing more.” Eddie reassured Amir, who didn’t seem fully convinced.

“You left me for death. Will I be on suicide watch for the next one-thousand years? Have I atoned for my part of…” Amir stopped, suddenly choked up. “Paris? Have I crawled an inch forward, or am I a reminder of the worst of it?”

Eddie didn’t answer, so Amir pulled away from his gentle touch.

“I’ll finish cleaning up. Rest.” Amir coldly said before he closed Eddie’s coffin, swiftly leaving the room not long afterwards.

“Rest,” Dolly notes, “He said that to me, too.”

“Rest,” Amir’s voice was a lot more comforting as he softly shushed the girl in front of her while his hands were on her face, “Hush. Rest now.”

“A bunch of words, which seems typically for him,” Dolly cracks a small joke before she becomes stoic once more, “but it started with rest.”

Amir dipped a washcloth into a bowl of water, releasing the blood — Dolly’s blood — that had accumulated onto the fabric into the clear liquid. It easily dispersed around the dish as Amir pulled the washcloth from the bowl, ringing it out with his hands.

“‘Rest,’” Eddie repeats, “And then?”

Dolly sat across from Amir, in an actual chair this time as he worked to wipe the blood from her face, despite the tiny whimpers that such gentle strokes to her skin brought forth from her lips.

“Shh, rest.” He said once more, before he launched into a conversation of sorts. “I’ve been calling to you for some time. From every bad fix, from the unnamed malaise you feel Sunday afternoons. And now here I am, and you can rest.”

Dolly would’ve been disturbed, if this interaction was not the least disturbing thing she’s witnessed in this hellhole of a week. 

“I don’t wanna rest.” She murmured as his hand worked to clean the wound on her neck next.

“I am the quiet you’ve been longing for.” He was fixated, fascinated by Dolly as his gaze stayed on her. “After all the garishness of life, the jostling, the clawing–”

“–I kinda like my life–?”

“–the dull thrum of desperation in you,” Amir ignored her, “Will I get the fixes I need? Will I be somebody? Will I get the fixes I need to be somebody?”

Amir’s hand went to her face, and her body tremored with anticipatory fear as he slowly massaged the muscles on one side of her neck.

“But, Dolly, you already know who you’ll be. An ugly duplex back in Modesto. A job in an office, with drab carpets and flickering lights.” Amir spoke of a future that Dolly was unsure that’d she ever see. “A man in the mold of your mother, cleaning the house on valium. A genteel drinking problem, like your father. You count down your husband’s thrusts. Your children, shying away from you. All the confidence and hope of your youth is replaced by a seething, boiling regret…. Until, one day, you’re at a traffic light.”

Amir looked Dolly dead in the eyes, expression softening as he looked upon her with a strange, unknown fondness in his gaze.

“The light turns green, horns honking. You don’t move. Horns honking,” He repeated himself, for extra emphasis, “You don’t move.”

Dolly didn’t want this future that Amir was selling, but a deep pit began to form in her stomach at the very thought of him being right.

“I have a thing happening in the city,” She whispered, voice threatening to break with every word, “A bright, young reporter with a point of view–”

“–Shush.” Amir hushed her once more. “A comfortable chair, in a room that slants to the north. An easeful death. Rest.”

Dolly began to cry, realizing what he meant by that.

“It’s okay,” He dropped the washcloth into the bowl of water, so he could take both of his hands and place them on either side of Dolly’s face, “It’s okay. It’ll feel like a bath. Rest. Like honey on your tongue. It is the comfort we all long for at the end.”

“Rest.” Dolly said, like she believed it.

“Rest.” Amir repeated it back to her. “Come.”

Dolly placed her hands on his forearms, nearly embracing him as she put her head on his left shoulder.

“Come, I’ll hold you now,” Amir adjusted his hands so he could hold her properly, “You can rest.”

He took one of his hands off of her neck, softly snarling as his teeth stuck out of his mouth before he bit her neck.

This wasn’t harsh or hurtful, like Eddie’s teeth in her skin was. This was… deliberate. Punctual. Necessary. Horrifically erotic and sensual. Like honey on her tongue.

“Stop, Amir.” A softer, feminine voice interrupted the pleasurable haze that Dolly was bordering on entering.

So close, but yet so far.

“I’m cleaning up the mess, River.” Amir pulled his fangs from Dolly’s body, but she didn’t want him to go.

Horrificially, she realized that she never wanted him to go.

“You left.” Dolly scrunches her eyebrows at River, who shrugs in response.

“I did,” River then grabs the cat-shaped stress toy on the table before she smiles fondly at it, “but someone I care for requested that I come back and make sure that you were safe.”

“Canary,” Dolly then glances over to Eddie, “Everythin’ really does come back to her, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t need cleaning.” River swiftly stepped into the room, asserting herself into this situation as Amir huffed in annoyance.

“After the mess you and Canary left for me here, after what Eddie put me through, I deserve this.”

“I know,” River murmured as she placed a hand on Dolly’s back, reassuring the girl that River was here for her, “but I need this one to live. As a testament to the enduring companionship that you’ve built with Eddie.”

“Canary wanted her to live, so you came to bargain on her behalf.” Amir guessed.

“The girl gets to live, no matter who wants her to live.” Suddenly, River snapped her fingers, and Dolly jumped ever-so-slightly, still in Amir’s hold, as she heard the coffin lid smack against the wall.

“Is this a request you’d like me to honor, Maître?” Amir loudly asked the other vampire, and there was a moment of strong silence before Eddie’s voice emanated from the other room.

“Let her go, Amir.”

Amir flinched, like Eddie’s words physically hurt him, before he stood, setting Dolly up in her chair before he moved aside. He watched from the corner of the room as River sat in his place, whispering comforting words to Dolly that he couldn’t hear for himself.

“I…” Dolly spots a bookshelf in the nearby living area, so she quickly moves out of her dining room seat, much to the alarm of Eddie. “Excuse me.”

“Dolly?”

She doesn’t care for his concern at the moment — she’s a woman on a mission, goddamnit.

Her fingers easily glide against the numerous titles sat upon the shelf that’s eye-level to her, but one in particular catches her eyes. It’s one of Dolly’s own publications, and she frantically flips through the pages until she reaches her destination on—

“Page four-eighty-four.” Her finger drops down the page until she finds the line that she’s looking for. “‘Listen, as though I’m the voice of God or an angel talking to you, telling you this room doesn’t matter, that this night doesn’t matter. You’re not inconsequential, or a junkie. You’re a bright, young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you’ll hear in your mind, like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.’”

Dolly closes her novel, setting it upon the kitchen table before she claims her seat among the vampires once more.

“That’s from a free-baser I befriended for a few days at the drug den.” Dolly scoffs. “He told me to get my shit together, and then he Richard Pryor’d right in front of me. Everyone scrambled, but I stuck around, watched him burn. What always confused me was that… You know, he said those words to me, but he was already burnt up. I figured I’d conflated the two events, but I didn’t. Because most of those words came from you, Eddie.”

Amir sat aside as River, with all of her might, brought Eddie into the room with a supportive arm wrapped around his waist. She set him in the chair in front of Dolly before she worked to clean the wound that Amir left on her neck.

“You are better than you think of yourself, Dolly,” River warmly spoke, “Listen, as though I’m the voice of God or an angel talking to you, telling you this room doesn’t matter, that this night doesn’t matter–”

“–you’re not inconsequential, or a junkie.” Each word sounded painful out of Eddie’s mouth, but he spoke to Dolly anyways, “You said it yourself — you’re a bright, young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you’ll hear in your mind, like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.”

Stunned, Eddie doesn’t respond as Dolly is plunged further into a meditative, reflective state.

“I destroyed my marriages. I fucked up my daughters, but I stayed a journalist. Taught at a few colleges, too, but my proudest work lies in the stories I told. I…” Dolly lightly chuckles. “I was never so lost that I couldn’t hold down a job.”

“I don’t know where those words came from, Dolly,” Eddie confesses, “Maybe it was something Canary said to me, or maybe it was her influence on me. I… I’m glad they helped.”

“Amir and I…” River speaks softly, as to guide their attention back to her, “We gave Dolly more drugs. Then, we distorted everything that had happened in her mind, and fed her a truncated version that would never be able to make it to publication.”

Dolly, in a drug-fueled daze, sat across from Amir and River as Eddie looked out of a nearby window.

“He bit you.” Amir said, which Dolly then repeated.

“He bit me.”

“You blacked out.”

“I blacked out.” She said his words, like they were her own, once again.

“You woke up in a drug den.”

“I woke up in a drug den.”

“Good,” River softly praised, “Again, Amir.”

He nodded before repeating the cycle once more.

“He bit you.”

“He bit me–”

“–Amir fogged my brain, redacted himself, which accounts for why I didn’t remember,” Dolly agrees with River’s perspective before she points at Eddie, “so what accounts for why he doesn’t remember?”

“I was disfigured.” Eddie justifies his loss of memory with that excuse. “I was in pain.”

“But, you remember right up until you bit me,” Dolly shoots holes right through his argument, “and I remember right up until you bit me, and then both our memories cut out. Same precise edit on two brains? I don’t think–”

“–You should be going,” River quickly checks the watch on her wrist after she interrupts Dolly, “It’s been two hours. We don’t need the two of you getting into any more trouble, do we?”

“But Canary–”

“–is fine,” She tells Eddie, abruptly standing so she can quickly usher the pair out of her hotel room, “as I’ve told you. She lives a peaceful, quiet life where she writes novels and short stories in her free time. I take care of her costs of living, too, so the royalties from her novels fund the orphanages she founded. One in New Orleans, one in Paris.”

“Orphanages?” Eddie repeats, voice softening with every syllable.

“I’m surprised she never wrote to you about them. Canary often describes them as her life’s greatest work, when most would argue that her writing would qualify as that. The motherly instinct never left her after Paris, so she decided to put some good into the world once she had enough money to give children like Harper a place to call home,” River sighs, “We visit both orphanages once a year. She’s often seen spending time with the infants or the teenagers, which shouldn’t surprise either of you.”

“...Why wouldn’t she mention that in her letters?” Eddie mutters to himself. “Canary told me how proud she was of her novels, but she would’ve spent pages talking about something like that.”

“Food for thought.” River shrugs. “You really should get going–”

“–I want to see her. Visit her in her home.” Eddie puts his foot down, cutting River off assuredly. “Canary’s not a doll to me, River. She’s not just a wife or a mother, either. She is everything to me. I haven’t loved anyone the way I loved her.”

“What if she doesn’t reciprocate?” River asks. “Will you force her to love you? Will you force her to stay, or bludgeon your way into her heart once more?”

“I don’t need Canary to love me. I don’t want her to love me unless that’s what she wants. After everything we’ve been through, after everything I’ve done… I owe her an apology. A really fucking overdue apology.” 

“God, you two are made for each other.” River grumbles under her breath. “Listen clearly when I say this. I have my reservations about the two of you — a lot of them — but I’m not inhumane. Once you finish your interview with Dolly, we can discuss you coming back with me to Canada, but only after you give my young reporter–”

“–Not yours,” Dolly repeats with a small blush on her cheeks, “and I’m certainly not young–”

“–everything she needs for her novel. Speaking of Dolly,” River wears a polite smile as she speaks to Eddie, “I’d like to privately discuss something with her if you’ll give us the room.”

“Of course, yeah,” Eddie agrees, slowly walking towards the door with his hands in his pockets before he turns back towards River, “If you get the chance to talk with Canary over the phone, tell her I…”

He shakes his head.

“No, this isn’t about me. Tell her to stay put. I’ll come to her when the time’s right.”

When the door shuts, River can’t help but chuckle a bit.

“He’s still the same man I knew back then, but… different, somehow. Reserved, more cautious, more understanding of everything that Canary went through.”

“Stole the words right from my mouth.” Dolly agrees, packing up her things as she converses with River. “What’s this about? What game are you playin’?”

“No games, just the truth,” River places her hands into the air, as if that’ll make her any more honest, “Someone from the Talamasca found those stamps and gave them to Penelope, then they fed her a story to give to you and Eddie.”

“...I’m sorry, what?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” River’s tongue pokes the side of her cheek as she thinks to herself for a moment. “Someone tampered with Canary’s letters before they were given to Eddie.”

“I know that,” Dolly states the obvious, “Amir, playing dress-up as one of Eddie’s assistants, confessed that to him.”

“And?” River looks at Dolly like she’s missing something obvious. “Dolly, honey, it’s right in front of your face.”

“About Amir messin’ with the letters? I…” Dolly then pauses, realizing what she just said.

He just took the stamps out of the letters… right? There couldn’t have been anything else that he… Shit.

“Do not throw out the accusation right away. Find proof.” River tries to offer a bit of advice to the reporter. “I’d tell you to put some strain on their relationship, but you did that all on your own.”

“Thanks. When you told me about Canary’s letters…” Dolly smacks her forehead with her hand, “Fuck. I should’ve taken you literally.”

“I told you to–”

“–I thought you were bullshittin’ me!” Dolly exclaims. “Until I realized that you weren’t. I don’t exactly trust vampires after what happened in San Francisco. Sue me.”

“I don’t blame you, but we’re not all bad.” River concedes. “How much more of the interview–”

“–I’ve skimmed Harper’s last journal, alongside what little writing Canary has left from that era. There shouldn’t be much more, besides what happened to Harper,” Dolly shrugs, “you lookin’ for a time and date to make your second grand entrance into Eddie’s penthouse?”

“Something like that, yeah,” River places a hand on her back, gently shoving her out of the hotel room, “but I have a feeling I’ll know when you’re done.”

River firmly shuts the door once Dolly’s fully out of the doorway, and she exchanges a quizzical look with Eddie before the pair make their way back to Eddie’s penthouse.

~

The ride home is deadly silent. Dolly’s hand lingers over those letters of yours that she stole from Eddie’s library a few days ago, as they were safely kept in this satchel since it mostly stayed in her room, and her fingers drum against the bag as she’s plunged deep into thought.

I… I don’t know what to think anymore. Of Eddie, of River, of Canary, and especially of Amir. What a fuckin’ mess I’ve involved myself in.

I think these letters need to go back to their rightful owner. They’re personal and unhelpful to me. Eddie’s the one who needs to see her words again… if these even are her words.

Dolly’s barely with Eddie in the present moment, despite being back in that very library that she stole from, and she slowly unpacks her things before she decides to repay the kindness that he’s shown her today.

“I… It was wrong of me to do,” Dolly begins, sliding the letters to Eddie’s side of the table, “but I was lookin’ for hints on where Canary might’ve gone, and when I saw those letters that were hidden in the library, I decided to take ‘em when you were talkin' with River and see where they led me.”

Eddie’s hand gently traces the frayed edges of the paper before he looks at Dolly.

“Did they help?”

No anger, no hatred, no making my hand shake… wow. Maybe he has changed, even in the span of a few days.

“Not really. A bit too… intimate for my tastes,” Dolly admits, “I’m tryin’ to study the evolution of her prose over time… for my novel, of course. Would you mind if I took a look at one of her journals and the last letter that she sent you in my free time?”

Please say yes. Please say yes. Please–

“–Yeah, take whatever you need,” Eddie accepts before he laughs under his breath, “and thank you for asking this time.”

Footsteps suddenly approach, and Eddie is quick to shove those letters of yours under Dolly’s notepad before Amir enters the room. In his hand, Amir holds bloodied scraps of those colorful jumpsuits that she saw those men in earlier, and she can guess how they met their gruesome end without any direct mention of the chase.

“How was your lunch?” Eddie politely asks.

“Entertaining. They tried to stick together, but in the end, like all humans, they sold each other out to try to ensure their own survival,” Amir then smiles at Eddie, “How’s Paris?”

“We paused Paris,” Eddie answers for Dolly, “Reminisced about San Francisco.”

A bit of surprise lands on Amir’s face before it quickly floats away, indifference left in its place.

“And?”

“It started with Dolly,” Eddie gestures to the woman in question, “She asked why you saved her in 1975.”

Amir lightly hums before he answers.

“I could see you were partial to her,” Still, Amir directs his attention to Eddie as he talks, “I preserve your happiness, even when you don’t or can’t. I had–”

“–a hunch.” Eddie grimly says, and that’s when Dolly realizes that this is the exact same answer Eddie gave her — word-for-word minus the pronoun and perspective changes, of course — earlier when she asked him about why Amir saved her.

“Amir could see I was partial to you. Amir preserves my happiness, even when I don’t or can’t,” Eddie had quietly said, “He had a hunch you might prove fruitful in later times.