CHAPTER 10
“What’s wrong?” Oz asked, folding both arms across his chest. He eyed Isabel intently, as if waiting for her to blow up in his face. “Well?” he said again, tilting his head to the side.
“You’ve been acting pretty weird lately,” Isabel blurted out. She didn’t know how Oz would react, but she decided she was going to take the chance, anyway. “I don’t know what’s going on inside your head… I don’t know anything.”
“Why do you say that?” Oz asked, making his way down the hall. Isabel stopped him again.
“You know why,” she said, her eyes fixated on his. “You’ve been so cold to me lately, I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Isabel,” Oz said, grabbing her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “There is nothing wrong. Everything’s changing, everything’s moving so fast. It’s stressful and I’m scared for you.”
“I don’t want you to be scared for me,” she said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “I’ll be okay and so will you. We’re strong like that.”
“I know, it’s going to be okay,” he said, twisting a lock of her hair around one of his fingers. “I don’t want you worrying about me, either.”
Isabel smiled. If anything, she was relieved. But then it dawned on her that there was something else she wanted to talk to him about, something important. Or at least, she thought it would matter to him. “Oz,” she said again. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about something else.”
“Something else?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Can we maybe sit down?”
“You’re scaring me.” Oz opened his hand and there was a key. Isabel didn’t even know when he had booked the rooms. He hurried down the hallway, his eyes darting from one door to the other until he stopped in front of one of them. “This one is mine,” he said. The key rustled in its lock for a while until Oz practically kicked the door open. “French motels, huh?” he said, turning around and stepping inside. Isabel followed.
“Fancy room,” she said, looking around. She saw something, like a bug, scurry across the floor the minute they flicked the lights on. “Oh, God,” she said, her hand flying to her mouth. She went over to the bed and just stood there, contemplating whether or not she should sit down.
“I wouldn’t sit on that if I were you,” Oz said, his lips curving to a wry smile.
“Yeah, just sleep on it, instead,” Isabel said, rolling her eyes. There was a pause. Oz let out a chuckle. He went around the room, pretending to arrange the knick knacks on the shelves.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about again?” he asked.
“Oz, listen,” Isabel said, placing a hand over his shoulder. “When I began my transformation, I didn’t really understand the idea of hunger. I couldn’t comprehend it— I still don’t sometimes— but right now…” She paused, clearing her throat. “I guess I’ve come to understand my own needs and how to quench them.”
Oz turned to look at her. He was still fumbling with some wine glass he found near the TV set. “Go on,” he said, staring at her through heavy-lidded eyes.
“I had sex with Presten,” Isabel blurted out. A part of her felt like she just confessed to cheating on him. The air was so still, that she could hear the sound of Oz’s breathing. And her breathing. She was nervous as hell.
“Alright,” Oz said after what felt like an eternity of scrubbing down the wine glass. “And why did you feel like you needed to tell me that?” he asked.
“I— I don’t know,” Isabel said, turning away. Suddenly she felt like an idiot. Oz was just looking at her with glassy eyes, not moving. “I guess I just thought I owed it to you,” she continued.
“Isabel, you know I love you, right?” he asked, walking towards her. He moved slowly across the carpeted floor; Isabel wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or yell at her. “Right?”
“And I love you, too,” she breathed. “Which is why I felt like I needed to tell you this.”
“Our love for each other is independent of who we sleep with,” Oz said. “I knew you were sleeping with Presten… it wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t.”
“I just really needed to feed at the time, and you were giving me the cold shoulder and I—”
“Isabel, you don’t need to justify yourself… you have needs, and so do I. Sometimes we’re going to turn to each other for those needs, and sometimes, we’re going to have to resort to other people to get what we want.”
Isabel nodded. For some reason, she still felt uneasy. All her life she kept jumping from one person to the other, but right now, the idea of monogamy appealed to her more than ever. It was ironic, she thought, given that her entire being depended on promiscuity. “You’re right,” she said, despite herself. “I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Is that all this was?” Oz asked, folding both arms across his chest. He stared at her playfully, his eyes looking as though they were about to pop out of their sockets. He bit his bottom lip and looked away again, inspecting the dusty utensils randomly spread out over the table. “This is one weird-ass motel room,” he said.
“It’s nothing, just forget about it,” Isabel said, brushing her fingers through her hair. It had gotten so long over the past month that she felt like she could almost trip on it. “I think we should all stay up tonight and plan what we’re going to say at the council,” she muttered. “How about we call the rest of them in here?”
“Sure,” Oz said, sprinting for the door and swinging it open. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, would you ever so kindly step in here so we can arrange what we’re going to say tomorrow?” he called down the hall, motioning for them to step inside. Isabel peered over Oz’s shoulder and she could see Abeo and Solange pacing the hallway, trying to find their rooms.
“Hello,” Abeo said, popping his head in through the inched open door. The rest of the succubi slowly followed and they poured into the room, one after the other. Jared sat on the bed; Solange pulled a chair and slumped down on it. It creaked under her, but she couldn’t care less. Suddenly Isabel felt overwhelmed by what was happening, so she retreated into the bathroom for a while before stepping back out again, trying to take in the fact that they only had a few hours to prepare. They would need to stay up all night, plotting how to present their case. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Oz said again, putting his hands together. Isabel thought he surely must possess the skills of a public orator. He stood with such poise, such confidence that a part of her felt like he had already prepared his speech. “When the sun comes up, we’re going to make our way for the council to present our case, and by the end of tonight, we will have come up with a plan for this.” The rest of them nodded, like disciples listening to their master. “Now, Isabel, what do you think is going to strengthen our case?”
“The fact that we’ve got Gavin locked up in our dungeon,” she said, staring back at him. “Along with the rest of the vampires.”
“This is a rather dangerous statement,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “We cannot claim to be holding the “rest of the vampires” captive because then we would be fabricating the truth. We’re only holding some of them captive, but not all.”
Jared smiled. “He’s right, we need to be very precise in what we’re going to say.”
“So, we’ve got Gavin… what else do we have to strengthen our case?” Oz asked again, scanning the room with his eyes. Isabel felt like she was back in college again, and Oz was that sonofabitch professor always looking for the right answer but never getting it.
“We’ve taken control over the rebel’s mansion,” Ava said, shifting her weight to one leg. She had been standing by the door this entire time; Isabel hadn’t even noticed that she was there.
“The rebel’s mansion is a useless thing to being up in our case,” Oz said coldly. “The vampires have already taken over the old mansion, the original mansion… they’ve wholly reshaped and constructed it. As far as headquarters go, the vampires already have the upper hand.” There was silence. Oz was pacing back and forth, eyeing them as they pretended to be deep in thought. “Come on, you guys,” he said again. “Think small, think about what’s next to you. Think!”
“I, I don’t know,” Isabel said, her voice boiling down to a hoarse whisper. She thought back to scenario time when her college professor wasn’t even directly addressing her and she felt the need to get up and leave the lecturing room because she was so overwhelmed. But she wasn’t going to leave this time. This time, she was going to see things through.
“You, of all people, should know,” Oz said, eyeing her coldly. “It’s Isabel, you guys! Isabel is the chosen one! She’s one of the strongest most powerful succubi to ever walk this Earth! She’s our most valuable weapon.”
Isabel could feel a weight being dropped to her chest. It’s not like she didn’t know it from the very beginning: this whole thing, start to finish, rested on her, and her only. Everyone else was at the periphery, or at least that’s what it seemed like. Ultimately, when Oz had done his part as the orator, when Jared has done his part as the loyal follower, when Ava has done her part as the gutsy rebel, it was only Isabel who remained.
“And what about Presten?” Abeo asked. “Isn’t he the chosen one, too?”
“Ah, I’m glad you asked,” Oz said, his lips curving to a wry smile. “Do you know why I never mentioned him, even though he’s the chosen one?”
“Because no one knows him,” a voice said from the far end of the room. Isabel turned around to see who it was. To her surprise, it was a girl she had never spoken to before; she was one of the people they had summoned outside the old mansion, but she hadn’t really gotten the chance to get to know her.
“This woman is a goldmine,” Oz said, his pearly teeth showing through his smile as he looked at the woman who had spoken. “Tell me, what’s your name?”
“Abigail,” the woman said, hugging her knees to her chest.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Abigail. Do you mind telling us a little about yourself?”
“I’m a shapeshifter,” she said, her hands clasped around her ankles. “That’s pretty much it.”
Isabel opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She and Oz exchanged brief glances before he smiled again, trying to conceal his confusion. Isabel was weary of shapeshifters, especially after what happened with Mikael. This woman was dangerous and she had to be recognized as such. “Interesting,” Oz said after a long pause. “I’d love to get to know you after our meeting… if that’s okay with you, of course.”
Abigail just nodded and looked away. It wasn’t like she was uninterested, but there was something weird about her, something peculiar. Isabel thought maybe she was just introverted, but then again, she knew nothing about her or where she came from. It was a bit worrying.
“Now, back to what we were saying… the council doesn’t know Presten. Or, of course they ‘know’ him, they just wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him,” Oz said, searching their faces for a reaction. “And so, that makes him our secret weapon. What do you think, Presten?”
“I think you’re absolutely right,” he said, peering at Isabel. She was still stuck in her own head.
“So basically, I’m the front, Presten’s our secret weapon, the hostages are the bait,” she said finally.
“Exactly.”
“Well, I think we’ve got most things sorted out,” Ava said, rising to her feet. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“Will you sit back down?” Oz asked, agitated. “We still have a lot to cover, right now we’re just trying to figure out where we are.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were my college lecturer,” Ava said, folding both arms across her chest. Of all the girls that Oz knew, Ava was probably the sassiest.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a pause. “I just don’t want us to screw this up, because if we do, we might never get another chance.”
“We’re not going to screw up,” Ava said, slumping back down on the floor. She sat cross-legged, gawking at Oz as he tried to gather his thoughts. “We’re a strong group, I think we’ll be okay.”
“Alright, well, the night is still young, ladies and gentlemen! We have a lot of time on our hands… and a lot more planning.”