A tear slid down Liv's fuzzy bat cheek. It was so tiny, yet it felt heavier than a boulder crashing down on Ryker's chest. The sight shattered him into a thousand pieces.
He held her, stroking her head with his thumb.
Anna watched him, her anger deflating, replaced by a wary concern. She gave Brock a look of confusion.
"What happened?" she whispered to the golem, leaning in close so only he could hear.
"Lies."
One word was enough for Anna to understand. She stared at her feet. Guilt now washed over her for lying too. The four of them sat in the quiet room. Liv's soft, tiny breaths against his neck were the only sound for a while.
"Are you okay Anna?"
Ryker's question made her look up.
"Better than you," she forced a chuckle. Their physical wounds were all healed up but she could tell Ryker's emotional wound was new and raw.
Looking at her, the images of her ribs, and her pained face came back. It was disturbing.
"I thought you'd take longer to heal," he commented, changing the subject.
Anna brushed a hair strand away, "Yeah... the doctors actually said it'd take a few weeks. My mom was devasted but then a healer popped in out of nowhere and fixed it up in minutes."
"An S rank healer?" Brock guessed
"I think so. He was all sweaty and looked terrified but healed me right up," Anna chuckled, "My mom was scared that she couldn't pay but the guy panicked and said it was on the house before sprinting out of the room."
Ryker exchanged a look with Brock, who simply nodded back.
"My mom is Valerica Dracula," Ryker blurted out. No beating around the bush, no preamble.
The dryad just tilted her head, "I'm sorry I think my ears are busted. Did you say..."
"I did," he interrupted her.
Liv's body trembled against him.
Anna shook her hands in dismissal, "No that's... impossible."
She looked at Liv, the bat in Ryker's hands, for confirmation.
"Your mom is Maddie Larduca, one of the best trauma surgeons in Revera City."
The little bat let out a squeak and buried her face in Ryker's shirt, confirming the impossible.
"We're all Dracula's but my mother is Valerica. She sent the healer."
Silence. The hospital machines beeped, marking the passing of seconds that felt like hours.
She started to pace around the room, shaking her head in disbelief.
"No. No. That would mean Isabella is your sister." Anna said, her pacing becoming more frantic.
Ryker didn't confirm it verbally.
"That your mother controls the entire vampire council..." Anna added, her mind racing to connect the dots.
Ryker couldn't respond.
"That your mother is the strongest freaking person on the planet," Anna's voice was now a frantic whisper.
The sheer absurdity and horror of it all crashed down on them. It was one thing for Ryker to be some abandoned noble. It was another thing entirely to be the son of a living weapon of mass destruction.
"Ryker what does she want with you?" Anna's question was direct. She had always been the one to see past the jokes and get to the heart of the matter.
"I don't know yet... She wants me to attend Meridian Academy," he answered, glancing at his phone where the threatening messages were.
"You too. And Brock," he added.
"She also said if I disobey she'll kill everyone in Revera City," his voice was flat, "She'd kill my family."
Anna stopped pacing, the color draining from her face. Brock's jaw tightened.
"She's a bitch," Liv said, her tiny bat voice filled with venom.
A weak laugh escaped Ryker's lips, the tension in his chest easing just a fraction.
"But that was a joke right? A terrible one?" Anna asked, still clinging to a sliver of hope. That a mother, a person like that, couldn't be real.
Liv finally transformed into her humanoid form. She was sitting on his lap.
"Her moral compass points directly at power. Nothing else matters," Liv rubbed Ryker's cheek, her touch was warm and comforting.
"If you had awakened any magic besides space she'd let you die," her statement was cruel but delivered with a stoic honesty. She had seen Valerica's cruelty firsthand.
"Only those who awaken space magic have a use for her."
Ryker looked at Liv with a question in his eyes.
"That's why our mom... my mom took us away. We had red eyes, not purple." she explained.
"So you don't have space magic?" Brock asked.
She shook her head, "I can't control it, and it's not stable... So it's basically useless."
"So you are too weak for her," Anna said and she flinched at the realization of her words, "I didn't mean it like that..."
Liv gave her a weak smile, a look of understanding on her face, "You're not wrong, though."
"Wouldn't that make my maigc unstable too? I exploded my own hand," he said, a knot of worry in his stomach.
"Did she ask you to cast a spell when you woke up?" Liv asked, she already knew the answer.
"Yes."
"Then it means your magic is stable," Liv explained, "You just don't know how to control it."
Ryker didn't say anything, just stared at the ceiling, the weight of his new reality pressing down on him.
Brock's laughter broke the silence.
"I'm sorry but that's fucking cool, my friend is a Dracula," the golem's attempt at lightening the mood earned him a half-smile from Ryker.
"Forget S-rank Ryke. You can rule over all vampires," he added, a little too excited.
"Rule? I'm her puppet. She wants me to become a living weapon," the thought wasn't a new one to him, it's been something he has been thinking about for a few hours now.
Brock stared out the window at the peaceful city below.
"Even the great Dracula fell in the end," Brock said, the humor gone from his voice, "But hey let's just have fun and graduate. All I want is a cat girlfriend before we die."
Clearing her throat, breaking Brock's obsession with the felines, Anna said, "I think I know how you can use magic."