Opening his mouth a couple of times to speak, Ben eventually found the right words, saying them slowly as he spoke. "Vampires like me are a disgrace to his notion of what a vampire should be. Rüdiger believes mutants should only breed with mutants. That way, the magic and paranormal lines become stronger and we will 'evolve' more. Humans breeding into our lines weakens our chances of 'development' and 'growth' as a species." He used his fingers as air quotes.

"What are you saying..."

"According to our sources still there and some of the earlier developments Lukas saw before he came to London... Rüdiger is trying to wipe out humans by either finding the perfect magical being to use as a weapon or inventing some disease that will kill their numbers... so that the vampires have less work to finish off the rest."

I let his words mull over in my mind, weighing up what he had said. "Does he think he's Hitler or something?" I half shouted.

"I hear he actually fed a lot of his ideas to Hitler... One of his ways of wiping out a lot of people in Germany when he tried enacting his plan back then."

My stomach squirmed at his words as my proclamation meant in jest became a scary reality.

"Are you okay? You're going a little green..." Ben hesitantly placed a hand on my back, his face suddenly very close as he studied me, worried.

But the sudden proximity of his face alongside his touch wiped away all concerns I had though, making me forget them in an instant.

Instead, I became lost in his eyes, drinking in the swirling blue... before my gaze began to trail down to his mouth.

Unbelievable, Olivia! This dude just said you're a part of his diet and you're thinking about kissing him?

Noticing where my eyes had turned, Ben removed his hand and shuffled back slightly. Which, to be honest, did hurt a little. Though I tried to not read into it too much. Now wasn't the time when I had more questions.

"So... um... What about the immortality thing that's a trope for vampires?" I asked to distract my thoughts.

He smirked, looking at his lap. "We're not immortal."

"Why do I feel like there is a but to that?"

He looked up at me, shyly... like he was blushing. "The stronger the line... the slower the ageing process."

I continued to breathe steady breaths, letting his words sink in. After some moments of silence passed, I asked, "Was... was your ID fake?"

Ben gave a small nod.

Slowly blinking, my eyes searched him... trying to decipher how old he is. He didn't really look older than 19... but it did explain why he was amused when I freaked out about being a couple months 'older' than him.

"How old are you?" I finally managed.

"Physically 19..." was all he gave back.

"Right. But what year were you born?"

He was definitely avoiding my gaze now. For a while I thought he wasn't even going to reply... until he barely made audible, "1922."

"1922?" I gasped. "You could be my great grandfather!"

"Please don't say that..." He was obviously horrified by my comment.

"You mean... you're almost a hundred years old?"

"I've been alive for almost a hundred calendar years. But in human years I'm physically 19."

I shook my head. "How does that work?"

"As I said, it does depend on the vampire line. The stronger the line, the slower you age. So my life expectancy would be five times that of a normal human..."

"Then... how long have you physically been 19?"

"Five years."

I blinked again as my mind worked on overdrive, trying to do the maths of it all. "Meaning... you were a baby for like ten years?"

"Yes."

"And a bratty teenager for like... twenty-five years?"

"Exactly."

"That's gross." My face contorted along with it.

"Very."

"Puberty for twenty-five years?" I repeated, still in disbelief.

Ben struggled to suppress his smile. He seemed to be really enjoying my reactions, which evidently had calmed his nerves. Not that I knew what I wanted to do about any of this yet...

"And when you said your mum died when you were young..."

"I was physically five. She was fifty."

"The poor woman had a screaming baby and toddler most of her life?"

He sighed. "I can't have been easy. She knew what she was getting into though. Dad told her everything and what to expect... and she loved me dearly. Did not complain once." I could see a hint of sadness tainting his eyes.

"Do you remember her well?"

He shook his head. "Just some slight memories. Most are stories shared from my father."

I nodded, relating to the experience. My father had died when I was a baby, so I didn't even have memories of him.

"Fangs?" I asked.

He smirked. "No. Our teeth are sharp enough."

"Stakes?"

"Everyone dies when a stake is stabbed through them. Like, c'mon!"

"Can you glamour or hypnotise people?"

He rolled his eyes. "This isn't True Blood or The Vampire Diaries. Though you will want to be careful with witches on that one... They have some nasty spells."

"And if someone cut you, would you bleed out and die?"

Heaving a sigh this time, he admitted, "It would create a wound, but it would clot and heal pretty quickly. You would have to have a whole limb or head chopped off to have any chance of bleeding out or dying. Or have your heart stabbed, but, as I said, that kills everyone."

"Wait..." I said.

He glanced at me, reluctantly, evidently dreading my next question. Like he knew there were things that would still scare me away, but he wasn't willing to say them until I directly asked.

"Official blood banks didn't start in Britain until 1940 during World War Two... I remember studying that in my vampire research."

"Yes..."

"So what did you do before that?"

"My mother fed my father and I," he mumbled.

"Willingly?"

Ben nodded.

"Is that why your father—"

But Ben was already shaking his head, his expression marred with offence now. "My parents deeply loved each other. She wasn't just a blood bag for him."

"Okay," I whispered, not liking the sudden snappy side of him I had just seen. Especially now knowing he could easily hurt me...

"Sorry," he mumbled. "That reaction was uncalled for. It's only natural you would assume..."

I shook my head, but said nothing. Because what could I say? It's okay? I didn't really know if it was... I didn't know what anything was anymore.

"Would you like me to take you home?" he asked after I had said nothing for a while.

"I can walk myself home."

I could almost hear him swallow before he said in the gentlest voice possible, "I would really like to walk you home if you will let me."

The tenderness of his voice softened my reluctancy. So I nodded and got to my feet, Ben joining me immediately.

"There's just one more thing," he said as we walked up the stairs.

"What?"

But instead of answering, he was gone in a flash, not even trying to hide the vampire speed he so evidently had. And, just as quickly, he was by my side again, his hand clenched around something as we walked out.

As we walked down the path, my eyes kept flickering to his fist tightened around that object.

After endless echoed steps of silence, I finally asked, "What did you grab?"

But Ben merely shook his head at me before saying, "I'll tell you later.'

Pursing my lips, I folded my arms across my chest as we continued walking. His distance from me now very obvious. And, on the tube, he stood pretty far away from me, causing a part of me to wonder if he regretted telling me...

We didn't say much the whole way.

Which began to call forth the worry of why he even wanted to walk me home of it wasn't to convince me to stick around after this... It was almost as if the thing he feared wasn't my reaction or well-being anymore, but maybe that I would run off to the media and shout my conspiracy theories.

A part of me felt hurt, while the other part knew to not jump to conclusions. This whole time I knew that Ben wasn't easy to read and none of my instincts had been right so far.

When we finally reached the front of my place, we came to a stop, standing awkwardly in front of it, wondering what I could or should say.

But then his hand that had been clenched around an item came up, revealing what he had.

A small bottle with glowing purple liquid rested in the middle of his palm, held out to me to take.

Hesitantly grabbing it off him, I rolled it around in my hand, inspecting it. "What's this for?" I asked, looking back into his eyes.

"No witches in my circle can use spells to erase memories... You have to be pretty powerful to use mind magic. But they can brew a potion that will remove 24 hours of memory."

I opened my mouth a few times to speak, but struggled to find the words.

"If you decide what you heard today was too much," he continued, "drink it before midday tomorrow and you will forget any of this ever happened. And I promise I will never come find you. And you can go on with your life as if I'm just some jerk who stopped contacting you."

My eyes began to sting and my heart collapsed into itself. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I finally found my voice for a moment to ask, "Is that what you want?"

His eyes went wide, and then softened as he took a step closer to me. A hand came up, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear as he stared at me. "Definitely not. I'm not giving this to you because of what I want... if that were the case I would have never let you know such a thing exists. I just... I know this would be hard to accept and difficult knowledge to live with. So if you want to forget... you need to know the option is there. At least... for the next twenty-four hours."

"And say... say I decide it doesn't bother me?" I hesitantly met his eyes.

"Then just text me in the morning when you're up, and I'll meet you at the library." He gave me a small smile, which I returned.

"Thank you for walking me home," I whispered, grabbing my keys out and putting them in the door.

As I stepped into the hallway that led up to the numerous apartments, Ben said in a small voice, "Thank you for hearing me out and letting me explain. And if I don't see you again, Olivia... it's been an absolute pleasure knowing you for this brief period." He kept his eyes—burning, blue, and stormy—on me the whole time I closed the door.

And a part of me felt like I could almost feel him standing there as I walked away, up the stairs and to my apartment.