I Am Not The Only Monster In This Story

The Lennox estate fell under a velvet hush as dusk draped itself across the hills. The windows of the solarium shimmered faintly, catching the last strands of amber light.

Inside, the room held its usual stillness, lavender leaves rustling in their pots, linen cushions perfectly fluffed on wicker seats, and a faint citrusy trace of lemongrass curling through the air. It was the kind of peace that masked something far more fractured underneath.

Maisie stood at the doorway, fingers resting against the carved frame like she needed to anchor herself. Her other hand twisted the hem of her sleeve. The hallway behind her was dim and cool, but the solarium was warm, quiet in a way that dared her to step forward.

She had spent the entire afternoon turning this moment over in her head, gathering the courage to face her mother not as the scorned, impulsive daughter who had lashed out, but as someone older than yesterday, and she was finally ready to lower her defenses.

She knocked, barely more than a breath against the wood.

"Come in," came Mara's voice. Light. Measured. Laced with the sort of weariness that didn't quite soften, it sank.

Maisie opened the door and stepped inside.

The room smelled like memory. Like fresh-cut herbs and the ghost of garden tea parties when she was little, when things were simpler, or at least seemed to be.

Her mother sat poised near the window, a porcelain cup cupped delicately in her hands. The steam curled like a veil, rising and disappearing before it ever touched the ceiling. Her robe was pristine, her posture elegant as always, but her face... her face was tired. The kind of tired that no sleep could undo.

Maisie hovered. Then, slowly, she moved to sit across from her, the floral cushion sighing under her weight. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat. She didn't know what to say first, only that she had to say something before silence swallowed them whole.

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to talk," she said finally, eyes fixed on the edge of the tablecloth. She traced a vine in the embroidery with her fingertip.

"I wasn't sure if you would," Mara answered, setting her cup down with the softest clink. The sound echoed faintly, too loud in the quiet.

Maisie hesitated, watching the last of the steam fade from the cup like an unanswered question.

Then: "I... I wanted to apologize." Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper. "For what I said. It was cruel. And I meant it at the time, but..." she faltered, her hands twisting together in her lap, "I regret it now."

Mara didn't respond right away. Her eyes held something unreadable, like she was calculating the cost of what came next. When she finally did speak, her voice was softer than before. "You said things you meant."

Maisie stiffened. The words landed sharper than she'd expected. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"No." Mara exhaled, her gaze steady but distant. "But you wanted to prove you could."

Maisie's hands curled into fists, pale and tight. She stared down at them, at the tension coiled in her knuckles, and slowly, deliberately, she forced them open.

"I'm not trying to win," she said. "I'm trying to understand. But you make it so hard. You treat me like I can't handle anything real. Like I'll break if you give me the truth."

Mara stayed quiet.

Maisie leaned forward, her voice gaining a little strength. "But I'm not a child anymore. I see it, Mom. I see how things don't add up with Dad. I can feel it. You don't have to say it, but I know."

Her breath caught, but she didn't back down.

"You're not protecting me," she whispered. "You're just keeping me in the dark. And I'm tired of pretending that's okay. I'm not a child anymore."

Maisie's heart thundered as the words left her mouth. Each syllable felt like it cost her something. But she didn't back down. Not this time. For the first time, she stood her ground, not just to speak, but to be seen. Seen. By the woman who had always seemed to look through her.

Across from her, Mara sat motionless. Not cold, but unreadable. A silence stretched, drawn thin and taut between them like a wire waiting to snap. Maisie held her breath, bracing for disappointment, bracing for retreat. Her mother had a way of vanishing mid-conversation, eyes clouding over, voice dulled to nothing. Emotional self-preservation dressed as composure.

But just when Maisie thought the silence might win, Mara spoke.

"You want to be treated like an adult," she said at last, voice low, clipped, sharp in the quiet. "But the moment things get difficult, you run. From responsibility. From the consequences of your actions."

The words struck like a slap, not in volume, but in precision.

Maisie flinched. "That's not—"

Mara didn't let her finish. "You've been hiding behind your grief," she said, louder now. Not cruel, but undeniably hard. "Wearing it like armor. Performing helplessness. And I've allowed it. I let you believe it was protection." Her eyes softened, but only slightly. "Your father encouraged that. He thought it made you safer. Easier. But it's not safety, it's stagnation."

Maisie's throat closed. The burn of shame was sudden and unexpected. Because she knew, deep down, some of it was true.

Mara leaned forward, folding her hands in her lap. "If you want the truth, Maisie... then you must be prepared to hold it in your own hands. Even when it cuts. Especially when it cuts."

The room stilled again, but something in Maisie shifted.

Her mother wasn't pushing her away. Not really. This wasn't rejection, it was a challenge. And a flicker of something stubborn sparked to life inside her chest.

For a little while, Maisie had clung to an ideal. That she could change the world. That the White Angels were the path to that change, fighters for justice, saviors of the broken, champions of the oppressed. She believed in their mission with the kind of faith only the young could afford.

But that faith was crumbling.

It had started with her mother's warning. It deepened after the last rally. And now, as she sat across from Mara, her mind pulled back to Igor's face, the strange glaze in his eyes.

And Maisie remembered something else. A gap. A missing moment. She couldn't recall how she got home that night. There was a blank spot in her memory, small but terrifying.

She had brushed it off at first. Stress. Exhaustion. But now... now it felt like a red flag waving just beneath her skin.

What if she had been drugged?

What if Igor had been, too?

The truth pressed in from all sides, heavy and sharp. This wasn't the revolution she thought she was part of. This was something darker. Something twisted. A force that didn't want justice, but control.

"I thought I was helping," she said aloud, voice quieter now, more uncertain. "I thought... they were doing good."

Mara didn't interrupt.

Maisie met her mother's gaze, this time without flinching. "But I think they're doing something terrible. I just don't... remember..."

There it was. The honesty. Laid bare like bones in the dirt.

Mara's expression didn't change much, but something in her posture softened, barely noticeable.

"You're not the only one who made mistakes," she murmured. "But at least now... you're ready to stop making them."

Maisie nodded once, and this time, it wasn't just for show.

The first veil had lifted.

As Maisie's dreams of heroism unraveled, she found herself staring into the hollow of her naiveté. Once, she'd believed she could change everything, eradicate poverty, free the enslaved Alucards, and bring justice to the shadows. She'd clung to that vision like a lifeline. But lately, it felt like a child's fantasy painted in idealism, and her mother's cautious glances had only made that more obvious. Whenever Mara looked at her, it was like she saw a little girl playing savior in a costume far too big.

Maisie hated that.

But now, she was done playing.

She nodded slowly, pulse thrumming in her ears. "Then tell me," she whispered.

Mara studied her daughter across the rim of her cooling teacup. Her silence stretched on like an eternity, broken only by the distant ticking of the clock near the window.

"There was a man, the one I mentioned before, a servant," Mara said at last. Her voice trembled, not with weakness, but with the weight of memory. "Before you were born."

A chill prickled down Maisie's spine.

"I loved him," Mara said, softer now. "Once. Deeply. And it cost us both everything."

Maisie's mouth went dry. "Leo...?"

Mara nodded. "Leo is his son."

Maisie's eyes widened. Her mind reeled, grasping at the fragments of this truth like pieces of a shattered mirror. "But... Dad?"

"Harry knew from the beginning," Mara said, her words falling like stones into a quiet pond. "He agreed to raise Leo as his own. But it was never love that moved him. It was damage control. Reputation. Control."

She didn't say it with bitterness, just fact.

"We lived here. In this house, under the Lennox name. Under my family name, my family legacy. But the man I loved... he was one of our first Alucard servants. And when he vanished, I thought I buried it all. I was heartbroken and tried to move on. But Leo... Leo was the part I couldn't erase."

Maisie sat frozen, her chest tightening as the pieces fell into place. All the strange silences. The cracks in Harry's demeanor. The tension that pulsed under every family dinner. Leo had never truly belonged here, but it wasn't because he wasn't wanted. It was because he wasn't allowed to belong.

"Why now?" Maisie asked. "Why are you telling me this now?"

Mara's eyes drifted toward the window. Outside, the last pink streaks of day were fading into a bruised twilight. "Because the world is about to change, Maisie. And you need to know who you're standing beside."

Her voice lowered, steady and cold. "The White Angels are not saviors. They are fanatics in sheep's clothing. They erase memories. They drug people. They twist loyalty until it's unrecognizable."

Maisie's breath caught.

"And your father," Mara went on, "is not who he pretends to be either. If you don't open your eyes, you'll end up like me, or worse. A pawn. A weapon. Complicit."

Maisie clenched her fists. "But why would he lie about Leo?"

"Because the truth ties Leo to a legacy Harry wants erased. A legacy of rebellion. Of a different future."

The silence that followed was thicker than grief, more suffocating than guilt. Maisie stared at the floor, her thoughts unraveling into a tangled mess of doubt and dread. Every memory she'd clung to, every belief, suddenly felt artificial.

"I don't know what to believe anymore," she said.

Mara didn't answer. She stood, smoothing her skirt with shaking hands. "Then start by listening to yourself," she murmured, and left the solarium without another word.

Maisie stayed behind, surrounded by the scent of jasmine and cold tea. The moon rose outside, soft and silver, casting long shadows that curled around the edges of the room.

She didn't want to go back to her bedroom, not yet. Her feet carried her through the empty halls like a ghost drifting through a past life. The Lennox estate was quiet now. Too quiet.

And then she saw him.

At the edge of the west corridor, just before the servants' wing, Igor.

He stood still, too still, as if the air around him was thick with gravity. His eyes were open, but glassy. Glazed over. Not absent, not entirely, but not present either. He looked... trapped.

"Igor?" she called, her voice breaking the silence like a match in the dark.

He twitched.

Not startled, not startled exactly. Just... reactive. Like a machine snapping out of standby.

"Yes, Miss Lennox?" His voice was calm, perfectly modulated. Too perfect. He was different than he was the other morning when he had comforted her, like something was off...

Maisie took a step forward. "What are you doing here?"

"Just passing through," he said. "Checking that the doors were secured."

She frowned. "That's the evening crew's job."

"They did it. I was verifying their work."

He didn't blink.

Something about the way he spoke was practiced. Automatic. The words fit, but they didn't sound lived-in.

"Are you okay?"

He tilted his head. "Of course."

But the stiffness in his shoulders. The delayed blink. The faint tremor in his hand.

None of it added up.

He stepped forward, and for a moment, the hall light caught his face wrong, sharply, and Maisie saw it. The strain. A fracture. 

"Good night, Igor," she said, voice soft but laced with fear.

He inclined his head, like a wind-up doll mimicking human grace. "Good night, Miss Lennox."

Then he walked away.

Only when he disappeared around the corner did Maisie realize she had been holding her breath. And even then, the air felt wrong.

There was something broken inside of him. His personality had changed under the surface, and she didn't know why.