Event Private Finished Get on your soapbox and shout

Chloe noticed the gesture, the hesitation, and she didn't quite know what to make of it. She'd already talked about being taken advantage of, on stage, in front of the school. Aura awareness was a big part of her campaign. What could be stressing her out so much?

Chloe decided to move on with some encouragement.

"What I'm getting at is, more awareness is going to be a good thing. And it'll probably help the people with those kinds of auras, too. I mean, I know some people who've been ashamed of their aura and too scared to talk about it, which... yeah, I guess I can't blame people in that situation too much, either. But I think opening up the conversation about this is going to help people going through that. So it's a good thing you're doing."

"Right." So Alma was trying to solve the problem Chloe had actually been worried about. Chloe didn't feel comfortable being so direct about the moral responsibility of people with auras. It didn't feel like her place to go there - so she was glad that Alma was. "I'm glad someone is leading the charge on this stuff."

From experience, Chloe knew that someone in Alma's position might like to hear stories about how their activism helped someone, or could have helped someone. She wanted to share, and it felt like such a better idea, too, now that she was already talking to Alma. "Also... well, I know for a fact that someone's aura seriously affected me, once. He was another Asmodean demon. It had a much stronger effect on me than yours does. I only learned about it after... well." Alma would know. It happened to her, too. She waited a beat for Alma to fill in that gap, and continued. "He kept apologizing to me for over a week, after he finally told me about it. And I've tried to act like it doesn't bother me so much, because we both need to feed on people, and I might have helped him anyway. But you still feel... sort of used, in a situation like that."

"Aaron is your brother."

Oh.

Fuck.

Chloe didn't know what to say. She didn't say anything. With how she couldn't make eye contact, she probably didn't have to say anything.

Her face flushed. She connected the dots, all at once, too late. It should have been obvious that he was her brother. That Aaron was the one who hurt Alma. They looked so similar. They were both half-demon half-vampires, and there weren't too many of those running around. How could she not have known? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Chloe was overwhelmed, making connections. More and more, she was entertaining the idea that Aaron had used her.

There was no way he should have gotten into a situation where he needed to do that to his sister. And he certainly didn't need Chloe to help him. He could go to a brothel without even needing to pay for it - Chloe knew that was true. But there he was, going off and nearly getting his sister pregnant. His excuses didn't add up.

A part of Chloe wondered if she deserved what Aaron did to her, when she met him. She'd used her power on plenty of people without asking. Manipulated them to get a fix, just because it felt better for her. So, maybe this was her cosmic punishment.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. I didn't realize... I mean, if it makes you feel better to talk about it, you can, but I didn't mean to... open the wound again, or anything like that."

The harder Chloe tried not to think about meeting Aaron, the more she found herself thinking about it. She desperately wanted to not care about it, or not view it as a problem, like she did before she started thinking about all this aura stuff.

She wasn't sure how to feel about any of this anymore. She wasn't even sure if she deserved to be hugged.

"Sure. If you want."