He nods. It's likely a moot consideration. If he's taken out, he won't be allowed to stay out. The new fear, mostly in the back of his thoughts and not an immediate one, is that if he ever did lose himself to the Beast, if he became a wight, they wouldn't allow him to stay dead no matter who killed him or how often, that he'd return time and again with animal cunning and mindless appetite, to feed and feed, perhaps be spurred by the city to fuck, too, but not as anything anyone could know beyond the way one knows any of the true terrors of the world.

"I would." It shouldn't be difficult to admit. He was fighting for this before he sired Vanessa. Attaining that breakthrough all at once with an infusion of soul, killing another and benefiting from it so unexpectedly is what isn't sitting well.

"People are as persistent as ticks burrowing under skin," he says with a soft, half-amused huff. "They find ways inside without seeming to make much effort. I just open my eyes, and another one is there. I could say it's annoying, but I suspect you'd know that protest for what it truly is." Surprise. Chagrin. Concern that he's not good enough to have that, that he'll destroy those connections in the end and potentially the people along with them. Because it's his nature as well as his history, and he doesn't know how not to repeat it.