Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
MARIS
Aria just stabbed Julian trying to stab me.
That fucking bitch.
And today of all days, when we have a major story to break and hopefully getting this vampire nonsense out of everyone’s mind.
“Let’s go home.”
Those three words give me some semblance of peace, at least enough to stay in control of myself and not launch myself into the group of officers wrestling with Aria’s drunk ass.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Julian for the millionth time as we walk up the hill towards my house. Of course, I didn’t drive. He said he didn’t either, so now here we are hobbling up the hill with me doing my best to support him. I’m not doing badly. I could do better if I wasn’t in heels.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I really think you should get it checked out.”
“I’m a doctor. Who else is going to check it out?”
He’s got me there so I sigh and nod. “That’s true, but you just taped it over, that can’t be safe.”
“Medics do it all the time. Sometimes we have to do it in the ER. Sometimes we even use glue.”
I don’t know anything about what medics do or what happens in ERs so I stay silent the rest of the way up to my house. It’s only when we reach the top of the hill and we’re standing in front of both of our houses that I realize maybe he didn’t mean Vesper House.
“Do you…want me to help you over to yours?” I ask.
I don’t know why I feel nervous about going into someone else’s space.
Maybe because I haven’t in a long time. It’s just a house, Maris.
One that you’ve been in a hundred times before when things were normal, but still…
there’s the weight of not knowing what to do in someone else’s home.
I know how to act in town and at work. I close myself down, keep others out.
The newspaper is different because they’re loyal.
I’m safe there. Will I be safe at Julian’s?
I am next door to his place but Julian keeps walking up to mine.
Our roles reverse in his march forward, he’s practically holding me up while he walks up the sidewalk to my gate.
“No, of course not. That’s not a home.”
That’s not a home.
I don’t say anything, just follow him and slip back under his arm to open the gate and then the door once we’ve made it up the porch. Vesper House is cool and calm, a quiet refuge after the day I’ve had. I feel like I can finally breathe.
I take in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I’ll go get the supplies we have here, or do you want me to go next door for yours?”
Julian shakes his head and points upstairs. “I left a salve in your room. In your nightstand drawer.”
“Okay.” I motion for him to go into the living room. “Go ahead and get comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
I take the stairs two at a time, I’m going so fast that I nearly trip at the top but manage to catch myself on the banister.
“Maris? Are you all right?”
I wince. He probably thought I fell. “I’m fine!
Sounds worse than it is. I’ll…um, just be a minute.
” I hurry off before Julian decides to come and rescue me.
What the fuck is wrong with me? One second I’m fine and wanting to deck Aria Sheep because she tried to stab me and the next I’m tripping over my own feet like an awkward teenager.
I manage to make it to my room without eating shit, which is a plus.
I open the nightstand drawer and like Julian said, a small glass jar with a yellow top sits inside. It looks different than the one he used on me yesterday. When I lift it there’s a slip of paper folded beneath it. It looks like a letter.
“What is this?” I pick up paper and see I was right, it is a letter.
Inside I see neat cursive handwriting, the kind I wouldn’t expect from a doctor but I would of Julian.
Maris–
Apply this twice daily to any bruising that remains and sleep well. The road to healing is paved with plenty of rest.
Yours,
Julian
It’s a simple letter. More directions from a doctor than anything really, but my eyes can’t help but linger on the yours. That’s not doctorly. At least, I don’t think it is. The last time I went to the doctor he barely looked me over and was thirty minutes late.
“He got stabbed for you,” I remind myself as I pick up the salve.
“He rescued you from Billy and he healed your face. I think he likes you.” Even my socially inept and outcast ass can see the signs of Julian liking me, yours, not included.
But there’s something nice about seeing the small gesture.
Butterflies fill my belly and I don’t even bother biting back the smile on my face when I descend the staircase and find Julian in the living room.
He’s sitting on the settee and looks right at home in the turn of the century furnishings. I tilt my head and look him over.
Julian reclines back, eyes closed, the late afternoon sun shining down on him.
His hair looks like burnished gold. Even with the stab wound and the bloody shirt, Julian looks refined, regal.
Like a lord that’s just come in and is sleeping off a night of dancing.Yes, granny would be thrilled right now.
A handsome man that likes me in Vesper House?
She’d be over the moon. She’d also be yelling at me to marry him immediately.
It’s a good thing she’s not here. God rest her soul.
I hesitate in the doorway, reluctant to destroy the silence and wake him. He’s so pretty that I take my time and linger, I watch him for another minute before I knock on the door and enter.
Julian lifts his head at the sound. “Maris?” He sounds confused, like he doesn’t know where he is. When he looks my way I see an unfocused look in his eyes. He’s exhausted.
“It’s me,” I tell him quickly, and hold up the salve. “I found it.”
“Did you find my note?”
I smile at him. “I did, but it looks like the tables have turned and now you’re the one that needs to rest.”
He grins and sits up with a yawn. “I can’t argue with you there. Healing takes energy, and that means sleep. I’m tired all of a sudden but I just need a moment.”
“You can sleep here,” I offer as I open the salve. The smell of chocolate hits my nose and I look into the jar with a sniff. “This is different from the one you used on me.”
“It is. The one I used before was stronger.”
“Maybe we should use that one?”
“This one is plenty strong for the cut she gave me.” Julian holds out his hand for the salve and I give it to him. “Practically a paper cut.”
I give him a side-eye when he says that. His blue dress shirt is looking rough. It’s slashed enough that I can see the white tape and gauze and the material all around the hole is stained with blood. I’ve never seen a paper cut this fucking serious.
“I can help you,” I offer.
I think he’ll fight me but in the end Julian relents which I’m thankful for, or at least I am until he opens his shirt and I’m treated to a feast for the eyes.
His chest is broad and muscular, dear god, fuck a six pack, this man has muscles where I didn’t know there could be muscles.
He leans back on the settee and starts to work the gauze off.
“Can you bring a waste bin for this?” he asks, head bent, blond hair falling over his forehead and making him look like a hero that’s stepped right out of a novel.
“O-of course.” I get up faster than I should and for the second time that day, nearly trip.
“I’m fine,” I tell him quickly before I power walk over to my desk that sits in front of the windows to snag the waste basket I use.
“Here you go.” I put it down next to him and then because I don’t know what to do I stand there.
“Thank you.” Julian lifts his head and gives me a smile. It’s warm like the sun, warm and bright. I smile back. The warmth from Julian’s smile worms its way into me, it works in deep, finding its way through the fractures I’ve been carrying for so long that I didn’t even notice them until now.
“Can I do anything?”
Julian shakes his head and drops the bandages and tape into the bin. They don’t look soaked which is good.
“No, thank you. I’ll be just fine in a minute. Then we can see about dinner.”
The grandfather clock chimes right on cue and reminds me that it’s late. The sun dips down below the horizon, the light outside slowly turns from orange to purple and blue. It’ll be nightfall soon.
“I’ll get rid of this. Be right back.”
“Don’t be long.” I’m treated to another iceberg melting smile.
I’m practically floating when I bend to take the trash can away and see that there’s practically no blood at all on the bandages.
I glance back over my shoulder at Julian and pause on my way to the kitchen.
Just like he said, he’s smoothing salve on the wound.
At least he would be if there was a wound, but there’s nothing there at all.
Not even a scratch mars his perfect skin.
That can’t be. I saw him get stabbed, I felt the force of Aria’s body hitting his when she tried to get to me.
I heard the material of his shirt rip under the knife.
How is there no wound?
“Maris?”
I jump in surprise. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?” Julian is looking at me funny.
He isn’t smiling now. We stare at each other while I try to understand what I’m seeing.
The warm and soft feeling he gave me shrivels up inside of me and something else claws its way into being in its place.
Something dark and cold. There’s danger here.
He’s too still. That’s what it is. Is he even breathing?
“I-I-I’m,” I lower my eyes and try not to freak out. I’m seeing things, I have to be. Of course, Julian is breathing. The rustle of fabric is the only warning I get that Julian is on the move. He walks so silently that he’s in front of me before I realize what’s happened.
“I’m fine,” I whisper. I keep my eyes on the floor. My body is screaming at me, alarm bells are going off in every part of my body. I have to get away. I don’t move though. My heart won’t let me.
This is Julian.
He healed me.
There’s no reason to be scared of him.
He touches my chin, runs his thumb over it before his fingers slide along the side of my jaw and he tips my head back so I have to look at him. Fear rises in me. My body won’t listen to my heart.
He’s going to kill you, it shrieks over and over again like a deranged alarm clock that I’ve hit snooze on one too many times.
“You don’t seem fine.”
I lick my lips and open my mouth but nothing comes out. My mind turns on me, my thoughts race and the fear repeats the warning again.He’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you. Hesgoingtokillyou.
“You can talk to me,” Julian tells me.
If I wasn’t a killer then maybe I could just ignore my feeling as paranoia, a leftover from nearly being stabbed today. Explain it away as my nervous system still in survival mode. Any normal person would but I am a killer and I’m not a normal person.
HesgoingtokillyouHesgoingtokillyouHesgoingtokillyou.
My intuition begs me to listen, to run, to find somewhere to hide.
I don’t move, not even a muscle. There’s worse ways I can think of to die than by Julian’s hand.
He cups my face, palm to my cheek. His thumb ghosts over my lips and again, I don’t run.
I lean into his touch, turn my face into his hand and let out the breath I’ve been holding.
HESGOINGTOKILLYOU.
“I’m just feeling lightheaded,” I lie. “It’s been a weird day.
” I hold up the waste basket and step away from him but not before I catch his hand and bring him with me down the hallway.
“I’m going to toss this out back. Do you want to order dinner?
I’ve got a few menus from the places that will deliver here. ”
Even if I was normal, I don’t think I’d run from Julian.
There’s a pull. A need. It makes me want to be near him.
I feel like I’m remembering how to be alive and I know it’s because of him.
Before Julian, my life was small. Lonely.
I haven’t done a thing with my miserable life but hide and waste away in the halls of Vesper House. I won’t do it again.
What’s living worth if you can only do it as a ghost? No, I’m never doing that again. I won’t run from Julian, I won’t hide, I won’t find a way to leave.
Even if he is the end of me, there wouldn’t be anything to end without him.
I’m keeping him.