Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ATTICUS
What the hell am I doing?
What… the hell… am I doing?
I sigh and throw the car into park with enough vigor it should have woken up Yorick, but he’s still dead asleep. I stare at him as I wonder if I was wrong to let him drag me here. Should I just leave and deal with everything on my own? That would be the safest option.
What exactly is the sense of drawing others into this mess? I’ve dealt with this alone for nearly all my life; why would I do it any differently now?
I will do Morpheus’s bidding one more time, and then hopefully, he’ll let me go for another hundred years before I have to deal with him again.
Stealthily, I try to slip out, thinking that I could just leave before anyone notices, but Yorick’s hand latches on to my shirt.
“Don’t leave me. Carry me inside.”
“I will drag you out of the car, but carrying will not happen.”
“I want to be treated like your bride.”
I swiftly exit the car, and because he refuses to let go of my shirt, the already damaged fabric ends up ripping off my body. It’s fine, I don’t need that shirt anyway.
Yorick gasps as he jumps out of the car and hurries to catch up with me while cradling my torn shirt.
“How cute of you,” Johnny comments, and I know he says shit like this just to test me.
I turn and glare at him. “Which part of this is cute?”
“I said nothing, sir,” Johnny says with a straight face. How can this man be so aggravating? He’s supposed to listen, and instead… I swear being around Yorick brings out another side of him.
Before we even reach the door, Julian is running out. He races across the yard and slams into Yorick, wrapping him up in a hug. Yorick looks momentarily stunned and then I can almost see his delight meter filling up and flooding over. He hugs Julian back with vigor.
“See, sir. That is what a hug is supposed to look like,” Johnny says. “Not whatever you were caught doing in the woods.”
“I will send you into the afterlife if you don’t start watching your tongue.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnny responds, obviously pleased with himself.
“Why would you just run off like that? I was so worried about you,” Julian says as he grabs Yorick’s face and rubs at the blood there. “Why are you so bloody? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“Maybe let him answer one of your questions before asking ten more?” Casimir suggests, but Julian seems to prefer asking even more questions.
Ezio comes speeding out and joins in the hug. “I thought you were supposed to be smart!”
Yorick looks extremely happy. Hell, he didn’t even need me at all. He’s got all of these guys.
“Don’t be jealous, sir. You can get in there too,” Johnny whispers in my ear.
“Johnny, I’m going to kick your ass so fucking hard,” I hiss.
He gives me a curious look like he has absolutely no idea why I would ever consider such a thing.
I walk away from him before I do something I may or may not regret, heading over to Casimir instead.
“Do you mind if we stay here for the day?” I ask.
“That’s the first thing you have to say? You’re not going to say anything about what’s happened?”
I just silently stare at him, and because he’s the one person I’ve turned who knows how to listen, he sighs.
“Fine. We can speak about it later,” Casimir finally says.
“Not fine; what happened?” Julian asks.
“I have it handled,” I declare.
But of course Yorick is displeased with leaving it at that and chimes in.
“Morpheus did something to Lou, his brother’s wife, and she attacked me.
I tried to get help, but she was… I don’t even know how to describe it.
It’s like she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing.
All she cared about was killing me. I was holding a jagged chair leg I’d been using to try to keep her back and she slammed into it…
she wasn’t healing, so I have to assume he used that poison on her, and she bled out because of that.
Morpheus told us that we have to kill this man named Wick or he’d tell Niles that I killed his wife.
I really didn’t mean to kill her. I tried to help her, but he held me back until she died.
” Yorick sounds almost shaky, and I know that even though he has killed people before, he’s not a ruthless man, especially toward someone who’d been showing him kindness.
“While Lou was significantly better than Morpheus, she was not free from evil deeds.” Yorick looks over at me as I talk, his desperate eyes locking onto me.
“She’d changed some, but she did many cruel things.
Her favorite was to seduce young men to make her husband jealous, knowing that he’d threaten them or possibly even kill them,” I say, remembering how it was all a fun game to them when I was younger.
Though they might have changed in the years since I was around them, they did many cruel and sick things in the past.
Yorick watches me closely for a long moment before bowing his head. “Okay.”
“Does anyone know who this guy is that Morpheus wants dead?” Julian asks.
“I do,” Casimir says. “He’s an extremely powerful vampire who controls a district probably five times the size of mine.”
“Is he a good guy?” Julian asks.
Casimir shrugs. “I don’t know. Ezio, you’ve encountered him.”
“I did back when I was being tracked down by Louis. I’d fled to his district thinking that Louis wouldn’t enter it. I never had much interaction with the man, but I saw him on occasion,” Ezio says.
Julian looks surprised. “He’s had a district that long?”
“It’s been a while, and it’s very established. He’s not someone you can just walk in and kill,” Casimir says. “He has followers and people who are willing to risk their lives for him.”
“If he’s not a bad person, why would we kill him? Wouldn’t we try to stop Morpheus?” Julian asks.
“Morpheus is over two thousand years old,” I say. “I’m well aware I can’t beat him.”
“If we use the poison…” Yorick begins.
“The poison that’s now in his hands and that he’s aware of?” I ask pointedly.
He doesn’t look deterred. “If someone created it once, they could make it again. We’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t know that this is the answer,” I say. “I’m too tired to discuss this today.”
Yorick frowns at me. “You say that because you plan to leave when we’re not looking and deal with it yourself.”
It’s always irritating when he thinks he knows me. “I told you I wouldn’t.”
He doesn’t seem convinced and keeps staring at me.
“The sun will be up soon; let’s go inside at the very least,” Julian says. “And possibly a shower before any of you sit on the furniture? That could be fun too.”
We head inside, and Johnny almost immediately returns to me with a set of clothes to change into. I take them from him and walk into the bathroom, but before the door can shut, Yorick slips in.
“What?”
“Just… wanted to chill, you know?” he asks as he sits down on the bathroom counter.
I stare at the impossible man. “You think I’m just going to jump out of the window into the oncoming sunlight?”
He looks at the window which has a protective coating and a lock on it that requires a bit of work to undo.
“I just wanted to talk,” he says.
“About?”
Yorick falls silent, and I decide that there really must be something wrong with him if the man who loves to talk can’t even pretend to find something to talk about.
“I’m getting a shower,” I say, unbuttoning my pants.
He gasps and doesn’t even pretend to avoid looking directly at my groin that’s still covered. “So indecent! Almost like you want me to look.”
“Yes, that’s what this was. Me preparing to shower and you barging in… definitely equals me wanting to flash my goods,” I say sarcastically.
Yorick doesn’t seem to mind since his eyes are glued to me, like he’s afraid he’s going to miss me finishing my pants removal.
“Did I say you could look?”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” he mutters as he pretends to look away for one second.
I sigh and turn the shower on before turning around and pushing my pants down. I hear his very audible tsk.
“I think you forgot to turn this way and face me.”
“I don’t think I did,” I say as I get into the shower.
“Do you need blood?”
“I’ll get some when I’m done in the shower.”
“You can suckle on me.”
“Yes, I want your poison-soaked blood,” I snark.
He huffs about that, but does he really want me over there draining him when he’s half dead? And why would I even bite another vampire? The only reason I fed him my blood is because he can consume it, since I’m his maker, and there were no humans available at the time.
I slide the shower curtain open a little and catch him looking me right in the eyes. “Why are you being such a creeper?”
“Who’s the creeper when you’re the one opening the curtain?” he asks.
“Go take a shower. Casimir has more than one bathroom.”
“I’m going to get us out of this situation… I’m going to get you out of it for good,” he promises.
It’s the last thing I thought he’d say. And he can only say it because he didn’t live with Morpheus. He only has an inkling of how cruel the man can be. But he looks so determined, like he could face the whole world, even if it turned on him… just as long as he had people by his side.
There’s no way to stop Morpheus. I came to terms with that many years ago. But to still have hope like Yorick does?
I pull the shower curtain closed and step under the water as I wash the blood off me.
Oh, to have that hope again.
“I want to save you for once, so you’d better not run off without me. I’m obviously destined to be the hero since I was made so pretty,” he says before I hear him leave.
I snort. What a ridiculous declaration.
After I finish showering, I consume enough blood to feel back to normal before slipping off to bed.
I’m certain the others would like to discuss what could be done, but I already know there’s nothing that will fix this.
Nothing will change this, so I might as well sleep and enjoy a day of freedom before Morpheus tightens that collar around my neck.
Not long later, I hear Yorick quietly moving down the hallway before sitting down outside my door. Is he really going to sit here all day? And does he genuinely think he could stop me if he wanted? What a joke.