Chapter Nine
D arkness filled the corners of Aiden’s bedroom.
Shadows bent along the walls where moonlight refused to touch.
The press release had come and gone. Jacob had fielded questions and shooed invasive reporters, and Shay had beamed, seated in the middle of a booth at a bar called Neon, while the band playfully answered questions and pretended to have their shit together.
Georgia spoke the most, even though most questions were directed at Shay.
Aiden answered with teasing sarcasm whenever someone tried to bait him into anger.
Dylan—bless his unwillingness to step into any sort of rage-fueled trap—had slung his arm over Shay’s shoulder and said, “We’re back, and this is just the beginning.
” Every time someone mentioned Thomas, Aiden had gone cold.
At one point, Shay tapped his shin beneath the table, reminding Aiden to strip the fear from his eyes.
Fear remained, though.
Fear followed him home.
He kicked the comforter away, suffocated by balmy July heat, and listened for late-night footsteps on the sidewalk or slow tires at the intersection.
City sounds went silent. In their place, the wet slip of skin filled the apartment.
He stared at the ceiling. Exhaustion warped every thought.
Familiar, age-old panic weighed on his chest like an anchor, keeping him pressed to his bed, unable to lift his head and look toward the sound.
It’s not real , he thought. It’s not fucking real.
Entrapment sealed around his neck. Breath came next, soupy and gurgled, growing nearer.
His eyes burned. Heaviness crept atop him, pulled by decomposing hands digging at his bed sheets, covering his body and holding him there, petrified and choked.
Sea water dripped onto his face, falling from stringy black hair and the tip of Thomas’s nose. Putrid breath drifted across Aiden’s mouth. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He stared into pale, dead pits and tried to scream. No sound left his open mouth.
Thomas wore drenched, tattered clothes and soggy flesh peppered with sand. His throat and chest were still torn, raw and white where blood had leaked between Shay’s lips, onto the tile, into the ocean. One of his broken ribs threatened to puncture Aiden’s stomach.
The corpse leaned closer. “Let me make it up to you,” Thomas said, guttural and inhuman.
His cold, bloated hand found purchase on Aiden’s hipbone, gripping him there, then shifted to his navel, the scar beneath his right nipple, higher, to his gaping mouth.
He said it again, “Let me make it up to you,” and sealed his palm over Aiden’s lips, gagging him with a rock.
He forced the stone deep, breaking teeth, jacking Aiden’s jaw wider— deeper —tearing his tender mouth, pushing into his throat.
Aiden had always wanted to live. Defiantly, at least. In spite of all he’d been told and taught.
Aiden Moore, who had flashed his middle finger to the world, chose life when life didn’t choose him.
But he had no fangs to bare. No supernatural strength to wield.
Unlike Shay, who had defied death and returned fearsome, fearless, unfathomable—Aiden had nothing .
Right then, for the second time, he imagined dying.
It might be easier.
The thought jolted him awake.
He shot forward in bed, clawing at his throat, searching for remnants of the undead.
Thomas was gone, but a glinting pair of eyes came and went, watching him from the other side of his kitchen counter.
Wind rustled dusty blinds. Aiden’s heart drummed wildly.
He touched his cheek and found wetness there.
Tears or sea water, he didn’t know. Tried to slow his breathing and grabbed his phone from the floor, unplugging the charger cord.
5:36 a.m.
“Fuck. . .” he whimpered, one hand plastered beneath his chin. He still felt that rock, sinking roughly into his throat.
Instagram lit the screen. Then Facebook.
Twitter. He scrolled, glancing at tagged pictures from fans at House of Blues and Staples Center.
Swiped the apps away. Tapped the text bubble.
Typed are you okay , deleted okay and replaced it with up , deleted everything and tried again.
Pancakes? He huffed. Backspaced. Flicked the app away.
Opened it again. Thomas was in my apartment.
I don’t know if it was a dream. I’m scared.
I’m fucking scared. Deleted, deleted, deleted.
Aiden Moore: can’t sleep. wanna get some food?
Shay Bennett: Me neither. Sure.
Aiden slept on the way to Vegas. Once in a while, he’d open his eyes and glimpse green road signs and mauve desert.
Watch Dylan sip a joint in the passenger’s seat.
Catch Shay scribbling in his pocket-sized journal or napping with his temple against the window.
Every hour or so, Georgia would grab his ankle, propped on the center console, and shake him awake, firing off questions like burrito or quesadilla and coffee or soda .
After they pulled into the parking garage underneath the sleek Cosmopolitan towers, they unloaded their bags and walked inside, greeted by polished floors and crystal chandeliers.
“We sure this is where Jake booked us. . . ?” Georgia asked. She tipped her head, gazing at the fancy light fixtures and purple ceiling inlays.
Shay tugged his rolling suitcase toward a designated check-in area labeled: Gold Tier. “Just wait here.”
Dylan groaned. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, I could eat,” Aiden said. He glanced around the luxury resort. A noisy casino stretched past a lifted bar, and people in designer clothes wandered to and from the elevators lined along the nearest wall. “Shay booked this place. I’d put money on it.”
“Yeah, I believe that.” Georgia heaved a sigh. “Selling out comes with perks, I guess.”
“Yeah, damn. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed anywhere this nice,” Dylan said.
Aiden nodded aggressively. “Bet the cocktails are twenty bucks a pop. ”
Georgia flapped her lips. “Oh, easy.”
Shay returned, credit card stuck between his teeth, fiddling with his wallet. He jutted his chin toward the elevator. “All right, we’re good. Who’s staying with who?”
“I’ll bunk with Georgia,” Dylan said.
“You and me then,” Shay said, and glanced at Aiden, lifting a brow.
Aiden walked backward into the empty elevator. “Poor me.”
The rooms were on the same floor. Georgia and Dylan walked left while Aiden and Shay went right, following placards beside each door until they found their room.
Anxiety still gripped Aiden by the throat, squeezing whenever he thought about Thomas hovering over him and the awkward breakfast he’d shared with Shay as the sun broke above Echo Park.
Shay hadn’t asked what was wrong. He’d asked, specifically, what happened?
As if something had happened, insinuating what Aiden had experienced was real.
Aiden hadn’t found the courage to tell him the truth.
Seeing one— just one —king-sized bed neatly arranged in the middle of their hotel room made him wonder about dreams and nightmares, and whether he could keep his mind at ease if he slept next to Shay.
He glanced into the sparkling bathroom and nodded.
He could fit in that bathtub. No. He would fit in that bathtub.
“I tried to upgrade us to a suite, but they were booked.” Shay sighed, propping his suitcase next to the dresser. “They offered to send a bottle to each room, though.”
“I doubt Georgia’ll be down to party tonight.”
“We’re in Vegas,” Shay said, matter-of-factly.
Aiden dropped his backpack. “Uh huh. And we have a show tomorrow.”
“We’ll sleep in,” he said, shrugging. He knuckled at his eyes and rubbed his palm over his cheek. He looked pale—freckles dull, skin ashier than usual. Tired, almost. Like someone who’d shaken off a recent bender.
Aiden catalogued him. Glanced from Shay’s drawn face to his twitchy hands. “You’re hungry,” he said accidentally, and clamped his mouth shut.
Shay stared through the floor. “I’m fine,” he said, and it meant enough . “Get changed. I made reservations at the sushi bar.”
“Shay, we need to?—”
“I’m fine ,” he snapped. He stripped off his shirt and busied himself with the zipper on his suitcase.
“I’m tired, okay? I haven’t been sleeping and that whole thing with Kelly threw me for a loop, but I’m.
. . I’m fine, I’ve got it under control.
Let’s get some food, order a few drinks, go to a club or something—I don’t know. ”
Aiden considered pressing, but Shay had closed like a vault, digging through folded clothes, mouth set and shoulders tight.
“Okay,” Aiden said through a sigh, and took his backpack into the bathroom.
He changed into marginally nicer jeans and a Coheed and Cambria tank.
Raked texturizer through his hair and traded the silicone plugs in his earlobes for silver tunnels.
He looked like actual garbage, but he didn’t have the energy to conceal his dark circles or shave the patchy, barely-there stubble darkening his jaw.
If his instincts were correct and the sickly gleam clinging to Shay was any hint, he’d be scrubbing blood off himself sooner than later, anyway.
Shay met him in the hallway, dressed in a gray button-down shirt and tailored black pants.
Foundation and eyeliner brightened his face.
Georgia walked around the corner with Dylan, and they took the elevator to the lobby.
Aiden was hyperaware of every movement Shay made.
His expensive dress shoes clicking the floor, his soft smile as Georgia fell into step beside him, how his eyes flicked around the room, following wobbly women, belligerent men, stumbling someones.
This is Animal Planet shit, he thought. Like watching a leopard stalk an impala.