Chapter 22 #3
Yasmine’s chest clenched the more she rationalized it. Why was she rationalizing anything? Why was she having an emotional response to this? Probably because of their conversation earlier. She was just surprised, that was all.
She straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat.
“So you’ve been married,” Yasmine breathed out. “Is he still alive?”
Bella laughed. “Absolutely not.”
Yasmine felt her muscles relax mildly.
“Why did they mark you down as human?”
“Because I told him I was.”
“Why? He was a vampire too. You wanted to spend your life with someone keeping such a large, useless secret?”
Bella smiled sadly, but she didn’t reply. She turned back to the book and flipped a few more pages in the appendix. Then pointed her finger at another portrait.
It was—Yasmine blinked—also her.
Before Yasmine could get a word in, Bella flipped again.
There was another one. Another sorry man, another identical portrait of Bella. Different clothes. Hair down instead of up. If you weren’t looking closely, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell it was the same person. Yasmine definitely hadn’t noticed when she’d skimmed the book years ago.
Yasmine shook her head in disbelief. The oppressive feeling in her chest evaporated at the sheer ludicrosity of it. It wasn’t the fact that she’d remarried. It was the fact that each of the marriages were spaced just years apart.
She turned towards Bella, blinking at her like a sloth.
“Were you addicted to getting hitched, or something?”
Bella didn’t laugh this time. She was quiet, her eyes glassy. It was a side of her Yasmine had only seen glimpses of—this detached melancholy. But it was brief. She inhaled, turned back towards the book, and kept turning the pages.
There was Bella. And then Bella. And Bella. She looked wildly different through the ages, but her expression was always the same. A small, uneven smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. There she was, on the supposed happiest day of her life, and she looked miserable. For years. Decades. Centuries.
Yasmine looked at her colleague—and, Yasmine was realizing, with the heavy protectiveness in her heart, her friend—and whispered, “I don’t understand.”
Bella closed the book. It seemed too much for her to look at anymore.
“They all died,” she said shakily. “About five days after I married them.”
She paced the room, then settled on the couch, looking down at her hands. Her shoulders were trembling. She took a breath in.
“It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago,” she said.
It seemed self-soothing. She looked back up at Yasmine with that same smile from the drawings.
“My powers work within seconds on inanimate objects. With humans, it takes a few minutes. Vampires, though, I need hours. It’s easier if they’re sleeping.
And, well, it’s easy to make men fall asleep after you sleep with them. ”
Yasmine took a step forward. She felt this magnetic pull towards the other woman. It was so hard watching her so obviously distraught.
“I don’t get it,” she said quietly. “Your powers do what?”
“Drain life force, Yasmine.”
Yasmine wasn’t able to get in another word. Bella suddenly stood. She looked over Yasmine’s shoulder, then stampeded past her. Yasmine turned around to find Bella burying her hand in a freshly watered flower vase.
“What on Earth are you doing?”
Bella yanked her hand out, then waved it around until it was no longer completely wet with plant water.
“Do you have something in here you don’t care about?”
Yasmine was utterly lost, but Bella was clearly impatient, so she picked out a book from her bookshelf. It was a copy of The Great Gatsby.
“Dreadful book,” Yasmine said. “You can eat it for all I care.”
Bella took it with her dry hand. Then, swallowing, she transferred it to her damp one.
It crumbled instantly.
No, crumbled wasn’t the right word. That suggested that there were distinct pieces left of it. There was just a pile of dark, smoldering ash. You would never know it had once been a book; it had lost all its identity, like a cremated body.
Yasmine looked at the smoking remains darkening her carpet, then back at Bella, who was trembling.
“I destroy everything I touch.” She said, then smiled, even though her eyes were wet. “And if it helps, the in-laws are even worse. Still want to marry me?”
Yasmine held her gaze, mind reeling. If Yasmine was any other person, she probably would have found that display horrifying. The idea that someone could touch her and wither her like a leaf left out to dry under the sun—it was a devastating power.
Aster’s humongous strength was one thing, but at least it could be trained and controlled. This kind of power was unpreventable. Even if you never wanted to use it, you had no way to stop yourself. Bella had found some way to lessen the effect, obviously, but only a temporary measure.
Yasmine couldn’t think of anything more lonely.
Before she knew what she was doing, her feet were moving across the floor. Bella startled as Yasmine pushed her into the doorway, pinned her hand above her head, so it couldn't hurt either of them, at least for now, and kissed her.