Chapter 4
“What do I do? Should I…should I call someone?” Heath asked.
“Not right now. You’re fine, darling,” Maxim said, almost speaking both to Heath and to Raven, who was still staring at him, nostrils flaring and eyes wide. An invisible beast is chasing him, and he has nowhere to run.
Heath shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Okay, but can I do something?”
Maxim sighed and sank to his knees, picking up the shoe Raven had dropped. It was a comfortable-looking white sneaker. “Just hold Raven’s jacket for a moment.”
“But I’m doing that. It’s probably not good, right, when a new vampire has to deal with all of this. Maybe I should call Dr. Seine?”
Maxim looked at Raven’s other shoe. He’d tied the laces tightly, maybe even too tight. “Heath, darling, you’re not going to call the psychiatrist. In fact, you’re not going to call anyone. You’re going to hold Raven’s jacket for him, nothing more.”
“Fuck’s sake. Circuitous much?” Heath grumbled. But he stayed where he was and did as Maxim had bid him to.
Raven was still stiff, even if his breathing had eased. He’d dropped his gaze and was watching Maxim with wide eyes. Healthy fear that needs to learn when it isn’t healthy. “Raven, lift your foot so I can help you with your shoe. I’m rather good at tying bunny ears. Let me show you.”
“Bunny…” Raven’s voice was small—a scared child hiding under a blanket.
“Fucking hell, old bat. Shit. Should I have gotten slip-ons? Bryan helped me guess the size and… You know what? You guys should go clothes shopping. Shopping therapy, right? That’s good for a new vampire. Wait right here. I’ll go and grab a parasol from upstairs.”
Heath hurried down the hall. Maxim took his time with the laces, in fact tying bunny ears instead of a bow knot. He waited until he heard the elevator doors close, then looked back up at Raven. “He means well. I’m afraid he took your jacket though.”
“I have a jacket.”
“Well, the one he found for you. We keep a selection of clothes on hand. It’s useful.”
“What for?” Raven remained with his back pressed up against the wall even as Maxim put his foot down.
Still kneeling, Maxim looked up. “In case a werewolf comes here during the full moon. Or a donor who doesn’t live here gets blood on their clothes. Oh, Heath helped organize a stakeout date the other day, and having suitable outfits helped a lot with the date part of it.”
“Ah.”
“Should we go?”
“To my dorm, right?”
Maxim nodded and stood. “Or shopping. But you will feel the sun if we stay out too long.”
“Okay.” He looked back at the bedroom and bit his bottom lip. “Was that really blood? In the cup?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Can we go now? I want to go home.”
“Yes. Come along. The elevator is that way.”
Raven hadn’t liked taking the elevator to the garage, hadn’t liked walking alongside Maxim to his car and getting inside, but he’d done it. Maxim got into the silver BMW while Raven had his seat belt stretched across his chest without quite buckling it.
He might want to run still. Poor thing. Running feels safer, just like hiding feels safer, but the memories always catch up.
Maxim got into the car and buckled his own seat belt before hitting the start button. When the car pinged in complaint about the passenger not being belted in, Raven finally clicked the buckle home.
Maxim took that as a good sign. He put the car in gear, reversed out of the spot, and headed toward the exit. He made sure to look ahead, move slowly and deliberately, and take his time. With any luck, projecting calm would help Raven calm down.
“Do you like music? I don’t use the radio much. Feel free to fiddle with it.” Maxim gestured at the dashboard screen that merely informed him it had made the connection with his phone.
“Uh, no, that’s fine.”
In that moment, the now connected phone buzzed with an incoming call. Raven jumped.
“Oh, dear. I shall be in trouble.” Maxim winked at Raven before accepting the call. “Heath, darling.”
“Where the fuck are you?! Bryan said you left!”
“Just about to.” The underground garage’s gate was in the process of opening, revealing a bright day outside. It was pretty. Innocuous.
“Why the fuck would you fucking leave when you told me to get the fucking parasol? I even got a black one so your creepy ass wouldn’t stand out too much with all the black you wear.”
“Is he really your son?” Raven whispered.
It wasn’t much of a question, but it still lightened Maxim’s mood to hear it.
A question meant Raven was thinking about other things, and it meant he could be curious about what was going on around him, even now, with fear living right under his skin.
Did I ask questions back then? I don’t even remember. Everything was so fuzzy, so painful.
“What was that? What did you just say?”
“Heath, dear, Raven merely questioned whether you and I are indeed related, seeing as how I exude a certain bearing while your lexicon is often woven of a different cloth.”
“The fuck you insulting me for? Are you abducting Raven right now before we could even—before we could…uh. I mean, I have his jacket. What if he gets cold?”
In the seat next to him, Raven was growing uncomfortable even though they were joining traffic now, and heading in the general direction of New Amsterdam University.
“Raven said he has one already, and the weather is nice out. He’ll be fine for a trip to his dormitory room.”
“Satan’s fucking ball sack. Fine. Raven, you there?”
Raven leaned forward. Maxim noticed the way he let his hands vanish into the sleeves of that hoodie, a piece of clothing Maxim had never fully understood until that moment.
“Yeah.”
“Great. I sent the old bat your address. If he’s being weird, you tell his weird old ass to cut it out. I’m getting you a phone too, so once you have that, you can also call me and get me to tell him, on your behalf, to cut it out.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s mostly tame, okay? And don’t think you’re going to become weird and ill-adapted just because he is. The Forum has a bunch of vampire mentors who are super normal. I’ll get you a list.”
“O-okay?”
Maxim sighed. “Heath, darling. I’m hanging up on you now. Take care.”
“You li—”
Maxim hit the end button on the steering wheel. “There. That’s better. Did I mention already that he means well, truly?”
“Sure.” Raven’s gaze was on the streets around them. He was squinting against the sun—normal so soon after. He’s very calm. That is not normal, though it’s rare to have a fledge made with old blood such as my own. And the other one’s.
“He really is my son though.”
“Huh?” Raven turned and looked at Maxim with big eyes.
“You asked if Heath was really my son. He is, but he does not get out much, I’m afraid.”
“Sure. Not enough parasols?”
Maxim chuckled, though he felt more like crying with relief. He might have asked me for death as soon as he woke from the turn, and I would’ve had to grant his wish, yet here he is, making light. “He’s an addict. Work, his computers. The outdoors are not to his liking, I’m afraid, parasol or not.”
Raven fidgeted with the overlong sleeves of his hoodie, eyes focused on the bunched fabric there, though Maxim would have bet one of his nicer swords the hoodie wasn’t what Raven was seeing at all.
“We went camping a lot. I didn’t like it. I could’ve gotten all kinds of diseases. My parents didn’t believe in vaccines. Or antibiotics.”
Maxim clicked his tongue while checking the address Heath had sent him. “Then I’m doubly glad you made it through those adventures, Raven.”
“Yeah? Dunno. Could’ve died then, and none of this would’ve happened.”
Maxim tapped the steering wheel, forcing himself to do that rather than dig his nails into it. “You’re right.”
It grew quiet between them, quiet and tense, and Maxim felt Raven’s attention shift from the hoodie to him.
“That’s all you have for me? A bottle of blood and the admission that I’d have been better off already dead?”
“I brought you the blood to nourish you and comfort you. I distinctly did not say that you would have been better off dead. You’d just be dead.”
“Th-they wouldn’t have raped me!” Raven was crying—explosive, erratic—emotions he had no handle on seeking their way out.
“They wouldn’t have. I’m not going to argue cause and effect with you, Raven. You’re too smart for that.”
Raven turned in his seat, looking out the window for a second before focusing his stare right back on Maxim, one hand closing around Maxim’s forearm where he operated the gear shift.
“Then what are you doing? What is this? What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to me now…?”
In the space of those few words, he went from angry tears to exhausted ones. Maxim decelerated and down-shifted before taking a left into the parking space of an electronics store. He turned off the engine so he could give Raven his full attention.
The young vampire was still digging his fingers into Maxim’s arm, but he was hiding his face, his tears.
“I can’t decide that. You get to decide what happens next.
And then the thing that happens after that, you get to decide that too.
One decision after the next.” Raven was trembling, wiping his eyes on the big sleeve.
Maxim had raised his left hand before he knew what he was doing, but he stopped himself just short of touching Raven.
“I’ll stay with you though. I won’t leave. ”
I’ll keep you safe, Maxim wanted to say. When she’d found him, back when he was still human, his vampire mother had told him that, over and over, that he was safe. She’d kept her word, true, but looking back, it had never been the words that had helped him trust her.
I’ll make sure you can find your way back to yourself like she did for me, and like she did, I will show you through my deeds that I can protect you.
Maxim remained right where he was, allowing Raven his tears. It took a long while before the young vampire’s grip eased, but it did.