Chapter 5
Raven was tired. He felt stupid too, but much like the traffic noises outside the car, which was moving smoothly again, that was distant, almost like he wasn’t quite himself, like he hadn’t been quite himself when he’d cried like an idiot in front of this hunter he didn’t even know.
He sagged in his seat, wanting a nap, wanting to close his eyes and forget.
But what if… He glanced at Maxim, who was baring his teeth at a car that had just cut in front of him.
No, he seems fine. Maybe. Unless he’s pretending.
Unless it’s all pretending. But then… I’ll wait until he takes me home.
Then I can think. I can find out…whether anyone heard. About what happened to me.
Raven decided that worrying about what people knew had to wait until he was back at the dorm.
It allowed his mind to stay in the place of uncertainty about whether Maxim was actually really taking him there.
Raven usually took the bus, sometimes the subway, and so far, the general direction was right.
Then, all of a sudden, the phone started ringing again, the noise coming over the car’s sound system and making Raven jump in his seat, the exhaustion leaving him rapidly, only to be replaced by the pounding of his heart.
“Just the phone. Just Heath,” Maxim said, then he turned and smiled at Raven. “He misses me, you see.” He hit the answer button on the wheel. “Darling?”
“I talked to Gordon, and he said his maker took him to the movie theater, and they watched The Birds three times in a row. They didn’t leave between shows and didn’t pay for the extra go-arounds, totally freeloading, but I was thinking we could do that.
Not The Birds though. I don’t like that movie.
But maybe something sweet? We can use the screen from my office.
I made sure we have snacks. You know, blood snacks. ”
Maxim cocked his head and clicked his tongue. “Heath, dear, you want to have a movie night with me?”
“What? No! I mean, technically. But for Raven, you know, in case he’s restless later. I asked Bryan to set up the screen upstairs. He likes the idea.”
Raven tensed, and Maxim turned to face him. “It’s fine. He means later. After the dorms.”
“But…” Raven felt his mouth go dry, all the questions that a part of him knew he needed to ask congealing like sticky molasses.
“Oh, you’re still in the car?” Heath cackled.
“Getting slow, old bat? Anyway, Raven, what do you like? Gordon recommended a bunch of Kawaii Demon Hunter anime, but I don’t know about those.
Bryan has a list with rom-coms about people inheriting houses and castles and shit, because of course he does.
Do not give Maxim any sort of veto or decisive power whatsoever or we will be watching some weird experimental French flick with subtitles. ”
Raven nodded. He knew nodding was not a good response when someone was talking to you over the phone, but the situation didn’t feel real. It was like he was a passenger in his own body in that moment, just…observing from far, far away.
“Darling, maybe we can discuss that later, hmm? Be a dear and take a break.”
“If you tell me to touch grass one more fucking time, I will do something drastic.”
Maxim’s fingers drummed out a rhythm on the wheel. “What will you do, darling?”
“Your phone number might end up in the hands of some middle management clerk at the Forum.”
Maxim gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Maxim groaned the way a stage actor in an Oscar Wilde play might. “Whatever happened to you, darling? You were the sweetest boy, cuddling your dolls and mistaking your teddy bear’s ear for a pacifier. Why, when I’d change your nappies, you’d—”
“Do not fucking talk about diaper changes over the phone! Fucking hell. I gotta go. We have snacks here, and the screen is ready. See you later.”
Heath hung up, and Maxim turned to Raven and shrugged. “He would giggle and make the cutest baby noises and grasp for my fingers.” The driver who’d cut in in front of him hit the brakes, hard. Maxim honked the horn, possibly harder. “Steaming excrement of diseased swine! Pay heed to the road!”
“I never knew vampires could be fathers,” Raven mumbled before letting his head rest against the passenger side window. He was so tired. So very tired.
They arrived at the dorm, and Raven’s heart thudded with relief.
The car door opened when Raven tried it, and he got out without issue, no changing of the plan, no leering smiles like when they’d taken him to Professor LeRoux’s home—he stopped mid-thought, halfway across the little strip of grass that ringed the parking lot like a moat of green.
What do I tell people? What if I run into someone and they already know? What if they…what if they ask me questions?
Behind him, he heard the sound of a car locking. Beep-beep. Mechanic and simple, unchangeable.
“So this is the dormitory,” Maxim said, stepping up on Raven’s left.
The hunter was tall. He didn’t look much like a hunter, and Raven wondered whether he was any good at the vampire killing, given that he fell into the slender category, not the bulky, muscly one. He wasn’t even carrying any weapons that Raven could see.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Hmm. It reminds me of boarding houses. Taverns and such. A while ago, you’d go from one place to another, and you’d stop in one for the night and hope that the extra coins you paid for a mattress truly meant there were no fleas in it.” He sighed. “I hate fleas.”
“They suck blood, you suck blood. Aren’t you basically the same species?”
Maxim chuckled, and Raven found himself staring at the man with that ridiculous braid that somehow suited him.
“Are you calling me a flea? Well, certainly not, Raven. You will see less jumping from me.” He gestured at the interconnected buildings that were all campus housing. “Should we go inside?”
Raven nodded, but nothing else happened. His feet wouldn’t move. People on the walkways turned to look, and that didn’t help. What if it’s people I know? What’re they going to think?
Maxim cleared his throat. “Should I go first? You will have to tell me where.”
Raven let his hands vanish into the hoodie sleeves, then raised an arm, pointed, and let his hand drop again. “Entrance is there.”
“Lovely. Well, come along. You must tell me about this place.”
He started moving, slowly. Raven tagged along, hoping he’d vanish behind the hunter, hoping he’d be able to fade back into obscurity really soon. He’d never been popular or outgoing. Maybe, if he was lucky, no one had really even noticed that he’d been…gone.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why the dormitory?”
“Because where else would I live? Rent is…rent. My scholarship doesn’t cover that.”
“Oooh! You have a scholarship?”
Maxim’s green eyes went wide, and Raven found that it was easier to keep pace.
“Yeah. Full ride. Academic merit. I…I’m good at studying.
My mom says it’s stupid and that all the co-ex indoctrination is going to mess me up, but…
” He wondered what she’d think. Co-existence with supernaturals was one thing, but what had happened…
Had anyone told her that he’d not attended his classes in a while?
I hope not. She’d blame me for going to the Forum in the first place.
Maxim clapped. “Bravo! That sounds like an outstanding achievement. Your chosen field?”
“E-English literature of the later Victorian Age.”
“Oh, my. That is a lovely subject. A shifting in the times, back then. You read the fae poets as well?”
Raven nodded as the stairs to his building came into view. “Yeah. The London Circle poets.”
Maxim pretended to whisper. “I knew some of them. Oh, they signed everything with their artistic aliases, but if you thought for a heartbeat they were humble, I shall disabuse you of that notion. Boastful, the lot of them. They would turn quiet coffee houses into ballrooms. Debauched ballrooms. One once singed off her bangs while lighting absinth.”
“Right.” Raven nodded when Maxim opened the door. A part of him knew the conversation was interesting, information he’d have gobbled up not too long ago, but now, he could barely follow what the hunter was saying.
It’s me. I’m the problem. I can’t concentrate.
“That way?” Maxim pointed at the elevator.
Raven nodded. They went in and up, and time seemed to jump ahead. Before Raven knew it, Maxim was knocking on the door of the dorm room he shared with Jason, and a heartbeat after that, Jason opened it.
“Yeah?” he said in his annoyed way. Then his eyes found Raven’s. “Oh my—” Jason had never hugged Raven like he did then. It was a rush of eager enthusiasm, tight arms closing around Raven and holding him steady. Is that it? Or is this…relief? “You’re okay! Fucking hell, Raven. You’re okay.”
That felt like a lie, even though Raven hadn’t said it, but for the life of him, he couldn’t tell Jason that he wasn’t okay. He just stood there. He couldn’t even hug his roommate back, and Maxim, with sharp green eyes, watched all of it.