Chapter 59
Everything inside me softens as I take in the lines of his face. He closes the door, comes over and sits on the carpet by the edge of the cage, not far from me. Then he reaches into the canvas bag, pulls something out and pushes it through the bars. I look towards it, frowning.
Blood.
He’s brought me a bag of blood.
My gums tingle as I stare at it. I’m desperate to drink it, but I know—I know—I can’t.
If I do that, I’ll never get a chance to explain.
He’ll side with Riley, and who knows what will happen next?
I ignore the blood, swallow hard and inch a little closer to Jonathan instead.
And I can feel his heat, smell his shampoo and his laundry detergent and the bergamot of his cologne and okay yes, fine, his blood too. But I will not focus on that.
‘Jonathan,’ I say, my voice small, holding onto the bars. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You should eat something,’ he says, nodding to the bag of blood.
‘What is that?’ I ask, frowning at it, trying to pretend my mouth isn’t watering.
‘You know exactly what it is, Aubrey,’ he says, his eyes meeting mine.
And this is good, he’s not scared to look into my eyes even though I know he must have seen vampire movies or I wouldn’t be in this fix; he must fear being entranced or hypnotised or whatever.
But I never did that to him while we were together, so I guess he either thinks I can’t do it (which, right now, I probably couldn’t) or somewhere deep down inside, he trusts me.
‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand what’s going on, why are you doing this to me?’ I ask. ‘I love you, Jonathan, and I know you love me too.’
He frowns at me, gives a little smirk, and panic moves through me.
‘You really are fucking stupid,’ he seethes.
Alarm bells ring in my ears. What is going on? This isn’t Jonathan. He doesn’t talk to me like this.
‘Anyway, look, just drink the blood, okay?’ he continues. Even his voice sounds different, his northern accent stronger.
Those alarm bells start to ring a little louder.
Because hang on, if he knows I’m a vampire, why would he want me to feed? Why would he want me stronger? Unless he’s still not sure? Maybe he wants me to drink it so there is no debate. Which means I can still convince him I’m not.
So obviously, I don’t drink it.
‘I don’t understand why you want me to do that,’ I say, in a fragile, confused voice. ‘What is going on with you?’
‘Cut the crap, Aubrey,’ he snaps. His eyes meet mine and there’s something hard in them which is . . . all wrong. ‘I know what you are.’
All the air leaves my lungs; the walls pulse towards me.
I knew this conversation would happen one day, and I always knew it would be tricky, but this is not how I saw it rolling out. There’s meant to be candlelight, for one. But now, here we are, at the moment of truth. And I’m not ready.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘What am I?’
‘You’re a vampire,’ he says, completely emotionless.
As he says it, I know I need to deny it.
But there’s this little part inside of me, the part that has been hiding for 150 years, that wants to say, Yes, I am.
Because once Jonathan knows my deepest, darkest, most shameful secret, if he can get past what I am, and I can get past what he’s doing to me right now, then we can truly love each other. Darkness and all.
This could be a breakthrough moment for us.
I mean, I know it looks bad, but he’s scared, people do stupid things when they’re scared. And I’m not perfect. I almost had sex with Oscar tonight. We all slip up.
But then in comes a flash of Freddie, the way he reacted. He went to war to get away from me. Not everyone can deal with the truth . . . And from the look in Jonathan’s eyes, I’m not sure he’s ready for it.
So I say, ‘What? Vampires aren’t real.’
‘Let me show you something,’ he says, reaching for his phone and tapping on the screen.
There’s a picture on it. It’s of Olivia and her two friends at the place in Soho, where the open mic night was. He uses his fingers to zoom in and my insides almost jump out of my body. Because there I am in the background, glaring at Olivia.
I stare at Jonathan, searching for an excuse that might make sense. Coincidence. Heartbreak. There has to be one.
But he’s not even looking at me, he’s tapping through to some video now. He presses play and I squint at it, trying to work out what I’m watching. It looks like a video of this room, but the way it was before . . . before the cage. When the bed was where I’m sitting right now.
But then . . . what’s that?
My gaze catches on movement at the window, and my insides clench.
It’s me. Climbing in.
I all but stop breathing. How the hell do I get out of this one?
How do I explain being able to climb through a second-storey window?
No wonder he’s scared of me. I didn’t know there was a nanny cam in here .
. . Is it still here? I look around, scanning the room, because it is taking in the whole room.
But there’s nothing. No camera I can see, at least.
‘Keep watching, Aubrey,’ he says, and I look back at the screen, just in time to see myself seemingly pick up the camera and look right into it. Or near to it. Something. I close my eyes and frown and scrunch up my face. What am I doing?
And then . . . the pieces all fall into place.
The picture frame. Of him and his parents. I picked that up the night I came here.
I turn to look at it quickly. Ah, shit . . . There was a camera in it.
That’s why they came home so quickly that night. They knew I was here.
A dizziness comes over me as I look back to the screen and now I watch in horror as I zoom so fast that I’m a blur, and then reappear by his closet.
I want to reach in and stop myself. Yell: Don’t.
But I can’t. I just have to watch, helplessly, as I reach in for his mustard jumper, then hold it close, and stand there for a bit. Swaying.
As I watch the rest—leaving my earring under his desk, then zooming over to his bedside, rubbing my wrist, my hair, on his pillow, I’m thinking: How the hell do I explain this?
Then the screen goes dark. My stomach drops as I look to him. There’s something awful in his eyes. Something dark, something that’s not meant to be there.
‘What were you doing here? Did you come to kill me like you did that poor chap Kenny you were always complaining about? What were you doing to my jumper? Or my pillow?’
‘I—’
‘Save it, Aubrey,’ he snaps. ‘Just drink the fucking blood.’ He moves to his desk.
‘But just so you know, we’re watching you.
’ He grabs the framed photograph of his parents.
The one facing out into the room. As he holds it up, I can see a little lens, obscured by the black frame. ‘So don’t try anything stupid.’
My breath catches, and it feels like the grow lights have upped their wattage. He’s staring at me with such loathing and everything is escalating and this is not how tonight was meant to go. There is only one way to turn this around. It might not work, but it’s now or never.
‘Jonathan, there’s something you should know,’ I start, my voice fragile. I look up and my eyes meet his. He puts the frame down and comes back over to me.
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘You’re my soulmate,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘We were married in your past life.’
Silence swims around us as I watch his face for recognition.
First, he smiles.
And then he starts to laugh, but it’s not a laugh I recognise, it’s a horrible laugh. ‘Jesus, Riley was right about you, you are an evil little bitch . . .’
And . . . that’s not how Jonathan talks to me at all . . . he’s gentle. Loving. Even when he broke up with me he was kind.
‘I’m telling you the truth,’ I say.
He’s shaking his head. ‘That sexy shit of yours might have worked on Riley, but it won’t work on me. Besides, you should be careful—look where flirting with him got you,’ he adds, looking right at me now.
I did not flirt with Riley!
‘If he hadn’t been so hot for you, he wouldn’t have got all obsessed. He wouldn’t have checked out your IP address and figured out you went to that pub so often.’
Wait . . . what?
‘Or found a blood bag wrapped in a nappy in the bin outside that pub. Or figured out when you worked, waited for you at the Tube one day and saw you go to the blood bank to see your little friend Es. He wouldn’t have noticed any of that, and then he wouldn’t have harped on about you being a vampire to us and we wouldn’t be here right now, so I’d say it kind of backfired on you, you little slut. ’ He gives a smirk.
I stare at him, needing him to morph back into the Jonathan I know. But he doesn’t, he just keeps on talking.
‘Fuck, when I think about how close we came to believing you were just some girl who worked at Selfridges. To losing yet another lead. I mean, we’ve been looking for one of you ever since we joined that site, that’s why we joined.
And we’ve come close, a couple of times, but it’s never quite worked out. ’
He’s frowning now, like he’s imparting something important that I might actually want to hear. Like I’m interested in the nitty-gritty of how I ended up here.
‘But wow, Aubrey, you hid it well. Even when we were “dating”’—he puts ‘dating’ in air quotes, like it was a fabrication, and it feels like he has stabbed me—‘you seemed . . . normal. You have a heartbeat. You don’t need an invitation to go inside.
You sleep through the night—you slept next to me.
We went to Brighton for a whole twenty-four hours and you seemed normal, ate regular food.
I’ve seen you eat Italian food—you ate garlic, for fuck’s sake!
’ A flash of that Italian restaurant we went to. Is that why he took me there?