Chapter 63
Cat purrs from my lap as the road hums beneath us, and I know she’s not mine, that I’ll probably have to give her back, but right now she’s exactly what I need.
My hands shake as I check my phone before it dies.
Nothing more from Es. Just one new message from Daphne.
It’s a picture of her in a bronze bikini, sitting in a bright blue indoor pool and drinking from a bottle of Veuve, with the text: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
!!! Gonna be so hungover tomorrow. LOVE YOU!
I type back: Love you too!
I mean, I killed four people, for one.
And I liked it.
Oscar turns on his indicator and changes lanes, then reaches into the console for a little earpiece and presses something on his phone, calling someone.
His hands tighten around the steering wheel, his jaw clenches and then someone must answer because he says, ‘We have a problem.’ He reels off Jonathan’s address, listens for a little bit and then he says, ‘Yes, there’s a cage upstairs and possibly other things I missed.
I think they were from one of those hunting sites .
. . Deal with it thoroughly . . . I don’t care how. ’
Then he hangs up.
‘Who was that?’ I ask.
‘Hans. He’ll deal with it.’ His eyes stay trained on the road ahead.
Hans.
A flash of him sitting down on that bench in the park, the same night I was turned, then taking me under his wing. All these years later and Oscar still has him cleaning up the messes he doesn’t want to ‘deal’ with.
‘How did you find me tonight?’ I ask glancing over at him.
‘There was an envelope in your flat with an address on the back. I went to that address, and the roommate told me where Olivia was,’ he says, his voice hard and clipped.
Then he looks over at me, his eyes flame.
‘Jesus, Aubrey, I knew you’d do something stupid like this.
They were from that site you joined, weren’t they? I told you to be more careful.’
I bristle. Is he seriously angry with me? ‘This isn’t my fault,’ I say. ‘None of it is.’
But he ignores me, and just turns up the music and stares ahead like he’s furious and trying to control himself. And screw him.
I glare out the window, stroking Cat, thinking: I was only on that site because I was looking for you. I didn’t know Jonathan killed me because you lied about everything, all of this is YOUR fault.
Houses turn to paddocks, and the wide roads turn to those narrow streets.
And then we’re back at Oscar’s gate. And now I’m furious.
Because all he had to do was tell me the truth and I wouldn’t have been there tonight.
But as I watch the gate shudder open, seething, I tell myself not to be confrontational.
If I want answers—and I do, I need them—I’m going to have to ask gently. With Oscar that’s the only way.
All the other cars are gone, the lights are off, and the dashboard clock reads 3.27 am.
We park in silence.
Oscar gets my suitcase from the boot and pulls it over the gravel and Cat purrs as I take her inside. The house is still a mess from the party; glasses and bottles and streamers lying everywhere. Mr and Mrs Parker have gone for the night.
‘Where are Rupert and Carmilla?’ I ask, looking around for them.
‘They’ve gone,’ Oscar snaps as he closes the door. Then he turns to look at me and says, ‘Come.’
We go through to the drawing room. The Christmas tree is still up, the little lights blinking, and the fire is crackling. I take off my coat and sit down on a sofa and Cat finds a spot on another chair. As he pours us both a stiff drink, to the top of the glass, Oscar’s phone beeps with a message.
He looks down at it, then puts his phone in his pocket and sits down next to me, handing me my drink. ‘Hans dealt with the scene. So don’t worry about any of that.’
I take a gulp. Then another. It’s warm in my throat and in my stomach.
When I look up, he’s watching me.
Be measured. Just have a calm and adult conversation, I tell myself.
But there’s something about the calmness in his aura and the blame in his eyes that’s making my insides hot and my throat tight.
And I’m so sick of the lies, of the way he manages me.
So I blurt out, ‘I almost died tonight because of you. I want to know the truth, Oscar. About all of it. Now. No more lies.’
He swallows hard and downs the rest of his drink, then gets up and silently pours himself another one. He takes his time, like he’s deciding whether to answer me. It’s annoying.
‘Oscar?’ I say.
He lets out a big breath. ‘There’s not that much to tell, Aubrey,’ he says.
Frustration bubbles up inside me. Because he clearly knows more than he’s told me, and this is my life. I deserve to know.
‘Well,’ I say, trying to control my tone. ‘Just start at the beginning. How did we meet?’
He blinks. ‘Here,’ he says, slowly. ‘We met here. You lived in the village and came to a dance.’
I think of that feeling I had, walking through the village with Rupert and Carmilla, like it was familiar somehow . . .
‘You wore that red dress, the same one you ruined on Christmas Eve. And a hairpin in your hair that caught the light.’
A flash of the way that dress made me feel when I first saw it. Like a part of me knew that already. No wonder it fit so well. But this is all information Oscar could have offered up to me sooner, but didn’t. Why not?
‘And then . . . you seduced me? Had me cheat on my husband? And when he found out, he killed me?’ I ask, my voice cracking. ‘Because I know he did. I saw that tonight.’ My voice jumps a few notes. ‘Is tha—’
‘He was already hurting you,’ Oscar says calmly, but definitively. ‘I wanted you to leave, but it was a different time, it wasn’t that easy. You didn’t want to be all alone and you couldn’t be with me, for obvious reasons.’
‘Obvious reasons?’ I echo, with a sardonic laugh. ‘What, because you couldn’t be bothered?’
He clenches his jaw like he doesn’t appreciate me calling a spade a spade, and I take a deep breath. Stay calm, stay calm. I look down and I see the blood on my pink jumper and then I think of that cage and the chains around me and the stake in my back and . . .
‘I should never have been there tonight,’ I spit out.
‘I wouldn’t have been if you’d just told me the truth.
Because I saw visions from when I was married to Jonathan in his last life, but I didn’t know he’d murdered me because you let me think you killed me.
’ My breath gets quicker and quicker. ‘I thought he was my fucking soulmate. I was dating him!’
So much for staying calm. My voice is so loud it scares even me.
But it’s like I can’t control the rage inside me anymore. Like it’s been building for too long; I’ve put up with too much. Appeased too often. I don’t want to control it anymore. Let him see it, feel it. He did this to me.
Oscar just looks at me. ‘That wasn’t my fault,’ he says, still calm.
And the fact that he’s so calm is making me even more angry.
‘How was I to know that you were seeing him again? I knew there was someone, Daphne told me that night in the club, someone who you might tell things to, the way you did that chap, Freddie.’
Reality warps around me.
He knew about Freddie?
‘I did not want a repeat of that,’ he tells me. ‘I got to him just before he went to the police. Had to scrub his dimwit little mind clean and tell him to sign up to war.’
That’s why Freddie never wanted to talk about it, acted like he barely knew me . . . Oscar wiped his mind.
‘I wasn’t going to let you do that again with anyone,’ he continues.
‘Especially not without the tools to protect yourself. Not with all the growing dangers out there. But how was I meant to know it was him? Or what he was planning? Or that you’d seen him in a vision?
You weren’t exactly an open book either, Aubrey.
If I’d known any of that, I would have ripped his heart out all over again. ’
He’s staring at me, his eyes blazing.
Again?
‘You killed Jonathan last time? In his last life?’
‘Of course I did. Do you really think I would have let him get away with harming you?’
I let out a furious laugh. ‘Are you kidding me? Him, harming me? What about you? You put me in a room with a tiger! And you’ve lied to me about almost everything.
I mean, I saw Emma tonight, alive and well.
So don’t pretend to be some hero. You’re selfish, you play games with me for your own amusement.
But this is my life Oscar, and it’s not fair.
It’s cruel. You can’t imagine what it feels like.
Never knowing who you are, what you’ve been through. ’
Something cracks behind his eyes, and he nods and looks down at the ground. His knuckles get white, his fists are clenched so hard.
‘Perfect, say nothing.’ I let out a short huff and start to laugh. ‘I can’t believe I ever loved someone like y—’
‘Fuck Aubrey,’ he snaps, staring me down. ‘Maybe I wanted you to hate me, ever think of that?’
The air around us seems to stop moving altogether.
‘Oh, I know you did,’ I say, my voice hard, even though my ribs ache.
‘Rupert told me that “forbidden” thing was bullshit. You didn’t need to lie about all that either, Oscar.
You didn’t need to make my whole life miserable just so, what, I wouldn’t fall in love with you again, cramp your style .
. .’ I pause. ‘Rest assured, you’re safe. I will never love you like that again.’
‘Great,’ he says.
‘Great.’
I sit there, seething, my breath quick, imagining myself getting up and storming out. Would he let me go? I bet he would. My lower lip quivers but I clench my jaw to stop it. I can feel his eyes on me and my cheeks get hot.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘It was never meant to be this hard for you. It was only meant to be hard for me.’
‘Hard for you?’ I retort. ‘How has any of this ever been hard for you?’
He breathes heavily, and I stare at him, needing an answer.
‘I’m not as awful as you think I am,’ he says.
‘I needed you to hate me so you wouldn’t love me.
Because we couldn’t be together, Aubrey.
And I didn’t trust myself to not be with you, if you wanted to.
I was trying to protect you—from me. From everything around me.
Not because it’s forbidden, but because I bring bad things. You wouldn’t have been safe.’
‘You bring “bad things”?’ I let out an angry laugh. ‘That’s such bullshit. You just didn’t want the hassle. But if you didn’t want to take care of me, you shouldn’t have turned me into a fucking vampire,’ I yell.
‘You think you know everything, Aubrey,’ he says, resignation and sadness in his eyes. ‘You always did. I didn’t want to turn you. You begged me to.’