Chapter 19 #2
I put the phone face down on the bed before it makes me do something stupid like call the Professor.
The wine bottle will stay sealed. I don’t deserve this kill or the ritual that follows.
I didn’t sleep. Not really.
I shut down for a couple of hours, eyes closed, but my mind is locked in some sort of purgatory between dreaming and awareness, not really resting.
I’m woken by the constant buzz of my phone. Alex’s name appears on the screen. Call denied. I’m not ready yet.
I stand here in silence for what felt like years or days or seconds. When I finally pick up my phone again, seven new missed calls are warning me from the other side of the screen. Seven times in two hours.
I open my thread with Azrael, not even realizing what I am doing. I hadn’t looked at it in days, not since that night. I wanted him to wait for my messages. I wanted him to crave my presence just as much as I was craving his.
But now, I cannot be more disgusted as I reread our past interactions.
Messages, hundreds of them, all with me begging, asking for exactly this.
What the fuck did I think would happen? That I would become like those idiotic people I see on the streets every Saturday?
That I would have last night’s target’s pathetic life?
He’s dead, fucking dead, and that’s because I said so.
I decided the fate of his pathetic life and how it would end, when and where. I did that.
Messages flow in front of my eyes, each more ten-year-old-vampire-obsessed deranged than the previous one.
I tap on the folder where I keep the videos from our meetings and open the first one: the footage from the warehouse.
Our first meeting. My voice is shaking, his is calm.
I was poised, trying so hard to be the one in control while he was just there, dictating my every reaction.
Pathetic and out of control but still pretending I knew what I was doing.
Now, looking back at it, it is so obvious that I didn’t, not in the slightest. But God, I looked like I wanted to. He told me he’d destroy me, I just assumed it would be in the way I wanted. Pathetic.
My jaw tenses as I tap the next video, from when Azrael came to my house. He didn’t know I filmed it, but I felt like such a good girl for following his rules to the T, so when he said I need to watch the videos of our sessions, I did it without even questioning it, like a fucking puppet.
Something twists inside me. I watch the expression on my face as I look at him, and I don’t recognize it. I look… alive. No, worse. I look like I feel something. I look like a woman who forgot how to use her brain because someone whispered pretty words in her ear.
I hate it. I hate her. That glint in my eyes?
That isn’t me, it’s not who I trained myself to be.
There is something primal in my eyes. I look like the prey trying to seduce the predator.
I can hear my breath in the video—too fast, too shallow.
The way I give him everything, believing I’m the one winning, while he gives me crumbs.
No control. No self-awareness. No fucking weapon in my hand, blowing his brains out when he tried, and succeeded, to control me.
Just pure vulnerability.
“That’s not me,” I say out loud, locking the screen.
But my voice sounds foreign, detached from the reality I’m living in.
“That was just pretend.” I continue, trying to make myself believe the words.
I unlock the phone and watch the screen flicker back to life as it goes straight to Azrael’s messages.
I press and hold.
Delete.
Then again.
Delete.
Delete everything.
Delete her, this person who is not me.
Messages and calls, I burn the evidence of my stupidity while I still can.
I go to my profile and scroll through the settings until I find the option I should have used a long time ago.
Delete account?
Yes.
It’s done. I stand and go to the safe to take out the wine bottle I’d ignored like it was a test of restraint. My fucking precious wine. I pop out the cork, and it hisses, mocking me and my poor life choices.
As soon as I take a sip, the warmth hits the back of my throat, curling in my chest and bringing my body back to life.
I continue to chug the entire bottle, and despite my stomach clenching, I don’t stop.
Once the bottle is empty, as it should have been days ago, I pick up the phone and make the overdue call.
Alex answers on the first ring. “About fucking time.”
“It’s done,” I say, and I finally recognize my voice. “Secondary plan executed.”
“It was Plan B.”
“Shift in the weather. It will not repeat,” I justify, and from now on, this is the truth I will tell myself until I believe it.
One beat. Two. I can hear the hesitation, but at least he drops it. “Flight’s at 3:15 a.m.”
Silence. More fucking silence.
“Tory,” Alex almost whispers, quiet now. Too quiet. The kind of quiet he only uses when delivering shitty news. “You good?”
I stare at the wine bottle still clutched in my hand.
“I’m operational,” I say, and that is the first real lie I’ve told all week.
“Yeah, that’s not what I asked.”
But I don’t answer, and I am pretty sure he is not waiting for one. He just wants to point out the facts, and I have no intention of debating this subject now.
Another beat passes before he speaks again, “You can try again…just not with him. That’s the first mistake.”
And that’s the last thing he says before he hangs up and the line goes dead.
I stare at the screen for a moment, trying to process what he just said, but there is nothing.
Just the wine and silence.