Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Ritika is already awake when we emerge from the bedroom, tapping away at her laptop and sipping from a comically large coffee mug.
“I see you’ve made up,” she deadpans.
Julian rolls his eyes.
“Have you sent it?” he asks dryly, then drops into the chair next to her.
I can tell that they’ve been working together for a long time by the way Ritika only has to look to Julian to get the answer to her silent question of Is it okay if she hears? She drags one of the kitchen chairs closer with her foot, and beckons for me to join.
“I was waiting for you to give me the go-ahead,” she says. “Take a look.”
What we are looking at is a series of spreadsheets and documents that make up the detailed proposals that Ritika and Julian intend to present to Leila.
I’ve spent most of my life gaining increasingly more specialized knowledge of the human body, and so my financial literacy is garbage, but what I do know is that the sums of money being thrown around are dizzyingly immense.
It is stunning to see firsthand in dollars and cents what Julian thinks a life with me is worth.
“This is insane,” I say, panicked. “It’s too much, Julian.”
Ritika gives me a sympathetic smile.
“He thought you’d say that,” she says.
“Because it’s true!” I turn to Julian. “Jules, you can’t do this.”
Julian reaches for my hand.
“I am doing it,” he says. “It’s just money. It’ll come back. And I’ll have more than enough left over for us to be comfortable.”
“What about you?” I ask Ritika. “What about your family?”
Ritika leans back in her chair and stretches.
“My family has been waiting for Julian to die for generations,” she says plainly.
I gasp, but Julian doesn’t blink. “It’s a curse, living the way he does.
And not just because of how he stays alive, but how he’s forced to live, like a bystander.
We’re all thrilled that he’s chosen you.
And besides, he’s got a separate trust for us that can only be accessed when the ‘Conrads’ die out. ”
I swallow back tears. There’s a weight on my chest; I’ve never experienced love so overpowering that it makes me feel like a burden. What if Julian realizes that I’m not worth this investment? What if the fulfillment he seeks isn’t in me after all?
I sit quietly as Ritika and Julian talk through logistics.
It’s hard not to be impressed by the level of detail they’ve put into their plan: overseas accounts, secret trusts, LLCs, properties spread out across the world that Julian intends to offer up.
They’ve already sent a brief proposal to Leila, who was evidently intrigued enough to agree to meet in person in Chicago, meaning he’ll have to leave us behind in the safe house for a couple of days while he travels there and back.
“Ritika’s tough,” Julian says. “You’ll be in good hands.”
The first time we’d met, I’d noticed Ritika’s build: like she lives in the gym and never skips upper body. She catches me looking, winks, and flexes an impressive bicep.
“I’ve got good aim too,” she says. When I raise an eyebrow, she lifts her oversized tank to reveal a handgun tucked into a holster at her waistband.
I stare at it, aghast, as my ears ring with memories of gunfire, splatters of blood against glass.
“Hopefully we won’t need that,” I say in a small voice.
“It’s just a precaution,” Julian says. He stands. “Speaking of.”
He hustles back into the bedroom, then emerges later with a small tote bag. When I see the contents, I laugh out loud.
“Do I have to be cute for house arrest?” I say, turning over the package of nude-colored short press-on nails, not unlike the ones I’d popped off my fingers over the last couple of days.
“They’re a tracking device,” Julian says.
Prototypes, he goes on to explain, from a woman-owned company based out of South Africa that’s been working on developing GPS navigation microtechnology with the idea of making it easier to locate people who have been kidnapped, trafficked, or killed.
The chips, he explains, are embedded in the thumbs.
“Morbid,” I say with a whistle as Julian pulls out a second box, the “decoy”: a yellow gold necklace with a heart-shaped pendant the size of a small button.
“The nails are less noticeable, but they’re buggy,” he explains as he fastens it around my neck.
“They go dark every now and then. The necklace is more likely to work, but also much more likely to be taken off you. Ritika and Aditya will have your location at all times. If something happens and we get separated, they’ll help me track you. ”
I look down to where the pendant nestles against my chest. Julian’s been thorough; that much is undeniable. But that also tells me that he’s scared. He knows his sister. The depths she’ll go to guard their secret.
Leila’s face pops into my mind. Teeth stained red. Blood dripping down her chin.
“It’ll be okay,” I say out loud, a prayer.
“It’ll be okay,” Julian repeats.
Julian leaves the next morning and takes my resolve with him.
“Ritika will handle meals and any logistics. There’s another truck in the garage if you guys need to leave, but otherwise try to stay on the property,” he says, standing at the threshold of the cottage with his carry-on bag in one hand and my waist in the other.
“We’re both going to feel like shit for a bit.
Tylenol. Hydration. Rest. You know the drill. ”
“Ah, to be literally addicted to my hot supernatural boyfriend,” I deadpan. Julian rolls his eyes affectionately.
“We have to celebrate, once we’re back home,” he says, “Find a restaurant that’ll let us bring Onix and buy him a steak.”
“I’ll put him in his Sunday best for the occasion.
” I’m trying to stay strong, but watching Julian leave reinforces the gravity of our situation: he’s returning to our home to negotiate for my life.
He’s also agreed to inquire after Brandon, but when I requested he give Winona an update on my whereabouts, he hesitated.
You don’t want Leila to suspect that Winona knows anything about us, he insisted.
It’s best if we remain a bit distant for now.
And he’s going alone. No Ritika to watch his back, no Aditya because that might put the Ghoshals at risk.
Just my Jules, walking willingly into a lion’s den.
“Stay safe,” I tell him. Dread is building in the pit of my belly, the harrowing feeling that this goodbye might be our last. He leans down at the same time that I boost myself up, and even though I know he doesn’t have time to spare, I hook my hands under his jaw to bind him to me.
Tears I’ve been holding back trickle between my fingers, and he puts his bag aside to return my fervor.
I can feel the warmth of his other self hovering just above us, see him behind my closed eyes like a prism.
“I love you,” Dream Julian says as his counterpart kisses me. “More than life itself. I hope you know.”
“I do,” I say out loud, against his lips. “And I love you too. So make sure to come back to me.”
“I always seem to manage that,” my Julian says, pulling back, and against all odds, we both grin.
Then he lets me go, gives Ritika a nod, piles into the SUV, and drives off.
The first twenty-four hours without Julian are the worst. Physically, I’m almost instantly sick as shit, with pounding headaches and a stomach that refuses to settle.
Mentally, I’m worse. I knew, rationally, that I would have to reckon with the trauma of what happened in Ulrich Corridor and what is currently happening now, but I didn’t realize how much I’d been distracting myself with my anger with Julian to avoid confronting the horror of the last few days.
Ritika tries to help, baking us a sumptuous cardamom pear upside-down cake that leaves the house smelling like the inside of a patisserie and asking me strategically safe questions about my past to avoid triggering a meltdown.
We stay up late watching Dirty Dancing on VHS, laugh when she asks whether Baby’s dad accurately represents most cardiologists.
She doesn’t ask questions when I start crying during the famous lift scene, just pauses the movie to bring me a mug of chamomile.
By the next day, I’m feeling as well as I can be, under the circumstances.
I wake up early to a steely gray sky and light streaming through my window, change into one of the tracksuits that Julian bought for me.
I grab the Walkman I dug out from Alphonse’s daughter’s dresser alongside an old Enya cassette, then step out into the living area.
It’s eerily quiet; Ritika is still asleep upstairs.
It’ll be a short jog, I tell myself as I step out into the cool, fresh air.
Just around the perimeter of the cottage’s two-acre property.
Close enough that I can run back for help if I need it.
Movement after so many days of cramped car rides and heavy meals feels like a luxury, and I sigh with relief as my muscles stretch and contract.
Out here, it’s so peaceful that I can almost believe that I’m living in a snow globe, my world starting and ending at the rim that I circle over and over before calling it quits and heading back inside.
The moment I reach the door I sense that something is amiss.
I almost certainly locked it before I left, but when I reach for the knob, it turns.
I step back, study the grounds. There are no other footsteps in the snow, no cars idling at the base of the driveway.
I’ve circled the property multiple times; I would have seen someone come in.
“You’re being paranoid,” I tell myself out loud, even as my stomach twists itself into knots. “No one is here.”
A familiar scent assaults my nostrils as I enter the cottage. It’s sharp, metallic, so overpowering that trepidation freezes me in place before my mind can label it for what it is.
Ritika.
I force myself to take one step, then another. And then I see her. Her body sprawled brokenly on the floor. Blood pooling under an unseen wound. It’s coming from her head. Her expression isn’t twisted in pain, but slack, oh god—
“Hi, Sean,” a saccharine, sweet voice calls from the kitchen. “How was your run?”