16. Chapter 16 #3
“They were in love. She refused to let him go. And in return, she watched him turn into a monster, something no better than an animal.”
She looked back at me. “What happened to them?”
“He went on to become a king. And she went on to sacrifice everything she had to kill him, to stop him from becoming an even worse monster.”
Yet she was to this day hailed as a saint. The revolutionary who’d triggered the start of another race.
Her chest rose quickly, and I could hear it through her spine, beating against my chest. “And did she?”
“She did. But not before he made more monsters like him. His…curse, let’s call it, lived on even if he didn’t.”
“This is so strange,” she murmured, her eyes narrowing on the pages.
“What is?”
“Something about this just sounds…familiar to me.”
“Vampiric tales and folklore are twisted into many cultures and fictional stories. The kind you like reading, too,” I said, reaching for her book in my drawer.
She itched the tip of her nose as she tried her best not to smile. “Enjoyed it?”
“Thoroughly.”
Her dark eyes narrowed on me. “You didn’t read it.”
“Cover to cover.”
“You did not,” she whispered, horrified.
“It was pleasantly narrated.”
She giggled. “Pleasantly narrated?”
“So much so that I nearly forgot about the obnoxious amount of times I had to read about burning loins and his painfully swollen member.”
She pressed her face to my shoulder, laughing with all her body, kicking feet and hands and all. I could feel her joy vibrate against my body. And as she tilted her head at a certain angle against the lamplight overhead, she emanated light, glowing from within. A star trapped in a human cage.
Her fingers traced a line down my forehead, between my brows. “Do you ever relax?” she asked, letting that finger slide down the bridge of my nose and fall on my lips, tracing their shape briefly. “You’re always so tense.”
“Why haven’t you spoken to me in days?”
As if she’d caught herself doing something she wasn’t supposed to do, she pulled back and shifted to her feet, moving away from me. Leaving me only an empty shell of myself again. “I’ll check on Piper. Just in case my rat’s eaten her.”
“This came for you this afternoon,” I said, using the last ammunition I had to keep her here. I’d saved it for another day. Another opportunity when she’d pass me by on the stairs or saw me on the window. An excuse to close her up somewhere alone with me.
She beamed, grabbing the package from my hand. “It’s from Ethel.” She paused, flipping the leather-bound notebook back and forth. “That’s one of my notebooks. My cadaver record.” She flipped it back and forth again. “Why would she send me this?”
She gasped as she browsed through the thick thing. “And she dog-eared some of the pages. That witch!”
She got comfortable on the armchair across from me, seeming to have decided to stay a while longer.
Closing my eyes, I let rest take me away.
And rest was never easy. Surrendering myself wasn’t easy.
Trusting that nothing would torment me in that state of vulnerability wasn’t easy.
Sleep has never been an easy thing for me.
I don’t know how long I’d slept for, but when I woke up, I felt rested and she was still there. Light had slipped from the window clearance. The sun was out. And she was still there.
“Honey?” I rubbed my eyes. “Why haven’t you gone to sleep?”
“I didn’t want to leave you alone with your nightmares. I’m not terrifying or strong, but I am here.”
There was so much I wanted to say. Saints, so much.
The clock on the wall kept ticking and ticking, and I just wanted her to stay there for a little while longer. If I said the wrong thing, she’d leave. If I said nothing, maybe she’d stay.
But she stood, holding her notebook against her chest as she walked away. And I let her. I had to let her. What right did I have to ask that she stays?
Before even the door drew shut, empty hollowness settled between my lungs. The air turned stale and longing for the scent of soft violets and jasmines.
When the last bits of her presence faded into the crepuscular rays shyly peeking through the curtains, I decided to drag myself up to my room.
Only to stop at the bottom of the staircase again.
She was sitting a few steps away, with her shoulder resting against the balustres. Her eyes were narrowed on a page in her notebook.
“Can’t sleep?”
Her lashes fluttered fast as they raised in my direction. After a few long moments, she looked away, pulling a photograph out of the notebook. “I…I think I saw this person in the Basilica at the Cleansing.”
“You know him?” I asked, sitting only a step below her.
Her mouth opened wordlessly a few times, struggling to come up with words.
“Logan, this man was dead a few months ago. I had him on my table dissected and sown all back up. I did all the sending-off rites. He was kept in the mortuary cabinets for all three days of the unwaking—when his soul was sent off to the Beyond.”
I took the picture, unsure how that could be. “You’re sure?”
“It was him.”