Chapter 14
For Yasmine Sokolov, most problems could be solved by a hot bath.
As it turned out, Bella Dragomir was not most problems.
Yasmine groaned, lathering shampoo into her scalp, hoping to scrape out the thoughts that kept bubbling up from the drain.
I shouldn’t have been so strict with her.
She massaged the foam in harder, raking her fingernails down to the base of her neck.
You had no other choice. You have to end this quickly.
The oddly fruity scent wafting from her head made the cognitive loop even more inescapable. She frowned, looking down at her own hands like they’d betrayed her. Her fingers were full of pink fluffy suds.
Looking up, her eyes found the bottle she’d just squeezed.
Strawberry shampoo.
This is what I get for telling Bella she could use the jacuzzi.
Groaning, she vigorously splashed her hands into the water to rid herself of the pink foam, then dunked her head so deep in the bath water that she could no longer breathe.
It was pleasant for a few seconds, that deprivation.
Squinting through the water, she looked up at the white porcelain tiles on the ceiling, at the severe grey grout lines between each square.
The longer she stayed submerged, the more the lines morphed and twisted, until there was no distinction at all.
She could relate.
Her phone rattled on the side of the jacuzzi, and her body’s autonomic processes betrayed her, forcing her to gasp for air. She patted her hand around like a newborn, searching for the vibrating torture device, until she finally grasped it. She picked it up and swiped messily at the screen.
“Hello?”
“Mom?”
Yasmine’s chest deflated, a sudden shame enveloping her.
Wallace.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Mom,” Wallace said, sounding relieved. “I was starting to get worried about you.”
Yasmine pinched the bridge of her nose, cringing. He’d texted her several times this week, and she’d forgotten to reply to all of them.
Mother of the year, she was not.
“I’m sorry, my darling. I know I’ve been horrible at getting back to you,” she said, refusing to let herself dwell on the reason—or rather, person—keeping her so occupied. “They cancelled my research funding. It’s been a whole ordeal.”
“Oh shit. Seriously? Cancelled? Is everything going to be ok with the lab?”
Yasmine’s heart sank. She hated how genuine and sweet he sounded when he asked. He’d always been this way: an angel of a listener.
She’d tried stomping that trait out of him from a young age—empathy was a dangerous thing to have, it tended to invite vultures—but he was stubbornly good, that boy.
“Yes, it’ll be fine,” she reassured him quickly. “My colleague reminded me that I have more than enough money to deal with funding issues myself.”
The line went oddly silent for a second. All Yasmine could hear was Wallace’s footsteps against pavement.
“You’re actually friendly with a colleague?” he finally said. “That’s new.”
Oh. Yasmine’s cheeks burned. God, could she not go five seconds without inserting Bella into the conversation? It was a blessing she didn’t mention her by name.
“It’s not new. I have collaborated with many people before.”
“Yes. Yourself, under different pen names.”
Yasmine rolled her eyes. It was hard to hide from her own flesh and blood.
“I’ve come across a promising post-doc, so I hired her to my lab. I assure you she is very real.”
Wallace audibly gasped. “You hired someone to actually work alongside you? Not on a different time schedule, so you never have to see them?”
“Is it really that unbelievable?” Yasmine muttered, remembering Bella’s teasing from earlier. It had not been obvious to her previously just how anti-social she was.
Car horns blared in the background as Wallace seemingly crossed an intersection. Yasmine’s eyebrows furrowed. Where is he going?
It was late. Almost ten thirty, and a weekday.
“Is someone threatening you? Is that why your funding disappeared?” He went quiet for a second, then asked, “Is this… vampire stuff?”
Yasmine’s fingers clenched under the water.
Ever since Tommy’s death, Wallace had started asking that question a lot. Yasmine had kept him at a safe distance from vampire society for a very long time, but Sylvia and Aster had torn the shutters off of his windows, and now he was constantly scared of another bird flying into the glass.
Anger surged through her at the memory, and she jerked up and out of the tub, wet feet padding out onto the cold tiles.
“No, no vampire stuff, dear,” she said, grabbing a towel.
She asked herself many times why she’d forgiven Sylvia for everything she’d put her through last year.
There was, of course, the story she’d told herself: how Tommy was a corrupt asshole, just like his father; how he had money laundering and tax evasion allegations hanging over his head that would have inevitably shipped him off to white collar prison; how Earth did not lose an angel when they killed him.
But that was the thing. They didn’t need to kill him. They didn’t need to pointlessly traumatize her son. It was selfish and stupid, and yet Yasmine had forgiven Sylvia nonetheless, extending her arm once more over the fence, even as the dog continued to bite the hand that fed it.
It’s because you’re scared you’ll lose your only friend if you tell her off.
Yasmine gritted her teeth. How pathetic. How could she be a role model to Wallace if she kept letting herself get taken advantage of?
This was why she needed to set that ultimatum with Bella.
She had one friend who used her, and that was enough. She couldn’t bear knowing that all she was good for was her money two times, even if it was true.
She wrapped her towel around herself and wedged the phone into her neck as she walked towards the kitchen.
“Enough about me. I’m tired enough of my own life, I don’t want to hear my own voice anymore,” she said.
“Tell me about you. Where are you going this late at night? I thought you gave up drinking at like, age seventeen.”
Yasmine heard something click on Wallace’s end. A door lock?
“Would you prefer that I drink? You are such a strange parental figure,” he said. The rush of cars outside quieted to nothing. “Just coming home after buying groceries.”
Bullshit.
“I just want you to have fun. I mean, not too much fun. But an appropriate amount. In moderation. Enough to stave off depression but not enough to invite mania. Like, you can smoke weed, but don’t let it be a gateway drug, that sort of thing.”
“Thank you so much for giving me permission to smoke weed,” Wallace said. “I’ll take that into account while I’m watching Love Island in bed.”
Yasmine frowned. Plodding into the kitchen, she pulled up her surveillance app. She’d sewn an Air Tag into Wallace’s backpack several years ago, so she could follow his every movement through Manhattan.
Yes, she was aware that was not great parenting.
But even though the Council had been obliterated by Aster, a power vacuum always welcomed new, deadly insects. Better to be safe than sorry, especially when her son was so terrifyingly powerless.
The little blinking green dot that represented Wallace lit up somewhere in Brooklyn. He did not live in Brooklyn.
“I don’t believe you,” she sing-songed, her damp fingers slipping off the screen as she attempted to zoom in. “It’s not good to lie to your mother, Wallace.”
“Mm, but my mother loves lying to me. Must run in the family,” he shot back. Yasmine heard a muffled male voice in the background, and Wallace abruptly cleared his throat, “Gotta go. Thanks for letting me know you’re alive.”
“Wallace! Who was that?”
The line cut off.
Yasmine stared at her frowning face in the reflection of the Call Ended screen.
She sighed, put the phone face down on the counter, then reached for the fridge door.
It was probably just a boy he was seeing.
He was allowed to have a boyfriend; Yasmine couldn’t ground him for that.
For one, because he was an adult man, and two, because Yasmine didn’t want him to be totally alone.
It wasn’t healthy for humans. They needed companionship.
You say that like you weren’t a human once.
Even though it was true, it felt like a lie. She felt so much like a sentient corpse.
Not Wallace, though. He still has a chance to be a person.
She took a shuddering breath in as she grabbed a bottle of blood.
She’d been finding herself needing more and more of it these days, despite her diet not changing. She chalked it up to the stress of her research; cortisol did strange things to one’s metabolism.
And if Bella had introduced anything to Yasmine’s life, it was cortisol.
Bella.
She’d blissfully forgotten about the blonde for ten minutes, and now the mere mention of her name in her own mind had her nearly spilling her glass of blood onto the countertop. It was agonizing: this feeling, this desperation. It needed to end.
She needed to make it end.
And not just because it was physically and mentally derailing her daily life. No, if they were to pull this feat of research off in one month, she needed total concentration.
What if she missed the result that would change Wallace’s life all because she couldn’t stop fixating on how far Bella’s mouth was from hers?
She’d never forgive herself.
Wallace could have a human boyfriend. That was fine. It made sense. But Yasmine and Bella? Yasmine could not have a human… Fuck. Why was she even going there? Why was she even making comparisons? This was sex. This was overextended horniness. This was a mess.
Her brain was on the verge of a gas leak.
“Need to end this,” she said decisively, letting the adrenaline of it push her on as she swallowed down her last gulp of blood and reached for her phone.
First, she changed Bella’s contact to just her name. The nickname was only making things worse, suggesting a familiarity that wasn’t there. Then, she started to type.
Yasmine: when are you going to get back to my place?
Yasmine: we need to talk
A minute passed, and no response came. Yasmine frowned; she began to pace around her living room, her shadow stalking back and forth beneath the light of her chandelier.
One minute turned into five, then ten, then fifteen.
“Where the hell is she?”
Yasmine knew Bella had a shift at the Nightingale, but that should have ended hours ago. Was she grabbing groceries? It didn’t take that long to put broccoli in a bag.
She abruptly stopped pacing, her eyes drawn towards the street.
There was a drunk couple making out on the bench just outside Central Park, directly opposite her window.
It occurred to Yasmine for the first time then, as she watched those strangers’ sloppy mouths go at it under the street light, that Bella had things she could do besides work in Yasmine’s lab, serve people coffee, and get them broccoli.
Yasmine swallowed. She felt tremendously stupid.
Because of course Bella had friends. She was young, smart, not to mention that she looked like Marilyn Monroe’s previously unreported half-sister.
Fuck, she could have anyone she wanted. She was probably at a bar, smiling that stupid pretty grin of hers, gathering numbers like a fisherman hoisting up a net of clams.
The rope around her lungs tightened to an unbearable degree. She looked away from the couple, unable to stand it any longer, and marched towards the stairs. She was still only in her towel, dripping water onto the carpet, she was a mess, she needed to get dressed…
Bella: yasmine
Yasmine nearly tripped on the staircase, her hand gripping the railing so she didn’t fall backwards. She stared down at her phone, her heartbeat in her throat.
Bella: sorry can we talk about whatever is on your mind later
Bella: just kind of a bad time right now
Bella: i need help. like medical attention sort of
…What?
Immediately, every thought left Yasmine’s head. Everything went dark around her as her trembling fingertips typed out a response.
Yasmine: where are you?
Without waiting to hear back, she flew up the remaining stairs, throwing her towel onto the floor and yanking her dresser drawers open. She had no idea what she was putting on. She didn’t care.
Yasmine: bella? where are you?
She had a horrible feeling in her chest: a sinking, terrible dread.
You’re overreacting, Yasmine told herself as she tried to control her breathing. This isn’t like the other times. She’s a human in her late twenties. She’s probably just drunk and needs a ride home.
Bella: bleeding a lot
Bella: dont call ambulance it wont work. need my cream
Bella: its in the top drawer of my stuff. it’s the one with the little red sticker
Bleeding a lot.
Yasmine took in a shaky breath.
No.
Bella Dragomir has sent a location on Google Maps. Would you like to open it?