CHAPTER SEVEN #3
She looked up at me, elongating her neck and tipping her head back.
Her chin was pointed toward me, her deep brown eyes nearly black in the absence of light, and something about that look …
I could imagine her staring at me just like this moments before I brought my lips to hers to capture her mouth and swallow whatever words she planned to say.
Stop, I scolded myself, but I didn’t listen as I dropped my gaze to her lips and watched intently as she spoke.
“And do you feel respected, Dr. Jekyll?” she asked as her eyes flitted over my frame, now crowding her space.
My lips quirked at the nickname, spoken with an air of flirtation, as I bowed my head and said, “I make sure of it.”
“Hmm …” She slowly nodded before lifting her gaze once again to stare at my masked face. “That must be nice. Maybe I should start wearing a suit too.”
My lips didn’t know whether to smile or frown as I asked, “Do you not feel respected?”
She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes as she replied, “Sometimes, I can make myself believe that I am, but other times—"
I could sense she was about to tell me something critical, something she didn’t think she should be saying at all, when a door I hadn’t noticed before flew open, interrupting a moment that was all at once strange and curious and serendipitous.
A man younger than me entered the room. He was dressed as Dracula, and it took all of three seconds to put the pieces together.
They were here as a couple, and I was ashamed to admit the disappointment that rested against my shoulders.
“Jesus, there you are,” he said with relief, flicking a switch and flooding the room in light.
And what a room it was.
I couldn’t help myself as I looked around, admiring the ornately carved bookshelves; the ladder that must’ve stood at least ten—no, twelve—feet, capable of reaching the books furthest from the floor; the wooden gargoyles perched high in every corner of the room, guarding the premises with snarling grins; the black iron candelabras standing at each end of a sofa.
If I had the time, I’d browse the leather-bound books housed in this room, and maybe, if I thought I could get away with it, I’d remember to swipe a few and tuck them inside my jacket before I left.
Maybe Jane Eyre, I thought, looking back to the woman on the window seat, if only to catch a glimpse of what it was like to be in her mind.
“And who’s this?”
The man came to stand beside me. He was short, like my father. A little less than a foot smaller than me. He sized me up, surely wondering what I’d been doing with his significant other in a dark room—alone.
Nothing I wanted to do—that was for sure.
Because if I had my way, I wouldn’t have been wearing this mask.
I would’ve introduced myself and gotten her name.
I would’ve begged for the opportunity to know her name and her favorite color, just to adopt it as my own.
And though I’d never before desired any experience with a woman before, I would’ve gladly had her be the first.
That couldn’t happen here though. Not when I needed to find Leonard and talk to my father, and I considered that a blessing. Because I didn’t know this woman, and it would’ve been highly uncharacteristic and insane to lose my mind over a stranger.
But then why do I feel so sad?
“Someone who found me before you did,” the woman muttered as she untucked her feet from beneath her bottom.
She swung them over the edge of the seat and slid each one into a high-heeled shoe, but not before I noticed her toenails painted a glossy black.
She was about to stand, and without caring what this guy thought of me, in a rare moment of gentlemanliness, I held out a gloved hand to help her to her feet if only for the opportunity to hold her hand.
The man beside me scowled as she thanked me, laying her palm in mine, the contrast nearly startling.
Against the black leather, her skin appeared as white as snow, and her hand was so much smaller that, in the blink of an eye, I was twelve years old again, holding Anna’s hand as we walked back to our foster home from the bus stop down the street.
She’s not Anna, I had to remind myself, even as I wondered if there was any chance that she could be.
Maybe, in another life, she was.
And maybe we could’ve found ourselves together once again in adulthood, and maybe the broken pieces of our shared past could’ve come together to create something beautiful and whole.
But hope and fantasy were pointless in a world of cruel, harsh reality, and once she was on her feet, I pulled my hand away, out of her grasp, and back into my pocket, along with the ancient memories of a girl who had needed me to save her … and I had failed.
The woman was taken aback by the rapid shift in my demeanor, her smile faltering, but only momentarily.
She stood between the other man and me, our bodies forming the shape of a triangle.
She was taller than him but shorter than me, and while I was sure her heels helped, I was also sure she surpassed his height barefoot.
Now, Leonard was a short man, even shorter than Dracula over here.
My adopted father stood at a modest five foot three, but it was the love he held for us and everyone he’d ever known that gave him the height of the tallest tree.
However, this man beside me now … he was small, and I wondered what it was that he needed in his life to make him feel big.
Something in his eyes told me it wasn’t love.
“They’re about to bring out dinner,” he said, addressing only the woman before us and not at all me.
She nodded, then turned her attention back toward my masked face, her gaze lingering for a moment before she asked, “Are you staying to eat, Doctor?”
A foreign warmth was injected into my icy veins at the nickname.
And although I had no intention of eating—it would require me to take off my mask and reveal my true identity to these people and everyone else—I still couldn’t stop myself from nodding with the hope that I could hold on to this feeling for just a little while longer.
And it was the greatest reward to see her full lips curved in a polite, albeit shy, smile.
Besides, even if I didn’t have intentions of enjoying dinner, I did have all intentions of staying.
For Gerald, yes, and for whatever he knew about Leonard.
But there were other reasons too. New ones.
Ones I’d never known could exist for me before. Ones I wasn’t ready to put a name to but recognized plainly as I followed her into the dining room like a lost, helpless puppy, willing to do anything she said just to see her smile brighten her face once more.
But those reasons were instantly forgotten the moment my eyes fell over the large space, containing three long banquet tables.
Because there, at the head of the one in the middle, was Gerald Crowley.
And beside him was the last person I had expected to see.
The one man I thought could never betray me.
Leonard Llewellyn.