47. Ari
Ari
Clara comes to find me an hour later, using the secret corridors and hidden passages, tumbling into the room I’ve been sequestered into. Apparently this is where I’ll stay until the wedding.
“They didn’t catch him,” she says quickly as she tries to break her fall.
“What?” I ask. I heard her the first time but I don’t trust myself to believe until she repeats it a few more times.
“He was so fast. The Gallaghers are so pissed.” She says it with so much glee I can’t help but break into a smile.
“He really made it?”
“Your boy was like Usain Bolt.”
“You absolutely, one hundred percent, promise me that he’s OK.”
“Of course.” She reaches out to touch my cheek but then pulls her hand back, tucking it into the pocket of her dress.”
“What happened?” I ask, narrowing my eyes as I stare at the folds of her skirt.
“Nothing.”
But she says it too quickly. “Tell me,” I demand.
She pulls her hand back out. “It’s really nothing.”
Nothing is a three inch gash across her palm, her blood still pooling as the skin tries to knit back together. “How did you get this?” I ask, as I pull her towards the basin in the corner of the room and start to wash it under the cold tap.
She hisses as the water hits the broken skin. “Jesus, Ari.”
“You know I have to clean it.” I’m almost brusque. “Now tell me.”
“I’d stolen his car keys so I made sure the engine was already running when he got to it,” she says quietly.
“But they were still so fast, the Gallaghers, and so I slowed them down a little.” She says it like it was nothing at all.
Like she was just doing what anyone else would have done in the situation.
“You put yourself between a hunting vamp and their prey?”
She shrugs.
“You could have been killed.”
Now, I know that we are considered immortal.
And we are in terms of we don’t age beyond a certain point and we’re pretty much immune to all the shit that can kill a human, like typhoid and stuff.
But we can get hurt. Normally we can avoid it, move fast enough to get the fuck out of the way of a threat.
But an angry vampire with a thirst on for fresh human blood?
Not a chance. It’s like you getting hit by a runaway truck.
“It’s not that bad,” Clara says, pulling her hand from the water to inspect the cut.
I take a closer look myself. She’s lucky. It’ll heal alright on its own. I hold her hand for a few more moments and then lift my eyes to meet hers. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“You love him,” she replies and her face softens into a smile. “Of course I would help him.”
“Your father made me break his heart,” I whisper softly. I’m trying not to remember all the things I said to him, but I can’t stop the voices in my head. You are just a human. A mortal. Nothing more than a toy to be played with.
“I heard that bit.”
“You were in the tunnel behind the office?”
She nods and then looks away. “Brody won’t believe it.”
“Of course he will.”
“We’ll get a message to him, I’ve already spoken to Ivan.”
“You need to be careful, Clara.” I imbue some gravity into my words. “You need to stay on his good side.”
“Of Daddy?” she asks. “You know he doesn’t speak for me. And if he doesn’t like it then he can find someone else to marry off instead to make some perfect little vampire babies for him.”
“He did.”
She cocks her head a little. “What do you mean?”
I sigh. “I guess you didn’t hear that part. I mean that he wants me to marry Benedict.”
“Gross.” She makes a face. “But it isn’t like he can force you.”
“Actually, he might be able to.” I look away, not wanting to make eye contact with her as I tell her just how stupid I’ve been.
“What did you do?” she asks, trying but failing to mask the horror in her tone.
“I made a deal with Victor. And your father bought the debt from him.”
“Jesus,” she says on an outwards breath. “You’re a fucking idiot. Why did you make a deal with Victor?”
“Because I was desperate.” I say simply. Because that is the truth of it. I knew it was a mistake but I didn’t know where else to turn, I couldn’t see any other way out of the mess I’d created.
“Why didn’t you ask me to help?” She says it like it would have been the simplest thing in the world.
Like I wouldn’t have had to admit to my glamorous and successful best friend that I was the ultimate fuck up with shitty taste in men and an inability to do anything with money except let it slip straight through my fingers.
“Because I was ashamed.” I spread my hands out in front of me.
“You know you’re my best friend in the whole world and I would do anything for you?” She’s earnest.
I can’t bear it and I look away, staring at a spot on the floor where the rug has faded over the centuries.
“I know.” I take in a deep breath, feeling it rattle in my chest. “But you can’t interfere with this.
It’s your dad. If you upset him, you know what he’ll do.
” Clara’s stays of execution on her marriage are only as good as her relationship with her father, or at least only as good as he thinks their relationship is, her constant tight roping between keeping him sweet and not personally descending into the kind of depraved behaviour his cronies enjoy so much.
Clara turns away from me and crosses towards the door. “Wait here,” she says as she slips out of the room.
“Clara,” I call after her. ‘Don’t you fucking dare…” But she’s already gone.
She returns ten minutes later, walking straight back in without knocking. Her skin is pale and she’s wearing a smile that looks more like a grimace.
“Clara,” I use my big sister voice, the one I’ve used a few times to get the truth out of my best friend. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” But I can tell from the tone of her voice that it very much not nothing.
“Tell me.”
She takes a deep breath. Then she clears her throat and gives her shoulders a little shimmy before pulling herself up to her full height.
The mask slips back into place. Anyone else looking at her would think she was brimming with quiet confidence and pride in the direction of her own life.
But I can see the terrified child underneath the veneer.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. Is there anything else to say to your best friend who has spent a century dodging the husband she doesn’t want but whose time may have finally run out?
“I know. It’ll all work out in the end.”
“If I marry Benedict we could still be together.” The words are out of my mouth before I really understand what I’m saying.
“No.” She’s vehement, eyes flashing in anger that I would even think such a thing.
“You are not going to marry that bully. That bastard.” She spits the word as though it has form in her mouth.
“He almost destroyed you once and I will not let him do that again.” She closes the distance between us, grabbing my shoulders with both hands.
“Promise me you’ll do everything you can to avoid that fate. ”
“Of course. But…”
Her fingers tighten their grip. “I bought you a year.”
“A year? What?”
“Your wedding to Benedict will be pushed back a year.” She spells it out carefully.
“But how?” I ask.
“That doesn’t matter,” she says quickly. “But it gives you a little time to try to think of something, to figure it out.”
“How, Clara?” I ask more sternly this time.
She takes a deep intake of breath. “So, I kind of lied last week. You know when I said Daddy had given me a stay of execution for ten years?”
I nod.
“Well, technically he only gave me five. He told me I had to stop messing around and start to live up to my potential.” She scrunches up her face.
“But five years is nothing,” I say.
“It was something. But it doesn’t matter now anyway.” She smiles at me, but I can see it’s fake. “Luca and I are getting married in six months.”
“Six months? But he gave you five—” I cut myself off. “You traded your time for mine.”
“Of course. I was only delaying the inevitable. But you have a chance. There’s still hope you could find a way out of this mess. So promise me you’ll try.”
“OK. I promise.”
“We can do this.”
But even as I see the fire burn inside my best friend I can’t help but feel the creeping hand of inevitability closing its bony fingers around my fate.
Happiness isn’t for the likes of me. Vampire princesses don’t get their happy ever afters, they get a life of duty and obligation and pity the fool who thinks it can be any other way.