I was too furious to heed it. “Well, maybe you damn well shouldn’t have. Now what? I have to live with this, knowing what they do and being able to do absolutely fucking nothing about it.”
He turned his body away from me toward the window, picking up his glass, and his demeanor retreated back to the ember. “Mind your language, Amelia. It’s not becoming.”
I laughed a bitter, hollow laugh. “Yes, because language—how we speak to each other—is important. Killing people is fine though. God, you are so un-fucking-believable.”
“I kill with reason, and I have to feed or I die,” he said, his voice casual and dismissive.
I didn’t want to argue anymore. I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. I wanted to escape; I wished I could just go home. “Where’s my room? I’m going to bed.”
I wouldn’t sleep, I knew that, but I needed to be alone to process my thoughts, calm my spiraling mind. I feared I might burst into a flood of tears at any minute.
“Any room on the second floor,” he answered, sounding almost defeated.
I looked back as I left the room. He lowered himself onto the couch I’d just left and stared, as if upset, at the floor.
I walked up the stairs, turning left down a ridiculously long, cream-colored hallway. The floor was covered with a long, beige-patterned rug. I scanned for blood stains, relieved to find none. I walked to the very end room because it was the furthest away from him.
The first thing I noticed was the door. Like the rest of the house, it was really old, wooden, excessively thick, and heavy like the front door—it had been crafted to keep people out. Once again, I thought,Orin.
I turned the black antique-looking handle and stepped inside, flicking on the lights. It was a huge room. It had a king-size four-poster bed covered in sage-green silk covers and four perfectly arranged pillows. A fireplace adorned the side wall, and straight ahead, a glass door led out to a balcony. Opposite the bed sat an antique dressing table in excellent condition. Beside that was an open door leading to a bathroom. There was two other doors on the wall a few feet either side from the bed. Probably walk in robes. Could also be sterile rooms with concrete floors that he took his victims to before he sliced their arteries open and drained their blood.
I threw my handbag on the bed and looked around for something to block the main door with, and my eyes landed on the wooden bedside tables. I moved over to the closest one to the door, taking the night lamp off and sitting it on the floor. I heaved and dragged it across the floorboards. It was heavy, and it grunted, screeched, and growled its way, leaving long claw marks in the floorboards behind it. Lastly, I went to the glass door. The black glass pane reflected my ghostly image. I shivered and made sure it was locked. It was. I yanked the heavy burgundy drapes closed and moved back to the bed.
I thought about calling Tom, just to hear the comfort of his voice. Some sort of normality. I missed him badly, and I needed to speak to him. I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialed his number. My heart leaped into my mouth, and the ring seemed to sound in slow motion. I waited for him to answer. He wouldn’t know this number. He might be at work; he might be in bed with?—
“Hello?”
His voice brought a painful pang to my chest. My eyes stung. My throat burned. God, how I missed him. It was silent in the background. He wasn’t at work. I wanted to speak, but my throat seemed to have frozen. He would tell me everything was going tobe okay; he was sensible, caring and kind. He would know what to do.
“Hello?”
Speak. Open your mouth and speak!
“Amy,” he whispered, “is that you?”
What could I possibly say?
“Hi, Tom. How are you? How’s Kelly? Me . . .? I’m in a bit of a pickle, actually. I’m staying at a vampire’s house.”
I hung up, breathing deeply, settling the phone on the bed.
I wiped at the tears in my eyes, clicked on the lamp, and moved to the main light, turning it off. I climbed into bed, sure I could smell Karson on the sheets. His scent was sweet, musky, and distinctive. I thought about opening the drawers of the large dresser to check, and then decided even if it was his room, too bad, he could sleep in the lounge for all I cared. Then again, maybe he didn’t sleep at all. But Ethan did—well, he retired to his room at night. Did he sneak out, feed, and sneak back in?
“I killed him to save you.”
His words echoed through my head. He had saved me, the man had died—awfully—and it was my fault.
I tossed and turned, drifting in and out of sleep. My dreams were hideous nightmares filled with vampires. The girl’s face, and Karson’s demonic, twisted image, teeth bared, flying at my neck. My startled cries woke me over and over again. Once when I woke, Karson’s shadowed image remained for a moment before it seemingly faded into oblivion. Whether it was a dream or real, I couldn’t be certain. The only thing I did know for certain was the veils of the world had dropped. The dawn of innocence was over, and in its place a nefarious reality had risen.
And life as I knew it was unequivocally forever altered.
Chapter 38
Black Widow
Karson had been so close she could’ve touched him. Black Death felt a nervous tension slide through her stomach. What if he’d seen her and pretended not to? It would be just like him to turn up when it was least expected, demanding to know why she was in Portland.
It was dark, but the moon banked through a film of clouds and the wharf front was well lit. The place was heaving with people. And she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She fought the instinct to turn and look, or to flee. It was better to walk normally, as if she was oblivious to her stalker, and slip into the darkness. But perhaps she wasn’t being followed at all? She hated feeling so paranoid. But after years of watching him slaughter and crush anyone who stood in his way. It was hard not to.
