“That was Silas’s call,” Director Keir said calmly. “He felt that you’d be safer here with private care than you would have been in a hospital.” He nodded to the closed door. “He’s the one that hired Neal and called Bane in to protect you.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Where is he?”
Director Keir frowned. “He was convinced that you wouldn’t have consented to being in physical contact with him if you’d been in your right mind, so he went home as soon as we were able to get you started on a pheromone supplement.”
“I don’t get it,” I huffed in frustration. “I’m not the one who backed off. Why is he acting like this?”
Director Keir placed a small envelope on the bed beside me. “Maybe you should read that?”
Tearing the tab open, I pulled out the only contents – the check I’d left him that was now markedVOIDacross the face. On the back was a hastily scrawled message.
Paul,
I’m so sorry.
Love,
Silas
Handing it to Director Keir, I raised a brow. “Didn’t help much.”
Director Keir scanned it and huffed. “Do you want me to tell you what I think?”
“I really do,” I groaned. “I’m lost.”
Director Keir drew in an even breath. “Sylas told you about his wife, Laura, right? About what happened to her and the babies?”
I nodded.
“He told me that the next morning your entire demeanor changed. That you weren’t in bed when he woke up, that you didn’t want him to cook for you or do little things for you anymore,” the director hesitated and then pushed on, “he also said that you started masturbating instead of going to him for sex. While you are certainly well within your rights to choose not to sleep with someone, he interpreted all of those changes as you pulling away, as proof that you were disgusted by what he is and that you blame him for those deaths.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s insane,” I snapped. “That’s a full-on Evil Knievel jump clear over the facts! I was trying to take some of the burden off him by taking care of myself.”
Director Keir just shrugged. “Then maybe you need to tell him that.”
I scowled. “You just said that he’s not here.”
Director Keir shook his head. “No one said that you have to stay once the doctors clear you, did they?”
Okay, maybe he had a point.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sylas
Sylas, Mpenzi, why are you spending your life with the dead?
I smiled as I imagined the confusion my first love would have felt at seeing me cleaning and polishing the crypt. In the days since I’d left Paul at the ODI complex, I’d become nearly obsessed with restoring the family crypt to the glittering museum of my nearly forgotten childhood memories. For three days, I’d slept in a small tent I pitched beside the truck at the top of the cemetery road, living off of the protein bars in my go bag and water from an ancient well nearly hidden from view by the ivy climbing it.
I’d dusted and swept, scrubbed and polished, reliving the vague memories of my mother doing the same as I’d polished the gold of her coffin until it gleamed.
It’s not just family, Sylas,I remembered her saying on many occasions as I’d sat on an empty shelf, swinging my legs.It’s tradition and history, it’s your heritage. Being caretaker of our family annals will be both your honor and your obligation when the time comes. Honor our ancestors well and teach your children to do the same.
I’d promised that I would do both. One promise broken, the other to remain unfulfilled.
For more years after my mother passed than I was proud to admit caretaking the final resting place of my ancestors had been little more than an occasional half-thought. A quick breeze through the rows of dusty coffins that led me to the urn I’d visited so many times. Generations that had come and gone before me forgotten as I’d cried for the inhabitants of the golden vase.
When I’d polished the last square of the antique stained-glass window to a brilliant sparkle, the time had come to admit to myself that I was stalling, putting off the inevitable pain of returning to my empty house.
