“Hello?”Jason called.
Raven paused the game he had going on the Switch Heath had gotten for him with a bewildered look on his face, but without so much as a huff of complaint.
“Here.”
Jason wasn’t all that close, but Raven still heard him snort.“Here where?It’s a labyrinth.”
Raven stood and waved.“Go straight, keep the gramophones to your right, then head left toward the windows.”
Not two minutes later, Jason arrived at the armchairs, his brows going up at the sight of them.“Wow.Did you just unearth these?”
Raven nodded.The armchairs were a set of four, Chippendale style, with a beigy cover that showed use and discoloration around the edges.
“I found a lot more furniture, actually.”He pointed to where cabinets, couches, desks, and more had been neatly Tetrised away under white sheets.“I thought setting it up and putting some stuff inside it might be a good way to, you know, structure everything.”
Jason gave him a look.Increasingly, Jason had shown doubt about Raven’s ideas.No, that’s wrong.It has nothing to do with me or my ideas.He’s on Heath’s side now.He doesn’t like the clutter and is all for setting an accidental fire.
The realization made a smile pop onto Raven’s face, and he had trouble hiding it.
“You’re baiting me,” Jason said.“You want me to tell you that there aren’t enough boxes to shove all this stuff inside of.”
“Well, it’s not supposed to be shoved inside of anything.It’s supposed to be a living museum.”
Jason sighed.“Living museum?You didn’t come up with calling it that.All this dust and…old stuff turned you too agreeable.You know what you need?”
Raven buried his fingers in Ume’s hair as he scratched the dog’s head.“Another list of superhero names?”
Jason waved that off.“We settled on the Throw.You need to go out.”
Raven had been afraid of this.Jason had always enjoyed being where people were.He was gregarious, and it came easy to him.Being who he was, he’d always made a point of including Raven, and in doing so had made it possible for Raven to meet and make friends with people he wouldn’t have run into otherwise.
I didn’t think he’d want to take me anymore.I’m…different now.I’m no good for fun anymore.I thought he’d realized that.
“You want to…go to a party?”
Jason made a face.“Look, if I take you to any college thing, everyone is going to want to be your bestie.You’re a fancy vampire now, clothing choices aside, and they’ll want a piece of you.Or of that canine attention seeker.”Ume looked up at him pointedly, and Jason shook his head.“Yeah, that one’s bad.Anyway, I was thinking we could go to a real club.Heath mentioned one that’s for, you know, humans and then some without being all about blood groupies and whatnot.I think maybe if we take him, we can even get in without having to stand in line.”
“You…want to go to a club?”
Jason swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet, all excitement.“Yup!They don’t turn the music up too loud.That’s a plus, right?You hated that even before you got your fangs, so it’s no longer a good excuse.”
“My fangs.”
Jason raised a finger.“You still haven’t shown me those, but I forgive you.”
Maxim had explained, when Raven had clumsily asked about biting people, that his incisors would elongate.Apparently, the fact that they didn’t when he sipped donor blood from a cup meant he was well in control and ate when he should, but there was always a lingering fear that he’d accidentally show his fangs when he didn’t want to and then be unable to get them to retreat.As far as Raven was concerned, it was a lot like the vampire version of standing naked in front of a group of people.
“They’re just teeth.”He scratched Ume behind his left ear.“I’m not sure going out is a good idea.”
Jason walked up to the chair next to Raven’s and sat, carefully, as if he were afraid the old furniture would buckle under him.
“Tell you what, we’ll give it an hour—maybe half an hour—and if you don’t like it, we head back here and, uh…have some blood, hang out.Come on, apart from taking your weirdo dog out, you haven’t seen daylight.Or fresh air.Or people, really.”
That had been by design.Raven was scared of a lot of things these days, but when he was here, at the house and on the Forbidden Floor, it was almost as if he were invisible.As if he’d vanished from the world he’d known, the world he couldn’t go back to.Jason was the only thing that still tethered him to the before, and Jason stubbornly refused to let go.Sometimes Raven wished he finally would.Other times, he was glad Jason was there.
“I don’t know…”
Jason sighed.“Dude, I get it, okay?I mean, I’m trying to get it.But just come out with me for an hour.Or for a drink.Please, Raven.I miss you.”
