“Your soul,” I whisper. “It’s in so much pain. The things you’ve done to it, this unnatural prison. Oh god.” I cover my mouth, stifling a sob.
“I’m not worth crying for, Baz,” he says. “There is no part of me that deserves your tears.”
“You’re wrong.” My breath hitches. “You’re still there, you—” I reach out and place my hand over his living, beating heart. “You’re tethered to it. Corruption breeds corruption, and I’m guessing the longer you’re trapped in it, the worse you’ll get. Eventually every good part of you will be drowned, and then, Dorian, you’ll become something so much worse—a serial killer, a rapist, a dictator—I don’t know. I have to get you out of there.”
“Yes,” he breathes, collecting my hands in his. “Yes, Baz.”
“I need to put your soul back in your body.”
His eyes widen, rage and alarm clashing in them. “But then I’ll age. I’ve told you, I don’t want that.”
“Dorian, everyone gets old. It’s natural. Part of life.”
“But it doesn’t have to be.” He scrambles to his feet. “I don’t understand why you’re like this. You can save me, and you’re choosing to be willfully obtuse and selfish. I’mthis”—he gestures to himself—“so why should I age like everyone else?”
“That’s the rot in your soul talking.” I rise, too, tilting my chin up defiantly. “You’re not exempt from the normal human experience. I mean, you have been, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it again.”
He gives me a fiendish glare. “And you know best, of course. Like Basil, you think you can decide my fate for me.”
“I’m not like Basil.”
“You’re acting exactly like him.”
“Fuck Basil, and fuck you.”
I turn away, but he catches my wrist. His eyes are pleading now—the lovely, innocent eyes of a man who has never done a wrong thing in his life. I almost laugh, because he’s so damn good at this, changing his mood in a moment, just to manipulate me. But I see through him. Somehow I’ve always been able to see through him, since the moment he sauntered into my studio.
“Darling, I don’t think you fully understand what you’re asking of me,” he says. “Before you make your final decision, I have one more thing to show you. Please.”
I hesitate, not because of the obvious manipulation but because I know there’s part of him—in his body, in the portrait, or somewhere along the tether in between—a remnant of him that’s still sweet, generous, and truly lovable. I’ve seen flashes of that submerged self. I heard the cries of the frantic soul drowning in Basil Hallward’s hideous painting.
The things Dorian has donewithme,forme can’t have all been selfishly motivated.
Besides being physically stunning, he’s smart, talented, well educated, charismatic—and none of that is because of any portrait. It’s justhim.
Maybe if I hear him out and let him show me this one last thing, whatever it is, I can convince him to try things my way. It’ll be risky, attempting to pull his soul out and restore it to his body. But I can’t help staring at that rotted hole in the portrait. Threadlike cracks branch outward from it, and one of them has snaked dangerously close to the crooked feet of his monstrous self.
“Fine,” I say. “You can show me one last thing.”
23
Baz
While Dorian is putting away the portrait, I unlock the bedroom door and return to the living area. I wander to the fridge, planning to get a drink.
The click of a lighter startles me, and I whirl around.
Vane is sitting on one of the sofas, flicking a lighter with his thumb while he stares balefully at me. He’s wearing a low-cut shirt of black mesh and bright blue bracelets that match his artfully rumpled hair. He’s hot in a different way than Dorian—a bony, cocaine-fueled beauty that frightens me even while it makes me pity him. Above the neckline of his shirt, I can see the bones of his chest jutting through his skin.
He is another picture of Dorian Gray. A destruction in progress, a by-product of Dorian’s careless life.
“You scared me.” I press a hand to my heart. “When did you get back?”
“A little while ago.”
“Oh.” Did he overhear anything Dorian and I were saying? “How’d your audition go yesterday?”
“I came. I saw. We’ll see what they decide. My chances would have been better with Dorian along.”
