“I almost died getting here,” he says faintly. “But I couldn’t wait. This needs to end.”
Okay, he’s dangerous. High as a kite and in lots of emotional pain. Nervous and jumpy and holding a gun. A really bad combination.
“What needs to end?” I speak as softly as I can, though my own pulse is scary fast and my limbs are burning with white-hot adrenaline.
“You. This. Dorian.” He nods emphatically. “Dorian needs to end.”
“Okay… Look, I am so sorry that it didn’t work out between you two. Dorian can be thoughtless, and I–I never meant to care about him the way I do. I’m sorry, Vane. I’ve had my heart broken, more recently than you might think. I know how much it hurts, how it feels like the world is ending—”
“Don’t.” He spits the word with a little shake of the gun. “Don’t pretend you understand me.”
“Okay. Okay.” I hold up my hands placatingly. “I won’t. Just tell me what you need from me, all right? I’ll try to help however I can.”
“I need you to get out of the bed and come downstairs,” Vane says. “He’ll be here soon. He can see us.” He glances up at the frame of a huge, ornate mirror, and I peer at it, confused.
“What do you mean he can see us?” But even as I say it, I notice the tiny camera clipped to the mirror frame. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah. He’s been spying on you. How does that feel?” Vane vents a scoffing sound threaded with a sob. “You know, I think you’re a basic bitch pretending to be a creative, but I honestly feel sorry for you, because he’s tricked you, too. That’s what he does. Makes sure you can’t live without him, and then he pushes you down, holds your head underwater”—he knocks the hand holding the gun against the side of his skull—“until you can’t fucking breathe. Only way out isto shoot the hand that’s holding you down, bite the hand that feeds you, bite it right off—”
“You want me to come downstairs?” I slide to the edge of the bed, pushing aside the remains of my snack-fest. My arms feel like noodles, and my legs are trembling.
“Downstairs, yeah. Downstairs. When he gets here, I’ll do it.”
“Do what? Shoot him?” I inch toward the bedroom door, trying to gauge whether I dare make a grab for the gun. But Vane backs up, pointing it at me again, so I postpone that plan and move out into the hall. He follows me.
“I’m not going to shoothim,” says Vane. “I’m gonna shoot that picture of his.”
Shit. Oh shit.
“What picture?” I say with forced lightness.
“Don’t play dumb. I heard the two of you talking in his room. He showed it to you. And I saw it downstairs, in a big fucking case. Probably bulletproof glass.”
“Technically it’s acrylic.”
“I don’t fucking care. Walk faster.”
I hurry toward the staircase, casting around desperately for anything I could use as a weapon. There’s nothing.
“I’ve picked up bits and pieces, you know,” Vane says. “People think I’m some junkie idiot, but I’m not. I’ve overheard conversations between Dorian and Lloyd-Henry, and it all finally made sense when I heard you two talking. When I saw Lloyd today, I asked him, straight out, and he told me the truth. The painting is the reason Dorian can heal and survive anything. Destroying it destroys him.”
“Wait, what?” Dread thrums in the pit of my stomach as I descend the stairs. I left a light on in the kitchen, and its glow leaks into the foyer below, a distant yellow haze, just enough so I can seewhere I’m going and avoid toppling down the steps. “When did you see Lloyd? I thought he wasn’t back yet.”
“He’s in town. I went for a run, and I saw him near that ugly old building. He told me where the painting was. Said Dorian had stashed you and the portrait way out here in this freaky house. You know Dorian brought me here once? Well, me and some others. Best orgy of my life.” His face twists with pain, and he refreshes his grip on the gun. “Go sit in that red chair in the living room, and don’t move, not a fucking inch.”
The stairs flow down into the foyer of the house, which joins with the large living area where Dorian set up my painting supplies. Lightning flashes outside, starkly illuminating the rain-streaked windowpanes and the makeshift studio, complete with the two easels and their canvases—one rotting, one blank.
The chair Vane indicated sits between the second easel and a table full of paints, pencils, and pens. Two more huge canvases are propped against the table, and a pad of thick, creamy paper lies on its surface.
Still side-eyeing me, Vane walks over to a switch on the wall, and the overhead lamp flares to life. It’s an old-fashioned thing, with tulip-shaped glass shades and a glossy ceiling fan that begins to twirl slowly overhead.
As I take a seat, my brain spins, much like the fan. Why would Lloyd betray the secret of the portrait toVaneof all people? In one brief conversation, he handed Vane everything he needs to kill Dorian.
But Lloyd and Dorian are friends. Aren’t they?
How could Lloyd be in town? Surely Dorian would have told me if he was back.
Sibyl seems to think Lloyd pushes Dorian to be his worst self.Lloyd had to know that Dorian’s unbridled debauchery would speed up the decay of the painting.
