24 - Ryet
Let it shine
“You’re OK, blood lover. You can open your eyes now.”
But I don’t believe Paul. Because I am dead, or in some fantasy dreamwalk place so I don’t have to face the horror of what’s actually happening to me. I’m alive, and conscious, and have been torn to pieces by scions.
And anyway, why should I believe him? All he’s ever done is lie to me.
“Come on now, Ryet. It was for your own good.”
“I’m an adult, Paul. Have been this entire time. You don’t get to say what’s good for me.”
Paul’s response is a sigh of relief. Because I’m talking to him. Well, not talking out loud. He’s not actually here in this cave where I’m existing as a half-eaten, half-dead monster because that’s how he rolls. Be somewhere safe while all the bad shit happens. Show up in some misty cloud of magic where you know none of it can touch you.
Paul scoffs. “Is that really what you think I’m doing?Hiding?”
“Yes. That’s what I think. I think you’re a fucking coward who has been using me for almost a hundred years. But the kicker is, it wasn’t what I thought. It wasn’t to make me in your own image. It was to use me to makeothersin your image.” I open my eyes. Look straight at him. Loathe the fact that he’s beautiful and hate myself for loving him.
His smile is small as he pans a hand around the empty, dreamwalk cave. There are no scions eating me here.
“It doesn’t matter, Paul. Back there, it’s already been done. I’ve beeneaten.” I pause to glare at him, daring him to contradict me when the next part comes out. “And it isn’t the first time, is it?”
That small smile disappears. “I’m playing a very complicated game.”
I nearly guffaw. “I bet you are.”
“I’ve taken every precaution.”
“No, you haven’t. If you’d taken every precaution, I would not be a half-eaten, half-dead monster.”
“It was necessary. You’ll see. One day, I’ll have a chance to explain and?—”
“Fuck you. Fuck. You, Paul. There is no ‘one day.’ This is it. You’re not here, so you don’t know. They ripped chunks of flesh off my bones!”
He winces. Then takes a breath. Then tries again. “It’s not permanent. You’re immortal.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing! It’s not, Paul. ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ This is what you did to me! I am nothing but a punishment in Revelation! I am stuck in this nightmare for all eternity and you, the man who claims to love me, the one who claims to think of me as a son, did this to me!”
He scoffs now. “I don’t think of you as a son. That’s kind of…gross, Ryet. We’re lovers.”
“That’s your response to what I just said?”
“You’re missing the point.”
“No, I’m not. I get the point. You are playing a game and I’m your chess piece.”
He sighs while rubbing his hands down his face, suddenly looking very tired. Then he tries again. “The game is important. And trust me when I say this, I don’t like it any more than you do. But it was”—he shrugs—“assigned to me.”
“What was assigned to you?”
“This role I’m playing. I mean, no one wants to live forever, Ryet.”
I’m gritting my teeth when my words come out. “No shit. That’s what I just said.”
But he doesn’t respond to that, just keeps going. “And the vampire? Is there a more diabolical creature in existence? They are loathsome demons. Feeding off the life force of others. It’s despicable.”
For a moment I’m confused because in all the years I’ve known Paul the vampire, he’s never come across as self-loathing. He’s proud. He’s boastful. He’s the definition of a narcissist, for fuck’s sake. But it’s a ploy. I know it’s a ploy because everything about Paul is a lie.
