Caligula is still where the cameras have been showing him all day. Curled on his side on the bed, one arm tucked under his head, the collar around his neck.
I have a flash of him as he was at the Obelisk. Gold dust on his skin. Chin high, eyes bright, tongue sharp. A prince selling himself to monsters.
Now he looks…small.
His eyes are still closed.
“Caligula.”
His eyes open. That’s the only way I know he hears me as I cross to the bed.
It’s the stillness that bothers me. He’s just lying there like someone turned off a switch. But I wanted this. I planned it. I should be satisfied with the outcome.
“Get up.” No response. “Don’t make me carry you.”
Still nothing. I reach down and close my hand around his upper arm, pulling him upright. He lets me, passive as a doll.
I take out the key for the collar. My fingers are clumsy, but I get it open, take it from around his neck. There’s a red mark where it sat. His hair is a mess, and he looks washed out in this light.
“Stand up.”
He gets to his feet clumsily. Sways. I take his arm to steady him, and he doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t lean in, either. He just stands there and lets me hold him up.
I steer him to the elevator. He walks where I push him, stops when I stop him, steps in when the doors open. He stands in the corner staring at nothing, and the elevator light is harsh on the bruises I left on him the other night.
I look again at that red line around his neck from the collar. And then I look away.
“You’re going to eat something,” I tell him. “Rosa’s cooking.” Nothing. “And you’re going to shower. You look like shit.”
His mouth moves. For a second I think the real Caligula Clemenza is about to surface, some acid observation about my own personal grooming standards, maybe, or something about the hospitality.
But his lips close again.
I decide to put him in my bedroom because it’s closest to the elevator. I lead him to the bed and he almost collapses into it after I pull the covers back, curling onto his side, facing away from me.
Same position. Same silence.
For one wild moment I want to grab him and shake him until the real Caligula Clemenza comes snapping back into place. The ice prince. That vicious little viper with a strategist’s mind and a tongue like a whip.
Instead, I go into the bathroom, get a glass of water and set it on the nightstand, and look down at him again.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
I walk away and stop at the door. “Take a fucking shower.”
Still nothing.
I pull the door mostly closed behind me and then I go down to the guest room and sit on the edge of the bed until I hear footsteps on the stairs.
It’s Rosa, bringing up a meal for him. I meet her in the corridor and grab the tray. “I’ll take it in.”
I don’t want her to see him like that. She’ll only think worse of me. She hands it over with a cold stare and tells me dinner is ready downstairs. But when I take the tray into the bedroom, he’s not there. Motherfucker. Did he run again?
Then I hear the sound of the shower in the bathroom.
I knew it. He’s fuckingfine.
By the time I go back up to bed, my bedroom door has been shut completely. I debate going in there and telling that snake that he better enjoy one night in comfort, because that’s all he’s getting, but instead, I just lock the door from the outside and get some shut-eye myself in the guest room.
