Page 60 of Afflicted

I regard her with a laugh. “A doctor? Me?”

“Yeah, you know, you’re good with needles. You’re the first vamp that hasn’t completely destroyed my arm.”

My mood plummets, my past coming crashing down on me. I look out at the falling rain, leaning my elbows on my knees. “No, not a doctor, though my dad would have loved that. He was a solicitor, and my mum was a music teacher at a very prestigious music conservatory in London.”

“Oh wow.” She lowers her knees, wrapping her legs into a pretzel. “That’s so cool.”

“Yeah it was. I just fell well short of their expectations.”

“As an artist you fell short of their expectations?”

I clear my throat. I don’t want to tell her the truth. I don’t want to tell her what kind of a man I really was before Margot turned me, and saved me. But when I lift my eyes back to hers, and I see all that softness and vulnerability, I find myself talking before I can stop myself.

“I was a heroin addict.”

I expect her to be shocked. I expect her to be repulsed. I expect her to jerk away from me.

Instead her brows knit together, and she reaches out to put a hand over mine. “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

I’m frozen for a second, completely overwhelmed with disbelief. She isn’t judging me. She isn’t disgusted. She just wants to sit here and hold my hand. I swallow hard.

“Yeah, it wasn’t great. University just introduced me to what my parents called, The Wrong Crowd. I thought the drugs made me a better artist, gave me a clearer vision of the world, or whatever the fuck I told myself. Instead, it just had me breaking into houses and made me a criminal.” I rub my hands together. “That’s how I got to know my way around alarms and security. Not the most honorable way I suppose.”

“Addiction doesn’t make you a bad person,” she says softly. “Addiction fucks up your priorities. And look at you, you got clean, and now you wear a uniform and scare people with your British accent.”

I smile at her. “My accent scares you?”

“No, not me. Just everyone else. I like your voice. It’s nice.” Her fingers stroke over mine, and the touch sends volts of pleasure down my spine. “Well, if you ever want to draw again, maybe we could draw together. I can show you just how badly I can fuck up a hand.”

“Ah, but you can do an amazing rose, right?”

She smiles, nodding. “Well, you draw the hand and I’ll draw the rose for it to hold.”

I lace my fingers through hers, looking down at our joined hands. “Sounds good to me.”

We sit there a while longer, just talking and laughing. Her cheeks flush pink. She looks so beautiful. When I finally leave her, I feel good, like maybe she’s withstood the worst.

So when a few hours later the alarm gets raised that one of the humans is missing, I’m gripped with panic. It’s Juliet. She didn’t show up for dinner.

I run through the driving rain, into the forest.Please no. Please no. Fuck, please no.

She had a moment of clarity. A high. I’ve seen it before. I saw it in Harriet’s face. After those fucking boys at school assaulted her.

Tears bite at my eyes.No. NO.

Harriet had smiled at me widely, assuring me she was fine. What those boys had done was done, she was over it.

My feet thump against the sodden ground, and I hear the crashing of the stream over the falling rain.

Please, no no. Fuck. Please.I don’t know who I’m praying to. I sure as fuck don’t believe in god. But I plead anyway.

My roar echoes off the trees around me as I see Juliet floating face down in the overflowing stream.

CHAPTER20

SILAS

“She had an accident.She slipped and hit her head, and fell into the water.”

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