Page 30 of Almost Midnight

Even knowing WynterwasJem, in all the ways that mattered, it was still difficult to think about the male seer without being nearly overwhelmed with grief.

With that grief came an even more destabilizing feeling of unclear but intense memories of living many years with unbearable loss. Even thefaintest whisperof that feeling, and the memories around it, even the faintesthintof that loss, brought up feelings of unbearable, excruciating pain.

It had nearly killed him, that pain.

It nearly caused him to break his promise to Jem.

Promise me you won’t just die.His pale green eyes stern, unwavering, but also nearly desperate.Promise me. Fucking promise me, Naoko… fucking promise me. Not by your own hand, at least. Don’t fucking die for me, ilyo. Live for me. I’ll find you… I promise I will… but I can’t find you if you’re dead…

The memory felt like a punch to the face.

Yet the fact he couldn’t be sure it was real almost hurt more.

It was maddening that he didn’t know.

How much of it was illusion? How much could he ever really trust? What memories had Brick implanted there, and why? How much of his life was utter and complete bullshit?

How did all of it still have so much power over him?

He caught fleeting scents of ancient feelings without being able to put them into any real context. It was maddening, not knowing what was real.

One thing hedidknow: something really dark lived in him around those thoughts.

It felt like a few thousand layers of grief hid in him somewhere, sleeping, just waiting to be poked. Just waiting for an excuse to rise from the dead and crush him.

He tasted some of that darkness every time he experienced one of those strange flashes of waking dream. It was beyond strange. It was beyond unbalancing. It made him feel like he knew nothing about his own mind at all. It made him feel like he was slowly going mad.

Moreover, it made him think he’d possibly more scrambled his mind than erased it. He wished he knew what the fuck he’d done to himself.

He wished he knew what he’d persuaded Brick and others to do to him.

Well, assuming Brick told him the truth about any of it.

Maddeningly, hecouldn’tassume that.

He couldn’t assume anything at all was true, not anymore.

Nick tossed the soiled towel in the bin, the synthetic material now covered in the other vampire’s blood and some of Nick’s own, along with what smelled like paint chips from both masks, and skin from that fucker’s filed fingernails.

At the thought, he checked his arms, and saw gouges down the center of both.

He winced at how bad they looked.

Wynter was going to have some choice words about that.

Thank fuck for the face mask. At least that part of him generally came out unscathed, even if he did get the occasional black eye or bloody lip.

He’d just turned from the bin and started heading for the showers when the doors burst open behind him, and he turned.

Farlucci power-walked into the cave-like prep room, grinning from ear to ear and flanked by two of his latest fight handler-types. They were difficult to tell apart to Nick’s tired eyes. All of Farlucci’s guys were big, juiced-up, no necks, usually human, and not exactly there for their scintillating conversation skills. Farlucci hired them to provide the fighters a modicum of protection, but most of that was for show.

Obviously, they could only protect Nick from humans, not from other vamps, so the size of their shoulders, their respective heights, and even their function, was mostly theater.

Nick guessed they were hired primarily to provide a buffer zone between the fighters and any unruly fans or other humans who might accost them, including the press. Having that bulky layer of humanity between the fighters and their public probably made it a lot less likely a vamp would lose it on someone if their fans got too forward or simply too close.

Like any sport, the fans tended to lack boundaries.

The press obnoxiouslyignoredboundaries, and generally seemed annoyed by the suggestion that they do anything else.

---