Page 24 of Entity

Rain drums the window, filling the taut silence between us, the breath before I speak.

“I’m fine.” I’m acutely aware of my posture, the tone of my voice. He’s watching me, reading me. “Did you take care of the emergency?”

Ian eyes me. He takes a slow sip of whiskey. “I did.”

“I hope everything’s okay.”

“It is.”

“Good.”

He holds me in his gaze for a moment longer, then turns to the window, staring out at the drenched cityscape, its neon lights like cybernetic stars. “I hope you made yourself at home while I was gone.”

“I did.” Even those two words feel like an admission of guilt.

“And I hope you know that you can be comfortable with me, Kit. Honest. We’re friends. I thought Eros and I might have made that clear.” His words are laced with levity, but his jaw is firm, his heavy brows unyielding. “You can talk to me.”

I bite the inside of my lip, remembering Ian’s tongue in my mouth, his fingers between my legs. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Eros loves the rain. It fascinates him. It’s new to him. It wasn’t part of his programming at first, weather events. He understands people, our emotions, our needs. But he doesn’t understand the world. He used to stand at this window and watch the sunset. And when it rained, he’d ask how it felt. The water on his skin. He wanted to know if it was hot or cold. If it would burn. If it tickled. He never found out. Not this model. I built him here, you know.Right here.” Ian jabs the sofa with a forefinger, still staring out at the rain. “He never left this penthouse. He never will.”

“Did you program him for that?” I ask.

Ian turns his attention back to me. “For what?”

“Yearning. For what he can’t have.”

A shadow flickers across Ian’s face. “Yes. Yes, of course. Everything is programmed. Every voiced thought is not athoughtat all. It’s a program.” Bitterness infuses his words as he speaks. “It’s all a trick, a novelty, a simulacrum of humanity.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Ian’s mood seems to be darkening by the minute. Whatever happened at his lab must have been worse than he’s admitting. As I watch, he downs the rest of his whiskey, stands abruptly, and heads for the bar. A traffic drone’s lights pulse through the window, lighting the room in soft orbs of flashing red.

Ian pours himself another drink, downs it in one, and slams the glass on the bar.

“I’m done for the day,” he says. “I’m tired. I’m done.”

“But I’m just getting started,” I protest, sitting up straight. “I have so many questions.”

“I said I’m done for the day,” he snaps. And before I can stop him, he stalks away into the one hallway I haven’t been down, the one that leads to his room. I hear a door slam.

Everything is quiet except for the sound of rain on glass. And I wonder, for a second, what the fuck I’m actually doing here.

10

It’stwo in the morning, and I can’t sleep.

I spent the rest of the evening in my bed, staring at a blank Word document and nibbling on a stale protein bar I found at the bottom of my suitcase. I should have eaten a real dinner — my stomach churns in the dark — but that’s not what’s keeping me awake.

Over and over, the memory of Orpheus plays in my mind: His elegant movements, the vibration of his voice in the deepest, most unknown part of me. The thought of him envelops me. I close my eyes, and it’s like he’sthere, waiting for me, beckoning me to him.

I toss and turn, even the sound of the rain doing nothing to soothe me. The night weighs heavy and presses on my lungs, threatening to suffocate. I roll onto my side, resting my hot cheek on my outstretched arm, the pillows long since flung from the bed. It’s so windy the rain angles across the window, blown in solid sheets. Condensation blurs the glass, turning the city into a million spots of color. I can almost feel the building sway in the wind.

What would happen if I fell from this height? Would my body fall apart from the seams as I plummeted? I have the insane urgeto leap from the bed, fling open the window, and toss myself out. Like the abyss is calling to me. Like it could wash me clean and make me anew.

“Go tosleep,” I plead with myself, squeezing my eyes shut. “Go to sleep, Katherine.”

But Orpheus’s voice rumbles back at me from the darkness.

I’ll see you again soon.

---