Page 94 of Even Vampires Bleed
The food would cook in maybe two to three minutes with a modern oven, but the meat should have been ready in under a minute. It took more than five minutes, so now I have no idea how long weshould wait.
I’ve never used an old oven before.
“How long do we wait?” Léandre’s question echoes my thought.
“Would you believe me if I said that I don’t know?” I answer truthfully. “I’ve never used that kind of antique.”
“It’s a test of patience,” he says, as if he knew exactly what I meant.
Wait, he does. I keep forgetting that I’ve been asleep for three days.
“If you want to go take a shower, I’ll keep an eye on it,” he adds.
I have the stupid idea to sniff myself to be sure he’s not telling me that because I smell.
He obviously didn’t smell me—however I smell—earlier, when he was delightfully sweaty, but now that might be different.
I resist the temptation to do it and instead take the opportunity to go shower.
I might not smell, but I’ve been in the same clothes for three days, except for the shirt.
The shirt must have been a bit destroyed by my fall and wood impaling because I woke up with a new shirt on. I don’t think Léandre was ready to get me fully naked and change all my clothes, though, so the shirt being in tatters would explain why it’s the only thing he took the liberty of changing.
So, yeah, I’ve been in the same clothes for three days and I need that shower.
When I open the back door, though, I arrive directly in the bedroom I slept in.
I could have sworn that it was supposed to be a corridor, that there were supposed to be rooms—plural.
But there’s only one room. With my sleepy mind, I seem to have missed that piece of information earlier when I made my way to the other clearing.
Where has Léandre been sleeping until now? Because there is no indentation on the other side of the mattress. The only side that looks like it’s been messed with is the one I was sleeping in just hours ago.
So where?
I drop my dirty clothes in a corner, take a quick shower, and get dressed in new clothes.
I open the bedsheets to air them—they probably need to with the fact I didn’t move from them for so long—and walk back to the living room.
Léandre has some explaining to do.
48
Léandre
“Where have you been sleeping?”
I’m assaulted by the question and I jump from the squatting position I had in front of the oven. I don’t trust that thing; it’s gonna burn my dinner.
From the way Cassiopé is looking at me—is that fury in her eyes?—I don’t think I should answer that question. Or maybe, no, I should scramble to tell her that I left her in the bed—alone.
But I’ve done nothing wrong. Quite the opposite.
So, I don’t cower, and I straighten to a standing position and look Cassiopé in the eye.
“Not in the bed, if this is why you’re asking,” I answer.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she bites back. “Is there a second mattress that’s hidden and comes out of a wall? Or I don’t know, something I missed?”
