Page 35 of Envious Of Fire
Kyle decides in this very moment, staring at those cracks in the wall, that he never wishes to see Lazarus again.
Nor any other creature of the night, of which he still won’t say that bitter word. They don’t need identifying. Kyle wants absolutely nothing to do withThem.
He wants no answers. Only peace.
These are his thoughts when he takes a shower, and Elias joins him. They wash each other’s blood away, caringly, quietly. Kyle stares at the blank tiled wall of the shower and a dark spot in the grout that looks like three tiny eyes, surprised that the spot seems to become more and more detailed the longer he looks at it, as if his eyes are slowly becoming microscopes. Is it the blood he drank from Lazarus? Elias plays the role of the unshakable, protective boyfriend, whispering sweet words of comfort as he washes Kyle off. “It’s okay … it’s all gonna be okay, babe … I’ve got you …” over and over.
But threaded between Elias’s words, Kyle picks up his fear. Pressed between every heartbeat, Kyle feels his desperate effort to hide how truly shaken this past hour has made him.
In fact, Kyle hears every throb and pulse and twitch of each and every muscle and vein in Elias’s body. Every single pop of the soapsuds. Every droplet of water as it flees the showerhead, cuts through the air, explodes against their skin or the floor.
It’s mesmerizing, like a strange dream, all these extra pieces of information Kyle is suddenly acutely aware of.
While Elias checks the windows and the doors of the house for the fifth time, locking, securing, closing curtains, Kyle takes clippers to his fingernails, a simple post-shower human activity to calm his mind and feel a little normal again. But as he presses the clippers to the nail of his thumb, he finds himself grunting as he squeezes harder, then harder, until at last the fingernail clips away. Each nail seems more difficult than the last, tiring him quickly. Is he weak? Or are his nails stronger?
Kyle stares at himself in the mirror. Is it Lazarus’s blood?
“Little Lion’s fine,” says Elias as he joins Kyle on the bed in the darkness with a relieved sigh, “though maybe next time she does something totally out of character, such as meowing cutely, we should probably pay attention. She was warning us.”
“Warning us,” agrees Kyle absently, staring at the ceiling and the crack Lazarus left there. His eyes pick up so many more details, the tiny cracks embedded in the larger ones, perfectly visible even from the bed. Lazarus nearly broke the wall in half, could have torn the house in half. He was so stunningly strong.
Did he underestimate all this time the power of blood?
How much did Tristan not tell him about their kind?
“Do we need some real talk?” asks Elias. “To help get out our thoughts? Even the uncomfortable ones?”
Kyle studies the fractures in the wall like a map. Is Elias creating the opportunity to let out his fears? “Sure.”
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Kyle had assumed Elias would go first. “Well … I guess I just feel like I was being … naïve … to think it was over with.”
Elias slowly rubs Kyle’s chest. “You experienced a lot back in Vegas. We both did. Babe, it was literally justdaysago.”
“I know.”
“You lost a friend. I almost lost you.”
Kyle pauses. “It’s … more than just what we went through. I think about what else Tristan might not have told me. It’s this feeling there’s a bigger picture … a picture I’m not seeing … a picture I can’t see because I’m too fucking small. I’m small and stuck out here in this town, in Nowhere, unable to see how—”
“Stuck?”
Kyle peels his eyes from the wall, turns to Elias. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said ‘stuck’. I’m happy here. I love our life. I just feel—” He shakes his head. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“It’s okay if you feel like a prisoner.”
“I don’t. I didn’t mean—”
Elias continues to rub Kyle’s chest, though his hand slows. “Y’know, I’m no stranger to feeling like a prisoner, even if it’s allegedly for my own good. Gave my mom a lot of hell growing up … I was not an easy kid.” Elias chuckles at something. Kyle feels a happy memory, something fluttery and fun. Then it goes away. “But I’m here with you, whether this is a prison, or our home, or just an old town that’s lost its real name to the history books. There’s no bigger picture, babe. You don’t need all the answers. You don’t need Tristan. Fuck that Lazarus guy, too.”
Kyle looks away, troubled.
“He won’t return, you’re safe,” he adds softly.
Kyle wonders if he’s saying that more to comfort himself, considering there’s no way he can possibly guarantee Lazarus won’t return.
“I’ll stay awake until you go to sleep, alright?” says Elias, and again, Kyle suspects it’s because Elias is too afraid to sleep. He needs his time to stay awake, to watch the windows, to stare at the door until the sun rises and they can truly feel safe. “Youmust be so tired. It’s gonna be dawn in another hour.”
