Page 43 of Redeemed
I shut my phone off and stare at the nubby grey carpet, hoping I haven’t pinged off a satellite in a way that will lead anyone here.
Even Sheena.
Who isn’t wrong.
I’m still at cross purposes with myself when Jacques arrives. He—or rather, his spirit—strolls though the hotel room door, his cold silver eyes the color of moonlight. He wears a hand-tailored suit and he’s holding a handkerchief, as if he can’t go long without coughing up blood. I don’t move. I can’t. If he’s found me here, I’m not safe anywhere.
“I thought vampires couldn’t enter where they haven’t been invited.” I keep my voice level, hiding anger, disguising fear. At least this time I can talk.
He leans against the dresser. The pallor of his hands is nearly indistinguishable from the light pine. “I have a standing invitation.”
Our gazes clash, hold. His expensive suit hangs on bony shoulders. A hard cough wracks him, stirring up something in me that feels like pity.
Almost.
“Well, you’re here now. What do you want?”
“You’re like a child in some kind of rebellious phase.”
“That tells me how little you know about children.”
Jacques’ laugh is flinty. “Sarcasm is for the weak.”
I don’t react to his jibe. I’ve spent one hundred and fifty years planning every word I said to Jacques Betancourt, and a habit that long-lived won’t fade easily.
The only easy thing is not to respond at all, yet I surprise myself.
“For fucks’ sake, Jacques. You demanded that I kill my lover, and I will not.” Anger flares, sending me up from the chair to face him. Shadows move through his form, confirming that he’s not physically present. “For all these years, I’ve done what you’ve asked, but this goes too far.”
His expression hardens. “Yes, and all those years ago, I did what you asked. Now you have no choice.”
“Really?” I come close to a sneer. “Then tell me why I must do this.”
He draws himself up as if attitude alone will make him taller than I am. “Because I demand it of you.”
“Not good enough, my friend.”
He does grow taller, his spirit spreading out into the room. “You will do this.”
I fight the urge to cross my arms, fearing I’ll look like the child in his accusation. “Go away, Jacques. You have my answer.”
“You think I’d let a pansy like you defy me? I took you out of a slum and gave you something more to do than sucking men’s cocks for your dinner. You might think you have the power to defeat me, but you’ll regret the day you decided to try.”
With that rather melodramatic pronouncement, he vanishes. Relief allows me to draw a single deep breath before memory squeezes my chest so hard I might never breathe again.
I’ve walled off those years, Mama and me drifting through town after town along the big muddy river. I collapse into the chair, overcome by the memories: the smell, the cold, the dirt. The desperation in Mama’s eyes when she couldn’t find decent work and had to resort to the indecent.
I wish I could say she always kept me safe, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t. The world back then was too hard. The things I’d done, the thingswe’ddone, had been necessary to survive.
Only later, after Mama died and I’d crossed paths with Jacques, could I afford to feel shame. He’d taught me manners and polished my rough edges, allowing me a new perspective on the squalor that had surrounded me.
That shame could not outweigh my pride at having survived at all, the whole of it colored with sadness over Mama’s death.
And regret. So much regret.
I hate those memories, yet I value them, too. The young man who’d outlasted the river towns still exists in the vampire I’ve become, and though I shut his memory away, his grit will carry me through.
Jacques meant to hurt me, to weaken me, but all he’s done is make me mad. That anger acts like a splash of cold water, grounding me in the present. He’d proven his spirit could follow me, although he isn’t continuously in my head the way he’d been in LA.
