Page 39 of Kept 3
I make my way to my room to, once more, pack my books.
I skirt along the edge of the field past the cemetery, keeping one eye on the woods to my right. I can just see by the very faint moonlight peeping out through the heavy cloud cover and illuminating the snow-covered path before me. I have a small torch, but I don’t plan on using it unless I must, in case I draw someone’s attention. I’m not sure if the gamekeeper is on duty at night, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
It is midnight. I sent a note to Nicholas this evening, via the very reluctant Butler, that I had a headache and could not dine with him. In truth I don’t have a headache, I just couldn’t face sitting opposite him, making conversation, knowing that it was the last time I would ever do that. I think we said our goodbyes today in the hall of portraits; I’m sure when he thinks back, he will realise that too. I shake my head at the thought of his reaction when he learns I’ve left. Will he just let me go? Surely, he can see it is best for both of us. After all, he said he could see no way forward. I try to suppress my sorrow at the thought of never seeing him again, I know I’m falling in love with him. I’ve known, if I’m honest, for a while now. I have to leave; it is now or never.
Seeing Constance’s manor up ahead, I frown as I draw closer, noting the door is wide open. James is usually more careful, and I wonder if he is hoping I am followed so that he can try to kill Nicholas or, the hairs on the back of my neck rise; something has gone wrong.
As I mount the step to the front door and gingerly push it open, I smell something disgusting and wrinkle my nose in distaste.
“James?” I whisper, loud enough for him to hear if he is in the parlour, but not loud enough for anyone outside the building to notice.
There is no answer, and I squint and step into the pitch-black hall, almost instantly tripping over something lying in front of me. Falling to my knees onto the hard floorboards, I gasp and pull my hands up immediately, fumbling for my torch in my jacket pocket, my hands sticky. They smell like shit, human shit.
Whining, a small, high-pitched sound that escapes my throat despite my best intentions, I flick on the torch and shriek. Before me the long hallway is strewn with body parts; bits and pieces of James lie the length and breadth of the floorboards. I note with horror that I am kneeling amongst intestines and organs, and that I’ve tripped over a foot. His head lying a metre or so down the hall, has been entirely skinned, and every muscle is visible, his teeth, bared, stand out like roadside markers against my torchlight, his eyes bulge in their sockets.
Breath coming in sharp, jagged hitches, I scramble back towards the door like a crab, my eyes momentarily pausing their frantic roaming of the dim hallway when they alight on a glimmer of silver. It is James’ boot, his shinbone protruding from the top, and alongside that, the weapon that he showed me the last time we met.
I shake my head back and forth like a maniac as panic and indecision cause me to freeze.
‘Get the hell out of here, leave it, No. Go back and get it. It is within arm’s reach. No. Run, don’t be a fucking idiot.’
Finally, my idiot brain wins over my rational brain, and I scoot forward, pull the blade from his boot and slip it into my own. But just as I do this, preparing to scoot once more for the front door and run like hell, my sixth sense makes me look up, all the way to the end of the corridor where standing, staring at me, is a woman in a long, black cloak.
“You must be Josephine,” she hisses, launching herself towards me faster than anything I have ever seen, fangs extended, “this time there is no mistake.”
And it comes to me then, as her face looms into view, and I recognise her for who and what she is, that this will be the last thing I will ever see.
I come around slowly and look up. I’m alive, or so it seems, the familiar cherubs cavort above me, and to my left sits my vampire, head in hands.
I wriggle my toes and mentally scan my body – I feel well, very well actually. Nothing hurts at all, even the never-ending dull ache at the back of my head since my fall down the stairs in Sicily has disappeared. How can this be?
‘Oh, no.’
“Elsbeth killed me,” I whisper, as his head jerks up in response to my words and he grasps my hands firmly, “she said you were not permitted love. She killed me.”
“No,” he shakes his head, his voice hushed, “almost,” he swallows hard, and I sense bad news is coming, very bad news.
“You lost so much blood,” he whispers, looking down at where his hands enfold mine, “I had no choice.”
“I’m a vampire?” I squeak, my voice coming out as a half a sob.
“No,” he shakes his head.
“I’m Kept?”
He nods as I pull my hands from his and cry out. I can’t control my tears, and I sob loudly, uncontrollably, my cries containing all the horror, fear and pain of the last 12 months; encapsulating my sorrow over the future I will no longer have. All the running, all the planning and subterfuge, all the deaths, everything had been for nothing.
The whole time I cry, several minutes, he sits on the chair near the bed like a statue, his face a mask of grief, watching me, until finally, my sobs reduce to hiccups and I feel the bed dip as he sits down beside me and strokes my hair.
“I will set you free, Josephine, you don’t have to fear my bite. You don’t have to stay with me against your will. You will live a long, healthy life, anywhere you wish, doing anything you wish, as far from me as you wish, I just want you to be happy.”
“I wanted children,” I whisper, “a daughter to pass my recipes onto, someone to love.”
“You have someone to love,” he whispers back, his face radiating sorrow, “but you can have others. Children, Josephine, that path is not closed to you.”
I sniff and look up at him, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“What?”
