Page 3 of Kept 3
I stare at him. ‘Trapped’ would be my first answer, ‘terrified’ a close second; a hundred retorts are on the tip of my tongue, a hundred forms of abuse just itching to fly out of my mouth and whip him with their spite. But as he watches me with his intense, blue gaze, only one thing makes its way past my teeth.
“Why am I here? Why am I still alive?”
“I brought you here, to my home, to protect you.”
“You and I have very different definitions of protect,” I spit, “and I know this is not your home, so don’t fool yourself that I believe you for a second, you hate this place.”
I think I see a slight twitch to the corner of his mouth when he hears this, but his eyes stay glued to mine. For some reason though, as scared as I am that I might feel drawn to him like I was in the restaurant, once I meet his gaze, I don’t. I wonder if the pain killers I’m on are blocking any hypnotic effect he might have on me, or if it is just because my rose-coloured glasses are gone and I know the man in front of me is not Jacque Lumier, playwright, but Nicholas Montague, vampire.
“What are you thinking?” he asks quietly.
“I’m thinking of stabbing you and making a run for it, even though I know I probably won’t make it past the door,” I tell him, wishing, even as the words fly out of my mouth, that I could stop them.
“Your honesty,” he shakes his head, ruefully, “it’s one of the things I like so much about you. I have missed our restaurant conversations, Josephine.”
“Why?”
“How, might be more to the point. How is it that a young cook from the U.S, one that lives a criminal life some might say, how is it that she intrigues me as no other has in centuries?”
His mention of my ‘criminal life’ brings back memories of Blake, and anger shoots through me.
“You killed my boyfriend. You killed Blake.”
“The young police officer? Yes. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knew too much to be allowed to live.”
“And Ricardo,” I cry, my voice breaking at the memory of the chef’s tortured expression.
“I do not wish to talk about that,” he says quietly.
“Well, I do. You killed him, ripped him apart and he, he knew nothing, nothing at all. He was just my boss, nothing more.”
“Heknewyou.”
I hear the inflection in his tone; he means ‘knew’ in the Biblical sense.
“Is that what all the bloodshed is about? You are killing men I’ve slept with? Why? If that’s the case, I can tell you there is a sports teacher in Illinois who deserves to be murdered more than Blake or Ricardo ever did.”
“Yes, he did,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“I took care of him too.”
“Oh, my fucking God. Are you just going around killing everyone I’ve ever known? Is this your plan? To totally isolate me and destroy anyone I’ve known or loved before you pop my head off?
“He hurt you,” he shrugs, “I hurt him – possibly a little more than necessary, but…”
“You are a monster!”
“I am a vampire, Josephine.”
“And now what? Congratulations, you’ve killed everyone. I have no family. I have no friends – my only friend is already a vampire’s suck-and-fuck doll. You may as well cut the crap and just kill me now too.”
At the mention of Margarita, I see a slight frown cross his face, but he doesn’t bite, figuratively or literally.
“It was not my plan to isolate you. I had planned to let you go,” he shakes his head, as though even saying this out loud is antipathy to his soul, “circumstances change,” he shrugs, “I wish to keep you.”
“I can tell you now, buddy,” I hiss, “that is not going to happen.”
