Page 63 of Map of Pain
Nick
The penthouse was nothing like Gianmarco’s sterile monument to wealth and control.
Nick stood in the middle of the open floor plan, trying to process the difference. Worn carpeting showed obvious traffic patterns from years of use. Mismatched furniture—a leather couch here, a fabric armchair there—spoke of pieces collected over time rather than curated. Scorch marks on the range hood suggested someone learned to cook the hard way. The lightingwaswarm and dim, coming from lamps rather than harsh overhead fixtures.
One entire wallwasfloor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed. Another wall held whathadto be the largest collection of VHS tapes, DVDs, and Blu-rays Nickhadever seen, organized with the kind of obsessive care that spoke of genuine love rather than display. A massive 4k television was mounted in the corner, angled so it could be seen from both the couch and the kitchen island.
Thiswasa home. A place where people lived and laughed and made mistakes and burned dinner.
So why did his chest feel tight with building anxiety?
The kitchen and living room and dining area all flowed together—perfect for parties or staying connected to people, but terrible for someone who found comfort in smaller, contained spaces.
Then his gaze found what his subconscioushadbeen cataloging: one entrance. Up the elevator, down a short hallway, through a locked door. Thatwasit. The only way in or out of this floor.
All the windowshadbeen bricked up to block out the sun, but it also eliminated every other potential exit. The open floor plan that felt so welcoming suddenly felt like a trap. Beautiful, comfortable, but with no escape routes except the way he came in.
He tried to hide it, moving to examine the bookshelves like hewasjust curious about Marcus’s reading habits. But his eyes kept flicking back to that single door, calculating distances, timing how long it would take to reach it from various points in the room.
The door opened to reveal Ophelia Graves, looking exactly as Nick remembered her: perpetually bored expression, clothes that managed to be both expensive and somehow rumpled.
“I appreciate Luka asking my permission before showing you my bedroom,”she said without preamble.“There are fire exits through my French doors.”
Nick blinked, thrown off. It took him a moment to fill in the gaps. Luka must have noticed he was anxious and texted Ophelia about an additional exit? That was the best conclusion he could come up with. “I won’t tell anyone what I see,”he said, matching her matter-of-fact tone.
“Good. Because if you do, I’ll blind you.”She said it the same way someone might comment on the weather.“Luka mentioned you might need to know about alternate exits.”
She led him down a short hallway to a door painted the same neutral color as the rest of the penthouse walls. When she opened it, Nickhadto blink several times to process what hewasseeing.
The room exploded with pink. Not just pink walls, but pink bedding, pink curtains, stuffed animals and squishmallows in every pastel shade imaginable. It looked like the bedroom of any teenage girl, complete with a vanity covered in makeup and a bulletin board hung with photos and concert tickets.
The contrast between this soft, vulnerable space and the girl who committed brutal violence at the warehousewasso jarring Nick felt momentarily dizzy. Ophelia stood in the doorway, watching his reaction with those unsettling blank eyes, tilting her head slightly in a gesture he recognized as vampiric—she must have picked up the habit from living with them for so long.
“French doors,”she said, pointing to the far wall.“Fire escape leads down to the alley. Only other way off this floor besides the front door.”
“Thank you,” Nick said.
Something that might have been a smile flickered across her face, gone so quickly hewasn’tsure he saw it it.“If you go out there, don’t fall,”she added, starting to head back toward the main room.“We haven’t had to file any bodily injury claims this year and I want to keep it that way.”
“Wait, I need to ask you something.”The words came out before Nick could stop them. “About Luka. Is he…okay? He sleeps a lot for a vampire.”
Ophelia stopped, studying him with new attention. When she spoke, her voice carried the same monotone as always, buttherewasan edge to it.“He hasn’t fed in over two weeks. Too distracted by hunters. One hunter in particular.”
Nick’s stomach dropped. Two weeks. He knew what happened when vampires went too long without feeding—not from personal experience with Gianmarco, whohadalways been well-fed and strong, but from Society archives and observation. Weakness, slower reflexes, eventually something much worse.
“Maybe,”Ophelia continued, her voice growing sharper,“Luka, who I’ve never known to hesitate about anything, is hesitating about whether he wants to bring up the subject of his own survival with said hunter.”
The words hit like a physical blow. Lukawasstarving himself rather than risk triggering Nick’s trauma by feeding in front of him, even from a blood bag. The vampire who saved his life, who held him through flashbacks and taught him ASL and made him laugh for the first time in years,wasslowly destroying himself to protect Nick’s fragile mental state.
“I have to get back to work,”Ophelia said, already moving toward the door.“Bartending doesn’t do itself.”
She left without another word, the lock clicking behind her with devastating finality.
Nick stood in the kitchen, processing the full scope of what he learned. The submissive whispered from the back of his mind, barely audible:You know what he needs.
He needs blood. And you have some. You’ve never been bitten by a vampire who didn’t want to hurt you. What would it feel like if the oppositeweretrue?
He thought about the bite marks he saw on Caleb at the warehouse—not tears or wounds, but something that looked almost... affectionate. Intimate. A weird, dark corner of his mind wondered what that sensation might be like.
