Page 60 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
Vincent closed his eyes, trying not to think of the way it had kept smelling of Babcock’s blood until it sank into the muck. That only brought visions of the man’s corpse, and of Wesley slamming the rock into his head.
“And that vampire you’ve hurt? That’s someone I love.”
Vincent breathed out, watching the rock drop in his mind, feeling the break in Wes’s voice and the way the man’s hands had shook as he’d freed Vincent. “Do you feel bad about it?”
“Killing Babcock?” Wesley hesitated, his gaze on the freeway. “I think I should, but I don’t. He was going to bring you to Vitalis-Barron. I’m kind of glad he’s dead.”
“That’s not at all hypocritical.” They were cruel words—there was no comparison between Babcock and Wesley, even if their goals had been aligned for a few weeks—and as soon as Vincent said them, he wanted Wes to argue. To prove him wrong.
But Wesley only gave another broken, bitter laugh. “It’s so fucking hypocritical!” His knuckles had gone a lighter monochrome in the dark of the car. “I should be with him, cooling in the forest. I deserve that. I fucking—” He made a sound like he’d been stabbed in the chest, hollow and pained, more an exhale than a true noise. His voice dropped to a whisper. “But first I have to take Vitalis-Barron down and make sure you’re safe. Then I’ll accept the consequences.”
Vincent pressed his palm to Wes’s hand, wrapping his own fingers around them on the wheel. “The only consequence you deserve, Wes, is therapy.”
Wes sniffled, not quite an agreement, but enough for now.
Vincent drew back. Then fiddled his thumbs in this lap, counting the cars in the slow lane as they passed.
“Do you want to talk about it,” Wes asked.
“What part?”
Wesley snorted. “The one where I suck as a partner and as a friend and as a person?”
“No, not really.” Vincent truly didn’t, not about that. There were only so many ways he could explain that Wes wasn’t the monster he made himself out to be while Vincent was still drowning in the weight of what Wes had nearly done to him, and there was only so much forgiveness Vincent could offer before he would start widening his own unhealed wounds. But there was one thing he needed to know now. “If I asked you a question, would you answer it honestly?”
“I’m never not going to be honest with you ever again.” He released a shaky breath. “You don’t have any reason to believe that, but it’s the truth.”
Vincent did believe it. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was just all the little-big acts combined, the saving him from Babcock, the offering of the house, the way Wes was speaking now, like he was a raw, flayed-open thing and every word was his blood oozing beyond his control.
“That’s someone I love.”
Vincent believed him. He just needed to hear it. “It was all real, right? What we said and did on the mausoleum roof, all the dates that weren’t dates, what we felt. You really do—”Someone he loves.“You do care about me?”
“God yes,” Wes said, and he sounded so thoroughly broken that Vincent couldn’t bear to look at him in case what he saw there really was Wes’s raw and bleeding heart, because if he did, he was fairly certain he’d have to find a way to heal it, even if it meant cutting himself back open to do so. The little sob the man gave turned suddenly to a laugh, tight and bright and aching. “Does that make it better or worse?”
I don’t know, Vincent thought, and couldn’t say it.
5
By the time they pulled the car into the vacant dirt lot for the lake beach next to the Vitalis-Barron research compound, they had a ragged half-assed plan. If they weren’t working against Babcock’s death here, Vincent would never have agreed to it. As it was, he twisted unhappily against the old cord Wesley had wrapped round his wrists and scowled at the massive building complex with its large, sterile windows and perfectly manicured landscaping. The gate guard seemed confused by their lack of vehicle, but Wesley flashed a little card he’d been given at his interview and bemoaned how his excitement had led him not to check the gas level in his car.
“What was I supposed to do? Pull into the gas station with a half-conscious vampire whining in the front seat?” Wes laughed.
Vincent hissed softly under his breath and played up his shaking, stumbling act as the guard waved them through. He carried on with it all the way through the nearly empty parking lot despite the building’s dimmed lightning, its main doors sealed shut for the night. It seemed Wesley had been right: they really didn’t staff the complex much after hours, keeping with the current trend of having as few shifts as possible that a vampire might sneak their way onto. Wes led them toward a locked side entrance. He held up his card to its scanner and it buzzed, popping open for them.
Its foyer could not have been any more standard: a gray rug over tiled floor with a receptionist behind the desk. As the woman stood, three people in uniforms who looked somewhere between guards and secret agents stepped in from the next room. For a moment Vincent was certain they’d already been foiled, but the guards smiled and greeted Wesley professionally.
“You’re new?” asked the more senior of the agents, her voice gravelly.
“First catch.” Wes grinned his larger-than-life smile, not less intoxicating than the first day he’d turned it on Vincent. It covered his lies as easily now as it had then. “Got him right as he came stumbling out of the woods. I think he’s the one Matthew Babcock has been tracking. You know Matthew, right? I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since, and I didn’t want to leave the vamp just hanging out there and risk the sun-toxins wearing off.”
“Right, Matthew Babcock! You’re Wesley? He mentioned you might be showing up soon.”
Wes just kept beaming. “The one and only.”
“Wesley Smith?” The receptionist repeated. “Come right this way, I have your employment file ready to sign, then we can schedule you for onboarding tomorrow.”
Panic twisted inside Vincent at the thought of being taken away from Wesley, dragged into the depths of the research lab alone. He fought to hide the emotion from his face, tipping his chin down and pinching his eyes closed like he was in pain, while every muscle in his body prepared to run. He’d known this was a terrible plan. God, how had he agreed to this?
