Page 57 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
And Wesley—fucking Wesley Smith Garcia, Vincent’s almost boyfriend, the person he thought he’d been falling in love with—Wesley had tried to fuck him over so thoroughly that Vincent couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He gasped, and he was on his feet somehow, his back bumping into the wall. Wesley’s phone clattered out of his fingers. It settled at the human’s feet, the soft light casting haunting shadows above his cheeks and in the hollows of his eyes.
There was so much they should have been saying or doing, curses to throw, bones to break, words and blows that would complement the shattering inside Vincent. But there was nothing to be said that could justify this. Nothing to be done that could take it back.
And Wes didn’t try. He stared at Vincent, his mouth opening and closing, then snapping shut entirely. His throat bobbed. He closed his eyes and finally uttered a single word. “Fuck.”
The air in the mausoleum had gone dead, forcing Vincent’s inhales shallow and sharp. He found the sill of the window with his fingertips, then his palm. He had to get out of here, get somewhere safe. Somewhere without Wesley in it. His arms moved on instinct, as though it were a completely different person pulling his body up and through the window.
Wesley didn’t call after him.
Vincent tried not to let that crush him all over again. Of course Wesley wouldn’t call for him. Their relationship had been a lie; one long manipulation. Maybe it had turned into something more real by the end—maybe—but then Wesley had kept lying by not telling him how things had started. Wes had let him believe that he’d been trying to save Vincent when he’d passed out from the drugged—drugged—blood bag. Wes had convinced him that he was trustworthy and selfless, that he was the one person who might not see Vincent as a burden, but as family.
Well, Vincent hadn’t been a burden to him, alright. He’d been a prize. A price. A thing.
Vincent felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He stumbled through the graves away from the mausoleum. His knees threatened to give out. He couldn’t tell if the shakes rolling through him were more delayed sun-poisoning or just his body trying violently to reject everything he’d learned. Either way, he was weak and in pain and not safe out in the open.
He found his feet starting to move toward Wesley’s home and he forced them away. Turning from the houses and the lights and the distant sounds of happy humans settling in for the evening, he headed into the quiet darkness of the forest. Babcock was still out here somewhere, Vincent knew, but that felt like a secondary problem to the one that was currently ripping his heart to pieces. It continued feeling like a secondary problem, right up until a burning heat slammed into him from the trees. As he shied away from it a wire sprung around his neck.
Vincent reached for it on instinct, his hands still trembling so badly that they seemed to blur in the dim monochrome of the night, but someone at the other end yanked. The wire tightened. He stumbled. Another yank dragged him to the ground. He wheezed against it, trying to get his fingers around the wire, but a second trap caught his ankle, pulling his body taunt and drawing the first cord tighter.
For a terrible, choking moment Vincent thought they might rip him apart like the old execution methods from days when vampires were more legendary horror than unhomed nuisance, but as his vision turned to spots and his consciousness began to slip, the metal noose loosened. He groaned hoarsely, barely managing to open his eyes as boots stomped around his head.
“Finally. Who knew he’d go down so easily in the end.”
They grabbed his wrists. He tried to tug them away, but the searing that had originally stumbled him pressed into the center of his back. It felt like the terrible metal Babcock had with him when he’d first confronted Vincent, slowly draining away his strength as it blazed against his exposed skin and made his spine ache. His attacker pushed him down with it and yanked his hands behind his back. A plastic cord tightened around them.
Someone else yanked at his ankles, binding them with a similar tie. “A lot of the feral ones are like this. They’ve got no support, so if you get them panicked enough they run right into the first trap you set.”
“Babcock?” Vincent groaned.
His assistant slammed her boot into Vincent’s stomach and he curled inward, whimpering. Before the pain had faded, she took hold of the metal noose still around his neck and pulled him to his knees with it. She stared down at him, her lips twisted. “No support, huh? That means no one’s going to miss you.”
The way that statement hurt, Vincent wished she’d just kicked him again instead.
21
WESLEY
The way Vincent’s face had broken in the dim lightof the phone screen felt seared into Wesley’s brain, a brand that would never leave him. He’d dreaded the moment all week, actively avoided it, hoped that maybe it would never come while knowing that it had to. But experiencing the pain of it, seeing the horror and the fear splinter Vincent’s expression and the stiff, scared way he’d fled from Wes had hurt in ways Wesley couldn’t have imagined.
He could have called after Vincent. He could have apologized, or explained, or pleaded. Maybe he should have; maybe it would have helped. If it would have given Vincent even a little bit of peace, it would’ve been worth it. But when Wesley had finally managed to open his mouth, nothing but that single curse had made it past the bitter pain in his chest. He’d sat in numbed silence as Vincent vanished out the window, coat flaring behind him.
Wes didn’t know how anyone had ever felt like this and lived through it. He was pretty sure that he didn’twantto live through it. He dragged his knees up, shaking as he dropped his head onto them.
His phone’s light timed out, leaving him suddenly in the dark. Tears slipped down his cheeks. It felt almost wrong to grieve the loss of their relationship after everything he’d done; this was his fault after all. He shouldn’t have been allowed to weep over it, when his single-minded assholery had caused it in the first place.
Wes choked in a breath and screamed it out into his knees.
The screen of his phone lit back up. He wanted desperately to throw it across the mausoleum or delete the thread of Babcock’s emails or delete everything entirely, his whole fucked up life, and go volunteer at a vampire help center someplace they actually had those. Someplace better than here, with people better than him. With people like Vincent.
God, Vincent.
We caught the bloodsucker a little way into the forest west of the cemetery. Last chance to help us bring him in! We’ll celebrate with drinks and War Call after.
Matthew
Wesley’s blood went cold. He sprang to his feet so fast that the world swam. His shoulder crashed painfully into the stone wall. He leaned there, typing without really seeing the words.
I’m coming now.
