“I think you do,” Rahil said gently. “It’s just painful to put into words. I get that. I’ve… had to go through some of that pain recently.” He breathed in, then out, thinking of Mercer’s touch, his reassurance, his warmth. Even if Rahil had ruined it all, he wouldn’t have traded those moments for any amount of emotional shielding. “I promise, I won’t judge you for whatever you tell me.”
Natalie snorted, side-eyeing him. “You’re already judging me.”
Rahil gave her a dry grin. “Well, no more than I judge myself.”
He could feel her take that in, and slowly her apprehension waned. She shrugged again and looked away. “It’s a lot of different things. Mostly, I—I didn’t know what they were. Andres,” she clarified, “my cousin; they’re the vampire. But they never told me. And I wouldn’t have said the kinds of things I did to them about the vampires—the vampiric community—if I’d known,” she corrected, like she was trying the new phrase on for size and still unsure how she felt about it. “And all that time, I must have hurt Andy, but I didn’t evenknowI was doing it.”
“So, if you’d have known what they were, you’d have believed all the same things, hurt all the same people besides Andres, but you’d just not have spoken of those things to them? Do you think that would have made them happier?”
“I…” Natalie opened her mouth, and it just hung there, her brow knotted and her cheeks pinkening. “They wouldn’t have known otherwise.”
“But you would have. And I don’t think they’re so oblivious that they wouldn’t have sensed anything.” Rahil lifted an eyebrow. “People know when they’re being judged, after all.”
Natalie’s flush deepened. “Well, I did say all those things, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Would they be the sort to forgive you, if you asked?”
Natalie picked at the edges of her fingers. “I don’t know if they’d forgive me, but they would accept me, because I’m a vampire now, and that’s just how Andres is. They’re good.”
Rahil hummed in understanding. “Do you think you’re good now, too?”
“I thought Iwasgood.” Natalie growled, pained and frustrated. Her hands tightened, not to fists but to claws. “What if I can’t tell if I’m good or not, if I’m doing the right thing or not? What if I’m hurting the people I love and making the world worse and I just don’t know it? What if I’llneverknow it?”
“Do I look like my name ends in an -ees or an -otle to you?” Rahil snorted, hoping the teasing masked at least some of his panic. “I wish I had an answer for that.” Maybe if he did, he could fix his own impact on the world and the people he loved. Natalie needed something, though—something to encourage her to keep trying, regardless of the ambiguity of internalized morality. He cleared his throat. “I think that perhaps we are not so different from any other computing instrument. Every now and then, you need a recalibration. And that doesn’t mean you’re broken, just that you got a little off-course. And that’s hard, because all we have are each other to recalibrate with. But we do our best, and trust people we know are kind and generous and take other’s pain instead of causing it. We trustthemto point us in the right direction so that, hopefully, we become the kind of people who can help them trust themselves in turn.”
As he spoke, he thought of Mercer. Kind, generous, taking on the pain of his daughter even when it meant more than his share. And he had known that Rahil wasn’t worth a long-term relationship, hadn’t he?
Something disquieting tingled in the back of Rahil’s mind—something he feared didn’t align—and he shoved it away. What was important was that their partnership was nearly over. And Natalie had started talking again.
“I guess?” She looked hopeful as she said it. “What do I do while I’m still figuring it all out? I don’t know who to trust yet. Or how to… calibrate.”
“Well, for starters, you don’t flee into the backyard forest of a random stranger you just met that evening.”
Natalie snorted. Her lips quirked momentarily up. “Your backyard forest seemed kind of far away for a dramatic flight, not gonna lie.” She sighed then, stretching her legs part way out from her chest. “You want me to talk to Andres?”
“Would Andreswantyou to reach out?”
He could see the question hit with each cringing muscle. “They’ll be so pissed that I haven’t already. But what if—what if I’m not ready, yet?”
Rahil grimaced. Getting support from Andres was the right choice for Natalie—he was sure about that—but the thought of pushing her into this made his stomach hurt and his limbs flighty, like he needed to check over his shoulder that no one was watching this. He couldn’t force her to connect with anyone she wasn’t ready for.
He tried not to think about the family thread on his own phone as he said, “You strive to become ready.”
Natalie chewed on her lower lip, fiddling with the end of her braid. “Can you help me?”
Him?Rahil was already making a mess of this—how was he supposed to give her something he hadn’t even been able give to his own sons?
But she was watching him, her eyes wide and her expression so desperate that he couldn’t tell her outright no, not when that meant throwing her out into a world where, due to one extra pair of pointed teeth, she was unlikely to find a different answer from anyone else.
“I can…” he meant to continue by specifyingI can provide you a place to sleep but nothing more, perhaps, but the rest of the sentence didn’t come, and he was just there, telling her,he could. Lying, probably.
From beyond their little forest, he could hear the voices of Andres and his companion leaving the shed, joyous as they slowly wandered back toward the street. Natalie didn’t sprint after them. She tiptoed through the brush, one step, then another, peering out at their backs. She watched them go.
Rahil put a hand on her shoulder. “Go back to the house. You can stay there as long as you need.”
Natalie breathed out at that, seeming to release something deep and heavy she’d beed holding inside herself—mostly fear, but Rahil thought he recognized the snuffing of hope, too. “And you?” she asked.
“I have one last thing to do.” He tried to smile after, but there was no flicker of hope to pull from, not for him.
