Page 22 of The Vanishing
“Look to your right.”
Nino jumps at the closeness of Ladislao’s voice just at his ear.
“Sorry, sorry.” Ladislao holds his hands up in an amicable gesture. “Can you see, just beyond the scatter of trees? Down in the valley waaaay over there…”
Squinting, Nino registers something—squares and rectangles. A large cluster of mud-colored dwellings, darkened and shadowed from the setting sun. If Ladislao hadn’t pointed them out, Nino would never have noticed them because they’re almost camouflaged within the natural flow of rough terrain. “Is it… some kind of town?”
“A large village, I think? It’s where all the purebreds are. They live down there—I see them sometimes at twilight, like tiny specks in this strange place. There’s water around us, too. I could smell it in the air when I tried to escape, but I never reached the coast. Maybe this is an island?”
As Nino observes the barren scene through the window, something strikes him. He turns, meeting Ladislao’s gaze. “I disappeared from my home… and the news said that you ‘vanished.’ Is—is this place… Is Lajos responsible for taking all these vampires?”
“Está certo, honeycomb.”
Nino frowns. “Please stop calling me that.”
“It suits you, celestial creature…” He smiles, batting his eyelashes. “Like a golden angel.”
“Should I reform my aura?”
“Ahh, so strict.” Ladislao folds his arms, pouting.
Eleven
I’ve lost him…
The rain is still falling heavily on the third day of Nino’s absence. Haruka sits on the floor of his library, hunched and staring out the window. The light is gray. His world is dark. Empty. Sorrow eats away at him, eroding and hollowing out his chest. He stares blankly, unmoving, but when he hears Cellina’s voice, his eyes shift in her direction.
“Haruka… you should eat something. You didn’t eat dinner yesterday either.”
He sits up straighter. “I am not hungry.”
I lost him…
Cellina sits on the floor beside him, folding her legs. Haruka doesn’t want to talk. There’s nothing to discuss.
But she doesn’t talk. She sits beside him on the tatami in silence. They listen to the loud tapping of rain against the roof, breathing in the earthy, damp scent of it mixed with the grassy essence of the flooring.
I can’t lose him… I will not survive this again…
Haruka rubs his palms against his face. Hopelessness swells within him, billowing and suffocating like smoke from a forest fire.
“I think when Nino met you… it was love at first sight.”
Taking a breath, Haruka lifts his head, glancing at Cellina. Her gray eyes are cast down to the floor and the soft glow of overcast light illuminates her brown skin.
“I remember the first time he told me about you. He said that you were sophisticated and that you smelled really good. I’ve known Nino since he was a baby, but he’d never talked about another vampire that way. And then he offered himself to you within a couple days of spending time with you. I wasshocked. He had never offered his blood to anyone before—never even talked about doing it! Did you know you were his first?”
Haruka shakes his head, his mind pushing through the fog and cobwebs of despair to roam back to that time. Those days when his interactions with Nino were so new. Their friendship pure. “No… not initially. I—I was in a dire circumstance, but he offered himself to help me.”
Cellina meets his eyes, smiling. “Because he loved you, right from the beginning. He hadn’t trusted anyone besides me and his brother for so long, but then he instinctively trusted you. It was beautiful watching my friend bloom and open up with you—in ways he hadn’t with anyone else.”
She reaches over, taking hold of Haruka’s hand as it lies slack against his thigh. She grips his palm. “He told me that being with you felt safe. You were thoughtful, but never treated him strangely because of what happened to him. He said he finally felt normal with you.”
“Heisnormal,” Haruka says, then pauses. “Well, he is exceptional, but deserving of the same respect and consideration as anyone else.”
“You know most vampires don’t think like us. What his uncle did to him is forbidden. His mother killed him, but it’s almost like… Nino carried the indignity of it? It wasn’t even his fault, but so many vamps in our realm back home rejected and pitied him—like he represented something shameful. It got so bad to where Nino hardly ever left the estate.”
Haruka scowls. “Theyare shameful, for harboring misplaced resentment and causing further harm to someone who had already experienced trauma. Narrow-minded idiots…”
