Page 20 of Vicarious

“What’s up?” I ask feigning still being groggy.

She smiles as she follows me into the room. “Still not a morning person, I see. How did you ever manage with two newborns.”

“I didn’t sleep for an entire year.” Not that I could have if I wanted to, plagued by nightmares all that first year.

She laughs. Then, “I was looking for Adrian, but he wasn’t in his room when I went to find him.”

I shrug. “Viper works out in the morning like this. I usually join him but didn’t feel like it today.”

Phae frowns, and I instantly begin to wonder if she noticed something out of place. Something that will give away that Viper was here with me this morning and not working out. That he spent the entire night with me. Part of me starts to instantly come up with a variety of cover stories in order from most likely to fool Phae to least. Another part of me hopes that I can’t cover for it, and she finds out exactly what and who I’ve been up to all night.

“Why do you call Adrian that?”

“Call Viper what?”

“That. You call him Viper.”

For a moment, I pause to wonder if she didn’t know that was who he was. Pray’s infamous and shrouded in shadow and secrecy executioner. But she knows. She knew that night. She overheard him admit to me. Unless she’s forgotten all this time…

“Because it’s his name,” I finally decide on to see exactly where Phae’s going with this.

“No. It’s the name of Pray’s lapdog. But Adrian is much more than that. Seems like calling him Viper reduces him to just that instead of the man we both know he truly is.”

“I…”

I had honestly never thought of it that way. Well, I did think of it that way. But the exact reason Phae insists on calling him Adrian is the very reason I once insisted on not calling him that. Because by reducing him to Viper, the cold executioner, the man who murders and doesn’t lose sleep at night, the villain of this story, I could preserve the memory of the man I longed for, the man who took me under his wing and watched out for me and protected me and took vengeance in my name against those who harmed me.

But now… Now calling him Viper is habit more than anything. Because he’s for certain that colder executioner, the murderer, the villain of this story in a lot of ways. But that man I long for didn’t go anywhere. In fact, I think I get him better now than I ever did when he was just Adrian to me.

Finally, I just shrug and say, “It’s just a name.”

“Names have power.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I reply.

A name can hide you in plain sight. A name can give you a completely new identity. A name can make people perceive you a certain way. A name can keep you safe or put you in danger.

Then, “You don’t think I prance around as Dele Martin anymore, do you?”

“Who are you then? When you aren’t Dele Martin.”

“Addy,” I state, not particularly sure I want to reveal exactly what family Addy is tied to. Not yet.

“Well, I suppose in a roundabout way this gets me to why I came to find you anyway,” she says. “I need some things. Basic things. Like clothes and stuff. A computer if it’s safe. Maybe a phone. But I know I can’t go out like this. People would recognize me. And I was hoping you’d be able to help with that. Surely you’ve come up with some kind of system if you’re able to raise Lady and Leon in the open without Pray getting to you this long.”

“Viper’s not going to like that idea,” I say casually.

“You know how paranoid Adrian can be.”

“He’s even worse now.”

“Well, I’ve never particularly cared about enabling Adrian’s paranoia.”

“I didn’t say I did either. But he’s stayed alive this long for a reason,” I point out. “But just because I said he wasn’t going to like the idea didn’t mean I wasn’t going to help you.”

Because my conflicting feelings for Phae aside, I know what it’s like to have your entire world upside down and have everything you ever knew and that made who you were stripped away from you. To have your life and body be out of your control. I’m not going to sit and let another woman go through that if I can help it.

So an hour later when Viper is leaving to go to his private jet for whatever job Pray has for him, both Phae and I eagerly watch and wait for him to leave.

---