Page 66 of Lair

No. Don’t say that now. Don’t make this real.

You. Being taken from me. Forever.

But his eyes close, that smile still on his face. Is he... gone?

My heart turns over.

“Adrian?” I shriek. “Adrian!” And the noise comes out of me—No-no-no-no-nooooo—as I press my brow to his, rocking back and forth as I let out great wracking sobs of despair, as if purging something from my body. But I can’t stay there. A harsh pragmatism forces me away, I have to stand and think, hands to my head. I have to make this right. How can any of this be made right?

It can’t. I have tried to make him into what he isn’t, and have killed him for it. He has killed himself for me.

I am pacing and sobbing and clutching myself, calling his name.

Adrian. Adrian.

I’m sorry, Adrian.

Forgive me.

Restore me to a previous time. Before I asked this of you. Before everything.

And then arms are around me—warm, living arms—and I start. It’s Jason. He must have heard, must have known. The door to the suite stands open behind him, no sign of Mrs. Colding, but his face—tanned and freckled by the sun of the outer world—is drawn in concern. “Hey,” he says. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Adrian,” I sob, and point. “You have to help me...”

But when he stands over the bed and studies a seemingly sleeping Adrian (how do you know when the undead have died?), he shakes his head. “It’s what he wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—” I sketch at the air. How does he not understand? “It’s my fault—”

His face falls. He places his hands on me again. “It’s not your fault. Never think that.”

That does it. I break down again, and he shushes me, rubbing my arms. “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay.” He is close, and warm. He lifts my chin—it seems so natural—and his lips are on mine.

The room quivers. “What—”

“Shh.” He is calm, frightfully calm, as if explaining the best method for buffing out a stain on a boat hull. “It’s for the best. He’s a monster, Arie. Let him go.”

His lips again.

I push at him. A fearful dryness has attacked my mouth and throat. “This is wrong.” But his hands won’t let go of me. He pulls me against him. “You know what he is. What he was. The world is better off without him.”

My blood chills. My tongue moves like a wad of wool. “Jason, what are you—”

His hand trailing up my leg, under my dress. “I’m here. I was always here...”

“Get off!” I push at him—hard—and his face darkens. It’s a silly-looking face, really, I don’t know why I’ve never noticed that before. That dorky, appealing handsomeness full of vital effort, a strained sunniness forever verging on a sulk.

But it’s gone beyond sulking now.

The blow is astonishingly painful. A stinging numbness follows, spreading across my cheek, and I’m still stumbling back when he mutters it. “Fucking bitch. I’m the good guy here, Arie. I was always the good guy, and you chose him.”

So. This is where the danger was, all along. No bloodsucker, no creature of the night.

Just a man pretending to be a good guy.

He grabs at me again, and the familiar terror sets in like a paralyzing poison, shutting down my brain functions. I know what comes next. The self-preserving submissiveness, the floating disassociation. My consciousness leaping into a nearby object—a bedpost, a door handle, the weave of a rug—so I can watch what is happening to me from a detached distance, as if it were a scene from someone else’s life.

You taught me well, Josh.

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