Page 12

LACHLAN

“Are you alright?”

My brain fiddled with the words like working out a passage on some alien Rosetta Stone. I was tempted to look over my shoulder to see who she was talking to. Don’t do drugs kids, it makes language impossible but life ending decisions easy.

What was she doing just standing there with a tray? Asking if I’m alright? Who does that? No one in this Family, that’s for damn sure. No one actually cares how I feel, they just want my attention.

Are you alright?

No, the fuck I am not. Can’t exactly say that, now can I? The great and powerful Venier Legate… No.Scion. Veronica’s Scion. No. Fuck that.

I rubbed at the gaping wound that split my chest open. I glanced down just to make sure there wasn’t actually mortal damage.

Oh, right. The girl.

The skirt was boring, vintage, an odd choice for Nadine’s crew, but the top? Cheap. She looked like she was playing vampire dress-up. She was… I cocked my head, hoping that would stabilize my vision. She was pretty, in that distinctly American way, caused by your mother being a quarter Jamaican, and half Irish, and your father’s great-grand mother lying about the baby she had out of wedlock. Wide-set eyes, rounded cheeks, strong shoulders. Her skin was sun-kissed. It would be soft and giving under my fingers.

Her brown hair glistened with salon highlights that were almost grown out. It was all pulled forward over her shoulder, framing her face and not at all hiding the ribbon around her neck. It was off kilter, the knot not dead center in the hollow of her lovely throat. She looked like she belonged in a library, and not selling her blood for the possibility of Venier favor. I met her eyes, and they made me stumble.

Brown licked with gold, like whatever god made her wanted all your attention there. It’s like they saw me, as me, and not what I could do for her or what other people wanted me to be. Warren looked at me like that. Unbearable. I looked away from her eyes, taking in her lips, a wine color not painted on. I rubbed my chest again to find it didn’t quite ache as much.

“Bad night, huh?” she said with a soft smile.

“What?” My brain staggered and fell.

She stared at me like she was weighing an impossible decision. She sighed as if resigned to a course of action. She didn’t want to, but she had to. She shifted to put the tray down on the floor.

“Do you mind?” she asked, stepping out of her shoes. “They’re killing me.”

I half smiled. For whatever dumb reason, the fact that she wasn’t wearing heels was… charming. This was the drugs talking. Had to be. Whatever Juliet gave me was fucking me. She pulled a rubber band off her wrist and gathered her hair up. But like, naturally, casually, like she was doing it for her, not as a nod to me. Weird. I took a step towards her.

She bent down and pulled a rolled towel off her tray. She held it out to me.

“Here.”

I looked at it in her hands. Nadine kept these stashed everywhere. She joked the laundry bill was preferable to cleaning up bloody finger prints. I just blinked at it.

“For you know…” she gestured at her mouth. When I didn’t move to take it, she said “Let me.” And she gingerly dabbed a corner to my lower lip. “Someone popped you good, huh?”

Anger flared hot, breaking through the K fuzz.

Fucking Veronica took my fucking blood.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. She held the towel out bravely in the face of my irritation. She just stood there blandly, little towel unfurled, like she didn’t know I could kill her or worse.

I took the towel. I may have muttered sorry. Unclear. I dabbed at my lip, surprised to see it still bleeding. Kept splitting it open, didn’t I? Fucking Veronica. I wiped my bloody fingers off and knotted the towel up in my fingers.

And she just stood there. Neutral. Not pushing or pulling at me. Not making me know her wants. Not wanting to use me or be used.

She… she didn’t want anything.

Her eyes. The shifting gold like Tiger’s Eye, holding ancient mysteries, the answer to everything. I inhaled deep, like I could drink in that, her, on in very air, make her, that, part of me. Her smell was fresh, like patchouli and mint crushed in your fingers. She must be very newly made.

“You know,” she said, tilting her head, not to give me her neck, but take my mark, “I won’t lie and say it gets better with time.” She crossed her arms over her stomach. “But I read this thing once, can’t remember who said it, but it was something like “grief is the price we pay for love.”

I shut my eyes and shuddered. No one ever talked to me about Warren. No one even said his name, let alone acknowledged my pain. I took a breath, ragged, feeling like some of the weight was chipping off.

“Mmm”. An appraising sound, like she figured it out, figured me out. Warmth spread across my face. Laid bare and not vilified for it. I shifted on my feet, not knowing if I wanted to run or get closer.