Page 28

“Wait.” I called out, “Say what you have to say.”

Lucien stopped at the door, placed a hand on it, and turned his head to the side so that I could see half of his face. He really couldn’t give me his eyes, not for more than a few seconds.

“Before last night,” he said, “I didn’t know your name. I didn’t know who you were, or where you had come from.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“In your place, I would too. But it’s the truth. The highlight of my week used to be going to After Dark to see you. Then the other night, you ended things. I hated myself for just walking away, so I came back to find you, only you weren’t there.”

Though it had only been two days, it felt like a lifetime had passed. I remembered that night the same way a person remembers a dream. As if there was a thin film between me and my memories which made it difficult to see details; only feel the emotions that came with them.

Shame.

Excitement.

Regret.

Passion.

There was so much emotion mixed up in my memories of that man; of Him. But He wasn’t Lucien. He was something else—a figure, an icon, an outlet for me to express my desire for freedom from the protective bubble my parents had kept me in my entire life.

Lucien was a Diaboli. Lucien was responsible for my parents’ deaths. Lucien was probably going to kill me, too.

All I felt for him now was contempt, and rage.

“Get to the point,” I said, clenching my jaw.

He took a deep breath. “I found the amulet on the floor,” he said, “In the stall we had just…” he trailed off. “I didn’t know who it belonged to, or how long it had been there, but I knew the moment I touched it, it was powerful. Magical.”

“So, you just took it?”

“What else was I supposed to do? My family is always on the hunt for magical artifacts. I couldn’t believe I had just found one in a nightclub toilet.”

“Yeah, great! Congratulations for finding a way into my house so your family could kill mine in cold blood,” I spat.

“I didn’t know that would happen,” he said. He was trying hard not to raise his voice, but I could feel the strain in his words. “I figured my father would know what it was and what to do with it, so I brought it to him.”

“Touching story. Was he proud of you for being a good little boy and fetching the shiny amulet?”

Lucien paused, then he turned his head away. “He was… for once. That’s what makes all of this worse.”

“I lost my parents last night, not you. You don’t get to make me feel bad.”

“I know. Nothing I say can change that.”

“Then why are you talking at all?”

“Because I needed you to know… I didn’t know any of this would happen. I would’ve tried to stop it if I had known.”

“You had so many chances to stop it!” I shouted, no longer caring who might overhear us, “But you sat there and let it happen.”

Lucien nodded. “I’m sorry, Beatrice,” he said, and then he left, shutting the door behind him.

For a long moment I stood where I was. I hadn’t realized until now, but I was shaking. Each and every one of my limbs was trembling, and my eyes were welling up with tears. I tried not to think about my parents, not to invite those horrific images into my mind, but they burrowed their way in anyway.

I shut my eyes and allowed the tears to fall down my cheeks as last night’s events played out in my mind. I saw Lucien… I saw the way he stood up at the dinner table last night, how he tried to get his father to stop what he was doing.

He should have tried harder.