Page 18 of Dark & Darker Still (Vane and Roc: Origin)
Seventeen
Alice
Vane returns a few hours later. By then, I’ve got Roc’s pocket watch in my hand, the time corrected.
There are dark circles beneath Vane’s eyes. His face is puffy and shiny with sweat. His hair too is damp and hanging in his face. Blood is splattered over his shirt and dried and crusted on his hands.
He finds us still in the billiards room.
Roc hasn’t moved, hasn’t uttered a single sound. He’s too heavy for me to move on my own, so I’ve just sat here with him, quietly watching over him while the guilt and shame festers like a wound deep down in my chest.
“Did you find the guard?” I ask.
Vane comes over to my side and drops down to the floor with me. He spreads his legs out and lights a cigarette.
“Yes,” he answers, and some relief ebbs in.
“Did you kill him?”
He passes me the cigarette after he takes a hit. “Yes.”
Hands still shaky, I grab the offering from him and inhale deeply.
At least there’s that. At least there are no eyewitnesses. It’s our word against theirs, and there have been rumors about the princess fucking her guard. We could spin a story that they ran off together. We all saw them leave.
Except at least half the Joker’s Den would have known Roc was in the billiards room with the guard and the princess. And how do we explain away the chaos?
“Now what?” I exhale smoke and give Vane the cigarette.
“We double down.” He lets the cigarette smolder from the confines of his two fingers. “We get our story straight and we make sure we stick to it.”
“I’m sorry.” The words come out without me thinking of a reason. They tremble with regret and rasp with my guilt.
“What do you have to be sorry for? It’s his fucking fault. He clearly wasn’t watching his time and?—”
Oh god. He’s going to blame Roc. I should tell him. I should fess up.
“We’ve all been distracted,” I hear myself saying.
Just tell him.
Accept the consequences.
“And he’s been under a lot of stress.”
Vane snorts and takes a draw from the cigarette. “Haven’t we all.”
We sit in silence for several long minutes, passing the last of the cigarette between us.
Out in the main room of the Den, sunlight is starting to spill in through the front windows.
“We should get him upstairs,” Vane says. “Clean him up as best we can and bury the evidence.”
Vane climbs to his feet and offers me his hand and hoists me up beside him.
I grit my teeth and try not to cry.
“Thank you, Al.”
I lick my lips.
“You’re the only one I trust to help me with this.”
Oh god.
I can’t do this.
I—
“And I’m sorry…” he goes on. “About everything.”
I nod, numb, tears burning in my eyes.
There is nothing I can say to fix this.
I’ve made my bed. Now I have to lie in it.