Page 28 of Missing Piece (Neon Scars #2)

A dam had never been hit by a truck, but he imagined this was what it would feel like.

Every muscle screamed, even his eyelashes somehow hurt.

He groaned as he tried to move, but sharp pain lanced across his back, making him abandon all hope of movement.

He could just stay in bed until the pain stopped. He’d slept through worse before.

“Let me help you up.” Vincent’s voice drifted into his ears and settled in his skull like warm honey.

When Adam opened his eyes, Vincent’s face hovered only inches away, blond hair messy and sticking up in places. “You actually stayed?” Adam asked as Vincent sat up.

“Well, it’s the middle of the day, and this is my bed,” Vincent yawned.

Adam didn’t even try to look away from Vincent’s muscular back as the man eased himself out of bed, wearing those ridiculous flannel pajama pants but no shirt this time.

His jaw would have hit the floor if he weren’t already lying down.

Vincent was ripped. Like, how-did-he-fit-all-that-muscle-into-his-tailored-suits ripped.

Aside from several faint scars on his lower back, his skin was flawless.

When Vincent turned around, Adam tried to hide his stare, but he must have lingered a split second too long at that V-line disappearing below the waistband because Vincent smirked at him. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing. I’m tired,” Adam lied, closing his eyes. Your back got ripped open like a Christmas present yesterday and the first thing you think about is how hot the monster in your bed is. This is beyond fucked up.

“You’re a terrible liar.” Vincent tapped his shoulder. “Let me help you up.”

“Fine.” Adam winced as he rolled onto his side, his back burning.

Vincent’s hand pulled on his shoulder, sitting him upright as the stitches threatened to tear through skin.

At least those cold hands felt good against the fire in his back.

But as he leaned forward, he jerked back, the horrible pain in his ribs made him feel like he was being ripped apart no matter which way he moved.

“Just wait, go slow,” Vincent said softly, pulling the blanket back.

“Why would I do that? I feel like a million bucks,” Adam muttered, trying to ignore the throbbing around his eyes and lower lip.

He glanced down at his feet, surprised to see his prosthetic still attached, the false foot covered with a sock.

He’d expected Vincent to take it back after all the trouble he and Ophelia had found, or at least chain him up again.

But he was still free. Well, as free as someone with his injuries could be.

His jeans had been cut from the bottom up, hanging open to reveal his horribly swollen ankle, purplish and red and angry.

Just looking at it made him sick. He was barely okay with missing one limb, but now he couldn’t use the only one he had left to stand on.

“It’s sprained,” Vincent said in that same gentle tone he’d been using since the night before. “We’re going into town in a few days, so we’ll pick up a splint and some crutches for you then.”

Adam only nodded. He wanted to ask if he would go too, but that could wait.

Vincent was still being kind, and he didn’t want to mess it up by creating tension.

And he was only alive because of Vincent.

He’d been certain Beth and her child monster would rip him apart.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that by being spared that fate, he’d invited something worse to get him.

Some other terror hiding in the shadows, waiting to strike.

Yet despite all of that, this was the first time since getting sober that his mind didn’t immediately turn to finding a fix when he woke up.

His therapist said that crushing urge would fade, but he hadn’t believed her.

Not with his screwed-up brain. But even as he tried to recall that overwhelming need, the feelings weren’t there.

Something had changed. Maybe it was all the blood on his hands the day before, or the memory of her blood dripping onto his skin as he’d stabbed Beth over and over, but he felt different.

Altered. Like being soaked in his own blood and showered in Beth’s had washed away a part of him that wasn’t coming back.

Vincent was unusually considerate while helping him hobble to the bathroom down the hall.

He didn’t smirk when he told Adam he needed to wash the dried blood off his body (and that he would help because the stitches couldn’t get wet yet).

Even when Adam sat naked on the edge of the bathtub, struggling to keep his balance in the one hunched position he could hold without excruciating pain while soaking his ankle in ice water, Vincent didn’t comment on his body or touch him inappropriately.

Though the idea had crossed his mind and found it disturbingly exciting despite his condition.

The worst part was when Vincent numbed the wounds on his back again, but now that the lidocaine had taken effect and his entire back was dead to feeling, he could sit up against the wall in Vincent’s bed.

Fresh boxers and loose-fitting pajama pants.

He sipped cold water, the glass feeling good on his swollen lip, eyeing the closed door as he waited for Vincent to return.

Vincent’s room was bigger than the one he’d been in before, but it wasn’t extravagant.

It looked comfortable, lacking the flashiness he would have expected from a strip club owner.

There was a large television across from him and a gaming system, a few books and Blu-ray cases scattered on the end tables and dresser.

But the strangest thing he couldn’t stop staring at was a boarded-up window with plywood framed like artwork.

The plywood was covered in some old Polaroids with scribbles in the white margins, others more recent.

Adam recognized the big Russian guy, and Luka and Matteo, but there were others pictured with Vincent.

Smiling and laughing, posing with the blond.

Pictures of Ophelia looking sullen with Vincent on one side and a handsome Asian man with graying hair on the other.

There was only one blank spot in the center. A piece of black paper had been taped over whatever memory used to sit there.

Adam found himself charmed by the display. The Vincent in those pictures seemed different from the one who’d drugged and kidnapped him. Like something had stolen the smile right off his face .

Adam knew what that was like. He remembered late nights going through old photo albums with his mom, both of them drunk and high on their pills of choice, reminiscing about happier times.

He’d stopped himself before from wondering if maybe he and Vincent had more in common than differences.

Looking at the pictures, maybe his first instinct had been right.

This whole thing confused him. He’d spent days imagining himself running out from the house, thinking of places he could hide if they tried to get him back.

He’d practiced letting himself out of that ankle cuff endlessly, timing how quickly he could do it and making mental notes of when he could hear the vampires coming and going.

But the longer he sat in Vincent’s bed, looking around at all the small things in the room, the less he could imagine escaping to the life he’d had before.

He had endless days ahead of him: drug court, random drug tests, check-ins with his probation officer, NA meetings, outpatient meetings, one-on-one therapy, random visits from his dad.

Was I really living before? Or just existing in a shell of a body that refused to die after years of poison?

Getting back to his regular life sooner probably meant going to jail sooner.

And it wasn’t like he had friends left. He’d cut ties with most of the people he’d casually called friends while getting sober since they were just people he’d used with.

His dad’s visits were never out of concern and always ended in fights over crap that wasn’t even his fault.

Should I even be thinking like this?

The thought vanished as Vincent returned with a plate in one hand and two large bottles in the other—one looked like wine, the other some sort of yellowish liquor.

“Matteo is being Matteo, so I had to make your food. I’m a terrible cook, so I just made a peanut butter sandwich,” Vincent said, kicking the door shut with his foot.

“It’s fine.” He wasn’t hungry, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. “What do you mean ‘Matteo is being Matteo’?”

Vincent sighed as he set the plate on the nightstand beside Adam. “Remember how I mentioned some of us lose our minds if we go hungry too long? Well, he’s locked himself in the basement, attempting meditation or yoga or witchcraft to convince himself he’s not hungry.”

Adam nodded as Vincent moved to the other side of the bed.

“Most of us survive on blood bank donations, with occasional fresh feeding to supplement what gets filtered out during processing. There are younger folks around here who don’t know another way of living, and it works for the most part.

But Matteo is like me. His maker was an old one, and old ones are less diplomatic about staying fed,” Vincent explained, pulling the cork from the wine bottle.

He took a swig straight from the bottle as he sat on the left side of the bed.

“Matteo won’t drink the donated stuff, and he doesn’t have the stomach to trial someone, so we either have to trick him into feeding or wait until he goes feral. ”

The word “trial” sounded wrong when used like that. Vincent had said Adam was a trial, and while his first two days had been brutal, things seemed more relaxed now. Was this trialing? Or was it something far worse than what he’d been through? Adam cleared his throat. “What do you mean by ‘feral’?”