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17

Family Secrets

M arisol popped lukewarm pieces of dumplings and kielbasa in her mouth as she hobbled around and collected her things. Not an ideal means of eating, but at least she ate. With the way Vincent stormed about the place preparing to leave, she doubted he ever did.

She inventoried her clothes and supplies and discovered she had lost her gorgeous new cashmere coat to medical waste. It was cut off at the hospital after soaking in her blood. Other than her necklace, the survivors of the attack were her now-dead phone, keys and keycard, fingerless boxing gloves, domino mask, and boots. Despite a quick, softening polish from Vincent, the leather of the boot still felt stiff from her blood. Yet she felt grateful to put at least one foot in a shoe. The rest of her things, including her medicine, she shoved into a garbage bag, the suitcase of champions .

She borrowed an old army green field jacket, cinching it tight at her waist. Dressed and ready to go, she followed Vincent and entered the garage underneath the house. The door thundered when he opened it, revealing a vast tunnel.

Another one of Annie’s theories proved true. The underground tunnel. Marisol pulled the collar of the coat closer around her throat. As Vincent helped her into the seat of his roadster, she couldn’t take her eyes off the tunnel. “That tunnel doesn’t lead to a secret lab, does it?”

Vincent shut the passenger door before answering her. After entering the driver’s side, he sank into his seat and answered, “No.” He dug out a pair of gloves hidden in the inner pocket of his brown leather bomber jacket and squeezed his hands into them. Even driving had to be a theatrical production.

Marisol held in a laugh. “You wear driving gloves?”

“They help with a steady grip.”

“I look like Tiny Tim, and you look like a Ken doll.”

Stone-faced, he buckled himself in and started the car. With a push of a button, the car lit up and hummed with electric power.

The car charged through the tunnel. Marisol gasped as the dotted line of lights turned into a single streak. They approached nothing but a dark abyss. Vincent stomped his foot on the accelerator. The car shot up onto a winding country road lined with giant trees stretched toward the moon, but their tops slumped over in defeat. The engine hummed. Tires screeched. The silver roadster weaved between the reflective stripe in the middle of the road and its edge. After gaining traction, the car straightened. Vincent said, “The tunnel was a shortcut.”

Rain intermittently tapped against the windshield, and soundless lightning emphasized the widening spaces between the trees. A storm arrived as soon as they returned to civilization mere miles from Vincent’s estate. To Marisol’s relief, they arrived at the back of the estate, far from the front’s towering pillars and ominous Latin message.

A sudden worry struck Marisol as the car arrived with bombast, speeding down the driveway. “Will they come after us here? This is your home after all.”

“I anonymously submitted a staged photo from Europe. It helps that the paparazzi spotted another me outside the country. Plus, it takes over two people to make this place seem inhabited.”

Vincent drove his sports car into the garage. He pulled the car into a space next to a larger town car and put it in park. “What do you think?”

Marisol looked around. There was only enough space for another car, fitting her vision of a suburban garage, not one belonging to a palatial estate. “I thought your garage would be bigger.”

Vincent smirked. A door in the floor opened to a ramp below. He jerked the gear shift into reverse and slammed the accelerator. The tires squealed as they backed onto the ramp. Marisol braced herself against the dashboard. Vincent maneuvered the car backwards into a dark and endless garage, outrunning bright overhead lights as they turned on in succession. Vincent gripped the wheel and pulled it in one direction, spinning the car 180 degrees. He hit the brakes and slammed it into park.

The last of the lights clicked on, illuminating an endless underground garage. The sudden brightness hurt Marisol’s fluctuating pupils. Through squinted eyes, she observed a motorcycle and hulking sports utility vehicle. A grid of metal compartments lined the walls of the garage. “Big enough for you now?” Vincent asked, the side of his mouth curling. He tucked his gloves back into his jacket as he left the car.

“You’re showing off.” Marisol pulled herself out of the sports car and propped herself against her crutches. Her gaze traveled over the expanse of the basement. The mountain of secrets stretched out before her and drew her in a trance. She almost forgot to step forward with her crutches. A sweaty squeeze of the handles brought her back to the present. “What’s all in here?”

Vincent touched a metal compartment. It lit white-hot under his fingerprints. The compartment unlocked with a click and opened, revealing a row of armored suits and capes. In the unforgiving bright lights, they looked more navy and gray than black .

“Your suits aren’t black,” Marisol said.

“Night isn’t pitch black, you know.” He pushed the compartment, and it receded back into the wall with a click.

Marisol bit into her cheek, devising a plan of later pulling his chest hair or digging her nails into him. Something to make him pay for being such a smartass. Or would he enjoy that too much? Go the opposite way. Make him suffer by being gentle.

She studied the unending grid of the compartments. “What else do you have in here?”

He opened another compartment. A rack of random outfits jutted out. Among them a neon vest, hard hat, and a tie rack of… facial hair? “Reconnaissance clothes.” He hung his jacket and closed it, opening another one immediately after. “Night and heat vision goggles. Gas masks.” Then he slammed the drawer shut and opened another one. “Smoke bombs. Concussion grenades.”

Her stomach somersaulted. “Weapons.” Vincent’s nightlife wasn’t the brutish simplicity of punches and bloody noses. It was all-out warfare.

But it was across the underground space where she warily eyed a vault door with a small window. Inside of it, something glowed blue. “What’s in there?”

His pupils darted, unfocused. “Other weapons.” He told a half-truth just like she’d done before .

Perhaps he’s rich and radioactive… “We’re not sitting on some nuclear warheads, are we?”

He scoffed and shook his head. “Of course not! I use nothing that’s lethal… on purpose.”

Marisol swallowed to hold herself back from asking if he had killed anyone. A tight sensation in her chest revisited the times Caz had returned home with a rehearsed calm. She didn’t want to know the answer to that nagging question. “Is this what you needed to show me?”

Vincent pocketed something from one compartment and elbowed the button to an elevator. The doors soundlessly glided open. “It’s upstairs.”

Marisol hobbled into the elevator. She squeezed his hand as they rode up, staving off the anxious notion that recently, she had bad luck with elevators. She closed her eyes and teleported back to the lake house where all life’s sharp corners had been sanded smooth by Vincent. The elevator arrived on the second floor with a gentle stop. She opened her eyes.

“We’re in the eastern wing. Follow me.” He kept an ever-widening lead over her as they moved through the hallway.

The ceiling soared above them, supported by sharply arched wooden buttresses. Thick tapestries hung from the walls, billowing into strange shadows among the limited celestial light from the windows. The dust particles clung to the inside of her nose. She sneezed them away. Yep. Definitely didn’t keep maids and butlers around.

Their footsteps echoed as they proceeded down the cavernous hallway. They passed through a towering archway. Its height reached Heaven, but she felt dread and wonder, as if she entered Hell. He prowled farther ahead of her. “Vincent, slow down!”

Thunder roared and lightning cracked, strobing the hallway in blue. He stopped. Blue light emphasized his back muscles tensed in vigilance.

She hobbled, catching up with him. Breathless, she said, “You’re being weird and not in that usual charming way.”

Though still, he stood with the rigid energy of prey caught in a predator’s trap, too frozen with fear to play dead.

“I do it too,” she said, soft and low. “When I’m afraid someone won’t like what they see.” She was a moment from touching him, to bringing him back to the Vincent she knew. “Ask to meet my family, and I’ll be a real dick.”

His shoulders moved as he breathed deeply. Lightning struck close, practically blinding her and charging the air with static. In the brief shutter of darkness, he picked her up. Her crutches toppled to the ground.

This was his plan, right? Goosebumps traveled up the nape of her neck. Right?! He rushed her along the hallway. Only through flashes of lightning could she see his face—all angles and muscle. Sharp and cruel.

They passed the grand staircase of the ballroom and entered the west wing. This wing was a wicked parody of the other side. Sheets covered the windows rather than thick curtains. Tapestries peeled off the walls, shredded by time. The air smelled musty, as if the rain rotted the home’s insides. Broken furniture cluttered the hallway. Vincent charged and kicked through the mess, heading to wherever he was determined to take her.

“Put me down,” she demanded, but to her escalating fear, Vincent tightened his grip around her.

He kicked open a set of double doors and entered a dark room. A flash of lightning revealed the place to be a study, and he set her down on a desk. She squeezed herself tightly together to shield herself as he broke furniture around the room, gathering objects. He arranged his tools in a line next to her on the desk—syringe, scissors, circular saw, and a bedpan. If she escaped, she’d manage three hops to the door before he’d catch her—to do what? With those tools, what was he going to do to her?

Just under her legs, he opened a drawer. The top of his hand brushed against her thigh. Her breath hitched. Even silent and terrifying, he had that siren allure—maybe even because he was silent and terrifying. He pulled out something metallic and slammed the door shut .

After crossing the room, he grunted, turning the lights on with an old brass lever. The sound of the electricity buzzed and crackled. The light fixture above them flickered on. It pulsed from dim to bright and back again.

“I can fix you.” He drew a vial from his pocket. “All I have to do is inject you with this regenerative serum. But it isn’t perfect. You can build a tolerance, and if you get hurt again, it won’t work as well. Subsequent doses have unseemly side effects.”

“Is that what you have to tell me?” She sighed, allowing her breath to return to normal. “A bit dramatic but—”

“No.” Vincent held the scalpel to his other hand and sliced it open.

Marisol froze. Blood dripped from the deep cut, but it gradually shrunk in size. Then it faded to nothing. His palm returned to unblemished perfection. Her eyes burned with tears as her gaze moved from his hand to his expressionless face. How?

Her throat squeezed tighter. “You’re superhuman.” The words came out like a whisper.

“I am,” he answered with an icy resolve.

Her breathing became loud and shallow. “I need a moment to think.” Another layer of Vincent peeled away, bringing her closer to his true center. She would accept new, world-destroying information about him the way the dying accept death. The secret side project? The rumored super-cop program? Marisol remembered the old shopkeeper patient saying the Patron Saint was stronger than any man. And his kiss—being around him electrified her, standing her hair on end, a psychosomatic response. But now? What if Dr. Varian didn’t just experiment with nuclear energy? What if—Marisol’s mouth went dry—this Varian man was the nuclear experiment? Rich but radioactive. “You said your grandfather worked in nuclear power and researched its effects.”

“Sort of.”

“You’re a result of that research.”

He chortled, thick with derision. “I’m not.”

That left… alien? “What are you?”

Vincent bounded to the other side of the study. He tore down a tapestry, revealing a gargantuan painting of a look-alike ancestor. He was dressed in armor, with a ruffled collar around his neck. His wavy golden hair coiffed at his ears, and a Van Dyke beard framed his haughty pout. He posed with one hand on a globe. In the other hand, he held a helmet.

“With the strength of ten men, I am above the ravages of time and disease. I am deathless. My name is Vicente Vasquez. I’m over 500 years old.” Saying his name, his real name, unearthed a long-dead Spanish ceceo , sounding a lisp on the c and z of his name.

The floor felt like it warped beneath her. Her limbs seemed boneless. Vertigo and anemia hit all at once. Immortal. Annie hadn’t mentioned a fourth option. Marisol caught herself against the desk. She breathed out, “Oh.”