Page 22

A RED BILLBOARD

SEBASTIAN

I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt nervous. Anxious, sure. Irritable. Impatient. Even uncertain.

But nervous?

It’s been decades.

I shove the strange sensation to the far reaches of my mind and knock on Grace’s door.

After leaving Oskar in the courtyard, I’d spent the day pacing this manor until there wasn’t a square of flooring my boots hadn’t touched.

Eventually, I’d returned to the stone table, and I’d laid atop it, glaring at my statue and then the sun itself.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Even when my body was weak and mortal, sleep didn’t come easily to me. I rarely did it, and when I did, it was never on accident. When I woke, dazed and confused and feeling inexplicably drowsy, I made a decision.

I knock again.

The door opens a crack, and Grace peeks out, eyeing me with suspicion.

“Can I come in?” I ask.

“What? ”

“Can I come in?” I repeat. She only stares blankly. “To your quarters?”

“You mean my cell?” she asks. Despite the bite of her words, her voice remains a whisper.

“Whatever you wish to call it,” I say. I clench my breath tight in my lungs, refusing to crack already.

I can be patient and kind and whatever else is required to make her trust me, to help her break the curse.

“Since when do you ask for permission?” She releases the door, letting it fall open. She stands in place, however, crossing her arms over her chest. It’s meant to be an intimidating stance, but she’s pushed her breasts together. Her cleavage teases me from her low-cut shirt.

“Grace,” I say. It comes out more as an irritable huff than her name.

“If I say no?” she asks. She arches an eyebrow, dangling her question from yesterday in front of me.

It’s a reminder that I’ve never given her a choice.

Hopefully, it’s a way to prove I do not have to be her enemy.

“I will leave,” I say. I tighten my fists. I don’t point out that I’d let her say no yesterday too, that I’d walked her back to her quarters, even when I’d wanted to train.

I don’t say anything as she considers it. I make myself wait, digging my nails into my palms, until she steps sharply to the side.

Behind me, Oskar lets out a quiet laugh. I’d almost forgotten he was there, standing guard outside her room.

“You’re dismissed,” I tell him without looking back. I walk past Grace into her room, shutting the door behind me.

With the hallway closed off, I study Grace’s small room. The more I look at it, the more it does seem like a cell. A single bed. No other furniture. Not even the mirror she’d requested. The clothes we purchased from Nicasi are folded neatly on the floor, lining the far wall.

“I can get you a dresser,” I say. I nod to the clothes. “Or hooks, if you’d prefer.”

“You’re being nice,” she says, and it’s a blatant accusation.

Though I’ve moved to the center of the room, my knees touching the foot of her twin-sized bed, Grace remains at the door. She has a hand against the stone wall, and she’s watching me with narrowed eyes.

“It’s a new manipulation tactic,” I drawl. Rather than holding her gaze, I look over the room again. “I’ll send new bedding, too.”

“I think manipulation works better if you don’t announce it,” she says.

I ignore her. I carefully step between her clothes and the bed, moving the blankets until I find what I’m looking for.

Beneath her pillow, the electronic I purchased for her sits, folded shut.

Technically, it’s one of many. Amelia goes to the human world once a week, charging multiple of these at once, so Grace never has to go without.

I drag it into the center of her bed and carefully open it.

It’s flimsy with a black screen and dozens of buttons, each labeled with a letter.

A computer, it’s called. I’ve seen them while visiting the human world, but it’s still difficult to understand.

They write on these machines. They write and they read and they watch.

Everything a person can do in life, humans prefer to do it here.

I push a button, and the screen lights. I blink at it. I’d had the human servant download her requested entertainment, and it looks like one of the films is onscreen now .

An image of a dark-haired woman and a blond man takes up the screen. Neither of them are moving.

“What are you doing?” Grace demands. She’s still at the door, arms still crossed, cleavage still teasing me. Despite her harsh tone, she’s shifting, fingers digging into her elbows.

“What is this?” I return. I twist the computer until it’s facing her. “What are you watching?”

“It’s called She’s All That .” Grace steps toward me, still glaring but seemingly unable to resist. “Have you seen it?”

“I’ve never seen a movie, Grace,” I say. “No one in the Echo has seen it. We don’t have time to sit around, watching stupid shows.”

I realize a moment too late that I’ve snapped at her. Apparently, I’m not only out of practice with kindness, I’m also bad at it. I open my mouth to apologize, but nothing comes out.

Luckily, Grace doesn’t break down. She glares a little harder, but steps closer. She’s on the opposite side of her bed now, separated from me by this flimsy mattress.

“You’ve never seen a movie,” she repeats. “Well, no wonder you’re all in such terrible moods all the time. Movies are healing .”

I work my jaw. I want to say something kind, but everything coming to mind is either rude or fucking mean.

I click a random letter on the computer, hoping to start the movie. Instead, it makes a loud pinging noise at me.

“Here,” she says. She swats my hand out of the way, clicking a button I hadn’t noticed.

Before I can feel annoyed, the movie starts. I blink at the screen. The brunette woman and blond man are moving now, as if by magic. The colors and sounds are human-like, and yet, slightly different. Distorted, if only slightly. I squint at the moving picture, feeling an unexpected pinch of nausea.

“And this is a romantic comedy,” I say. I barely register what the characters are doing. “These two are going to fuck?”

A startled laugh bursts from Grace’s mouth. Despite everything else, it’s a pleasant sound. I lean closer without deciding to.

“Well, these two aren’t,” she says. “Actually, nothing like that happens at all. It’s not pornography. It’s a 90s movie. A rom-com. You know, boy meets girl. Girl is unexpectedly charming. Boy falls head over heels. Boy inevitably messes everything up, but the girl loves him anyway.”

I glance from her to the screen.

I’m trying to understand the nonsense that just came from her mouth when she pauses it again. Now, the screen is on a dark-haired guy, his features blurred, frozen in time.

“Why are you here, Sebastian?” she asks.

I’d had a simple plan when I knocked on Grace’s door. I was going to offer a new agreement, something that benefited both of us, something that made her trust me and believe I wasn’t going to decapitate her once I got what I wanted.

Now, I’m stuck staring at the screen, words caught in my throat.

“Sebastian,” she says. Her voice is clipped, demanding.

“Who’s this guy?” I ask, nodding to the dark-haired man on the screen. “He looks pissed. Is he about to break up the other two?”

Even with my eyes on the screen, I can feel Grace watching me. She lets out an irritated huff before dropping onto her bed. Folding her long legs beneath her, she rests the computer on her lap .

“ This is Zach,” she says. “He’s the heart throb. The one we’re rooting for. The dumb boy who loves Laney, and who Laney loves, even though she’s obviously too good for him.”

I swallow.

“Laney,” Grace says, only to pause. She taps a few buttons, and the screen again changes.

We’re back to moments earlier, with the brunette girl standing with the blond man.

She taps a finger to the screen. “Laney is the main girl. She’s far too good for Zach, but we let it slide ‘cause he’s good-looking and it was the nineties. ”

“And that guy?” I ask, gesturing to the blond.

Grace studies me again, as if checking to see if I’m fucking with her. Then she’s locked back on the screen.

“That’s Dean,” she says. “And honestly, he’s just an asshole.”

“Not the lover,” I say stupidly, because I have no idea what else to add.

“Definitely not,” Grace says. “I mean, he has blond hair. That’s a red flag by itself.”

“Red flag?”

“Yeah, a red flag. Like: stop here! This guy is obviously a tool! Just look at his hair!” Grace pitches her voice as she talks, and my lips twitch into a smile. “If a guy has blond hair, that basically means he’s either going to be the bad guy or in the friendzone. Sometimes both.”

“I have blond hair,” I say.

Grace laughs so hard she snorts.

“Exactly,” she says.

“So I’m a red flag?”

“Sebastian, you are a red billboard.”

I frown, studying the blond man on the screen. He looks like any other human. Soft, slow, weak.

“Anyway,” Grace says, dragging out the word. “Now that we’ve covered She’s All That , are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

I stare at the screen. Once again, words elude me. I know why I’m here, but it feels stupid. Grace doesn’t hate me. It’s clear from the way she’s sitting that she trusts me well enough. If she didn’t, she’d be cowering at the door. She’d be begging me not to kill her.

She knows I won’t kill her.

Yet , a voice adds silently in my mind. She knows you won’t kill her yet .

I swallow.

“Play it,” I say. I nod to the screen.

“The movie?” she asks. Her blonde eyebrows stretch toward her hairline. “You want to watch it?”

“I want to understand,” I say, and I guess that’s partially true. I do want to understand. Only I want to understand Grace, not her movie. I want to know her, to understand how she thinks and feels.

If I can find a way into her mind, maybe I can speed up her progress. Maybe we can break the curse long before word gets out that she’s here, that she exists.

“All right,” she says slowly. She drags her finger across the computer, and the images flash across the screen, too fast to make them out.

“Slower,” I command.

“Relax,” Grace says with a laugh. “I’m just starting it over. It won’t make sense otherwise.”

Another click of a button, and the movie starts. Grace shifts, as if making room for me on her bed. I stare at the empty space, long enough that she realizes what she’s done.

“Actually, you can stand,” she says.

“Yes,” I agree. My voice is strained, but I doubt she can tell. I doubt she knows I’m imagining crawling into that bed, biting into her flesh and consuming her every last drop.

She shifts back into the center, and we watch the entire movie like this. With her lying on the bed, making occasional comments—not to me, but to the characters on the screen, as if they can hear her. And me, standing to the side, perfectly still.

I’m watching her more than I am the screen.

By the time it’s over, she’s yawning and I realize I held my breath for the duration of the entire movie. Now that it’s over, I steal a tiny breath. Her lavender and blood perfume burns my throat.

Hells, I want to fuck her. Forget drinking her blood. She’s too beautiful like this, laid back in bed, beaded nipples visible through her shirt. It’s a temptation I’m not sure why I’m fighting. If there’s even a chance she’d let me…

Blonds are the bad guys or in the friendzone.

“Is that guy going to bring me dinner?” she asks, jolting me from my thoughts. “I’m getting hungry.”

So am I, I realize. Not hungry, exactly, but less than overstuffed. It’s dangerous, considering we’re confined together.

“I’ll call for him,” I say. I cross the room, only pausing once I’ve reached the door.

I rattle my brain, desperate for some meaningful parting words. Instead, my mind remains blank, and I eventually leave her, lying on her bed and wishing she’d ask me to stay.