Page 84 of Twisted

“I never really thought about it,” Antonio answers.“They don’t have to stay vampires though.”

“What’s the alternative?”Xavier asks calmly.“Walk into the sun?”

“Wouldn’t that hurt?”Gia asks.

“You’re literally burning to death, so yes,” I tell her honestly.“But, uh, tell me about you.How’s school?Whatever happened to Aiden-what’s-his-face?”

“School is boring and I don’t have a crush on Aiden anymore.He’s gross.”

“He probably is.Pretty much all men suck.”I raise my eyebrows and shake my head.“Best to hold off on dating one until you’re like thirty.”

“You’re not even thirty and you’re married!”

“Do what I say, not what I do.”I wink.Silence falls over the table again and I can feel Leo looking at me.

“These deaths,” he begins.“You said they were ruled as overdoses?”

“Yeah, but they’re not.Drugs don’t make you age rapidly or rot from the inside out.Demons do.”

“Right.But now that you mention it, I do know there’s been a rash of OD’s in the area.”He holds my gaze, trying to silently convey what he really wants to say.

“Yeah, I heard that too.Scary stuff.Fentanyl is bad enough but lace it with carfentanil and…” I trail off, shaking my head.“Don’t do drugs,” I tell Gia.“Seriously, this stuff is so strong if you just touch it you can have a heart attack and die.”

“Why would anyone want to do drugs?”she asks innocently.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.“But don’t, okay?”

“I won’t.”

“You have influence,” Leo directs to Xavier.“Have you heard anything about this new supplier bringing drugs into Charlotte?”

“I have been made aware of the increase in ODs,” he tells him.

“Seems like big business,” Leo goes on and maybe it’s just me since I know what he’s getting at, but the tension is getting to be too much.“You’re a business man.”

“If you’re trying to insinuate that I would sell drugs, the answer is no.Vampires have no personal interest in such matters and even from a monetary standpoint, drugs quite literally poison our food supply.”

Thankfully, our food comes and the subject is dropped.I can sense that there was a big part of Leo that wanted to put the blame on the vampires.Make them be the bad guys we were raised to believe.

Xavier Malus is not innocent.Not at all.But a drug dealer?No.He’s right.It wouldn’t be of interest to him and the man is fully self serving.

Somehow, we get through a very awkward dinner.Gia asks Xavier a lot of questions about being a vampire, and he patiently answers every one.Larissa texts and calls Leo and Antonio probably twenty times each throughout the rest of our meal, and I see them both declining calls from Vivian and Marco as well.

They’re going to have a fun night when they get back to the compound.

Xavier pays the bill before anyone else even has a chance to look at it.Gia takes my left hand again to look at my ring, but really she’s stalling and doesn’t want me to leave.I want to tell her that she can call or that we can arrange another time to meet up like this.Part of me doesn’t understand why it would be a big deal.Xavier seems more than fine with me talking to my family.Hell, he even gave the phone back.Of course I’m going to assume he cloned it and is watching everything I type, but there really does seem to be an understanding between us.

Unless I’m just an idiot for seeing something that’s not there.Wouldn’t be the first time and probably won’t be the last time a man has lied right to my face and I believed him.But there’s something different about Xavier.He’s exactly who he says he is and his trust in me for some strange reason makes me not want to let him down.

“I’ll see you again,” I tell Gia.“We’ll figure something out.”

“I want to meet the pretty vampire you did a GRWM video with,” she says.

“A what?”Leo asks.

“Get Ready With Me,” she explains.“Larissa showed me.”

“I’m not surprised,” I reply, rolling my eyes.Before I can say anything else or even gauge Xavier’s reaction to talking about Mabel, the energy twists and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.