“Okay.” Harry sat back down and tore open his chocolate bar, leaning in to share with Lacey.
“Come, My Queen.” David draped his arm over my neck. “I believe we’re invisible in the presence of sweets.”
My head turned as we walked away, my eyes staying on Harry long enough to see him enjoy his first bite. “You’re good with kids, David.”
“Kids are easy.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Just feed them sugar and they love you.”
I laughed. “I’m sure those principles will change when we have our own baby.”
“Of course.” He tugged me closer and kissed my hair. “Because she won’t be allowed any sweets.”
“Any?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If she’s anything like her mother, no amount of sugar could possibly make her any sweeter.”
“Aw.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mr Johnson muttered flatly.
David shook his head, ignoring it, for the most part, and keyed in the code to the security door.
The tall, lanky boy with sandy-blonde hair stood up as we approached. Between us, a glass window sat as a divider from the hallway: a bullet proof, smash proof, and soundproof one that was mirrored on one side. Max couldn’t see us, but we could see him. Josh, however, had the finely tuned instincts of an adult vampire, a very old adult vampire, turning his gaze directly on us before we even stopped walking.
“How is he?” David asked, and only then did I notice Katy had popped up beside him in her long white coat, clipboard in hand.
“He’s showing progress, David. We closed the curtains today while he was playing in the sunlight, and he looked up, but he didn’t screech or back into the corner this time.”
David smiled, his eyes staying on Max. “Jason asked to do one last session with him. What are your thoughts on this?”
“I have to say, I agree.” She took one step closer to the glass, her loving eyes on the two boys as if they were her own children—the very reason we hired her and made her immortal. “He has no memory of his past before he came to the House, but he’s showing signs of repression. I’m worried it might all come back to him at once if we don’t dot every ‘I’, so to speak.”
“And this present behaviour is what he commonly exhibits now?” Mr Johnson asked, peering into the room like Max was some science lab monkey.
“Yes.” She turned her head and smiled warmly at him. “It’s almost like he’s a normal little boy.”
“And what about Joshua?” the stern man asked.
Josh looked up again. There was no way he could hear us, but I got the sense that he just ‘felt’ us talking about him. “We’re looking at giving him a position in the Rehabilitation Organisation,” Katy said.
“Really?” I almost squealed. I’d never even thought of that, but it just seemed like such a perfect position for Josh. “I think he’d make an excellent carer.”
“We think so too.” Katy nodded. “He shows deep empathy and compassion with the children, and seems to have a good rapport with them, too, even with Charles and Sophie.”
“With Sophie?” I said slowly, my head reflexively angling toward the other two windows across the hallway. The lights were out in those rooms—the children preferring total darkness as they huddled in the corner, staring blankly at the walls.
“Yes. I watched him yesterday: he stood in front of the glass and placed his hand against it—” She pointed to Charles’ room. “And Charles walked over, slowly, at first. But then, he placed his hand against Josh’s.”
David and I looked at each other then back at Joshua, while Mr Johnson took more notes.
“Does Josh want to be adopted when we find a family to take Max?” I asked.
“Yes. He’ll stay here in the Organisation’s employ until such a time.”
I nodded. “And Max?”
“We’re predicting another few weeks of counselling and training, but if Mr Johnson concurs—” She presented him. “We’ll move Max back into the House next week.”
I thought about Lacy and Harry. “Are you sure he’s stable enough?”
“I wouldn’t move him if I thought otherwise,” she said reassuringly. “I love those kids as much as you do, My Queen. I’d never put them in jeopardy.”
“Okay.” I clasped my hands and took a look around. “You’ve done really well here, Katy.”
“No.” She smiled, looking in on Max again. “I think we all have.”
The gentle hum of David’s lungs expanding took my mind from thoughts of the day ahead to a peaceful state of sleep. The silence in the cavity where a heart should beat, and the warmth of his arms around me after my blood had fuelled his body, were two of the things I would never take for granted—having spent too many nights just trying to imagine what it felt like to lay this way with him again. But, despite the tight embrace I fell asleep in, as my mind rose from deep REM, I suddenly felt too much space around me.
I opened my eyes and blinked until the blur wrapped the corners and the featureless walls of a dark room—the space decked out with a single bed, a table and a lamp, with curtains hanging over what victims who came here would assume was a window. It wasn’t. This room was designed to contain the screeching terror they’d express when they realised this would be the last room they’d ever see. But the cement walls and iron door couldn’t lock away the screams of the past. I could still hear them—hear every cry ever muttered, every whimper and every plea. The quiet prayers for mercy were embedded in the bloodstains on the walls—deaths by the hundreds having occurred in the one tiny space. And there were twenty more rooms like this, each one authorised by signature of the queen.
With Loslilian being so far away from towns or cities, we’d approved for the vampires residing here to have their particular dietary needs shipped in, provided they disposed of the bodies thoughtfully and quickly, keeping all kills discreet and private.
But, unless I’d been typeset on the menu as ‘meal of the day,’ I really had no reason to be down here.
I sat up fully and tucked my legs to my chest. The iron door was closed, probably locked, making the room as dark as it was cold. I always imagined these rooms were a little more inviting, maybe pleasant. But, then, how was a room of death supposed to feel?
Being immortal hadn’t made accepting the death of humans any easier, and that was precisely why I had never come down here.
“Hello?” I called, but it seemed like everyone had gone to bed. Except for the shapeless figure I spotted in the corner. I held my breath, waiting for it to move—praying to God it wasn’t a dead body. Not that a dead body would move, but . . . you know what I mean. It’d be pretty darn scary if it did. My life story had gone from normal to vampire in just a few weeks, and I wasn’t about to start adding zombies.
“Hello?” I said again, this time a little quieter. And the figure moved—just once, just a breath taken and held, then, it turned its head and looked my way.
I pressed my back to the wall, making myself smaller.
“Who’s there?” it said, easing my rapid pulse.
“Jason.” I exhaled his name.
His eyes narrowed, searching the wall, his gaze sweeping past me several times. He shook his head at himself then and turned away.
“Please?” a small voice muttered.
My eyes focused on a balled-up shape between him and the wall—its skin reeking with the sweat of fear.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she said.
“Shh.” Jason squatted down, brushing her thick, dark hair off her face. “I promise, no harm will come to you.”
“What do you want with me then?”
“Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Where am I?” she said, her voice calming a little under Jason’s spell. “Where’s Jeff?”
The vampire looked off to one side. “He’s . . . at peace now.”
“What?” Her eyes went wide enough that I could suddenly see the whites. “What do you mean?”
“He’s taking a walk through Purgatory,” Jason said, cupping her ponytail. “He’s looking for you there.”
“What are you doing?” Her voice quivered.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He yanked her hair, angling her head sideways to lengthen her neck. “I’m just going to kill you.”
A scream split the seconds into minutes, the realisation of her own death sinking in only as Jason’s teeth did, breaking her skin and severing the windpipe until the cry became nothing but a gurgled whimper. The thick, warm scent of blood filled the air, burning my nose and throat. I rolled onto my hands and knees and pressed my wrist to my nose, heaving. If this was a dream, it was an awfully real, awfully vivid one. I could smell the dirt on the floors, feel the chill of death fog the wintry air; hear her screams like they were right in front of me. But it didn’t fit—Jason didn’t look right in here—killing that way. I always imagined him to be the compassionate kind of killer—one who’d make love to his victims and kill them gently, so they didn’t know. I just never pictured him as an attack killer.
But, for some reason, I found it oddly sexy—in a very twisted, vampirish kind of way.
“Right. That thought just crossed the line, Ara-Rose,” I said, pinching myself. “Wake up.”
“Ara?” Jase stood suddenly, his arms falling by his sides as he slowly turned at the shoulders.
“In the flesh,” I muttered awkwardly, sinking my neck into my shoulders.
He checked all four corners of the room, his brow furrowed. “Ar? You here?”
“Over here, dummy.” I laughed.
He walked slowly toward me, his eyes small. “Is . . . is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” I said, but as I went to slap him, my hand went right through his. “Whoa.”
He stepped closer, the green in his wondering eyes reflecting the glowing orb of blue he was staring at. “Look at you, pretty girl. So lovely in blue.”
I looked down at my own hands, seeing them as ghostly fog. “What’s happening, Jase?”
“You’re dreaming.”
I waved my hands through the chilly air. “Some dream, huh? It feels so real.”
He glanced back at his kill, echoes of her screams shadowing his eyes, and humbly lowered his head. “You were never supposed to see me like that.”
“Like what?”
He exhaled, wiping his wrist across his bloodied mouth. “Like a killer.”
“You weren’t that bad. Besides. . .” I looked over at the limp girl. “This is only a dream. You don’t really kill like that, right?”