Like he knows there’s no way I can leave now.
Not after seeing her again, after being reminded of what I’ve really been looking for all this time away.
Her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SERAPHINE
I’m dreaming.
One of those dreams that teeters between sleep and consciousness, where you wake up and fall asleep again for a few minutes, and in those minutes a world unravels. The twilight of dreams.
In this dream I’m being choked again at the masquerade ball. Blaise is across the room, reaching out and running in slow motion. He freezes on the spot, hands stretched out, never getting to me. But where I was paralyzed before, this time I can move my hands. I put them over the hands of my attacker and pry them off.
I turn around and see a man in a black mask lined with silver zippers.
I reach up and take his mask off.
It’s Gautier, grinning at me with eyes as black as his soul. Inky tar, sticky and fathomless.
Then he morphs into Pascal.
Then into Jones.
And finally . . .
Into my father.
I gasp, unable to hold back my shock.
“Father?” I cry out.
He leans in and winks, and in that moment I realize it’s not my father at all, but someone else pretending to be him. “It all started with me,” he says in a raspy voice.
Then I’m awake again.
In my darkened bedroom.
The light in the hallway is on, and the hair on my arms is standing at attention, just as it’s happened on many nights lately.
Except this isn’t a matter of me leaving the hall light on and passing out.
There’s a man in the doorway.
A familiar silhouette.
“It’s okay.” Blaise’s voice cuts through the dark. “I think you were having a nightmare.”
Everything comes flooding back to me. Drinking here, getting the text from Jones, meeting him at the bar, hearing that he had no evidence against my father and the whole thing was in my head, the Vulcan maneuver he pulled on me when he threatened to kill me if I didn’t pay up. Then falling off the stool, hitting my head on the floor, the racist guy helping me to my feet and groping me, followed by Blaise.
Blaise, who seemed to come out of nowhere.
Blaise, who is now in my bedroom.
“I am having a nightmare,” I manage to say, my throat thick and dry as dust, my head throbbing. I run my hands down my body, feeling relief that my clothes are still on, everything except my shoes. “The nightmare is that you’re in my bedroom.”
“Not quite,” he says. “I’m standing just outside.”
I prop myself up on my elbows and let my eyes adjust to the dark. I still can’t see his face. “Why were you there, Blaise? That wasn’t a coincidence.”
I wish I could see his face. He’s hard to read in the light, but even so, I want to make some guesses. He remains in the doorway, a shadow from my past even though I see him nearly every day.
He doesn’t say anything, but the room is thick with tension.
“You should get some more sleep. It’s only two in the morning,” he finally says. His voice sounds strange. Like he’s in pain.
“I’m awake now,” I tell him. “And everything is coming back to me. So why don’t you tell me why you suddenly became my knight in shining armor tonight? And please tell me the truth. I’m so very tired of being lied to.”
He laughs dryly. “You would never trust the truth from me.”
He has a point. “You’re right. But I’d still like to hear whatever lie you have so I can figure out the truth from there. Usually it’s the opposite.” I pause. “You were following me.”
I don’t know what made me come to that conclusion before I passed out, but the moment it left my mouth, I knew it was right.
“I told you I was,” he says.
This surprises me. His admittance. I sit up straighter, ignoring the swirling of the room and the ache in my head, and lean over to flick on the light on my bedside table.
Now I can see him, blinking at the light, leaning against the doorway. Now he’s real, and I’m less afraid.
“Why were you following me?”
He stares at me for a moment, gathering his thoughts, maybe picking apart the lies or weaving together the truth. “I was told to.”
I feel my chest seize up with something cold. My whole body is stiff. I didn’t expect the truth so easily, and because of that, I’m not prepared.
“By who?” I whisper.
“By Pascal,” he says. He sounds torn, like he knows he shouldn’t have said anything but wants it off his chest.
“Why?”
“He knows about you.”
Oh fuck. My hand goes to my chest, my fingers gripping the neckline of my blouse. “What do you mean he knows about me?”
Blaise doesn’t say anything and averts his eyes to the floor, taking in a deep breath. It’s only now that I realize he’s in the same suit that he was in at work earlier. Dark gray, his white shirt splattered with dots of blood from the man he beat.
If Blaise hadn’t been there, I would have been in a world of trouble. I should be thanking my lucky stars that he was following me.
Protecting me.
And yet I don’t dare let myself dwell on that feeling. I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me too many times, especially by him, and the man just told me he was there because his brother told him to be.
I switch gears. “Were you supposed to protect me?”
He looks up at me, dead in the eye, and shakes his head. “No.”
“But you did.”
“I know.” He licks his lips.
“Why did you? Why did you protect me?”
He frowns at me, his posture straightening. “Why do you think?”
“At this point, I’m going to say it’s because you were paid to do so.”
His lips twist into a smile, and even though it’s a bitter one, it transforms his face. For a moment, I’m thrilled to have his protection.
“I wasn’t paid to do so. I wasn’t paid to do anything. Pascal told me to follow you because he thinks you’re dangerous.”
“Me, dangerous?” I burst out laughing. “What the fuck is that about?”
“You should know,” he says simply.
My brows knit together in confusion. “Come here.”
He looks at me in surprise. “What?”
“Stop hanging out in the doorway like a creeper and come over here.”
Now he looks as wary as I feel. He slowly makes his way across the bedroom floor and stands at the foot of the bed.
I smack the space beside me. “Sit here.”
He studies me as if he thinks I’m setting some trap, but all I really want is to see him up close. I need to see what he says to me from here. I need to find out the difference between the lies and the truth.
He takes a seat beside me, and now, fuck, now everything is a million times more complicated. I could ask him questions when he was across the room, and I could take in his responses, but it felt like I was talking to a hologram.
Now that he’s beside me, sitting on the edge of my bed, I’m struck with too many competing feelings and emotions.
He smells fucking terrific, for one thing. Like cinnamon and sugar and coffee and a comforting cold day. Even though his shirt is splattered with blood, and some blood remains in a smudge above the dark arches of his groomed brows, it’s like I’m seeing him as a teenager again. Back in those hot summer nights when I saw him as something else. Not a cousin, not family, but something else. Some intangible mysterious thing that belonged in my life. More than a friend, not quite a lover. Unrequited love, perhaps.