“I knew.” I sobbed covering the phone with my hand as I looked around. “I knew he was Sun Cross. I knew.” I whined. Colette wrapped her arms around me and held me close. “I knew.” I kept repeating over and over like a chant of remorse.
“We all knew.” Colette whispered into my ear as she held me.
“We’re all responsible for his death in some way, Autumn. Out of everyone in the room, you’re the least guilty here.” Tristan spoke with soft resignation. However, I couldn’t see him over Colette’s hair in my face. “We already knew of his past affiliations. We knew they had a tail on him. We knew he met with someone recently from them… We were just too cocky and Aleksi suffered for it. But there are a few blanks we need filled in…and he won’t talk unless he can talk to you.”
“We’ll go in together.” Colette pulled back and smiled at me nodding.
“Does it have to be now?” I asked looking from vampire to vampire.
“No, you can take a day. But the sooner the better.”
The next day Colette and I met in Tristan’s office and Nikolai was brought to us. I could barely bring myself to look at him, or the deep purple bruises I had left around his throat and where my fist connected with his jaw. Bruises aside, he looked so normal in his t-shirt and jeans. Colette still looked devastated. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun—not unlike the one Aleksi always used to wear. She wore a baggy sweater in her soft shade of pink and charcoal grey leggings. Without make-up she looked young—frighteningly young. Before I never gave a thought to how young she was when turned. Looking at her barefaced, I would have guessed maybe eighteen maybe nineteen tops—maybe even younger. I wore one of Aleksi’s black tank tops and his jacket. They still smelled like him. It didn’t hit me that I had dressed like him until I looked down at my black leggings and sneakers. My mind hadn’t gone further than wanting to smell his much missed scent.
“Officially, you didn’t kill your Father.” Colette murmured softly as she stood from Tristan’s chair and walked over to Nikolai, who was cuffed to a chair in the middle of the room. “Officially, he lost his battle with AR- V7… Officially.” Her voice was light and lilting as she loomed closer to him like some tiny terrible doll. “He was the only family I had, and he gave me you.” She cupped his face in her tiny pale hands. For a moment they stared at one another, eyes locked. “I remember the first time I held you in my arms and you opened those pale eyes. I hid you because I thought Aleksi would kill you. The irony isn’t lost on me.” She tilted his head back more, stressing his long graceful neck. His pupils contracted into tiny little pin-pricks, turning his eyes into a void of alice blue as Colette bound him to her. I didn’t know what it meant but I was betting it was some form of lesser mark, probably a form of vampiric microchipping.
A few moments passed and Nikolai blinked a handful of times. Just like that, his eyes weren’t quite so colorless anymore. They weren’t quite the unnatural blue of Colette and Aleksi’s eyes. But they were no longer quite white-blue like they once were.
Fear read plainly on his face. I knew that look, I had felt my face make almost that exact same look. It was the look you had the moment you realized that person standing inches from you wasn’t as human as they looked. For a moment I felt some sympathy for him. Then I caught of whiff of Aleksi’s scent from his jacket and all of that sympathy melted away like wet snow on pavement.
Without a single word uttered, Colette walked away from him and hopped up on the corner of Tristan’s desk. She picked up the sheet of paper with the questions printed on it and held it out to me. I hesitated before I pushed from the wall and took the sheet from her. Focusing on the piece of paper I read the questions over once to myself before I read them aloud.
“Did you know about the attack on Aleksi in Moscow?” I asked the questions to the paper, my eyes never raised to him. I wanted to pretend that he didn’t exist—so I did.
“Autumn… I had to. They threatened you. They said they were going to take you. They said—“
“Did you know about the attack in Moscow?” I repeated still refusing to looking at him.
“They said they were going to do horrible things… I had to. Please… he was already pretty much gone, Autumn. Please…”
“I had protection, Nikolai. I had fucking seal team six vampire edition shadowing me.” I snapped. “I don’t want your sorry. I don’t want your excuses. I get it. You think you were justified. I can’t tolerate being in the same room… forgiveness is… fucking decades away.”
“Autumn, I love you!”
“Did they tell you to say that?”
“Not everything is so fucking black and white, Autumn. Yes, I was told to seduce you away from Aleksi and make him vulnerable. But I love you, Autumn. That night they blew up my apartment, I got the shit beat out of me because I didn’t give them what they wanted. Because I wanted out.” I grabbed a pen off of the desk and scribbled down what he said.
“Do you know where Gregory is?” I continued and Nikolai sighed.
“Autumn…”
“Do you know where Gregory is?” My question was met with silence. Above the paper I could see the top of Colette’s head as she walked back over to Nikolai.
“No…I never met him. The guys who grabbed me on my way home a few weeks ago said he wanted Aleksi out of the way though…” He answered in a slow shaky voice.
“Why is the Sun Cross working with Vampires?”
“I don’t know. But they’re sending some people to threaten the Lycanthropes next.”
“Do you know anything about the shooting last year?”
“Some ex-military guy named Matt something…or at least that’s who's taking credit.”
“Thank you for your cooperation.” I folded the piece of paper and put it on the desk. Colette was standing behind Nikolai with her hands on his shoulders and he looked like he was going to cry. Were I not completely and utterly numb I would have probably felt something as I stared at them. Even Colette was attempting to comfort him, I just felt emptiness. I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was just…hollow. “I want your stuff out of my apartment by the end of the week.” My voice didn’t even sound frosty, my tone was just empty. I had nothing left. I left Tristan’s office without looking back at either of them. I heard the cuffs unlink and still I didn’t turn around. I let the heavy wood door close behind me as I walked down the well-lit hall weaving between the vampires and servants who seemed to ignore me as Vlad seemed to lurk in every corner and every shadow.
Vlad was there, his outline clearly lurking in the shadows as I dug through Aleksi’s drawers. I picked through his things for something, anything. Unfortunately, what I found I didn’t feel right taking. In his top drawer in a small box was a rough gold ring that looked ancient. It was a signet ring. The ring of the heir of House Dracul. It would go to Nikolai now. I almost took it—he certainly didn’t fucking deserve it. In the end I set it back in its box and continued my search for things of Aleksi’s. With the press of Vlad’s presence all around me, I didn’t want to think of what would happen if I took it. It was the family’s ring even if Nikolai didn’t deserve it. There was a knock on the door, and I near to jumped out of my skin. I turned as the door opened and Leslie walked in wearing a garnet turtleneck and jeans.
“Hey.” She smiled weakly with a sigh.
“Hey.” I leaned back against the dresser and looked over the bedroom.
“Um…Tristan said this is your room now. And that you should probably go to Aleksi’s… he had some personal stuff there he’d want you to have… C’mon I’ll drive you.” I nodded as she spoke and grabbed my purse.
“Alright.”
Minutes later we were on the highway in Leslie’s new little garnet colored fiat 500. We drove in silence as snow fell from the sky in fat picturesque snowflakes. She was the first one to speak, glancing at me nervously as she turned off I-5.
“Tristan’s been hit pretty hard by this too. They were actually a couple for a decade or so at the tur
n of the century. He has to wear a strong face because he’s the leader here. But once the door to the bedroom closes… oh Autumn. He cries and cries, and I just feel…” She sighed. “Colette and Evan have joined us every night since and… Evan and I just feel so awkward. I mean… no one deserves to die like that…but he could be such a dick.” She laughed a little and shook her head. “God he was such a fucking dick. I think that’s what I liked about him. Never before have I met such an unapologetic dick.” I couldn’t help but to smile. Aleksi was nothing if not a total dick. “I remember rehearsing our Pas de Deux for Alice the first time. I was so scared. And every time Evan said stop Aleksi would tease me mercilessly. And that time we were at your new place and Garrett and I spent the night and Aleksi threw the protein shake at his head.” She shook her head a little as she laughed.
“He was so jealous.”
“I was shocked when I heard you two broke up. Really shocked when he replaced you so fast.” She sighed as she pulled into the garage of the tall black glass building. “I think it just hasn’t really hit me yet that he’s gone.”
“Yeah.” I added as she turned off the car.
We were silent until the elevator doors opened on that familiar hallway. I watched as Leslie walked to the door and pulled out the keys. Then it was like someone dropped a mountain of realization on me. Aleksi was gone. I was standing in the hallway to his apartment, Leslie had his keys and I was wearing his tank top and his jacket. My feet were frozen by the realization of the absence of Aleksi. Drawing a deep breath I forced myself to walk forward as Leslie disappeared into the apartment.
Crossing the threshold just felt so wrong. I closed the door behind me and remembered the first time I entered the apartment. My eyes were drawn to the dance room again and the piles and piles of slippers and Pointe shoes ringing the floor. As I looked around the room silent tears started to fall. It pretty much looked the same as it had before—like it was hotel room.
“Did you hear what happened when Tristan told Charlotte Aleksi was sick?” Leslie called from the bedroom. I followed her voice.
“No.”
“The bitch shrugged. And I punched her right in the fucking mouth.” She snickered as I joined her in the bedroom. Leslie was busy digging through drawers. “Wow… I don’t get what Tristan meant there doesn’t seem to be anything here at all.” She closed the drawer and shrugged. “I mean… he wasn’t my favorite individual. But… you could tell he had his issues. Weight of responsibility and all that jazz I suppose.”
She peeked under the bed while I walked to closet and slid the glass doors open. Inside there were no clothes. Instead his closet was filled with labeled bins and boxes. Most just had ballet titles and seasons written on them. Some had women’s names and years. Most of the named boxes were before I was born so I didn’t care too much. It was the largest two boxes that interested me, they both had my name written on them. No date, just ‘Autumn’ in that oh so neat handwriting. Behind me Leslie whistled.
“Do you want me to leave?” Leslie asked as she watched me pull the boxes off of their shelves and set them on the bed.
“N-no…I…I don’t want to be alone for this.” Tears welled in my eyes as I spoke and I wiped them away. I sat on the bed and opened the boxes and Leslie joined me.
For someone so cold and standoffish Aleksi kept everything. The two boxes held our entire relationship. Inside there were printouts of text message logs, ticket stubs from performances I saw him in, and pair after pair of my shredded lacy panties. Blush burned my cheeks through the tears. Leslie and I giggled as I put them aside and continued digging. At the very bottom of the second box was an envelope that said on it ‘for you’. There was a card and a flash drive inside of it. I could tell without even opening it, after handling enough of those tiny little drives you can pretty much make out their shape in anything.
When I opened the envelope I discovered that the drive was wrapped in a yellow sticky note that said ‘watch me first’. I looked over at the desk and found his laptop there still plugged into his charger. I slipped from the bed and opened the laptop kneeling at the desk. I opened the silver lid and found it still logged in. I plugged the tiny drive into the port and opened the video.
On the screen, Aleksi was seated at the desk I now knelt in front of. He was shirtless, the skin of his bare shoulders was practically bioluminescent from the light of the screen. He tilted the lid a few times to adjust the angle of the camera and let out a long slow sigh before those bright blue eyes locked onto the camera lens. It was like he was there, staring at me.
“Autumn. It’s December sixth, and I’m about to head back to Europe on tour with Du Nuit.” He took a breath and sighed with a small laugh before he looked back up at the camera. “And this is harder to do than I thought. I love you. I have loved you since the moment I saw you slide your hands across your skirt from the box during Swan Lake. I know I’ve been an ass. I know I’ve been…cruel even. But I’ve never had the luxury of just doing what I want… or having what I want. It was because I loved you… needed you, that I had to let you go. I started seeing Charlotte not because I love her or want her—I don’t by the way—but out of convenience because everyone expects me to be with someone. And you wouldn’t be safe if there was still even the question of my feelings for you. But I still want and love only you, I’ve always wanted you. Charlotte’s okay, but she’s not you. She was just the first person who came forward after...” He trailed off and sighed and licking his lips and staring at the bottom of the screen.
“I want you to know that no matter what happens, no matter how fucked up things get—I have only really loved one person and that’s you. If tomorrow this shit with Gregory was over… I’d do whatever it took to get you back. I guess that’s not what you’d expect to hear from someone who has tied you up and…” A devious smirk curled his lips and he sighed wistfully. Those vibrant electric blue eyes sparkled with memory. “I miss you, Autumn.” He wet his lips and drew a shaky breath. “But if you’re viewing this…If you’re viewing this I’m dead.” A chill ran down my spine as I watched those words leave his lips.
“I don’t know how it’ll happen… fuck maybe it won’t happen on this trip. But I don’t seem to be that lucky lately. I miss you, Autumn. I miss…watching you sleep, holding you… smelling your hair…watching those eyes of yours light up with need… smelling your desire. Maybe it’s selfish of me to tell you this now that I’m gone… but… I didn’t want you to think I stopped loving you, stopped wanting to be with you just because I hooked up with someone else. And I wanted to say… to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for drawing you into our world. And sorry that we…that we won’t have that little boy.” His eyes actually teared up. I watched as he wiped the tears from his eyes and fell silent. “I… I think he’d have been smart like you… and he would have been so loved.” His voice cracked and he covered his face. I watched as he cried and attempted to pull himself together. “Maybe I’m overreacting, maybe we will have our little Mikhail and you’ll never see this. There’s always hope right? Well…here’s to hope. I love you Autumn. I have always loved you and I will always love you. I like to think love like this doesn’t die…but that being said, I want you to have something I never had except for those moments when we were alone together. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be safe. Which is why… I’m ceding all of my assets to you. Take the money… get your degree, and… be a beacon of light to someone who has more control over their fate… I’m sorry Autumn and I love you.” He kissed the eye of the camera and then the screen went black.
The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. I didn’t want to move. I just stared at that black screen, letting the tears fall freely from my eyes.
7
EVERY ACTION HAS AN EQUAL & OPPOSITE REACTION
AFTER THE MEMORIAL SERVICE HELD OUTSIDE OF THE THEATRE, MY LIFE moved like a funeral dirge. Slow, plodding, and mournful. Aleksi’s boxes had a safe place in my closet now. That small in
nocuous flash drive had a place of honor on my desk in the living room next to my laptop. I watched the video more often than was probably good for me. But two months dragged on, and eventually my life fell into a new rhythm. Tristan actually invited me to come to Du Nuit’s class until they went back on tour. I was pretty sure he did it to make sure I was getting out of the house and not spending all day wallowing in bed.
Spring was in full effect when I started to come out of my funk. The birds were returning, the snow was melting and the flowers and trees were starting to bud. For a change I was actually smiling when I got to class early that day. Towards the end however, while we were doing our jumps Evan and Tristan started whispering to one another while they looked at me. It was weird to say the least.
“Evan wants to do a community project.” Leslie whispered as she dipped into a plie, trying to avoid the eye of the perfect postured blonde roving the lines.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“He wants to put you on stage in an amateur production. You’ve done class with us for a year. You have… eight years ballet experience? Two years less than most who start out in the corps.”
“I’m also twenty-eight, not eighteen. I’ve also got… huge boobs.” I hushed out and Leslie laughed. The blonde shot us a look as the piano stopped. I knew her, or rather I knew of her. She was Pela, she was one of the few who had danced with Aleksi when he was mortal. They had been in the Bolshoi together.
“It’s just an amateur production for a fundraiser. I’m sure Evan considered your tits before he decided to ask Tristan.”
“Me… on stage?” I shook my head and raised en Point and stretched my feet.
“It won’t be a full production. It’ll be five weeks of three hour classes and rehearsals for an hour long show.”
Dark Awakenings (Danse Macabre Book 2) Page 12