A Distant Echo: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series)
Page 6
“I love you,” she said. “I will never leave you.” He shook his head mutely. How many times had he told those same lies, and to how many women?
Paxton whispered to him, teasing him as he wrapped his arms around her and held her almost too tightly, crushing her against him as though he were trying to pull her into his chest. Dropping his face to her shoulder, the silk of her hair brushing his cheek, he gave himself up to the drug of her. Her touch, her voice comforted him when he had not been aware that comfort was something he either needed or desired. He despised the weakness in himself that he thought he had conquered years before. He did not need anything or anyone. His self-sufficiency was as much a part of him as his analytical mind and the strength he had found in pain. When he felt her relax as sleep took her, Elias slipped away from her and went to his lab. It had been weeks since he worked all night, choosing instead to sleep tangled up in Paxton. It felt good to be back to work, he told himself as he checked the screens for the latest results. Looking at his notes he was surprised to see his last entry was two days ago. Almost shamefaced, he began tapping in observations furiously.
When Paxton woke, she was alone. She went to the kitchen which was now stocked with her favorites and made toast with strawberry jam. She finished it off, texted Gillian and had a shower. She made her way to his lab and found him poring over the latest data from his clinical trial in Seattle. He outsourced all the exams and sampling so he could concentrate on analyzing the results for publication. If he had been anyone else, she would have brought him a cup of coffee but she knew that creature comforts were superfluous to Elias. She leaned against the table and waited for acknowledgement. Paxton had grown accustomed to his single-mindedness and was trying to learn patience when what she wanted was undivided attention.
“I’m glad you’ve come here, Paxton,” he said, his formal diction no longer a surprise to her. “It is time we had a discussion.” He brought a folding chair out from a closet and placed it for her. She settled in and waited, somewhat amused at the ceremony of it all.
“Are we defining the relationship now?” she teased, knowing his dislike of talk show jargon.
“More along the lines of terminating the relationship,” he replied. Paxton had been twisting a bracelet around her wrist absently but at this comment her head whipped up so she could meet his eyes.
“What?”
“I believe the form in this circumstance is to express regret and to say that it is nothing to do with you personally. As it is, my work must be paramount and I find our diversion to be an unsupportable distraction.”
“I’m distracting you?” There was ice in her voice, warring with disbelief.
“Through no fault of your own, you are consuming me. Ours is not a relationship of equals, but an imbalanced affair that has run its course. A mortal and an immortal cannot have a sustained union. In most instances, the mortal becomes restless or weakens or simply longs for a return to normal life. However in our case, you have bloomed, grown more energetic, more dazzling and I have diminished in kind. My work only thrives in a vacuum of sorts and you’ve upended my existence. I must decline any further association with you. Regretfully, of course,” he added sardonically.
She slammed her palms onto her knees, reeling. Two nights before, he had been scissoring pad Thai into her mouth with chopsticks, instructing her on their proper use. He had helped polish her first report as a full PR representative before her meeting. Their relationship had been a source of delight to her, his embrace like the cool shade on a hot day.
“Elias, I had never thought you of all men would be jealous of my power. I have taken nothing from you. I’ve just been happy for the first time in fifteen years and you begrudge me that because you think it diminishes you. If you can’t concentrate, take some gingko biloba and grow up. Plenty of people even less brilliant than you manage to have a girlfriend and a job at the same time. You’re being ridiculous. I won’t fight you, though, because I’m only a mortal, how could I hope to compete?” She knocked over the chair as she started to charge out of the lab.
“Gingko doesn’t work. I’ve isolated an enzyme that does, though. I may be able to reverse early-stage dementia, Paxton. Thousands of people wouldn’t have to lose their memories and their minds. Do you truly want me to abandon that so I can entertain you?”
“Yes, Elias, because this was only a diversion after all. Nothing important enough to be worth your time. It isn’t like you can’t do both. You just don’t want me intruding into your careful existence and bringing in all these messy emotions you don’t know how to deal with. “
“I’ve documented my symptoms and I believe it may be an adverse reaction to consuming your blood. I’m accustomed to a very controlled diet of disease-free samples and there may be some component in—”
“You’re saying I’m diseased? How lovely. I’ll have you know I’m perfectly healthy but I wouldn’t dream of getting in the way of your precious work.”
Furious, Paxton left him there. She returned to the apartment, shoved her things in a bag and went home, wondering if she would ever be back.
Chapter 7
“You have to turn me. Elias said it wasn’t a relationship of equals because I was mortal. This is the only answer,” she told Gillian, gesturing pointedly with her ice cream spoon.
“Let’s call that plan B—after ‘forget about him and live your life,’ okay? Because he sounds moody and annoying to me. Doesn’t the guy dump you like every four days or something?”
“No. If you must know, the first time he dumped me we had only known each other for a day. Then he didn’t dump me again until we’d been together for five weeks. That does not average out to every four days. And let’s not mention the duration of most of your relationships.”
“I’m not looking for anything long-term until I get my life straightened out. This sunblock should turn it all around for me. I can never thank you enough for that, Pax.”
“Consider us even, then. You had my back when no one else did.” Paxton shuddered at the memory.
“OK, then let me have your back now. You do not want to make a life-altering decision like becoming a vampire based on the fact that you dated someone for a few weeks and he broke up with you. Wanting to be with a guy is not a good reason to change your whole life.”
“Says the woman who moved out to California to follow that drummer.”
“Jackson was really talented. And we both like California now, right?”
“Sure, but he was also married.”
“I didn’t know that when I agreed to move out here. I had no idea.”
“I know that, babe. However, you don’t have a perfect track record of cool-headed decisions when it comes to men either.”
“For the record, I didn’t decide to become a vampire because the guy was hot. I wanted to be young forever. No one said anything about it being a total nightmare at first.”
“Oh, they’d never convince anyone if they led with a line like ‘it’s a nightmare,’ Gillian. They have to make it sound good. Like you’ll be twenty-six forever and never get wrinkles and you can eat whatever you want and cross the street without worrying about getting killed by a careless driver.”
“I think getting up and walking off after being mowed down by a bus might raise suspicions and that’s like rule number one—tell no one!”
“You told me.”
“You found me writhing around on the bathroom floor and thought I was having a seizure. I had to tell you something.”
“Only because I would’ve taken you to the ER and the sun would have made you melt.”
“I do not MELT. I disintegrate.” She laughed. “Anyway, I’m not biting you and I’m not letting you bite me either. If you want to shack up with this guy on a permanent basis, you’ll have to convince him to turn you. Otherwise, I’m the idiot who makes you immortal and has to spend the next four hundred years of Saturday nights listening to you cry about how your ex didn’t want you back and you gave
up death for him.” Paxton hit her in the head with a pillow, indignant.
“Fine. I’ll find someone more cooperative to bite me.” She caught herself giggling. “Or I might even try your plan about doing my job and living my life. I might get over him.” She said it faintly, trying hard to be convinced.
Paxton finalized the plans for the cultural trip. She took Pepper to a cooking class at the community center where they learned to make tabbouleh, which both of them hated. She worked longer hours to keep the paperwork caught up in her new position and dragged Gillian shopping with her on the weekends. The sunblock worked like a charm so Paxton had her shopping buddy back to tell her the truth about how jumpsuits and pencil skirts really looked on her. She borrowed books from the library and returned them on time, and even discovered a mystery series she really liked. It was almost a pleasant way to live…paying her bills, helping the mentees, hanging out with Gillian. If she’d never let Elias kiss her in the elevator, if she’d never been scared by a mule deer and thrown herself into his arms, she might have been able to enjoy a calm, ordinary life. But she remembered incandescence, remembered rapture and union and the way he had held a lock of her hair in his hand and pressed it to his lips and she was ruined for any other life.
She had trouble sleeping, but she never saw Elias in her dreams. Every night she recited words to herself like a mantra or a charm, reminding herself that she was strong and capable, that she had no need of him or his histrionics (she always threw in that word just in case he had some ability to hear her thoughts, which she knew he didn’t but it pleased her to think she could annoy him from a distance) and that her dreams, like her life and her choices, were her own. Some virtuous girls said prayers before going to sleep, some ambitious girls thought about what they needed to accomplish the next morning. But one girl reminded herself to forget the man she loved. I will not go back to him, Paxton whispered as she went to bed every night. I will forget him until he is a distant echo in my past.
She rolled up the sleeves of her very first silk blouse, black and impossibly fine. She looped a long silver chain around her neck a few times and let it spill down the front of her shirt. She skewered her French twist with a pair of lacquered chopsticks that she told herself didn’t remind her one bit of pad Thai in bed. It was the day of her work appraisal and she wanted to be perfectly polished. The promotion had been awarded to her on a trial basis but she was confident she had earned the permanent position. Loneliness had its benefits for workaholics, she’d found. It had been three months since she’d seen Elias, three months without an e-mail, a text message or a call.
When she reached the office, she was almost the first person there. She set her papers in order, checked her e-mail and her calendar and reviewed the bulleted list she’d prepared that highlighted her accomplishments during the last quarter. She picked up her phone to switch it to silent and saw she had a message.
I am undone. As destroyed by your absence as I was consumed by your fire. Return to me.
Paxton dropped the phone on her desk as if it had scorched her fingertips. Heat flooded her face and tears sprang to her eyes. She bounded out of her chair and paced the length of the room over and over. She quieted her trembling hands, reminded herself she had a job to do, a life of her own and he could not snap his fingers and have her back on any terms. Her heart thudded against her rib cage as though she were running from tigers. She perched on the edge of her chair and reread the message. Shaking her head emphatically, she slid open a drawer to dump the offending phone into it when the phone lit up again.
Forgive me. I will do anything.
She yanked the back off the phone and ripped out the battery, throwing it in the trash vengefully. This was not fair, to upend her carefully rebuilt life on the morning of her review. It was not fair to admit he was wrong, to beg her, to offer her anything she could name when all he would have had to say was “come back” and she would have flown to him as fast as she could. If she had no pride left at all. She dropped her head onto her desk, muttering imprecations about Elias. She heard the elevator and assumed it was her supervisor. Instead, a deliveryman staggered toward her, weighed down by a massive arrangement of raspberry-pink stargazer lilies, their rich perfume coalescing around her insistently.
“Paxton Chambers?” the muffled voice said.
“Yes.”
“These are yours.” He deposited the colossal bouquet, crystal vase and all, on her carefully organized desk. Then he patted his pockets until he produced a card and a box. Leaving them beside the flowers, he retreated.
She buried her face in the irresistible bouquet, having to swipe golden grains of pollen from her lips afterward. Ripping open the card, she read, “I would have sent you lime shampoo and noodles, but I’m old-fashioned after all.” Throwing it down, she tore into the box next, trying to cling to her anger.
A ring fell from the plain black box, a ruby the size of a robin’s egg, set in an intricate band of silver, obviously antique. She cradled it in her hand, stared into the red depths of the stone looking for an answer. Then she fished her battery out of the trash and reassembled her phone so she could dial.
Soon a messenger had biked over to retrieve Elias’ offerings and return them to the source. Hands trembling, Paxton drafted an e-mail to him.
Surely you did not think I am so conventional as to succumb to your unimaginative apology gift. Any fool can send flowers and dictate five words over the phone. I have no intention of being an ornament you look at and amuse yourself with only when your work is done. By the way, I know the ring was a fake. You would never send an authentic vintage jewel by messenger. You must think me credulous as well. Sorry to disappoint. Best wishes to you and your wife (the research) from your onetime mistress, Paxton.
She paused, read it over and hit
She took Gillian out for frozen yogurt to celebrate her good employment appraisal and detailed Elias’ apology attempt.
“You should’ve kept the rock.”
“It was fake.”
“You can’t know that. This is fantastic, by the way. Thanks,” Gillian said, lapping up banana yogurt.
“I have no idea how you can eat that. Banana…ugh!” Paxton grimaced.
“I drink blood and you wonder how I can stomach fruit-flavored yogurt? You are a strange woman. But I knew that already.”
“Watch it. I’ve killed before,” she replied.
“Yeah, but it isn’t like you to joke about it. Did dating the undead give you a taste for gallows humor?”
“Maybe. Or maybe yogurt brings out my dark side.” She forced a smile.
“Do you miss him that much?”
“Even more.”
“So call him. Go see him. I want you to be happy, Pax. It’s all I ever wanted for you.”
“But you were all ‘don’t change who you are for a guy’…now I have your blessing?”
“You never needed my blessing. Do what feels right to you. If that means cutting off your hair or moving cross country or biting some dead guy, go for it.”
“I love our conversations.” Paxton rolled her eyes but the idea stuck with her.
“I can make it home on my own if you want to head over there,” Gillian offered.
; “There’s no hurry. I—OK, you got me. I’ll call you later.”
“Good luck, honey. Did you shave?” Gillian hugged her, giggling.
“What? The guy’s dead. It’s not like he can be picky,” she teased, feeling buoyant, joyous that she would see Elias in minutes.
She took off down the block and found herself jogging uptown to get there faster. She could think of nothing but getting there faster. She dodged traffic when she had to cross the street, jaywalking with impunity. Paxton willed the elevator to speed up, knocked on his door more emphatically than she’d intended. She heard his footsteps, nearly silent, as he approached the door. The knob didn’t turn, the door remained closed to her.
“Elias,” she whispered. “I know you’re there. Open the door.” He didn’t respond. “You said you’d do anything. So open the door. Please.”
She laid her hand against the door, heart thumping hopefully. Minutes passed, moments of silent anguish, as she knew Elias was contemplating whether to reopen the tumultuous chapter of his life that she had starred in. Trembling, she withdrew her hand from the door, thinking of the angry message she had sent him, the flowers and ring she had thrown back in his face. Shaking her head, she began to turn away but stopped herself. Paxton seized the doorknob and wrenched it, pushing inward as the door swung open. Elias sat on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite her. She halted her charging entrance and dropped to her knees before him.
He looked so different, smaller somehow or frailer. He didn’t look like the solid, nearly invincible man she fell in love with. She put it to herself that way for the first time…she loved him, although she’d never spoken the words aloud. Tentatively, she put a hand on his knee. He placed his hand over hers almost sadly. There was no passionate embrace, no climactic fight and intense making up—nothing like she’d imagined a thousand times while they were apart. She dropped her forehead onto his hand, hiding her tears from him.