by Ash Krafton
Still smiling, he faced me but his eyes watched the crowd. His stern voice didn't match his expression. "You are leaving now, Sophia. You don't belong here."
"I belong with Marek." I said it with such force, I surprised myself.
It surprised him, as well, and he shifted his gaze to me. "You don't know him anymore."
"I'm the one who should decide."
"Sophie..." Rodrian's expression softened. "I won't embarrass you. I respect you too much. Finish your drink and leave. I've done what I can to protect you tonight but don't come back. Next time, you will be prey."
I took a deep breath and stood to face him. Thank God I wore heels; our faces were almost level. At least I didn't look like a seven-year-old staring up at her dad in defiance. "I am not prey. I am the Sophia. You will remember that."
My bluff worked. His gaze dropped in reverence but I wasn't sure it would last long. "I want to see Marek. If he tells me to leave, fine."
But he won't, I finished silently. I know he won't.
"Your efforts are in vain. Marek is not here." Rodrian blinked three or four times but I didn't need to see it. I was familiar with the taste of his power so I could tell when he lied. I'd spent plenty of time sitting in on his and Marek's debates. Knowing how each of them felt and hearing what they actually said was entertaining at times.
I reached up and grasped his arm, my sudden touch making him flinch. "Rodrian. I'm not stupid. You're full of shit and you never could lie to me."
"Gods, Soph, you just don't quit." He turned away from the crowd and slumped slightly as he rested his elbows on the bar. The veil of authority he'd been wearing slipped and my old friend, my Rode, shone through briefly. I slid back down onto the stool and for a moment we were friends, commiserating at a bar. "I don't want you to get hurt."
Could I be hurt any more than I'd already been? I held my tongue and sipped at my drink, waiting for him to give in.
Sighing, he straightened and shrugged his suit jacket back into place, another eloquent move that painfully reminded me of his brother. Resuming his mask, he made a quick jerk with his head. "Come with me. But I did warn you."
He turned and walked toward the end of the bar where I'd first seen him. I followed obediently, tugged along in his wake. I wanted to kick him. He didn't need to add a compulsion.
Bossy jerk, that Rodrian.
He led me through a door at the shadowed end of the bar and we entered the private management side of the building. As the door closed, the lights and the sounds of the club snapped off.
So did my bravery. The sudden loss of light and sound tossed me into a cold pool of alarm, and although his compulsion pulled me along, I stumbled.
"Stay with me," Rodrian said. "You don't want to get lost."
I made a pissy face at what I guessed was his back. I couldn't scratch my ass if I wanted. His compulsion was too strong.
I couldn't kick him, either. Stupid compulsions. I followed him through the unlit area; Rodrian moved unerringly in the dark while I drifted dutifully behind like a good little Sophia.
If it weren't for the compulsion, I wouldn't have budged a step. I didn't like the dark, period, and the wards promised awful things would befall me should I wander off on my own. The effective security measure kept nosy humans from snooping. My breaths became shallow flutters, a mouse hiding from the kestrel. The palpable darkness pressed against the edges of my awareness like the filmy air current near a wall, hovering a constant inch from my face.
Claustrophobia to the nth degree.
I heard a door close behind us and dim lights revealed a small square antechamber. No wards. I breathed deep, the imaginary too-tight corset feeling gone. Rodrian paused before a large heavy-looking door but didn't open it.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" His voice was hushed but tinged with concern.
"Do I look unsure?"
"I don't want you to get hurt."
"Why? Does he beat up girls, now?"
He looked like he wanted to shake me. "Not that kind of hurt."
"Rodrian." I deliberately used his full name, swallowing the metallic taste that our traverse in the dark had left behind. I shouldn't have had that Cosmo. "Try me."
He lifted his fist and rapped twice. I discerned no sound or signal but after a moment he opened the door and motioned for me to enter. He closed his eyes as I passed.
I presumed it was Rodrian's office. First thing I noticed was a big black desk, tell-tale portfolios stacked on the edge. Second thing I noticed was Marek. He should have been the first.
He stood behind the desk, the chair against the backs of his legs as if he'd risen in a hurry. I almost ran to him but at a single glance from him I stopped. Something was wrong.
Marek looked exactly as I remembered. His hair, glossy and smooth in its silken tail. His stance, aggressive and imposing, arms crossed, chin lowered like a bull moments before the charge. His eyes, green cream rimmed with lush black lashes. Everything on the outside looked exactly the same.
On a deeper level, I knew he wasn't Marek. A stranger wore his shell.
Confused, I glanced back at Rodrian, whose eyes were trained firmly on the floor. Deference? Regret? Fear?
A chill radiated from Marek, a chill laced with threat and loaded with danger. Coldness seeped from him like a frosty command. I gaped, unable to connect what I saw and what I felt.
Marek stared back, his gaze running over me briefly, hungrily. His mouth twitched in an uncomfortable smile that never reached his eyes. He discarded the failed smile and his face lost all expression.
"Hello, Sophie." His voice had become so much more than mere sound. It carried on a discreet wave of power. It reminded me of something else. Something bad. The thought slipped away before I could think it down.
My voice stalled. I fanned my fingers in a tiny wave.
Marek titled his head. "Enjoying the club?"
I cleared my throat. "Not really."
"Then why did you come here?"
I didn't have an answer. Faced with a stranger, I wondered if coming here was a mistake.
Marek nodded. He'd heard my thought.
"Leave us." His eyes flicked toward his brother. Rodrian slipped out, leaving me alone with a big desk and a man who felt as warm as the marble paperweight sitting upon it. Marek sealed himself behind his impenetrable wall of impersonal power. I couldn't feel him anymore and he was barely seven feet away from me.
"This is no place for you." He delivered the flat remark like a slap on the face.
My cheeks burned as if the blow had been physical. "Oh. I see. You're finished with me." I wouldn't cry, damn it. Angry was easier. "I outlived my usefulness. Is that it?"
"Sophie—"
"No, Marek. I'm a person. With feelings. I went through a hell of a lot with you. How could you just leave me? I would have given you my soul."
"Keep your soul. What need have I for it?" Chill became ice and his eyes glittered with hardness. I realized I'd said the wrong thing. He drew himself up, crossing his arms and assuming a stubborn stance. His eyes brimmed with challenge, leaving no room for kindness.
Ashamed, I lowered my eyes, feeling them sting.
But I'd heard something in his reproach, something that didn't fit. I pushed aside my humiliation and evaluated what lay behind those callous words. Now that I couldn't sense him, I could only listen and interpret. What was the heat behind the coldness?
Pain, my inner voice insisted. My compassion unfolded and the Sophia stretched, sending mental fingers to explore the sensation. He was in pain.
Marek turned his head, exhaling sharply through his nose.
His pain beckoned even though his demeanor pushed me away. I'd become a liability, a weakness to his new strength. The part of him that loved me was a chink in his armor. I knew it with my heart, even without the touch of his power to confirm it.
"Marek?" I whispered his name and dared to raise my eyes. Even so softly spoken, the sound of his name made him flinc
h as if stung by an insect.
I hadn't seen him since the night he overthrew the Master, half-crazed with blood lust and the pains of forced evolution. Not since the night he held me down, tore out my throat, and meant to ride the waves of my death toward some mistaken destiny.
I drew closer, hesitant half-steps, straining past the compulsions he slammed into me as if he sandbagged against a flood. A motionless Goliath, cast in marble, he threw his power at me in warning to stay away.
I'd never been afraid of him, not even the night he consumed me, destroyed me, nearly killed me. I was terrified now. I wasn't sure what this stranger might do. I didn't want to do this anymore but I still had to.
I wasn't sure he'd let me live if I did this but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. I stopped short of pressing against him and reached up to cradle his face. The chill of his skin melted into warmth beneath my touch, a reluctant thawing, and suddenly the warnings ceased.
My touch opened a gate inside him and his anguish rushed toward me. A single tear welled and hung for the briefest moment upon his lashes, a suspended jewel, before it fell.
"Oh, Sophie," he whispered and drowned me in the depths of his gaze.
I swam through the despair that threatened to pull me under and I willed him to open up to me. I needed to heal his pain. The part of me that did such miraculous things awoke within me, ready to do whatever was necessary. Determined, I silently begged him to let me in. Nearly there. So close.
He pulled my hands away, and his walls sprang up again, locking me out. His voice sounded jagged and strained as if he forced himself to do something painful. "You must leave. Do not return. I'm not the man you knew. You cannot be near me."
His voice ceased but I heard his insistent mental whisper: What we shared is over.
I refused to accept it. I did not come this far, though more emotional and physical trial than a hundred women should have to bear, to be simply shut out by a stubborn man.
"Come back to me, Marek. Come back to the way you were." I would have begged on my knees were I not held fast by his hands, hands that once caressed me. "Find your true self. Let me find it with you."
"This is my true self, Sophia." Releasing my hands, he stepped back, increasing the distance between us. I felt the wordless threat he'd emitted countless times in the past. Now he directed it at me. I knew I wasn't safe from it anymore. "I have evolved past our life together. That Marek is dead."
"You gave up."
"I did not give up. I am obeying my nature."
My hope faded as his words struck home. The chill he radiated soaked into me, the killing frost of hope.
He must have evolved or gotten so close to the edge it didn't matter anymore. His nature had changed. The part that still loved me was a tiny voice against a cacophony of new power.
Marek was destined to fight. He'd been a warrior long before I'd been born, and would be long after I returned to dust. If loving me were a weakness, he'd fight that, too. All we had, all he helped me realize about myself, all he encouraged me to dream would one day be—all of it, gone.
It is over. He bored the thought into me like a drill, cracking my determined resolve to fix him. Fix us—
The realization staggered me, leaving my soul bare and raw and wide-open. It hurt to swallow. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist.
Grief stole up beside me like a phantom, wrapped its suffocating arms around me. Grief, deep and warm and dark, swallowed me, took the world away, pulled me down and buried me. Grief poured into me like liquid, so much more than the vessel of my soul could hold. I struggled to breathe and every breath only brought more anguish. My head swam and I swayed.
I fought for control. I refused to look weak in front of him. Grief fell like rain, drenching me in torrents of pain.
I swallowed it down, pushed it into a place where it couldn't cripple me, packed it away. The anguish wouldn't all fit but enough did for now. The room came back into focus and I stared at the carpet, unsure where else to look. I couldn't bear to look at Marek, not now. Now I knew the source of his pain. He hated himself for loving me.
He strode past, the breeze of his passing rustling my skirt. I didn't hear him leave. My heart made too much noise as it shattered.
Rodrian reappeared, pressing hesitant fingers to my elbow. "Sophie, I..."
Him, I could feel. The pity of his affection made me angry and sick. I thrust the palm of my hand between his face and mine, cutting him off, not wanting to hear a single word. I didn't want a reason to blame him for what just happened.
He hitched his breath and bit his lip but didn't protest, only turned without a sound to lead me out. I submitted numbly to his silent compulsion. I wanted to scream but I couldn't draw enough air. It was all tangled up in my chest in a sob that fought to escape.
Rodrian led me to a private exit, sparing me the return trip through the club. At the door, he pushed it open, leaning to kiss me on the forehead before showing me out, lifting his compulsion as I passed him.
"Be careful, Sophie," he whispered. "Live long."
Without a word, I stumbled down the steps and hurried toward the main street. Cabs lined the street, waiting for fares, but I ignored them. My feet banged out an automatic pace, sidewalk after sidewalk, block after block, one foot in front of the other.
I walked home, wondering if the pieces of my life would still be lying where I'd left them. Wondering if they'd even fit me anymore.
I forced myself to survive.
It was like when I quit smoking. I'd quit and failed maybe a dozen times since my first cigarette. Trouble was I loved smoking. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Loved the taste, loved the drag, loved to chuff out the smoke in a big beautiful menthol-flavored cloud. Poison? Sure! Would it kill me? Sure! Loved it anyway.
I didn't want to quit. But it was something I had to do if I wanted to survive. At least that was what my doctor said. The last time I quit, I had an epiphany. I realized it was something I had to work at every day. Every morning I needed to wake up and quit all over again. Eventually the physical craving and dependency subsided, as I knew they would. It just took time.
The mental addiction, however, was always there. It always would be. One smoke would be the first of a boatload. Therefore, I'd learned to quit every day. It sucked, because I never stopped wanting a cigarette.
I did the same thing with Marek. That was how I survived.
Eventually, I ceased to feel the ghost of his touch on my skin. I became accustomed to the feel of only my presence in the room, to walking under the blind stars alone, my jacket the only thing between the evening chill and my bare skin. However, the mental addiction to him was always there. It always would be.
I learned to quit Marek every day. It sucked, because I never stopped wanting him.
Time eventually ran out on me and it was time to go back to living. I didn't have a good enough excuse for hiding anymore. Best friends died. Lovers left. I needed to deal with it and move on. Everyone else did.
So, I did what every red-blooded, emotionally crippled, physically tortured, American woman did after she'd been abducted, forced to watch her best friend's death, and nearly eaten by her ex-lover. I went back to work.
Hey, the rent didn't pay itself.
When I returned to the office, my co-workers greeted me like a prodigal child and Barbara kept me in her office until lunch. She was never one to blatantly gossip so it took her all morning to subtly fill me in on the latest office dirt.
It only took me two seconds to announce I'd broken up with Marek. Weird, to be on the listening side of a conversation.
When she realized no more info was forthcoming, she switched to juicier topics. "And Donna—I just can't get over that mess with her."
I wagged my head and played clueless, rubbing at a nonexistent spot on my pants, and dreaded the sound of the truth. "Did you hear from her yet?"
"No. Just—nothing. She was such a professional. I expected more from her, more than quitting—no n
otice, no goodbye, nothing. When Amanda cleaned out her desk, she found this. I thought you should know."
She pushed an envelope toward me, a letter addressed to the column.
It was one of Patrick's. I chewed my lips, keeping back everything I wanted to say and offered a simple "Bitch."
Barbara's indignation was tinged with disappointment. "Just wait until she calls for a reference. No matter how they leave, they always call for a reference."
I headed back to my desk, intending to spend the next two hours reading mail in my cube. Still so strange to be at the office and not have to duck a single barb from Donna. Three letters into the pile, I felt a dull thud of shock.
Dear Sophia, it began.
Sophia. No one ever addressed a letter like that because the column was called "Sincerely Sophie." I dropped the letter on the desk in disbelief. One of the Demivampire had used my column as a way to petition me.
I shuffled through the stack. Out of roughly forty letters, nearly a quarter of them began Dear Sophia. I checked the return addresses on the envelopes. All different. I logged on and Switchboarded the addresses—all businesses, no personal names.
I recognized a few of the business names from Rodrian's discussions and assumed the rest. The Demivamps still thought I was the Sophia. I guessed they never got Marek's memo saying I'd been fired.
I penned a brief, polite letter citing my retirement, thanked them for their interest, and photocopied a thick stack. Although it consumed more time than I wanted to spend, I stuffed the envelopes myself, dropping them in the outbound mailbox on my way out the door. I ended up leaving around the same time as everyone else.
How about that? I'd actually put a full day in at the office.
I figured it would take a week for the letters to reach their destinations and for the message to sink in. However, a month passed and still the Sophia letters arrived. I even received a formal invitation to a luncheon hosted by one of the Councilmen who'd been at my coming-out party, after which a serious discussion was planned.
The DV showed every intention of continuing to use me.