16

Casimir

Any lingering good mood between Ophelia and I has soured to something stilted and uncomfortable by the time we make it back to my home.

It's my fault, and hers, and neither of ours.

The conversation got away from us, that's all.

Too much fraught history and too many permissive shadows in the car between us. Too much strange, unfamiliar friendliness and a certain type of circumstantial intimacy that's sprung up in the few days since we've called this fragile truce. Somewhere between borrowed bathrooms and power outlets and homemade pasta in a kitchen that never gets used, we both forgot why exactly it was we were so at odds in the first place.

I don't know Ophelia, not really, but like that night on the rooftop, I'm aching to know just one true thing about her.

Or a hundred. Or a thousand. Because even the bare, plainspoken truths she already gave me tonight don't feel like enough.

As I pull into the drive and turn off the vehicle, a heavy, expectant silence fills the space between us.

Outside, an unseasonably chilly September night has fallen over the city. It's a harbinger of the late autumn and winter to come, and though it's not unexpected, nor does it make me feel particularly comforted to know all that stands between Ophelia and the cold is the thin walls of her van.

"I still can't tempt you inside?" The words leave me before I've fully thought them through, and they land with a slight stiffening of Ophelia's posture before she relaxes and shoots me a small, wry smile.

"As tempting as you've already proven you can be, no, I don't think so."

The words stir a memory.

A bar lit in dim red light. Ophelia's long, long legs in that damned dress she was wearing. The arch of her neck as she leaned in closer to hear me over the din. The hitch of her breath and the racing of her heart as she accepted the hand and the temptation I offered.

It wasn't the only thing that drew me to you.

"Like I said before," I tell her, pushing the memory aside. "I've got more than one spare bedroom sitting empty."

She laughs softly. "And like I said before, I'm fine in the van."

Opening her door and climbing out of the car, Ophelia tosses a flippant smile over her shoulder.

"Good night, Cas. Tonight was… well. Fun isn't quite the word I would use for it. But thanks for being my backup."

I bark a startled laugh. "Your backup?"

"Yeah." Ophelia juts her chin defiantly in the air. "I'm the one who got the lead, aren't I?"

"I suppose you were."

The challenging sparkle in her eye tempers the jab, and with a jaunty wave, she opens the side door of her van and climbs inside.

Back in the house, I walk slowly up the stairs to the second floor. Though I try to ignore the temptation of the window looking out on the driveway below, I'm powerless to prevent myself from stopping for at least a moment.

Tucking myself as firmly in the shadows as I can, I peer down into the darkness. The quiet and the stillness give me too much time and space to think, and everything that passed between us tonight creeps back in.

A hollow ache kicks up in my chest as I remember what Ophelia told me about her family. The mother and stepfather and sister she loves, who will stay just as they are as she ages and eventually leaves this life and leaves them behind.

It helps me understand her better, to slot a few more pieces into place as the puzzle she is comes into clearer focus.

Though I still can't condone the pursuit of a vampire's bloodbond as the means to a long life, I can understand how a twenty-three-year-old looking down the barrel of such a bleak future would have thought it was the lifeline she needed.

I can also respect her ownership of it. The apology she offered wasn't something I needed in order to have already forgiven her, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

If the seven years that have passed since that night weren't already enough for me to get over my own bruised ego, then the soft words she shared with me tonight certainly would have been.

And now…

Now I need to turn away from this window and get back to minding my own business. Now I need to stop playing those soft words over and over in my mind, as if continuing to examine them might unearth some clue, some golden truth to illuminate all the reasons I'm still aching to go down to the driveway and knock on her door. To talk to her, keep arguing with her, work on breaking down all those walls of hers and convince her of the sense it makes to set aside her pride and come inside.

To have her near.

It's the same old ache that's always drawn me to her. Beyond my comprehension, beyond logic or sense or any tangible I could point to.

And now that I know more of her mind, her sharp tongue, the unexpected ease of working with her and bickering with her, of having experienced the unimaginable pleasure of her blood…

It's worse than ever, this ache.

All the more reason to leave it well enough alone.

I'm about to turn away from the window, to retreat to my bedroom—where I already know a night of staring at the ceiling above my bed rather than any actual sleep awaits me—when a motion from the driveway captures my attention.

The side door of the van slides open and Ophelia steps out. She's bundled up against the cold, and I watch as she walks around the back of the van, opens the rear door, and fiddles with whatever she has stowed back there. I can't make out exactly what she's working on with the open door in the way, but after a few minutes, she shuts it.

She walks to where a long extension cord has her hooked up to my home's electricity. Unplugging, then plugging back in, she returns to the back of her van and fiddles for a few more minutes before finally giving up.

With slumped shoulders and defeat written all over her posture, she shuts the door again and rests her forehead against the glass.

She stays there for a few moments, and I'm rooted in place, watching her.

It's not until a gust of cold autumn wind rustles the trees and a shiver runs through her frame that she seems to snap out of it.

Giving her head a hard shake, she walks around the side of the van, climbs inside, and shuts the door behind her.

And then… nothing.

No sound from the van, no lights, nothing that would indicate she has any kind of power… or heat.

My feet start moving without my willing them to.