Page 27 of Missing Piece
“How did that work out?” Ophelia asked, her head cocked. Vincent was surprised. She was actually paying attention toone of her father’s “old man stories”.
“It didn’t. The group fractured. The leader wanted to be careful, and gradual, and a splinter group believed that if they could turn enough people quickly, they could overwhelm society one day. Victory by assimilation, essentially,” Marcus explained. “I moved to Chicago shortly after vampires began killing each other in the streets. I didn’t want to get involved with that, and I knew they’d eventually knock on my door.”
Marcus pulled another cigarette from behind his ear, hidden by his thick hair streaked with black and gray, and clenched it between his teeth as he reached around his suit pocket for a lighter. “Now it seems that they are knocking on your door, my friend,” he said before igniting the tobacco. He took a long drag, exhaling a plume of smoke directly overhead. “We need to deal with them before they get to the younger ones in town. Some of them are still impressionable. We can’t let our hard work all these years be a waste because a bunch of circus tent preachers roll into town. Do they know how many of us live here?”
Vincent pursed his lips, searching his memory for anything that he may have said or done in front of Beth that would have given away their numbers. Nothing sprang to mind. He only began to have suspicions about her the week before he confronted her after finding her rummaging around in the fridge beneath his desk because her behavior was becoming more erratic. At first he thought it was drugs, which was nothing new for dealing with the women who danced at his club, but when he realized she never ate or drank without disappearing into the dressing room first, he knew something was up. “No, she knows me and Luka are the same, but no one else. Well, unless she knows sign language, she couldhave caught us talking about Matteo or Petrov. But I highly doubt that,” Vincent said.
Marcus’s shoulders slumped a little as he relaxed. “That’s good. Let’s keep the circle of known vampires to this cult to a minimum, yeah?”
Vincent folded his arms over his chest, an irritated smirk tugging at his lips. “So what you’re saying is for us to take care of this?” How typical. Marcus was ever the diplomat, down to the part where it pitted him against his oldest friends.
“I’ll help where I can, but it’s better to do so from afar. People like them…more of us means more opportunities to spread their poisonous ideology. As far as they know, four vampires live here and that’s it. The less of us they know about, the less likely they are to move into the city and start poking around,” Marcus said, casting Vincent a sympathetic expression. “These murders are too close to home. We don’t need to attract the attention of hunters again.”
I know, I know.Vincent scrubbed his hands over his face. Marcus wouldn’t say it, would he? He knew better than to bring it up. They had an understanding. He let Marcus live his life as good father and upstanding businessman without ever mentioning the depths of depravity they got up to, and Marcus never outright referred to when Vincent’s brain broke.
“I’ll handle it,” Vincent said. He grabbed the portion that Marcus refilled and chugged it, closing his eyes as the warmth of the alcohol spread through his stomach. It seemed like that as the only way he ever felt warm. Well, unless he was staring at Adam’s clothes too close to the fireplace. Or was right next to the grumpy human. Heat radiated off him like he was a furnace. Like he burned hotter than any healthyhuman should.
A pang of guilt crept into his mind. It didn’t seem right that Adam was alone after what they did on the porch.
What the fuck were you thinking? You should have been pulling out his teeth days ago. Instead you’re cumming in your pants giving him a blowjob. Like some lovesick whore.
“You good, Uncle Vinny? You look…green, which I did not know was possible for a vampire,” Ophelia piped up.
“I’m fine,” he said. He tapped his fingers on the table, letting the sound of his fingernails on the wood fill the void of the room. And his mind.
Ophelia hopped down from the island, the thud of her boots making him turn toward her. “I got that information on your new pet if you want it,” she said, her voice edged with cheer. Vincent knew what she was doing. She was trying to change the subject and distract him. She was a good kid like that.
“Let’s just call him Adam,” Vincent said. Ophelia and Marcus exchanged wide-eyed glances. He ignored them. “What did you find?”
Ophelia sat down beside Marcus, clicking through her phone. “I thought I recognized the name and the picture you sent, but it took me a second. I had Jae pull his medical records, and by the time I really dug in, I started to remember him. I went to school with him five years ago. He was a right asshole.”
“You pulled his medical records?” Marcus asked incredulously. “That’s…really fucked up, sweetie. Wrong, actually.”
“Why is it wrong? You’re cool with Uncle Vinny keeping him chained up here to be food—”
“Give me your phone, we’re deleting these.”
Ophelia began giggling as she tucked her phone to her chest, frantically pressing buttons as Marcus tried to grab it from her. “It’s too late,” she cackled. “I sent it to Uncle Vinny days ago! He just sucks at reading his email.”
Marcus just gave up, caught somewhere between disappointment and horror. “You are a nightmare, child. You’re sixteen. You should be sneaking out to go to parties, not stealing people’s medical records.”
“So, let me get this straight: Uncle Vinny trialing Adam is fine but not looking at his medical records?”
“I never said I was fine with trialing. I don’t like it, I never have, but Vincent is his own person and I’ll respect his privacy as long as it doesn’t put us at risk. And in this case, I think it was stupid and impulsive to start a new trial and there is honestly no need to torment humans for blood when you’re independently wealthy,” Marcus said, his response clearly aimed at Vincent though he faced Ophelia as he spoke.
“We’ve had this argument a hundred times, Marcus—” Vincent began.
“What I take issue with is my daughter participating in a very real crime she could get in trouble for, and that’s not even accounting for the invasion of privacy I’m sure you roped Jae into,” Marcus continued, still speaking to Ophelia.
She lowered her eyes and mumbled something in Japanese to her father. Vincent had never bothered to learn the language, but her demeanor made him think it was a rare show of contrition. She then perked up and stared at Vincent. “Do you wanna know what they say or not?”
“Yes,” Vincent said. He didn’t have the same reservations as Marcus. He wanted to know more about Adam, but he had forgone every previous method of information extraction heused to use on humans in his possession, and it seemed like it was too late to start that. Especially after tonight…
“What I remember of Adam was he was a huge dick, mostly to the quiet kids. There was one he picked on a lot, a real mousy kid who always looked like he was 10 seconds away from having a panic attack every class. That kid dropped out, I think he killed himself or something,” she said as she scrolled through her phone. “I guess props for that, getting dragged out here to be vampire food seems fitting for being such a massive douche.”
“And the medical?”
“Pretty standard records until he was fourteen. He tore his Achilles playing golf, which I don’t even know how the fuck that happens, had surgery, and it looks like by the next year he had his first OD on opioids,” Ophelia raised her eyebrows. “At sixteen, there is a lot of stuff in there about his car accident.”
