Page 28 of Missing Piece
“He was in a car accident?” Vincent asked.
She nodded. “I had a hell of a time finding anything on it. Looks like a buddy of his was driving, and they found drugs and alcohol in him. No public records of any legal repercussions, but most of the record from there is a lower limb amputation and physical therapy. There was another OD last year, which reminds me—” she pulled a box from inside her pocket of her hoodie and slid it across the table, “—I grabbed some Narcan from the local harm-reduction group.”
“Narcan?” Vincent picked up the box.
“It’s for overdoses. It reverses them,” Marcus said, his hand rubbing the lower half of his face, his brow pinched as he stared at the box in Vincent’s hands. Vincent knew that expression. It was the one he got before he went on one ofhis ‘responsibility speeches’.
“Don’t—” Vincent warned.
“You need to let him go,” Marcus cut him off. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head again. “I’m sorry, you know I don’t usually step in, but this…it doesn’t feel right. There’s too much wrong with him. He has addiction issues and he’s an amputee? We used to kill people who targeted people like him. Now he’s going to become another notch in your belt of pets? Come on, Vin.”
“He’s not a pet,” Vincent grumbled, looking away from Marcus. He hated these talks. Marcus always had a moral streak about him, but it got worse after he took Ophelia in when she was eight.
“Is he allowed to leave? To move about of his own free will? Do you dictate when he eats and sleeps?” Marcus pressed. “Are you not actually trialing him?”
“He’s not chained up right now,” Vincent snapped.I don’t want to have this conversation. Not today. Not now. Not when I can still taste him.“He just can’t move around too well without his prosthetic.”
“You took his prosthetic?”
Don’t stare at him. I don’t need his judgment. I don’t need anyone’s judgment.Ophelia’s eyes had somehow grown wider as a dark grin spread across her face, her hands, covered by the sleeves of her oversized black hoodie, came to her mouth in a vain attempt to hide her amusement. “Does he—” she began to giggle. “Does he have to hop around?”
“Ophelia!” Marcus scolded.
She buried her face in her hands as her shoulders shook, trying to hold back the continuous giggle. “Or…or does he crawl?”
Vincent glanced from her to Marcus, who was staring open-mouthed at her like he was lost for words. “I thought you guys were working on the empathy thing?” he asked.
Marcus sighed. “Ophelia, can you go play something on the piano so I can talk to Vincent?”
“You gonna talk shit about me when I do?” she asked as she stood up from the chair. She still looked like she was on the verge of laughing, whatever was playing out in her mind clearly more entertaining to her than any of the other things being discussed in her presence.
“Absolutely,” Marcus forced a smile.
She shrugged. “Sure, whatever, you two can discuss your old man stuff.”
Vincent gave her a small nod as she walked past him, patting him on the shoulder as she did. He locked eyes with Marcus as they both waited for her to begin playing. It made little sense to send her away, she was the least human human he had ever met and she knew both of their histories, but he was thankful for it. She knew him as a tough and ruthless creature, barely constrained by the norms their group had agreed on years ago. Wherever Marcus was about to take the conversation, he didn’t want her to hear. Even if she did already know what happened.
The first few notes of Clair De Lune rang out from the foyer and Marcus lit another cigarette. “I thought you weren’t going to do trialing after La—”
Vincent slammed his fist down onto the table. He wasn’t expecting it to take that turn so quickly. “Don’t say his name,” Vincent snapped. He clenched his jaw, slowly uncurling his fist before he ended up breaking another thing in the house. Ever since he took Adam, his temper had been worse, and itwas already a hair trigger at best.
Marcus lit his cigarette, unfazed. “Okay, I won’t. But still. You said you were done with that practice nine years ago,” he said calmly.
Vincent grabbed the bottle from across the table and poured another drink. “Yeah, I know I said that. I just…I thought I knew what I wanted,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“To be like I was before we came down here. Like we were. Bold, unforgiving, not a care in the fucking world. We took what we wanted when we wanted it and never gave an inch,” Vincent shook his head as he stared down at his reflection in the still liquid. “Now look at me. All I do is wrangle drunk and high strippers while making sure the bitey ones don’t bite the customers.”
“We’ve changed with the times, Vincent, it’s not a bad thing,” Marcus said softly.
Vincent shook his head. Marcus was wrong. “It is. I tried being who I was before, and then this little fucker looked at me with those stupid pretty green eyes and even my beast calmed down. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I keep finding myself in precarious situations with him. I don’t know what I’m doing, I just know I can’t stop myself.” He grabbed his refreshed mixture of blood and alcohol and again swallowed the drink quickly, making sure to set the vessel down slowly as the blend burned his throat. “The worst part is I don’t even want to stop.”
Marcus went to take another drag off of his cigarette and paused. “You’re not using your ability on him, are you? Like, when we walked in, you two were outside—”
Marcus wiggled his fingers in the air like Petrov did.Fucking horny fingers. That was really the best name they could come up with. Vincent swallowed hard, trying not to take offense to the question. “Marcus, you know me. I have never used my ability to bypass consent. Not once. I’m a heartless bastard, not a rapist.”
The old bastard just nodded as he puffed on his cigarette, the corners of his lips upturning as his expression lightened. “You’re not heartless, Vin, as much as you wish you were,” he said quietly, as though Ophelia could hear them over the music she was playing (which was now in a minor key and had taken on a haunting, circus vibe that would make Debussy roll in his grave). “I’ve heard of this happening. Our kind suddenly drawn to humans. Wanting them. Needing them. I’ve never quite understood that, but it’s not terribly rare.”
