Page 60 of Wonder
I logged in without a problem, but before I opened his Discord app, my eye caught on the icon for his photos. Simon had known how to use my camera when we’d been at Emiliano Duran’s apartment. Did he have a camera of his own? What did he take pictures of? Before I could debate with myself about whether anything on Simon’s laptop not related to the campaign was off limits, I clicked on the icon.
The first thing that came up was a series of pictures of a bald eagle flying. The file names were labeled, “Eagle, New Braunfels, Texas”. I dug a little deeper. All of the photos he’d taken this year—mostly landscapes or birds and animals—were in the main folder, but he’d created folders by year, going back to—holy crap!—1961.
I clicked on that folder. The first and oldest photos were taken in Greece. The coastline and houses were unmistakable, even if the file names hadn’t been as carefully labeled as his more recent pictures. But the old cars and the way people dressed and wore their hair were definitely from that era. Too bad Simon hadn’t known about selfies back then, because he wasn’t in any of the photos. I stopped on one of the early ones, named “Jimmy in Athens”. A slim, sharp-faced man was holding a small sculpture of a sleeping cat. Weird.
The rest of the photos from that year chronicled Simon’s journey from Greece to Bulgaria, then to Istanbul. I poked around and looked at a few of the photos from each year. I’d known intellectually that Simon had had a long, lonely life tracking the rogue vampires, but these pictures really drove home how alone he’d been and how much he’d gone through to get here now.
I took a minute to stroke his hair. “Finding your mate must’ve been like the ultimate goal for you. Finally, you’d have someone to share your life with. But you got stuck with me instead, and the first thing I did was tell you I didn’t want to be mated to you.”
My eyes burned with tears, but I blinked them back. Crying over how guilty I felt wouldn’t solve anything. Before Simon woke up, I’d better decide once and for all whether I was in or out of our mating. It was only fair to him.
“Okay, Simon. I have two options. First is my original plan, ask you to sever the bond.” I breathed through the pain the bond sent my way as punishment for bringing that up again. “In this scenario, let’s say the new District Monitor shows up in a few months. I go off and sit on a remote beach somewhere by myself. It’s heavenly.” I smiled, imagining putting my toes in the warm sand and watching the sun set over the waves. No phones, no texts, no Discord messages.
“But while I’m doing that, what are you doing, Simon? I can’t ask you to wait around Corpus Christi for me.” I looked down at his face, still beautiful even with matted hair and a slack mouth. “Wonders and magic carriers will be throwing themselves at you.” I pictured some random guy with his hands on Simon’s bare chest, and my vision turned red. Was I baring my teeth? Shit, I hoped this mating bond didn’t give me fangs. “Right. Okay, so what have we learned here? We’ve learned that, as much as I want to go on a tropical vacation by myself, I am not willing to risk you finding someone else while I’m away.” I blinked. Wow, that was easier than I’d expected.
I sighed and laid my fingers against his cheek. “Looks like you’re stuck with me. I hope you like the beach, because we’re going on vacation as soon as the new DM appears. But you can stay in the cabana while I sit in the sand. No pressure to join me.” In fact, it might be pretty romantic to spend some of the days apart, meeting back up in the evening for dinner and lovemaking. “We’ll figure it out, Simon.”
Tucking his hand in mine, our bond purring with happiness, I went back to the folders of photos and clicked through the years. In the late 1970s and the 1980s he’d wandered through Egypt, Sudan, Tanzania, and Nigeria. He’d gotten some great shots of animals and birds, but there weren’t many photos of people. 1990 and 1991 were pretty sparse, but 1992 had a subfolder in it. I leaned forward. None of the other years had had subfolder. It was called “Davi”, and there were a bunch of photos in it, along with a video and another subfolder called “Davi’s Photos”. This must’ve been the friend Simon had said he’d stayed with for a few months. The one who’d passed away.
I started with “Davi’s Photos”. These were typical family and friend pics. Davi had lived somewhere in South America, Iguessed based on the houses and beaches. He’d grown from a gangly kid into a handsome young man with curly black hair and laughing eyes. There weren’t any photos after he was about twenty years old. Had he been that young when he’d passed away?
I went back to the main “Davi” folder and clicked on some of those photos. For once, Simon appeared in a few. His hair had been a little longer than he was wearing it now, and he had a tan, but otherwise he looked exactly the same. Davi, however, was older, maybe around thirty. And he was obviously ill. He still sported a sassy grin in most of the pictures, but as time went on he got thinner and paler. I could see what had to be a couple of Karposi sarcoma lesions on his arm and neck. AIDS. Fuck.
I rubbed my chest, then I lifted Simon’s hand and kissed his fingers. “You stayed with him until he died, didn’t you?” How wonderful of Simon to pause his journey chasing the vampires to take care of his friend. But also, how awful for him. He’d been alone for decades, and his one friend had died after what the photos indicated was only a few months.
And then there was the video. It was called, “With Love from Davi” and I knew I probably shouldn’t watch it. It was for Simon, obviously, and it’d be rude to snoop.
I glanced between the laptop screen and Simon. His head wound was about the same, but he had some color in his face. I should feed him again. I didn’t feel the same antipathy to feeding him from a bag anymore, so I put the laptop aside and went downstairs.
The door to the guest room was shut, so Cal must’ve been asleep. Shirley and Tucker were sleeping on a couple of the sectional’s recliners, and Nicky was sacked out next to Jackson, whose neckactually seemed to be attached to their body now. The goo had dried in a ring where the cut had been, but they were breathing and they glimmered with magic. Thank fuck.
I looked at Simon’s bottle warmer, but it was too much bother to figure out how to use it at that hour of the night. The blood bag had a little tab on one end I could cut off for Simon to drink from, so I decided to warm up the entire bag. I grabbed a couple of kitchen towels, got them wet, then heated them in the microwave, making sure to stop it before the timer went off. Then I wrapped the hot towels around the blood bag. Hey, it worked for tortillas in a pinch, so it would work for blood. I managed to sneak back upstairs without waking anyone.
I snipped off the end of the blood bag with my cuticle scissors—I washed them first!—and Simon immediately started sucking the blood down as soon as I got it into his mouth. He drained the bag in minutes, but he didn’t seem to want more, so I decided to wait a few hours before getting him another.
I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the video on Simon’s computer. I really shouldn’t watch it. It was private. But, on the other hand, if I was planning on staying mated to Simon, wouldn’t it be important for me to know more about him as a person? Who better to tell me than his only friend?
Decision made, I sat up and put a couple of pillows behind me so I could lean against the headboard. I put on my reading glasses and opened the laptop back up. After glancing at Simon one more time to make sure he was still unconscious, I clicked on the video. Davi appeared, wearing a red t-shirt and huddled under a blue and green knitted throw blanket. Simon had mentioned Davi had taught him to knit.
“Hey, Simon.” His grin lit up his thin, ashen face. “I know you told me to stop thanking you for everything you’re doing for me but, too bad! I hid this video well enough that you won’t find it until after I’m gone. You’ll just have to sit there and take it!” He chortled, swinging from side to side in what must be a desk chair. He was wearing the jaguar head pendant. “You may have noticed I’m speaking English instead of Portuguese. That’s because I want you to show this video to your mate when you find him.”
I eyed Simon guiltily. I’d taken that choice from him.
Davi pointed his finger at the camera. “You have to, or I’ll haunt you. You won’t be able to hide from me!”
He had to have completely passed on, though. Simon would be able to see his ghost if he hadn’t.
“Okay, first the thank yous. Not that I can ever thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. Before I met you, I was mostly wishing this disease would hurry up and kill me. None of my family or friends would speak to me, and I was about to resign myself to living out my days at the hospice clinic.”
He turned his head and wiped his eye with the back of his hand. “Fuck, I should have brought some tissues.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Anyway, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You are the best friend a person could have, and my only regret in this life is that I can’t go with you to find those fuckers who kidnapped your prince. I’d do anything to help you and ease your burden. Be your family.” He spun around in his chair and craned his neck as he looked to the side, then he spun back with a cheeky grin. “False alarm. I thought you’d come back early, and I’m not done yet.
“I can’t be there for you, but that Seer told you about your mate, so at least I know you’ll find him before your mission is completed.” He pressed his palms to his chest. “Hi, Simon’s mate. I’m Davi, and I wanted to make sure you know you won the mate lottery. Simon is the best person in the entire world. He’s kind and thoughtful, and he’ll do anything for the people he loves. And you know he’s fucking handsome as sin.” He cupped a hand over one side of his mouth and leaned toward the camera. “And don’t be jealous, but I can tell you from personal experience, he’s got skills in bed.” He sat back, grinning and waggling his eyebrows while he fanned himself. “You are one lucky bastard.”
I paused the video, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I really was lucky, wasn’t I? And I’d been a selfish jackass, whining about my two years of helping Wonders, when the worst thing that’d happened to me was having to quit my job and losing my weekends. What had Simon lost? His family, his home. He’d spent decades with no way to make friends or put down roots. And when he’d wanted to be my mate I’d essentially shitted on him.
And he hadn’t even been mad. He’d been hurt, sure. But instead of throwing a tantrum like I’d done, he’d... helped me. He’d responded to the Wonders, even transferring some of the conversations to his own phone. He’d helped me investigate Emiliano Duran. He’d taken on some of my burdens.
Like a mate would.
