Chapter 242: I Missed You
Marlene understood that Elias had tricked her the instant the bill was safely in his hand.
She lunged for it.
"Hmm?"
Elias narrowed his eyes.
The look stopped her cold.
Marlene’s hand hovered in the air, close enough to snatch the money back, yet she could not force herself to close the final inch. The boy in front of her had once ducked his head when she shouted. He had once gone quiet when she demanded something. Now he looked at her with the steady, chilly patience of someone deciding whether she was worth bothering with.
"Thanks for the gambling money," Elias said pleasantly.
He folded the fifty-dollar bill, tucked it away, and gave her a little wave as he walked out.
The front door shut.
Marlene stood in the living room with every word she wanted to scream trapped behind her teeth.
To a gambler, cash was not only cash. It was another round. Another chance. A promise that the next loss could still be undone. Taking money from her felt like cutting away something alive, and Elias had just walked out with the last bill she had managed to keep from Arthur.
Anger surged up her throat.
Then she thought of Elias still being close enough to hear it.
Marlene swallowed the rage down so hard it left her chest aching.
Minutes passed. When she finally decided he must have gone far enough not to hear, the mood had already gone flat. Keeping the anger in, then trying to bring it back, had bled most of the force out of it. What remained was a miserable knot behind her ribs.
"Arthur," she said, turning toward him. "Don’t you think he’s acting..."
A knock sounded at the door.
Marlene went quiet at once.
Her eyes shifted toward the hall. It had to be Elias. He had gone out without a key, realized it, and come back. An ugly part of her hoped he would be stuck outside for an hour. Someone with a memory that bad deserved it.
She did not dare make that choice.
She gave Arthur a look instead, telling him to open the door. She wanted Elias to think Arthur had rushed to help, not that she had been waiting for permission.
Arthur opened the door and stopped.
The woman on the stoop was tall and striking, elegant enough to look out of place beside the peeling paint and rusted railing. Her eyes had a soft, naturally flirtatious shape, the sort that made people think she was smiling even before her mouth moved.
Arthur did not know her.
Liora spoke first.
"Hello." She inclined her head. "You must be Elias’s father. I’m Liora Voss. You can call me Liora."
Arthur had never met her, or Serena Blackwood. Still, he recognized the voice. He had heard it over the phone and seen the effect it had on Marlene. It belonged to someone whose calmness carried more weight than a threat.
Her politeness caught him off guard.
"Please," he said quickly. "Come in."
Marlene heard the voices and hurried over. The sight of Liora sparked the complaint inside her all over again.
"Ms. Voss, listen. Elias is really not right."
Liora’s gaze turned toward her.
Marlene stopped talking.
Liora had addressed Arthur with ordinary courtesy because she did not yet know what Elias wanted from him. Marlene was easier to understand. Liora knew enough about the household to know the woman had not acted like a mother when Elias needed one. Elias’s behavior on the call had made his attitude toward her perfectly clear.
Liora did not need to be warm.
"Where is Elias?" she asked.
Marlene opened her mouth.
Then she realized Liora was looking at Arthur, not her.
"He went out to buy something," Arthur answered.
The strain around Liora’s eyes loosened.
She fell quiet for a moment. A faint smile touched her lips, filled with relief and something Arthur could not identify.
"I see."
Marlene tried again. "Did you need something from him? You can tell me. I’ll let him know when he gets back."
Liora shook her head.
"When he returns, don’t tell him I was here."
Then she walked away.
On the sidewalk, Liora looked back at the house.
It stood crooked and tired beneath the daylight, a narrow old structure with stained siding and windows that seemed too dim to hold anything good. Once, she would have passed a place like this without a second glance. Now she had entered it willingly because the person she wanted most had grown up inside it.
Reality had a cruel sense of humor.
She had come on impulse. After hearing that Elias was supposedly unwell, she had only wanted to see him for herself. To hear him speak. To be certain that no one inside that house had been allowed to hurt him again.
Learning that he was out had drained away the worst of the urgency.
Calmer now, Liora could admit that coming here had been reckless.
She turned to leave.
Elsewhere, the phone call that had sent her here had just ended.
Liora was in Serena’s private room at Longhaven Hospital, lowering her phone as Serena watched from the bed. An IV line ran into Serena’s arm. Bandages covered much of one side of her face, leaving only her exhausted eyes fully visible.
"How is he?" Serena asked.
"He isn’t doing well," Liora said.
It was a lie.
Serena’s voice lifted at once. "Marlene didn’t take care of him?"
"She did. It isn’t because of that."
Liora considered the version of Elias Serena expected to exist after the garage. The version who had supposedly broken under the truth about Arthur and Marlene. The version who would shrink into himself, avoid eye contact, eat only because someone made him, and lie awake in the old house listening for every sound.
"He’s quiet," Liora said. "He barely speaks. He looks exhausted. He’s trying not to cry in front of them."
Serena closed her eyes.
She did not want the nurse checking her IV to see her weakness. Liora knew it anyway. Serena was hurting. The thought of Elias miserable in that house was enough to make the woman who had once treated him as a replaceable copy look as if she might break apart.
Liora watched her sister and felt the same disbelief as before.
Serena Blackwood had once loved women. No one who saw her now would guess that. Elias had reached into her life, taken every certainty Serena possessed, and rearranged it without appearing to force anything.
That was why Liora could not look away from him.
Marlene’s warning had stirred something in Liora too. She had investigated Elias’s past closely enough to know that none of it should have led to the young man he was now. The old records, the old photographs, the school reports, the entire small history of his life did not contain this version of him.
Nothing in that boy’s past explained Elias’s eyes, his nerve, or the way he turned powerful women into participants in games they did not know they had entered.
Possession was absurd.
A soul from another world was worse.
Yet compared with the truth she saw every time Elias smiled, even that began to sound possible.
Liora lowered her head and smiled to herself.
She would rather believe he had come from somewhere else.
Some beautiful little demon, sent here to ruin her judgment and make her want him forever.
[Liora Voss’s favorability has increased. Current value: 99%.]
"Where are you going?" Serena asked as Liora headed for the door.
Liora did not turn back.
"I’m going to see my Little Kitten."
Back at the house, the notification reached Elias before he left to make his purchase.
He rolled over on the bed so quickly the old mattress squeaked. Excitement burst out of him before he could lock it down. He buried his face in the pillow and let out a muffled cheer, both feet curling tightly inside his white socks.
[System Theta: Host... what are you doing?]
Elias froze.
The question pinned him in place.
For several seconds, he did not move at all. Then he slowly lifted his head, cleared his throat, and smoothed down his hair.
"Nothing."
He stood. "I’m going out to buy something."
System Theta hesitated.
[System Theta: Are you excited?]
Elias turned on it with an almost feral look.
"Knowing too much will get you hurt," he said. "Do you understand?"
[System Theta: I don’t know anything! I know nothing!]
"Relax. I’m kidding." Elias’s expression softened. "I was a little excited. This is an important step toward retirement. It would be strange if I felt nothing."
Anyone who mocked him for that could get bitten.
[System Theta: Is that really all?]
The system sounded doubtful. Its trust in him won in the end, and it accepted the answer without noticing the faint color that remained in Elias’s face.
Damn it.
He had forgotten the system was always there.
Elias went back into the living room, where Arthur and Marlene sat stiffly on the sofa. He held out his hand to Marlene.
"Give me some money."
Marlene shook her head at once. "I don’t have any. I already gave everything to Arthur."
Elias narrowed his eyes.
A moment later, a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill appeared in his palm.
He smiled.
"So you did have money?"
Marlene stared at him.
What?
Now, as Liora prepared to leave the old house, a faint clean scent reached her from behind.
Before she could turn, warm arms closed around her waist.
Elias pressed close behind her, his body relaxed against her back as though he had known exactly where he would find her.
"What are you doing here?" he asked with a knowing laugh. "Did you miss me?"
Liora’s cool hand caught his.
Her answer was quiet, steady, and far too honest.
"Yes. I missed you."
Elias rested his cheek against her back. His mouth curved.
"Really? Then that makes two of us. I missed you too."
Liora smiled.
She knew the answer was probably a lie. People in love said beautiful things constantly, then let them turn meaningless once the heat faded. Elias was better than most at making a lie sound sweet.
Still, hearing it from him pleased her.
Her thumb moved slowly over the back of his hand. Then her fingers found the edge of something small.
Liora’s expression changed.
She opened Elias’s hand and looked down.
A small sealed box rested in his palm.
She knew exactly what it was.
Who had he planned to use it with?
Liora unfastened his arms from around her waist and turned to face him.
They looked at each other.
Elias seemed to understand her question before she asked it. He lifted the box between two fingers, flashed her a bright smile, and tilted his head.
"Want to come help me put one on?"
Liora did not answer.
"If I weren’t standing here," she asked, "would you let someone else do it?"
Elias blinked, then looked at her with playful innocence.
"Do you want the honest answer or the fake one?"
"The fake one first."
Liora’s hand closed around his wrist. Her grip tightened by degrees.
Elias’s smile became more daring.
"The fake answer is that whoever came along, I’d let her help."
Liora’s fingers tightened further.
"The honest answer," Elias said, "is that this box is only for you. No one else gets to help me with it."