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“And Antony thinks Nero is planning something for this meeting?” Noah’s eyes glint with understanding.
I nod. “And Antony knows it involves Eli and his family somehow. If Antony really believed Eli is a threat to us, he’d have killed him by now. He wouldn’t wait for my permission. He knows if he gets rid of Eli, we lose our connection to Nero, the chance to figure out what he’s up to. He wants me to get close to Eli again so we can find out what Nero is planning.”
“Why not just tell us the truth, then?”
Because he doesn’t trust me anymore.
I try to speak the words, but there’s a lump in my throat and I choke on them instead. Antony is everything to me, he’s held me through my darkest moments, has literally dragged me from my grave. Our parents always taught us that loyalty came before anything else, that family was everything.
It fucking sucks that he feels he has to keep this from me, but I understand. Both of us lived through the ultimate betrayal – Brutus breaking his blood oath to kill my father and take over the family. Both of us lost everything because we believed loyalty kept us safe. Antony wouldn’t make that mistake again, not even for me.
Noah’s looking at me like he expects an answer. I shake my head. I can’t find the words.
“Okay, so your cousin wants us to get Eli to tell him what Nero’s doing.” Noah pulls me close. “We can do that, no problem.”
Wordlessly, I burrow into his shoulder, digging the remote from between the sofa cushions and pointing it at the sound system. A moment later, Gabriel’s smoky voice wafts from the speakers:
You drank my milk,
sipped my blood,
tore my flesh away.
You crawl between the sheets,
My dreams scattered at your feet.
With bloody lips and wide lovely eyes,
You whisper, love me love me love…
I lose myself in the melancholy song, my heart aching at the crack of Gabriel’s voice as he allows his pain to bloom in every note. Even before he died, Dylan’s ghost haunts him, pulling him back into his body – the one person Gabriel can never escape.
All I want to do is hold him. I want to tell him he’s perfect just the way he is, that his broken pieces are all I could ever need. But he’s not here, and I can’t reach him, and I hate myself for it.
Noah holds me while the music washes over me, bathing my sins in Gabe’s beautiful voice. After a while, he clears his throat. There’s a question burning in his mind, and he needs to let it out. “What happens to the August family at this meeting in December? Their leader is AWOL. Who goes in his place?”
“No one can speak for him. Brutus will have to show his face at Saturnalia, or he’ll forfeit his rule over our family.” I realize then how important that is, that we have a chance to unseat Brutus and deprive him of his power if only we can prevent him from attending that meeting.
Noah is thinking the same thing. “That might be one way to get rid of a number of our problems. We find Brutus and make sure he doesn’t get to that meeting. Then it doesn’t matter what he thinks he knows about you.”
“That’s basically my plan. Only, Antony says he doesn’t know where Brutus is hiding.”
The corner of Noah’s mouth quirks up into a smile that’s saturated in violence. “Maybe it’s time we joined the search.”
We decide to ambush Eli at school the next day. We’ll drag him somewhere private and make him see reason. I’ll kiss him until he doesn’t know which way is up, if it comes to that. My lips still ache to kiss him – not the stolen kisses from the dance, but a real kiss – the kind where we need each other to breathe.
But he’s not at school again, and neither is George. I ask Mr. Ross if he’s heard from George, and he says he’s not allowed to discuss another student’s medical history with me. I text her to see if she’s okay, and she sends me a photo of her lying in bed making a duck face. Her hair’s a mess and she’s got a thermometer in her mouth and a glass of orange juice in her hand. I’m sick. It’s a total drag. Miss your face.
Something about the photograph nags at me. “Look at this.” I show it to Noah.
“Oh, poor George.” He looks at my face. “You look worried. I’m sure it’s just a bug or something. I can take you around there if you want—”
“It’s not that. Look at the arm.”
“The…” Noah frowns in confusion.
“The arm!” I jab my finger at the photograph. Along the side of the screen, just visible on George’s Emily the Strange bedspread, is the very edge of a human arm. One that’s definitely not attached to George’s body.
