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He smirked. “Yes.”
“Do you…” My voice trailed off as I tried to piece the facts together. “You don’t just work here, do you?”
He shook his head. “Not by a long shot.” Before I could ask anything more, and with his body slowly turning back to the front door, he spared me one last glance as he cocked his head in the direction of the house. “Come in.”
Hesitancy filled my every pore as I followed him up the stairs and inside. Caius led me down the glass corridor, stopping halfway down the hall. He turned and faced the window, and I mirrored his actions as I stood to his right. The outside rain was now a fine mist as the rest of the gloomy daylight faded. I pulled my hood off my head, exposing my dark brown hair in a loose—now wavy—braid. I pulled it over my shoulder, then placed my hands back in my jacket pockets.
I could feel Caius look at me from the corner of his eye. He was trying not to stare, but I could feel the heat of it. My chest felt heavy at his attention, and my lungs tightened at the thought of him letting me in.
He was opening the door to his world to me.
A few long, drawn-out moments of silence surrounded us before I got the courage to speak again.
“What did he mean back there? What’s this ‘show’ he mentioned?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he used his hand to shake his dark hair of any excess rainwater.
He kept his gaze on the land ahead, the area riddled with a handful of pathways and hundreds of beautifully built mausoleums. His face was stoic as I continued to watch him, waiting for him to give meanysort of clue of what was to come.
Finally, the clouded sun had officially set, and his body turned tense. Even more tense than it already was.
“Celeste,” he turned to face me, his hand reaching to grab my arm. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. What I’m about to tell you—what I’m about toshow you—is real, and I need you to stay with me, okay?”
Oh, shit.My heart thumped at his drastic, dark words.What have I gotten myself into?
I swallowed the newly formed lump in my throat as I nodded.
With his eyes still on mine, Caius squinted and his eyebrows furrowed, a sudden confusion striking his face. The hand that was clutching my arm moved up to the left side of my face, where I felt a drop of rainwater slide down my cheek.
“What is this?” he asked, his thumb brushing away the water.
Because I was so caught up in whatever was about to happen, it took me a moment to realize what he was confused about. My makeup was beginning to come off. I quickly took a step back and swatted his hand away, moving my own up to cover my cheek.
“Nothing, it’s nothing.”
His jaw ticked, and his head tilted at my lie. Panic began to set in as I kept my hand on the left side of my face. Sure, he was letting me into whateverthiswas, but I wasn’t ready to let him into my side of secrets. At least, not yet.
Just as I was about to fabricate some stupid lie, I saw a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. There was something outside, and I turned my head to look.
The rain had stopped completely. There was a woman walking across the dark path in front of the window. She was dressed in an all-black dress, the bottom hem gliding along the stone with each soft step she took. She didn’t bother to look at us as she continued on.
“I thought you guys closed at night? What is she doing here?”
Caius watched her out the window, a small grin forming on his lips.
A man came from the other direction, walking down the same path in front of the window, not sparing us a glance either. He passed the woman in black without greeting and made his way out of sight.
“Are you gonna go tell them to leave?” I asked with my palm still resting on my face.
Caius shook his head, the smirk still there. “No.”
“You gave them twenty-four-hour access, too?” I asked, still confused as to what this all meant. I didn’t know why I was in here, why he was showing me this, and why I needed to know in the first place.
“Not technically,” he began, then took a deep breath. He turned back to me, eyeing the hand still covering my face. He shook his head, and I knew he was saving his comments to address it later.
“Nighttime is special here, Celeste. Nighttime is when there’s nowhere to hide, no matter how hard you try. Darkness might shield you, but it never erases who you are.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, my mind lost in his riddled words.
