Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“I’ll pass,” says Kyle too quickly, awkwardly adds, “Thank you,” then wonders why the hell he’s thanking him.
Lazarus’s thin lips twist into a smirk, which is oddly more pleasant than the smile. “Are you saying you already wish to depart back to your … life?”
There is a faint belittling tone in that last word, particularly in the way he hesitates with saying it, like what Kyle leads isn’t worth calling a life at all.
Not too long ago, Kyle might’ve agreed.
But Kyle didn’t come here to prove himself to Lazarus. He came here for answers. He came here for security and peace of mind. He wonders if he’ll be returning home with neither.
“You did ask for just one night of my life,” Kyle points out.
“I did,” agrees Lazarus, “with the hope you might consider more. How can you understand the full breadth of your existence in a single night? You haven’t even witnessed a proper hunt yet.”
Kyle gives him a shrug. “Maybe next time.”
Lazarus studies him a moment, then gifts him with a nod. “Next time, perhaps. You know where we are currently staying. In a few days’ time, you may decide to visit us again. Our doors are always open for our guests to come or go as they please,” he says, with no irony acknowledged to the literal prisoner in the cage next to him. He eyes his brother. “Meet me at the exit of the cave when you’re ready. Be fast.” Then he saunters away.
Drake peers back at Kyle. “You’re wondering it, right?”
Kyle squints at him. “Wondering what?”
“If the front entrance is the Devil’s Mouth, then what’s the back one called?” He spreads his hands and all but sounds out the ba-dum-ching of his punchline. “Devil’s Butthole. C’mon. You were thinking it, don’t lie.”
“You gotta get ready for your hunt, don’t you?” Kyle turns away, moves back to the cage, where the bodybuilder has been standing there nervously watching, listening. “Better go before your big bro scolds you again.”
Drake pauses. “You mad at me? You didn’t laugh.”
“Why would I be mad? I don’t know you. Hell, maybe I was dead wrong and you really are totally okay with everything that happens in this cave, with the laughable amount of regard you and your brother spare for humanity. Well, not me. As it turns out, I’m not a maniacal human-hating hedonist.”
“Kyle …”
“Just fuck off already.”
It sounds as if Drake lifts his hand to touch Kyle’s arm or shoulder, then stopped. Kyle can’t feel or sense a single one of the vampires with his Reach, but he feels every bit of Drake just as strongly as if he shared his emotions. He feels Drake’s doubt. He knows it’s there. He also senses a lonesomeness—itself like a cave, yet without heaps of treasures or reveling guests, only emptiness and echoes of nothing. Is that lonesomeness the part of him that reaches for Kyle? Does he see Kyle as a companion at long last, after suffering the company of such monsters?
All hope for reaching Drake dies as Kyle listens to the soft sounds of his footsteps as he leaves without another word.
Kyle closes his eyes and clenches his fists, frustrated.
And now what? Does he just stand here twiddling thumbs? Does he wait for Drake to have a change of heart, return, and help him break this guy out of this cavern? Does he change his own mind and join Drake and Lazarus on their hunt, hoping to find the answers he came here seeking?
“Please don’t leave me.”
Kyle looks up.
The bodybuilder appears to be the one who has a change of heart instead, according to Kyle’s Reach. He is scared, but a warm light has kindled inside him, a warm light made of hope, glowing like a weak lantern in a dark and treacherous cave, and any stray gust of wind could knock it out.
Kyle frowns. “Oh, now you want my help.”
“Please, man, don’t give up on me! I’m Michael. Mikey. I go by Mikey, that’s my name, Mikey Kowalski, I’m begging you not to leave me here, please! My family must be fucking scared. I’ve been away from home for, like, maybe nine months.”
That surprises Kyle. “Nine months?”
“Or maybe ten. I don’t fucking know, man, I can’t tell time down here. That Salazo,” groans Mikey, clinging to the bars of his cage, “is a fucking sick-ass pervert fuck. Every single day, he makes me work out until I’m dripping with sweat, then licks my body dry, every fucking crevice, places I ain’t ever had a tongue before, even my fucking asshole. He pretends to set me free at night, then chases me down and drags me back here, and that’s the fucking worst part of all, because then he ties me down so tight my wrists and ankles ache, acts like I wasn’t allowed to run away, and punishes me by biting and sucking on every part of me, all over, even biting my d-d-dick.” He’s starting to cry. His fingers slip through the bars where he grabs hold of Kyle’s shirt, tugging. “You can’t leave me, man, you’re my only hope, you’re my only fucking hope, please, please, please!”