Darkest Night. Will Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ stared helplessly at her boyfriend. “Jamie …”

      “He hugged me. Can you believe that? Just hugged me, like nothing had happened. I was nearly sick.”

      “What happened to him? Where has he been?”

      Jamie shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I told him I never want to see him again. Told Frankenstein the same thing.”

      Larissa grimaced. This was exactly what she had dreaded, every time she closed her eyes at the end of another day in which she had failed to tell her boyfriend what she had overheard.

      “Why?” she asked. “What did Frankenstein do?”

      “He knew, Larissa,” said Jamie. “He knew Dad didn’t die, that he was still alive the whole time. He was sending him emails, for Christ’s sake, giving him updates on me and Mum. How could he do that?”

      “I don’t know,” said Larissa, her voice low. “I presume he thought it was for the best. He would never hurt you, Jamie, not on purpose. You must know that.”

      “I don’t know anything any more,” said Jamie. “I can’t trust anyone apart from you and Kate and Matt. And my mum. My poor mum, Larissa. What am I supposed to tell her about all this?”

      Larissa stared at him. She had no answer to his question.

      “She thinks he’s dead too,” said Jamie. “She mourned him. We mourned him. It’ll destroy her if I tell her.”

      “So don’t,” said Larissa, “if you don’t think it’ll do any good. Let her be.”

      “I don’t have the right to keep it from her. I can’t make that decision on her behalf.”

      “You can,” she said. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, if you think you’re sparing her pain. Or you just don’t know how to tell her.”

      Jamie stared at her for a long moment, then frowned. His eyes narrowed, and Larissa saw red light flicker into their corners.

      “Why aren’t you more surprised?” he asked, his voice suddenly low.

      “What are you talking about?”

      “I just told you that my dad faked his death, that he’s been alive this whole time, and that Frankenstein knew about it. So why do you look like I just told you tomorrow’s weather forecast?”

      “Jamie …”

      His face fell, and Larissa felt a shard of ice pierce her heart.

      “Oh no,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, his eyes huge and staring. “Not you too, Larissa. Please. I can’t bear it.”

      “I didn’t know,” she said, her voice high and unsteady. “Not for certain. You have to believe me, Jamie, I didn’t know. I just overheard something I wasn’t supposed to.”

      “What?” he asked. “What did you hear?”

      “When I came back from Nevada,” she said. “There was a prisoner on the same flight, in handcuffs and a hood. We weren’t allowed to even speak to him. When they brought him off the plane at the Loop, Cal Holmwood was waiting in the hangar and I heard him say, ‘Welcome back, Julian.’ That’s all, I swear.”

      “That’s all?” said Jamie. “That’s all? How many prisoners called Julian do you think the Director would have made a point of personally welcoming?”

      “I see that now, Jamie.” She was on the verge of tears, but she ordered herself to stay strong, to get through this without breaking down. “But I didn’t know if it would do any good to tell you. What if it wasn’t him? Or Cal refused to tell you either way? It would just have made things worse.”

      “Worse?” said Jamie, his voice rising as his eyes narrowed. “It would’ve made things worse? Are you kidding me?”

      Here it comes, thought Larissa. Here comes the explosion.

      But she was wrong. Jamie stared at her, his face reddening, then let out a long, weary sigh and dropped his eyes.

      “Were you ever going to tell me the truth?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

      “I was going to tell you this afternoon,” said Larissa, realising how pitiful the words sounded. “I was coming to find you when I found out you and Frankenstein had left the Loop.”

      Jamie let out a grunt of laughter with absolutely no humour in it. “That’s convenient,” he said.

      “It’s the truth,” she said. “I hope you can believe it.”

      “No more secrets,” he said, and grimaced. “Right? That’s what we promised each other.”

      Larissa didn’t respond. There was nothing she could say. She stared silently at her boyfriend, profoundly aware of the chasm that seemed to have yawned open between them. Jamie kept his gaze on the ground, his shoulders hunched, his arms wrapped tightly round himself. He looked so small, as though a strong breeze could have blown him off the branch and sent him tumbling to the lawn below. When he finally spoke again, he didn’t look at her.

      “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About everything that’s happened since Alexandru arrived in this tree. Blacklight, Dracula, vampires, all of it. And I’ve realised something. Nothing good has come of any of it.”

      Larissa felt her heart break in her chest. “Nothing?”

      “Nothing.”

      She tried to ignore the pain his words had sent coursing through her body, and forced her vocal cords into action. “You can trust me,” she said, hearing the unsteadiness in her voice. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, and I understand if you find it hard to believe. But you can trust me, Jamie. You really can.”

      He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes. “I’ve heard that before,” he said. “More than once.”

      Anger burst through Larissa as her vampire side rushed to the fore. She knew she was in the wrong, that Jamie had every right to feel disappointed and let down, but she could not simply float in the cold air and allow herself to be tortured indefinitely.

      “What are you saying, Jamie?” she demanded. “No more bullshit. Talk to me.”

      “I need to think.”

      “About what?”

      “About everything,” said Jamie. “About what happens next. It’s all coming to an end, Larissa. Everything. Can’t you feel it?”

      She shook her head, and felt red heat boil into her eyes. She was suddenly furious with him for wallowing in self-pity when there was so much at stake.

      My family won’t even talk to me, she thought. They might as well be dead. At least your mum is safe, and your dad still wants you, even if he did lie to you. At least he cares that you’re alive.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ