My Vampire Brother Faked Dying—Mine Was Real Chapter 02
A pair of black leather shoes came to a stop inches from where I knelt. Alaric stared down at the mess.
The manager panicked even more. Her voice jumped an octave.
“Mr. Veyron, I’m so sorry to interrupt. This worthless thing can’t even carry a tray without smashing everything on it. I’ll have the best bottles sent over right away.”
She kept smiling at Alaric the whole time. Her fingers dug into my arm and wrenched it behind my back.
Debt collectors had cracked my ribs before. This was nothing.
But I still flinched. Something deep in my gut twisted and wouldn’t let go.
Alaric’s jaw tightened.
“Enough. You broke it — pick the glass out of the carpet. With your bare hands.”
“If Evelina steps on a single piece, you’ll swallow it.”
The corridor carpet was thick and soundproofed. Broken glass had sunk deep into the fibers, nearly invisible.
I got on my knees and ran my bare palms through the carpet, feeling for every shard.
Evelina watched me from behind, her eyes narrowing. Then she looped her arm through Alaric’s and leaned into him.
“Alaric, I’m tired.”
“Sweetheart. Come here — I’ll carry you out. It’s filthy here. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
The next second, his leather sole pressed down on the back of my hand. Ground down. Then lifted, as if nothing had happened.
I stayed on my knees, staring at the glass buried in my palm.
Tears ran down my face, and a hollow laugh scraped its way out of my throat.
The manager took a step back.
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you bleeding?”
I dragged myself to my feet and wiped the blood from my mouth with my sleeve.
“Maybe I’m dying.”
I didn’t wait for her reaction. I walked out of the club, blood trailing behind me the whole way.
…
The apartment door jammed when I pushed it open. Something crashed inside the kitchen.
Alaric was on the floor next to his overturned wheelchair, arms shaking as he tried to push himself up.
He looked up and saw me. His face crumpled like a kid caught breaking something, eyes already welling up.
“Selene, I just wanted to make you something to eat…”
“I’m useless. I’m dead weight. All I do is drag you down.”
His words came out slurred, like his mouth couldn’t keep up with him. Tears and sweat ran down his chin.
He looked exactly like what he was supposed to be — a man the disease had hollowed out over five long years.
It hit me then. Before the diagnosis, Alaric had been a borderline germaphobe.
Twenty hand-washes a day, minimum. A speck of dust on his sleeve meant a full change of clothes.
And yet he’d endured five years in this damp, rotting apartment that reeked of medicine. All for Evelina.
Five full years.
His performance had been flawless. And I’d played the fool for every second of it.
I wanted to cut open one of his veins just to prove what I already knew — that whatever ran through him was colder than anything in the ground.
My silence made him shrink. He dropped his gaze.
“Selene, do you hate me now?”
“You should. A burden like me shouldn’t hold you back anymore.”
“Just go. Stop worrying about me. Let me die here alone.”
He sat crumpled on the floor, fingers white-knuckled around the armrest of his wheelchair.
The veins in his hands stood out like wires, but his arms couldn’t lift him.
I crossed the room without a word, set the wheelchair upright, and lifted him back into it.
I wrung out a towel and cleaned his face, then his hands.
I’d done this a thousand times. Five years of the same routine.
Alaric caught my wrist. His eyes locked on the wound in my palm, and his expression twisted.
“What happened? Who did this to you?”
His worry looked so real it made me sick. The bitterness climbed up my throat until I could taste it.
“Yeah. Someone who looked just like you.”
I let the silence sit for a beat. Then I looked him dead in the eye.
“At the Crimson Club.”
Alaric’s jaw locked.
I smiled.
“But I know it wasn’t you. My Alaric would never lie to me.”
“Right?”