Page 37 of Book of Night
“I’m going to go see if he’s okay.” Charlie stuck her bare feet into a pair of work boots that Vince had abandoned near the door, the soles encrusted withdirt. They were much too big and her feet slid around in them, but she thought she could manage a slow stagger.
“He’s fine. Why wouldn’t he be?” Posey asked, standing. “I’m going to go check in with some friends. We have a chat tonight.”
“You can’t tellanyonewhat I told you,” Charlie cautioned.
“I don’t need to say it happened to my sister,” Posey said, exasperated, as though the idea of not telling people was ridiculous.
“No one,” Charlie insisted.
“Whatever,” Posey said, lifting her phone to take a video of Charlie’s shadow. At Charlie’s expression, she sighed dramatically. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with your shadow.”
Charlie had been waiting for Posey to at least float the possibility that it had quickened. That she hadn’t was a relief, and if Charlie felt some small measure of disappointment, it was easily ignored.
Charlie headed outside, the slam of the screen cutting off her thoughts on the subject. Her feet sloshed around in Vince’s too-large boots as she walked around to the side of the house, and she tightened her robe against the icy breeze.
She found Vince on the back steps, staring up at the stars.
He seemed to have lost his jacket. He had his arms folded over his knees, forehead resting on his wrists, t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders. The motion-sensing lamp over the back door gave off a faint golden glow, gilding him. Moths circled, sending little shadows over his shadowless body. He must have been sitting there for a while.
When he turned, his face was carefully blank, as though he’d made it that way for her.
Charlie rested her hand on the chilled skin of his arm, and he sucked in his breath.
“You okay?” she asked, and he nodded.
It occurred to her with a sinking heart just how much she liked him. She should have realized at Barb’s house, when she’d been so angry with Suzie. Or when she continued to check for the photo in his wallet. Or at any moment before this one, when she’d discovered how little she knew about him.
He tipped his head up. “Do you think that stars have shadows?”
She followed his gaze. They were close enough to Springfield for light pollution to dull the night skies, but galaxies still spangled above them. The moon had marched nearly to the end of her night, ready to stagger to her own bed at dawn.
“I guess if there’s some brighter star,” she said, thinking of lying on the couch months ago, a deep-voiced man explaining the universe on her television whileshe tried to convince herself to apply for a new job. “Like the kind that’s about to become a black hole. Don’t they flare first?”
Vince nodded. “Quasars. They flare as they’re dying. I guess that would give any other star nearby a shadow.”
She thought about the struggling, squirming thing attached to the bearded man. She thought about just how sideways Vince’s night had gone—from attempted good deed to body disposal. Just because he’d lied to her, it didn’t mean she wasn’t sympathetic to how terrible the last few hours must have been. Even if he’d seemed calm, even if he’d killed before, that didn’t mean he was okay. Maybe she wasn’t the only person pretending to be fine. Reaching over, she took his hand.
He flinched a little, as though she’d surprised him.
“That guy could have killed me.” It was hard for Charlie to judge how long she’d been unconscious, but it had been long enough. “So, if you’re feeling guilty, you should stop.”
“That’s not what I’m feeling,” Vince said.
She looked over, trying to read his expression. It bothered her that she couldn’t.
“You should come inside,” she said. “It’s cold and Posey made spaghetti.”
He gave her a sideways glance, and she was tempted to push for answers, to tell him she’d heard what he’d said to Hermes back in Rapture. To demand he tell her all his secrets.
You’ve let your shadow feed for too long tonight. There’s not much of you left.
He turned his hollow gray eyes on her. “I’m angry,” he said. “I am still so angry.”
Surprised, Charlie started to open her mouth and then closed it again.
“Last night, after you fell asleep, I couldn’t stop looking at the swell of your cheek. The snarl of your dark hair. The chipped black nail polish on your toes, curled up against whatever dream you were having. The way you pulled loose the bottom sheet with the violence of sleeping. I looked at you and had a feeling so intense that it made me dizzy and a little sick.” His gaze was on the silvery grass of the lawn. “It’s no good to feel that way.”
Charlie’s heart hammered. He had never spoken to her like that. She didn’t think anyone had spoken to her like that. “Vince?”
