Downfall by S.D. Wasley

  ****

  Every time I remembered that Cain had granted Jude permission to date me I felt a fresh surge of violated anger. He wasn’t in charge of me. Fury sat like a painful knot in my gut. I wanted to have it out with him―but not with the other three around.

  The next time I went to Gaunt House I sat beside Cain on his sofa to remind him he wasn’t the king. Liz hovered nearby, her face wary, checking and rechecking my stony expression. As if on an invisible sign from Cain, the other three got up. Jude asked Liz to go with him to pick up something to eat but he shot a worried look my way before they left. Owen headed for another chamber, muttering that he would clean out the cooler. That just left the two of us. Cain smoked his cigarette meditatively.

  “You’ve got something to say,” I said. It wasn’t even a question.

  “What do you mean?”

  I gave a cynical laugh. “You’ve sent them all away. What do you want to say to me?”

  “As a matter of fact I do want to say something to you,” he said. “I think you’ve been coming here long enough now, Francesca. We like having you here and we want you to know you’re welcome to stay.”

  Uh ... right. After the initial surprise I sat silent for some time. What was he really trying to say? Cain waited.

  “Do you mean I cannot leave?”

  The shock in his face told me I’d hit on exactly what he meant. He stared, forgetting his cigarette; letting the filter smolder between the tips of his fingers.

  I spoke before I lost my nerve. “You don’t own this place. I own it as much as you do.”

  A dark light came into his eyes―seriously dark, like the black night sky reflected in water. “I don’t own it,” he acknowledged, “but it’s ours.”

  “It’s a public building.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s our place.”

  “That’s right, I don’t understand. It’s not a private lair. You four may be hanging out here, but anyone else could, too.”

  “It’s not that. It’s because we need this place―” Cain stopped.

  “For what?” He looked away. “If you can’t tell me your mysterious secret then why should I accept what you’re saying? I’m not one of your sheep like the other three.” Cain sat with his lips pressed together and I lost my patience. “This place isn’t yours, and neither are the people who meet here. I can come and go as I please. I can carve more words into the walls, I can give it a name or bring hundreds more people to this hole in the ground!”

  He turned his eyes back onto mine and I almost recoiled. His gaze was so intense I half expected to burst into flames. It was all I could do to hold my ground. I opened my mouth but no words came. Cain’s eyes went to my lips and back up again while my pulse thudded in my ears. What the heck was that? Was he waiting for me to speak?

  But he didn’t wait. “Owen!” he barked, grinding out the burnt-down cigarette. “Bring me a can.”

  Owen reappeared. He attempted a surreptitious examination of my face but I caught him at it, rebuking him with a hard glare. Hopefully neither of them could tell how my heart was trying to burst from my ribs with fear and a weird kind of exhilaration. It took half an hour for Liz and Jude to return, and when they did they both studied me as well. Were they checking to see if he’d won me over? I gave Jude a wink of false bravado, which he didn’t return. In that moment he didn’t seem to know what to make of me at all.

  I didn’t acknowledge Cain for the rest of the night and, as far as I could tell, he heartily reciprocated.