Reckless

Chapter 12 Part 3

Present Day

Character POV: Roxanne

My phone vibrating in my pants pocket snaps me awake. I blink hard a few times, wincing at the reading light someone has turned on in the row ahead of me, raising a hand to shield my eyes. The vibrating continues, and I reach into my pocket and pull it out, seeing the name on the screen "ANALIZE". I sigh heavily through my nose, and then I decide that this is a conversation best held in private. I push up from the seat, muttering "excuse me" three or four times as I inch past the knees of the other two people in this row and emerge into the aisle. I step down the aisle towards the toilets, and when I reach it, I pull the flimsy plastic-like door open, close it, lock it so that it says "occupied", and press the answer button on my phone.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the hallucination Ariadne wince before putting down the seat and sitting down on top of the toilet. She visibly gags and says, "I lived before indoor plumbing and this is still the most disgusting bathroom I have ever seen," and I roll my eyes to myself, turning my back on her as I say into the phone, "Hello?"

I hear the sound of nails clicking on something hard, and I can imagine Analize tapping her fingers on her granite countertop in her outrageously expensive New York penthouse apartment. Her voice is low, almost guttural, as she asks me, "Did you deal with the vampire causing the problem?"

Closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose, I nod to myself in an act of encouragement before I tell her, "I need a clean-up unit for vampire remains at a warehouse. I'll text you the GPS coordinates. It looks like it is abandoned, so witnesses should not be a problem. Plus, the neighborhood it was in looks sketchy. I doubt anyone would blink if you just dragged a skeleton outside in broad daylight," I mutter to myself, drawing circles with my free hand on the inside of the sink.

"I'll have it handled," Analize murmurs, a sharp edge to her voice that lets me know instantly that she isn't going to let me off the hook that easily. She clears her throat roughly before she asks me, "Who was the vampire causing the problems? Is Ariadne finally dead?" There's an almost hopeful tone to her voice as she asks the last question that has me physically recoiling, pulling the phone back from my ear for a second as if that will put physical distance between Analize and myself.

I turn back around and see hallucination Ariadne staring at me with eyebrows raised. Then she smirks and whispers to me in a conspiratorial tone, "What's it going to be, Roxy? The truth, or lies?" She chuckles to herself before she tuts, "It's so hard to choose when both are so deliciously complex, isn't it?"

The seconds tick by in silence, and I bite my lip as I stare at the hallucination Ariadne, very conscious of the fact that Analize is waiting for an answer, and the longer I wait, the more suspect my answer is going to appear to be. I have to choose in this moment whose side I am going to take. In a split second, my entire world changes as I blurt without really thinking twice, "David was a vampire the whole time. I never knew, he kept it from me. He was the one behind everything. He was jealous of my history with Ariadne and wanted to stoke tensions in the hopes that the war would reignite and Ariadne would be lured out of hiding and would be executed. So, I had no choice but to stake him. There is no evidence that Ariadne was involved in this at all. My guess is that one of her new sires sired David and she hadn't been brought up to speed yet, otherwise she would have dealt with him herself." The words taste like ash on my tongue, my throat even giving the illusion of closing up after the lies have escaped my lips.

A long pause sounds at the other end of the line, and I find myself holding my breath as I wait for Analize to say her piece. I surprise myself by how much I am hoping that she'll buy the lie. Ariadne is the reason David is dead, twice over. Ariadne has put me through hell these past couple of days. Yet, when given the opportunity to throw her to the wolves, I don't. I lie to my leader, the woman I have spent centuries serving, the only reason I have had the immortal life that I have, to protect Ariadne.

Analize chuckles lowly through the line, "Well, it seems that you do have a type, don't you? Dead and amoral." I wince, biting my lip to keep my comments to myself. Luckily, Analize doesn't linger on my poor choice in romantic partners. Her voice goes suddenly serious as she says to me, "You did the right thing. I will take care of the fall out. Good job." Click. Then the line is dead.

I stand there with my phone in my hand, pressed to my ear, not really paying attention anymore as the fear begins to grow inside of me. What have I just done? I have lied to a woman who would kill me for lying to her to protect someone I am not even sure is a good person anymore?!? This is insanity. This is reckless. All of this was done on an impulse, the very same thing which has pushed Ariadne into all of her decisions so far as I can tell.

A slow laugh from the other end of the bathroom draws my attention. Hallucination Ariadne is grinning at me as she pushes off from the toilet and says with a pout, "So, what's next? A dramatic reunion?" Her brows knit together as she says in a mocking serious tone, "A last stand?" Her face breaks out into a smile that's a mockery of the smile she gave me back when she was a living, breathing person.

Lunging forward so that I am nose-to-nose with the hallucination version of Ariadne, I snarl, "The truth. That's what's next-- the truth about why you're back, why you're doing what you're doing, and then I have to decide if I am going to stand with you," I say, before my voice strains and I have to choke out the vile next few words, "or if I am going to be forced to kill you." I feel my knees wobble under me, threatening to give out at the thought of doing anything to hurt the woman that I have spent most of my centuries protecting.

Hallucination Ariadne leans forward and whispers in my ear, "Looking forward to it, babe. Any excuse just to spend more time with you." She pulls away and winks at me, and I watch as she gradually fades away into nothing, leaving me standing in the bathroom staring at a toilet, very conscious of the fact that I was just arguing with a figment of my imagination. Maybe it's time that I stop with the substances, come up for air for just a second.

I walk back to my seat, squeezing past the snoring man's knees, and plop down in my seat. I rest my head against the window and close my eyes, desperate to get some more sleep before this plane lands. Once I land in Egypt, I'll have a heck of a time tracking Arsinoe down. What I need now is rest, but my dreams won't leave me be. As soon as slumber has pulled at my senses, I'm back by the lake, only this time for the first time, with no Ariadne in sight.