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LIFE had been weird since the first date. Weird, and comfortable. Percy felt like he now knew so much about Hadley, but he also knew so little. It was an odd feeling – being in the dark, yet so far into the light that it was blinding.
He held her every night. She liked to sleep by his side, instead of being back to back. She liked holding onto his broad torso and wrapping her arms around his exposed chest. Hadley loved his warmth, and she reminded him of this time and time again. When their skin touched – even the lightest of brushes – it was like a chemical reaction. Nothing felt more satisfactory than when she slept, clutching his warm skin like she needed it to live. Maybe she did.
As Percy lied awake at night, rubbing circles into Hadley's back, he thought about the concept of family. Back home, what was his family thinking? Did they miss him? Did they fill out a missing person's report? He felt that they were obligated to by now, and they probably did miss him. Maybe it was just his tired subconscious, but he thought they would be more driven to look for him. He told his parents the city and hotel he was staying in, and ever since he decided to stay at the Cortez, none of his family thought to call here or look for him.
He wondered if he was going to have the same fate as Hadley. They would conduct a lackluster investigation on him for a while, until eventually labeling his case as a murder with a runaway suspect. His family probably already thought he was dead. They were probably in mourning. Little did they know that he had never felt more alive.
The staff at the Cortez had quickly become his new family. He was a human in a hotel full of spirits and all things that went bump the night, but they treated him as if he were one of them, and that's all he could really ask for. He still questioned if Hadley would ever turn him, but it seemed that she wouldn't let up anytime soon. Percy was getting older every single day. He was never one to care about age – not until he met Hadley. She had all the time in the world. He didn't.
Time was starting to bother him. He could never have enough of it as long as he was human.
"You're not gonna want me around when I look like your grandfather," he told her one morning, as he held her tightly against his chest. This was the most they touched: in the mornings, where she could listen to his heartbeat, and her thirst was never tempted because last night's feeding still rested on her tongue. She hadn't let her desires take over since the first time. "If you keep me as a human, I'm just going to get older and older ..."
Hadley chuckled, not realizing the severity in his voice. "I'll still want you when you look like a grandpa. Don't underestimate my desire for older men." Her laughter settled down and she sighed, noticing his heartbeat began to speed up. "I'll like you no matter what your age is – if you're human or not. I've adjusted myself to you."
A string of words hung on the end of Percy's tongue, and he struggled to release them, not wanting to offend her. "You don't think my ... humanity puts me at risk here?" He asked quietly, almost too quietly. Hadley turned her head up, flipping her body so her chin could rest on his chest. She placed a hand on his cheek, caressing his sharp cheekbones. "You can't protect me from everything, Hadley, if this place is as scary as you make it out to be. I want to stay here. I want to be here with you, but if the fucking ghost of a serial killer lives inside these walls ... I'm not safe as a human."
