Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Shaking my head, I walked into the elevator and rested against the cool metal for a moment, trying to stretch out the kinks in my neck and back.
“Main floor,” the automatic voice spoke as the main level doors opened, and I stepped out to the all but deserted museum.
The door to the garage was on the other side of the lobby, just by the security gate.
“Good night, Jeffery…” I walked to my right but then stopped and backed up to see Jeffery—the older white man who’d operated the front doors and the security since I had been here—when he didn’t say good night back. Jeffery always said Dr. Omeron, even though I didn’t have my doctorate, and when I had told him, he said it was encouragement.
“Jeffery?” I called, moving to his desk. The eerie silence automatically put me on my guard. “Jeffery?” I stretched his name out as I looked for him. He was breathing, which made me relax. However, none of the security feeds showed anything, which set my panic level right back up.
“Jeffery, are you okay?” I shook his arm, trying to wake him, but he was like a log. I moved around, ready to shake him a bit harder when I felt the only vampire I always felt like this.
“Theseus.” I glanced up, and there he was, dressed in a full black suit with his tie being the only thing missing. In his hands, a brown paper bag with the Schütz Sandwich Shop logo on the front and a bottle of water—my go-to after-work late-night meal since the Schütz Sandwich Shop was the only shop that stayed open until midnight around here.
Moving around the desk, I walked to him, and he stood still, watching me as I did. “What did you do to Jeffery?”
“Gave him his sleeping pills early,” he replied.
“And the security?”
He shrugged. “System glitch, I believe. They should be able to fix it in the morning.”
“Why?”
“I wished to see you…outside of the woods. And besides your home, this the only other place you seem to spend your time.”
“Three days. You could have seen me on one of those days.”
“Some things came up. Vampires have reasonabilities, too.”
I was supposed to hate his kind. I was supposed to be already setting him on fire. I was supposed to be going home and burying my head into books to forget him completely. Instead, I looked to the bag in his hand.
“Is that for me?”
“It could be for me,” he replied, lifting it to me. “A chicken club sandwich, extra bacon, extra tomatoes, light cheese, a bag of potato chips—the ruffled kind—and regular water, not sparklingly.”
“Do you have a stalker’s handbook, or is it memorization?” I tried not to smile as I took the bag from his hand.
“You request it almost every other night. Which do you think?” he mused.
I glared at him before looking around the museum. “Thank you, but we can’t stay here. Simone—”
“Is hunting with the other half of your circle tonight. The only ones here are the sleeping guard and your boss, who I do not think is much of a concern. The building could collapse, and he may not notice,” he said with utter conviction. “I wish to see where you work.”
“You seem to know it already.”
“I wish to see it with you,” he replied, his gaze unwavering from my face, forcing me to look away and walk around him.
“Okay,” I said.
It was slightly awkward. Part of me wanted to go into museum tour guide mode, but as a vampire, there was a chance he might know more than me, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. Who knows, he could have been born the same year as Vermeer.
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” I asked as we walked into the Chester Dale Collection exhibition. The exhibition focused on portraits and figure paintings, landscapes, and still life. The artists varied from Jacopo Tintoretto to Salvator Rosa and Willem Kalf.
“I am older than all the works in here for sure.” He stopped in front of The Bath of Venus by François Boucher. I had seen it a hundred times. I was always amazed, yet tonight, I was focused on him. The oldest work in this gallery was the Portrait of a Lady, which was commissioned around 1532.
“So about five hundred years old?” I pushed. He grinned and moved to the next work without answering. “Six hundred then?”
“Don’t you want to be eating? Your food will get cold,” he replied, carefully observing the art in front of him.
“It’s hard to walk and eat a sandwich.”
“Sit then. I am in no hurry. Are you?” Theseus asked, shifting his gaze toward me.
When our eyes locked, I shook my head. “No. I’m not.”
“Good. I’m glad. So, sit.” He nodded to the bench behind me.
There was a tiny part of me screaming about museum etiquette. Eating here was absolutely not allowed, but at the same time, it was a little bit cool. With no one else here, it felt like I owned the place.