Opening Up

"Can you keep a secret?"

Raz's eyes never stray from the dart board at the other end of the room, and he doesn't even spare Madison a glance. Lifting his arm, he loosely grasps the smooth plastic of a red dart and prepares to throw it.

Just as he's about to release the dart, Madison speaks up again. "Raz!"

The dart leaves his hand and embeds itself in the wall, a foot to the right of the board. He stares at it for a few moments without blinking, before turning his amber eyes to her.

"...What did you say? Sorry, I wasn't listening, but it's only because I don't care."

Madison narrows her eyes at him, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a slight grimace and displaying perfect, straight white teeth that have definitely seen the help of braces over the years. "Y'know, you can be a real asshole sometimes."

Raz turns back around and ambles over to the wall, tilting his head at the protruding dart. Without looking back, he replies, "You act like this is news. You've known this about me for years."

"Yeah, but I thought by now we'd be close enough that you'd put that awful temperament behind you around me."

"'Temperament'?" he echoes with a snort as he dislodges the dart. "What am I, a dog?"

"Well, if it barks like a dog and looks like a dog..."

"I can assure you, I'm the furthest thing from a dog."

Raz repeatedly tosses the dart vertically into the air, end over end, as he walks to rejoin Madison at the pool table. He makes eye contact with her, and though her expression is clearly annoyed, his remains blank. Unreadable.

"Hold this for me, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer, he puts the dart into her hands and sidesteps her to reach the small wooden bar. He crouches behind the counter, and Madison turns away as she hears the beeping of buttons being pushed.

As much as Raz always does the same to her—pushing her buttons—she can't deny that she's always had a fascination with him. He probably knows by now, but he never says anything, and she'll be damned if she's going to make the first move.

She takes up Raz's position in line with the dartboard and starts aiming. Might as well have some fun even if he's going to be a dick. "You didn't answer my question, by the way."

"Told you before, sweetheart. Didn't hear you because I didn't care. So you'll have to say it again."

She rolls her eyes, but a shiver runs down her spine at the sound of liquid being poured into a mug. That strange soup that Raz always drinks sets her on edge. What's so special about it that it has to be stored in a safe in a basement?

Shaking her thoughts away, she says, "I asked if you can keep a secret." She lets the dart go out of her hand and manages to hit the wall even farther to the right than Raz did.

He lets out a quick snort of a laugh, and the sound makes her skin flush with heat. "Sweetheart, you act like I care enough to actually talk about you to other people. You give yourself a bit too much credit."

With hurt pride, Madison chooses to sit down on the couch instead of retrieving the dart. If Raz wants to keep playing his little game, he can get the darts himself.

"Well, whatever, dickhead. The reason I asked is because yesterday I did something I'm totally gonna get in trouble for."

The same unreadable, blank expression turns toward her again. "And?"

For a moment, Madison is transfixed by watching him lift the mug of soup to his mouth, watching his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, watching him dart a tongue out to lick the corner of his lips.

When she realizes she hasn't said anything, she quickly stammers out, "W-Well, don't you want to know what happened?"

"Not particularly, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."

"Hmph!" She tries to hide her annoyance, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her react, though he probably wouldn't even care enough to feel satisfied about it. "That file cabinet that's always been locked in Daddy's office. I broke into it."

"Is that supposed to amaze me?" Raz sets his mug down, leaning forward with his hands on the counter. "You've done way worse than that before, sweetheart."

She crosses her arms across her chest, her brown eyes leaving him for a moment to stare pointedly at a spot across the room. "This file cabinet is special, okay? It's got, like, a bunch of locks on it and Daddy always forbade us from looking in it."

Something pulls her to look back at him, and Raz smiles in a way that doesn't meet his eyes. She watches his jaw shift as his eyebrows raise. "Wow, Daddy's Little Girl is so rebellious. Well done." He lifts his hands in a condescending slow clap.

"You're so annoying, Raz. Anyway, what I found in there is the big deal. It's, like... the black stain on my family's history."

"Uh huh."

Ignoring his indifference, she continues her story. "So, like, 100 years ago my family didn't even live in this area. They've always talked about how we've been in this town so long we're practically founders but it's not true."

Raz disappears behind the counter again, and Madison hears more beeping. She watches his hand reappear to set a thermos on the wooden surface, and realizes he's going to have more of the soup.

He hasn't said anything and clearly isn't going to, so she once again starts talking. "So, we used to live, like, not just a few towns over, or even states over, but in an entirely different country. We're totally immigrants!"

"Almost everyone is this country is an immigrant from someone in their ancestry."

"Okay, but, like, you haven't heard how proudly my family talks about starting up this town and whatever. It's all a big hoax! The reason behind it is all messy, too. There's a newspaper article in there, from when my family lived in Italy."

Raz pauses in uncapping the thermos and sets it down. "Italy, huh?"

Seeing that he's actually interested in what she's saying now, she takes the win and runs with it. "Yeah. You ever been?"

He silently keeps her gaze for a few moments before returning to his task. "...Yeah. My family is from there, too."

"Really? You never told me th—"

Madison's mouth freezes mid-sentence when she watches him pour from the thermos. She's never seen what it actually looks like, but she's startled by how red and thick the soup is. It must be some type of tomato-based soup.

He finishes pouring and snaps the lid shut, before setting the thermos on the counter so heavily it makes her jump. "Continue your story, sweetheart."

There's a cold edge to his voice that has never been there before, and it unsettles her. It isn't until he looks her in the eye again that she remembers what she was doing.

"R-Right. Well..." She closes her eyes as she clears her throat, and she feels too uncomfortable to open her eyes again, in case she makes eye contact with him. "So, I guess my great great great-grandfather—or was it an uncle? Anyway. This guy in my family knocked up some girl. They weren't married or anything so, like, of course it was a big deal. There was even a picture of them in the newspaper article, which is crazy to me because, like, I didn't even think cameras were around then."

She hears movement, and dares to crack an eye open. She sees that Raz has moved to sit on a chair across from her, leant back into the cushion with the mug in his hands. He's staring at her, and his expression is still unreadable but there's something colder about it now. Maybe bringing up his family in Italy wasn't such a good idea. They probably have some bad blood between them or something, not that he would ever tell her.

"Cameras were invented in the 1800s. It's not surprising there were pictures in the paper."

The cold feeling she's getting from him still unsettles her, but she's excited that he's finally, properly engaging in conversation with her. "Well, anyway. Turns out, she didn't even actually like him or anything. Pretty sure the guy was more of an asshole than you and probably, like, assaulted the poor girl. Then somehow my family just made it all disappear because they started a literal witch hunt on her. Mother and unborn baby killed just, like... poof. Like... I didn't even think witch hunts were a thing only a hundred years ago, and you don't hear about them being in Italy."

"Witch hunts can happen anywhere if you get enough people riled up." Raz presses his fingers to the side of his temple and stares at her. Somehow, his eyes look darker than before. "You got the newspaper on you?"

"Yeah, actually! I wanted to show you!"

He gets up from his seat and walks the few steps over to the couch so he can sit down next to her. Madison feels her heart race at having him this close and paying this much attention to her. She fumbles to pull the old newspaper from her bag, but luckily it was laminated to prevent damage.

"Honestly, I'm not even sure why my family kept this, y'know? You'd think they'd want to destroy all traces of it. Anyway, here."

She hands it to him, but decides to take a risk and lean closer to him so she can look at it with him and maybe touch him. A strange feeling washes over her at this proximity. This close, she should be able to feel even a hint of his body heat, but there's nothing.

He's just as cold as his heart, she thinks, pouting.

"See, here?" She points at some of the first lines in the article. "It says her name was Alina."

Strangely, Raz's fingers slowly trace over the picture of Alina's face on the first page of the article. It seems he does have a heart, actually having sympathy for someone else's situation, even if it is someone who's long-dead.

"So after that whole thing, my family changed their last name and came here to this town."

Raz hands the newspaper back to her, then gets up off the couch, returning to his mug on the coffee table. He remains facing away from her while he drinks.

The ticking of the clock hanging on the wall reminds Madison of the time, and she quickly says, "Crap, I should go return this before Daddy notices that it's missing. But, like, I found the whole thing just so interesting, y'know?"

He says nothing as she tucks the newspaper into her bag and stands up. As she's moving to step past him, he suddenly grabs her by the wrist and pins her against the nearest wall.

"You're not going anywhere, sweetheart."

Her heart races, and she smirks. "Wow, Razzie, didn't know you cared this much."

He sets down the mug and pins both her arms above her head. "You think this is funny, huh?"

"Mhm." Her smirk widens when she sees he's got some of the soup left at the corner of his mouth. It's almost cute. "Especially since you've got some of your food left on you. So messy."

He uses one hand to keep her wrists pinned, and uses his thumb on his now-freed hand to wipe the soup off his mouth. The red liquid stays vibrant on his skin.

To her surprise, he pushes his thumb into her mouth before she can even react.

Wow, this is really hot—

When her tongue touches the liquid on his thumb, she almost gags. After many appointments with the dentist growing up, she'd know the metallic, iron-y taste of blood anywhere.

He removes his thumb, and she coughs violently. "What the fuck, Raz? You've been drinking blood all this time?"

She can't see his eyes, as his head is tilted downward and his dark hair is obscuring his face. Every fiber of her body is now telling her she should get out, but despite everything she finds herself wondering what color his eyes would be right now.

"Funny thing, Madison." His voice is low, and she shivers at him using her name. He never uses her name. "People in situations like that often tend to still have people who love them, long after they're gone."

"Situations like what?" she asks blankly. A second later, she realizes he's still talking about the article. "Like the witch hunt of that girl?"

"Alina. Her name was Alina."

"Right, like the article said."

The low chuckle that comes out of Raz's mouth in the next moment sets Madison's teeth on edge. "I don't think you realize just the kind of situation you're in right now."

"What are you talking about? You're freaking me out."

He lifts his head now, and she sees that his eyes aren't their normal amber color, nor are they the darker, almost brown color they usually get when it's late and he's tired.

Red. Red, like the blood he's been so casually drinking in front of her all this time.

"I've searched for a long time, Madison. Looking for the people who got the love of my life killed."

"Seriously, what are you—"

She cuts herself off as he bares his teeth in almost a growl, and she sees that they're suddenly unusually sharp and pointed.

"I thought," Raz continues, "for so long, that my love's killers wouldn't be found. I thought, even with an eternity, I couldn't take revenge for what happened to her." The smirk he gives her looks terrifyingly unsettling with his newly sharpened teeth. "But, in this small town, fate has somehow dropped the perfect little package into my lap."

Finally, Madison's body has caught up with the realization that she's in grave danger, and she begins to tremble while trying to free herself. But he's supernaturally strong and he doesn't budge even a fraction of an inch, despite all her struggling.

He wraps his hand around her throat, pushing her harder against the wall. The pressure is just light enough that she can still breathe—but only just. As it is, she's beginning to see spots from the limited oxygen.

She feels his nails begin to dig into her neck, sharp as blades, and he says, "In hundreds of years, I've learned to keep to myself. Those who found out about me... well, as they say: two can keep a secret if one of them is dead."

He brings his face right in front of hers, and she can see just how red his eyes are. How angry they are. How literally bloodthirsty he is, and it's all directed at her.

"So tell me, Madison, because I'm dying to find out. Can you keep a secret?"