Chapter 78: Senior Project

POV: Niko

He had changed his subject three times.

The first two had been fine. Competent. The kind of work that demonstrated skill without demonstrating anything else and he had looked at both canvases after finishing the initial sketches and felt nothing and started over.

The third subject he had not chosen deliberately.

His hand had just started moving and when he stepped back to look at what it was becoming he had stood there for a long moment and then covered it with the white sheet and had been working on it in stolen hours ever since.

He was working on it now.

The art studio was empty at this hour which was how he preferred it. The afternoon light coming through the north windows was the right quality for this kind of work. Not too direct. Not too diffuse. The specific grey-white of a Black River Falls afternoon that made colors behave differently than they did anywhere else he had lived.

He had lived in a lot of places.

He had never painted light that looked quite like this.

He uncovered the canvas and stood back and looked at what he had.

He had not shown it to anyone.

He was not going to show it to anyone yet. Possibly ever. His art was the one place that had always been entirely his and this particular piece was more his than anything he had produced in decades.

He picked up a brush.

He heard them before the door opened.

Two voices. Familiar. Arguing about something that had already been resolved three exchanges ago but was being continued anyway because that was how Deacon and Reba operated when they were together.

He covered the canvas.

"I told you he'd be here." Deacon said.

Reba rolled her eyes. "I knew before you did."

Niko set down his brush. "Is there something you need or are you both just constitutionally incapable of leaving me alone."

Deacon leaned against the whiteboard. "Where's the fun in leaving you alone."

Niko started cleaning his brushes. The methodical work of it. The way it gave his hands something to do while his face stayed neutral.

Reba crossed to him and smacked him cleanly on the back of the head.

He whipped around.

"What the actual." He said.

"Why didn't you tell me about you and Carly." She said. Hands on hips.

"Because it is not your business." He said.

"She is on my squad." Reba said. "I work with her every day. I should have heard it from you."

"And I caught them at his door at an unreasonably early hour." Deacon said from across the room. Deeply enjoying this. "So technically I knew before either of you."

"You stumbled upon us." Niko said. "That is not knowing."

"Still counts." Deacon said.

Reba looked at Deacon. "You knew and didn't tell me."

"Sibling solidarity." He said pleasantly.

"You don't even like him." She said.

"I like him fine." Deacon said. "I just find him funnier when he's annoyed."

Niko put the brushes in the water bucket and turned to face both of them.

"Are you both finished." He said.

"She sacrificed her entire reputation for you." Deacon said. More directly than usual. "That cafeteria stunt. That took something." He tilted his head. "I think she'll fit into this family eventually."

Reba looked at Deacon with something surprised in her expression.

Niko felt his stomach do something complicated.

"That is never going to happen." He said. Flatly.

"Oh come on." Deacon said. "Bring her to Freida's wedding. Show her off. Stick it to father while you're at it. You know how much you enjoy sticking it to father."

Niko crossed the room.

He had Deacon against the whiteboard with his forearm at his throat in the space between one breath and the next.

Deacon's feet left the floor.

Reba was already moving. "Niko. Let him go."

He pressed harder. "I will say this once. Carly is never setting foot near that house. She is never meeting our family. And I am not going. Tell Freida. Tell Isabel. Tell whoever you need to tell. And do not bring it up to me again."

Deacon's fingers were at his arm. Not fighting. Just there.

Niko held for another second.

Then he dropped him.

Deacon hit the floor and coughed and straightened himself with the specific dignity of someone who would not give the satisfaction of looking rattled.

"Like father like son." He said.

The room went very still.

Niko looked at him.

Deacon looked back.

Reba stepped between them with her hands out and her face doing something Niko had not seen on it in a long time. Something that looked like genuine fear. Not of violence. Of the thing underneath it.

"Out." She said to Deacon. "Now."

He looked at Niko one more time.

Then he flashed out.

The door clicked.

Reba stood in the middle of the room with her hands slowly lowering.

She looked at Niko.

He looked at the wall.

"Nik." She said softly.

"Don't." He said.

"I just—"

"I said don't." He said. Quieter this time. "I don't want to talk about it Reba."

She pressed her lips together.

"Freida wants you there." She said after a moment. "She asked about the seating chart."

"Tell her I'll think about it." He said. Which meant no and they both knew it.

She moved toward the door.

Stopped.

"I know you hate me for a lot of things that aren't entirely my fault." She said to the door. "But I am still your sister. And whatever you think I didn't do when you needed me I am trying to do now." She paused. "Don't push Carly away because of Victor. She's not him and she's not them and she doesn't deserve to pay for what they did."

He said nothing.

She left.

The studio was quiet.

He stood in it for a long moment.

Then he uncovered the canvas.

He looked at it.

He picked up his brush.

POV: Niko

He kept painting after Reba left.

That was the thing about the painting. It was the one place he could be completely honest because no one could see it unless he chose to show them and he very rarely chose to show anyone.

He had been painting her for three weeks.

Not portraits. Not anything obvious. The painting was light more than anything. The specific quality of warmth that came from somewhere he had not been able to name until recently and now could name precisely and was still not entirely comfortable naming.

He thought about what Deacon had said.

Like father like son.

He had heard that before. Not from Deacon. From Victor himself, in the specific tone Victor used when he wanted something to land somewhere it could not be recovered from. The tone that said this is what you are and you cannot change it and you should stop pretending you can.

He had been pretending for twenty years that the words did not still live somewhere specific in his chest.

He kept painting.

He thought about Reba saying don't push Carly away because of Victor.

He thought about the wedding invitation still in his bag.

He thought about the house on the hill at the edge of Black River Falls that he had not entered in four years and the specific cold that came off it even from the road.

He was not going to that house.

He was not going to let anyone from that house anywhere near Carly.

He looked at the canvas.

He kept painting.

Tonight he was taking her to meet his friends and that was enough for now. One step at a time. One thing at a time.

He could do that.

He was going to do that.

He covered the canvas and packed his brushes and headed for the door.

He needed to feed and get changed and be at The Hole before Carly arrived because the last thing he was going to do was make her walk into a room full of vampires without him already there.

He was not Victor.

He was not going to be Victor.

He walked out into the Black River Falls afternoon and did not look toward the hill.