Juliet Immortal

I’ve wanted all day.”
    “Talk.”
    “Yes, talk. Chat? Have … verbal intercourse?” He winks, and I fight the urge to show him what I think of him with my middle finger.
    “I don’t want to talk.”
    “Oh, but you will. I have secrets to share.”
    “I don’t care.” I nod toward the door. “Get out. I’m not interested in your lies.”
    “Lies? When have I lied?” His hands drift to his sides, but his wary look remains. If I attack him, he’ll be ready. I have to wait, to seize on a moment when his defenses are truly down. “I’ve never lied.”
    “And we killed ourselves to prove our perfect, timeless love.” I spit the words with enough venom to poison a hundred young lovers, then curse myself for it. I shouldn’t let him know how that false history still gets to me. I shouldn’t give him such an easy victory.
    His chin tilts down, but I can see the smile tugging at his lips. “Well, perhaps I did lie … just that once.”
    “Get out,” I say through gritted teeth.
    His eyes come back to mine. “But I honestly never dreamt Shakespeare’s work would be so enduring.” He wanders over to the table by the door and plucks a quarter from the key dish, tossing the coin in the air and catching it with an easy flick of his wrist. “I found his verse lovely, of course, but the tragedyof Romeo and Juliet itself is a rather immature work, more reminiscent of his comedies than—”
    “Leave. Now.” My every muscle is tensed and ready. What is he planning to do with that quarter? Hurl it at my face and hope to put an eye out? With Romeo anything can become a weapon—love, trust … loose change.
    “And then what?” he asks. “You’ll come give me a proper whipping? You know I enjoy your hands on me, Jules, no matter what they’re doing there.” He rolls the coin across his knuckles and back again while I try to keep my temper. “And knowing how close these bodies came to intimacy before we entered them, I’ve been dying to—”
    Temper lost.
    I reach for the closest weapon at hand, snatching the base of the lamp, yanking its cord free of the wall as I toss the shade to the ground. “Get out, or I will beat you. And I won’t use my hands.”
    “Wait!” Romeo drops the coin, his smile slipping. “Please … hear me out. I haven’t lied about anything that’s mattered. I’ve always played fair. More than fair. In your heart you know that.”
    I roll my eyes.
    “Please, I just want this to be over,” he says. “We can put an end to it, without the sacrifice of a soul. But only here, only now. This is our one chance to take back what we lost.”
    “What you stole.”
    He sighs again. “You still believe it was all
my
doing?”
    “You locked me in a tomb and left me to die.”
    “The past.” He starts toward me but stops when I lift the lamp over my head. “The past can’t be changed, but the future … the future can be yours. Life, love, everything you’velonged for. You don’t have to return to the mist. You can stay here.
I
can stay here with you.”
    I laugh. He’s so absurd I can’t help myself. “I don’t want you with me. I want you to go to hell, where you belong.”
    “There is no hell,” he says, lips tightening. “There is only the earth and the mist and the places where the high ones go, where they will
never
allow us to enter.”
    “Perhaps you haven’t encountered hell yet, but your punishment is coming. Someday, you will suffer.”
    Fear flashes in Romeo’s eyes, making me wonder if he’s actually telling the truth. Maybe we are at the end of our long journey and he’s genuinely afraid of what will come next.
    “You want me to be punished. I understand that,” he says. “But you don’t have to wait for someday. I’ve
already
suffered. Every minute I’ve spent with you as my enemy has been an eternity of torment. Pretending to hate you, being forced to turn and kill innocent people, it is—”
    “Enough.” I shake my head, scattering his lies into the air. I’ve seen him revel in a kill. He’s an abomination and takes pride in the fact. The only question is why he’s suddenly working so hard to convince me otherwise. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
    “I want your love.”
    “You will
never
have it,” I say, exasperation thinning my voice. “Never.”
    “Hm.” He has the nerve to look disappointed. In me. It’s nearly enough to make me slam the lamp down on his skull. “Give me a chance to explain. It