Page 17 of The Midnight Frequency

“And a man who waits years to lock you down has already decided. You just didn’t like the answer. Next caller,” Silas said.

Okay.

That was brutal.

But probably true.

“Let this be a lesson to all you hopeless romantics out there,” Silas said as Jack screened the next caller. “I’ve been undead for a very long time. I have yet to see evidence that love is real. It is just a story people tell themselves to make codependent attachment feel meaningful.”

And that was… it.

Without thinking, I hit the call button and put my phone to my ear.

CHAPTER SIX

[ “I’VE WATCHED KINGDOMS fall faster than men willingly commit to a woman.”

— The Midnight Frequency - Episode 2 ]

Maggie

“What’s your name?” Jack asked when I called in to rebut Silas before I could talk myself out of it.

“Ma—Madison,” I said, catching myself before I identified myself.

“Madison, you’re on the air,” Jack said.

“I hear you have some objection to the statement I just made.”

I probably had objections to damn near everything the vampire had said.

“You sound pretty confident for someone whose entire argument is ‘I’ve been disappointed longer.”

“You are mistaken. I have no disappointment about love since I am not deluded enough to believe it exists.”

“Ah, so this isn’t wisdom. It’s just nihilism with better diction.”

“Call it what you like. Love is a chemical illusion reinforced by relentless fictional storytelling. I am simply here to correct a popular lie.”

“No. You’re policing hope. I think we can both agree those are two different hobbies.”

“Hope is just a refusal to accept reality.”

“Funny,” I said, voice dry. “You sound exactly like someone who might be terrified that love is real and you might have just missed it.”

There was the briefest of pauses.

A crack in Silas’s perfect façade.

“You can’t miss things that don’t exist.”

“Just because you haven’t experienced something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“When you have lived as long as—”

“Oh, please,” I cut him off. “You can’t just pull the immortality card to try to win every debate. How long you’ve been alive has nothing to do with what you have, or haven’t experienced. I mean, I’ve never experienced Portugal. But I’m relatively sure the place exists.”

“Alright. Point to love on a map and maybe I will agree it is anything more than delusion.”