“But you feel pitiful now, don’t you?” he answered himself, needing to talk to someone. The only person he could talk to would be Bray, but he couldn’t tell her what he had done.
Slamming a hand hard against the wall, he left a small dent. So Brenik did it again, but he didn’t feel any better, so he tried several more times as his hair bounced in his face.
“I don’t know what I want. I never know what I want. I have what I wanted.” Minutes passed as Brenik took in slow breaths, repeatedly trying to calm himself down, until he felt good again. Brenik had no other choice—he would get used to this, and then maybe he could figure out a way to do it on the side as he lived a real life.
Walking back into the living room, Brenik picked up the trash bag filled with the things from Jeremy’s place. He dug his hand around and around, until he found exactly what he was looking for.
Biting his lip, Brenik pulled out one black dress shoe, followed by the other one. He slipped both on his feet and stood to full height. Without any shape of a smile, he looked down at his shoed feet. “I knew we were the same size.”
10
Bray
For the past week, while Wes was at work and Luca was at school, Bray kept herself busy by unpacking moving boxes—since the job was not getting done.
She arranged the movies first in alphabetical order, and when Wes saw what she had done, he gave her a smile and said, “You should have ‘consulted’ with Luca first. He’s going to arrange those from his most treasured to his least favorite.”
Bray only puckered her lips at him for that comment. But sure enough, Luca came home and arranged the movies beginning with Hook, next came The Goonies, and so on. “Goonies Never Say Die,” he had said when he placed that one next to Hook, then turned around to put the rest up.
The croquet ball was already beside Bray’s bare foot, ready to be struck by the mallet when Luca came home, backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Why don’t you wear that thing properly over both your shoulders?” Bray asked as Luca shut the gate behind him.
Glancing down at the strap that was missing from his shoulder, Luca brought his head up and smiled. “This is the cool way to wear a backpack.”
She didn’t see what was so cool about not balancing the weight properly on his back, because she was sure one side of his body would gain more strength versus the other one. Oh well, it was his choice after all.
Luca hurried inside the house to set his backpack down while Bray practiced her swing. They had played the game together over the weekend while Wes finished in the garden—that time Wes did remove his shirt, and Bray had to keep her eyes from shifting in that direction. Then she had thought that maybe he should have left it on.
“Okay, I’m ready, and look who’s joining us today,” Luca called as he stepped outside with Wes.
“You practically forced me,” Wes grunted as he picked up a red-striped wooden mallet from the grass.
“You mean, you practically begged me. ‘Oh, Luca, you’re going to play croquet again?’” Luca said in a deep voice that was strikingly similar to Wes’s monotone sound.
“I’m not even going to qualify that as begging, but be prepared to be taken down, Lu.” Wes pointed the mallet head at Bray’s face. “Bray, I saw your skills over the weekend—you’re going to be taken down, too.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. They were only going to play one round, because Luca had to get ready for Halloween as Rufio. She had already watched Hook three times with him, and she found herself quite enjoying it.
With focused precision, Bray eyeballed the space where she wanted to tap her ball to land. She squinted her eyes and lightly hit it. The ball moved a couple of inches. She thought she had it that time.
Huffing sarcastically, Wes set his mallet against the grass and shuffled toward her. “Let me show you how to properly hit the ball.”
She did need a little help—okay, maybe a lot of help. Croquet was not as easy as it looked—only for Luca.
Centering himself behind her, Wes tucked Bray closer to him until his chest was planted to her back. Well, Bray may have leaned back into him. Either way, she shook off the feeling of his warmth, along with whatever good smelling scent he was wearing, and positioned herself forward to hit the ball.
“Ready?” he whispered next to her ear.
A tickling sensation filled her stomach as she replied, “I’m ready.”
With her hands gripped between his, together they swung the mallet back to strike the ball … and missed. The ball went around the metal loop instead of through it.
“Oh. Come. On!” Luca sighed and hurried over, brushing Wes to the side with the tip of his blue-striped mallet, then dragged the green ball back with it. “I guess it’s time for the master to help the lady out.”
“I think so, too,” Bray joked, laughing as she turned to Wes, who was watching them with a genuine smile on his face.
Luca wrapped his gangly arms awkwardly around her, his head somewhere just above her midback. Swinging the mallet backward together, they struck the ball, and it went beautifully through the hole.
Pulling away from her, Luca snapped his fingers and pointed the index ones at Wes, eye partially in a wink. “It takes a master, Wes—only a true master.”
An eyebrow drew upward on Wes’s forehead. “Let’s not get cocky now.” He lifted his wrist up to check the time. “Anyway, you better hurry and get ready if you want to go.”
“Yes!” Luca said excitedly and rushed inside.
Turning to Bray, Wes said, “I’m still surprised he wants me to go with him. He’s getting to that age where he’s going to want to do everything with his friends and without me.”
Bray doubted that would happen.
“You are a really good brother, but you’re more than that. I’ve only seen you two together for a short while, but you’re his father, his mother, his friend, his disciplinary, and his heart. It’s beautiful.” She meant every one of those words.
“I think you just made me feel sappier. After our parents died, it was hard at first. We had our grandpa who was able to step in, and I worked part-time with him at his landscaping company while I went to college. When the heart attack hit him, I—I had to drop everything. My focus has only been on Luca—is on Luca.” His voice broke, and she caught his eyes becoming glassy. He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and changed the subject before Bray could respond. “You know you’re welcome to come tonight.”
She wanted to ask Wes more questions about his life, but instead, she just grinned and started to help put away the croquet set. “Luca is ahead of your game, he already asked me.”
Wes dropped the balls in the black bag. “I’m surprised he didn’t ask you to dress up, too.”
“Oh, he did. He wanted me to be Tinkerbell.” Bray laughed.
“You should have told me. I could have picked something up for you.”
“I got crafty while I was alone today and made wings with coat hangers and pantyhose.” The hanger took a while to curve just right, but eventually she accomplished it.
“Where did you find the pantyhose?”
“I have all kinds of treasures in the tree hole.” Bray couldn’t remember where she had found them. It might have been the garbage, but they had been unopened.
A mixture between a frown and confusion crossed Wes’s face. “If you consider that a treasure, I need to find you some better things.”
Bray scurried away and climbed up the tree to find the dress for her costume, since she didn’t want to morph outside in the open.
Looking down at the ground, she saw Wes had moved closer to the tree, and watched her with what may have been a little worry.
“Couldn’t forget this.” She held the tiny green dress she had cut earlier down toward his face. It was much easier for her to cut a small dress than a large one.
Once inside the house, she headed to the bathroom, changed to her bat size, switched clothes, and then returned
to her human form. That was easy, she thought.
Bray found the flat shoes by the front door that Wes had gotten her the other day from Walmart—which he had said was a step up from the flip-flops. Then she grabbed the wings from the coffee table, put them both on, and waited for the boys.
Luca strolled into the room with his hair slicked back and a little poof in the front, bags of feathers in hand. “Can you help me with these? I can’t put them in right.”
The costume almost exactly matched the character in the movie—tight black shirt showing some skin, ripped black pants over red leggings, red shoes, some type of vest with fringe, and a necklace that resembled bones. “You look great, Luca. Now, turn around so I can work on this hair.”
Following her instructions, Luca held up the bags of feathers, his hair rock hard from a little too much hairspray.
She began lining the feathers down the right side of his head, then moved toward the middle, followed by the left side. “I think we are going to need a little more hairspray to keep them in place.”
Carefully, she pulled him in the direction of the bathroom to make sure he didn’t move his head. Taking the can of hairspray, she spritzed way more than she probably should have, but at least they were glued into his hair now.
“Perfect,” Luca said and softly patted over the feathers. He looked adorable.
They found Wes in the living room, already sitting on the couch in his Captain Hook costume—it looked nothing like the one from Hook.
“You two are lucky that I even found this at the store. I almost had to go with a Ninja Turtle.” Wes rolled his eyes and held up the poorly made plastic hook.
“It looks great,” Luca said. Wes did look great, his uncovered hand stroking the plastic hook.
“Very Hook like.” Bray beamed.
Wes and Bray walked up and down the street, watching Luca’s bucket fill with candy. Bray snatched several pieces along the way. The night was great, like the Halloween nights her and Brenik spent with Ruth—except this was better.
She loved seeing all the costumes: ghosts, Frankenstein’s Monster, Ninja Turtles, Rainbow Brite, the Addams Family, and other ensembles she didn’t recognize.
They were at the start of a new street, when a loud boom up ahead signaled into the night. Luca and Bray froze in place, while Wes appeared calm as he pulled Luca back. “We need to go home now,” he said to Bray and Luca.
“There was a gunshot,” Luca said as sirens began to wail down the street, swiftly passing them by.
Curiosity was pulling Bray in the direction of all the flashing lights, but she needed to make sure Wes and Luca got home safely.
They rushed down the uneven sidewalk, lights illuminating the already darkened street. Bray had a feeling she should find out what was going on.
When they walked through the front door, Bray held it open and dropped her fake wings to the floor. “I will be right back.” Behind the open door, she transformed herself into her bat form and took off, hearing the voices of Luca and Wes calling after her. But she pushed their voices aside.
She flew high in the air, over the tops of the trees, until she saw the flashing lights of police cars. Some people stood outside houses, while others were trying to get a closer peek at what was happening.
Cops were pushing people away, and Bray craned her neck to get a better view. A body she couldn’t see clearly was being covered with a white sheet by a paramedic. Bray landed on the top of a tree and shimmied down to where she could hear a lady ranting to a cop about what had happened. “This man came down the street and suddenly had me on the ground, clawing and then choking me. His face only showed rage—that was all that seemed to exist in him.” The redheaded woman’s voice quivered as she wrapped her arms around her middle, visibly shaken.
“Then can you tell me what happened next?” the police officer asked, face hidden from the darkness.
“My husband tried to knock the man away, but the attacker wouldn’t stop. So, my husband got his gun and shot the man. Even after the shot hit him, his eyes still looked murderous when he was falling to the ground. But I don’t understand why there isn’t any blood—there was no blood from the bullet wound—only what appeared to be two wounds on the side of his neck with dried blood.” The woman shivered as she continued to hold herself.
“The body is going to be taken to the hospital to be examined. We will have more questions later, but this is all I need from you tonight.” The officer closed a small notebook in his hand and moved in front of another man to ask further questions.
The only kind of bites on the side of the neck that Bray could think of were those inflicted by vampires, but that was only in the movies. The lady hadn’t said that he tried to bite her neck. From the way she described what happened, it sounded like he had a case of rabies, but humans didn’t act like that when they got bit by a rabid animal.
The redheaded woman walked back toward an elderly lady with tight gray curls and said, “Thank you so much again for calling the police. They arrived right after Jerold—” She began to sob, and Bray had heard enough.
Quietly, Bray flew back to the house and ran over the story a few times in her head. It did seem strange, but maybe the woman was confused. She had just been through a traumatic experience. Bray didn’t know if the lady had gotten close enough to see if there really had been blood or not around the bullet wound either.
As soon as Bray rounded the corner of the street and approached her home, she found Wes waiting on the porch. He was still in his Captain Hook attire but had already taken off the hat and hook. He opened the door for her as she zoomed inside and transformed herself.
“What was that, Bray?” he demanded.
“What do you mean?” she asked, hearing the shower from the bathroom, where Luca must be.
“You can’t just do something like that.”
Her eyes narrowed and met Wes’s fierce gaze. “I can do whatever I want.”
“Not if it’s going to affect Luca. There was a gunshot, Bray. And you just morphed and zipped right off, not letting either one of us know where you went. What if something had happened to you? What if someone saw you?”
“I’ve been flying in the dark for years, Wes. Even if someone saw me they would probably think I’m an Earth bat.”
“No one would believe you were a bat,” he spat, pulling at the ends of his hair.
Bray took a step toward Wes. “I don’t understand what the big deal is.” She didn’t understand why he was acting like this.
“The big deal is that Luca is already growing attached to you. I don’t even know what we’re doing here. Are you just going to live with us for the rest of our lives like some little pet?” Wes lifted his hands up and brought them down heavily against his legs, the slap echoing through the house.
“Is that what you think of me as?” Bray’s eyes shifted side to side, trying to fight back tears.
“If that’s what you want to be.” He shrugged. She felt like she had been more than slapped. It was as if her insides had shattered into too many pieces to be put back together. Well, she shoved them together anyway because she felt angry.
“You know what, screw you!” she cried and ran for the door, throwing it open while transforming to fly back to her tree hole. She couldn’t believe he would say something like that to her. Bray was no one’s pet. Is that all anyone would ever see her as? Was that how Junah and Ruth had seen her and Brenik as—pets?
Both hammocks were empty, of course. She looked at Brenik’s and wished he was there because at least he knew they were the same—even if she could transform. Hurrying over to his hammock, Bray flipped to her stomach and let the tears fall and stream down her face.
Something shook her home, and the trunk groaned as she heard shuffling against the tree bark. Bray didn’t move, only waited to see who it was. If it was Luca, she would talk to him. If it was Wes, he could piss off as Ruth would have said.
Leaving the comfort of Brenik’s lingering scent, B
ray sat up in the hammock as it gently swayed. Bray waited. A light came into view and shined directly in her face. She hissed at the brightness, angrily covering her face with a hand.
“Maybe you actually are a vampire.” Wes tried to smile as he lowered the beam of light. But more than anything he looked weary.
She needed him to go away. “Not funny. You can go back inside, because I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”
“Listen, I’m sorry for what I said in there. I didn’t mean any of it—I was just pissed and worried. I didn’t know what to tell Luca, who had gotten upset. This whole week has been extremely bizarre. Plus, I’m up here whispering to you in a hole inside of a tree. You have no idea how terrified I am of heights.” He glanced down. “My hands are shaking.”
Her eyes shifted to his hand holding the flashlight, and he wasn’t lying, his hand was trembling.
“Okay, I forgive you.” She may have forgiven him too fast. But if his hand was vibrating from his fear of heights, and he climbed up there anyway, the least she could do was forgive him. Brenik had said plenty of heated things when he was having one of his moments. She probably had, too.
“That’s it? I thought you weren’t ever going to talk to me again.” Skepticism spread across Wes’s face.
“I changed my mind—but just this once.” She grinned and stood from the hammock.
“Look, you don’t have to tell me where you come and go to. But if you need to go somewhere and Luca is right there, at least let him know. Please?”
“Agreed.” Bray understood that Luca was still young and didn’t understand everything in the world yet. She didn’t either.
As Wes climbed down the tree, Bray flew to his shoulder and told him about everything she had seen and heard at the crime scene.
“It definitely does sound like something a rabid dog would do, minus the choking part, but some people in this world are just completely off their rocker.” Wes rubbed at his chin as he looked up at the night sky. “The blood thing, though, when you’re frightened out of your mind, you don’t really pay attention to detail. Who knows what stuff the lady was imagining if her breathing was being cut off.”
Clouded by Envy Page 8
