by Night, Ash
“Do you want to go back to bed?” I asked, munching on a piece of peach pie. Topaz had gone home half an hour earlier. Erin was hard at work on a math sheet. Math was a hard subject for her. She preferred the warm creativity of words to the straightforward coldness of numbers.
“After this sheet,” she said, not looking up from her work. She was already three sheets into the mound of homework. If I didn’t persuade her soon, she wouldn’t go to bed until the whole pile was done.
I smiled and got up. “Coffee then?”
“Yes, please,”
I filled the coffeemaker with water and put in a new paper filter. “I love you, Erin.”
She mumbled a number to herself. I tried to brush it off. It meant nothing. She was just hyper-focused on her work. It wasn’t the pills.
Her phone vibrated. It was too early for Lauren to be threatening me. “Hello?” I said, answering it. Erin hadn’t even heard it and it was right next to her.
“Hello, brat. How is Erin feeling?”
I tensed. “She’s too busy to come to the phone right now. Call back later, preferably never.”
He chuckled. “You pick up your sharp tongue from your brother? You never had that tone before.”
“What do you want?”
“To speak with her, brat. Now, put her on.”
My mouth felt dry. “She’s busy,”
His tone changed. He was angry now. “I don’t give a rat’s ass. Now put her on before I snap her neck like a twig.”
“Where the hell are you?” I flew to the window and pulled back the curtain. He waved, phone still to his ear. He was in the front yard, the sun coming up behind him like a bloody omen.
“Now, if you please,”
A block of ice settled in the pit of my stomach. Alex was supposed to have led him out of town. Had he changed his mind? I had been sure he was hell-bent on that plan. Alex, are you okay? Kistel’s here. What the hell? I thought he’d be out of town! Where the hell are you?
He hissed at me. His mind felt fuzzy like he was hung-over. So that was it. He’d probably gotten too drunk to go through with the plan. Trust my brother to be drunk on the night he was supposed to leave town. Of course, who could blame him? He was going with the Devil himself, after all.
Be a little louder, will you? My brain isn’t completely nonfunctional yet. Wait, at the house? Erin’s house? Why?
I growled. What a time for Alex to be hung-over. Yes, Erin’s house. He wants to talk to her on the phone. She wasn’t feeling well so I asked him for a few hours. Looks like a few hours are up.
He cursed. I’ll be right over. Do not do anything stupid. That includes letting the bastard in.
Wasn’t planning on it, I sighed.
“So what’s it going to be? Do I get to talk to Erin or do you get to watch me rip out her windpipe? The offer expires in three…tw-“
“Okay, okay, here she is,” I said, handing her the phone. “It’s Kistel,” I explained. Alex is on his way.
She nodded and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” She sounded a lot calmer than she had when speaking to him last night. Her heart wasn’t even racing. Maybe the pills were affecting her. My stomach clenched. I didn’t want the pills messing with her sense of self-preservation. Especially not when the devil was knocking at her door.
“I have a few questions I didn’t get to ask last night. I trust the brat knows better than to cut our conversation short this time.”
“He won’t,” Erin assured him. “What did you want?”
“What do you remember about your hospital stay a few years back?”
The phone clattered to the kitchen floor. Erin’s heart went into hyper drive and her skin became ash-white. I held her close in case she passed out, trying to soothe her. Her blood was roaring through her veins, making it hard to ignore that I was starving.
“No answer, eh? Oh well, judging from your expression, I’d say you remember quite a lot.”
Suddenly it hit me. All the memories Erin was seeing flooded my senses like a dam that had burst. Every memory boiled down to one thing. Pain. Pure pain. The pain was so strong I wanted to crawl out of my skin to get away.
In her memory, Erin was strapped to a table with leather restraints. She was screaming. Wave after wave of electric current ripped through her thin, frail body. The doctors hadn’t been feeding her enough. They were torturing her, torturing her until her brain was on the verge of insanity. My body tensed at the thought as I sank deeper into the torrent of Erin’s mind. What I saw made me physically ill.
Electroshock therapy. Experimental drugs. Padded rooms with locks on the outside. Table scraps. Water in a bowl. It was like she was some kind of animal.
“What the hell kind of treatment is that?” I demanded. “What the fuck did they do to her?”
Kistel laughed my concern off. “Her mother has a script for the girl’s anti-anxiety medication in the cupboard, brat. You might want to give her some now. She looks like she’s having a full-blown panic attack.”
I went to the cupboard, located the little bottle, and shook out a pill. Thankfully it was something I could give to her with her other meds so I wouldn’t have to worry about her overdosing. “Erin, Erin, look at me. You need to take this.” I was pleading. I was too hungry, and she was too out of it, for me to even try to compel her.
She was curled in a ball next to the phone. “No, no, no! Aubrey, make it stop! Please make it stop! Please!” She was screaming, begging me to make the memories stop. I had no idea how. I felt the lines between reality and hallucination blurring. Where the hell was I? Were we inside the hospital? Were these thing happening right now?
“Brother, calm down. Take a deep breath. You’re here with her. You aren’t in that godforsaken place and neither is she.” Alex placed a hand on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin and sighed in relief when I saw he was here. Seeing Alex instantly grounded me in reality. He growled. “If I ever find where this happened, I’ll burn the damn place to the ground myself.”
“Erin,” I said.
He nodded and went over to Erin, kneeling down on the floor beside her. As soon as she looked at him, she relaxed and sat up, never once looking away from his eyes. “Good, Erin, sweet pea, I need you to take this.”
Erin took the tiny pill from Alex and swallowed it. She stayed silent, looking at him as if waiting for another instruction.
He smiled, petting her hair. “That’s good. You were a good girl, sweet pea. Those bad men can’t ever hurt you again. I promise you’re safe. Do you understand? You will never go back to that place again.”
She nodded. He smiled and kissed her forehead. She stood up and hugged me tight. I held her, tears in my eyes. “Thank you, Alex.”
“I don’t think Kistel will be back for a while. I think he’s had his fun for today. Do you want me to stay with her? You need to feed.” It was almost a demand.
“I’ll be close by,” I said, handing her over to Alex. He nodded once, looking down at her. I could sense his relief. He had been startled by her reaction too.
She was safe. That was all that mattered.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex
I looked down at the small girl sleeping in my arms. It was odd the feelings that came over me as I sifted through her memories of the hospital. She was so out of it, my snooping didn’t have the slightest effect on her like it had last time.
I was stronger than my brother. I could distance myself enough to where I could look at her memories without wanting to be sick. The strong disgust I felt for Erin’s captors, various hospital staff, made me want to smash things. These sick bastards dehumanized Erin in the worst ways, taking pleasure from treating a young girl like an abuser treated an animal.
They tied her hands and feet to the bed as she slept. They withheld water and food from her for days. They sprayed her down with freezing cold water from a hose once a week. She wasn’t allowed human contact with any of the other patients. There had to be others. Occa
sionally, she would hear screams and gunshots.
A face of a boy I had never seen before appeared in Erin’s memory. The name Cody was matched to the smiling boy. That smile had made her feel safe for the briefest of moments in that disastrous patch of Hell. If I ever met him, I would have to personally thank him. Or, at least, tell my brother to.
I didn’t understand how they could have been blocked off completely. Normally if a memory was strong enough, and these surely were, it wouldn’t be totally forgotten.
Suddenly, it clicked. Her nightmares with the shadows. They weren’t shadows at all. They were her memories, or at least what she could remember. Her dreams were filling in the blanks. But then why had she had nightmares before the incident?
Thankfully, the anti-anxiety pill had done its job. She was calm and I was able to induce sleep into her tired mind. It had been easier to compel her to stay calm around me for the time being too. I pulled back the blankets, placed her in bed, and tucked her in. It reminded me of how Mother used to put us to bed. She had insisted on doing that every night, even after I’d thought I was too old for that. For years after her death, I’d wished every night for her to put me to bed.
Sitting on her bed, I stroked her hair. She mumbled something. I smiled. “My brother loves you too.”
Looking around the room, I saw her stuffed animals. Some looked newer like they were bought for her as a decoration, but others looked well-worn, loved like she had played with them for years.
As a child in the 17th century, I grew up with very little. Toys had to be made by hand. When I was six, my mother gave me a teddy bear for my birthday. It was most likely the first teddy bear in existence. Mother loved making dolls, but since she had only sons, she adapted. She used an old burlap sack, cut it into the shape of a bear, filled it with hay, and stitched up the sides. It had taken her weeks to make. I loved it. That bear was my new favorite toy. I’d named him Peter.
I hid him under a loose floorboard under my bed. I took him out late at night and would pretend my toy soldiers were under attack. I longed to take Peter with me on the days my brother and I went into town to attend school. I wanted to show the kids I had the best toy a kid could have. Most of all, I wanted to show my childhood friend, Jeremy. He and I were as thick as thieves before I turned out to be a complete asshole.
Jeremy was ten, a few years older than me, but we bonded instantly. We were the bane of the small town. We stole candy from the only shop that sold it. We put worms down the dresses of girls just to hear them shriek with fright. When I was seven, he swiped some tobacco from his dad and showed me how to roll a cigarette. Later that day, we pretended we were grown-ups, blowing smoke at the girls outside the school.
One day I got up the courage to take Peter out. I hid him under my shirt as I headed to school. Everyone at school wanted to play with him. The kids passed him around until the teacher got to him. My heart sank as the teacher told me my parents would have to pick it up at the end of the day because toys didn’t belong at school. My brother pleaded with the teacher and told her what our father would do. She wasn’t moved by his tears.
If it weren’t for the fact Mother would’ve been disappointed in me, I would have simply torn the teacher apart to get my bear back.
That same day, Kistel threw Peter in the wood stove and held the stove door open so I could watch him burn. Mother had to stop me from reaching inside to pull my teddy bear out. Kistel beat me viciously that night in the backyard with a branch he had me cut down. He told me cherishing a toy was a waste of time.
I learned to never treasure a toy again. Mother tried to make up for it by making another teddy bear. I gave it to my brother. He showed the same affection for it that I’d had for Peter. Kistel let him keep his bear. Mine was a pile of cold ash I threw out into the field the next morning.
Erin was lucky. None of her stuffed animals were ever in danger of meeting the same fate mine had.
“How were the bunnies?” I asked as my brother walked in the door.
He smirked. “They were delicious.”
“Turning into a regular Elmer Fudd, aren’t you? Well, I’ll have you know, it is rabbit season.”
He shook his head, chuckling, as he reached for a coffee cup. Steam rose from his cup as he poured black liquid energy into it. “You made coffee?”
“Yes, brother, I figured you’d enjoy some coffee after hunting like you always do. See? I do remember some things.” I smiled. “Erin is asleep. I made sure she slept most of the day. I made her a sandwich for lunch, but she only ate half. The pills are playing with her appetite. Are you still leaving?”
“Are you?” he countered.
I shrugged. “I’ll see how things play out. I don’t want to leave Erin’s mother without some protection.”
“Her mother?” My brother looked at me, setting his coffee down.
“I hate her, god her voice is like knives to the skull, but I was looking at Erin’s collection of stuffed animals today. Her mother was good to her. Her father was too. Erin already lost one parent. I couldn’t imagine losing Mother twice.”
“Wow, who knew you could care?” he teased.
I smirked. “Dammit, I said too much.”
He clapped me on the back. “You’re getting soft in your old age,”
“Old age?” I scoffed. “I’m the eternal badass and you know it.”
Another chuckle. “I’m glad you’re still here,”
“You and you only,”
Erin came in the kitchen and I was out the front door before she could see me. I’d compelled her to stay calm earlier, but I knew that if I saw her face now, I’d be tempted to undo the compulsion that made her fear me. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted. The sun was high in the sky and my mood was almost high enough to care. My head was swimming with thoughts of the past.
Jeremy and I never saw each other again after Mother died. My brother and I quit going to school until years later. My best friend wound up dead in a ditch at the battle of Gettysburg. He was thirty years old. Thinking about Jeremy had made me nostalgic. Nostalgia was going to need some alcohol.
“Are you in a better mood?” Annoying Wolf Girl was back.
I sighed. “Don’t you have a day job?”
“I’m in high school.” She said. “I took the day off.”
“Well, since you’re in high school you’ll have to leave. No high schoolers allowed where I’m going.” I told her, picking up my pace a little.
She kept up easily. “I know you’re old, but haven’t you ever heard of a fake I.D?”
I laughed. “I invented the fake I.D. You’re welcome, by the way. Or should I say, BTW?”
“So you know a few abbreviations, not impressed.” She shrugged as we stopped at a green light.
“Should I pull out my smart phone? Send you a tweet?” I asked.
She giggled. “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a cool old man.”
I smirked at her. “Excuse me, but eternal badass would be more appropriate.”
Walking across the street, she smiled wider. “So you are in a good mood,”
“More like in the mood for a drinking buddy,”
Wolf Girl pursed her lips in a pout. “So that’s all I am?”
“No, if you were, you’d be dead. My drinking buddies tend to be food afterwards.” I held the door open for her. “Welcome to my home away from home.”
She walked in confidently and sat at the bar as if she had every right to be there. I was impressed. “Key lime shots.”
“Starting hard?” I asked. “Bad day?”
She grinned. “Why? Scared you won’t be able to keep up?”
I chuckled. “Wolf Girl, I could drink you under the table any day.”
“Prove it.”
I raised my shot. “Cheers,”
She clinked hers against mine.
We downed them and I smiled. “Blondie, I think I’m beginning to like you. Another round for the whole bar.”
She smile
d with mischief in her eyes. “I like you too,”
After nearly drinking the place dry, many of the humans were slumped over their beers. Two teens that didn’t even know each other were in the corner, passionately making out in a drunken haze. Wolf Girl was trying to tell me how cute I was, but kept slurring her words and eventually just dissolved into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.
“All right, time for you to go home,” I said, smirking as I slid off my bar stool.
She laughed loudly. “I am not even a little drunk.”
“I think you are a lot drunk and I would know. I have been your level of drunk way too many times.” I picked her up bridal-style. She was surprisingly light. No wonder she was drunk. Her tolerance was impressive.
“You’re strong, Mr. Asher.” The laughter had morphed into the hiccups which just brought on more laughter.
I was amused. I compelled the bartender to think I paid and walked outside. Wolf Girl yelped as the light hit her eyes.
“Too bright!”
“Well, of course, the sun doesn’t set for at least three more hours and there was no way you are drinking anymore. I don’t think Erin would appreciate it if I let you die of alcohol poisoning.”
She hiccup-laughed. “You know, you’re actually a good guy.”
I walked onto her street. “No, I’m not. I’m a terrible person and you should be very afraid.”
“Oooh, so scary!” She was still slurring her words.
I compelled her mom to ignore her only daughter’s drunkenness and also so she wouldn’t be suspicious of me letting myself in. I walked up the stairs and put her in her bed.
She giggled as I pulled her shoes off. “See? You’re nice, nice, nicey nice.”
“When I want to be,” I said simply, not looking up.
“Today was fun. Thank you.” Wolf Girl said, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
I smiled and tucked her in. She was already passed out. Before I left the room, I noticed she was clutching a stuffed teddy bear. It made me smile.
“Why?” Kistel asked. “Why should I leave with you?” Since he came into town, he’d been staying at the nicest house in town, using the owners as his own refillable blood bags. He bit into the wife while her husband just watched, waiting for his turn to be fed on. I watched in disgust. I preferred fresh, young blood.
