Aphrodite Needs an Alibi (Aphrodite Needs a Clue Book 1)

by Regan Claire

  “Where are my clothes?” I ask, because even with the blanket clutched up to my neck I still feel exposed.

  “They’re being washed. They had blood on them,” he says.

  “What happened?” I ask Smith. “Where are we?”

  “We were in the car, I had to slam on my brakes,” he says, looking down in his lap.

  Okay, I remember that now. “You were going crazy-fast and almost ran through that stop sign. Did we hit the other car?”

  He was also… something was wrong. Were we fighting?

  “No, we missed them. It was an accident. You know I would never hurt you on purpose.” He looks at me, eyes wide and voice earnest.

  Except he had, hadn’t he? In the dream.

  Why was I in the car with him in the first place?

  “I was just so mad, honey. I’ve worked so hard to make you happy.” He’s brushing the hair from my exposed shoulder.

  I lower my eyes. It was my fault. It’s my job to keep my husband happy. No, no he’s not… that’s not right. I’m confusing my dreams with my real life. I think I need to see a doctor.

  “I thought it was working, too. We were becoming friends. I gave you the space you needed, then I kept you safe the way he would have.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you couldn’t love me before because I was too weak. A woman like you needs to be protected. Why else would you be so attracted to someone like Ares? So I did what he would do. I did better than he would do. But you still went to him.” His hand is still on my shoulder but it’s squeezing now.

  “Ares?” I ask, because that’s Rhys’s name in my dreams. “What did you do?”

  He drops his hand from my shoulder like the name hurt him. “I protected you. Not him. I’m the one who kept you safe, and took care of the people who tried to hurt you.”

  “Smith?” What is he talking about?

  “It’s okay that you don’t remember yet. It’s not too late for us. I just have to keep you away from all the distractions, then things can be the way they should.” He gets off the bed and walks back to the door, stopping to look at me.

  “Smith? What do you mean?” I wrap the blanket around myself and try to stand up, but it’s too much movement and my stomach twists. “Smith I think I need to go to the doctor.”

  “You’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll give you what you need to heal yourself in a little while. First I need to clean up this mess.” I start to protest, but he continues. “No, it’s okay. I know you couldn’t help it.” He steps out of the room for only a second before returning with a bucket and a mop. Smith starts mopping up the mess I made as if everything about this is perfectly normal.

  “Why are you doing this?” This time I am successful in standing, but I have to hold onto the bed frame to keep the world from swaying.

  He smiles at me. “Because I love you. Now I have to clean this up. I brought a trash can in case you get sick again.”

  I’d shake my head, but I’m afraid my brains will leak out of my ears if I do.

  “Why are you keeping me here?”

  “Because I know you love me too, but there are so many distractions out there. Now, let’s get you back in bed until I can get some sustenance to you. You really shouldn’t be on this cold floor with bare feet. I’ll bring you some slippers so you can be more comfortable.”

  He’s done with the mop and has already carried the little bucket of dirty water back outside the room.

  I don’t move from my spot. I don’t want to get back in the bed.

  “Do you need help getting back in bed?” he asks. He doesn’t say it like it’s a threat, but it feels like one. I crawl back in bed.

  Tears are hot on my face. “Smith, I want to leave.”

  “You’ll change your mind,” he says before leaning over to kiss me on my forehead and leaving me again in darkness.

  While I feel instant relief from the lack of light, being alone and mostly naked in a dark room at an unknown location isn’t ideal. Keeping my blanket wrapped around me, I gingerly get off the bed and hold my hands in front of me to feel around. The floor really is cold and feels like smooth stone against my feet. I have to get out of here, so with my arms outstretched and very cautious steps, I walk in the direction of the door. The room isn’t very big, so it doesn’t take long before I find it.

  My fingers linger on the doorknob. I’m sure it’s locked, and I don’t know what I will do if that’s the case. Smith is scaring me, and my brain is too jumbled for me to fully understand what’s happening. I’m only certain of one thing: Smith isn’t the man I thought he was.

  The knob twists in my hand, and a knot releases in my stomach. If he is holding me captive, maybe he’s not good at it and forgot the door. Or maybe my bruised frontal lobe is confusing the situation. There is very little light on the other side of the door now, but very little is more than zero.

  I try to take a step out the door but my leg catches. It’s caught on something, probably the stupid sheet I’m walking around in. Why am I undressed for a head injury? My pulse quickens, and I try to tell myself there’s a logical explanation for it, but none of the explanations I can think of make me feel any better. I bend over to untangle my ankle, but it appears to be free. I move it forward again, but it stops before it can take a full step forward. My other leg doesn’t have the same problem, only my left one feels shackled even though I feel nothing.

  I shake my head and sit on the floor. The room is spinning again and I hear a loud whoosh-whoosh in my ears. I feel my ankle. There is something there, wrapped around my ankle. It’s thinner than a pencil, and is body temperature where it’s touching my skin, then feels metal cool once I get a few inches away from my body. I’m holding something in my hands that I can’t see, but it’s so dark I can hardly see anything. On hands and knees, I follow the threadlike chain. The stone floor hurts my knees, but I don’t stand up. I finally reach the end of the chain: it feels like it is attached to an eye hook set in the floor.

  I pull against the chain. It’s thin enough that it should be easy to break, but it’s stronger than it feels. I pull with all my weight—if it breaks now I’ll certainly face-plant, but anything is better than being chained to a floor.

  The chain doesn’t give at all.

  I don’t just sit on the stone floor this time, I collapse, defeated.

  I’m alone for a while, I don’t know how long. It’s cold on the floor, so I pull myself up and feel around my room to see if there is anything I can use to get out of here, or to defend myself. There is a moment of excitement when I discover a lamp in the corner beside the bed, but it won’t turn on. I consider using it as a weapon, but it’s too heavy for my weak-feeling arms. Eventually I crawl back in bed so I can be warm. The only way to tell the passing of the time is through my heartbeats, and they’re too erratic to count properly. At least I had Rhys with me the last time I was trapped. No, Ares. No, that was a dream. My head hurts, and I’m pretty sure I’ve drifted off to sleep a couple of times, but I don’t feel hungry or the need to use the restroom, so I’m choosing to believe I haven’t been down here as long as it feels.

  I must have fallen asleep again, because the door is opening again and I didn’t hear any footsteps in the hallway this time.

  “Sweetheart, I brought you something to make you feel better,” Smith says. I’m pretty sure the only thing that could help me right now is a CT scan, but I don’t say that. I make myself sit up again. Smith must have flipped a switch on the other side of the door, because the lamp is on now. I see that it’s iron. No wonder it was so heavy. My eyes don’t take as long to adjust this time, so I can see clearly what it is that Smith is dragging in the room for me.

  It’s a person. A man, actually.

  “Go ahead, April.”

  “Is he a doctor?” I ask. I’m not even sure if I’m being sarcastic or not.

  Smith laughs. “I didn’t realize you were so picky. A doctor would be a little harder to com
e by, but I’ll see what I can do next time.”

  What?

  The guy he’s brought has his hands behind his back, probably tied, and a bright white gag in his mouth. His dark eyes are wide in fear, and he’s looking back and forth between me and Smith.

  “Go ahead, April. He should have enough to make your head feel a little better. I can get more if he’s not enough.”

  “What are you saying, Smith?”

  “You need to feed. It will help you.”

  Is he talking about my power? How does he know?

  “Your taking me to the hospital would help me, Smith, not this.”

  “It’s not a good idea for us to go to a doctor. They ask too many questions and aren’t really equipped to help people like us.” He approaches the side of the bed, and I try to get out on the other side to stay away, but the chain on my ankle must have caught on the bed frame.

  “You think chaining me is helpful?” I pull the blanket back to expose the chain, hoping maybe the sight of it will make him feel some sort of regret I can use to get out of here.

  Only one problem: I don’t see a chain.

  “Did it come off?” I ask. It’s not something to feel hopeful about since Smith is right in front of me and can easily prevent me from leaving. I reflexively feel my ankle where the chain was, but am shocked by what I touch.

  The chain. It’s there, but it’s not. It’s…invisible?

  An invisible chain, just like my dream. In a flash, I remember why I was in the car with Smith to begin with. The picnic. The chair.

  The realization that maybe my dreams aren’t dreams at all. That maybe they are real.

  Maybe…they are memories.

  “It’s only temporary. I was afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

  “You’re Hephaistos,” I say. The name sends a shiver of emotions through me. Fear and rage, wrapped up together.

  Smith smiles. “You remember me?” He looks like I just recited a love sonnet. “It’s working. See? We just need time together without any outside influence. Now, you need to feed so you can regain your strength. I’d let you feed from me, but you always claimed you couldn’t get a good enough feeding from me.” He points a finger. “And don’t think about using those powers against me. I built up tolerance during our time together. You won’t be able to use your love against me this time.”

  Use my love against him? He means my powers, only I didn’t know someone could build a tolerance to it. I only have a few dreams to go by, and that’s not enough to understand the world I’ve found myself in.

  “Eat. I know you prefer to feed in private, so I’ll come back in a few minutes. Bon appétit!” Smith chuckles as he walks out, shutting the door behind him.

  The man is huddled in the corner. I don’t know what Smith did to him, but whatever it was terrified the man. He doesn’t even try to struggle. Smith wants me to feed from him?

  That will heal me?

  Now that I’ve thought about my gift, I do feel it pulling at me. The hunger, which lately has been so sated, feels as if it is pulsing in rhythm to the pounding in my head. Is Smith right? Will feeding help me heal?

  I close my eyes. I can’t be considering this, can I? I don’t feed from one person at a time. I don’t use people anymore.

  The man in the corner whimpers. Did Smith hurt him before bringing him down here?

  “Are you okay?” I ask. I see him jump at the sound of my voice. He raises his head and looks at me in bed, but he doesn’t say anything.

  I get out of bed, the world is still spinning, but I make my way to the man. I need to help him if he’s hurt, though I’m not sure what type of help I can give in my current condition. He keeps his gaze on me as I slowly approach. Maybe he has a head injury too, because he looks dazed.

  I try to kneel once I’m close enough, but my balance is off and I wind up sitting on the floor instead. The man scoots forward on his knees.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, echoing my earlier question.

  “I came to ask you that,” I say, offering a small smile even though our situation is grim.

  “I don’t have a bloody bandage on my head,” he points out. His voice is gravelly, and I think he has about a decade on me in age.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Henry.” He sits down next to me, closer than I would typically allow, but given the circumstances…

  “Did he hurt you?” I ask him.

  “No, but he scares me. I thought he was going to kill me.” He shakes his head. “He said I was going to make you feel better, but I didn’t know what he meant. He said helping you would make me feel better.” He hugs himself, and I notice that his hands are shaking a bit. He’s dirty, so dirty that I think he may be homeless but I feel judgey thinking that. “It sounded like serial-killer talk, so I didn’t believe him, but I do now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t hurt so much right now.”

  “Where are you hurt?” I ask him, searching what I can see in the dim light for signs of injuries.

  “I’m not hurt outside. It doesn’t…” he searches for a word. “In here,” he taps his head. “It doesn’t hurt so much. It’s better than being high, and even the craving for that isn’t so bad right now and it’s always bad because it’s the only thing that helps.”

  Is being near me making him feel better? I don’t understand what I am enough to know why that is, or what I’m offering him.

  “How are you supposed to help me?” I ask, but I already know the answer, I just want to know how Smith explained it to some poor man he abducted.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. He said I was going to feed you. Didn’t help my opinion of him. I don’t think I mind so much now. I’d rather you kill me than him. At least with you, I feel at peace.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I believe you,” he turns to look at me. “Whatever it is you need to do to me, if it helps you, you should do it.”

  As soon as he says the words, I feel my power. As wonky as it has acted lately, especially at the bar yesterday, I haven’t felt especially hungry since the night I met Rhys. But then, I’ve been feeding by accident all week, so the beast has been fairly sated.

  That’s not the case right now. Now I feel ravenous, and my power is pulsing in time with my throbbing head. I close my eyes, trying to keep it under control. This man doesn’t deserve to be treated like a buffet, despite what he says. It’s wrong.

  He puts a hand on mine where it’s lying on the cold floor, and that’s all it takes. My power doesn’t listen to me, like it didn’t listen to me yesterday. It slams into him, and I see his eyes widen. If the room were better lit, I’d probably be able to see his pupils dilate. The harder I fight, the more out of control my power is, so instead of fighting I give in. Henry leans closer as I pull energy from him. Except, it’s different. Like, I’m not pulling it so much as he’s giving it to me. I’m being filled up by threads of emotions streaming into me, and I don’t think I could stop it even if I wanted to. It feels so good, this gift; because that’s what this is. Henry is giving to me instead of my taking it.

  My own tendrils of emotion are wrapped into him as well, working their way through him until I find that place in his center where his emotion comes from. It’s emaciated, and even as I am being fed by Henry, I’m filling him back up too, because in finding that place in him, I know him. I know every single hurt and pain and betrayal and mistake that shrank his heart, his soul; and in knowing him, I can’t help but love him even as I’m making him love me. I want to help him, because you always want to help fix the broken bits in people you love, and even though I don’t know how, my power seems to. Maybe it remembers. I find the warped place that had been neglected and hurt too many times to count, for too long to remember, and I fill it. I fill the shrunken thing and in doing so, I am able to feed more deeply. There’s only so much water a dented cup can hold, after all. Undenting his center made him hold more. Fixing that p
iece of him made me… I don’t know, made me feel whole. Like this is what I’m meant to do, help people get rid of their dents.

  I’m so lost in what I’m doing, I don’t immediately notice that Smith has come back in the room. Henry and I are so lost in the flow of power between us that neither of us reacts when Smith grabs him from me.

  “I think that’s enough for now,” Smith says.

  His words are enough to pull me out of what I’m doing, but I’m still dazed. Too dazed to react when Smith pulls Henry away. Henry doesn’t fight either, probably just as caught up as I am. Smith pulls him out of the room, and when he’s out of sight I feel a disconnect in my center where I am still connected to Henry. Not just a disconnect, a snap. A broken cord. Then I hear something fall to the floor.

  Something that sounds an awful lot like a body.

  Smith comes back to the room and looks at me while I’m trying to piece together what has happened.

  I hurt inside now. The connection I just formed is raw, bleeding, and I need to know why.

  Smith just leans down and lifts my bandage and sighs. “It’s better, but you still have a nasty gash. How do you feel?” he asks.

  “What happened to Henry?”

  “You should have focused more on healing yourself than healing him. It took longer than it should have,” he says with a frown.

  Tears are running down my face, but I don’t understand why. Not fully.

  “It’s okay my love. You can’t help but fix broken things, it’s why I love you so much.” He smiles at me, then leans over to give me a kiss. I scoot away, panicking at the idea of him touching me.

  His lips form a thin line and his cheeks redden. The clenched fists show me that he’s angry, not just embarrassed at my turning him away. I’m afraid of that anger. The me from my dreams understands how dangerous that anger can be, and I force myself to be still so I don’t set him off.

  I look at him. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Instantly, his body relaxes again. Smith nods his head and his eyes soften. “I understand. This has been a big day and a healing that big takes a lot of energy. Let me get you back to bed.” This time when he reaches for me, I manage not to scoot away. He picks me up and carries me back to the bed as gently as you’d carry a tray full of delicate teacups. He tucks me in, even leans over and kisses my forehead. I can only stare, numb. I’m not even afraid anymore. The hollowness inside me has swallowed up my fear. It swallowed everything.