I started to read more when I heard a noise coming from behind me. Footsteps, a soft slap of bare feet on hard wood. Turning with a whip of my head, my eyes came to rest on Lauren as she stood in the doorway with hooded eyes and drooping shoulders. Her hair was a mess, and she had fallen asleep in the clothes she had been wearing at the gallery. The white button up was completely disheveled. Running her hand through her long brown hair, her eyes came to focus on me, but just barely.
“Blythe, what are you doing? It’s almost four in the morning,” she croaked through sleepiness. She noticed the large book in my lap and narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”
I shut the book in a hurry and rose to my feet, throwing the old thing on the bed like it didn’t mean anything to me at all. If I acted like it was nothing, she would easily forget it. Or that was the hope.
“Did I wake you? I didn’t realize it was so late. I’m sorry,” I apologized. I internally cringed at the use of the word late when it came to the hour, but shrugged it off and continued. “It’s nothing. Just something Cyra dropped off. I have no idea why,” I lied with a shrug.
Lauren rubbed her eyes and shrugged, “Anything interesting?”
“Not really,” I lied with my own shrug in an attempt to remain as outwardly nonchalant as possible. “Just looks interesting on the outside since it’s old, but it’s not really anything to write home about.”
“That’s too bad.” Lauren cleared her throat and turned away from the room like she was about to walk down the hallway. “I’m going back to bed.” She turned back toward me with half-closed chocolate eyes and asked, “You don’t mind if I curl up for the next few hours in your guest room, do you?”
“You know you don’t even have to ask. Go for it,” I replied, waving my hand toward the hallway that would lead her to the guest room in question.
The only guest room that I had in the place. The same one I had been recently considering turning into my new bedroom to avoid the memories of my assault in the room I now sat in. At that moment, I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure I wanted the change anymore, especially since it would put any guest that stayed in the room right outside my most precious of rooms in the apartment. The same room where I killed men, ripped their still-beating hearts out of their chests and readied their lifeless bodies for disposal. I hadn’t thought of that before, but now I surely was. And there definitely wasn’t any room in the current floor plan to add another off the guest room. Maybe I’d just have to stay put. Not like anyone suspected there was something like it hidden away in the apartment, but why tempt fate if you didn’t have to?
Looking away from Lauren, I glanced toward the wall where the hidden door was. It was invisible, but I knew it was there and a large part of me knew I couldn’t take the chance on someone figuring out it existed. I stifled a yawn, my body finally feeling the dredges of fatigue as Hyde rolled through my belly and spread through my veins in a wave of tingling warmth. To keep myself from focusing on her pull, I moved to the bed and began to organize everything Cyra had placed on my bed. One of those things being a box of papers that I couldn’t begin to tell what they were.
“Blythe?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you okay?”
I quickly glanced back at her and turned back to the task at hand, making it seem as if I were going to follow her lead and go to sleep myself.
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
She was quiet for a few moments, the silence growing until it was almost deafening. I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at her, unsure what to do or say next. Her eyes bore into mine, and my face grew hot.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.” When she looked back up at me, she wore a weak smile, and her eyes looked more tired than usual. “Try to get some sleep. You look like death warmed over.”
“Thanks for the hard truth,” I replied with a chuckle.
She waved her hand at me and turned away, moving to saunter lazily down the hallway to the guest room.
“Any time.”
Then, just like that, I was alone in the room again with papers in my hand that I was clueless about. I knew nothing of their contents and was extremely curious. If I hadn’t promised my best friend that I’d get some sleep I would’ve rifled through them even more. The only information I had now was a name, a few dates, and one quote from a journal entry. Who knew what else was in there?
With a sigh, I threw the papers and the massive book into the box and removed the box from the bed, setting it on the floor next to the bedside table.
Nothing was at it seemed anymore, and the knowledge of it would’ve torn me apart from the inside if I let it. And I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t, or risk losing control of the only part of me capable of going on a killing spree that could wipe out the entire population of Manhattan. Well, I thought she could. Hyde was powerful and overwhelmingly so when I let her be. Could we come to work together like we had when I had been kidnapped, drugged, and raped?
Abso-fucking-utely. Now I just needed to find out how and maybe – just maybe – I could bring her reign of terror to an end somehow. If that was even possible.
Chapter 7
I couldn’t help but think that the chaos was going to turn me into a mental case if I weren’t already one. Of course, after the revelation that I was a genetic freak with an alter-ego that killed men for the fun of it and feasted on their hearts – had killed my parents years ago – how could I not? Even if that weren’t truly the case, it sure did seem like it the way Cyra had explained it.
I sat there in the gallery waiting for her to show up with her bright pink hair, sultry brown eyes, and pale skin that would make anyone envious. Especially since the pink worked perfectly with her entire vibe. Even the maniacal, calculated woman I had seen in my apartment just the day before. Somehow it made her even more sinister than she had been. Scary even, but not intimidating. I had met the likes of Johan ad Mitch and ended up on top, ending their lives as they had tortured me and fully intended to take mine. All because of Kyle, their friend, and cohort that all worked for Adam Burnside, who I still knew barely anything about. The only information I had was that he was just like me and that he was the first. Well, according to him. With our mutation, I wasn’t even certain that was possible. Immortality didn’t seem to be a factor in the lives of those like us from what I had seen so far. Not like I really knew anything of any substance. Lauren was tucked away in a nook of the gallery working on her next scheduled exhibition.
Sitting at the front desk, I dropped my head into my hands and felt the warmth of my inner-self flood through me, willing to answer the questions I had. If only I’d come to her. Open the gates, so to speak.
Let me in.
My head shook, and my hands trembled against my face, sweat coating my palms.
“God, help me,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t even sure I believed in God anymore. Or that I ever had.
“I don’t think God is who you need,” Cyra’s voice pierced the silence of the gallery. “Well, at least, I don’t think He’d help you.”
My head jerked up, and my eyes met hers, glittering with concern and a tiny amount of glee at startling me out of a stupor. I came to stand in front of her and held out my hand, a fake smile of professionalism plastered on my face as I forced my hands to stop trembling with residual fear and adrenaline. It almost worked. Almost. She gripped my hand with a tight hold. A great handshake for a person who had never met and knew nothing about her history or who she worked for.
“It’s nice to see you again, Cyra. Your works have been loaded in the back. I’ll take you back there, and we can take a look,” I explained with faked enthusiasm. False pretenses were what I was good at. With Hyde in tow, it was necessary on occasion to fake happiness.
And this appointment with Cyra wasn’t so much a look at her current works. It was obvious Hannah already wanted these paintings. What mattered was the money that she could bring in. We had two artists that sold out during their ex
hibitions. Cyra and Emmett Adler, and Emmett had a habit of giving some of them away on occasion. The two he had given me were tucked away in my apartment in my bedroom. I could never find the right place to hang them.
I looked to where Lauren sat in her nook and, as if she sensed me, she looked up and our eyes locked for all of a second before I shot her a fake smile and a small wave, pointing to the back where we would be. She replied with a small nod before Cyra followed me into the back room where we stored all of the artwork.
“Please, come with me,” I said.
I felt Hyde lurch in my belly at her presence, especially as she traced my steps behind me, my back exposed to her. Something I normally wouldn’t have done if I didn’t trust them, but she needed to know she didn’t intimidate me. I was thrown off guard when she first showed her true nature underneath the bubbly artist throwing back drinks at exhibitions, even though her art was quite disturbing. Kind of like Emmett Adler whose are held the same primitive quality, but more of a refined animal. Even I realized how odd that sounded.
The light in the sunny gallery seemed to dim the closer we got to the storage space in the back, chilling the air with an ominous undercurrent.
The door swung open wide as the both of us pushed through it, a squat and overweight older Hispanic gentleman with gray hair and thick mustache coming in our direction with a clipboard in his chubby hands. Jose had worked at the gallery for as long as I remembered, but I didn’t work with him directly often enough. He was a sweet man, always on time for work and always there no matter what was happening at home. He grinned broadly when he noticed I had come through the threshold and his eyes sparkled.
“We all loaded in, Jose?” I asked as we approached him, stopping only a foot from him.
“Yes, Ms. McAlister. Here is the manifest,” he replied, holding out the clipboard to me. “Fifteen items. We put them all on the far right along the wall toward the front of storage. Everything is still packed and in the crates, as instructed.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I began to lead Cyra toward the direction where he stated the paintings were being kept with the manifest in hand. She followed without a word. Her brown eyes were intent on me, and she didn’t seem to notice Jose at all. If she did, she didn’t acknowledge him, and I would’ve pointed out how rude that was if I wanted to get stabbed, which I had a feeling that she would. I wouldn’t have suspected her of being capable before I saw who she really was after my kidnapping.
“You’re too kind, Ms. McAlister,” he replied, and then turned to walk toward the back where a truck waited for him outside the large doors that led to the loading dock.
“I call it as I see it, Jose.”
Cyra snorted, but I chose to ignore it, walking swiftly toward where her paintings were stored. When we arrived, it was just as Jose had said. Each one was still in its crate, protected from the elements as well as the people. I couldn’t even begin to say how many priceless pieces loaders had damaged over the years, which was the reason we told them they were in a crate or they didn’t come in the door. We weren’t about to be held liable for something like that ever again.
I came to stand next to the largest crate as it leaned against the wall, twice as tall as me and at least ten times as wide. Much larger than any piece she had brought through our doors previously. Placing my hand on the crate’s edge, I sighed and looked at her.
“Want to tell me what this one is? It’s massive.”
“You know that’s not what I’m here to talk about,” she responded without even batting an eyelash.
“Oh, yeah?” I looked at her with no hint of emotion on my face whatsoever. Nothing to hint at what I felt. Irritation, anger, and curiosity all rolled into one inside my belly, but my face showed none of that. “Then what the Hell did you come here to talk about? This is an art gallery. That is the business.”
“You know full well what I want, and I expect you to stop acting like an idiot,” Cyra pushed out through gritted teeth as she came closer to me, almost chest to chest.
“Enlighten me,” I said defiantly.
A flicker of shock moved over her features, but she quickly replaced it with a smirk filled to the brim with malevolence and understanding. Her brown eyes were as sultry as ever, her pink hair flowed around her face and down to her shoulders, but none of that could hide what lurked underneath. No guise could hide it. At least, not for long. I hadn’t seen it before. Not until she educated me, albeit barely, on what I was. Only then was it clear. She wasn’t the bubbly artist we had all come to believe.
“You opened it.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. She knew, and I didn’t have to say a word. As much as I tried to hide what I felt, everyone could see through me. I wasn’t a sociopath. I was a regular woman with something evil inside of her that couldn’t be tamed and, the more I thought about it – truly thought about it – was as much a part of me as I was of it. Nothing would change that.
Ever.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “Does that really matter?”
Cyra guffawed and looked at me with gleaming eyes. “Of course, it matters, you idiot. You opened the book. Did you read any of it?”
Could I be honest with her or did I want to continue the charade? How much did that old book mean to her anyway? It couldn’t have been much since she wasn’t like me at all. She wasn’t afflicted. She didn’t have this deep hunger for blood inside of her that manifested in a maniacal alter-ego that took control over her body to enact those dark fantasies of gore and bloodshed. She didn’t have to worry about some other thing inside of her taking complete control. Murdering men and filling her belly with their warm, still-beating hearts that she ripped from their chests. No, not her belly. Mine. I was the lucky one to absorb these men if I could truly consider that luck.
“If I did? Whose business is that other than mine?” I snapped.
Hyde flashed in my eyes. I felt the heat of her and the growing rumble in my chest as she chose that moment to surface, but let me keep control over my body. I knew what to do, and she was well aware of that fact. Her hunger grew in my belly, and I swallowed it down, making certain Cyra only saw what I wanted her to see. I wanted her to see Hyde peak through, but not dominate like she had a tendency to when I was angered or scared.
Cyra straightened and tugged on the edges of her short, black coat, clearing her throat as if she hadn’t noticed a thing.
“It may not be mine, Blythe, but it is Adam’s business,” she stated very matter-of-factly. “He wants you to read it. He wants you to understand and for you to come to him when you’re ready.” She paused, and her eyes met mine, causing Hyde to move around inside of me again in the struggle for dominance – the need to rip this woman’s throat out filling my mind with nothing but images of her blood pooling down her chest in rivers. “And Adam always gets what he wants.”
Behind her, I saw Jose in the distance, walking proudly toward us with a smile on his face. I could tell he loved the job.
I tried to pull Hyde back and, reluctantly, she gave in, and I plastered a grin on my face that felt as if it would make my face crack in half. With my change in demeanor, Cyra glanced back and noticed the reason. When she looked at me again, her face looked much like mine. A fake smile that mirrored my mock enthusiasm. Slipping her hands into her coat pockets, she took a deep breath and nearly yelled her next words in an over enthusiastic chorus.
“Well, Blythe, I’ll see you later. It looks like you’ve got lots of work to do,” she piped up as she began to walk away.
It was that moment that something started to bug me. She had stated she had visions before and that was where her paintings came from. With the newest revelations, I wondered what else was a lie.
“Hey, Cyra?”
“Yeah?” she asked in that same sing-song voice, turning back to me with her brows furrowed in a confused line, but still beaming.
“Those visions you said you had? Was th
at a lie too?”
Her face slackened at first, and then the expression was replaced by frustration mixed with shock and fury. As soon as the expression appeared, it disappeared, the smirk coming back into place.
“You know, Blythe darling, you shouldn’t go sniffing around too much. You may not like what you, or that wolf inside you, find.”
“Is that a threat?” Hyde flared inside again, but I pushed her back down. It appeared, just like me, she didn’t like being threatened either.
“Now, whatever do you mean?”
With those words hanging in the air, Cyra left. I stood in the same position with my hand on the crate that held one of her paintings. The question confirmed my suspicion even though it hadn’t truly answered anything. It had seemed like it could be true at the time in my desperate need for answers, but it was a lie. That just left the burning urge to know why the lie was necessary in the first place. Was it so Cyra could insert herself more firmly between Adam and I even though I hadn’t even met the man yet? If that were the case, what was the reason?
So many still unanswered questions. Such little time.
Chapter 8
Nothing was at it seemed anymore. Especially within the darkness of my apartment as I sat down with a whiskey sour, alone and exhausted as the television ran in the background. I didn’t pay any mind to it. Nothing was of interest to me since the appearance of the book Cyra had left in my apartment along with a box full of papers and files that Adam undoubtedly wanted me to look over to come to terms with something. I would’ve said it didn’t matter to me, but it did. All of this would surely affect my life and what it would become.
Sick Like Me (A Miss Hyde Novella Book 4) Page 5
