“Well that was before he left me, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Lucy. Neither of you has made any effort to actually talk about what happened. I mean talk like a couple of humans, not a couple of snarling animals. He had a valid reason for going to Paris.”
I narrowed my eyes at Lona. “And what reason was that?” Andre refused to tell me much of anything about the trip except that Evan had ordered it.
“You know the Paris team is severely understaffed. It’s not like it was the first time he left without telling you.”
“Yeah, but it was the first time he didn’t bother to contact me at all and he was gone for four freaking months!”
“Did you try to contact him?” Miles asked me.
“No.”
Miles and Lona shared a look. “Just talk to him, Lucy,” Lona said again.
“Fine!” I huffed. I was lying, but I didn’t want to talk about Andre anymore. I was starting to lose the good mood that working out had put me in, and I didn’t want to argue with people that I considered friends, so I changed the subject. “How’s Cynda doing anyway? I went to see her earlier, but she had company and I didn’t want to bug her.”
“Anil company?” Lona asked with a knowing look.
“Yep, it sounded like he introduced her to video games. Why, has he been hanging out with her a lot?” Anil had just graduated high school in June and when he wasn’t training to be a hunter, he usually went out to hang out with his friends before they all took off to different colleges in the fall. I thought it was nice of him to spend some time with Cynda, seeing as he was the only one close to her age at headquarters. Well, there was Kaylee, she was only nineteen, but Kaylee was fine in small doses. Cynda would probably go nuts if Kaylee was her only friend.
“You could say that,” Miles said with a smirk.
“Anil’s developed a bit of an obvious crush on her,” Lona added. That concerned me. Not that Anil wasn’t a great kid, but he was a teenage boy. After the abuse Cynda experienced, I was worried about how she would interpret the attention.
“How does Cynda feel about that?”
“All she said is he’s nice,” Lona said with a wink. “I think she’s a little embarrassed about it.”
“As long as that’s all,” I said a little too menacingly.
“Dara’s the one that introduced them,” Lona assured me. “And she talked to Anil beforehand. Don’t worry, Lucy, he’s smart enough to keep his hormones in check.”
“He better be,” I warned, but knowing that Dara had talked to Anil was a relief at least. “I think I’ll check in on her after dinner.”
We talked for a little longer. Lona told me about the plans the girls were making for her baby shower. They were smart enough to enlist Ida’s help with the menu, which hopefully meant that nothing would burn down and no one would end up with food poisoning. When Miles left to get ready for the evening meeting, I walked with Lona back to residential. After assuring her that I would not do or say anything reckless, I went to check in on Cynda.
I didn’t hear any games or voices coming from Cynda’s room, so I knocked. When I didn’t get a reply, I pulled out the hemograph and felt slightly guilty when I checked it. Cynda appeared to be alone, so I knocked again. When I still got no response, I worried that something had happened to her, so I let myself in. As soon as I opened the door, I realized the source of her distraction by way of the tinny sound of music being blasted at too high a decibel through a set of headphones. I followed the muffled cacophony and found her curled up on the couch, reading a comic book and bopping her head in time to what sounded like punk rock. I waved my hand under her nose and she looked up with a start.
“Hi! You’re back!” Her voice was too loud to compensate for the headphones. I laughed and motioned for her to take them out.
“Good song?” I teased. “I knocked twice.”
“Sorry,” she said with a blush. “It is pretty good though. Anil let me borrow this.” She pulled a tiny mp3 player out of her pocket
“Looks like he’s moved in,” I observed wryly. I noticed quite a few new additions since I had been there last. The television had two different video game consoles hooked up to it and a pile of games was stacked haphazardly nearby. There was also a stack of books, a laptop, and a couple of decks of cards from one of those confusing role-playing games with the weird cartoon animals. I’d only been gone for two days.
“He’s nice,” Cynda said with a shy blush. “I told him I got bored watching TV. He said he’d show me the garden on the roof when Abe lets me out. I think he’s making that up though.”
“No, there really is a garden up there,” I assured her. “Anil’s grandfather designed it. Any word from the doctors on when you’re going to be allowed to wander about?”
“Dara said probably next week. Did you…” she fidgeted uncomfortably. “Did you go…you know, there?”
“Yeah.” I sat down and sighed. There were a lot of questions that I had for her about the plantation, but I felt bad about bringing any of them up. She looked happier than I had seen her yet and I didn’t want to bring up painful reminders. “I didn’t see any of the kids or anything, but I did meet a man who is a prisoner there. His name is Isaac, did you know him?”
She shook her head. “I heard of him though. Some of the other kids used to go visit him, but I couldn’t go back that far without my chip burning and he wasn’t allowed to come up where we were.”
At first this sounded strange, but then I realized that Isaac would certainly have recognized what Cynda was. If he knew what she was capable of, then Bluebeard probably realized that the two of them together could possibly be a threat. At the very least, Isaac could have helped Cynda escape.
“Well, we’re working on getting him out of there and all of the kids too. Once they’re all safely here we’re going after Bluebeard once and for all.” For whatever reason I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what my own relationship to Isaac was. I was positive that neither Abe nor Dara had brought up her connection to me yet and I certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for any existential crisis that telling her would undoubtedly bring on. Instead, I picked up the deck of cards closest to me and flipped through the pictures of brightly colored lizard creatures and other vague animals. “So what’s the point of this game anyway? I think I was just a little too old for this craze.”
“I have no idea,” Cynda said with an eye roll. “It’s pretty confusing. I think I like the video games better, even though I always lose.”
“Oh yeah? I bet you’d win against me.” I scooped a racing game off the top of the pile. “I only played this one a few times, but I kept losing because I ran into the turtle shells or something. Wanna play?”
“That one’s my favorite,” she said and jumped down from the couch. I wasn’t kidding, I was abysmal and Cynda beat me handily several times over, but I didn’t mind. I had intended to play games to distract her from thinking about the farm, but it turned out to be a good distraction for me as well. After a half hour, my mood had lifted considerably.
We were in the middle of a different game, this one was a fighting game with all the same characters from the racing game, when there was a knock on the door and Anil let himself in, carrying a stack of DVDs and a carton of ice cream.
“Wow Lucy, you still suck at that game. Cynda’s owning you.”
I glanced over at Cynda, who blushed to a deep crimson while still mashing buttons on her controller, but with less accuracy than before.
“Give me a break, I’m old,” I said as my character fell off the screen, indicating the game was over. “And it’s nice to see you too.”
He dumped the stack of movies on the table and went to put the ice cream away. “Sorry,” he said with a smirk. “I forgot I’m supposed to respect my elders.”
“Lucy’s not that old,” Cynda said in my defense. “Old is like thirty and she’s only twenty-five.”
“Hey, thirty’s not old eith
er! Ida’s ninety-two and she’s not old,” I shot back.
“Ida’s not old because she’s ancient, that’s older than old.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you said that, young man,” I teased.
“Whatever. Ida told me herself she’s so old she taught God how to make dirt.”
“That sounds like Ida,” I laughed. “So what do you got here, movie night? I hope nothing rated R since you youngsters aren’t old enough for that.” I might have been joking, but I eyeballed the stack of movies anyway. Anil’s tastes ran the gamut from gory to super gory and I worried about Cynda seeing something like that. Fortunately, most were animated features.
“All PG,” Anil assured me, but I was still wary of the idea of leaving the two of them alone. I may not have been terribly experienced back when I was a teenager, but I did recall where ‘movie night’ usually led.
“Well in that case, I suppose I’ll take my old self home. Cynda, I’ll swing back by tomorrow if you’d like.”
“Sure,” she said with a shy smiled. “Oh, but I have to see Abe. He thinks he knows what’s wrong with my eyes.”
“Oh? What’d he say?”
“It’s some kind of bacterial ker... kera-something.” She scrunched up her forehead, trying to remember.
“Bacterial keratitis,” Anil supplied with an angry look. “It was allowed to proliferate to a specific point, and then was stagnated so that she’d be almost blind. What kind of an asshole does that?”
The kind that treated children as sporting animals, I thought to myself. It made sense in its own sick way. Cynda had said that all of the kids had some skill that makes then hard to capture, thus the sport. But slowed down by bad eyesight, Cynda would have been an easy capture. Bluebeard was weeding out the lazy vampires while still turning a profit. I definitely shared Anil’s anger over this, but his reaction still concerned me.
“Well I have no doubt Abe will be able to fix that,” I assured Cynda as I got up to leave. “Anil, would you help me move something real fast before you get started?”
“Sure,” he shrugged.
I followed him out the door and started walking up towards the kitchen.
“What are we moving?”
“Nothing, I actually just wanted to talk to you for a second,” I said as conversationally as possible.
Anil stopped short and eyed me warily. “If you’re gearing up for the ‘talk’, my mother already took care of that. Like I told her, I’m not trying to take advantage of Cynda.”
“Saba actually thought that?” I was taken aback. Granted, Anil was Saba’s only child and she tended to be over protective, but she was normally very levelheaded. “Well, your mom has the right to overreact, it’s what moms do. But no, this is a different kind of talk. Cynda’s had the worst kind of life imaginable and even though she’s safe now, she’s probably still not quite recovered.”
“I know, Lucy. It was Dara’s idea to introduce me to her and she told me everything that happened before that. It makes me sick. She’s still having horrible nightmares about it.”
I had hoped that Cynda had better luck getting over that than I did. But how Anil knew about her nightmares worried me. “She’s told you this, I hope.”
“Yes, she told me,” Anil mimicked my disapproval. “But I saw it too. Yesterday we hung out in the afternoon and she got tired, so I went to get us some sodas. When I came back, she had fallen asleep on the floor. I didn’t want to wake her up, so I went and sat on the couch and read. After about ten minutes, she started screaming and thrashing around. When I tried to wake her up, she freaked out and literally threw me.”
“Yeah well that’s one of the other dangers,” I said. “She’s a lot like me, but she’s got the strength of a mod. She’s been violently abused, possibly sexually and even if she hasn’t, she has witnessed violent sexual abuse. Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I honestly don’t think you’d intentionally do something to hurt her and if your friendship develops into more than just friends then it is none of my business. But you have to keep in mind that even the most innocent action could be misconstrued.”
“I like her,” Anil admitted, “a lot, but I’m not a total asshole. I’m not going to force myself on any girl, let alone one I care about who has some major issues. We’re just going to watch movies, Lucy, I swear.”
“Okay,” I relented, “and I really am glad you’re helping her adjust. Just be mindful of what I said and talk to Dara every now and again. She’s not your mother and therefore not inclined to suspect you of deviant behavior.”
“I’ll do that,” Anil gave me a sideways smile. “Relationships can be complicated, huh?”
“You have no idea,” I said with a sigh. “Well, I imagine you do. Your life hasn’t exactly been normal has it?”
“Not really. It kind of sucked in school. Like any time I asked a girl out then had to cancel because of freaking vampire activity. I lost more than one date that way.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. But I’m right there with you. I had a hard time too because I never knew if a guy was actually interested in me or if they were just trying to make political connections. Of course, that was more in college, but it wasn’t much different in school either. In fact, back when I first moved to Washington, I was invited to a birthday party by a girl that I thought was just being friendly to the new girl. When my grandmother failed to vote the way her father wanted on a bill, I wasn’t invited to any more parties at her house.” I winced at the memories of countless similar occasions. In particular, the memory of the last guy I dated in college, who broke up with me because I wouldn’t network at my own grandmother’s funeral.
“Wow, that had to have sucked,” Anil said with a sigh. “You know, the only relationship advice Andre ever gave me was, ‘don’t be an heir.’ I thought he was just being a dick at the time, but I guess it kinda makes sense now.”
That was an interesting bit of insight. I filed it away for obsessive analysis later.
“See? Everyone’s got issues. Your mom told me she thought your dad was a big goofball when they met. She even asked Evan to find her a different partner.”
“Yeah, but dad is a goofball.”
“But a deadly goofball, who can be downright scary when the situation calls for it,” I reminded him. “Well, I’ve played the adult card for long enough. Go watch some movies and don’t eat all that ice cream in one sitting. I can tell you from experience, it’s a bad idea.”
“Thanks Lucy,” Anil said with a genuine smile.
With at least one worry assuaged, I left headquarters and finally put an end to what had felt like the longest day ever. Halfway to my apartment, I detoured slightly off course to pick up a carton of Ben & Jerry’s, which I did not eat in one sitting. Despite what some people thought of me, I at least followed my own advice.
Chapter 14
The following week was nearly unbearable. There was no new information on the vampire that attacked me, nor any updates on Andre's progress with the transmitter. Miles had let slip that he had been leading the hunters all week, which meant that Evan hadn't been back to headquarters. I had a nagging suspicion that both Evan and Andre were up to something and it infuriated me.
To keep from dwelling on how useless I was, I threw myself into a routine of nonstop activity. Upon waking, I would go for a five-mile jog along the river. In the evening I would work out with Miles and Hugh, and then again with Holly, until I was exhausted enough to collapse into a dreamless coma. Of course, that never actually happened. Despite keeping my mind and body distracted, my nightmares had gotten worse since the incident in the cemetery.
Between workouts, I still made plans to return to the plantation, regardless of the apparent information blackout that had been erected against me. Working with Tanya, EJC’s top special effects stylist, I now had a disguise that made me so completely unrecognizable that when I took it out for a test drive, I successfully held conversations with several of the hunters without them knowing wh
o I was. Hugh even followed me for a few blocks before I sent him a message telling him to get to work following real vampires. I even managed to recruit two more mods to the outreach.
I also started attending the support group meetings again, though the first one I went to quickly turned into a baby shower planning session. Dara, it seemed, was just as swept up in the baby craze as the rest of the women. I had to admit, it was fun to do something that involved smiling and laughing, but I still couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that I should have been directing my energies toward rescuing the kids on the plantation.
I was at the point where I began to suspect everyone thought of me as a useless liability and I hated it. As the week dragged on, and no word came from Evan, my mood spiraled farther downward until I was pretty much unbearable to be around. My nightmares had gotten so bad that I seriously contemplated soundproofing my apartment as not to further traumatize my borders with my terrified screaming. It was becoming harder to find those precious few hours of privacy and my lack of a proper sleep schedule wasn’t helping my surly mood.
After one particularly bad episode, I awoke to the sound of keys jingling in the lock, followed by my front door opening and shutting.
“I’m fine, Holly,” I called out with a wary sigh.
“Holly is at headquarters and no, you are not fine, Lucy.”
I bolted upright and snatched the blanket that I had kicked off to cover myself as my bedroom door opened. Andre stood in the doorway, framed by the light from the living room.
“What are you doing here?” I cringed slightly at my accusatory tone. Perhaps Lona had been right about the fact that I was always on the defensive with Andre, but he was the one breaking into my apartment. Well okay, he had a key, but still, he could have knocked.
“I thought you might want to know that we’re going ahead with your plan. I realize you expressly asked for someone else to tell you this, but I’ve made some discoveries that I think you should know about.” He flipped on the light and sat down on the edge of the bed. “And I think we need to talk.”
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 44
