Granted by the Beast

by Hamilton, Rebecca; Kressley, Conner;

  Could he really keep me alive?

  Chapter 11

  I woke with a sweet ache pulling at my bones. I was on the floor upstairs—that was much was clear from the way my body was contorted. But it didn’t matter. I was a world away from uncomfortable. I had just experienced the most magnificent thing in the world, something so amazing I was sure it would never be duplicated.

  I opened my eyes slowly, blinking away the sleep and stretching out the satisfaction. The sun seeped low through the windows, indicating the fall of evening.

  I reached across for Abram, yearning to feel him against my fingertips again. When I came up empty, my eyes flung open. He was gone. Go figure. He’d probably snuck off as though I was some convenient booty call.

  Is that what I was?

  Well, that would make things awkward. Regret for my actions trickled into my mind. Looking over to where Abram should have been, I found a crumpled note.

  * * *

  I had to go.

  I was going to wake you,

  But then you made this little moaning sound and pursed your lips.

  I didn’t have the heart to disturb something so beautiful.

  I have a lot I want to say to you, a lot I think you need to know.

  But a letter doesn’t seem like enough, and those texts machines are confounding.

  Let me make you breakfast tomorrow instead.

  I would love to show you what a real pancake tastes like.

  -Abram

  * * *

  A smile broke across my face, and suddenly I didn’t feel like a booty call after all. I felt…wanted. Sure, it was a stupid note on a crumpled napkin smeared with barbeque sauce, but for Abram, that was a big thing. I knew that, and because I knew that, it meant something.

  I sat up, folding the crumpled napkin and slipping it into my purse, which at some point while I slept had been placed neatly beside me along with my shoes and clothes.

  I had never been the type of girl who did the whole ‘keepsake’ thing. Reminders were just that, and I didn’t want to be reminded. But there was something about this note, something about this man, that made me feel differently somehow.

  My stomach rumbled, and I was instantly glad Abram wasn’t here to hear it. I wasn’t about to apologize for being hungry, but something about the idea of being stark naked on the floor of a demolished club with your tummy growling like a grizzly bear didn’t seem very attractive.

  I stood, ran my fingers through my hair, and slipped on my clothes. Leaving my shoes off and trying ignore the ugly yellow-green bruises and scrapes on my feet that would surely scar, I sauntered barefoot across the long upstairs hall, looking down over the balcony into the main area.

  I felt comfortable here. Really comfortable. And it had little to do with the fact that my bare ass had touched the paint-splattered walls.

  Something about fixing up The Castle, about molding it into the sort of place that might have been successful under different circumstances, made me feel better. It was like building this place up built myself up, too. Maybe that was why I was where I was now. Maybe it was this piece of confidence, this accomplishment, which gave me what I needed to let Abram in.

  I sighed, breathing in the smell of drying paint. Abram was still here, his scent wafting long after he had left. Every muscle in my body relaxed. For the first time since returning to New Haven, I was at peace.

  Moving toward one of the windows, I closed my eyes and let the light of the fading evening sun tingle against my skin. A murmuring tickled at my ears, and at first I thought I just imagined it. But then the sound came again like a soft call, whispering my name.

  “Chaaarriiiissse.”

  Without moving, without flinching, I knew where it came from. I had heard that noise before, singing from behind the painted moon door downstairs.

  Before I registered what was happening, I was downstairs, across the main floor, and down the hall leading to the back room. And, though I had no memory of picking it up, I found a crow bar in my hand.

  Did I even know where Abram kept his tools?

  I stood in front of the door, the voice singing my name to me again.

  “Chaaarriiissse. Chaaarriiissse.”

  Last time I’d tried to open the door, I’d ended up with burns on my palms. Now the crow bar was heating to match it. I didn’t let go, though. I couldn’t. Besides, the heat didn’t hurt this time. There was no pain, nothing more than the sensation of warmth. It was almost inviting.

  I found the crow bar pulling back in my hands, which were now raised over my head. I could feel the bar being pulled back and then toward the door. It slammed hard against the painted moon, which had begun to glow red.

  “Aaaaggaaiiiinnn,” the voice sang after the bar shook against the door.

  My arms sprang into action again, pulling behind my head. But my phone dinged loudly, indicating I had a text.

  Something jarred inside my head, and a crow bar fell from my hands.

  Why was I holding a crow bar? Why was I standing in front of this creepy door?

  Shaking the fog from my mind, I looked down at my phone.

  The text read: Dinner tonight?

  It was from Dalton. Oh no. I hadn’t made him any promises. I hadn’t even kissed him, unless you counted a hot peck on the ear. But there was no denying something was going on between us. He had even called me ‘his girl’; a definition I hadn’t rebuffed.

  And now here I was, planning morning-after breakfast with my boss while this man was waiting on me for dinner, sending me texts with cute smiley emoticons and being an all-around standup guy, oblivious to what a shitty person I was.

  I wasn’t a cheater, exactly. Was I? If not, I was still too close for comfort. I couldn’t let this go on. Dalton deserved better than this. He had been nothing but amazing to me. Not to mention we had grown up together and he was my best friend’s baby brother.

  This was getting complicated.

  But complicated didn’t change facts, and the fact was I wasn’t attracted to Dalton, not in the same way I was attracted to Abram. And maybe I had always known that. Maybe running from my growing feelings for Abram was part of the reason I threw in with Dalton so quickly.

  That wasn’t fair to him, but there was nothing I could do about the past. And now that I knew, not telling him right away would be even worse. I needed to nip this thing in the bud and deal with whatever fallout came from it.

  I shot him a text.

  Hey. Can we talk? Meet me at the diner? –Char

  I could have broken it off with him via text. God knew it would be easier for me that way. But that would be impersonal and, as Abram had said, a letter didn’t seem like enough.

  Begrudgingly, I slipped my shoes on. I used to love my shoes, but lately, with my feet still sore, wearing them felt like a punishment. Maybe one I deserved at the moment. I sighed as I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. After locking up The Castle behind me, I ascended the stairs, not wanting to do what I knew I had to.

  The sun was almost gone from the sky, tinting the clouds red and orange and elongating all the shadows. It would be dark soon, and with that damn sexist curfew in effect, I wasn’t legally allowed to be on the streets right now. But since I didn’t give a warmed-over damn about that, I kept toward the diner.

  I was about halfway there when the unnerving thought struck me: I hadn’t been outside and alone in the dark since that night. The monsters surged to the forefront of my mind. I still hadn’t told anyone about what really happened, and since I didn’t fancy being fitted for a strait jacket, it was going to stay that way. Besides, it had probably only been shadows playing tricks. They were dogs…or something…

  Dogs with glowing yellow eyes. Dogs that stood straight up like men.

  I shook my head, passing by an entrance to those large and encompassing woods.

  I didn’t want to look at them, not after everything that had happened. But something caught my eye.

  A man was wandering int
o the woods. And not just any man. I knew that back. I knew those arms. I knew that ridiculously tight ass.

  It was Abram.

  Chapter 12

  What was Abram doing in the woods? And why so close to the area where I had gone missing?

  My heart bounced around in my chest like a pinball. I shook my head. Whatever he was doing, I would find out tomorrow. I would just ask him, and he would tell me.

  Yeah. Right. I wasn’t kidding anyone—not even myself. This man—a man I had just let into my heart and my body—had secrets. He had always had secrets. It was part of his appeal. But now it seemed very likely that his secrets were connected to things that happened to me…things that I still didn’t really understand.

  Maybe a different type of girl would be okay with asking him tomorrow and taking whatever he said at face value. But the type of girl I was—she just flung her heels off and followed him into the woods, battered feet and all.

  At first, I stayed far enough back to be sure Abram couldn’t hear all the noise I made storming after him. It was strange. Here I was, after the most intense night of passion with this man, snooping around at his footprints like some sketchy TMZ photographer.

  And it wasn’t as though I was the jealous girlfriend type. In all honesty, I didn’t even consider myself to be Abram’s girlfriend. I was his—well, I had no idea what I was. But I didn’t suspect he was marching into the woods to be with another woman. He struck me as too old school for that sort of thing.

  I wasn’t sure what I thought was going on. The only thing clear was that weird things had been going on with me since I returned to New Haven, and these woods (and this man) were pieces to a puzzle I needed to solve.

  As leaves crunched underfoot, a shiver ran up my spine. The last time I had been here, I was running for my life. It was one of the worst moments of my existence, and the thought that Abram—this man who I had just given myself to—might have something to do with it, sickened me to the core.

  No, I was being ridiculous. He was just going for a walk.

  A sunset walk through the middle of a tract of woods that had seen the murder of at least one woman. Yeah, that made sense.

  Still, there had to be a reason for this, and it couldn’t have had anything to do with the myriad of crazy theories running through my mind.

  It’s just…there was so much about Abram I still didn’t know. So much that still didn’t make sense. Where did he live? Where did he go at night? Why didn’t I ever see him at the club (or anywhere, for that matter) after the sun went down? That wasn’t even the whole of it. I’d had so many questions since meeting him, that I couldn’t even remember them all—but I knew there was more than just this.

  Abram marched quickly through the forest, the sort of speed one only takes when he or she knows exactly where they’re going and just how to get there.

  My stomach was in knots, and my poor yo-yo of a heart was racing again. Whatever was going on, one thing was for sure: New Haven was no longer the sleepy town I remembered from my childhood.

  My phone buzzed, and I hit the ground.

  Goddamn it!

  Served me right for not having sense enough to turn the ringer off. Just my luck. When I was stranded in the middle of the night, I couldn’t have made a call to save my life. But now that I was being (sorta) stealthy, my ringer was blowing up like Lady Gaga at a nightclub. If Abram saw me here, following him, how would I even explain myself?

  Hey there. Was just taking a stroll through the place where I almost got killed. Funny seeing you here.

  I huddled behind the stump of a nearby tree, hoping that if I was still and quiet enough, he would assume the ringer had just been the wind. If he had heard it at all, that was.

  Why should I have to explain myself to him anyway? He should be the one explaining himself to me!

  And yet I kept myself hidden, unable to overcome the guilty feeling I had over not trusting him. It made no sense for me to feel this way, and yet, there it was.

  Pulling the phone from my purse, I lowered the ringer down to silent, noticing a text from Dalton had been the source of the disturbance.

  Hey. I’m at the diner. Ordering you juice and eggs Benedict. I know how u like breakfast 4 dinner. How long r u gonna be?

  Oh, great. I was supposed to meet him to break things off, and here I was standing him up to prance through the woods after the guy I was leaving him for.

  It was like I was inadvertently training for the bitch Olympics.

  I considered texting him back, telling him to wait there, or ever just telling him it was over like this. But just because I seemed to be in training didn’t mean I wanted to take the gold. So, shooting him a quick, Sorry. Something came up, I slid the phone back into my purse.

  Slowly, I peeked from behind the stump. Not only was Abram not marching back toward me, but it seemed he didn’t hear anything at all. Because he was nowhere to be seen.

  But how could that be? This particular stretch of woods was flat and expansive. It would have taken him at least five minutes to make it out of my line of sight, and it hadn’t been near that long.

  I stood, brushing leaves and twigs from my dress, cursed my current trend of ruining all my designer things, and took a long look around. Where the hell was this guy? I had never seen him run and, given the sexual encounter I had with him earlier, he didn’t seem like the type to do anything in a rush.

  I clutched my purse and thought about turning around. But I knew that was no good. If I didn’t get to the bottom of this, I would never have a clear head around Abram again. I would ruin this relationship before it even started.

  Well, Char, there’s only one thing to do.

  I didn’t know everything that was going on—in fact, the only pieces I did have about what was happening didn’t make sense when I tried to put them together—but I did know it had something to do with that old house, and I was pretty sure I could find my way back to it.

  So long as Abram wasn’t there, I could make peace with the idea he didn’t have anything to do with this—that whatever he was doing in these woods was as innocent as I hoped it was. And peace, it seemed, was in short supply these days.

  The mile up the road out of New Haven seemed shorter when full of anxiety instead of fear, but the trek through the woods was as unenjoyable as ever. Considering I had never been a nature lover—heels and hills don’t mix—I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the trip, regardless how much shorter it was this time. But something about that house seemed to draw me to it, as if a piece of myself was waking up and guiding through this place where all the trees and paths looked the same.

  I barely had to think as I moved toward my destination, which was good considering my mind had basically melted into paste by this point.

  The house came into view. First that awful peak, jutting out from the tree line. Next, I saw the top floor, with the beckoning light still burning in the window.

  It had taken me nearly an hour the other night to get away from this place, and I was a bit stunned to realize how close to the road it actually was. Maybe being disoriented from the attack had slowed my escape.

  As I drew nearer, the chipped paint and quaint structure exposed beneath the waning sunlight made the old house look less monstrous and more lonely. Or, as lonely as a house could look anyway.

  Here was this house, sitting untouched and outpaced by the rest of the world. It was sort of sad. But, more than that, it was almost beautiful. Or at least it would have been if this hadn’t been the location where I’d nearly been eaten alive by a pair of quarreling monsters.

  I stepped closer to the house, pursing my lips at the already repaired window. For a house that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in fifty years, it sure had an efficient handyman.

  I pushed all of that out of my mind. At this point, I didn’t care about solving this mystery. The only thing that mattered was ruling out Abram as a participant in it.

  Inching forward, I bit my lip as the door
revealed itself to me. He wasn’t going to be here. He was a good man—a bit of a dick, sure, but not the sort to lie, not about something like this. He was old fashioned in a way I couldn’t really describe. He was untouched by time, sort of like this house. Sort of like—

  Sort of like the kind of man I would find standing in the threshold of the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. Apparently.

  My heart sank at the sight of him. No, Abram. Please, no. However small it was, this man who I had just slept with had a part in all of this.

  His dark eyes scanned the periphery of the woods and, for an instant, I thought he was looking for me. Maybe he had heard my ringer go off. Maybe he had sprinted away from me quickly enough for me to lose sight of him.

  He turned and walked into the house. The door slammed shut behind him, and I was alone, gasping in shock and slumping against a nearby tree.

  Shock soured in my stomach, turning to hurt and finally to anger. He had lied to me. It must have been Abram himself who found me in the house that night. Of course, that would have also meant he’d fought back those monsters and saved me. But if that was the case, why didn’t he just tell me? Why did he let me limp back to town with cuts, bruises, and a mind so rocked with questions that it barely functioned?

  I wanted answers. Abram owed me those answers. And, by God, I was going to get them. But I couldn’t just barge in there. He had lied to me at least once. I would have to be sneaky about this and gather some clues, or else he might hide more from me before I ever had the chance to find out. But I also couldn’t wait for him to leave. It was getting late and, if I didn’t show up soon, Lulu would worry.

  Going missing twice inside of a week was the last thing my extremely pregnant and hyper-worrisome best friend needed.

  I was going to have to go inside now. I would have to sneak around without Abram knowing I was in there. It was a terrible plan, and yet, it was all I had without the risk of losing this opportunity forever.