Altered

by Shelly Crane

  I stared up at him, stunned that he was being so bold with me. He usually acted as though being in the same room with me was a chore in itself and now he was actually letting me see him. He was affected by…me? I didn’t see how that was possible when he was this beefy, worldly, not-human devourer and I was a very human and sometimes neurotic girl whose sadness he could literally taste. How was there anything appealing about that?

  I shook my head and steeled my back. “How do you know my sister?”

  He seemed surprised and released my arm gently. “Sister,” he repeated and crossed his arms. “Put your shoes on.” I glared up at him sullenly and he tacked on a, “Please.”

  As soon as we were sitting down at the cheap diner, he began to ask his questions, which didn’t surprise me in the least.

  “So you’re the sister that joined the military and left Clara to live with the pastor and his family.”

  That wasn’t really a question, but he was definitely implying some things he wanted me to answer. I sighed and swallowed down the guilt, hoping he couldn’t already taste it this early in the conversation. I scoffed and shook my head. Wow, I was so calm about all this devourer business. I looked up at him and saw him watching me closely.

  “Yes. I’m the sister that freaked when our parents died and abandoned her little sister to live with the pastor so I didn’t have to deal with her. She was our parents’ favorite and I didn’t want to have to console her when I didn’t even know how to console myself. We had nothing. No money, no house, no car. Everything was gone. All I got was a lousy thirteen hundred bucks from the stuff that sold after all the bills were paid. Clara and I both were a little spoiled by our father. He tried to pretend that we had more money than we did. He was a good man, but we had no idea how to take care of ourselves. So I took that little bit of money, all I had left in the world, and I ran like the coward I was and didn’t look back.”

  I felt a tear race down my cheek as I stared at the tabletop. So much for not letting him taste my sadness so early on, huh?

  “What can I get you…folks?” I glanced up at the waitress to see her sympathetic gaze and wiped my cheek. “Oh, honey. It’s not as bad as all that, is it?” She sent Enoch a small glare and a nod. “Is it this one?” Enoch was still looking at me and hadn’t spared her a glance. “I’ll toss him out on his keister if you say the word.”

  I shot my gaze over to Enoch at that, who was chuckling silently.

  “That won’t be necessary.” I looked back up at her. She was tall and thin, middle-aged and so normal looking. She was someone’s mother for sure. “But thank you. I’ll just take a coffee and whatever’s on special.”

  “Okay, sugar.”

  “She’ll have pancakes, a side of bacon, and bring us some fruit, too, please,” Enoch interrupted, his voice as smooth and creamy as the coffee I was craving. “I’ll take the same exact thing, just double it.” He winked at her. “And thanks for looking out for her. She’s having a rough time right now. It’s hard for her to let people look out for her so I appreciate the help.” He reached over and rubbed his thumb over my chin to collect the last tear. I gasped so quietly, it didn’t sound like a gasp at all but more like an inhale. He smirked at my shocked expression. “What? I remembered your pancakes and bacon.”

  “I can see that.” I wiped my fingers across where his fingers had just swiped. Was he purposely trying to toy with me?

  The waitress looked more stunned than I did. “Uh…I’ll just put this order in then.”

  “Thanks, Patricia,” he said, still looking at me.

  “How did you—”

  “Nametag.” He turned with a smile and nodded his head toward it. “You’re wearing a nametag, Patricia.”

  “Oh, right.” She took her beet red cheeks and sprinted to the back to put our order in.

  “You did that on purpose,” I said, but smiled a little. “You know you have this effect on people and you do it on purpose to see if you can get a rise out of them.”

  His smile was crooked, like he knew it, but there was more to it. “You see, that’s the way it used to be. But then this girl named Fay came along.” I grinned down at the table, unable to stop it, even though his antics were clear. “And she was good at not falling for my charms.”

  I met his eyes and went for it, decided to let the old Fay come to the surface—the Fay who wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything, the Fay who got what she wanted. “You used your charms on me?”

  He leaned back in his seat and smiled the smile of a caught man. “You know what I mean.”

  “Not really. You’ve been barking orders and acting like I ran over your dog since I met you.”

  He licked his lip and actually looked a little guilty. I didn’t think that was possible. I felt my eyebrows rise as he said, “When you’ve lived as long as I have and been brought up a certain way to believe certain things, it’s going to take more than one night and a beautiful girl with a golden soul to make you change. But I am trying,” he grated out, his words sounding as if they were being dragged over concrete.

  But the only thing I heard was… “Beautiful?” I barely whispered. Why had I said that? “I’m…sorry.” I looked up from the table to find his mouth slightly open as he watched me, his violet eyes half open. I slid out and stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  I scoffed with a smile. “Anywhere but here?” He smiled and huffed a laugh. I sighed. “The bathroom. I’m going to the bathroom.”

  “Okay, Fay.” As I passed him I heard, “Don’t stay gone on my account.”

  I groaned and wondered why I was so weird all of a sudden. I used to be a dating guru. My friends all came to me for advice because I was good at it. I had dates every weekend in high school. It was never an issue for me. And now, there I sat, babbling about…am I beautiful? I scoffed. Who cares if he thought I was beautiful or not. It was obvious he disliked me a great deal. Or woman in general. Or maybe just dating in general. Whatever.

  And Clara. What if it was Clara? What if she had broken his heart?

  I sighed and rolled my eyes as I washed my hands. Enough. I was going to go out there and get this over with.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. I was pale and had no make-up. I pinched my cheeks a little to give them some color. I scoffed. Beautiful? That was lifetimes ago.

  I sat back down and was sad to see the food still wasn’t there. I got right to it, staring at the table.

  “Clara is my little sister. She’s three years younger than me. I joined the military and she stayed with Pastor and his wife. I don’t really know much about what has happened to her since I left. We haven’t…talked much. I know she got married.” I can’t help but choke up a bit at that. That I missed my sister’s wedding and will never get to go back and do that again. In truth, I didn’t even know about the wedding until it was too late. I had moved from the base and neither Clara nor the Pastor knew it. The invitation took too long to reach me and by the time it did… But that’s on me. If I had just kept in touch, they would have known how to reach me. I keep going because I’ll cry if I don’t. “I don’t even know what this Eli guy looks like or how old he is or if he’s good to her.”

  It’s quiet so long so I look up. He’s watching me again. Just watching. His lips smile, just barely. “Eli is a good looking guy. I can tell you that much.” I squint, confused, but before I can ask he continues. “And he’s good to her, by human standards I’m sure. By devourer standards, it makes me want to puke. As for how old he is, I don’t think that really matters. Love is love, right?”

  “I can’t imagine her in love. Not really. She was so…shallow and all over this stupid meathead from school. For this turnaround, so quickly…it scares me. It makes no sense for Clara to act this way. This isn’t my sister at all. Which leads me to wonder…what the hell did this Eli guy do to her?” I ask softly.

  His lip curls a little. “He fell in love.” He looked me in the eye. “And he took her down with him. It’s tru
e. Honest to God. I saw it for myself. All the barf-inducing, sugary sweet crap. It was all real.”

  “Why did they have to move into the freaking woods in the middle of nowhere? What has she gotten herself into?” I whisper to myself, but look up at him. “Does this have something to do with your kind?”

  “Not just my kind.”

  “There’s more?” I whisper in a small shriek. He leans on the table, sighing and closing his eyes for a second longer than normal. “Fay,” he groaned. “Please.” He opened his eyes. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m going to get you to your sister. That’s a promise.”

  “Why?” I leaned on the table, too, and into his space. “Why are you helping me? It’s obvious you don’t like me. Is it Clara? You and Clara had a thing and you’re going to break them up or something?”

  He scoffed so loud and glared. “No,” he boomed. “Absolutely not. Clara Hopkins ruined my life.”

  I sat back in surprise. “Um…”

  “She is the reason that I can’t feed the way I need to,” he bit out. “She is the reason my brother was taken from me. She is the reason the Horde is chasing us all.” He shook his head. “No, no. I’m closer to hating Clara than loving her.” I sighed and swallowed. “Sorry,” he said and shrugged, “but you asked.

  “I don’t think I did,” I muttered and blinked at the waitress as she brought our food.

  “Maybe not,” he conceded, “but you don’t have to worry about Clara. You don’t need to be jealous because there is absolutely no love there.” I gave him droll look. “And I won’t hurt her either, because…she married my brother.”

  I gasped, sucking coffee into my wind pipe. While I coughed, he came and sat beside me. Rubbing a small, forceful circle in the middle of my back, he patted and turned my face to look at him. When he saw that I was okay, he asked, “Do you need mouth to mouth?” He grinned, tilting his head a little. “I’d be very obliging.”

  I coughed and shoved at his stomach. “All right, Casanova. Let’s take it down a notch.”

  He lifted his hands as he returned to his side of the booth. “Hey. Just trying to save a life.”

  “You already did. I don’t think I thanked you for that, by the way.” I made sure to look at him and not be a coward.

  He smiled and looked like he was about to make a joke, but then he thought better of it. “You’re welcome, Fay. And it appears it was fate that brought us together.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Brother and sister-in-law.”

  “Oh, right. That’s not a coincidence. Can’t be.”

  “No,” he agreed. “It’s not. We’re going to find out soon enough what’s going on. I’ll get you there. I’ll get you to Clara. I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded his head and took a big bite of pancakes.

  “So…Eli is your brother?”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m the better looking brother.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes, dipping my bacon into my syrup and hearing him groan about how disgusting it was. He told me some things about Eli and Clara. He had been at their wedding, which broke my heart into little pieces right then and there. But again, it was no one’s fault but mine. He talked about anything he thought I would want to know that happened in the very short weeks that he had known Clara.

  I ate and I listened.

  ____________

  We drove—he drove—until the afternoon when I noticed him starting to twitch around in the seat, obliviously uncomfortable. He rubbed his thigh with the side of his fist over and over so hard I thought the fabric of his jeans was going to rip. Then he started to tap a rhythm on the steering wheel and turned the music up louder. As Aerosmith blared over the speakers, I knew exactly what was happening. I still didn’t understand why I was calm and understanding about this, but knew what I needed to do.

  I thought about the night my parents died. Clara called me. I wasn’t home. She was in hysterics. She had come home and found them…

  Enoch’s hand swung over and gripped my thigh tightly. “Stop it,” he growled.

  I continued to look out the window, noticing how his hand hadn’t moved from my leg. I sighed. It had been so long since someone had touched me. “You need it, don’t you? I can tell. You’re getting all twitchy.”

  “And I told you that I don’t want that from you,” he said harshly.

  I looked over. “You just want it from someone else?”

  He watched the road. “Yes.”

  Coward.

  “I’m not a coward,” he said with an angry chuckle and took his hand away. My skin was cold where his hand had been. “I’m the only one being smart right now.”

  I covered my lips with two fingers. I said that out loud.

  He drove for a few more minutes and then pulled off an exit. When he pulled into a bar parking lot, I got anxious. I looked over to see him still brooding, his brows drawn together. He put the car in park and looked over at me for the first time. “Stay here. Don’t come in and don’t get out of this car for any reason. Lock the doors.” I started to argue, but his menacing look stopped everything. “Don’t.”

  I leaned back in my seat slowly and looked at my lap. There were two things he was going in there for and neither of them was good. He got out and stopped by his door, his hand on the top of the car. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay in the car, no matter what. I’m…not leaving you.”

  Then he slammed the door and sprinted inside. I watched him go, wondering what had just happened. One minute he was an absolute jerk, the next he was reassuring me he wasn’t leaving me like I had thought he was last time. I wanted to take a nap, feeling tired and drawn out, but the sun was too bright, so I climbed in the back seat and turned my face toward the back. I looked at my watch. It was fifteen after three. When someone knocked, waking me, I looked at my watch and it was almost four. I looked up at his face, the sun haloing behind his head and could already tell he was better. I unlocked his door and he climbed in.

  “We need to ditch this car soon and grab another. It’s not smart to keep it. The cops will be looking for it.” He backed out and started to drive like everything was normal. Like he hadn’t just been in there feeding off someone who was sad about their wife leaving them, or fighting because of cheating on a game or pool, or the more likely option, someone who he’d been doing intimate things with that I didn’t want to think about. I rolled back over and pretended that he hadn’t even come back. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he asked. Like he had no idea. Maybe he didn’t.

  “Nothing.”

  He sighed and drove faster. “I don’t like doing it any more than you like knowing I do it. Soon we’ll be there and you never have to see me again.” I scoffed under my breath. He was such a guy for actually not really being one. “Now what?” he growled.

  “Nothing,” I answered again.

  “I really hate that answer.”

  “I’m so glad you’re in a better mood,” I spouted sarcastically and covered my head with my arm. I slept. I dreamt of floating, rafting with Clara and our parents down the Ichetucknee River in Florida, something we did every couple of years. Then my dream moved to other dreams. I was falling, but so warm. I wrapped myself around the warmth, not understanding why it moved and even seemed to chuckle. Then I was cold all of a sudden before we were moving again. My head ached.

  I moaned when I was blasted with heat, but couldn’t stay asleep any longer. I woke to find myself not in a sleek black car, but an old blue Mustang with white leather. White, cold, freezing leather. I wrapped my arms around myself and sat up in the seat before climbing up in the front.

  “Afternoon, sunshine,” he drawled, but he seemed extra chipper about something.

  I grimaced. “You’re giving me whiplash, Enoch. Pick a side, already. Either you love me or you hate me. Or…” I rolled my eyes, feeling my cheeks bloom with red, “you know what I mean.”

  He grinned wider. “Oh, yes. I know what you mean. Do you like
the new ride?”

  “I never was a ‘stang girl.”

  He laughed. Hard. Too hard. I laughed, too, because Enoch letting loose was too good to pass up joining in. “A ‘stang girl, huh? Wow. We wouldn’t want that.” He grinned over at me. “That sounds painful.”

  I pushed his arm. “Shut up.”

  We stopped for supper not too long after that. I had about had it with crappy diner food, but that was the way it was on the road. It was getting darker. We were getting closer, and though he didn’t need to sleep, per se, he said he liked to rest and wanted to get a room for the night. I didn’t know if he was just doing that for me or not, but that would be an awfully nice gesture and I didn’t want to give him that much credit.

  We checked into the motel first and then went into the adjoining restaurant. The diner was pretty rowdy that night. There was some kind of karaoke tournament going on and we just happened to catch it on the right night. I don’t think Enoch’s aggravated eyebrow came down the entire time we waited for our burgers.

  I laughed at him under my hand, but he somehow heard it over the loud singing and laughing.

  “Oh, this is funny? If I wanted to be tortured, I could think of a hundred less painful ways,” he said and sucked down the last of his drink. He waved to the waitress and she refilled his Coke and my diet.

  “I pegged you for a hard liquor man.”

  “Booze don’t do me any good, love.” He smiled and leaned back in the booth, linking his hands behind his head. “I’m not built like you, remember?”

  “Right,” I drawled and tried not to look at his arms stretched in that shirt, but failed. I looked away as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t quick enough. I saw him tick his head to the side, whether in question or trying to catch my eye. Either way, I wasn’t falling for it.

  I looked around the room and thought it funny that Enoch and I were the only ones not drunk and falling all over the place. Everyone else had plates of nachos and dart board games going as they listened to horrible singing and waited their turn. It was more like a bar than a diner, really. The sign was deceiving. I heard the song change—a woman singing a very sloppy rendition of Endless Love. I grimaced and shook my head as people got up and started dancing to it just as I saw an eager face coming my way. I turned back to Enoch and tried to act like I was engaged with him. “Oh, no,” I muttered.