She had no intention of running around in that water in this heavy robe, not when swimming fast could mean life or death, so she walked fast on still-shaky legs back into the Bernaux house and up the stairs. She shoved off her shoes and found a pair of basketball shorts with a tight elastic waist and grabbed one of Pryor’s white tanks.
One glance in the mirror showed her she should find a darker shirt that didn’t show her obvious bra-less state, but she didn’t give a crap what those men saw. She only cared about Pryor.
By the time she made it to the spot by the water, clouds had covered the scant moonlight. She thought about going back to find another flashlight, but could see the one she’d left still there, not too far from the shore. She tried to see out over the water but nothing moved out there.
Nothing moved anywhere. Even the breeze had gone away.
A shiver worked over her body as she hoped the alligator had moved on. She slowly sloshed through the water, grabbed the flashlight and went back to the side. She swung the beam slowly over the surface of the swamp, her panic growing as none of the men came into sight.
She needed to be out on that water and she remembered seeing a small pirogue propped against the side of one of the outbuildings. She hurried in that direction, keeping the light on the ground in front of her so she didn’t trip in the darkness. A scream ripped from her throat when something jumped out from between the trees around her. She whipped the light onto it.
Moochon parked his butt on the ground and panted at her.
Relief sent her to her knees and she hugged the dog. “You scared me to death. Want to go out on the water with me?” The dog would be great for things like chasing away snakes and barking in warning for anything bigger. He followed happily along as she reached the outbuilding she was pretty sure Pryor used as a shop. Sure enough, a gray, filthy pirogue was propped against the outer wall. She shoved it over and shone the flashlight all over it, looking for obvious reasons it would not be in use—holes or cracks. It seemed fine, so she began the incredibly hard job of tugging it toward the water. It wasn’t far, and the canoe was probably only about a hundred pounds or so, but it was bulky and awkward. She grunted and tugged and had to pull it around two trees to get there. Once it was by the water, she realized she’d need an oar.
For a moment, her shoulders slumped in exhaustion. It didn’t take another pain-filled cry to spur her on this time. No, this time, Pryor’s dog nudged her toward the boat. “I know, sweetie,” she said to him, keeping her voice down because it seemed to echo in all the eerie silence. “I have to find oars.”
She remembered seeing some on the airboat. Knowing this was the dumbest move ever, she went onto the half of the pier still standing and eyed the boat on the crushed end. Trying to figure out the best way to climb into the precariously placed boat took too many precious minutes and she nearly fell over in relief when she caught one of the oars floating in the water in her flashlight beam. She lay down on the pier and stretched her arm as far as she could to get it.
Moochon suddenly jumped over her head, causing water and algae to splash up onto her face and into her mouth. She spit it out and just shook her head as the dog grasped the handle of the oar and began swimming toward the shore.
“Smart boy!” she cooed as she jumped down, grabbed the oar and ran to the pirogue.
Moochon watched patiently as she huffed, pushed and pulled the boat around the last stump and got it into the water. “Come on,” she said as she settled on the small, metal bench. Moochon jumped into the boat, causing it to rock slightly. Elita didn’t worry—she’d grown up steering a boat just like this around the inlets of Ma’man’s section of the bayou. She and her cousins had loved nothing more than disappearing for whole days in one of these.
“Why don’t you bark, huh boy? Maybe it would help with this scary silence. Never, ever been in this swamp without the loud sound of bugs. It’s creeping me out like crazy.”
Talking to the dog seemed to help as she pushed off the side and worked her way into deeper water. She wished she had one of those flashlight helmets once she was out on the water. Thankfully, the moon showed brighter on this section of the swamp, so she could see enough to steer the boat in the right direction.
It didn’t take that long to reach the spot she’d seen Pryor go down and for a moment, she freaked, thinking he could be somewhere under her boat. She picked up the flashlight and shone it in the water but couldn’t see anything.
Nothing moved.
Nothing made a sound.
A sob built up in her throat and she choked on it as she picked up the oar and moved the boat around a bend just ahead. A massive tangle of old tree stumps and roots made dark, looming, thick figures like massive soldiers lined up along the side. This was where he’d been headed before. Behind them, a huge cypress rose out of the water with long limbs that stretched out toward the knot of roots.
The cry of pain that roared through the air then stole all the air from her body. Elita froze, her flashlight aimed that direction.
Moochon whined and lay down in the floor of the pirogue.
Another scream split the air and this one, masculine and tormented, brought more sobs into her throat. Out of fear and empathy. If that was her Pryor, it sounded like something was killing him.
Despite the terror making her hands shake like crazy, Elita took the oar and pushed the boat closer to the thick, scary root system. It was too tall for her to see over, but there were spaces between the ancient wood, so she rowed as close as she could and reached out to hold on.
Even as she lifted the flashlight, her hand shook because she knew with every fiber of her being that she shouldn’t be looking at what was beyond this point—that she wasn’t welcome. That every shrimper she’d ever heard talk said nobody should ever, ever, be in this part of the swamp at night.
But Pryor’s cries tore her heart to shreds.
She aimed the light through one of the spaces between the roots.
At first, she saw nothing but three shadowy figures just out of the reach of the beam of light. She grabbed another root, pulled the canoe to the left and found another space big enough to shine her light through.
Didn’t help much. The thin stream of light could only land on small strips of space but as she squinted and tried to see, some of the clouds dissipated and more moonlight spilled into the clearing.
Mercer and Wyatt stood on either side of Pryor, who was mostly slumped in the water, his head lolling forward on his neck. Each brother held one side of him up and as she watched, Wyatt flinched like he’d been hit with an invisible whip. Mercer made a low growling noise before he too flinched.
Around them, other shadowy figures stood. This small hollow felt different from the rest of the swamp like she’d stumbled on an ancient, secret place she should have never found. The ghosts were mostly in threes but some were alone. Spirits of past Bernaux brothers? Like the ones who’d stood over her in that guest room? And who were the others? The loners. Were they ghosts drawn here by what was happening or more?
She sensed that she wasn’t alone on this side of the knot of roots, but she didn’t look, didn’t want to see if the smudge man had managed to return or if she’d drawn the attention of some of the random ghosts.
A faint weeping sound filled the swamp and she turned and shone her light on the shore by the big tree with the carved out section. She couldn’t see the woman, but she knew Pryor’s mamere was there. Her pain was strong enough to break through the law of silence that seemed to rule this part of the swamp at night.
But Elita shouldn’t have been able to hear her and she really shouldn’t have been able to see the ghosts around Pryor, Mercer and Wyatt either. Not anymore. Pryor had removed her curse. She knew it. Knew he was out there paying for it too.
She couldn’t see enough from this side of the roots. Couldn’t see why Pryor just dangled between his brothers. He suddenly screamed—the sound so raw and so loud, she felt it deep in her own body. Panicked, s
he started to try and climb the root system when something slithered by her hand.
Moochon barked and lunged at the snake before it could bite her. He flipped it into the water.
Elita dropped the flashlight into the boat and her hands were shaking so badly, she could barely pick it up and get it back up to the hole.
She shone her light through just in time to see Mercer and Wyatt turn toward the noise she was making. She could tell them apart by their size.
The breath left her body as her light fell on their faces. Or what should have been faces.
Stark, white bone in place of skin. Black sockets in place of eyes. Teeth…not covered by lips. Their bodies were the same—they still wore the same clothes that were now soaked with water—but their faces were just…gone.
A suffocating wave of horror filled her lungs, made her heart skip and her hand started to shake, making the light waver. It moved off the brothers and she hurriedly moved it right back. Just in time to see who she thought was Wyatt snarl and start racing unnaturally fast across the water toward her. His empty, empty face arrived on the other side of the space between the roots as his body slammed into them.
Elita screamed and dropped the flashlight again. She stared over the top of the roots as she felt around for the oar, sure he’d crawl over them and get her. Her hands wrapped around the wood and she rowed the boat as fast as possible back to the shore. She kept looking over her shoulder, expecting one of the brothers to rise up over those tall stumps like the phantoms they obviously were and fly over the water to attack.
She hit the shore and climbed out of the boat, then stopped as the sound of the grandmother’s quiet sobs hit her. Moochon stood quietly beside her, waiting. It took everything she had to turn and face the water again and when she did, her legs gave out. She slumped to the ground and stared at the figured crouched on the top of the roots. From his height, she still thought it was Wyatt and he crept along the top of the stumps, his face turned her way. It was too dark to see that skeletal visage and she was thankful.
Somehow, she knew he couldn’t pass that spot, couldn’t come after her. Maybe it was the grandmother’s sobs in this very spot, or it could be that he’d stopped when he could obviously still see her. His agitated movements reminded her of a furious tiger locked behind the bars of a cage. When they’d been inside, she would have sworn Wyatt wasn’t the type to hurt someone, but that thing crawl-pacing out there didn’t like that she’d seen them, didn’t want the knowledge of them out in the world. She could read that in every sinuous, slinky move he made.
Elita kept her gaze on him as she grabbed the pirogue and pulled it farther up onto the ground so it wouldn’t float away. She’d already ruined one of their ways of transportation.
Pryor screamed and she dropped the boat, her every instinct to go back to him but her fear was still this impenetrable, massive wall holding her back. Wyatt’s head whipped toward his brother and for just a moment, moonlight shone on the white of a skull before he leapt into the air and disappeared.
What the hell were they?
Remembering the way Pryor had looked the morning after the storm, she now knew he’d spent the night out in that water. He had no choice. None. And that time, he’d been alone. Alone out there, going through whatever it was that caused those noises to rip from his throat. She shuddered, her emotions so tangled and screwed up she didn’t know what to do. Stand there and wait as their grandmother obviously had? Leave?
Could she do that? Could she really, at this time, abandon Pryor when it was what he’d done for her that caused this?
She couldn’t.
Whatever curse the Bernaux brothers had was so very, very much worse than the one that plagued her family. The Raisonne curse killed, but this? This was pure, unequivocal torture. Evil in its most basic form. Not the brothers, no. Evil toward them. Pryor’s cries were filled with the kind of raw suffering nobody should ever experience. She slumped back to the ground. Moochon trotted to her side and she wrapped her arms around his neck, taking the comfort he so obviously offered. This dog stayed with the brothers, so he wasn’t scared of them.
And were they even truly alive? They moved, but those faces…
She closed her eyes, let go of Moochon and touched the side of her neck that was still sore and tender from Pryor’s mouth earlier. He’d felt very much alive.
She couldn’t leave, but she did get up and slowly walk back to the Bernaux house. She turned when she realized Moochon hadn’t followed. He stayed right where he’d been, but he watched her. She somehow knew this was a ritual for them, that the dog wouldn’t leave them.
And neither would she.
The lights still blazed from the kitchen windows, something normal in a night of utter surreal. She leaned against the door once she shut it behind her and squeezed her eyes shut tight. Running wasn’t the answer. The memory of Pryor that morning, pulling her on top of him, smiling that crooked smile came to her and she closed her eyes. She had no idea how and why it had happened so fast, but that man had come to mean more to her than anyone. He’d become first in her world—wrapped himself around her heart in a way she knew was permanent.
So permanent, she didn’t want to leave him.
Even if he wasn’t quite human.
Chapter Thirteen
The expressions on the brothers’ mud-covered faces the next morning when they wearily trudged through the back door and into the kitchen and saw her would stay in her memory forever. She got outright shock from Mercer, a sort of amused resignation on Wyatt’s.
Pryor just stared, bemused, like he didn’t believe what he was seeing. All three brothers were wet and streaked with dirt, their clothes stained and in Pryor’s case, ripped in a few places. And he looked awful. His normally tanned skin was so pale, he looked minutes from death. Though, not as close as he had without a face—
She cut off that thought and placed her hand over her new, temporary cell phone. She’d called Ava in the middle of the night to ask her not to come here, and planned to call again soon because Ava never answered. Elita needed to understand more of what was going on here before she brought more of her family into this. But the prickly worry that skated over the surface of Elita’s skin after the third phone try made her feel that something bad was keeping her cousin from her phone.
Wyatt took a step toward her and she flinched.
“Nobody’s gonna hurt you, girl,” Wyatt said in his low, raspy voice. He was similar in build to Pryor, with those long, lanky muscles. “We don’t hurt people.”
“I know.” She nodded, her gaze locked onto Pryor’s. “I do know that. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself so I can still be in the same room with you all right now.”
This time, Pryor flinched.
Elita tried to give him a reassuring smile but the image of their skeletal faces kept jumping into her head, so the smile wobbled. “I instinctively know that Pryor is good—one of the best people I’ve ever met. I also know that you guys help people, but what I saw—” She stood up, her nerves firing too hard and fast to keep still. “I went out on the water last night. Oh my God, Pryor, I saw everything. I saw you guys.”
Pryor slumped. Mercer cursed and grabbed him. Wyatt joined on the other side, sliding Pryor’s arm around his shoulders. Their connection was so very strong, so utterly profound, she could almost feel it. These three men had had no one but each other in so very long. And even when they’d been young, they’d had nothing more than a grandmother to watch over them. She would probably never be able to truly understand what they meant to each other. She loved her cousins, she did. But the brothers just had this—and that was it. Their magic, their curse—if that what it was—and each other. Damn. Her heart thumped in a chest that felt hollow with empathy. And she realized something. She’d felt alone, truly alone, for so long, and during the time she’d spent with Pryor, she hadn’t felt that way at all. They had a connection too. It was new and fragile and still a complete mystery, but it was there.
She watched Mercer as he stared down at his brother and the love and affection on his face made his fierce features soften. There was absolutely nothing that Mercer Bernaux wouldn’t do for his baby brother.
But what Mercer was going to have to understand…and accept, was there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Pryor either. He wanted her. She knew it. And she wanted him too. She stared at this man who had crawled so deep into her heart so fast, she knew he would never, ever, not be a part of her. Pryor had shut his eyes, leaving the purple bruises underneath them in stark contrast to the rest of his face.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Mercer growled the words and she knew he expected her to cower under that glare of his.
She narrowed her eyes, letting him know that she’d never forgive him for locking her into that damned guesthouse. Emotions flickered over his expression, ones that looked a lot like amusement followed by admiration maybe, but the resignation in the end was obvious.
“I need to understand something,” she said, looking at Wyatt. “Why did you chase me last night?”
He lifted his eyebrows and nothing in his expression showed he knew what she was talking about. Either he was an excellent actor or…
She held her breath, took a step toward them. “You don’t remember coming after me, do you? Don’t remember climbing on top of those roots? None of it?” If he didn’t, that meant they didn’t know what happened to them at night. Didn’t know that they became something not…quite…human.
He shook his head, real regret showing in his eyes and in the downturn of his mouth. “We don’t remember most of what happens during the night. Just the pai—”
“Shut up, Wyatt,” Pryor cut him off in a voice that dragged with weariness. “She doesn’t need to know anything more. Mercer’s right, Elita. You should leave. Your curse is gone.”
“I know it is. I don’t feel it. It’s the first time in my entire life I don’t feel that nasty weight sitting on my skin.” She pushed the bar stool back under the lip of the island. “But you still shouldn’t have done that yesterday.”
The Brothers Bernaux [01] Raisonne Curse Page 17
