King Among the Dead (Hell Theory Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  “You look like you do,” Kay offered, not unkindly. “Everybody with eyes as haunted as yours likes to get lost in other people’s stories. You and he’ll get along real well, I think.” She offered a smile that was knowing, smirking, and which Rose didn’t understand at all.

  She was still stuck on haunted. She looked haunted? By what?

  FOUR

  Kay invited her to watch TV in what she called the “comfy parlor,” but Rose chose to stay behind in the library. She explored, tentatively at first, and then, fingertips electrified by the feel of fine leather on the spines, more boldly. She made slow laps around the room, titling her head side to side, reading titles. There were dictionaries and encyclopedias, atlases; nonfiction titles on cities, and animals, and rock formations; biographies, and books about battles from history. Books about anatomy, and psychology, and astronomy. Many, many books about the history of England; seven titles alone about the fabled King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

  She paused there, hand hovering, ready to pull a book down. She supposed Beck was like a knight – like her childhood imaging of one. There’d been no white horse, only blood, and his armor had been combat boots and leather. But. He’d saved her.

  She kept moving, though, and finally found the fiction. A wild and varied assortment of it. Poetry, and slim Shakespeare volumes. Classics and fat, dusty paperbacks from the middle of last century. Popular fiction, New York Times hits, and old romances with embracing couples on their faded jackets. Fantasy, and murder mysteries, and mythology retellings. She finally selected a small paperback with a muted, pastel cover and went to snuggle down in the chair that didn’t have a table beside it – that one she’d marked as Beck’s straight away.

  The rain drummed outside, on the sidewalks and window ledges, a soothing backdrop of white noise, and it was easy to slip inside the book and forget who and where she was.

  It was the blurb from another author whose name she recognized that had urged her to pick this one: epic love. But she hadn’t known what to expect. The protagonist was a girl her own age, homeless, hungry, on the run, living in a kind of terror that had Rose hunching over in her chair, her stomach tight with empathetic nerves that were all-too-familiar. The girl learned to fight, and scrap, and stay alive, but just barely…and then she met the boy with wings. A beautiful boy with white hair, and white, feathered wings. I’ll keep you safe, he whispered, and when the girl shuddered, Rose shuddered, too.

  “Good, Kay showed you the library.”

  Rose jumped when Beck’s voice sounded behind her. She was half-out of the chair, clutching the book guiltily when he stepped around into view, hands clasped behind his back, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. It was…a distracting visual, in the gray, rainy light.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted, feeling caught. This wasn’t her house, or her library, or her chair, or her book, and even though Kay had said…

  But he waved her back down and settled in the other chair. “Sit, please.” Offered another of his small smiles that she was beginning to think of as normal already. “I’m glad someone’s in here keeping the books company.” His honey eyes sparkled, and she finally relaxed back into her chair. “Which one did you choose first?”

  She showed him the cover, face heating with embarrassment.

  But he said, “That’s a good one.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “Oh, yes. Twice. It’s got a nice mix of action, romance, and angst.” He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, and propped his chin on his fist, shiny lock of hair falling over one eye. “Has Emily met Pietro yet?”

  “She just did. That’s the scene I’m reading now.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, then.”

  When he smiled this time, she found herself returning it. It felt strange; she wasn’t used to her lips curving upward.

  “I thought we might go shopping now, if you’re amenable,” he continued.

  She still couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that he would take a stranger shopping for luxuries. Offer her a place in his home – a permanent one, if the breakfast conversation was anything to go by.

  She thought to refuse. It was too much. It was ridiculous. But a yearning, hungry part of her won out. If he was offering, then she would take and say thank you.

  She nodded. “That sounds good.”

  He didn’t move to get up right away, though. Stayed sitting, studying her, his gaze weighty and impossible to decipher. Rose wanted badly to know what he was thinking. No one had ever looked at her this way, and he had a face worth studying, beautiful but enigmatic.

  A long few beats passed in which she didn’t breathe, and then Beck came to life, like a video un-paused, and he sat up, stood up, brushed the creases from his jeans. Offered her a hand. “Shall we?”

  It was the second time she’d placed her hand in his; his skin felt warmer this time.

  ~*~

  He pulled two jackets out of the hall closet, oilskin rain slickers with deep hoods and deeper pockets; both obviously his, if the way the one Rose’s swallowed her was anything to go by. It smelled like him, she thought, as she tugged the hood up over her head: that woodsy, cedar, smoky smell she’d caught whiffs of last night and today in the kitchen.

  Through the back door off the kitchen, they went across a brick courtyard full of puddles, and into a detached garage. She hadn’t known what to expect from him as far as cars went, but the old, green Jag with spotless tan leather seats suited Beck perfectly. He cranked the heat up once it was started, and put up the garage door with a remote. He twisted around and rested his hand on her headrest as he backed out into the alley, the scent of him stronger on his wrist, when she inhaled, more smoke up close than anything.

  Rose tried to be subtle about taking a deep breath of it – and of noticing the little cut on his forearm when his sleeve rode up. From his own knife? she wondered. When he slid it in and out of its holster?

  Was he carrying it now? If she gripped his arm, would she feel the hard shape of it under his coat?

  “Music?” he asked, when the door was down and they were headed down the alley, lights on, wipers going steadily.

  No one had ever asked for her opinion so much. “Sure.”

  The car was old enough to have a CD player, and when he pressed it on, the soft strains of string music flooded through the speakers. Again: she hadn’t known what to expect, but it suited him.

  It was different seeing the city from inside the warm, plush interior of a car, the rain beading down the windshield rather than down an old patched umbrella. An old patched umbrella if she was lucky. Like everyone else who lived in the Bends, Miss Tabitha had walked everywhere she needed to go. To Fisher’s Grocery, and Zelda’s salon – not that her hair had benefitted from Zelda’s efforts. To the social workers’ office where she collected her checks for housing and feeding Rose, though Rose had done most of the shopping and all of the cooking.

  It was a drab city, soot- and rain-streaked, its gutters perpetually full of running water…among other things. Sad storefronts with dim lights beyond the windows. Families walking under umbrellas, and hoods, and newspapers, most of the time. Miss Tabitha had a friend, Lenny, who’d kept insisting that real, physical newspapers were going to disappear one day, but they persisted, littering sidewalks and side tables and newsstands. Digital media had been booming and replacing print media before the Rift. But a primitive way of life had returned after it. Papers, candles, oil lamps, cars that ran on gasoline, and the rain – always, always, always the rain. A sunny day was a rare thing not to be wasted. A day for hanging laundry outside, and for employees and students getting off early.

  Today it rained. But Rose was warm, and comfortable, and listening to violins, with a full belly, a book waiting on her return, and a shopping trip to look forward to.

  Beck piloted him through the narrow, townhouse-lined streets of his Gothic neighborhood, all of it fabulous and grungy and old and strange in the mo
st charming of ways. Seeing something charming in this world of low, dark clouds, and gutter trash was a rare thing; she drank it in.

  Then the townhouses were replaced with shops and apartment blocks. The park where she sometimes sat under her umbrella and just breathed a while, listening to the patter of drops in the sad, yellow leaves overhead.

  They rode in silence, save the music, and it didn’t feel awkward or fraught. Beck hummed along occasionally, fingers drumming on the wheel, and the grubby shopping district she knew well was gradually replaced by sleek high-rises, parking garages, and swanky shopping complexes; buildings where the stains had been scrubbed off the buildings, and shade-loving, water-happy plants fitted in alongside the typical fake foliage.

  “Where are we going?” she finally asked, curiosity getting the best of her, when they turned into a shockingly well-lit garage.

  Beck buzzed down his window to wave a pass at a scanner, and the gate slid back to allow them up a ramp. “Steinman’s,” he said, easily. Casually. Like people just shopped at Steinman’s every day.

  Well, some people did, she supposed, forcing her mouth closed.

  The garage was full of sleek, well-kept cars, most of them imports, a few even brand new. She watched a woman in a white wool coat step out of a Mercedes and marveled at the woman’s spike-heeled white shoes, and her elaborate hair style. This was someone who had no expectations of setting foot out in the rain.

  They parked between two BMWs and Beck came around to hold her door, offering her a hand again. She took it, and wondered if this would become a habit. And how she could politely tell him that there was no way she could step foot inside Steinman’s.

  He must have read the hesitation on her face. One brow cocked upward in polite inquiry. “Something wrong?”

  “I can’t – I mean. This is Steinman’s. And I’m…” She gestured vaguely down her body. The borrowed rain coat was the nicest thing about her ensemble. The nicest thing she’d ever worn. “You’re…and I’m…”

  His brow smoothed with understanding. He still held her hand, and towed her forward by it, closing the car door behind her. “I’m a very loyal customer from a family of loyal customers, and you’re my guest for the day.” He drew her up alongside him and started for the elevators, his touch gentle, but inexorable. “If anyone says anything unkind to you, I’ll handle it.”

  The way any wealthy person would, with a sharp reprimand and a request to speak to management.

  Or…in the way he’d handled Miss Tabitha?

  She didn’t ask for a clarification, but her nerves settled a little.

  ~*~

  She’d seen a grainy photo of the inside of Steinman’s once. It had failed to capture the real thing. The terrazzo interspersed with black carpets. The comfy chairs in convenient corners. The coiffed employee who kept offering to take things to the counter or bring them espressos. Her fixed smile had terrified Rose at first – no one in the Bends had reason to smile that widely and it looked manic – but so far, the woman hadn’t so much as curled a lip in distaste when addressing Rose.

  Not that Rose could respond very well. She was too overcome by…everything. Counters of perfume, counters of jewelry, counters of cosmetics. And the clothes. Everything from underwear to evening wear, from the dark and tasteful to the glittery and ostentatious. A display of wild hats, shaped like boxes and bowls and adorned with feathers and ribbons, dazzled beneath carefully placed track lights.

  It was so much. Too much.

  Rose found herself clutching the sleeve of a sweater with white-knuckled force, eyes closed, breathing harshly through her mouth.

  “Is she alright?” she heard the employee ask; her voice sounded like it was coming down a tunnel.

  “She’s fine. Just a bit overtired,” Beck said. And then strong, warm hands closed on her shoulders, and her eyes flew open, body coiling up tight. Run. Not safe. But he said, “Shh, it’s alright. Keep them shut. Breathe with me. In, and out. In, and out. That’s right.” Even softer. “You’re safe. No one will hurt you.”

  She breathed. In and out. It helped.

  “Have you ever had an anxiety attack before?” he asked, still just whispering. Just for her, not for anyone who might be watching. And, oh, people were watching, weren’t they? Here in this fancy store.

  “Rose,” he prompted.

  She took a deep breath. “In the pie safe,” she whispered back.

  His hands tightened, a gentle squeeze. “Just breathe. It will pass. And then we’ll pick some nice warm clothes for you, alright?”

  She managed a nod, throat tight. With the fading anxiety attack, and with shame. She was eighteen, and she shouldn’t be breaking down in a fancy department store. Shouldn’t be freaking out because there were too many choices. How stupid.

  Beck shifted his hands up and down, stroking her arms. She could feel his body heat at her back, shielding her, blocking her from view. “I used to get these sorts of attacks all the time when I was younger,” he said, low and soothing. “It always helped to close my eyes. To be in the dark. To block it all out and remember who I was. Remember what I could do.”

  Something brushed her ear: his lips, she realized.

  “You are Rose…”

  Another deep breath, and she could feel herself relaxing, coming back down, heartbeat slowing. “Greer.”

  “You are Rose Greer, and you can survive a pie safe. You can survive that bitch Tabitha.”

  Her pulse jumped, but not with fear. Her palms tingled. Her toes wiggled inside her shoes.

  “You can do so much more than you know,” he whispered, right into her ear. Cedar, and smoke, and silk. “Don’t be afraid.”

  He stepped back; she heard his coat rustle.

  “Open your eyes.”

  She did.

  “Do you like this sweater?”

  It was blue, and plush, warm and cozy. Finer than anything she’d ever hoped for.

  She let the sleeve slide through her fingers, and turned, slowly, his hands lifting only enough to allow her to move. When she looked up and met his gaze, she found something new sparking in it; something bright, but no less enigmatic as the other expressions he’d shown her. He looked eager, almost exited, his smile curved up a fraction more in the corners.

  A subtle expression, still. So much more contained than anyone else she’d ever met. But it hit her like a jolt of electricity.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she murmured, aware a beat later that he’d meant the sweater. She liked that, too. But it didn’t leave her shivering. Not like his eyes; the shape of his mouth. The gold-brown hair rustling on the shoulders of his coat.

  She swallowed. “All of this stuff is too nice for me.”

  “No, it isn’t. Nothing is.”

  From the moment he’d opened the pie safe, her world had been a sequence of small but momentous decisions. She could choose to argue further, to disbelieve him.

  But instead she chose to let the words soak into her skin; wriggle down deep to reach her bones. “I like the sweater.”

  “Good.” His smile stretched another bare fraction, and she caught her second glimpse of his teeth, those sharp canines. “Pick another one.”

  ~*~

  She picked five sweaters and felt extravagantly greedy for it, but then the sales associate was suggesting shirts to go under them, and coats to go over them, and Beck nudged her along with an encouraging twinkle in his eyes and said, “Yes, we’ll want some of it all.”

  He didn’t follow when the associate led her toward the lingerie department. “I’ll meet you in shoes in a few minutes.” A small relief, especially when she realized that she would have to be measured and to go into one of the curtained dressing room to try things on. Her own bra was a sad, faded, utilitarian thing, but this was Steinman’s, after all, and so the associate brought her silks and satins and laces in all colors and cuts. Frilly and decadent and meant to be sexy; Rose started blushing and couldn’t stop, her face
hot to the touch when she pressed a hand to her cheek and reminded herself to breathe. She finally selected a few simple but elegant sets in a smooth, luxurious cotton, black, and white, and tan, and gray. “These are all the latest in style with girls your age,” the associate said warmly, and shoved a handful of rainbow-colored panties into the shopping bag. “You can never have too many.”

  Then it was off to shoes, where Beck had already asked a second associate to pull several pairs; he’d guessed her size, and was correct. “At least two pairs,” he encouraged, and so she chose black sneakers with white soles, and a sleek pair of lace-up brown boots that reminded her of the ones he’d been wearing last night in Miss Tabitha’s kitchen.

  It was surreal. He guided her to every counter, asking the sales associates for recommendations in his smooth, charming voice, asking Rose to speak her mind, and make her preferences known. To their growing mountain of purchases they added: socks, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, lipstick, mascara, and several varieties of face wash and moisturizer.

  At the jewelry counter, she turned a pleading look toward him. It’s too much. I can’t. But he stared levelly back, radiating soft amusement – and encouragement. Always that, from the first moment last night. “Your ears are pierced.”

  They were, but she wouldn’t ask for this.

  “My gift to you, then.”

  As if all of this wasn’t a gift. A ridiculous gift she could never repay.

  He chose a pair of simple diamond studs, small and casual, though the price tag left her reeling. “And a necklace to go with it, I think,” he said.

  Rose couldn’t bring herself to look when the final total for it all flashed up on the cash register. Beck handed over a sleek black card to pay for it all, and the associate beamed at him.

  “It’s so nice to see you up and about and feeling better, Mr. Becket.”

  “Thank you.” Beck’s voice was as charming as it had been all afternoon, but Rose watched something in his face shutter. A quick closing-off.