Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down

by Lisa Olsen

  You know when you hear a song and it’s not just the lyrics that speak to you, but the melody that touches your soul? And you well up with emotion – not that you’re going to cry exactly – but you just feel so full… you could burst, but you never want it to end? There’s no explanation of how or why a song will catch you a certain way, but it does every time you hear it. It makes a memory that becomes a part of your soul. That’s what kissing Rob was like.

  Emotion swelled with every brush of his lips and rasp of his cheek. I breathed in the heat of him, stealing his breath and it warmed me to the core. With each slow, drugging kiss, I was bound tighter and tighter to him, and all I knew was, I wanted more. He felt it too, I knew he did. Not just from the way his heart quickened every time I touched him, or the way his breath hitched in time to mine, but I felt it deep in my bones the way an old man knows the certainty of a coming storm.

  So it was shocking on many levels when he broke the kiss abruptly, lurching to his feet. “I can’t. I have to think of Leila.”

  My stomach reeled in confusion and distress at having the music torn away so unexpectedly. “Leila’s not even here.”

  “It’s not just you and me I’m making decisions for.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And I pray you never fully do.”

  “But that kiss… that was…”

  His face softened, but he didn’t come any closer, edging towards the door. “More than I could have hoped for.”

  “Rob,” I called him back before he made his escape. “About what you said before…”

  “I say a lot of things, you can’t pay me any mind.” His lips twitched in amusement.

  “You said you loved me.”

  I saw chagrin sweep over his features, but not regret. “I didn’t mean for you to hear that. Forget I said it.”

  “I think it’s nice.” We looked at each other from across the room for long seconds. I wasn’t ready to say more, but it was important to me that he know I’d overheard it and wasn’t freaked out by it. Still a little in awe over it, but not freaked out one bit.

  “Happy Christmas, Anja.” His lips pressed together as though he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. “Get some rest. I’ll see you when the sun goes down.”

  “Happy Christmas, Rob,” I replied, fingers going automatically to the silver necklace hanging over my heart. I made a silent vow on the locket not to give up on him so easily. I wanted the music back.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sleep felt like a long time in coming, but scarcely had I drifted off when my eyes popped open again, the silence of the house belying the feeling that some sound had just woken me up. As I lay there in the darkness, it came again, a thudding sound followed by a low guttural cry of pain. Not bothering with a robe, I raced up the stairs, heart in my throat at what I might find.

  I skidded to a stop inside the front door, staring in shock at the picture of violence outside. Rob was on his knees wearing a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else, his muscular back pumping as he pounded his fist into the figure lying prone on the porch beneath him.

  “Oh my God…” I gasped, hanging on the doorframe as I flipped on the porch light. There sat the magistrate, bleeding onto my front porch. “What are you doing here?”

  “Found him skulking about in the dark, looking in windows.” Sitting back on his haunches, Rob let the battered vamp go.

  Byrne sat up, hand going to his bruised throat. “I only came to discuss a little business with you,” he said, tugging his tie loose. A statement I might have bought had he rung the bell.

  “You came to do your own dirty work now that Isak isn’t here to do it for you, didn’t you?” My brows rose in direct correlation to the pitch of my voice. “What did you possibly hope to see?”

  “There are stories… You’re new to this area, it’s my duty to investigate.” He swallowed, in obvious pain and I fixed him with a steely gaze.

  “I’ve been here longer than you think, I just value my privacy. The next time you think you need to investigate something, I suggest you begin by talking to me directly.”

  “I hadn’t planned on disturbing you. I was attacked without provocation.” He gave Rob a baleful glare.

  “Bullshit. Trespassing where you’re not wanted is provocation enough,” Rob retorted. “The lady don’t want you here. Be on your way.”

  “That’s for Miss Gudrun to say. I have official business with her.” He drew himself up to his full height, deep bruises already forming on his face and neck.

  “Consulting hours are every Thursday from midnight to four, I said piss off.” Rob stood as well. Rob not only had the advantage of a couple of inches on him, he easily outweighed him by a good twenty pounds of muscle and had demonstrated the skill to use it. Clearly not afraid of the vampire’s enhanced strength, he stood his ground, placing himself between me and the magistrate, his hands opening and closing as he flexed his fingers.

  “You want to go, human?” Byrne’s voice was low and deadly, refusing to back down. “I eat guys like you for breakfast,” he boasted.

  “Yeah, I could’ve guessed that from the way your face ate my fist.” Undaunted, Rob advanced a step and I laid a hand on his shoulder. As much as I wanted to see Rob pound the little weasel again, I had to try to be the voice of reason.

  “Guys, do you think you could dial it down? I have neighbors…”

  Byrne’s fangs extended with a snick, a snarl emerging from the back of his throat as he ignored me, completely fixating on Rob. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m the guy who’s gonna fucking pound you if you don’t back off,” Rob replied equably, but I could feel some of the tension in his shoulders ease under my light touch. “Now then, are you gonna do like the lady says and leave, or you wanna dance again? It was going so well before we was interrupted.”

  “I can see this isn’t a good time.” Byrne took a step back, straightening his tie. “Perhaps I’ll call next time and set an appointment.”

  “You do that,” I said smugly, and it was all I could do not to high five Rob before the cretin was out of sight. “Nice job,” I complimented him as soon as he shut the big door and locked it up tight. “Only we didn’t find out what he wanted.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rob shrugged, unconcerned. “You can’t trust a word out of that tosser’s mouth anyway.”

  “How did you even know he was out there?”

  “He might have been just having a peek, but the moment he touched the barrier protecting this house I felt it. I circled around and caught him unawares. It was pretty easy actually.”

  “Wow, so you’re kinda like a live burglar alarm?” Another piece of the puzzle to the man.

  “I’m just tapped into my sister’s magic. I can feel it when a fly gets stuck in the ointment. You okay?” He perched on the edge of the couch, and I came to stand in front of him.

  “Yep, I’m good. What about you though? Did you hurt your fist on his face?” I scented the tang of his blood and picked up his hand, noting the bruises. They weren’t too badly hurt, only a trickle of blood dusted the top of his knuckles. Instinctively, I brought his hand to my mouth to kiss it and make it better, unable to resist tasting him on my lips as I pulled away.

  “It’s not bad…”

  “Shhh, let me help you.” I silenced him with a look, bringing his hand to my lips again. I pierced my own lip with my teeth and brushed the drops of blood over his torn flesh. The healing was instantaneous, and my tongue laved out to wash away the traces of our mingled blood. His eyes never left mine and at the touch of my tongue, he swallowed thickly.

  “You’d best be getting to bed,” he said hoarsely.

  “You should too, it’s late.”

  “I think I’ll be up for a while yet.” The corner of his mouth twitched and my eyes darted down. There were parts of him that were all kinds of up alright, but I wasn’t enough of a femme fatale to touch that one.

  “Goodnight, Rob. S
leep well.”

  “Not bloody likely…” he muttered as I slipped away.

  *

  As glad as I was to have Gunnar back the next night, I hated to see him moping around so disconsolately. He didn’t offer an explanation as to what had happened to Isak and none of us asked, ready to put it all in the past. Ellie and I tried cheering him up with a trip to Orchard Supply, but he barely looked at the collection of power tools, his eyes trailing to the line of rakes on the far wall. I started to realize we might have picked a bad place to start on our train to Happytown.

  When he volunteered to take Ellie hunting I happily stepped aside, more than glad to give him something constructive to do. Maybe since Isak had largely taken that chore in the past, he thought he needed to fill his brother’s shoes. I went home to talk to Maggie about some ideas I had for throwing a garden party in the spring, hoping to catch a few minutes alone with Rob to pick up our conversation from the other night.

  We’d barely started talking about the guest list when I got a panicked call from Gunnar, his words so heavily peppered with Danish, I had trouble understanding what was going on. I gathered it had to do with Ellie and blood and the police. “Whoa, slow down… I can’t catch what you’re saying.”

  “I only look away for a moment, but when I turn back she was gone,” he said miserably.

  “Ellie’s missing?”

  “No, I found her. But by then it was too late.”

  “Too late? Too late for what? What happened?” It was so jumbled, I thought he meant Ellie was dead or bloodied and the police had her.

  “She take too much blood, the police have her. I didn’t know what to do. Should I make them release her?”

  Frak! “The police have her where? At the station?”

  “No, she’s in the back of the car, they are still investigating the scene.”

  “Stay there and don’t do anything unless they start to take her away, I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

  Gunnar gave me the address, and I was already halfway down the street by the time we hung up. Not bothering with the car (or to tell Maggie or Rob where I was off to) I set off on foot, knowing I could make much better time. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there as I geared myself up for a mass compulsion, but seeing Frost and his team wasn’t it. Ellie sat on the curb, a police blanket wrapped around her shoulders. At first I wasn’t sure if I should even approach or watch from a distance until I was sure what was happening, but Gunnar spotted me and trotted over.

  “All is well, the Order is here.”

  “Two thoughts that don’t often go hand in hand,” I muttered, crossing the street when Frost caught my eye and gave me a reverse nod.

  “Hey, Anja. I’m glad you made it out here, saved me a call,” Frost said evenly, not at all the reception I’d been expecting.

  “I’m so sorry about this. I don’t understand what happened, she was supposed to be doing better by now.”

  Frost gave a shallow shrug. “It happens to the best of us. Who among us hasn’t gotten a little carried away, right?” He grinned easily. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Wow. Again, not what I expected him to say at all. Where was the riot act – Bishop style? “Really? She’s not in any trouble?”

  “She might’ve been if we hadn’t gotten here when we did, but lucky for her we were monitoring the call when it came in to the 911 dispatch. We handle stuff like this all the time though, we’ve got it down.”

  I thought back to when Bishop called a team to take care of Stan after I’d lost control, he’d barely raised a brow over it either. Maybe it was more commonplace than I thought.

  “So… we’re good. I can take her home?”

  “Sure. The story we’re spinning is the guy attacked her and she stabbed him with his own knife, that’s why she’s covered in blood.”

  “But the marks on his neck…”

  “We’ll take care of it. Like I said, we handle stuff like this all the time. The local PD’s already been compelled to forget what they saw, and we’ve got a guy at the morgue.”

  Just like that it was all handled, and I decided to take the lucky break and get her out of there before anyone changed their minds. “Well, thanks. I really appreciate it. And I promise, you won’t get a call like this again. I’ll make sure of that personally.”

  “Have a good night,” he nodded, turning away to talk to one of the clean up team who was about to load the body into a black van with the city’s seal on the doors. Not Pauley’s Plumbing – they were only called to clean up the Order’s messes that they didn’t want to see the light of day.

  Grabbing Ellie, I hustled her out of there, grateful that Gunnar had the presence of mind to go retrieve the car. I waited until we were well away from the scene before I turned to Ellie. “What the hell happened back there?” I demanded, and she refused to look at me, facing out the window, the blanket still wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. He wasn’t supposed to die, I stopped… but he just kept bleeding…”

  “Ellie, you know your control isn’t what it should be. What on Earth made you ditch Gunnar like that?”

  “I thought I could do it on my own.”

  “Are you high right now? What would possibly make you think that?”

  “It’s okay, the Order took care of it.”

  There were so many things wrong with that statement… “Tell that to that man’s family. Does he have a wife? Kids? A dog to come home to that’s going to starve in his tiny one bedroom apartment? That man is dead now, because of you. Do you even know his name?” I could tell from her silence that she didn’t. “God, Ellie… you just don’t think, do you? It doesn’t matter if the Order squared it away and you didn’t get caught. It’s wrong to kill people. I thought you knew that. Haven’t I been preaching it until I’m blue in the face to anyone within hearing distance?”

  “I didn’t mean for him to die,” she repeated, looking out the window again.

  There didn’t seem to be much else to say after that. We rode the rest of the way in silence, and she went up to her room like a rebuked child – which she was in a way. For all her worldly smarts, Ellie was still a child in many ways. I wondered if Rob felt that way about me sometimes. From his thunderous expression as I came in the door, I knew he’d been about to read me the riot act for leaving without telling him until he caught sight of my face.

  “What happened?” was all he said, and I was glad to see the tension melt from his shoulders once I explained my impromptu errand. “Oh, that’s alright then. No harm done.”

  “Except for the dead guy,” I muttered sourly. Why did nobody get that?

  “I’m just saying, all things considered, I think she got off lightly. We might’ve had a real problem on our hands.”

  “We still do have a real problem on our hands. I don’t understand it. I compelled her not to kill anyone. So how did she do it?”

  “Like you said, she didn’t mean to kill him. Maybe your compulsion only affected the intent,” Rob shrugged. “If I were to hit someone with my car, I might not intend to kill him, but he might die anyway. It’s the same thing.”

  “No, it’s not the same thing at all. One’s an accident, and the other is murder. I never should have let her go out there without me. I’m responsible for her.”

  “I think…”

  My phone rang, and I was about to ignore it when I saw Jenessa’s name flash across the screen. “Jenessa? What’s up?” I asked, meeting Rob’s gaze.

  “I thought you should know, Ellie’s been flagged.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s being watched. If she steps out of line again, they’ll be there to catch it. If she’s deemed a danger to our secret…”

  “Then they’ll take her out,” I finished for her. “You know about what happened tonight?”

  “Yes, I saw the call go out. I didn’t realize it involved Ellie until they came back in thoug
h, or I would have called sooner.”

  “But Frost acted like it was no big deal at all.”

  “It’s not, if it’s a single occurrence. But if she repeats it… I just thought you should know.”

  “Okay, thanks for the heads up, Jenessa. I appreciate it.” I assumed Rob had followed the conversation well enough, and I turned to him in a near panic. “This is awful, what are we going to do? She should be showing some restraint by now. It almost seems like she’s getting worse, not better. And now the compulsion didn’t work… I don’t know what to do, keep her under constant surveillance?” That hadn’t even worked, though Gunnar hadn’t been expecting it.

  “Hey now, don’t get yourself in a tizzy.” He caught hold of my shoulders, holding me still. “I wouldn’t worry overmuch about it, these things have a way of working themselves out.”

  “How can you say that? How can I not worry?”

  “You heard her, as long as this is an isolated incident you’ve nothing to fear. Now that we know how bad off she is, we’ll make sure it don’t happen again.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” he nodded, and I breathed easier. “I’ve some things to see to, will you be alright for a while?”

  “Sure, of course,” I nodded, surprised by the rapid retreat. “Where are you going?”

  “Out for a bit, nothing to trouble yourself with. I’ll be back soon.”

  “But…”

  His kiss stole my breath away, and I barely had time to wonder what had brought that on, and whether it would be a regular occurrence, before all thoughts fell right out of my head and there was only the kiss.