by S. L. Naeole
Instead, I was alone, without my clothes in a strange home, and he was gone. And the last thing I wanted to do was sleep.
I climbed out of the bed and padded to the dresser. It was strange how similar it was to my own; I opened the top drawer, half expecting to see my underwear shoved in there haphazardly. Instead, a neat line of watches filled up the space. I closed the drawer and moved on to the next one. It was filled with tank tops. My tank tops.
I grabbed one and slipped it on. I continued through the rest of the drawers until I was fully dressed, and then headed downstairs. Stacy was still sitting in the kitchen, her body still. “I hear you. Come and sit down.”
I pulled up the chair across from her and sat down, my hand swiping at my hair nervously as she looked me up and down, as though she was inspecting me. Did I look different?
“You seem happy.”
“I am.”
“That’s good. I thought you’d be nervous of what was going to happen after.”
I didn’t need to be nervous. “I know what to expect. I accepted it the minute I agreed to go with Robert. Whatever the consequences are, we’re ready to face them.”
Stacy’s sigh was one that took me by surprise. “You’ve finally given up then.”
I didn’t understand her statement. “What do you mean? I’ve finally gotten what I wanted.”
“Yeah, but you’ve also given the angels who want you dead justification now. It’s no longer about them simply not liking you. Now it’s a matter of you breaking their laws. You and Robert are guilty.”
“Stacy…”
“I don’t care about what they think, Grace. I’m glad for you. I’m happy that you and Robert are together. But what’s going to happen if you two…if there’s a…”
I looked at her dark eyes and I could see the thoughts in her head. I knew what she was worried about and I shook my head. “Don’t worry about that, Stacy.”
“How can I not worry about it? If you get pregnant, even if those old bats are willing to spare you for the sex part, they won’t for the baby part. Lark told me about the Nephilim. She told me about what happened to them and to the people who made them. If you get pregnant, they will kill you. And the baby.”
“I understand why you’re worried, Stacy, but there is no need to worry about that. I can’t get pregnant now.”
Stacy finally understood, and she sighed with hesitant relief. “Well. At least that’s one thing.”
My eyes narrowed shrewdly. “What else is there?”
She stood and walked toward the kitchen counter, pulling open a drawer and removing from it a notepad and black marker. She tore the first sheet off of the pad and sat back down. “Tell me again, what you saw. In my head.”
“What, we’re taking notes now?”
“Yes. I need to know this stuff, and you said you’d help me.”
Knowing that I had, and that I really had nothing better to do, I began to relay what I’d seen while inside Stacy’s thoughts.
“I saw a hallway. There were doors, one behind me, one in front, and several to my left. There were painted doors to my right that mirrored the actual ones.”
“What did the doors look like?”
I told her, describing in order the doors, their shapes, their handles, the contents that I had seen behind them. When I looked down, Stacy had been busily writing everything I had said, listing them individually.
“What did the flower door look like again?” she asked and I tried to explain it to her but found it impossible to do so. Instead, I took the pen from her and drew it.
“That’s a lotus. Okay, so we’ve got a lotus, a leaf. What kind of bird was it?”
I closed my eyes and studied the shape that appeared in my head. “It looked like a hawk or an eagle. That’s what it was, an eagle.”
“Okay.” She stood up and grabbed the pad of paper she’d left on the counter, returning to the table and tearing off another sheet. “So, lotus, leaf, eagle, heart, moon, apple, and eye. Are you sure it was an eye?”
“Yes. It was Sam’s eye. Well…his iris, anyway.”
Stacy bit her tongue as she wrote down iris on the sheet of paper. She stared at her list and then turned it to face me. “Is this correct?”
I looked at it and nodded. “Yeah.”
She frowned and turned the sheet back around. “This is so random. It’s like some kind of freaky, hippie fruit salad in my head or something. There’s got to be a reason why all of those things were there, right? I mean, it’s not like that Sam freak just pulled crap out of a bag—there has to be a reason why I had birds and fruit in my head.”
“Maybe there isn’t. Maybe there’s no reason for it at all. Sam was confused and angry. Hell, I was confused and angry. I didn’t figure anything out until it was necessary, and even then it was always almost too late.”
She sighed and nodded her head. “I’m hungry. It’s only been a few days and already my throat burns. I need to feed. When is Robert returning?”
“He said in an hour.”
She nodded. “I can wait. I already know where my next meal is—he’s not going anywhere.”
Her calm demeanor was disturbing, but I still felt the morbid curiosity that led me to ask her who it was.
“He’s a bad dude. That’s all you need to know.”
“Uh-uh, you don’t get to just leave it at that. Who is he? What’s he done?”
She looked at me, as though trying to decide whether or not I could handle what it was I wanted to know. Sighing, she shrugged, giving in to my curiosity.
“He’s a dirty cop. He’s killed several people, none of them people that society really cares about, and so people look away. I saw him a few nights ago beating up some prostitute. They found her body in the morning; she died from strangulation.
“He killed her and he’s going to kill again if I don’t stop him. See, as much as Robert thinks I’m some kind of monster because of what I am, he ignores the fact that the people he’s supposed to protect are monsters themselves.”
I opened my mouth, knowing the answer I would receive but still needing to say the words. “Can I come with you?”
“Absofreakinglutely not!”
“It’s not like I haven’t seen people die, Stacy. I mean, I’m like the zombie-horror movie queen. I’m not scared of seeing a little blood.”
“No.”
“Come on!”
Stacy growled at me, a deep rumbling sound that caused the table to shake. “I. Said. No.”
She stood up and began to pace the short distance between the counter and her seat. “I lose it when I smell their blood. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who I am. I only know the need to feed. I only know the need to kill…and if you’re near me when this is happening, I might confuse you for my meal. I can’t take that chance with you, Grace.”
“I’ll stay far away. I…I just want to see.”
“You want to see me kill and eat someone?”
Her question was filled with shock and dismay. I understood what it was she was most afraid of. It was screaming from the sadness in her eyes, the slack gape of her mouth, the sag of her brows. She didn’t want me to see her as a killer. No matter how she may describe the act to me, it was still just an imaginary scene in my head. She did not want me to imprint in my mind the image of her as a murderer.
“Stacy, it doesn’t matter what you do—you will never be a bad person in my eyes. You’re incapable of it.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you.” I pushed my chair back and walked over to her. “And I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of what you are, what you do, or why you do it. I know you wouldn’t hurt someone you care about. I know you couldn’t because that’s not you. No matter what you are right now, it doesn’t change who you were. You’re the same person who wanted to be my friend when no one else would. I trust you.”
She gave me one last glare before she sighed
in defeat. “Come on. Get on my back.”
“Are you serious?”
“If you ask me another question, I’m leaving without you. We have to hurry before Robert gets back and before Lark realizes what’s going on.”
There was no need to tell me twice. Though she was shorter than I was, she did not bow when I climbed onto her back. I wrapped my arms over her shoulders, and she grabbed them as my legs twined around her waist.
“Don’t say a word,” was the last warning I received before we were through the kitchen door and over the fence before dawn could expose us.
***
“The police station?”
“It’s where he works. His shift is ending very soon. He will finish his paperwork and leave for his car in ten minutes.”
Stacy’s eyes were focused on a red truck that was parked crookedly in front of us. We sat perched in a tree above the large parking structure that stood beside the main police station. “He calls it Lucky. I call it his coffin,” she snarled.
“How is this going to happen?”
“You will stay here. I will wait in the back of the cab for him. It’ll be quick.”
My intake of air startled her, just as her words startled me. “You’re going to do it here? At the police station?”
“Yes. It’s far safer than following him home.”
I looked down at a black orb that hung beneath what looked like a lamppost. “But there are cameras, Stacy. They’ll see you.”
She shook her head. “They won’ see anything. He parks his truck crookedly so that the camera can’t get a decent look inside. That way, he can snort his coke and no one will see. I’ve watched him, studied his behavior. Here he comes. Stay. Here.”
She leapt down from the branch, and slinked her way to the passenger side of the truck. I could hear scraping, and then a snap. She was inside! I hadn’t even seen the door open. The sound of keys rattling and a double beep, followed by the flash of lights warned me that the officer Stacy had spoken of was approaching. I pulled my feet up, but leaned forward, my hand grasping onto the trunk of the tree as tightly as I could to get a better view.
The footsteps on the cement floor stopped and then started again, and the officer, still dressed in his uniform, opened his door. I bit my lip, my breath stopping in my chest as slowly, he brought his left foot inside and the door closed. Almost immediately, the vehicle started rocking.
The snarls and the muffled screams soon followed. The officer’s face appeared in the windshield, his eyes wide with fear. Even from where I sat, I could see that his eyes were blue, like denim. His hair was short, blonde, and his face was handsome even its terror. His mouth was pulled taut in a silent scream and he looked at me, our eyes making contact as Stacy’s hand covered the lower half of his face with her hand.
She engulfed part of his neck with her mouth that she ‘d hinged open, as though her face were cut in half, her teeth extending past her jaw and down her throat. I bit back my scream when I saw the plea in the man’s eyes. It was as if his thoughts were there, streaming across them as agony and desperation forced his confession in an effort for release, or comfort.
The windshield grew foggy inside of the cab, as though something were on fire. No, not on fire. Something was very, very cold inside. I could see nothing, only imagine what was going on as the sounds of terror continued to travel softly to me. As though to hint just what it was that was going on inside the vehicle, a spattering of red broke through the haze on the glass. It was soon followed by more, and eventually the vehicle stopped moving.
A hand suddenly appeared on the windshield, the blood smearing into the lines on its palm, and finally disappeared, falling away as the sounds did. I flinched as a sharp pain shot into my hand, and I removed it from the bark of the tree, gasping when I saw the blood smeared there. I pulled out a large splinter, and pressed my hand against my mouth to staunch the blood before Stacy returned.
“Now you’ve seen. Now you know.”
“Holy balls; don’t do that,” I gasped when I turned to see her sitting beside me, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin as though she were merely wiping away some errant red sauce rather than the life of someone who now lay dead in his truck…maybe even in pieces.
“Come on. Let me get you home before anyone notices we’ve gone.”
The red of Stacy’s shirt hid the blood that I knew was there, but I couldn’t ignore the wet sticky feel of them as once again, I wrapped my hands around her, closing my eyes as we dropped from the tree, hitting the ground softly.
“We walk for a little bit here until we turn that corner near the alley. Don’t look at anyone, just look straight ahead,” she said in a low voice before she let me down. I straightened my shirt, and patted at the gathering of my sweatpants. The morning sun was already warm, and the streets were beginning to fill with cars and people.
With quick steps, Stacy and I walked a straight line towards the alley that lay only a few more meters away. Stacy walked with her head slightly lowered, and I tried to mimic her, wanting to appear casual and uncaring, but in doing so I failed to see where I was heading and collided into a passerby who immediately swung me around to keep me from falling.
Disoriented, I turned my head to see where Stacy had gone. When I spotted her, the look on her face was one that I could not place. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t even terror. It was all of the above. My head twisted to look at who was holding me, and my mouth dropped open as unintelligible words spilled out, a rambling sort of nonsense that did nothing to slow the growing anger that filled the dark eyes that stared at me, glowered, seethed.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” the voice hissed, his tone scathing, his grip on me growing tighter and more painful with every syllable.
“Sean, let her go.”
Brother looked up at sister. Recognition flared within him. And then everything passed by in a blur. I felt myself being dragged, then carried, the colors of buildings melting into colors of trees and finally houses. My feet, now firmly on the ground, did nothing to prevent the swaying of dizziness that tipped me forward and then back, pitching like a boat in a storm as I tried to regain my balance.
“Grace, are you alright?” The voice was soothing, calm, even though the frigid fingers that helped to steady me sent icicles shooting into my veins.
“Dr. Bro?”
“What were you doing on the street?” His admonition wasn’t directed at me, and I raised my eyes to see Stacy standing in front of me, her hand wrapped possessively around the arm of her brother, who simply stared open-mouthed at the sister he had never believed to be dead.
“She wanted to come,” was all Stacy said before she dragged her brother across the street into the house whose door lay open in wait.
“Oh God…we’re in trouble,” I moaned.
“We all are,” Dr. Bro agreed before leading me inside.
ICE PICK
“Reckless!”
That word kept repeating itself over and over again. In my head, in the air, in my ear. I sat mutely as Robert paced back and forth between Stacy and me, his eyes darting to Sean’s, and then returning back to Stacy’s, who held her chin up defiantly.
“You want to feed, I understand that. I accept that. I allow that. But what I won’t tolerate, what I will never accept is you taking my wife along with you. Do you understand the danger you put her in?”
“She wanted to come. She’s not a child, Robert. She’s seen far worse things with you than anything she saw today.”
Her words bore the sting of truth and Robert knew it. Sean, who sat on the sofa with anger rippling through him, said nothing.
“You can’t keep her from seeing the world the way it is. Not with what you do, not with what either of you plan on doing. After last night, the two of you are wearing ginormous freaking targets on your foreheads—how much more trouble could she be in coming with me to feed?”
“What if you had made a mistake? What if your prey had escaped and se
en her and alerted the rest of the station? Your brother I can deal with, but I cannot manipulate or endanger all of those people,” Robert roared.
“Deal with my brother? You’re not going to do anything to him!” Stacy’s voice was filled with defensive rage.
“He’s seen you and Grace. He knows the two of you are still alive. What do you expect me to do with him? This wasn’t part of the bargain, Stacy. You were to cut off all ties after you were changed. Your old life is dead. Everyone had accepted you as gone.”
“I didn’t.” Sean’s voice was like the bell ringing in the silent hallway. The anger that flowed between Stacy and Robert had grown so fever pitched that it had turned into white noise compared to his admission.
“I always knew she was still alive. I even came to you-” he turned his head to look at me “-and told you, but you denied it. But I knew you were lying. I knew it. Why, Stacy? Why would you fake your own death? Why would you do that to Mom, and Dad, and everyone else? Why wouldn’t you at least tell me what you were doing?”
“Because she couldn’t,” Robert answered for her. “She couldn’t tell you anything because she was unable to.”
“So when you died, you didn’t really die. It was fake, right? I mean, it was all planned out so that it would look like you had died, but you’re fine. Right? God, Mom and Dad are going to be so freaking happy to see you. They’ll be pissed, of course, but still…we’ve got to tell them.”
There was such a hope and optimism in his eyes that it only amplified the pain in Stacy’s. “No, Sean. We’re not going to tell Mom and Dad anything. They’re going to continue to believe that I’m dead.”
“But you’re fine! Look at you! Healthy, strong, and really fast! You totally beat the cancer! This is like some kind of freaking miracle or something!”
“I’m not fine, Sean,” she barked, the solid boom of her voice silencing him immediately. “I’m not okay. I’m not healthy. My God, I’m not even alive! I’m not alive, Sean, do you hear me?” She grabbed her brother’s hand and pressed it against her chest. He flinched at first, obviously disturbed by where his hand lay, but it didn’t take much for recognition to finally hit him.
