One of the largest crawlers I’d ever seen was suddenly on camera. How was this thing showing up on video? How was Carole seeing this? My entire life, no one had been able to see the creatures but me. I was traumatized for years by monsters no one acknowledged, told I had a psychiatric disorder. And now there one was, front and center for the world to see. I didn’t know if I should call every doctor that had tried to put me on medication and stockpile happy pills or build a bunker, because surely this was the end of the world.
The creature turned and looked directly into the camera, as if knowing it was about to make its national debut, and opened its mouth. Flames shot out, burning several bystanders who hadn’t been able to leap out of the way fast enough, and setting the nearby news van on fire.
The video ended and Carole appeared, a little more color lost from her face.
The anchorman spoke, having more confidence in Carole than I did. “Is there any word from the authorities? Do they believe this might be an alien?”
I watched Carole as she tried to form her words. It was going to be a while.
“So that’s what those fuckers look like.” Butch’s voice was soft and somewhere in between shock and amazement. He glanced at me but turned back to the TV, as if he couldn’t pry his eyes from the image. “No wonder you were such a mess when you first came to the Underground.”
I knew the state I’d been in when I first met Butch. I was actually glad that I couldn’t remember how that might’ve degraded.
Kane had moved from the bedroom door to a few feet away from me, arms folded, watching me now.
I didn’t say anything as I sat there on the couch, letting the situation sink in. There was at least one crawler on the loose, and normal people could see it. I didn’t know exactly how far down the scale that was, but it definitely registered as horrible.
Kane had told me that right before I’d lost my memory, I’d had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. I’d assumed my previous self had somehow known something was about to befall me. But seeing this, maybe it had been much larger than myself? This was a whole lot worse than losing part of my memory…unless the two were connected.
“Now we’re going to switch over to Tom Anderson, who is at the other explosion site,” the anchor said.
“Wait, this is the second explosion?” I asked.
Kane nodded, staring at me as if maybe I’d already known that for some reason.
The news was now playing a loop of another crawler moving away from a roaring fire. This time it looked like a strip mall.
“Wow, that’s another ugly fuck. Are they all that bad?” Butch asked.
“Yes, to varying degrees,” I answered. Kane watched me, still saying nothing. “Any idea how this happened?” I asked, even as Kane was looking at me like I’d done it.
Worst part was, I might’ve done it. Still, asking some normal questions was the right move here.
“Somebody helped them out,” Kane said.
No, asking questions definitely didn’t throw him off the scent.
“Are there going to be more of those things?” Butch asked. I hadn’t known Butch long, that I could recall, but he didn’t seem the type to normally rattle.
“Hopefully not,” Kane said, remaining calm even as Butch sounded like his shock and amazement was morphing into panic and revulsion.
“This is going to cause some problems,” Kane said, sounding more put out by an inconvenience than worried that these creatures were loose. “You ready to leave now, or would you like to wait for a few more explosions?” he asked, his eyes hooded.
“Why do you think I’ll be better off there?” Would I be safe there? Were these monsters going to come for me next? And if I was there, I’d have nothing but eyeballs on me while I was trying to figure out if I’d had some involvement.
“This isn’t about it being better for you.” He grabbed my wrist and then held it so my hand with the shadow-kissed mark was in between us. “See this? This means you are a liability to me. This is me doing you a favor.”
He dropped my wrist, as if he didn’t want to continue touching me.
“I can’t imagine that I ever had anything to do with you.” At that moment, I hated him. It wasn’t rational. I knew how things looked, but I didn’t care.
“Well, don’t worry, because I’m not looking to revisit it.”
Kane turned to Butch. “Talk to her.” He then walked out, not bothering to say anything else to me.
“Talk to me about what?”
Butch sat beside me on the couch, and it didn’t look like it was for my benefit. He looked like he needed to conserve his energy.
“What? I disappeared for a night and he loses his mind because of a coincidence?” Please let it be just that. I didn’t want to find out I’d had something to do with this. The very idea I could have made me want to spill my own guts out on the ground.
Butch leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs and sighing. “Ollie, you need to understand how bad this looks. The first sighting wasn’t tonight. We got word of several crawlers being sighted the week you disappeared. Now you purposefully shake us off last night and another one shows?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, I purposefully shook you off?”
“We were supposed to keep eyes on you because Kane was worried about your safety. You were walking down the street and you just disappeared, using magic of some sort.”
They lost me on the street and their first thought was that I’d used magic? I was convicted before they’d even proven anything. “I can’t use magic. I can’t find any of it. You sure you didn’t lose me in a crowd?”
He turned toward me, a frown on his brow. “Ollie, there was no crowd. We were the only ones on the street. You just up and disappeared. It’s the truth that Kane’s doing you a favor. People are starting to realize you aren’t together anymore. If the other races think you’ve got something to do with letting the crawlers in, they might try and kill you. If you’re back at the Underground, they’ll know you’re still under Kane’s protection.”
“Whether he wants to protect me or not.” I bent forward, resting my forehead in my palm.
Butch’s mouth ticked up in the corner as he gave a halfhearted shrug. “At least he’s still willing to protect you while we work this out.”
I closed my eyes. Don’t ever, ever, think it can’t get worse. Because it always can. How had I forgotten that lesson?
“Do you think I did it?” It was a bad question. I didn’t know, and I was leaning toward guilty.
“No. I don’t.”
“Why not?” Please say something that’ll give me hope. Please, I need it badly right now.
“I don’t know why I believe you’re innocent, but I do. The Ollie I know wouldn’t do something like that.”
I wrung my hands. “But I just disappeared.”
“I didn’t say I had a reason to believe you. It looks really bad.” His eyes widened as he nodded.
Yeah, tell me about it. “But I was sleeping with him, and he thinks I did it.”
Butch’s face bunched up as if he had another unpleasant tidbit to tell.
“What now? Just tell me.”
“Well, I figured you’d slept with him, and I actually used that in your defense. Turns out, you hadn’t slept with him.”
Why hadn’t I slept with him? Had I been stringing him along? Had I turned into some sort of criminal mastermind that was trying to keep Kane close while I did horrible things? It surely looked that way. What was going on? What had I been up to?
I only had one option now. I stood. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where you going?”
“To pack.” Before I headed to the bedroom, I looked back at Butch.
He turned toward me with a question on his face.
I pointed to the corner. “Can you see that?”
“That” was a particularly ugly crawler that loomed about five feet tall, complete with scales. Its lip pulled back
, showing teeth as I stared at it.
“See what? The table?”
There was a small table in the corner beside the creature. “No. So, it’s only some of them.” I should’ve guessed that anyway, as I doubted Butch would’ve been so relaxed if it were visible.
“Is one of those ugly fucks over there?”
“Yep.”
Butch shuddered a little and then stood and moved to the farthest point away from the corner. “Are they anywhere else?”
There was a small one right beside his feet. This was definitely one of those times that the truth probably wasn’t for the best. “Nah, that’s it.”
Chapter Eight
Kane stood there, looking emotionless, when Butch and I exited the building. Jerry and Leon acted as if the whole scene wasn’t awkward.
It was. I felt like I was being escorted to jail without a trial, and it might’ve been better that way. I didn’t know how I should plead.
Kane took my bag from Butch, who’d offered to carry it for me. Then the Thug Brothers and Beach Boy walked briskly to the Caddy, leaving me alone with their boss.
Kane walked over to the Mercedes I recognized from the other night and threw my bag in the trunk.
We drove in silence, mutually agreed upon without either of us having had said a word. As much as we were different, we were completely copacetic right now. Neither of us could stomach talking to the other.
He pulled into the lot and grabbed my bag out of the trunk before I’d gotten out of the car. There was nothing polite about it. He was holding my few belongings hostage. If I had the desire to speak to him, I would’ve told him he didn’t need to bother. After I’d woken up after another blacked-out patch of history to find crawlers ravaging the city, I realized the Underground was my only choice. Butch laying out the finer details had only sealed the deal. I wasn’t here just because he thought I should be. I thought I should be.
Another memory lapse and now another crawler out, this one blowing things up. Had it been me? The idea was revolting to my very core, but I’d been involved somehow. There couldn’t be this many coincidences. That old saying about it quacking like a duck? Well, I was quacking my ass off and doing swan dives into the pond right now.
Too bad I had no one I could confide in. I certainly couldn’t tell Kane. He looked like he was waiting for the smallest provocation to wring my neck.
There was no way I’d ever liked this man. I must’ve been on a drinking binge or something. Or drunk on lust. One of those would’ve made sense. I’d been so distraught about my family that I’d gone on a bender and grabbed the first hot piece of meat I saw. I’d never been prone to addiction before, but everyone had their buttons. Many sane people lost it for less than what I’d lived through. I must have finally cracked and been drinking nonstop, using his body for comfort. That might even explain the blackouts, or one of them. There were some big issues, though. Even alcoholics didn’t black out for months, and according to Butch, I hadn’t slept with Kane. Although there were a lot of things you could do that excluded intercourse.
The Underground door opening jarred me from my whimsical musings of being an addict.
Kane had my bag slung over his shoulder and carried it toward the door, without a glance at me. I told myself it wasn’t rude when he walked without looking back to see if I was following. I was struggling with believing my own bullshit, though.
Kane walked through the Underground, the crowd all staring while pretending disinterest. I followed behind him as if I were some wayward orphan that had been brought home after escaping. The regular music was dulled as all the freaks in the room watched something bigger and badder than them on the TV, only taking a break to watch our spectacle.
Coming here was the best choice. I knew it even if I didn’t feel it. If someone was using me, it would be a million times harder to get to me if I was here.
Kane walked into the elevator and the crawlers evacuated before I stepped in after him. Watching the crawlers steer clear of him made me wonder if I’d latched on to him because I’d found peace that way.
We stood a foot or two apart like we were strangers who’d never met. Had I been using him?
“The crawlers don’t seem to like you.” I left off “either,” but I had to bite my tongue to do it. Yes, things looked bad, but you’d think I’d get the benefit of the doubt. The more I thought about it, the thicker his frost, the more I got heated. Who was he to condemn me?
He kept staring straight ahead as he flatly said, “Never noticed.”
Sure. I got it. I was a liar, so why should he be honest? And I was supposed to spill my guts to him? When this was how he acted? For all I knew, he could be right. Maybe I was behind this. Maybe I’d finally snapped my cap. What if that Asher person had not only scared away the crawlers but jumbled my head? What if I had one of those split personality things? Hoped not, but you never knew.
The possibilities rolled around in my mind as the doors slid open. I pulled it together, or held it together with some duct tape, anyway.
I stepped out into the hallway and walked to my left, to the apartment I’d been brought to after he’d found me.
“No. Not there. That’s my apartment.” I turned toward Kane as he walked toward the door on the right. “This is your place.”
So I’d definitely been shacked up with him and just officially been kicked out. He was keeping me close. But not too close. I hadn’t wanted to stay in that apartment again, but being uninvited felt about as good as an eviction notice.
He opened the door, walked in, and tossed my bag on the couch.
He turned to leave, and I realized there was no one posted to keep me in.
“What? No guards at the door?” I’d intended to hide my sarcasm in a joke, but my words could’ve filled a thousand batteries.
“No.” He turned and stood in the doorway. “I’m not wasting a guy on your door. This is it. I wouldn’t disappear again, like you just did when Butch and Leon were watching you. If there’s another explosion, you better have an alibi.”
All the warm and fuzzy was sure making it hard to hold back my confidence, but I managed. “Sure. Message received.”
His eyes dropped to the ground briefly as he stood still for a second, before turning and leaving.
I walked around the place, which looked like it had been redone fairly recently. In the normal world, redone meant things had been getting dated. Here, from what I’d already heard, it made me think of bloodshed.
There was a dining area and a small fridge but no real kitchen. A large sectional dominated the living room, and there was a door leading to a bedroom off to the side. It was similar to Kane’s place, but a scaled-down version.
I sat on the couch and counted all my nos: no memory, no money, no cell phone.
My stomach growled, making me remember another no, as I wasn’t sure if they had room service, and I wasn’t going back downstairs. I’d rather my stomach howl like a wolf at the moon all night.
But as of tomorrow, I was going to get some answers, even if it meant talking to a crawler.
Chapter Nine
It was nine a.m. when I made my way downstairs, feeling like a zombie. Every time I’d started to drift off to sleep, I’d wake back up, afraid I’d find myself somewhere new with no memory of getting there. I felt like a bomb with a short fuse that was already lit, and if I didn’t get some answers soon, something else was going to explode.
First place that I needed to go was the site of the explosions. There might not be any clues, but it was the only lead I had, unless I wanted to talk to a crawler. That had seemed like a good idea last night, but in the light of a new day, I acknowledged it was a last-resort kind of option, and I wouldn’t do it here, among all these people. Either way, I needed to get out of here for a while, and I doubted it was going to go smoothly.
There might not have been a guard at my door, but Jerry was at the exit. His stance widened as he saw me. Then I saw the beginning of a cringe, like
he was prepared for battle but hoping he wouldn’t actually have to fight.
I stayed calm, in appearance, anyway. He was definitely going to try and stop me, but if I acted like it wasn’t a big deal, maybe he’d do the same? After all, I’d agreed to come back here. I might’ve dragged my feet a little, but I’d done it because it had made sense. That didn’t mean I’d agreed to house arrest.
Jerry shifted in front of the doorknob as I approached. He held up his hands when I was less than five feet away. “Before I say this, I want you to know something.”
I crossed my arms, not wanting to hear it already. This was not going to go easily.
“You don’t remember me, but you like me. You think I’m a decent guy.” He put his hand to his chest, as if swearing.
“I’m sure I do, but I’ve got to go run some errands, so…” I smiled and waved a hand, hinting that he needed to get out of my way.
The cringe was back, and so bad I could see his upper teeth. “You can’t.”
“Because of him?” I asked, pointing to Kane’s office, no longer feigning calmness. I should’ve known he was going to pull some upper-handed bull after last night.
Jerry jerked his head back unnaturally on his shoulders. “Please don’t punch me.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve never punched anyone.” What kind of brute did he think I was? One thought I was blowing things up, another one thought I walked around punching people. And Jerry was twice my size.
There was a pause before he slowly nodded. “Okay. You don’t.”
He wasn’t dropping the hands that were partially raised, as if I were about to attack him. Did Kane put him up to this? What kind of things was that man saying about me?
I turned on my heel and marched across the Underground, all eyes on me, but I didn’t care.
I barged into Kane’s office without knocking. Butch was by the Keurig machine. I gave him a brief nod and made my way to Kane’s desk. Kane didn’t say anything, but I had his full attention. He leaned back in his chair, acting relaxed as he tossed the papers in his hand on top of it. I would’ve bought the act, except his jaw wasn’t tensing for nothing.
Kissed by the Dark: Ollie Wit Book 3 Page 6
