by E. S. Moore
“You’re up early.”
“I am?” I glanced at the clock and noted it was only a little after seven in the morning. “I guess my system is a bit messed up.”
Levi’s brow furrowed. “Guess so.”
He was standing in the living room next to where Eilene sat in her glider rocker, gently swaying back and forth. She was frowning and looked paler than usual. Whatever they’d been talking about had upset her. Her eyes flickered to me and I caught the faintest shake of her head.
“I thought I’d see if breakfast was ready before hitting the shower.” I shrugged one shoulder and tried to look embarrassed.
Ronnie was standing by the door, boots on and looking as if he was ready to leave. He looked at me, blinked once, and then looked away, apparently dismissing me.
“You know I don’t have time for breakfast in the mornings,” Levi said, frowning. “Your cereal is the cupboard where it always was.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was probably because of last night and dinner and . . .” I trailed off, not really sure how to continue.
Levi’s frown melted away. He crossed the room and put a big hand on the back of my neck. With a gentle pull, he brought our foreheads together.
“Maybe next time, sweetie,” he said. “I really have too much to do today or I’d stay.”
The muscles and my neck were tense, but I managed not to pull away from him. He squeezed once, and then let me go, causing me to nearly fall over backward from the sudden release of pressure. I expected him to say something or give me a strange look at how I acted, but all he did was smile and walk over to where Ronnie waited.
“We best get going,” he said. “I’ll see you girls later.” He opened the door, gave us both one last look, and then was gone.
“What were you thinking?” Eilene rasped from her chair the moment the door was closed. “Do you want to get caught?”
“I heard voices,” I said. “I wanted to see if I could make anything out.”
She huffed. “I thought you were better than that.”
I ignored the dig, knowing she was right. I should have realized I wouldn’t be able to sneak up on an angel. “What were you talking about?” I asked instead.
“You, if you must know.”
“What about me?”
“He suspects.” Eilene’s hands clutched the armrests of her chair. “He doesn’t know that Sienna’s mind isn’t here, but he knows something is wrong. He’ll figure it out eventually.”
Really, it wasn’t much of a surprise. I’d never been like Sienna, even when I was young. Acting like her didn’t come natural to me and I’d never been much of an actress anyway.
“Then I best get searching,” I said, turning toward the stairs.
“No.” Eilene groaned as she stood. “He claims to smell a demon’s touch on you. He won’t let that slide. Right now, he thinks Sienna somehow crossed paths with a demon while she was gone. He’ll realize what happened soon enough.”
“I’ll do better.”
“You can’t risk letting him discover you.” Eilene made her slow way over to me. She was moving with more difficulty this morning than she had last night. “You have to kill me now. It’s the only way to be sure.”
“You promised me time.”
“I don’t think you have time.”
“Do you really want to die that badly?” I couldn’t stop the heat in my voice. She was pressing me and I didn’t like it. Never have.
Eilene gave me a sickly smile. “Oh, my dear,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “I’ve wanted to die for a very, very long time.”
There was something in her voice that told me she was telling the truth. She didn’t want to live with Levi anymore. She didn’t want to live anywhere for that matter, not after what she’d done.
But Sienna would never forgive me if I killed her stepmother. The girl deserved to see the woman who’d taken care of her one last time. Even if she only had a few minutes, it would be worth it.
“You won’t die here,” I promised her. “I’ll find another way.”
I turned and hurried up the stairs before she could argue.
I wanted a shower in the worst way, but taking advantage of Levi’s absence was far more important. I tossed my clothes in the bathroom for later and headed down the hall to Levi and Eilene’s bedroom instead.
Like Sienna’s room, the furnishings were sparse, but at least here there was something of a personality to the few items around the room. There were a few knickknacks of cats and a sewing kit that was covered in dust. I wondered when the last time Eilene was healthy enough to sew. There was no way she could do it now. In a way, it was heartbreaking.
I went straight for the bed and flipped up the duster. Sienna’s eyes weren’t good enough to make out anything beneath but vague shadows, so I began dragging things out. There were a few boxes of old knitting magazines and a container of baby clothes that looked to have never been worn, but little else. I shoved everything back in, not bothering to try to keep it orderly. From the look of things, Levi had no reason to look beneath the bed.
The closets came next. There were two in the room. The first turned out to be Eilene’s. It held nothing but her clothes and shoes. There wasn’t even a spare blanket on the top shelf, just a couple of old sweaters. The other closet was much the same, though it held Levi’s clothing. There was absolutely nothing inside I could use against him.
“You won’t find anything.” Eilene said from the doorway where she watched me. “He keeps nothing here.”
I grunted and moved on to the master bathroom. There was the usual toothbrush and combs lying on the counter. Eilene’s sparse makeup rested in a small plastic container beside the faucet. A scale sat just inside the door and I very nearly tripped over it as I went to open the medicine cabinet above the sink. I stepped around the scale and opened the door to find it stocked with unopened toothpaste and pills for Eilene’s pain.
“You shouldn’t waste your time,” she said. “Don’t you think I would have found something if it was here?”
I walked past her and headed downstairs. Levi usually kept his victims in a dark room just off of the laundry room. Perhaps that was where he kept his supplies.
The laundry room looked like any other laundry room. A hamper was filled partway with dirty clothes. It sat next to the washer. Another hamper—this one empty—sat beside the dryer. A couple of pairs of jeans were lying inside the dryer itself, seemingly forgotten by whoever had last done the laundry. A closet door was to my left. The door that led to what I thought of as Levi’s torture room was to my right. I opened the closet first, expecting to find fabric softener and maybe an iron, but instead found a small fridge.
Eilene entered the room as I knelt. She leaned against the door frame, breathing hard. She was so out of breath from simply walking up and down the stairs, she couldn’t even talk. The poor woman should have stayed seated in her chair, resting, rather than chase me all over the house.
“Have you been in here before?” I asked, hand on the door of the fridge.
Eilene shook her head. “He never lets me,” she gasped. She put a hand over a chest that was rising and falling at an alarming rate.
I rose without opening the fridge. If she died here while I was in Levi’s house, what would happen? Just because her illness couldn’t kill her, didn’t mean she couldn’t die from other ways, right? I mean, she was pretty sure I’d be able to kill her, so why not a heart attack?
“I’m fine,” she said, waving me off. “I can’t die like this.”
I hesitated before returning to the fridge. It was one of those small ones you might find shoved in a garage or a downstairs room, filled with beer. I seriously doubted this was where Levi kept his Budweiser, so what else could he want it for?
There was no lock on the door. Why would there be? It wasn’t like Eilene or Sienna would ever dare go against his word, and the people he brought here wer
e either locked in the little room or were accompanied wherever they went. Whom did he have to fear?
I pulled open the door, not sure what to expect. What I saw brought a sigh of disappointment gushing from me.
“Blood bags,” I said, more to myself than anyone. “Fucking blood bags.”
“Language.” Eilene spoke automatically. She hesitated and then frowned. “You sound like her, but you speak like the devil.”
I slammed the fridge door closed. If I’d known he kept a few blood bags down here so close to the room I’d stayed in, I probably would have snuck some when the hunger was at its worst.
“I told you you’d find nothing,” Eilene said. She wasn’t gloating or anything. She said it like she was stating an inevitable fact.
“I had to check.”
There were still more rooms in the house where Levi might hide some things, but I doubted I’d find anything. He was too careful for that. He was an angel, sure, but would he really leave the means to destroy him lying around in plain sight?
I glanced at Eilene. Then again, here she was. If he lost control of one of his vamps or weres even once, it could be all over for him. Why would he take such a risk? Was he that confident in his abilities or was there something else going on here?
“Are there any safes in the house?” I asked, not really believing there would be.
“None.”
“He really doesn’t keep anything here, does he? Not even in the garage?”
“Of course not,” Eilene said. “If he brings something home with him, he keeps it close until he can take it back to his truck. He keeps everything there until he can take it back to . . .” She trailed off, eyes going wide. She looked quickly away, but the damage had already been done.
I took two quick steps forward so that I was standing right in front of her. It wasn’t as intimidating as it might have been in my old body, but it still caught her by surprise.
“Where does he take it?”
“Nowhere.” Eilene tried to back up, but I kept pace with her. This might be my only chance.
“Do you want to be free or not?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I do,” she said. “But to be free, I must die.”
“Not if I can help it, Eilene. Tell me, where does he do his work when he’s not here?”
Eilene wiped her eyes and sighed. “You won’t find anything that can stop him there either.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Maybe I’ll discover something that will help me understand why he’s doing all of this. Maybe there will be a way out in that.”
“And when you come up empty?”
I knew what she was really asking.
“I’ll do what I have to do.”
The rumble of a truck neared. Levi was back already. Whatever he’d done, it hadn’t taken long.
“Please, Eilene,” I said, easing off the intimidation. “Just tell me where he works. I promise I won’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Going there is an unnecessary risk.”
“But if I find something, you might get to see Sienna one last time before you die.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she looked away, eyes going to the stairs. She stood like that, almost as if she was waiting for Levi to come down them and catch us plotting against him.
“There’s a building about two miles west of here,” she said at a whisper. “I’ve never been there myself, but heard him mention it before. If there is anything to find, that is where you’ll find it.”
The upstairs door opened and Levi’s booming voice filled the house. “Eilene?” he called. “Where have you gotten off to?”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I glanced around the room for an escape. My eyes fell instead upon the hamper. “Laundry,” I said, helping Eilene over to the machines.
She began unloading the jeans into the empty hamper. I opened the washer and was thankful to find it filled with damp clothes. I began shoveling them from the washer, into the dryer. I was about halfway through when Levi appeared behind us.
“Well,” he said, sounding strangely jovial. “Looks like you two have been busy.”
I didn’t look back. I was afraid he’d see in my eyes somehow what we’d really been doing.
“I thought I’d help out a little bit before showering.” I finished with the damp clothes and moved to the hamper. I grabbed an armload of Levi’s shirts and shoved them into the washer.
“Well, take a break for a few minutes,” he said. “I have someone for you to meet.”
My heart skipped a beat. I turned slowly to face Levi, knowing what I was going to find.
Standing beside the angel was a young man who had to be no more than seventeen or eighteen. He was smiling ear to ear, looking like he’d finally found the home he’d been searching for all of his life. Had I really looked that desperate when I’d come here for the first time?
“Eilene. Sienna. I want you to meet Chris.” Levi’s eyes shone with a feverish desire as he introduced the young man. There was a moment of silence, as if he was savoring the moment, before he spoke again. “You’ll be getting to know him well over the next few weeks. He is going to be staying with us for a little while.”
26
“It’s very nice to meet the both of you.”
Chris came forward and held out a hand to Eilene. Her face hardened, but she took his hand in her own.
“Werewolf?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He glanced back at Levi as if looking for support before turning back. “I hope that won’t be a problem. I’m hoping to get . . . better.”
Eilene made a noncommittal sound before taking back her hand. She gave Levi a look I could only describe as harsh and hateful.
Chris turned to me and the smile he’d been wearing ever since walking in widened. “Hello,” he said. “Sienna, right?”
I stared at him without speaking. Chris might be all smiles and politeness, but he was a monster inside. He might hate it, might want to be saved, but I was sure he’d killed people in his time.
“Sienna?” Levi said. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
It took me a moment to realize Levi was talking to me. I kept envisioning myself standing upstairs, meeting the family for the first time, much like Chris was doing now. Had I really looked that naïve when I’d come to this place? It’s hard to believe I could ever have felt at home here now that I truly saw the town for what it was.
“Sorry,” I said, plastering on a fake smile. “Hi.”
Chris’s hand extended toward me. “I’m Chris Van Meter.”
I looked at his hand dumbly for a moment before taking it. “I, uh, Sienna,” I said, just barely getting the name right. My head was such a mess, I very nearly said “Kat.” That definitely wouldn’t have gone over well.
Chris held my hand longer than he should have. Levi’s smile slipped and I knew the anger would come next if I didn’t do something. I jerked my hand back and smiled shyly at the floor as if I really was a girl flattered by the attention.
And really, Chris wasn’t that bad looking for a kid—if he indeed was as young as I figured. He might be older than he looked. Werewolves aged, but did so slowly. He might appear to be seventeen, but could really be as old as thirty or forty, depending on when he was turned. His face wouldn’t quite be forever young, but it was a near thing. It probably worked to his advantage when it came to hunting. I wondered how many young girls died trusting that smile of his.
“Come on, Chris,” Levi said, taking the werewolf by the arm. “Let me show you to your room. You’ll be staying down here unless I come to get you. It’s purely for safety reasons, of course.” He led Chris into the little room with a jovial grin slathered all of his face.
They were in there for only a few seconds before Levi returned. “I’m going to be working with him for a little while,” he said, keeping his voice low. “He has pretty good control of himself now, but I think it would be wise to make sure he doesn’t have any episodes i
f pressed.” He smiled. “It would probably be best if you weren’t down here.”
Eilene touched my elbow and made for the stairs. I watched as Levi got into the small fridge and removed a couple of blood bags before I followed after her. He was so absorbed in what he was doing, I actually think he’d forgotten about us. He hefted the bags in his hand a moment, and then turned to reenter the room. The door closed and I went ahead and followed Eilene up the stairs.
“You have to end this now,” she whispered. “I can’t watch him destroy someone else.”
The sad thing was, I didn’t want to see him hurt Chris either. The kid had no idea what he was in for. Maybe once this was over, I could introduce him to Jonathan.
The thought of Jonathan was enough to raise my temperature, but this wasn’t the time or place to be thinking about him. Eilene was standing right there and I didn’t doubt she’d pick up on my thoughts if I weren’t careful.
“You promised me time,” I said. I might not want Chris to suffer, but if I was choosing between him becoming an empty husk and killing Eilene, I’d choose Eilene’s life every time.
I turned away and headed upstairs to change. There was no way I was going to waste this opportunity. Levi was going to be busy for a little while, which gave me some time to look around. I went into the bathroom, looked longingly at the shower, and then dismissed it as I got undressed. I might want to do this as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t going to do it wearing Sienna’s pajamas.
I was dressed a few minutes later. I grabbed Sienna’s shoes out of her closet and headed downstairs where Eilene was waiting. I sat on the bottom step and began lacing up the shoes.
“I’m going to find the building you told me about,” I said. “I’m not going to do anything but look. If Levi comes looking for me, stall him. I won’t be long.”
“And what am I supposed to tell him?” she asked. “He’ll know if I lie.”
“Tell him I went for a walk. It’s pretty much the truth.”
Eilene clearly didn’t like it, but I wasn’t going to be swayed. This very well might be the only chance I got to check this place out. As long as he stayed downstairs, I wouldn’t have to worry about him finding me snooping around.
