by Jenna Black
Piper looked down at her hands, which she held clasped in her lap. “My folks keep threatening to force-feed me, but I have trouble keeping much of anything down, so I don’t think it would help.”
Luke had told me she wasn’t doing well, but somehow I had never envisioned her doing as badly as she obviously was. She looked like she belonged right back in the hospital, and I was actually a little surprised they’d let her out in her condition.
“I would totally have understood if you decided not to come,” Piper said, still staring at her hands.
“I almost didn’t.”
Her flinch made me regret the harsh words almost immediately. Don’t get me wrong: I was still enormously angry with Piper. But only the most heartless bitch wouldn’t feel sorry for her in the state she was in. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Like I said, I would have understood.” Piper met my eyes briefly and tried a tentative smile. “But I’m glad you came.”
I wasn’t. I wanted out of that room so bad I could taste it. Part of what had made me like Piper so much in the past was that she was so easy to talk to. That certainly wasn’t the case anymore, and I was at a loss for what to say.
Piper hugged her knees to her chest, and I noticed how bony and frail her wrists looked. “I hope you know that if I could go back in time and undo everything, I would.”
I did know that, although it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. Every time I found myself thinking I should maybe let Piper off the hook and say she wasn’t responsible for everything she’d done while she was Nightstruck, I got stuck on the fact that no one had forced her to go running out into the night.
“Why did you leave?” I demanded. Piper had become Nightstruck on the night my next-door neighbor was killed by some unknown beastie. I’d gone out to see if Mrs. Pinter was all right after having heard her scream, and when I came back into my house, Piper was nowhere to be found.
Piper shuddered and hugged her knees more tightly. “I don’t have a good answer,” she said, so softly I had to move closer to hear her. “Ever since the city started changing, I’ve felt … uncomfortable in my own skin. Like I don’t quite belong anywhere, or like I’m playing a role, pretending to be someone I’m not.” She laughed nervously. “It’s really hard to explain.” She let go of her knees and planted her hand in the center of her chest. “There’s this constant, restless ache coming from deep inside here, and that night…” She shuddered again, her shoulders hunching defensively. “That night, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was so scared, Becks…”
I shook my head. She’d been scared because some unseen construct had been trying to break in to the house. The power had been out, the two of us had been alone, Bob had been in a mindless frenzy of barking and snarling, and we didn’t yet know that constructs couldn’t actually come inside. “So your logic was, ‘something’s trying to get inside and rip us to shreds, maybe I’ll feel safer if I just go outside’?”
“I know how stupid it sounds,” Piper said. “It wasn’t like I was really thinking that. It was just … a feeling. And then Aleric came to the door and promised that everything would be all right.” She held up a hand to stave off the protest I’d opened my mouth to make. “I know, I know. I barely knew him, and I had absolutely no logical reason to believe a word he said. But at the time, I felt like … like I was drowning. And Aleric had just thrown me a life preserver. Grabbing onto it seemed like the only sensible thing to do.”
Unfortunately, I had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. When the dawn had swept over me on the morning I became Nightstruck, my rational mind had been 100 percent certain I didn’t want it to happen. I’d tried desperately to get indoors. But I’d been a total emotional wreck, and when the first light of dawn came upon me, I knew I had a choice as to whether to let the night sweep me away or not. I could have refused to budge and stayed myself, but in my wrecked state of mind, the temptation to escape all the turmoil had been too great to resist.
Maybe being angry with Piper was completely hypocritical, no matter what she’d done. But anger just isn’t that easy to let go of.
“If you’d known what would happen, would you still have gone with him?” I asked.
Piper shook her head, but not in denial. “I don’t know, Becks. I think the night already had its hooks deep into me, and I was just too damn weak to resist it.”
There was a wealth of self-loathing in her voice, and her eyes looked even more haunted now than they had when I’d first walked in. I finally forced myself to close the remaining distance between us, to sit down on the bed beside her like I would have back when we were friends. I couldn’t quite manage a hug, but I gave her a light pat on the shoulder. It was a pretty feeble olive branch, and my heart wasn’t entirely in it, but at least it was something.
Piper let out a shuddering breath, and some of the tension eased out of her shoulders. “I feel a bit like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only instead of being just one at a time, I’m both all the time.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I want Mr. Hyde to go away, but he won’t, and he’s stronger than Dr. Jekyll.” She blinked away the tears, but not the misery.
“It’s Jekyll I’m talking to right now,” I said, but Piper shook her head.
“Hyde’s here, too. And Hyde hates your guts because you’re the reason I’m not Nightstruck anymore.”
For the briefest moment, I had a very clear glimpse of that hatred lurking in her eyes, but then she blinked and shook her head violently.
“I don’t want to feel that way,” she said between clenched teeth. “I want to be back to how I was before the city started changing, before the magic came.”
Before I let the magic in, she was thinking, but Dr. Jekyll stopped her from saying it. Apparently we each had plenty of reasons to be angry at the other.
“We’re never going to be friends again, are we?” I said. It was something I’d known since the moment I’d encountered the Nightstruck version of Piper, but somehow it was just sinking in now.
“Not like we were,” Piper agreed. “But we can try like hell not to be enemies, at least.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that effort would succeed. I was never going to be able to look at her again without remembering the night of my dad’s death—and I was never going to forget that brief glimpse of the hatred she carried within her.
“It’s never going to be the same between me and Luke, either,” Piper continued. “I know the two of you are into each other, and I want you to know that that’s okay.”
That was one conversation I definitely did not want to have. My first instinct was to deny that there was anything going on between me and Luke—after all, there wasn’t, at least not right now—but I didn’t think Piper would believe the lie. “That won’t be an issue,” I said, perhaps a little too fast.
Piper managed a lopsided grin that was almost convincing. “Like hell it won’t. I saw the way you two looked at each other while I was Nightstruck.”
“That was then,” I said with what I hoped was a dismissive shrug. “We were spending a lot of time together because our parents didn’t want us alone at night and—”
“It was more than that,” Piper interrupted. “And it’s still more than that. I don’t want to stand in the way.”
For the entire time Piper and Luke had been dating, I had assumed Piper had no idea I was interested in Luke. Surely she wouldn’t have come on to him at my birthday party as she had if she’d known I was interested. She could sometimes be careless, but she was a better friend than that, at least back in the day. Now I wondered if maybe some part of her had had a clue all along. However, if that was the case, I didn’t want to know. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
“Don’t worry, you won’t,” I said. There were plenty of things standing in the way, but Piper was no longer one of them, at least not for me.
Piper gave me a knowing look. “Is that because there are bigger issues?”
My skin went all
crawly as I thought about Aleric’s hands—and other things—on me, and I suspect my face went a too-revealing shade of pale. Piper knew exactly how seductive Aleric could be, and she knew exactly how many defenses I would have had against him while I was Nightstruck.
“The absolute last thing I want to talk about is my relationship with Luke,” I said.
For the second time that afternoon, I caught a glimpse of something ugly hiding behind my former best friend’s eyes. She knew exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it, and at least some part of her was maliciously glad I would have to live with that shame for the rest of my life. And glad that it might get in the way of me ever having a real relationship with Luke.
The malice vanished as fast as it appeared, but I knew it was still there, still lurking. The Piper I’d once known—or thought I’d known—was long gone, even if she was occasionally capable of playing the part still.
“You should tell him the truth about Aleric,” Piper advised me. “It’ll probably bother him even if he says it doesn’t, but it’s the kind of thing he’ll get over. He won’t get over it if you lie to him about it.”
“What part of I don’t want to talk about it didn’t you understand?”
Piper laughed. “You don’t have to talk. I’m just giving you advice as someone who knows Luke better than you do.”
I realized at that moment that I would never be able to take anything Piper said at face value again. Was she giving me genuine advice based on her understanding of what made Luke tick? Or was Mr. Hyde chortling and rubbing his hands together in glee as he did his best to sabotage whatever was left of my relationship with Luke? I had no way of knowing.
Not that it mattered, I told myself. Everything had been awkward and strained between Luke and me since he’d dragged me from that square, so it wasn’t like we needed the issue of Aleric to keep us apart. There was already a gaping chasm between us, one I couldn’t see any way to cross.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spent a lot of time feeling like total crap, not without good reason. But even when you’re living this totally bizarre life, spending every night huddled in a different hotel room jumping at every shadow, you start to develop a kind of routine and it becomes your current definition of normal. Many of the city’s schools had reopened, although on limited hours, but Dr. Gilliam didn’t seem inclined to push either Luke or me into going back to school. It might have added a degree of semi-normalcy to our lives, but it might have added predictability, too, and that was something we couldn’t afford. Aleric and his people might not be able to get to us during the day, but they were perfectly capable of forcing ordinary people to do their dirty work for them. The routine became, then, to have as little routine as possible.
I was always worried about Dr. Gilliam, because she had to go to work at the hospital, and the bad guys could easily know that. The only consolation was that she wasn’t an idiot, and she was serious about taking precautions. I still let out a breath of relief every time she made it back from a shift safely.
I didn’t hear from my mom, but I knew from checking on the Internet that she had not abandoned her quest to get in past the quarantine. She was pissed at me and hurt by the things I had said, but she hadn’t changed her mind about coming to get me. I talked to my sister Beth a couple of times, but it seemed Mom had quoted our entire argument to her verbatim, and she was pretty pissed at me as well. She and Mom had always been more alike than not.
I wasn’t under the impression that Aleric had given up on me, but I have to admit I had relaxed my guard just a little bit when New Year’s came and went without any sign that he was homing in on us. The idea that I would live the rest of my life in hiding, constantly on the move, was hardly appealing, but considering all the other unpalatable changes that had happened in my life, it was something I could live with.
Everything seemed to be going about as well as could be expected, which was why it came as quite a shock when in the second week of January, there was a knock on our hotel room door at just after noon. Dr. Gilliam was at work, and Luke had headed down to the hotel’s gym to get a workout in, so I was the one who had to answer the door.
I assumed it was housekeeping at first, but then realized that housekeeping would usually announce itself. Bob wasn’t quite as territorial now that his territory changed every night, but he could still muster a seriously intimidating bark. However, he wasn’t in full Hellhound mode, and I noticed as I went to the door that his ears were perked up and his tail was wagging, which suggested he recognized the scent of whoever was out there.
I wasn’t about to take Bob’s word for it, so I checked out the peephole. I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing the familiar face of Detective Sam Bellows, one of my dad’s protégés, standing in the hallway. Sam had always seemed like a nice guy, and he had come to dinner on any number of occasions, but I hadn’t seen him since my dad had died, and his presence on the doorstep of my hotel room seemed ominous. Or maybe that was my paranoia speaking.
He knocked a second time while I stood there indecisively wondering what he could want and how he had found me. I decided there was only one way to find out, but since I was feeling paranoid, I left the safety latch on the door as I opened it a crack and looked out warily.
Bob did not have my mixed feelings, shoving his way past my leg so he could stick his nose through the crack in the door. Neither I nor my dad had ever caught Sam feeding Bob scraps when he came to dinner, but we were both sure he had to have done it. Bob isn’t usually much of a people person, but he’d always loved Sam, and food was the surest way to Bob’s heart.
“Hi, buddy!” Sam said, sounding as delighted to see Bob as Bob was to see him. He squatted so he could be on eye level with Bob, reaching out to scratch behind his ears, much to Bob’s delight. Sam grinned up at me as he continued to scratch. “Oh, yeah, hi to you, too, kiddo.”
I snorted, but couldn’t help smiling. It’s a good bet someone’s a true dog person when he greets the dog before the human. I like dog people. But I kept the latch on, my inner alarms continuing to blare a red alert.
“Hi, Sam,” I said cautiously. “What a nice surprise.”
You didn’t have to be a detective to notice I was acting a little squirrelly. Sam stood up straight and looked me in the eye. The bruising and swelling from my broken nose were almost completely gone, but I caught the quick frown when he noticed the remnants. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me what had happened.
“Sorry to drop in on you out of the blue,” he said. “And I’m sorrier than I can say about your dad.” The slight rasp in his voice told me his sorrow was sincere, but if he were just dropping by to offer his condolences, he’d have done it ages ago. There was some other reason he was here, some reason I was sure I wouldn’t like.
“How did you find me?”
“I’m a detective. It’s what we do.” He gave me a jaunty smile that failed to put me even remotely at ease. He glanced at the latch on the door. “May I come in?”
If Aleric was going to threaten and bully someone into snatching me during the day, I seriously doubted it would be someone like Sam. How would he even know my connection to Sam? No, if Aleric sent someone after me, it would be some hapless stranger like the poor man who had long ago tried to deliver Dr. Gilliam to the Nightstruck. But even so I was reluctant to trust anyone these days.
“What is this about?” I asked, not taking the latch off.
Sam sighed. I’m sure he would have preferred if I acted all friendly and trusting, but I didn’t have it in me. “I need to ask you a few questions about the night Piper Grant was shot.”
The blood drained from my face so fast I had to clutch the door to keep myself upright. I will never be a professional poker player. I could almost feel Sam’s interest piquing. It’s perfectly natural to be freaked out, I told myself. Even if I didn’t have a guilty conscience, I would know his showing up to question me meant he thought I was somehow involved, and that would be shocking.
“
Please let me in,” he said softly. “For now, I’m here as your friend, not a detective. I’ll keep anything you say in strictest confidence.”
I believed he meant what he said about coming as a friend, but I did not believe he was going to keep anything I said to himself. Detectives lie about that kind of stuff all the time in an effort to lull suspects into saying something incriminating.
“I’m a minor,” I reminded him. “You’re not allowed to talk to me without a parent’s permission. I can give you my mom’s phone number if you’d like.” And my mom would tell him exactly where he could stuff his questions.
Sam held his hands up and gave me innocent eyes. “I’m just here as a friend,” he reminded me. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with it, but I’d like to be able to prove it.”
I snorted and shook my head. “I’m the daughter of a cop and a lawyer. Do you honestly think I’m going to fall for the ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide there’s no reason not to talk to me’ ploy?”
My heart was pounding, and I had a panicky vision of Sam hauling me off in cuffs and locking me up in some juvenile detention center. Maybe I’d be safe from Aleric there, but I’d face plenty of other dangers. I didn’t think the daughter of the late police commissioner would be better liked in juvie than a cop would be in prison.
Had Piper decided to tell the truth and admit I was the one who shot her? I remembered those brief glimpses I’d seen of the malice and hatred she was trying so hard to fight off. Had Mr. Hyde won?
But if Sam were planning to arrest me, he wouldn’t have come all by himself, and he’d be taking a very different tone with me.
He gave me a wounded look. “I’m not trying any kind of ploy. I wouldn’t be where I am today without your dad, and it seems like looking after his daughter is the least I can do to repay that debt. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I will, just to prove that I really am looking out for you. We received an anonymous tip from someone who said they witnessed the shooting and named you as the shooter. No one actually believes the tip, but it would be easier to fully dismiss it if you had an alibi.”
