“Enough,” Reese begged. She grabbed a fistful of Violet’s hair. “Enough. My turn.”
Violet let herself be hauled up between her legs and into a sloppy kiss.
Reese sat up, pulling Violet into her lap before laying her down the other way, her head now at the foot of the bed. She began work on removing her pants.
“You can barely keep your eyes open,” Violet teased. “I’m pretty good, huh?”
“Shut up,” Reese said, but there was no malice in it. She was enjoying the bright flush in Violet’s face and the cat-like grin on her face.
“I bet I could—” Violet’s words were swallowed by a moan.
Reese slid her fingers into the demon. “Hushhh.”
Reese was delighted to find that Violet was just as wet as she’d been. “Am I the last one who fucked you?” Reese asked, teasingly.
“Yes,” Violet said, bearing down on her hand.
Reese’s emotions swelled.
“I’m not lying, Ree.” Violet pulled her forward, looking into her eyes. “You are.”
Of course, this said nothing about how many pants Violet may have dropped since their breakup. Reese pushed back against the swell of emotion threatening to rise like a tide and destroy this nice little oblivion they’d formed around them.
They were running out of time. Reese could already see the first hint of purple behind the bedroom curtains. It would be sunrise within the hour.
Violet grabbed Reese’s free hand and pulled it up to her throat. She squeezed until Reese took over, adding the pressure of her own. Violet liked being choked as she came. Reese hadn’t forgotten. So she let Violet writhe against her hand until the last waves of her climax fell away.
Reese waited, trying to read Violet’s body to see if she wanted more, or if the approaching sun was going to win.
She thought the demon had fallen asleep when she said, “We could pick this up again, you know.”
Reese lay down beside her. “Could we?”
Reese knew she wasn’t talking about the sex. She was talking about their failed relationship. They’d been together for two years and apart for almost one. Reese still liked her. There was no point in lying to herself about that. But she’d had her reasons for ending it.
Seeing Violet make out with people in the bars, or invite people into dark corners hadn’t been easy, even if it was only to feed off their baser emotions—jealousy, lust, envy.
“Eating isn’t cheating,” Reese said. “That’s what you said.”
“That’s why you ended it, wasn’t it?”
Reese didn’t answer.
“I’ve never lied to you,” Violet said. She grabbed the ends of Reese’s hair, playing with the inky black tips. “But a girl’s got to eat and I won’t feed on you.”
I’ve never lied to you.
Violet must have sensed the dark shift in her mind.
“Forget I said anything. I’ve ruined the moment.”
“You didn’t,” Reese said. She ran a hand through her hair. If she was being honest with herself, she’d missed Violet. She’d seen her around, but that wasn’t the same.
She’d missed the intimacy. Even if the jealousy had also been tearing her apart.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it to you,” Violet said with uncharacteristic tenderness. “But it really is like watching you get emotional over my cheeseburger. I don’t feel anything for the people I eat. That’s exactly why I eat them and why I can’t do that to you.”
Reese was nodding, but she didn’t know what to say.
“If I don’t eat I’ll get weak. In a place like Castle Cove, I can’t be weak. It’d get me killed.”
Reese rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “I get it. I really do.”
Violet dragged herself from the bed. With one movement of her hands, the candles in the room extinguished, leaving dozens of trails of thin gray smoke to rise toward the ceiling.
“Where are you going?” Reese asked. She turned on her side, watching the demon dress herself.
“I want to get home before sunrise.”
“You can stay,” Reese said. “You’ll be safe here.”
Violet considered her for a long time. She spared a small smile. “Only because it might change your mind.”
Reese pulled back the covers, sliding over to let Violet slip in beside her.
The moment before the sun rose, Violet spoke. “Tell me you’ll think about it.”
“I will.” As if Reese could actually stop herself. She pulled Violet close. “I promise.”
Grayson
They dressed before the police arrived. They’d had about fifteen minutes between the moment he’d pulled his cell phone from his pocket until he saw the flashlights first sweep the sandy dunes.
Then the police were calling out their names and Grayson found a way to call back, though his throat was raw and burning.
Abigail’s mother was first on the scene. As an officer at Castle Cove PD, she would’ve heard the call come into the station and would’ve taken it upon herself to drive straight to Hunter’s Beach.
What he hadn’t expected was that his own parents would be a close second.
It was his father who threw a gray wool blanket over his shoulders. It was his mother who squeezed him so hard he couldn’t breathe.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you—Christ, you’re trembling.”
“I’m fine,” he managed, yet his teeth were chattering. “But Landon—Landon.”
His voice broke and his father pulled him into his embrace. He wasn’t sure how long they held him, cocooned by his parents on either side. Someone was stroking his wet hair.
When they finally released him, dozens more had arrived. There were officers in jackets, but also paramedics. They wanted to give both Abigail and Grayson full physicals.
One shone a penlight into Grayson’s eyes.
“I’m fine,” Grayson insisted. But they still sat him and Abigail down against a rock. She hadn’t stopped crying. “Forget about me. Check on Abby.”
“We need to know what happened,” Officer Una O’Reilly said. Una was Abigail’s mom.
“Grayson,” his father said. It was the one-word command he’d heard often in his life, but never delivered with such tenderness.
Grayson told the story. He began with their plan to swim to Heart’s Rock and then go get pizza.
“It’s his eighteenth birthday,” his mother interjected as if defending him.
“Then they came around the rock,” he said. “Three sirens.”
“Onto the rock?” Officer O’Reilly corrected.
“No,” Grayson shook his head and cold water fell from his hair on to his cheek. “Around the rock. They passed me and swam straight into the cove. They were chasing Abigail and Landon. The females split off for Landon and the male went after Abby.”
Officer O’Reilly stiffened. Her face pinched.
“I thought the inlet was safe,” his father said, searching the detective’s face. “I thought this tradition was harmless.”
“If you call the threat of rape harmless,” his mother Lillian countered.
Officer O’Reilly seemed to struggle, but finally found her words. “There was also a siren attack last Saturday.” She pointed south, down the beach. “While they do visit the southern beaches from time to time, they’ve never crossed into the inlet before. We will have to investigate what would drive them this far into the cove.”
“If there was another attack, why haven’t we heard about it? Why didn’t you issue a warning?” his mother demanded.
“There hasn’t been time,” the detective replied.
“It happened last weekend. Why didn’t you let us know they were agitated? The community deserves to know if our children—”
“Lillian,” his father said. He squeezed her arm, and to her credit, she seemed to regain control of herself.
“We thought last weekend’s attack was an isolated incident. We did report it to
...the proper authorities. But we haven’t heard any new information on the situation. Frankly, we didn’t know what was going on and therefore weren’t sure what to report.”
“Tell that to them!” Grayson’s mother pointed at the couple further down the beach. Landon’s parents were surrounded by police. It looked like they wanted to come over and talk, but the authorities weren’t allowing them to come any closer.
“You could have reported that there was an attack,” Lillian said stiffly. “At least tell people to stay off the beach.”
“You’re right. We will have to now,” Officer O’Reilly conceded.
“Landon is dead.” It was Abigail speaking. “Landon is dead.”
“I know, sweetie.” Una stooped and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I’m so sorry.”
Grayson heard the unspoken relief in her voice. At least it wasn’t you. That must be what she was thinking. Someone’s child had died tonight. But it hadn’t been her child. And though both of their parents knew who Landon was to Abby and Grayson, they couldn’t hide their own gratitude. They might have seen Landon grow into a young man, they might’ve had him over for dinners and playdates, but none of that meant they would sacrifice their own children in his place.
A man in a dark blue jacket stood awkwardly to one side, waiting to get Officer O’Reilly’s attention.
She spotted him. “What is it?”
“We just wanted to let you know that the markings on the body and the water in the respiratory system are consistent with a siren attack. There was no ejaculate present—”
“Christ,” Grayson’s mother swore.
“—it was likely washed away in the surf.”
Una held up one hand. The other remained on Abby’s shoulder. “That’s enough for now, Darryl. Thank you.”
“Lillian, Wade, I hate to ask but could you take Abigail home, please. I will need to stay here until the scene is processed. The kids are both cold and—”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Abigail said. She lifted her head and dragged her nose across the blanket draping her arm.
“You can come to our house,” Lillian said, tugging the blanket tighter around her. Then turning her face up to Una she said, “We’ll be with them.”
“Thank you.” Una helped Abby to her feet. “I’ll come get you as soon as I leave here. If it’s too late, I’ll wait until the morning. I’m sure you’re all exhausted. Don’t wait up for me.”
“Text me either way,” his mother told Officer O’Reilly. “I’ll be awake.”
In silence the four of them climbed the steep ledge to the parking lot above. Grayson and Abby followed his parents, shoulder to shoulder, to the parking lot beside the castle ruins. No one spoke as his father unlocked the car and they climbed in. In the dark back seat, Abigail snuggled close to Grayson’s side, crying quietly.
“Are you hungry?” his father asked.
Grayson met his eyes in the rearview. “I don’t know if I can eat now.”
“We will pick up something anyway,” his mother said, regarding him with one of her stern faces. “You don’t have to eat it. But it will be there if you want it.”
“Not pizza,” Abby said softly from her corner of the car. Her voice was thick with tears. “Anything but pizza.”
They picked up Chinese from the Moodle Noodle shop on the west side of campus. His father went in and paid while his mother stayed in the car.
No one spoke. The radio remained off. But distant music from a closing bar reached them.
It was Abigail who broke the silence first. “When I get to your house, can I please take a shower?”
“Of course,” his mother said, turning in her seat to gaze at her. “Of course you can.”
“Where’s Tanner?” Grayson asked. His parents wouldn’t have brought him to a murder scene, but it couldn’t have been easy finding a sitter at two in the morning.
“He had a sleepover with Will.” It was like her face was drinking him in. “We will tell him what happened later.”
Don’t say it, he thought. He could practically see the I’m just so glad you’re okay written on her face. But if she said it, Abby would begin to cry again and she’d finally started to quiet down.
“All right,” his father said, climbing into the car and handing a brown sack to his mother. “We have enough chicken and lo mien to feed an army. Anything else?”
“A shower,” Abby begged.
His father favored her with a weak smile. “Coming right up.”
His father waited for a trio of drunk coeds to cross the street before he pulled away from the curb into the post-bar traffic.
Grayson’s parents had bought a house in historic Midtown. This was a vintage neighborhood with beautiful restored Victorian homes and small shops. There was a coffeeshop and bookstore and it had the feel of a small antiquated town, complete with a local grocer and old-fashioned video store, where people could still rent DVDs and video games.
This neighborhood’s insular seclusion was one of the reasons Grayson had been allowed to roam so freely as a child. Everything he could have wanted—candy or ice cream, a park or playground, his friends—were within a few blocks of his house.
The porchlight was on when they pulled into the drive, illuminating freshly stained steps and the railing. The house itself was a deep cherry red. He and his father had just repainted it the previous summer. It had taken them all three months, and it wasn’t like his family didn’t have the money to hire a team to do it faster. It was simply one of his father’s “bonding” projects—of which there had been many over the years.
But seeing the house had the effect Grayson suspected his father wanted.
Every time Grayson saw it, he felt proud. Proud of what a good job the four of them had done together, and proud of his family.
This was home. He was safe here.
When he threw open the car door, he had tears in his eyes. His father saw them as he was closing his own door.
“I know,” his father murmured quietly. “I know.”
He squeezed Grayson’s shoulder hard, and pulled him toward the house.
His mother got the door open, ushering Abigail over the threshold.
“Honey, get some towels,” she said, tossing her keys and purse on the bench beside the stairs. “When you get out of the shower, Abigail, I’ll have something clean for you to wear. It’ll be a little big on you.”
The shirt would be fine, but Abigail wasn’t as tall as his mother. The pants would have to be rolled up and perhaps belted at the waist.
“It’s fine,” Abigail managed, looking small and worn under the gray wool blanket. “Thank you.”
His mother carried the food into the kitchen and disappeared through the swinging door.
“Grayson, show her how the taps work,” his father instructed, putting two fresh towels in his hand. He took the blanket off Grayson’s shoulder. “And make sure there’s enough soap and all that.”
“Come on.” Grayson took the lead on the stairs even though Abby had been visiting his house since the fourth grade. Of course, she’d never stayed the night before.
The wooden staircase creaked under their weight. When they reached the top of the stairs, he turned left and then left again to his own bathroom at the end of the hall.
He placed the towels on the sink, aware of Abigail standing beside him.
“It’s backwards. You turn the handle this way for hot, and this way for cold. If it sputters, it’s just air in the pipes. It’ll kick back up in a second. Don’t let the rattle scare you.”
He left the tap on hot and pulled up the stop. The water was diverted from the spout to the showerhead, spraying the basin in a gentle rain.
Abigail handed him the blanket and began to undress.
He shouldn’t care. He’d seen her naked before. But he still backed toward the door.
“I’ll put the clothes outside the door,” he said.
He thought it best to look her in the eyes, rathe
r than chance staring at anything else.
But when he looked into her eyes, she was crying.
“It was you,” she said, standing there naked in his bathroom, with the hot water running into a cream-colored tub.
His heart hammered in his chest.
“When the siren—I wanted it because—” She bit her quivering lip. Her hand fisted on the burgundy shower curtain. “When he was—he looked like you.”
Then Grayson understood what she was trying to say. The male siren had caught up to her and she hadn’t resisted him.
It was Grayson she’d been making love to as her boyfriend was killed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Probably all of it. The whole shitty situation. But she’d already climbed inside the shower and had pulled the curtain closed between them.
Grayson showered in his parents’ bathroom.
Then after he put the fresh clothes on the sink for Abigail—she hadn’t finished yet—he went downstairs to find his parents sitting around the dining room table.
Grayson had always loved this table. It was strange and ornate and looked more like a table built for 1920s seances than for family dinners. But it was one of the many charming features of their restored home.
“Come sit with us,” his mother said. She was trying not to sound desperate, which Grayson appreciated. A swell of affection filled his chest.
After his shower, he found he could eat after all. The headache building behind his eyes and the shaking in his exhausted limbs begged him to eat something. “Let me grab some food first.”
He went into the kitchen and pulled a white ceramic plate from the shelf. He loaded it with pineapple fried rice, lo mien, General Tso’s chicken, and three pieces of crab rangoon.
He grabbed a sparkling water from the fridge and carried it into the dining room.
He sat down between his parents, knowing that was where they wanted him.
“Your father and I talked and we decided to waive the no-girls-sleeping-in-your-room policy,” his mother said.
“Good call. I don’t think she’ll sleep alone.”
“But we want you to leave the door open,” his father added.
Night Tide Page 35
