by D. N. Hoxa
Too bad I had no other choice but to turn around and follow the vampire to his car.
His was a navy-colored BMW with leather seats and so many buttons on the dashboard, it made me dizzy. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the window, needing just a little more time to make sense of everything. Or a lot more time.
Probably a lot.
“Where are we going?” I asked Red after a few minutes. It wasn’t just the pain that made me feel like I wanted to try and break my own neck and be done with it. It was the…disappointment. In myself. I’d been reckless. I’d gotten myself involved with some bad people, and then I’d gone home. As if they were stupid and wouldn’t know how to find me.
Not only that, but I’d let my sister get away, then gotten into a car with a vampire. What was next, making out with a fairy?
“To a safe house. It’s not too far away,” Red said. “Are you feeling any better?”
Couldn’t he see my eyes were still closed?
Were they supposed to be? Wasn’t I supposed to be extra alert and look around at all times, not daring to even blink? Wasn’t I supposed to sniff the air every few seconds after everything that had happened?
How the hell was I supposed to do any of this?!
“What will we do there?” I asked Red instead. Now, I did want to open my eyes, but I found I couldn’t. Unconsciousness was dragging me under, and I wasn’t sure if I could do anything against it, or if I even wanted to.
“We’ll rest. We’ll plan,” Red said, sounding more concerned by the second, which made me feel even worse. You knew things had gone to shit when you managed to make a vampire pity you. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I couldn’t answer.
Red’s safe house was in Woodhaven. The Park where it was hidden was huge. Heavenly. Mostly oaks, the trees were large and smelled perfect. The vampire parked his car in front of the entrance of the park, now closed, and took us around for five minutes, before entering the forest. I felt right at home, at first. I’d grown up in a forest such as this, not too far away from the house I grew up in.
Also, my wolf had killed three people in that forest and hadn’t even let me see.
And that was what had made me keep away from woods in general and what made me want to run away from that place that night.
Following Red deeper and deeper into the forest, I allowed myself to breathe through my nose only. It had been a while, but the smells in there were nothing like those of the city. The smell of wood, leaves and animals—squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, even frogs. It was all very refreshing, and for the long ten minutes it took us to get to the safe house, it made me forget about what had happened ever since I’d delivered Luna to her owner two days ago.
The safe house looked like nothing more than a cabin from the outside, carefully placed between two large oaks, entirely constructed out of wood, almost like the house wanted to blend in with the environment. But the cabin was just for show. Whoever would happen to walk by it would think it abandoned. On the inside, though, if you knew to walk to the wall on the left, remove a really old looking, nasty piece of faux fur rug, and open the door on the floor, you’d find a narrow set of stairs, which led you underground, to the real safe house.
I guess I could have been a bit more impressed—or at least pretended to be. Red expected it with every step he took, but I couldn’t bring myself to show any excitement. The smell of spells was heavy down there, and the place wasn’t unlike my apartment. Three rooms, a small kitchen in the corner, the dining table in front of the leather couch—however that made sense to Red—and a decent-sized bathroom. It was cold down there, but I didn’t complain.
Luckily, Red noticed. The small corridor stretched from the middle of the living room/kitchen, with two doors to the sides—the bedrooms—and one in the middle—the bathroom. Red went to the room on the left and brought out a small, plastic heater.
Now, that impressed me.
“You have a heater?” Not that I wasn’t thankful, but he was a vampire, and he didn’t exactly get cold. He was dead.
“I built this with a friend,” Red said, plugging the heater in behind the dining table. “A witch friend.”
“And where is he now?” I sniffed the air, but I couldn’t smell anything other than the spells and the vampire.
Red sighed. “I don’t know, actually,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Make yourself at home.”
Home. Yeah, not likely.
“Are you sure we’re safe here?” I asked and slowly stepped closer to the heater. It was a tiny, round thing, but it sure had strength.
“Yes, we are. Can’t you smell the spells?” he asked.
I could, but that didn’t reassure me. Not now that I’d seen who was after me. So I didn’t say anything, just sat on the cold wooden floor in front of the heater, and let it calm me.
“I think I have some frozen pizza in the fridge,” he then said and moved to the kitchen. The fridge he was talking about was inside a cabinet, and he even had a microwave next to the burner. Come to think of it, the kitchen looked pretty new.
Everything looked pretty new, like it hadn’t been used a lot. Even the leather couch.
“Do you come here often?” I asked while he microwaved my pizza. I would have done it myself, but…I didn’t want to. It still hurt everywhere, my neck and my waist the most. I just wanted to eat and get some sleep before I forced myself to face this madness.
“Not really, no,” Red said, folding his arms in front of him as he waited for my pizza. “So, are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I asked, but I had a feeling I already knew what he was going to ask.
“What you are,” he said. Bingo.
“I’m a werewolf,” I mumbled, and even I didn’t believe myself.
“No, really. What are you?” he pushed.
I turned my head the other way and focused on the heater. How the hell could I tell him something I had no idea about myself?
“So you don’t know,” Red said after a minute. What’s a girl to say to that?
The microwave beeped. My stomach growled with hunger. A second later, Red appeared in front of me with a plate in his hand.
“Jesus, can you not do that?” I said, taken aback by his speed. I wasn’t used to having vampires around so it freaked me out.
Red grinned and sat down on the ground across from me. “For a wolf your size, you sure startle easy.”
To keep myself busy, I focused on the pizza. It wasn’t good by any means, but I was too hungry to care. He’d heated only two large slices. If it had been up to me, I’d have doubled the ration.
“How did you find me?” I asked after the second bite. It was better to get him talking than to endure his stare. He looked at me as if he was in awe, as if he expected a halo to appear over my head any second. It made me very uncomfortable.
“I followed you,” he said. “You shouldn’t have gone back to your apartment after the night before.”
“Yeah…” I’d figured that out all by myself.
“So you really only find missing animals?” he asked.
“Yep. Really.” Which was why my life had been so easy and peaceful just two nights ago.
“Why animals?”
“Because I like animals. Animals don’t judge me. Animals never want something from me. And animals don’t drive fucking cars,” I said through gritted teeth.
“That’s a lot of wasted potential right there,” Red said in wonder. “How come you haven’t been exposed yet?”
A shiver washed down my back. “Did you not see them expose me tonight?” He’d been there himself.
“I mean before tonight,” he clarified.
“I don’t know.” Probably because I’d never told a soul about me. “How did you find me the first time?”
“Through a guy, who heard from another guy, who heard from another guy,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Really?” He wanted to be that vague?
“I swear,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I just heard the rumors, then followed your work online.”
My cheeks flushed. “You were stalking me?”
And the asshole shrugged. “I guess you could say that.”
Standing up with the empty plate in hand, I went to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep now.” It was going to be tricky to sleep with a vampire under the same roof, but I still wanted to be alone.
“First door right. There’s some clothes in there. Maybe you can find something that fits,” he said. He was right, I desperately needed a change of clothes. Mine were completely torn, barely covering me properly. “And catch!”
When I turned, I saw something flashing before it hit me right in the cheek.
And it hurt like hell.
“What the fuck?” I shouted, rubbing my throbbing cheek.
Red laughed. “Wow! Where are your instincts?”
“I left them in my apartment when I was running for my life,” I spit and looked down at the ground to whatever he’d thrown at me.
When I saw it resting a couple feet away on the ground, I almost passed out.
“Where did you get this?” I whispered. It was the steel plate, the same one the witch had given me, and the same one I’d hidden in my mailbox.
“In your mailbox,” said Red. “I told you, I followed you and saw where you hid it.”
I slowly kneeled and grabbed it. It was still coated in blood and still cold against my skin. “And you thought it smart to bring it here? Those people are looking for this!”
“All the more reason why we should keep it. If they want it, that means it’s worth something,” Red said, and then he did that thing again where he moved so quickly, I barely caught sight of him before he appeared right in front of me. I took a step back and inhaled deeply. “This is important. You do not have to be afraid of them here, okay? They cannot find you in here, I promise.”
I couldn’t bring myself to trust in any word he said.
“I’m going to bed,” I said instead, and disappeared into the room on the right, hoping against hope that I’d come up with some brilliant idea to get me and my sister out of this mess for good.
For a few hours, I tossed and turned in the twin bed on the right side of the room. I might have even slept for minutes at a time, but the call of nature woke me up for good. I felt more tired than before, if that was even possible. The bathroom had a tub and some nice smelling shampoos. I couldn’t wait to get to the point where I’d want to take a bath, but now was not the time. Instead, I just grabbed some faded black men’s trousers from the drawer, and a men’s white shirt three sizes too big for me, but they were better than what I had on. The sneakers were huge, too, but I tightened the laces all the way and made it work.
I sneaked back into the living area and the kitchen, hoping to find some more of that frozen pizza, but as soon as I put it in the microwave, the door to the room on the left of the corridor opened, and Red came out. His smell hit me hard, and by the time I focused on breathing through my mouth, I already almost felt like him. Except now, he didn’t smell entirely of deadness like he had at first. Now, his scent had sort of developed. He smelled of wood and his scent was very sharp. Very intruding in a way, like it alone had a separate personality from the vampire.
“You didn’t rest much,” the vampire said as he walked past me and went to the couch. He didn’t bother to check if we’d been spotted, but it must have already been daylight outside. Since sunlight didn’t kill me, I supposed I should be the one to check the outside after I ate.
“I rested enough.” Maybe it wasn’t a truth, but I was too shocked by what had happened in the last twenty-four hours to lie still on a bed for longer.
“Good,” Red said, clapping his hands just as the microwave beeped to notify me that the food was ready. I took the pizza out eagerly and sat at the dining table, as far away from the couch as possible. Not that it helped. As soon as I sat down, Red came and sat right across from me. “Because there are a lot of questions I’m going to need answers to.”
With the pizza halfway to my mouth, I froze and stared at him with raised brows. Was he joking?
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, analyzing my face so fast, I barely caught the movement of his sharp eyes. Everything about him was so…intense. Even the way he leaned his head to the side and smiled. Just half a smile and it made me shiver. “If we’re going to work together, I need to know things about you, things that will help me keep you safe.”
The pizza tasted even worse than before, but I chewed and swallowed anyway. “I don’t need you to keep me safe. I need you to tell me how we can find those people again. I’m going to get you whatever it is you’re looking for, and then we’re going to never see each other again.” It was a decent plan, one I intended to follow very closely.
“Never is a very strong word,” Red said, rubbing his chin in wonder. “But until never arrives, I’m going to need to know why it seemed like those humans outside your apartment could see you.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “Because they have eyes?”
He grinned. “You know exactly what I mean, little wolf. How is it possible that they followed your every movement? Some even tried to help you, if you recall, and there wasn’t an ounce of confusion in any of their faces. How?”
To give myself another second, I took a large bite of the pizza and swallowed slowly while I tried to decide how to proceed. I could always lie to him. He’d know, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Unless he wanted to drink me dry. Just how pissed off was I allowed to get a vampire?
On the other hand, he was right. We were stuck together whether I liked it or not. He was going to help me find my sister, potentially even get her away from those people, and I was going to help him find what Red claimed those same people stole from him. I certainly did not want to be in an underground house in the middle of the woods with a vampire sitting across from me, analyzing me like he was trying to convince himself I wasn’t food and failing, but the hand I’d been dealt was pretty obvious. I could either make the most of this for as long as he didn’t kill me, or I could blow it all to shit.
Even my wolf raised her head. She was very interested in Red, especially after I pictured him sinking his teeth in my neck very briefly. And she didn’t like it. More than that—she thought he wasn’t a threat, which just shows how little she knew about vampires. Red was most definitely a threat, but my wolf’s confidence, though false, made me feel a tiny bit better.
“Humans can see me. They can hang out with me and speak to me normally, and I haven’t come across one who’s ever forgotten about my existence,” I said reluctantly.
“But how?” Red repeated.
“Maybe I got struck by lightning as a kid?” I shrugged. “Who knows?” I sure as hell didn’t.
“What about your parents?” he asked. All the hairs in the back of my neck stood to attention.
“What about them?”
“Are they the same? Any siblings, maybe?”
“No, no. They’re all normal. It’s just me,” I said the lie and cleared my throat. There was no way of knowing what my real family had been like. More than once I’d wondered if they were the same as me. If they had a wolf they couldn’t control inside, but I’d long ago accepted that I was never going to know the answer to that. “Is that all?”
Red laughed. The sound made my toes curl and my fingers gather into fists. It was as strong and as sharp as the rest of him, his laughter. I didn’t like it. “Oh, no, that’s definitely not all. Your wolf,” he said. “Tell me about your wolf.”
I looked into his eyes and tried to see past the easygoing nature he was faking around me. He needed me to find something for him. I got the concern about the humans, but this he had no business knowing.
“It’s just the way it is. It’s always been like this. I’ve kept her a secret my entire life,” I said and fli
nched. “Until now.”
Three people had seen me and had walked away with their lives, among them Izzy—my sister. I didn’t worry about her spilling my secret—though maybe I should have after the way she just stood and stared at me back in the city—but those other two werewolves were going to tell someone. They were going to tell their boss. How long until they found me?
“Do you have a good grip on her?” Red asked next. It actually made me smile until I remembered myself.
“Last night was the first time she let me see through her eyes. Other times, when she takes over, I fall unconscious and don’t wake up until she lets go of me.” My voice was neutral, I thought, but my feelings weren’t. And it sucked because before I was angry. I was so, so angry at the wolf for keeping me in the dark, but now, I was just plain sad.
“It makes sense,” the vampire said.
“It does?”
“She’s protecting you. It’s what wolves do. They protect.”
Protect?
I opened my mouth to call bullshit on his ridiculous theory, but before I could, it occurred to me that he actually might be right. My wolf didn’t come out often. In fact, she only came out ten times in my life that I could remember. As a kid, she killed three people and I saw nothing.
Was that it? Was that the why? Seeing/killing a man at eleven years old would have sure left some scars on me. The kind that never went away. It would have messed with my head in a way I couldn’t even imagine. I looked at the vampire, so surprised I couldn’t find words to speak. Was my wolf really protecting me by keeping me in the dark?
“All right, next question,” said Red, folding his hands above the table, as if he couldn’t tell all the weird, mixed emotions I was feeling. Maybe he really couldn’t. “How far can you smell?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, from how many miles can you smell someone?”
My mouth opened and closed again.
“You don’t know?” Red raised both his brows until they hid under the strings of hair that fell on his forehead. His eyes sparked green as if he’d just discovered something amazing.
