Chapter 20 Helena
It was the silence that woke me.
Absolute and enveloping, it swelled around me, devoid of even the faintest ticking of a clock, hum of a fridge, murmur of wind, or rush of rain.
I opened my eyes slowly, disturbed even more by the absence of the background noises that usually swirled around my apartment complex—the swishing of traffic, the occasional blare of a horn or the moan of a siren, the trundling of a train…
“Mmph.” The murmur escaped me as I batted tired lids, eyes met with a blaze of crimson, cheek cushioned by plush softness.
But… I certainly didn’t own any velvet upholstered furniture. And even if I had, it wouldn’t have been the bright and unmistakable hue of fresh blood.
Slowly, the soreness in my limbs waking up right along with me, I pushed myself up from the huge Gothic-style couch someone had laid me on.
Straight across from me, my pumpkin purse (looking rather worse for wear given that I’d used it as a weapon) sat in the center of a black and low-to-the-floor coffee table.
Where was I?
As I peered groggily around the huge room, I fought the impulse to assume.
My surroundings didn’t seem to fit the description of either heaven or hell, and if I wasn’t dead, that only left one place.
“Holy haunted bachelor pad,” I murmured, taking in the high, dark wood ceiling and the gallery balcony that chased the second floor of the square Gothic chamber, its railing made of black metal scrollwork.
A candlelit chandelier hovered overhead while matching sconces threw shadows across the crimson wallpaper and gleaming wood paneling.
Small lamps sat atop end tables, adding more low light to the red-themed room that could have belonged to a vampire’s castle, or some huge manor house designed expressly for the use of some dark-agenda secret society.
Twisting, I peered behind the couch to find a desk laden with books and papers and decorated only with a Jack Skellington snow globe that sat on one corner.
Behind the desk hung an enormous, vertical, and silver-framed painting of a full silver moon suspended over dark ocean waters.
Three of the room’s four corners hosted a slim and open archway, each leading into a hall. A small metal spiral staircase occupied the fourth, more decorative metal scrollwork corkscrewing up to the matching balcony above.
Shadows and low light fought for dominance while that scent—his—lingered everywhere.
One thing this place lacked entirely, though, was windows.
I swung my bare feet off the couch and wiggled my sparkly toes, newly painted in “Pumpkin Patch” orange, against the plush oriental carpet.
Someone had removed my shoes. They sat on the floor, half tucked under the coffee table where I’d be sure to find them.
I reached to gather my purse and search for my phone, but I halted, my hand diverting to the note pinned beneath the bag.
Neat, tight, and black cursive handwriting adorned the plain white stationery that sported neither header nor monogram, just a slim black border.
Had to go to work. I’ll be back.
You’re safe here.
Grim
Except where was here?
“Well, it’s a good thing I have today off,” I murmured to myself as I dug through my purse, already aware I wouldn’t find my phone since I’d dropped it outside the library.
Had someone found it? God, did everyone think I’d had a breakdown before running off with the bookmobile?
There wasn’t any way to know what had happened since the incident at the library, or even what time it was.
I was stuck here. And apparently at the mercy of the Grim Reaper himself.
But then, that part at least had been true well before now.
Should I be freaking out? I probably should be.
But… I still wasn’t afraid of him. Well, not completely.
He’d only protected me so far. Even if that was just because of his job.
I frowned, my heart sinking all over again. Could be, when he came back, he’d talk me through the process of having my soul forcibly severed. And what came after. Whatever any of that looked like…
Maybe I had to sign something…
God, I wasn’t making any sense.
Blinking several times, I tried to rid myself of the lethargy that made my mind extra foggy. Dizziness had me rethinking trying to rise yet.
Then, the final moments before I’d passed out came rushing back to me, prompting me to press fingers to my sternum.
Grim had… done something to me, reached into me with that dark essence, touched and wound his smoky wisps around some inner part of me.
Those constricting tendrils had since fled, but a small…
twinge of sorts remained. Not painful so much as it was regretful, the soreness more emotional than physical.
Almost like I’d needed that squeezing of my spirit, that soul-deep touch that had stirred and sung to me an instant before sending me into oblivion.
As if, with that intrusion, he’d… fixed something I hadn’t known was broken, and now whatever that something was longed to be fixed, adjusted… again.