Chapter 18 #2
“You hate this place,” I said, firm. “Let me get you an Airbnb or something.”
“Landry.” Her lips started to tremble. Not quivering from an onslaught of tears, but out of anger.
“I’ll give you money.” My heart sank at my own words. I just couldn’t have her here. I needed Emma. I needed something, someone to help me keep her at bay. I just didn’t know how.
“You would?” Her breathing heaved. It smelled like vinegar and alfredo sauce. I tried not to curl away.
“Four hundred dollars for your own pocket. And I’ll buy your stay for the next three days.” That was at least enough time to call Dad, pray for an answer, and maybe—call the police if she kept coming back and get a trespassing notice.
Her mouth puckered. “Oh, see, darling?” She patted my cheek. “I think that would be just fine. I’ll do this for you. Give you your space. I know it’s hard, cleaning out after someone dies. But trust me. It gets easier.”
“Just send it, Lan. It can’t hurt,” Sayer said, his voice lined with static over the phone.
“Okay, okay, I did it. There.” I swiped out of the message tab and silenced my phone. My father would probably see the notification come through and clear it without opening it, but it was worth a shot. Irene wouldn’t see the one I sent her, either. It was too late at night.
At least I could say that I tried.
Which was exactly why I’d sent it now and not the middle of the day.
I sat on the attic floor. Boxes spread around me like a small army.
A floodlight—which I’d been able to find in the shed, after searching all over the garage—pointed up at the ceiling.
Even with the door open, not enough light made it from the second floor, and the only other time I’d ventured up here was during the day.
With the windows and constant sunshine, the lack of a light switch hadn’t occurred to me.
“I can’t believe she’s there!” The line crinkled. It sounded like Sayer had shoved his hand into a bag of chips. “Who does this woman think she is?”
Just then, Hadrian crawled up the last step on all fours. He stopped, glanced around. His nostrils flared as he huffed the floor, like he was searching for something.
“Because she’s delusional,” I said. My hands fell in my lap as I watched Hadrian. “And she probably needs money, so she thinks I can just whip out the life insurance policy. She said she needed a place to stay.”
“But—you were left with it—not her! None of it is hers!” His words turned staticky. “Don’t you dare give in, Lan. She’s lurking for a reason. I can feel it in my bones. Is she using again? Did you see any evidence? Did she have an ankle monitor on?”
I sighed. I’d been too surprised to even check.
Sayer went on his tangent. “You know what? It’s a full moon. Of course, she’d show up now.” A pause. Crunching. “Have you told Emma yet?”
“She’s not back from her work thing.” I sighed. “I thought about texting her, but it’d just make her upset.” Emma loved my mom as much as oil loved water.
“And the divorce thing.” More rustling.
“Right, and the divorce thing.” Who knew if Mom was only blowing smoke or if it was true? I hoped Emma would have at least texted me if it was.
I paused. Glanced to my phone. Weighed the pros and cons of reaching out to her. But what if she wanted to keep it private? What if there were reasons I wasn’t aware of?
Sayer and I said our goodbyes—him promising to come back soon, because he had a sixth sense Wade was going to ask for a break (to which I shared sorrows, but Sayer’s only response was, “The chips fall, I eat them. Nothing more to it.”). I promised to keep him updated and to keep the doors locked.
I hung up as Hadrian angled himself through the door.
“Don’t hit your horns,” I said. I scooted over to another storage container—all framed photographs and albums layered in an inch of dust. “I’d hate to see that banister need to be replaced. It’s original.”
His claws scraped along the boards. Shoulder blades rolled with each step. “Hm. Kind of you to think of my horns. I’ve grown fond of them.” The sarcasm that layered his words was better than the silence from earlier.
“Sure.” I hefted a large overspilling binder from the bottom of the box.
More dust plumed. I coughed. The binder fell open when I dropped it to the floor.
At first, an ember of hope filled my chest—they might be documents, maybe something Aunt Cadence had kept during her time researching? Maybe from when she’d talked to Irene?
I squinted in the low light.
A picture of my grandparents stared back at me. My shoulders sank. I snapped the binder shut and started piling everything back in the bin.
“Care explaining why you are up here at such an hour?” Hadrian came and crouched—similar to a gargoyle on watch—beside me. He used a nail to nudge open another photo album. “What are these?”
“Photo albums. And, if you must know”—I gathered four albums and stood from a squat position—“I’m looking for whatever it is that might help us with your situation.
” Because my mother’s presence had kicked things into overdrive.
God forbid she get her greedy hands on something without me knowing.
And, just because it was my luck, she would find this unknown thing that could free Hadrian before I could and sell it to a pawn shop.
He squinted, yellow eyes aglow. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I do not think family photos will help—”
“Hadrian.”
Tendrils of sooty hair fell in his eyes. The muscles around his neck and shoulders coiled. “Yes?” he murmured.
I thought of what someone might see, looking at him. How I should have fainted from terror. Maybe thrown myself down the stairs to get away. Instead, I turned my back to him, scared he might be able to see the fluttering in my stomach. The warmth pooling there. “You’re not helping.”
“You wouldn’t wish to have my help, anyhow.” He huffed.
“Why not?” I closed the bin, scooted it aside, then moved to the next. It was hidden by a coatrack that looked like it’d belonged in a department store. “I’ve seen you protect a little kid. Surely sorting through old junk is easier.”
His mouth tugged at my comment, but he didn’t acknowledge it. “Everything from this day and age confuses me. Your vehicles. I likely cannot open one of these”—he pointed to a container—“or I would break it. God, and that terrible contraption in the parlor infuriates me.”
“Contraption,” I echoed. Surely he meant the living room.
“The flat, black device that shows moving pictures. You have one in your chambers.”
“The TV?” I laughed.
He shivered. “I hate it.”
I tried to hide a smile. “Really? Why? You don’t think it’s neat?”
“God, no,” he groused. He rubbed a pointed ear and closed one eye. “The sounds it makes are horrid. Not the voices but the high-pitched whine. I find it appalling that anyone would spend their time sitting in front of that disgrace when there are plenty of perfectly fine windows to watch out of.”
“I think your ears are a bit better than mine.” I chuckled. He’d probably heard static. “I’m assuming birdwatching is a more prestigious pastime, then?”
“Prestigious? More like acceptable.” His eyes flitted to me. I could have sworn a flush heated his face.
I sat back on my haunches. “Hadrian Belfaunte. Are you embarrassed?”
His cheeks tightened, jaw ticked. “Do not mock me, human.”
I scrunched my face and lowered my voice to mimic his, “Do not mock me, human. Sorry to break it to you, Boogeyman, but I’m not scared of you.”
I grinned for good measure.
He grunted.
“You were scared a bird had gotten hurt,” I said, softer, but not teasing. “You like the birds?”
His chest heaved. Finally, he admitted, “Yes. That’s why the windows are open all the time. And for—other reasons.”
Every muscle in my face relaxed. He opened the windows when I closed them.
My chest welled with something unfamiliar. Warm and seeping. He pretended to be particularly interested in a box labeled Halloween decor.
I muffled my teasing and worked in quiet.
While I shuffled, Hadrian sat beside me and watched.
Every now and then, he would move something I was finished looking through, or he’d stop and examine the contents—an old rice cooker, another box of children’s toys, a rainbow-colored wooden xylophone with a neon pink stick to match.
We didn’t pause until the clock struck two downstairs—even then, the idea of going to bed seemed revolting.
There wasn’t enough time—we needed to find something, and soon. Anything. A lead, even the slightest.
“You need to rest,” Hadrian said, as if reading my mind. His clawed hand grabbed my own as I started stacking rubber-banded folders by function—old bills, important Social Security paperwork, and more, which I surely didn’t need to get into tonight. The numbers would only float together.
“There has to be something in here,” I grumbled. I reached for another folder.
What I didn’t want to admit was that I’d have ask Meredith if I could raid her back room. Hadrian was right. I could have given her something unknowingly.
This time, Hadrian stood from his crouch. “Landry. It is late.”
“And I’m not tired.”
“Truly?” His eyes searched mine.
“Yes, truly.” A tug pulled at the base of my spine.
I could walk downstairs and take a hard right into the closet. I could see what lay behind the door when the creature wasn’t in there; maybe it would be empty, and I could just hide there for a while. Or maybe the tug meant something else.
Just as soon as the thought came, Hadrian bent toward me. “Landry.”
“Hadrian.” I leveled him with my best glare.
His teeth flashed, their delicate points pearlescent, and there at the very bottom—the open spots on his jaw where molars should have been.
Air became scarce.
More puzzle pieces. One after another, falling into place. Our breaths mingled for a moment. He stood closer than I’d thought, but I didn’t recoil. My body moved without thought. A tiny step closer.
My fingertips brushed his jaw. His breath hitched. I could have sworn his skin lightened where I touched. Not so much gray, but his normal, sun-kissed color. His head tilted.
There, beneath the surface: yearning.
“Landry.” This time, not just my name, but a warning.
I froze.
Maybe he didn’t feel it, what I felt. Maybe that curl of heat, those hummingbird wings, was only me. Maybe they were real, maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were desperation to fill the hole in my heart, the one I still didn’t know what to do with or what belonged there. I just knew that he was here.
If anyone could understand me, my situation, it was him.
My thumb touched the corner of his lip. Drug it over the smooth skin, the crease of his mouth, so close to the point of his teeth.
“He took them, didn’t he?” I whispered. As if I spoke too loudly, he might bolt. “Your father took your teeth.” I didn’t know why it hadn’t connected before, but it made sense as I said it. It had been right in front of me, all along: Haddy running around, his chin constantly bloodied and dripping.
His nostrils flared. “He did.”
Sizzling coals rolled inside me. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.” He closed his mouth to swallow, but his lips parted again.
He inched another breath closer. The scent of aftershave and ash between us.
This time, I didn’t hear the wet sound of his heart beating or smell the acrid scent of dried blood—it was as if it didn’t exist. “I don’t remember what I did.
Just the moment he pulled the teeth. One, I had replaced, but … ” He shrugged.
“I’m sorry.” Because I was.
“It made me stronger,” he said. His words ran together.
I felt his breath on my cheek, the tip of my nose.
Hadrian’s silhouette threatened to shift—a flicker of his human self.
He lifted a hand. Brushed his claws over the tender spot below my eye; I felt the points retract, vanish, and then his human palm was against my face and his bones were changing.
The points of his cheeks, his ears retracting, his body rearranging and then—
“I don’t know what I would have done if I were you,” I breathed. The double meaning to my words didn’t get past me.
I don’t know what I would have done had I been alive when you were, I wanted to say.
I don’t know what I would have done had I seen you on the street and seen your smile, is what I didn’t say.
“I’ll tell you what I did,” he whispered.
My eyelids shuttered. This was it. He was right there. Every inch of my body ignited in a slow burn of anticipation. His hand raked into my hair, right at the nape of my neck. Knotted into a fist and tipped my head back. He had to feel it, too. I didn’t stand on an island alone.
I answered so faint, I hardly caught it. “What did you do?”
His resolve—the shield he sometimes erected between us—cracked.
“I killed him,” he whispered.
And then Hadrian kissed me.