Chapter 9 Seth
SETH
Someone was still screaming.
It was Seth, of course, since neither of the women were uttering a sound.
The two beautiful, friendly women who had just…killed their son?
Or—or maybe Riley was okay, somehow. It didn’t look like he was breathing, and his neck was at the wrong angle, but also, how could he not be okay? He’d been standing at Seth’s front door only a minute ago.
He couldn’t be dead. Of course he couldn’t be.
Seth tried to steer away from the gaping chasm of despair that was opening up inside his chest, afraid to let himself drop in. His cheeks were wet. Screaming and crying, then. He was fucking useless in a crisis, wasn’t he?
The police. Seth needed to call the police. Or—or an ambulance. He was out of his depth here. He still didn’t understand what had happened, but he knew it was bad. He knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Before he could even think of where his phone might be, two hands were on either side of his face, holding him in place.
Seth hadn’t even seen Sybil move. How had she gotten to him so fast? Was she about to twist his head off its axis too? Was it going to hurt?
Dark eyes bore into his. Black eyes. Like, completely black, without any white around the edges at all. They hadn’t been that color when he’d first met her. No one’s eyes were that color.
No one except Riley just now, when he’d been trying to leap at Seth. And that first night too…hadn’t Seth thought Riley’s eyes were black? He’d convinced himself it was a trick of the light.
Seth wanted to ask him. He wanted Riley to get off the floor so Seth could ask him what the hell was going on.
Please get up, Riley. Please, please get up.
“You will remain calm,” Sybil told Seth sternly, her palms warm against his skin. “And you will listen.”
It was nonsense, what she was saying. Nothing on earth was going to quell Seth’s panic, his impending grief. And he sure as fuck wasn’t going to listen to the woman who’d just snapped Riley’s neck.
But it was like Seth’s body and mind were reacting without his permission. His mouth slackened, all his screaming suddenly done with. The horrible, constricting feeling in his chest loosened, his muscles unknotting without his say-so.
And then he was just…staring back at Sybil and her freaky eyes, suddenly able to breathe again, even though in the back of his mind, Seth knew he should be rioting.
He’d calmed down. And he hadn’t wanted to.
“Very good,” Sybil said.
“Should we take it all?” Daphne asked. Seth was able to dart his gaze her way for only a second before he was pulled back into the abyss of Sybil’s black eyes. Daphne was cradling Riley in her arms on the floor, and Seth had to blink back tears at the sight. “Pretend this morning never happened?”
She looked so sad, so devoted.
It was confusing. Everything was confusing.
“No,” Sybil told her, not taking her eyes off Seth.
“It would only leave room for another disaster. But we don’t have a lot of time.
People will be here soon.” She stroked her thumb over Seth’s cheekbones in a way that was maybe meant to be soothing.
“Seth. You cut yourself, and it woke Riley’s hunger.
We were worried he would drink too much.
We did what we thought was needed. He’ll wake in a few hours, good as new. I promise.”
More nonsense. Why was everyone only speaking nonsense riddles today?
Seth shook his head, focusing on the last part of what she’d said. The promise that Riley would wake up. “I don’t believe you,” he said dully.
Sybil gave him a hard look, and then she was…biting into her wrist? Savaging it with her teeth. She seemed to have her own pair of fangs, which somehow Seth hadn’t noticed until now.
Seth would have let out a horrified gasp, if he’d been able to gather the emotion out of whatever complacent fog she’d summoned within him. Instead, he could only watch.
“Sybil,” Daphne scolded. “We don’t have time.”
“Showing is always easier than telling,” Sybil told her. Her mouth was bloody. So was the wrist she held up for Seth’s perusal. Bloody and torn.
But then it began…knitting itself back together. Damaged flesh filled itself in, and the sight was so beyond Seth’s comprehension that everything took on a surreal cast, like he was watching CGI. Soon the wrist was whole again, the skin bloodstained but unbroken.
“He will be good as new,” Sybil repeated, one hand still cupping Seth’s cheek. “I really do promise.”
“Seth,” Daphne called from the floor. “Do you have a friend you can phone to be with you? You’re in shock, you poor dear.”
Seth shook his head. All he could think was, I had a friend, but he’s on the floor, and he doesn’t look like he’s breathing. How can he be good as new if he’s not breathing?
Sybil’s grip tightened on his face, although her touch was still anything but rough. She cocked her head, her gaze growing distant, like she was listening to something. “Time to go,” she announced after a moment. “Seth. Do you understand what Riley is?”
Seth shook his head again. That seemed to be all he was capable of doing. Staring and shaking. At least he wasn’t screaming, although he didn’t think that was due to his own self-control but whatever spell Sybil had put on him.
Sybil tutted. “I think you do. You’re a clever boy, aren’t you? We’ll be seeing you soon.” And then she was tucking some sort of business card in Seth’s hand. His fist clenched around it almost without his permission.
Sybil released her hold on his face and turned away, leaving Seth on his own behind the counter. Seth watched in a daze as, despite her tiny size, Daphne picked Riley up in her arms like he weighed nothing at all. She carried him out the door, Sybil right behind her.
They were gone.
Seth didn’t know how long he stood there, his body frozen and his mind whirring. Riley’s face had changed, when this had all started. He’d had black eyes and sharp fangs, just like Sybil had when she’d bitten into her wrist.
Sybil had said Seth’s blood made Riley hungry.
Sybil could heal her wounds in mere moments, and Riley could apparently do the same.
If Seth believed them. If Riley woke up at all.
Seth didn’t stir until Violet showed up however many minutes later. Seth’s door was still unlocked, even if he hadn’t turned his sign. She waltzed right in.
Violet stopped. Stared. Seth stared back.
And then Violet was walking over with a determined stride, looking for all the world like she was going to join Seth behind the counter.
Seth turned in place to follow her movements as she slid around the counter’s edge. “What are you doing?”
“You’re bleeding,” she told him matter-of-factly.
Seth looked down. Right. He’d cut his finger. Funny how he’d forgotten about that, even though his slip with the knife was exactly what had started this whole mess in the first place.
“So you’re robbing me while I’m weakened?”
Violet gave him the kind of eye roll only a true teenager was capable of. “I’m covering for you. Go in the back and make yourself a tea or something. You look kinda insane.” She cocked her head. “Unless you want to close for the day instead?”
No, Seth didn’t want that, actually. If he went home alone after what he’d just seen, with only his own thoughts to accompany him…
Yeah, then he probably would go insane.
“My mom owns that woo-woo crystal shop a few blocks down,” Violet told him, tucking her black hair behind her ears. “I know how to work a register.”
It wasn’t her aptitude with a register Seth questioned so much as her ability to be civil with the general public. But then again, Seth was pretty sure his whole world had just been turned upside down in one horrifying instant, so what did it matter if some goth teen was rude to a customer or two?
He wordlessly handed Violet his apron, then made his way to the back kitchen. He untied his headband and wrapped it tightly around his bleeding finger, unwilling to expend the energy searching for the first aid kit right now. He slid down to the kitchen floor, his arms around his knees.
Seth added together what he’d seen this morning, again and again. He calculated and recalculated. And eventually he couldn’t stop the refrain from repeating in his head:
I think my friend Riley’s a vampire. I think his moms are too.
Seth thought again of their first meeting. He thought of what Riley had told him, crouched over Seth in the rain.
Seth amended his refrain.
I think my friend Riley’s a vampire, and I think he wants to eat me.
Seth didn’t know how long he sat there.
Long enough for his ass to go numb against the linoleum but not long enough for him to make any sense of what had happened this morning.
He could hear muffled voices every now and then, so customers must have been coming through the bakery. The voices were never raised in anger as far as he could tell, so theoretically Violet was handling things. Seth wasn’t sure he would have had the energy to care even if she hadn’t been.
Eventually, Violet came back into the kitchen, holding a mug of steaming coffee out to him with one hand and his phone with the other. “Here. I’ve noticed you like yours with a gross amount of cream and sugar. And you left your phone on the counter.”
Seth took the mug and the phone. Violet eyed his headband bandage with raised brows but didn’t say anything about his half-assed attempt at first aid.
“Thank you, Violet.”
Violet nodded, but she didn’t head back to the front right away. She leaned against the counter instead, one combat-booted foot resting on the cabinet behind her. “Did someone die?” she asked. Not sarcastically either, but like she was genuinely wondering if Seth was bereaved.
“I don’t think so,” was all Seth could manage in response.
Violet nodded, like that was a reasonable answer. “Stay back here a little longer. You still look like hell. But I’m taking a free donut after.”
“For life,” Seth amended weakly. “Free donuts for life.”