Chapter 1 #2
Willow bit her lip, her eyebrows deeply furrowed as though second-guessing her decision to say whatever was on her mind.
“Just say what you have to say, Will.”
“Okay. You’re going to have to stick with me here because there’s a lot to get through.
So Phillip came to your apartment that night in college, when you were in grad school, right?
You remembered Phillip coming over. You remembered him getting aggressive with you.
But the next thing you remembered, you were waking up in a hospital, and you could never quite figure out what had happened. Do I have that right?”
“Yes. That’s about the sum of it. But what does that have to do w—”
“Just stick with me. When you left the hospital and went back to your apartment the next day…”
“My kitchen window had been smashed, and my living room rug was gone.”
“Right. And your necklace,” said Willow. “The Métis one I gave to you. That was gone too.”
Darcy thought back quickly. “Um…well, I don’t know for sure that happened on the same night. I lost it sometime around then. But, actually, Will, I don’t think I lost it. I found it recen—”
“Listen to me. Someone took it that night.”
“Who?”
Willow tilted her head to the side, looking at Darcy with worried eyes. She reached out and took Darcy’s hand.
“Jack.”
Jack. Jack? No, that couldn’t be. She hadn’t seen Jack since that night in high school until Honoria’s wedding. She would certainly remember if she’d seen him in Boston and given him her favorite necklace.
“Willow, what are you talking about?”
“Jack tracked you down when you were at Harvard for your master’s. Apparently, he wanted to see you, and he found you in Boston. He said he slept on your fire escape for several nights, watching you. He knew details about your place. He knew Frank’s name.”
Darcy felt heat flushing her cheeks even as her fingers got cold. She was starting to feel light-headed, but she needed Willow to go on, so she swallowed and nodded.
“He was there that night. He watched as Phillip came into your apartment, and when he started to assault you, Jack shifted into what he called ‘Roug form,’ broke through your kitchen window, and, um…took care of Phillip.”
“What does that mean?” Darcy asked in a breathy voice. “Took care of?”
Willow cringed and looked down.
“What does took care of mean?” Darcy asked again, terrified that Willow would tell her that Jack ate Phillip.
Willow spoke in a rush. “He called it a castration, but technically, it was a penectomy.”
“What the—what the fuck is that?” Darcy could hear the hysterical edge in her tone.
“He cut off Phillip’s penis.”
Darcy’s mouth dropped open, and she released Willow’s hand, jumping off the window seat and running to the bathroom to vomit.
She only made it as far as the kitchen sink.
Her stomach heaved, and all of her afternoon tea ended up in the sink with a splatter.
She coughed, her fingers rigid on the edge of the basin as she took a deep breath through her mouth.
Fumbling with the faucet, she finally got the cold water flowing.
She leaned forward, sticking her tongue into the steady stream of clean water, then spitting.
She didn’t feel Willow come up behind her, but she felt her friend’s hand rubbing her shoulder. “Maybe you weren’t ready to hear this.”
Darcy rested her elbows on the rim of the sink and bent forward, eyes closed. Willow reached for the tap to shut off the water.
“It’s…it’s okay. My stomach’s just really unsettled.”
“I guess hearing that your boyfriend cut off your ex-boyfriend’s…”
Darcy stood up straight, finally taking a breath from her nose. When she opened her eyes, the room wasn’t spinning, but her voice was sharp. “Yeah. I got it.”
“Sorry,” said Willow, coloring.
Darcy shook her head, taking another deep breath and exhaling.
She turned to face Willow, resting her back against the sink, still gripping the cool porcelain of the basin.
She could feel the tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t even sure why they were there anymore, exactly.
Because Jack was a Roux-ga-roux? Because she loved him in spite of his form, in spite of his nature?
Because he had deceived her into loving him as a human?
Because she just found out that he cut off Phillip Proctor’s penis? Because she just tossed her cookies?
Pick a card, any card.
She felt the wild, frantic urge to cackle with crazy laughter, but bit her tongue instead. She brushed by Willow and walked back into the living room, resuming her seat by the window. Willow followed after her, her face grim and worried.
“Finish the rest,” said Darcy, quiet but firm.
“Are you sure you—”
“Finish it, Will. Finish the story.”
Willow nodded, sitting gingerly on the edge of the window seat, but facing the living room instead of her friend.
“He said that Phillip was about to rape you. He said that after he cut Phillip, he picked you up and put you in your bed. He said it was impulsive to take the necklace, but he wanted something of yours.”
Darcy humphed softly, and Willow shifted to face her.
“Apparently, he returned it last week, kid. When he brought you the tulips.”
“Just walked into our house, huh?” she blurted out, swiping at her eyes and snuffling once loudly. “Well, that’s not presumptuous…or creepy.”
Willow cracked a weak smile. “That’s what I said. But he said that he had waited a long time to return it, and he didn’t want to just give it to you because it would raise too many questions too soon. So he left the flowers, put the necklace in your jewelry box, and went home.”
“What else…with Phillip? Did Phillip die? Did Jack—” She could feel her stomach rolling over again.
Willow looked surprised, then recovered.
“Oh! No! No, no! I should have clarified that. No, Jack didn’t eat—I mean, he didn’t hurt Phillip any more.
He rolled him up in your carpet and took him to the Lakes Region Medical Center in Wolfeboro.
Dropped him off there. I read the surgical report.
Jack actually made sure Phillip didn’t lose so much blood that he’d die.
There was nothing to, um…attach back, but they were able to save Phillip’s life.
” Willow took a deep breath and sighed. “Not that he deserved it. If he had ended up on my operating table…”
Darcy gave Willow a warning look.
“Let’s not go there, huh?”
“Sorry,” Willow murmured. “I just—I’m nervous, I guess. It’s hard to get my head around it. It was Jack who called the ambulance and waited until it got there. He wouldn’t leave until he knew you were safe. And Darcy, it was a waxing gibbous moon that night. Last night before the full. I checked.”
More tears filled Darcy’s eyes. He should have been back at the Bloodlands by then. He shouldn’t have been there watching over her.
“It was risky for him to stay in Boston that long,” she murmured.
Willow nodded. “He was cutting it close.”
As Darcy processed the meaning behind the obvious basics of Willow’s story, tears tumbled out of her eyes.
Had it not been for Jack, she may have been raped that night, or worse.
She remembered how frightened she’d felt as Phillip pawed at her, and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake in letting him come up.
She’d relived the details of that night a thousand times.
He’d been so playful over the intercom that even though she knew he’d been drinking, she’d let him come up.
And when she’d suggested tea, he’d been polite, accepting a cup from her.
It was a few minutes later that she’d seen the swift change in his eyes, from silly and flirtatious to hungry and demanding.
And while they’d obviously slept together before, everything felt different that night, and she’d been frightened.
As she’d offered him his tea again, he’d slammed it out of her hand, pushing her robe open.
When she’d drawn back her hand to push him away, he had struggled with her, and the last thing Darcy remembered was the crippling, sharp pain of her head making contact with the corner of her coffee table.
When she woke up in the hospital the next morning, she’d been too frightened to ask the obvious question right away, fearing she’d been raped.
But when she’d finally mustered the courage, the nurses had assured her that they’d done a thorough exam and found no evidence of sexual assault.
It was then that she had realized that her body had none of the discomfort or bruising that would have accompanied forced sex.
What’s more, a peace had settled over her, and Darcy somehow knew he hadn’t raped her.
She knew it, like women know visceral, uncompromising truths.
The police couldn’t tell her what had happened to the kitchen window, and although no blood was found in the shards, the most popular theory was that Phillip had somehow broken it, making his retreat down the old fire escape in a panic to leave after realizing he had injured Darcy.
They also assumed that Phillip had called the ambulance from her apartment phone out of remorse, unable to come up with a better explanation.
For several days, Darcy had stayed with Willow at her apartment in campus housing near the med school until the glass could be replaced and a better lock placed on the window.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Phillip might come back and finish the job he’d started, so she was more than a little relieved when she received his postcard sent from Quebec.
When she’d received it, the police’s theory about Phillip escaping down the fire escape to evade arrest had made perfect sense.
Phillip had run to Canada to avoid criminal assault charges, and it was unlikely he’d ever risk coming back.
But Darcy looked at everything through new eyes now. Phillip hadn’t broken the window or called the ambulance or gone to Canada, after all. It was Jack. Jack, who saved her, who called the ambulance, who sent that postcard to quell her inevitable worries and give her closure.
As Darcy’s mind reprocessed the hard facts of that night, her heart softened appreciably toward Jack for the first time since Thursday, as she was overcome with a feeling of gratitude, followed by a wave of love for him.
He had saved her. He had protected her. He had shifted in front of her, but still managed to keep her safe, and, even more, managed to take Phillip to safety.
It was a relief to know that she didn’t have to be frightened of Jack anymore.
As warmth suffused her body, she realized that maybe—after the shock of seeing him had subsided—somewhere inside of her, in her heart, her soul, she knew he would never hurt her.
She glanced down at the Métis book with the frightening drawing and closed it. There was much more to Jack than the vague details of a legend. There was much more to a Roux-ga-roux than she could find out in books that sensationalized a shadowed monster.
Darcy sighed and rubbed her temples. It was a relief to have answers to all the old questions about what had happened that night in Boston so long ago.
But a whole new set of questions had sprung up in the place of the answered ones.
How had Jack found her? Why didn’t he make himself known to her at the time?
Had he been secretly watching her all of these years?
And aside from that night, more questions about who he was.
Could he control himself shifted? What were the boundaries of his control? Could she possibly learn to live wit—
No. She shut down that hopeful train of thought and told her longing heart to cease and desist. He had irresponsibly kissed her as a teenager and changed the course of her life.
He was a dark creature. Her heart insisted she had feelings for him, and her body still heated up at the mere thought of their time together, but her sensible mind knew better.
She didn’t have space for him in her life.
She’d made that clear when she rowed away from him, the howling whimpers haunting her as she left him to drown in the cold, dark water.
It’s nice that you’re not scared anymore, and you can certainly be grateful that he saved you. But you cannot welcome a monster into your life.
The doorbell rang, and Darcy looked up at Willow, who’d been watching her face as she processed this information. Willow looked over at the door, then back at Darcy.
“I’ll get it,” she said, getting up.
Darcy mustered a small smile for her friend, reaching for her hand as she rose. “Thanks for telling me everything, Will. Thanks for listening to him and verifying all of it, and well, just thanks for being my—”
The doorbell rang again, and for no reason at all, Darcy felt a gathering, a stirring in her heart like awareness. Her eyes narrowed as her breathing hitched, and goose bumps popped up along her arms.
“I’m guessing it’s a patient,” Willow muttered, “with that sort of impatience.”
Willow still held Darcy’s hand, and as she tried to tug hers away, Darcy gripped on to it tighter, getting up from the window seat and following her friend to the door. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did. She just knew in her gut, in her heart, in her head, who was waiting behind the door.
Willow turned the knob, and Darcy’s stomach exploded into a million bees, humming, buzzing, stinging with delight as the door opened and she beheld Jack’s face.
Pleasure and pain mingled, her anger no match for the heat of his body before her, the tenderness she saw in his eyes before he shadowed them quickly with indifference.
She locked her eyes with his and felt the current pass between them, the magnet that drew them to one another, squeezing her heart with the force of its fierce gratitude for their reunion.
Her head swam with dizzy pressure, and her knees buckled.
With no food in her stomach and the emotional rollercoaster of the last few days overwhelming her completely, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she promptly fainted.