Chapter Eleven
Calvin
“You got laid,” Niles said in a singsong voice. “I have transcended.”
“What?” I laughed off his statement, heading into my bedroom with a towel around my waist. Riot had dropped me off an hour ago so I could get ready for work.
My reflection in the mirror showed the bite mark on my shoulder. It was already healing, two holes that looked as if I’d been bitten a week ago instead of last night.
“I know a freshly laid voice when I hear one, baby bird,” Niles said on the other end of the phone. “Your biker boyfriend knocked the crooked out of your back.”
I felt myself blush. “You’re delusional.”
Niles snorted. “Honey, I’ve been delusional since childhood. Doesn’t make me wrong.”
A noise came from somewhere in the house. Faint. A creak of floorboards settling or a door shifting in its frame. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I listened. Nothing followed. The house settled back into its usual quiet, the kind that came when everyone was either gone or still asleep.
“Calvin? You there?”
“Yeah.” I shook off the unease and crossed to my dresser. “Just heard something. Probably Ramos being a creeper.”
“Your brother home?”
“Stop thirsting.” Pulling open a drawer, I grabbed a pair of jeans, underwear, and a T-shirt. The phone stayed wedged between my ear and shoulder while I dressed. “You are not coming over.”
“Not when he has Miguel with him.”
My skin crawled just hearing his name. I thought about the way he always looked at me, the way he seemed to circle me like he was trapping prey, and my stomach turned.
Niles made a sympathetic noise. “You should move out.”
“With what money?” Socks came next then my sneakers. The familiar weight of them grounded me. “Unless you’re offering me a room in that fancy apartment of yours. I’ll hide in a cupboard if your father stops by.”
“Don’t remind me of him.” The bitterness in his voice was sharp enough to cut. “He sent another box this morning. Cufflinks this time. Silver. Very masculine.”
“What’d you do with them?”
“Threw them in the trash…then dug them out.”
I laughed despite the heaviness in my chest. “Of course you did.”
Finishing with my shoes, I grabbed the phone properly and headed out of my bedroom. The hallway stretched dim and quiet ahead of me. Mom’s door was closed, which meant she was either still sleeping off her double shift or already gone for another one.
Ramos’ door was also closed. No light crept from underneath either one. I wasn’t sure he was even home.
“I’m making my lunch for work,” I told Niles, heading for the kitchen. “You want to stay on the line while I assemble a sad sandwich?”
“Thrilling. What kind?”
“Turkey. Maybe cheese if we have any.”
“Living large.”
The kitchen was at the back of the house, past the living room and down a short hall. Morning light filtered through the window over the sink. Everything looked normal. The dishes from last night sat drying in the rack. Mom’s coffee mug rested next to the machine, still half full.
I pulled open the fridge and crouched to grab the lunch meat. The cold air felt good against my skin.
“So,” Niles said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “on a scale of one to religious experience, how good was the sex?”
“We’re not discussing this.”
“That good?”
“I’m hanging up.”
“You’re blushing. I can hear it.”
Standing with the turkey in my hand, I started to respond. Then the feeling hit me.
I was being watched.
I felt the weight of eyes on the back of my neck. The hairs on my arms lifted.
“Calvin?”
Turning slowly, I scanned the kitchen. Empty. The doorway behind me was clear. The hall beyond stretched quiet and still. Nothing moved.
“Hang on.” My voice had come out lower. “Thought I heard something.”
“You okay? You sound weird.”
The feeling didn’t fade. It intensified. My grip tightened on the phone as I called out, “Ramos?”
No answer.
I stepped toward the hallway. “Mom?”
Silence.
The quiet pressed against my ears like cotton.
“Seriously, what’s wrong?” Niles’ voice had lost its teasing edge. “You’re breathing like you just ran a marathon.”
“I don’t know.” My heart tripled in beat. “Something feels off.”
“Off how?”
“Like I’m not alone.” The words sounded paranoid even to my own ears, but the sensation only got worse. A crawling awareness between my shoulder blades, the kind that made prey animals freeze in tall grass.
“Do you need me to come over?”
“No. I’m probably just—” I stopped. The feeling hadn’t come from nowhere. It had started the moment I’d walked into the kitchen. “I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t you dare—”
I hung up.
The silence rushed back in, louder than before. My thumb found Riot’s contact and opened a text.
Random question. Is paranoia a side effect of the bite?
Three dots appeared almost immediately. Then his response came through.
No. Why?
Because I swear someone’s in my house with me.
Sent.
I waited, phone clutched in my hand, pulse pounding behind my eyes.
I’m ten minutes out. Stay on the line with me.
Can’t. Gonna check the rest of the house.
Calvin.
I pocketed the phone before I could read his next message. If someone was here, I needed to know. The alternative, waiting like a spooked rabbit while my imagination ran wild, was worse.
Grabbing the lunch meat from the counter, I turned toward the fridge to put it away.
Miguel stood three feet behind me.
The turkey slipped from my fingers. It hit the linoleum with a wet slap that sounded obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen. My body locked up. Every muscle seized. Every thought scattered.
“Morning.” His voice was soft. Almost pleasant. The same syrupy tone he’d used at the laundromat, but here, in my kitchen, with no one else around, it landed differently. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Taking a step back, I felt the fridge handle press against my hip. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It never did. “You were on the phone. Didn’t want to interrupt.”
His posture was relaxed. Hands in his pockets. Shoulders loose. Everything about him projected casual indifference, but his eyes tracked my every movement with a focus that made my skin crawl.
“Ramos is still asleep.” I kept my voice even. “If you’re looking for him.”
“I’m not.”
The room suddenly felt smaller. Tighter. The distance between us had shrunk to something uncomfortable, and I hadn’t seen him move.
“What do you want, Miguel?”
“Just wanted to talk.” His head tilted. “You and me. Get to know each other better.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
“I disagree.” Another step closer. “You’re interesting, Calvin. More than you realize.”
The fridge handle dug into my back, cold metal pressing through my shirt. Trapped. I was trapped between him and the appliance, and he knew it. The knowledge flickered in those dead eyes like a candle behind murky glass.
“Back up.”
“Or what?” The question came without heat. Genuinely curious. “You’ll call your biker boyfriend? The one who dropped you off an hour ago?”
Ice slid down my throat. “You were watching.”
“Hard not to.” His smile widened. “You weren’t exactly subtle. Straddling him like you couldn’t wait to get your legs around him.”
The words landed like a slap. Heat flooded my face, a mix of embarrassment and rising anger. “That’s none of your business.”
“But it is.” Another step. “You see, your brother and I have been talking. He’s worried about you. Running around with biker trash, letting them put their hands on you.” His gaze dropped to my groin then slowly swept up my body.
I felt like I needed another shower.
“Ramos doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Ramos doesn’t know a lot of things.” Miguel’s voice dropped lower. “But I do. I see things clearly. Like how you spent the night away. What would your father think? You could do so much better.”
The mention of my father hit like a punch to the sternum. My vision blurred at the edges. “Shut up.”
“Had plans for you. Expectations.” He was closer now. Close enough that I could smell the cigarettes on his breath, the stale sweat beneath his cologne. “And you threw it all away for some animal who couldn’t keep his hands off of you.”
My mind went blank. Completely, terrifyingly blank. The words were there, somewhere, but I couldn’t reach them. Couldn’t form a response. Couldn’t do anything except stand there while my heart tried to crack my ribs.
Trembling started in my hands and spread outward. My breathing went shallow and fast. The edges of my vision darkened, tunneling until all I could see was Miguel’s face and those empty, empty eyes.
“Look at you.” His voice dripped with satisfaction. “So scared. So fragile.” His hand reached toward my face. “I promised Ramos I would protect you when he went to prison. I watched over you for so many years. Got to know you, your habits, your likes, your terrible taste in friends.”
Years. He’d said years.
Moving on instinct, I ducked under his arm and bolted for the back door. My sneakers slipped on the linoleum, almost making me crash into the table. The door was ten feet away. Eight. Five.
Miguel cut me off. One moment he was behind me. The next, his hand clamped around my wrist with a grip that ground tendon against bone. Bright and electric pain shot up my arm. I screamed, trying to punch him with my free hand. I kicked, twisted, and yanked but couldn’t get free.
“Leaving so soon?” His voice stayed soft. Pleasant. Like he was acting perfectly normal in whatever hellscape his broken mind lived in. “We were just starting to connect.”
“I’d rather connect your face against the counter.” Yanking against his hold, I kept trying to break free. “Let go of me, you crazy son of a bitch!”
“Or what?” He pulled me closer, twisting my arm behind my back until I cried out in pain. “You’ll scream? Go ahead, Calvin. Scream. No one is home. Your brother’s out job hunting. Your mother’s at work.” He looked down at me with smug satisfaction. “It’s just you and me. Like it’s always been.”
My free hand swung toward his face. He caught that wrist too, trapping both arms with humiliating ease, then yanked me flush against his chest.