Chapter 7
Ihadn’t realized quite how exhausted I was until I stopped going to work. I started sleeping late, and for the first time in so long, I got the amount of rest I needed. My body still ached, but after a couple of days, I felt refreshed. As refreshed as someone could be, while being used as an energy bank for three other human beings.
I hadn’t really seen Nate since the appointment, but he’d started delivering food outside my door, the way I had with Mrs. Byrne. It was sweet—too sweet—and I gave myself another stern talking-to about the hazards of getting attached to him. Hell, attached to any man.
I’d sat down and budgeted once more, applied for other jobs, even applied for welfare, because the days of being too proud for government handouts were long gone. I’d researched what I should eat, what I should be doing, and had thrown myself into the role of being an expectant mother.
I was staring at the vegetables in my fridge, wondering what I could make that would stretch the week, when there was a knock at my door. Padding over to it in bare feet—because all my socks were uncomfortably tight on my swollen ankles—I looked out the peephole. I was surprised to see Nate, and my gut did that bubbly little swooping thing.
I opened the door to see him holding a big bag of takeout. The smell of garlic bread hit me, and my mouth watered.
“Hey, Nate.” I stepped to the side so he could come in. He had to duck his head to get through the door, and I once again felt residual guilt that he was so willing to give up his apartment for mine. He looked like a giant in a doll’s house.
“I brought you dinner.” He made it sound almost like an accusation. “Italian. You need the carbs.” He placed it on my tiny dining table, then turned back toward the door.
“You aren’t staying?” I tried to hide the disappointment in my tone by sifting through the bags, but I doubted that I’d done a great job.
His eyes took in my face, those blue irises burning like flames. I wanted it to be from desire, or need, or something other than pity, but I hadn’t reached that level of delusion yet. Still, when he shook his head, my chest felt tight with disappointment.
I walked him back to the door and held it open. “Thank you for this, Nate. Actually, thank you for everything. You’ve been a lifesaver.”
He paused just inside the doorway, his eyes snagging on my lips, and for a crazy second, I thought he might kiss me. These hormones were like being on a bad trip; I second-guessed everything.
He raised his hand and traced my cheek, and my lips parted. Okay, maybe I wasn’t imagining it then. But instead of leaning forward and taking my lips with those mesmerizingly plump ones, he stepped out onto the landing. “Goodnight, Wren.” He shut the door softly, and I stared at it, my heart pounding like a drum behind my ribs.
What the hell was that?
Shaking my head and extra confused, I walked back over to the food. Complimentary bread sticks weren’t confusing—they never gave you mixed messages. Indigestion occasionally, but never mixed messages.
He’d bought me enough pasta to last a week. Spaghetti. Lasagne. Some kind of thick noodles with a pumpkin sauce. There were also two loaves of garlic bread. I tried not to get teary at his thoughtfulness.
Taking out the pasta that I thought wouldn’t last quite as well in the fridge, I broke off half a loaf of bread. I was suddenly starving. Loading up my goodies, I went over to the couch to watch Lust In The Sun. There was nothing like forgetting about your own problems by watching a bunch of people make out in a hot tub, then fight about it the next day.
I was so full, I was fairly sure that the babies would have to make room for the food baby I’d just ingested, and I wildly hoped it would stay down. I wasn’t sure my carbonara would taste quite as good coming back up.
Mentally, I rearranged the apartment to fit in three cribs. Maybe if I got rid of the dining table, and possibly the couch, I could fit three in. It wouldn’t leave much space, but it would be doable. Luckily, they wouldn’t need a lot while they were young, so I’d have some time to figure out the next step.
I spent the next hour researching how to transport three babies. There was everything from baby-wearing devices, to how to strong-arm three baby capsules at once. Transporting them was definitely going to be the hard part. I really was going to need a car.
By the time I stopped doom-scrolling my way through YouTube videos, it was late. I’d already put the rest of the Italian food in the fridge, and I quickly washed my bowl.
There was a noise on my landing, and I wondered if Nate had come back. Maybe one of the dishes was actually his? I mean, that had been a hell of a lot of Italian food for one person. Or maybe it was the rat that Mrs. Byrne had been trying to get rid of for at least a year, which somehow managed to dodge death, like he was Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Or maybe he wanted to kiss me.
Nate, I mean. Not Splinter the Rat.
I smiled at the thought as I watched the shadow stop in front of the door. Lifting my hands to my mouth, I tried not to worry that my breath now smelled like garlic and I had indigestion from the rich cream sauce.
The shadow outside my apartment didn’t move. Was he summoning the bravery to knock? Nate didn’t seem like the type to hesitate, but he also didn’t seem like the type who wanted any kind of romantic connection either, so what did I know?
I watched the shadow for a little longer, and when it disappeared, I tried not to feel too disappointed. Platonic friends. Platonic friends. That was my new mantra.
The door crashed open, making me scream, scrambling backwards until my ass landed back on the couch. The shadow in the doorway definitely wasn’t Nate. I didn’t even know what the fuck it was. It was huge and black, like a creature from a nightmare. It didn’t move so much as ooze its way into my living room.
This wasn’t real. It was a nightmare caused by too much garlic and carbs before bed. That’s all it was.
I tried to wake myself, pinching my skin until it turned red, but nothing happened. The nightmare was still right there, moving toward me in a way that made my hindbrain scream to run. But run where? There was only one way out of my apartment, and the shadow monster was standing in front of it.
I screamed again, hoping Nate would hear me. The thing moved around, hissing, and I scrambled to my feet, dodging behind the breakfast bar.
It had a wide-open maw, baring teeth so razor sharp, they looked like knives. Its black flesh was dripping from its skeleton as it moved forward again, and my heart thundered so hard I was worried I’d have a heart attack.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I screamed.
It lunged, its long, skeletal claws reaching for me, and I held my breath. It smelled of damp earth and trash, but that wasn’t why I’d stopped breathing. Terror had clogged my throat. I was about to die at the hands of a monster, my babies right along with me.
Before those claws could so much as scratch me, an ax swung down and removed its hand. At least, I thought it was an ax. It shone so bright, it was like a spear of light through my retinas.
When I peeled my eyes open against the piercing brightness, Nate stood in front of me. Well, kind of Nate. He was also luminescent, and I had to squint against the light bursting from his skin.
The monster spun on him with a pained screech, flying at him like it had no bones. It wrapped itself around him, smothering his light with the oily, dripping darkness of its body. The glow where Nate had been flickered under the terrifying blackness. It was like an abyss had sucked Nate down deep.
“Nate!”
The shadow gave an inhuman shriek, and pinpricks of light burst through the membrane of its flesh. With a roar that made all the hairs on my body stand on end, Nate’s glowing ax burst through what I assumed was the middle of the beast, making shadowy ooze splat against the walls, like gore in a Tarantino film.
Then the creature disappeared, just like that. Even the oozing flesh that had hit the wall was like invisible ink, fading away like it had never been there in the first place. Staring at my clean white wall, it all could have been a bad dream.
Except Nate was still glowing and he seemed… bigger. I couldn’t explain how, but he’d grown at least a foot, as if a normal-sized Nate couldn’t contain the enormity of his aura. I could feel his presence like a suffocating weight on my chest.
Fuck. “Maybe there really is a brain tumor,” I whispered. None of this shit was making sense.
“You don’t have a brain tumor, Wren,” he grumped, wiping his glowing blade against the rough fabric of his pants. “I think you might be seeing the supernatural.”
My eye twitched, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up from my chest where the hard block of fear still sat heavily. “The supernatural,” I repeated.
“Yes. That creature was a Verserpent. A creature of the night.” He frowned. “At least, I think it was.” As I watched, he cracked his neck, and it was like the opposite of a glowstick; his light shrunk in on itself, like a roaring fire smoldering down to a glowing ember. Now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee the light that shone from his chest, banked for now, but not gone.
“Verserpent,” I repeated dumbly as my brain tried to cling to… anything.
He nodded, dropping his ax so it leaned against the back of the couch. “Yes.” He walked over to the window, looking out into the small backyard. “There were two. I dispatched one on the stairs before I heard you scream.” He gave me what would be considered a lopsided smile. “It was lucky we didn’t fix that squeaking step after all.”
I slumped down onto the couch. “How? Why?” Why did it break into my apartment and try to eat me? How did it get up… “Mrs. B!”
Panic flashed across Nate’s face, and he was out of the room before I could even get up from the couch. I ran to the stairs, forcing myself to grab the handrail and go slowly down so I didn’t trip.
“Mrs. Byrne!” I yelled, panic edging my tone. “Mrs. Byrne, answer me!”
I reached the bottom of the stairs, and Nate was there, blocking the door to her apartment, the look on his face laying bare my worst fear.
“No. No, Nate. Let me past,” I screeched, shoving at his chest.
“Wren, you don’t want to?—”
“Let me past!” I screamed at his chest, and he slowly stepped back, letting me through.
At first, I convinced myself she was just sleeping. She was lying in her recliner, the late-night shows playing on her TV. The remote was still in her hand. But as I got closer, there was an unnatural stillness about her. An unnatural angle to her body that screamed death, not sleep.
Her face was contorted in horror. Her other hand was clutching her chest. She’d died in fear, and that broke something inside me.
“No, no, no,” I breathed, clutching at her hand. I sank to my knees beside her recliner, shaking. She couldn’t be dead. She was the last person left in the world that I had. She couldn’t die and leave me alone.
I sobbed into the couch, clinging to her hand. At some point, I felt the warm chest of Nate wrap around me, giving me someone to lean against as I cried.
“I’ve called 911. They’ll be here any minute.” He gripped my chin and lifted my face so I was forced to meet his eyes. “You have to hold it together, Wren. You can’t say anything about monsters or shadows, because they’ll throw you in a psychiatric ward. We came down here and found Mrs. B. That’s all that happened, okay?” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it, the Irish lilt comforting, like it was wrapping around my bruised heart. The same soft Irish lilt that Mrs. B used to have. “You’ve been such a brave girl. Just be strong a little longer. For Mrs. B. For the babes.” He rested his forehead against mine.
When the police arrived, shortly followed by the EMTs, I let Nate do most of the talking. When the paramedic wanted to check me out, asking me a few questions, I answered them robotically. I was having triplets. No, I didn’t feel any pain. Yes, they could take my blood pressure.
They declared Mrs. B deceased, loaded her onto a gurney, and wheeled her out the door. Probably a heart attack, the EMT told us—after all, she was very old.
When the cop asked Nate why we had come down to check on her in the middle of the night, he shrugged. Shit, we hadn’t gone over that.
I looked up at the cop, my eyes brimming with tears. “Pregnancy instinct, maybe? Something felt wrong.” I’d heard about that kind of thing. Sounded like something a mom would develop. Mrs. Byrne had certainly had those instincts.
The cop gave me a soft smile, and Nate tucked me under his arm. “Oh yeah. That mom gut feeling. Once, my wife woke up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling. Caught our three-year-old on a chair, trying to escape out the front door of the house. That mother’s instinct is some wild stuff.” He reached out and rubbed my arm. “I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll get out of your hair and let you grieve.”
Nate kept me pressed tightly to his chest as he bid the officers and EMTs goodnight. Then he led me up the stairs into his apartment, and I slid beneath the covers of his bed like I’d done it a hundred times before.
“Sleep, little one. I’ll guard you tonight,” he whispered, going to sit in the chair across the room.
But he couldn’t guard my dreams, and when I drifted off to sleep, it was filled with shadows and monsters, and Mrs. B’s fear-filled face, which would be forever etched in my mind.