Chapter 9 Kaye
KAYE
Idon’t think I’ll ever experience anything like that afternoon spent with Charade.
He’s intense, sometimes overwhelming in his familiarity and proximity, but also startlingly normal.
We’ve spent so long as enemies that I never considered him as anything else.
He’s still demented, but there’s something there I can’t quite define.
The way he interacts with his family is endearing.
His generosity, even with the person he hates most, is… unexpected.
He reunited me with Apollo. I run my fingers through his silky fur, a deep rumbling purr vibrating in his chest. Of all the debts I owe Charade, this one hits the hardest. If anything had happened to my little fuzzy demon, I don’t know what I would do. But Charade found him.
And saved us both.
We may never be friends, but I can’t deny the new emotion building in my chest. Something that suspiciously feels like respect.
That didn’t stop me from decimating him at backgammon.
All his thinly veiled threats and mock flirtations only made me more determined to kick his ass in the only way I could.
I had every intention of claiming my prize.
Complete access to Charade’s most private areas was an offer too good to pass up.
Before my nemesis could make good on his wager, a call came in that had him racing out the door with no explanation.
George showed up a minute later to help me find my way back to familiar territory. And to keep an eye on me, no doubt.
What could have made Charade run out like that? Is it something to do with this mysterious figure, C? Whatever happened there, it was personal.
Apollo has fallen asleep at my side and he’s so cute with his whiskered mouth turned to the heavens and his soft tummy fur fluffy and white. I climb out of bed carefully so as not to disturb him, but I shouldn’t have worried. He’s deep in a food coma, his soft little ears twitching as he dreams.
The soles of my shoes tap softly on the floor in the unfamiliar halls.
A couple of wrong turns later and I find myself in the now dark grand foyer.
The first stars of the night glow in through the windows above the thick wooden front doors.
The moon hasn’t risen enough yet to be visible from my perch at the top of the stairs, but I can already tell that it will be a clear, bright night, perfect for a patrol through the city. All I have to do is open the door.
Light fills the foyer, illuminating George’s lithe figure as she pads into view, crisp, white Adidas softening her footfalls.
There’s a bounce to her step as she pulls a vintage denim jacket onto her shoulders, a smile lighting her face.
She waves her hand over the section of wall just to the right of the doors, above a panel of light switches.
It immediately fades to a black rectangle with a blue-lit numbered touch screen console.
I? shift my position just a little bit to the right, giving me a better view of the numbers through the banister’s cutouts. George’s fingers dance over the glass, and I just catch the code.
The banister creaks, and I fall back into shadow as George spins around to peer into the darkness around her.
I? freeze, not daring to so much as breathe.
Her eyes probe the space for a long moment, long enough for the code to time out.
After a moment, she enters it again, this time slipping out the door and closing it behind her.
As I creep down the stairs quickly and quietly, I? start to feel something blooming in my chest, crackling like electricity.
It feels right. Good. Like it did when I was still a kid, those first nights when I? snuck out of my parents’ place to fight crime in the city.
Reaching the bottom, I? catapult to the panel—
—And careen into a wooden console table.
My shin bounces off the corner with bruising force, slamming the thin stand into the area behind it and toppling a vase full of flowers onto the floor.
“George?”
With all the grace and agility I? have, I? launch myself back up the stairs. I? just make it back to my spot in the shadows when Angela appears below.
She scans the foyer, eyeing the petals strewn across the damp tile. She steps over them on her way to the line of windows, pulling back the curtain in time to see George’s taillights disappear up the driveway. Turning on her heel with a shake of her head, she disappears back into the hallway again.
I let out a long, shaky breath and cast one last look at the hidden panel and make a mental note to explore it later.
Two minutes after setting foot in the family wing of the manor and I’m already lost. The layout should be similar to the other side of the manor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I’m on the second level, I? think. I? pass staircases that go up and others that go down, each on polar opposite sides from each other.
The hallway makes an “I” shape with doors on either side.
I try the ones closest to me, but the dusty crystal knobs don’t budge.
Up a set of solid wooden steps leads to even stranger décor. Oil portraits in antique frames form clusters on the walls. The artist managed to capture the smallest details—the soft Cupid’s bowed shape to a mouth, eyes that wrinkle with the same laugh lines and smiles, noses with just the same tilt.
The first room on the right is covered in sapphire blue.
It’s on the walls and curtains, the small throw rug by the bookcase, even the ancient-looking bassinet in the corner.
A thick layer of dust adorns the myriad of toys and books spread throughout the space.
Dusty footsteps mark a path through the opaque film on the floor, circling the room in an arch.
I poke my head into the doorway on the left and marvel at the stark contrast. This space gleams with cleanliness.
Walls the shade of heather give way to abstract black and white artwork.
There isn’t so much as a piece of lint on the hardwood floor.
A king size bed covering all but the outline of a decorative black rug faces an embankment of gauze-covered French doors.
A display of photographs sits beside a huge TV with curved screen.
I pick up one of the heavy silver frames to get a better look.
A smiling couple. The woman’s bright blue eyes crinkle in laughter even though she can’t be more than twenty.
Ash-blond curls cascade around her face and shoulders.
Her partner folds her into his arms from behind in the classic “prom pose,” complete with awkward space between them.
My eyes snag on his face, mind racing. I place my index finger over the top half of his face and almost drop the frame.
Charade.
Same smile, same build. Brown eyes, the shade of rich maple syrup, shine out of a sharp, high-cheekbones face. This person doesn’t look like he could fight a marshmallow, let alone be my arch enemy. Do the years really harden us that much?
I replace the picture with a sigh. Whoever Charade was when that picture was taken, he’s not that person now.
The last room is somewhere between the last two on the cleanliness scale.
Dust doesn’t cover absolutely every flat surface here, but enough clutter fills the majority of the room that I’m not sure I would even notice if it did.
Papers litter the floor like snow on an early winter morning.
Some leave a crumpled trail to the wall directly across from the door, at the center of which resides a blackened fireplace.
More of Charade’s academic debris litters the workspace on a massive antique desk and the usable surfaces of a musty, viridian velvet couch nestled in the far corner. I really hope the green hue isn’t actually mold.
Must seems to be the overwhelming theme of the place. It’s not that the space is disused, rather that it was so lovingly overused in its time so as to be in disrepair. It’s the kind of place where time stops without someone to occupy it.
Energy buzzes in the air all around me. It rolls across my skin in waves, waiting for me to harness it. Closing my eyes, I bask in that glow. That tantalizing caress.
Crisp edges on folded pages brush against my fingertips as I sort through them, picking one at random.
It’s stiff and wrinkled, a stain decorating the bottom corner in almost a perfect ring.
A faintly chemical smell lingers in the cells of the paper.
Diagrams dot either side of it like blurred hieroglyphics.
Pieces of lines and symbols are smudged almost out of existence.
The basic chemistry course I took my freshman year at New Malcolm U is not enough to help me make sense of things.
The thought of Charade handling chemical agents sends a special kind of fear shooting through my system.
Pushing the papers aside, I turn to the desk itself. Rummaging through the first few drawers provides nothing more scintillating than a few quality ballpoint pens. I pocket a heavy teal one with silver accents.
The bottom drawer on the left, however, contains the jackpot. Several soft leather tomes sit within its wooden core.
The papers make a slight hiss as they slide across one another as I gather them into one corner.
Settling on the opposite end with my prize clutched in hand, anticipation sings through my veins.
Tracing the lines on the soft, textured cover, the earthy smell of leather wafts in faint, tantalizing traces.
Alexander Maxwell.
The Maxwell family is one of the oldest in New Malcolm.
So much sadness in one family, but so much good too.
The Aristide and Didina Maxwell Foundation for the Arts.
The Maxwell Family Memorial Scholarship.
The Maxwell College of Science and Engineering at New Malcolm University.
The family members themselves always stayed out of the limelight.