Chapter 15 #2
Time slows into something thick and distorted; my mind only catching pieces of what’s happening around me. I don’t feel myself leaving the shop, or climbing onto Xander’s bike. All I feel are his hands, steady and sure, wrapping my arms around his waist before we disappear down the road.
The cold air feels nice in my lungs as I lean against Xander’s back and shut my eyes, listening to the subtle thump of his heart. My eyes are so heavy and all I want to do is sleep forever.
I didn’t even intend on finding Moonfell, and I had hoped to begin a quiet chapter of my life where I could focus on my books and Pumpkin.
Where I could drink hot coffee every morning and go for strolls through the forest. But then I think of how lonely that life would have been.
I’d have never met Xander, or Tyler, or the rest of the vamps that drive beside us as we twist and turn through the streets.
Pumpkin would never have had a friend like Nyx or a house to chase ghosts around all day.
I sigh and drink in the darkness of the night that surrounds the street. After everything that’s happened these past few weeks, deep down in the warmth of my soul, I realize I couldn't be more grateful for all the wonderful people I've met. Especially Xander.
My mind flashes to the moment he opened that front door with his skin-tight black shirt covering those muscly pecs, and the way he smiled down at me as if he already knew exactly who I was before I could even open my mouth.
Or how he clutched Pumpkin against his chest as he gave me a tour of the house without a second thought.
Every moment of my life leading up to that day, I have been swimming upstream.
Either running from rejection or hiding from it altogether.
My family never gave me a chance, and Richard never let me breathe.
It was always either the disappointing son or the quiet boyfriend.
Maybe humans are the problem after all? Since the only people who have accepted me without a questioning glance or subtle nudge have been non-humans.
Witches and vampires. Who would have guessed?
Xander changes gears as we pull into our street, and the group slows. I lift my head and watch as the house with ivy climbing its walls and shadows darting across the windows comes into view.
Yet despite its usual gothic energy, something isn’t quite right. Xander tenses under my arms and he clutches the brakes. So does everyone else as we reach the foot of the driveway.
A small, hooded figure sits at the bottom of the porch stairs with their head in their hands. Their shoulders shake, and for a moment they look as if they’re about to topple forwards.
Xander comes to a stop and rips his helmet off, sniffing in deep lungfuls of air, and a growl permeates through his chest. “It’s been here.”
“Recently?” Cassius slides up beside us, his head on a swivel.
Xander shakes his head. “A few hours ago.” His gaze sweeps across the figure at the stairs. “Milo?”
Lifting his head, I’m met with the sad, tired eyes of the quietest most mysterious vampire of the colony. He looks miserable as his bottom lip quivers and he slowly turns towards the house, hand raised and finger pointing at the door.
We all follow his lead only to find the wooden panels of the door shredded and slashed with claw marks.
Hundreds upon hundreds of scars litter the sides of the house like jagged graffiti.
Some marks even reach high above the first floor, as if the creature had tried to climb the wall to reach the upper windows.
“Are you hurt?” Cassius kills his engine and races to where Milo sits. “Are you hurt?”
Milo simply shakes his head yet his eyes seem to keep landing back on me every few seconds as if he needs to know my every move. “Gone,” He replies.
Cassius sighs and Ambrose hauls Richard’s lax body over his shoulder as if the fully grown man weighs a feather. “Well, Tyler’s wards stopped it from getting inside but I want this thing dead before it has a chance to try again.”
“Agreed,” Xander supplies, and switches his bike off before helping me down and out of my helmet.
“Where do you want this one?” Ambrose thumbs towards Richard, who's beginning to dribble in his unconscious state.
We all merge as a group as we step inside the house and shut the ruined door behind us, despite the many gaps of broken, serrated wood.
“In the living room.” Xander squeezes my shoulders before turning me to face him. A look of concern marks his beautiful face. “You can go upstairs if you’d like? My coffin is the safest place in the house.”
My gaze darts over to where Ambrose and Cassius position Richard on the couch before patting him down and removing everything from his pockets.
“He’s innocent,” I whisper to Xander. “He’s just in his head. Richard doesn’t know anything about this world. He’s just human.”
A scuffle behind us and a chuckle echoing from Cassius’s chest has us all turning. With his hand tucked into the pocket of Richard’s coat, the large vampire pulls out a small mound of material. Opening his palm, Cassius inspects the treasure.
“Just human, my ass.” Cassius lifts what looks to be a terribly made voo-doo doll. With straw and twigs entangled with twine, the body is barely holding together. And the head is stitched together with red yarn. It could be mistaken for trash at a glance.
I can hear Tyler’s words echoing through my mind, “Someone’s already holding a piece of you. If they break it, you’ll break too.”
But a shiver rolls down my spine and Harlan hurries over to take the doll from Cassius, his eyes growing wide with horror.
“What is it?” Xander asks, his grasp tightening around me as he protectively pulls me into his side.
Harlan fidgets with the doll with gentle fingers as he carefully steps around the couch and reaches us.
At a closer inspection, the face is distorted and falling apart, yet atop the mound of twigs and sticks and material, is a thick tangle of auburn hair. It’s curly just like mine and identical in color. I mindlessly reach up to my head and finger a curl.
Xander takes the doll from Harlan and raises it to his nose. Sniffing too gently for me to hear ,he flinches and his chrome gaze snaps to mine.
“It’s connected to Noah,” Harlan whispers in a sad voice. “And see the body.” He points at the tiny tear between twigs where a pale glint of bone pokes through.
“That’s part of the Soultracker,” Xander replies, his nose crunching in disgust.
Harlan nods, and the energy within the house grows heavy with dread. “We’ve found our villain.”
All eyes slowly turn to Richard, who’s slowly coming back to the waking world. His eyelids twitch and a grumble bubbles from his throat.
“Restrain him. We don’t know what else he can do,” Xander hisses, his large hand pressed against my chest as he positions me behind himself, making a physical barrier from Richard.
Cassius jumps to action as he speeds to where a duffle bag sits at the door and unzips it. Pulling out two sets of handcuffs, he makes quick work of securing Richard’s ankles together before his wrists.
“What the fuck?” Richard mumbles, still not quite with it yet.
“You just happen to have handcuffs in your bag?” Ambrose pokes at Cassius. “I knew you were a kinky motherfucker but goddamn.”
Cassius winks at Ambrose. “Wanna try them out next, princess?”
Harlan snickers quietly as Ambrose rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. “Not after this prick’s touched them.”
The prick in question groans again and slowly lifts his chin from his chest. “Where…”
Everyone watches him with bated breath. Xander slowly passes me the doll and I cup it in my palms, feeling the unexpected weight to it. Crickets beyond the house chirp and Nyx and Pumpkin purr quietly at the foot of the staircase, their eyes also trained closely on Richard.
Blinking with uneven eyes, Richard’s gaze meets each and every vampire before landing on me from where I poke my head out from behind Xander.
“Noah!” Richard launches himself from the couch only to topple over in his spot and land with a clatter on the floor. “What the fuck! Who the hell are you people?! Get me out of this!”
His demands land on deaf ears and not a single soul in the house moves an inch as we all watch Richard heave himself back against the foot of the couch.
Harlan steps forwards and once again the air in the house warps and is sucked dry as his compulsion floods the room, directed right at Richard.
“Talk.”