Chapter 3 #2
It took a smooth movement around a woman walking in the opposite direction to break Duke’s contact with her back. “Yeah. We’ve been friends since we were little.”
“I haven’t been able to get a hold of her since she quit.
” Duke didn’t take his eyes off her as they turned a corner onto her street.
The gold shimmer of the street lights reflected in his flat gaze like oil on water.
“No one has. And I’ve heard some really interesting rumors about what she’s been up to since she left. ”
“You mean since someone threw a grenade at the rooftop lounge,” Cecilia corrected, her normally cheerful tone edged with more bite than was probably smart.
Duke’s lips thinned. “Since then, yes.”
Keeping her eyes ahead, she said, “Dahlia nearly died. I can’t blame her for wanting to quit and run as far from here as possible.”
“Is that the only reason she left?”
They slowed to a stop in front of her rundown apartment building. The light above the entrance had been broken for weeks. The harsh lines of Duke’s face, so different from the boyish, pretty-boy looks his brother once sported, were cast in deep shadows as he loomed over her.
Sucking in a deep breath, Cecilia drew her shoulders back and faced the vampire head-on.
“Duke, I know you’re looking for your brother.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that Dahlia did not leave the city because of him.
She needed a new start and moved in with her boyfriend of three years.
I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but it’s the truth. ”
Was it the whole truth? Of course not. It wasn’t a lie, though, and that made it a lot easier to sell.
Dahlia did abandon Cecilia to live with Felix in United Washington. After she was accidentally turned into a vampire. And also after Felix goo-ified Devon.
She wasn’t a monster. Cecilia did feel a twinge of sympathy for Duke for the loss of his brother — even if Devon was a first-class prick who thought preying on his employees was a perk of the job.
And if she were being completely honest, she would say that Dahlia wasn’t the only person she was protecting.
A handful of Amauris had come to pack up Dahlia’s apartment less than twenty-four hours after she left. Even if she hadn’t warned Cecilia that they were dangerous, she would’ve known instantly. That special sixth sense she possessed pinged off the charts the instant she laid eyes on them.
Whoever the Amauris were and whatever they did, they were bigger predators than someone like Duke could handle.
He’d never done anything to her or anyone else she knew. If he was really just trying to find out what happened to his brother, she wanted to at least do what she could to keep him away from certain death.
Daring to lay a hand on Duke’s corded bicep, she gentled her tone. “I really am sorry you can’t find your brother. I wish I could help, but I don’t know anything — and neither does Dahlia.”
The sound of something crashing in the alley beside her apartment building made her jump back a step. Cecilia pressed her hand to her thundering heart and let out a nervous laugh, but Duke didn’t seem to notice the disturbance.
“He was last seen headed here,” he grunted, apparently unmoved by her sympathy. “The night he disappeared, he went to see her. Are you telling me that you didn’t see or hear anything? That she didn’t mention it?”
“I definitely never heard or saw Devon come around after the explosion,” she confirmed. “And to be honest, Duke, no. Dahlia probably wouldn’t have mentioned it. You know why? Because your brother showed up a lot. He was always doing creepy shit like that. It would’ve been normal to both of us.”
For a long, taut moment, it looked like Duke wasn’t going to let it go. He took a small step toward her but stopped short before she even had time to tense up. His head whipped to one side and his shoulders hiked defensively.
Cecilia’s heart jackknifed in her chest as a familiar feeling registered along the back of her neck: the certainty that she was being watched.
Her breath shortened. She knew that if she peered into the darkness between the street lamps there wouldn’t be anything to find.
There never was. No matter how hard she looked in reflective surfaces or from behind her curtains, she couldn’t spot the phantom that’d followed her nearly every night since she’d been accosted in the alley.
But he was there — and this time, he’d fixed on Duke.
She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did.
“You should go,” she warned, even more serious than before. Cecilia stepped backward, toward the short flight of concrete stairs that led to her apartment building’s entrance.
Duke’s head swung around, no doubt searching for the phantom. She doubted he’d have any more luck finding him than her. Even accounting for a vampire’s keen night vision, she didn’t think he’d see anything more than shadows.
Her phantom was very, very good. Mostly.
“Seriously, Duke,” she pressed, jogging up the steps.
Her hand found its way into her purse and plucked out the old fashioned set of keys the landlord had given her when he promised to update the security system five years ago.
They jingled when she added, “You should head home. It’ll be dangerous to be out here soon. ”
It suited her just fine if he thought she meant the rapidly approaching sunrise.
Duke’s upper lip curled over his fangs, but he didn’t follow her up the stairs or stop her from unlocking the door. Backing away from the entrance, he told her, “We’re not done.”
Summoning her tried and true defense, Cecilia’s lips pulled up into a wide, air-headed smile. “Of course not! I’ll see you at work. Have a good rest of your night, huh?”
She made her escape as quickly as possible, but she had no real hope that something as flimsy as the apartment building’s old locks would keep someone like Duke out if he really wanted to get in.
A sick feeling settled into the pit of her stomach as she power-walked up the four flights of stairs and down the musty hallway that led to her door.
She slipped into her unit and pressed her back against the door with a relieved sigh.
Her studio stretched out before in all its dim glory.
Trying to liven the place up with soft yellow curtains, verdant plants, and funky acrylic art pieces hadn’t been able to entirely eliminate the air of neglect that permeated the entire building.
It hadn’t bothered her when Dahlia was around, but it wasn’t quite so easy to ignore after a night like the one she’d had.
Peeling herself away from the door, Cecilia forced herself to take a deep breath. Not bothering to turn on any lights, she shucked her shoes and jacket as she made her way to the tiny kitchenette. She set her phone down on the counter without looking at Dahlia’s last message.
Worry churned in her gut as she watched her frozen dinner spin in the microwave.
Telling Dahlia about Duke’s questions was the smart thing to do. It was what her friend had asked her to do. It was the reasonable, mature course of action.
But Dahlia was so happy, and her relationship was complicated enough without adding worry for Cecilia into the mix. It smacked of the abandonment issues she totally, super didn’t have for her to run screaming to her friend the second things got a little hinky.
Duke had no reason to hurt her other than an association with the person he suspected might have been involved in his brother’s disappearance. That hardly seemed like a good enough reason to disrupt Dahlia and Felix’s honeymoon period.
Besides… if she was being honest, she wasn’t really worried. Not because Duke wasn’t a real threat, but because something in her gut told her he wouldn’t get the chance to make good on it.
That honed awareness tightened her belly. Cecilia turned away from the microwave to lean against the two square feet of countertop her kitchen boasted. She slowly brought a can of strawberry soda to her lips as her gaze settled on a window.
There was no evidence to prove her theory. Nothing but her gut feeling and fleeting glimpses out of the corner of her eye. Sometimes she laid in bed and stared out her window, straining to catch a glimpse of a broad-shouldered silhouette on the rooftop across the alley.
She knew he was there. He was always there.
Cecilia took a slow sip, savoring the cool, crisp sweetness of her favorite drink.
It helped ease a little bit of the familiar disappointment.
There was nothing to see outside the window.
It was too dark outside and too bright inside.
Even during the day, there wasn’t anything of note beyond the brick wall of the building next door.
Her own miniaturized reflection gazed back at her, exhausted from a long night, still wearing her ridiculous, low-cut uniform, and searching for someone she’d never see.