16
Ava
I ended up not being able to sleep at home. I couldn’t; not when there’s a monster curled up in a dog crate, staring unendingly at me. Especially since there aren’t exactly walls separating my bedroom from the kitchenette.
My cabin isn’t much. The guy who owned it said he only stayed there on his hunting trips before his knee gave out. But the rent is dirt cheap, and it is close-ish to work.
And it is warm, which was a whole lot more than I can say for my truck. I slept in the cab, more willing to shiver in my sleep than to stay in the same room as . . . whatever that was.
Stifling a yawn, I try to rub the sleep from my eyes again.
It all feels like a big, jumbled nightmare mixed with a wet dream.
I’m trying not to fall asleep into my mug of coffee as I sit in one of the booths, waiting for it to cool off enough not to scald my tongue.
I stir it continually, haunted some by what I saw, but more so by what I felt.
I parked in the lot of the Circle E diner overnight.
I felt like I had to put a bit of space between me and the creature.
If I hadn’t, I might have decided it was too cold not to be in my own bed.
I didn’t get much sleep out of last night, but at least I didn’t go back over to that creature.
I’d like to believe I wasn’t so desperate for any kind of emotional connection after being dumped that I’d take it regardless of the source, but I’m afraid my track record doesn’t support that.
The older waitress passes back down by my booth, raising her penciled-on eyebrows and the steaming pot of coffee at me. “You decide what you want, love?”
“No, sorry, I’m still looking,” I apologize, waving at the menu I’ve barely glanced at. She nods and moves onto the next table, and I unlock my screen again.
The back door of the diner slams, and my attention is thankfully pulled elsewhere. Laura brushes in, greeting the line cook. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I had a hard time getting out the door this morning . . . ”
She looks up as if she senses my stare on her, and we lock eyes through the kitchen window as she’s tying her apron on.
Swallowing, I stare down at the menu before me, unseeing. I don’t know if Laura’s ready to talk to me after I yelled at her like that last night.
A moment later, the bell by the door chimes and heavy footsteps clunk directly to the counter. I glance up and recognize Aiden leaning over the counter. I sink further into my seat.
He asks Laura through the window without preamble, “Have you seen Logan around? I haven’t seen him since yesterday. He never came home.”
“No, I haven’t. Did you try calling him?”
“He’s not picking up. Maybe it’s nothing, but like, after last month, I just . . . ” He trails off, unwilling to voice it. Laura understands what he’s talking about regardless, and nods.
Aiden pauses to take in a breath, and without prompting, his head turns to glance back at me.
The hair on my skin stands.
Maybe it’s some of the adrenaline from last night still rattling around in my body, maybe my nerves are just too racked for people to be making that kind of sudden eye contact with me. Either way, I’m standing and leaving a crumpled dollar on the table for my coffee.
I can’t help but watch over my shoulder as Laura and Aiden pretend they aren’t watching me back and collide bodily with someone on my way out the door.
“Ava? Hey, whoa, Ava!” Jackson’s words are distant until he grabs my arm, moving me back a step.
I yank out of his grip automatically, twisting past him in the narrow aisle between the booths.
Jackson throws both his palms up placatingly, giving me a look like I’m clearly just doing this to ruin his day. He chides me. “Ava, I got the message you left the office, you said you bagged a groundhog? What the hell?”
He’s always wearing his work jacket emblazoned with “Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department,” but this time it snags my eye, a prick of apprehension poisoning my pulse. I can’t pay another fine right now.
“What, like there’s a license for that?” I spit, ready to argue with him, but I stop myself, seeing that Laura and Aiden have disappeared into the back. I don’t know why, but I don’t like that. I need to get out of here.
My cheeks flood with heat as I say, “Forget I called, alright? I was panicking.”
Jackson says something back but I turn on my heel and back out the door.
Laura and Aiden come around the back of the building as I’m pulling out of the parking lot.
Laura spots my car and starts to wave and run over, but my fists clench the steering wheel and I slam the accelerator; my engine groans as the truck veers and peels out onto the road, leaving the two of them in my rearview mirror.
Stress is creeping up my spine, skin prickling with anticipation. I don’t know that Sophie was right about them being vampires, but there’s something weird about all the Hayes, even Laura. Right now, I think I’d rather face the thing in my ex’s dog crate.
Something’s going on with Logan, but I don’t have it in me to seek out what.
Even hearing Aiden say his name made me feel a little bit sick, pressing on the heartbreak to see if it still hurt.
I can’t let myself even begin to wonder, because then I’m going to start sketching out hopes for reasons he just stopped talking to me.
And I am not willing to let my heart go down that road.
I’m not giving him any more chances to break it more than he already has.
My phone buzzes belligerently half the drive home, the screen lighting up with Laura’s name repeatedly, until I can’t take it anymore and just turn it off entirely.
I step up onto the landing, trying to peer through the gap in the door to see if the creature is awake inside. I couldn’t lock the door when I left because it’s hanging an inch or two askew in the frame, one of the hinges twisted.
The air is quiet, and I’m hoping it’s asleep. I don’t really have a plan for what I’m going to do about the creature I have captive.
I push the door open and stop barely past the welcome mat. It’s gone.
The cage is just as misshapen as it was when the creature was contained within it, but the door is open, the carabiner still clipped to the rungs.
There isn’t a single sign of destruction in my cabin, in fact, it looks like someone tidied up.
The ankle-deep dirty laundry on the floor is now contained.
The chill that goes up my spine is unearthly.
The beast wasn’t just what had lashed out against those metal bars.
I had thought I spied some sort of intelligence in its eyes, the way it watched my every movement last night.
He got himself out of the cage far more diplomatically than I could have imagined a creature like him capable of.
Not only that, but the creature sauntered around my space, making himself comfortable.
I stare around, frozen on high alert. My breath stalls in my chest when I realize I hear the shower shut off.
Swallowing, I briefly contemplate ducking back outside and watching from the window, but there isn’t enough time to do anything more than blink before the bathroom door opens.
I’m not actually sure the nightmare or wet dream part of this night is over yet, because seeing the most recent guy to break my heart emerge from a cloud of steam wearing nothing but a towel walks the very center of that line.
Logan, in my shower. Yeah, I guess things could still get weirder, if they must. Tell me what makes more sense than this.
He makes eye contact with me halfway out the door and freezes, the two of us statues, locked in a stare.
“Hi.”
“Hi yourself.”
Several heartbeats pass between us, counted out by the water dripping off his chin onto the rug. I don’t know what I even want to say to him first.
Finally, I take a cautious step further into the cabin, aware of the way my front door swings on its hinges in the wind, unable to close. I set my keys down on the counter.
“You opened my mail,” I say numbly, gesturing to the neat piles. It seems like it might be the easiest thing to start with.
“I . . . open a lot of people’s mail,” Logan admits, like that’s a normal thing to say, and he makes a face like he knows that doesn’t help his case at all.
“Mostly my mom and Aiden’s; neither of them really keeps up with bills or anything.
It looks like you don’t either, your driver’s license is about to expire. ”
He takes a careful step forward, taps the top opened letter that has a sticky note on it. I don’t know where in my home he would have found sticky notes.
“Oh, good to know,” I nod, leaning over the counter to peer at the letter, mustering my courage. “Um, quick question. The fuck are you doing here?”
“You called me,” Logan says all too casually, stepping past me toward the front door. He puts a hand on the side of it, testing out the way the door doesn’t quite close properly now.
“I changed my mind, I handled it.”
Logan doesn’t seem bothered enough for someone who had seen an agitated creature in my home, so I imagine he hasn’t.
His narrow eyes flick between me and the door. Logan gives it a push back toward its hinges. With a short metallic screech, it settles back into the frame properly, and it swings shut.
“Ok, well, cool, thanks for fixing my door. Now get out of my business,” I say flatly.
I can’t deal with him and all our painful bullshit, not in addition to locating my mutant groundhog problem.
I almost ask him why he was in my shower, but I look at the water dripping off his bicep, and I don’t know that I can.
I chew my tongue a moment, watching another droplet carve its way down the curved muscle.
“Actually, I’m still hung up on the mail thing. What made you think I was calling you for that?”
“I didn’t, I was looking for something to wear, but it was a mess in here, and one thing just lead to another . . . ” he murmurs, his eyes tracking around the room to everything, but mostly the mail pile.