Chapter 19
LINDSAY
Nic isn’t answering his phone. It’s going straight to voicemail. He’s not answering his texts either. What I’d normally dismiss as rejection by an asshole, I’m freaking out that maybe something terrible has happened.
As soon as it hits eleven on Saturday morning, I drop Jules off with Camilla and head straight for the bar. Vyla and Natalie are pulling the stools off the tables when I walk in, and Riz is wiping the tables down.
“When was the last time any of you heard from Dominic?” My voice is loud and thick and shaky with nerves, but I don’t care. If my mom is right, he could be in pain and in need of help.
Riz and Vyla both say they saw him here at the bar two days ago, and Natalie saw him the day before that.
“Two days? That doesn’t seem odd to any of you? Two whole days without any communication?”
The three of them look at each other, trying to decide if I’m right.
“Well, there have been stretches where he has a few days off in a row,” Vyla points out.
“Yeah, and we knew his rut was coming,” Riz adds. “He usually texts me the day it arrives and lets me know he can’t come in, but I assumed––”
“His rut? What’s that?” I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I know for sure this is something he’s never mentioned to me.
“His rut,” Riz repeats. When I continue to look at Riz like he’s speaking another language, he asks, “Has he not told you about that yet?”
I shake my head, panic creeping up my spine. “Okay, can we skip past the part where you all hem and haw about whether he should be the one to explain it and just fucking tell me?”
Vyla is the one to explain it to me, and even when she does, I ask her to explain it again.
“So, it’s like a period, except that it only lasts forty-eight hours, and instead of bleeding or cramping, he has the constant desire to ejaculate?”
Vyla nods. “Yeah, basically.”
“And during that time, he typically holes up in his trailer and asks us not to call or visit,” Riz adds.
“But he’ll still answer texts about orders or billing,” Natalie points out.
Natalie knew this about her boss before I knew it about my boyfriend. I’ll need to unpack that later.
“So he’s likely in his trailer?”
They nod.
“Can someone text or call him to confirm that he’s fine and just in the middle of his rut? Say it’s an emergency or do whatever you have to do to get him to respond. I just…have a really bad feeling.”
The three of them spring into action. Natalie pulls out her phone and starts typing. Vyla pulls hers out and calls him. Riz shouts over his shoulder that he’s going to check Nic’s trailer before racing out into the cold.
Vyla purses her lips. “Not answering.”
“Did it go straight to voicemail for you?” I ask.
She nods.
Natalie’s staring at her screen, waiting for a response.
I take this opportunity to get my steps in by pacing around the bar.
Five minutes eke by, then ten. He still hasn’t responded to Natalie’s text by the time Riz returns, amazingly not sweating or out of breath after running to Nic’s trailer and back.
“He’s not there,” he says grimly. “These were on the ground outside.” In his hand are Nic’s keys.
I feel myself stumble, but I recover almost as quickly. Crippling fear is replaced by something deep. Feral. I suppose you could call it passion, or maybe it’s the other side of the coin. “Where does Gemma live?”
Vyla insists on taking me to Gemma’s house, while Riz and Natalie agree to stay at the bar until they hear otherwise from us.
“She’s a demon, you know,” Vyla says as we walk up her driveway. “A succubus. Do you know what that means?”
My nails dig into my palm as I clench my fist. In my other hand is a wooden baseball bat I found in Nic’s office. “I know it might take more than a few swings to pop her head off, but I’ve got time.”
She grabs my arm. “Lindsay, she’s got enhanced physical strength. She’s stronger than Dominic when she wants to be. She also has powers of manipulation and seduction.” Vyla sighs. “Knowing what you might be walking into, do you still want to do this?”
Sure, I could come face to face with the man I love having animalistic sex with the only Mapletown resident I hate, but what if he’s not?
What if she’s taking out her revenge on him because he rejected her?
I couldn’t live with myself if it’s the latter.
“Yeah,” I tell her, choking up on the bat. “Let’s do it.”
Vyla goes in first, keeping her feet light the deeper we go into the house. It’s relatively quiet, apart from the occasional sound coming from somewhere upstairs. I poke Vyla in the arm and gesture up the stairs with the bat. She nods and puts a finger to her lips, reminding me to keep quiet.
As we ascend the stairs, I hear a soft, “Yoo-hoo, Dommy Dom,” from the bedroom on the left. The door is cracked. He’s in there. With her. I run into Vyla’s back as I charge the rest of the way, and she picks up her pace to give me the room.
“What in the actual fuck is this?” Vyla demands after pushing the door open. It slams against the wall and rattles on its hinges.
I push my way around her, and I understand the tone of Vyla’s question. It’s not sex I’m looking at. Nic doesn’t appear to be hurt, either. There are no visible cuts or bruises.
But he is asleep. Out cold, in fact.
Gemma’s standing next to Nic’s lifeless form, and her expression is completely unbothered.
I decide in that moment to beat the face off her face.
“What the fuck have you done!” I shout, swinging the bat in the direction of her skull. I don’t get very far. Vyla’s big hands grip my biceps and yank me back.
Gemma, to her credit, doesn’t try to retaliate.
If anything, she seems shocked by my rage.
Then she takes a breath and rubs her eyes.
“Okay, I may have given him a little too much of this sleep aid I got from the apothecary. I wanted him relaxed, not passed out.” I don’t know what she sees on mine and Vyla’s faces, but whatever it is makes her shoulders tremble.
“This isn’t my fault, okay? I gave him the proper dosage, and it didn’t seem to work, so I gave him more. ”
The bat falls from my hand and makes a loud clatter on the floor. “What did you give him?” I ask through gritted teeth. “And how much?”
I dial Camilla on speaker phone, and when she answers after one ring, I hold the phone toward Gemma. “Tell her,” I say.
She lifts her shoulders with a Tell her what? expression, and it takes everything I have not to lunge at her and use my long acrylic nails to claw her fucking eyes out. “Tell. Her.”
“Hi, Camilla, it’s Gemma. I, um, sort of gave Dominic too much of a sleep aid from the apothecary and was wondering if there’s anything I can do to wake him up.”
“Wow, really, Gemma?” Camilla replies, her tone a deadly slither. “You drugged Dominic.” A statement, not a question. “Describe what you gave him.”
The apothecary is run by the town coven. They all take turns managing the place. I’m lucky that one of Camilla’s shifts is happening right now.
“It’s a gray powder,” she says, her feet shifting from side to side.
“She’s fucked,” Vyla whispers in my ear. “It’s over for her.”
I don’t entirely know what that means, but from context, I assume Gemma’s in a lot of trouble, and she knows it.
“Did you mix it with water before putting it in his drink?” Camilla asks.
“You roofied him?” I bellow, and Vyla has to restrain me again, but she struggles as my rage builds. “You…you knew his rut was about to start, didn’t you? What, so you were going to drug him and then…” I don’t need to finish that sentence. We all know how it ends.
She waves her hands in front of her frantically like she’s trying to cool herself down. “Relaxed! I just wanted him relaxed!” she shouts back. “I thought if I could get him to chill, I could remind him of how much fun we used to have together. Then his rut would make it hard for him to deny me.”
“You vile piece of shit!”
I fight against the strong hands that keep me in place, but then Vyla says, “Don’t, Linds. You touch her without consent, and you’ll end up in jail too. You’ll never be able to come back here.”
My breaths are coming out in labored pants as I sag against Vyla, feeling powerless and hating it. Camilla’s voice fills the room, and I realize my phone is on the floor. “You guys still there?”
“I’m texting Otto,” Vyla whispers.
The sheriff with tentacles who arrested Finn on Halloween night. Good.
I look back at her and nod.
“Yeah, we’re here,” I say to Camilla.
“Gemma, did you hear my question?”
Gemma picks at her red nails, looking everywhere in the room but at me. “I didn’t put it in his drink, no.” She clears her throat. “I, um, mixed it with saline and sort of…injected it into his neck.”
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” Camilla asks.
Her tone alone sends me careening off the edge of fury and into something so deep and hot there’s no English word to accurately capture it.
Interestingly, though, I don’t lash out this time.
I remain still. Something thrums in my belly, barely noticeable at first, but present.
The feeling starts to grow, and my eyes drift to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind Gemma, almost overflowing with books.
If she were anyone else, I’d compliment her shelf game and ask for recommendations, but since she’s a fart in the shape of a demon, I focus on the eerie pull I feel from the top of the bookcase.
The tingle rises from my belly and into my lungs, and as alien as it is, I let it chart its course.
It creeps up my spine and circles my neck and warms my cheeks.
Gemma and Camilla are still talking, but I’m no longer listening.
All of my focus is on the bookcase, and I feel compelled to keep my eyes on it, waiting for…
a signal, maybe? Not that the bookcase feels sentient, or anything, but there’s something about it–