Isidoro
The Red Leaf looks abandoned when we arrive. The well from the pictures Ria pulled up sits a couple yards to the side of the spice processing building, old and covered in dust. Heat haze shimmers around it, and a couple of cracked glass bottles and stones sit on the boarded-up top.
“This is definitely the place,” Julian states the obvious.
I give him a look, perching one eyebrow up.
“What?” He shoves his hands on his hips, pursing those full lips.
My heart does a little skip. I immediately avert my eyes. We are here to investigate, and I mustn’t get distracted, no matter how tempting he is.
“Why wouldn’t it be? You followed the directions on the map, didn’t you?” I say, walking past him and toward the crumbling factory, surrounded by nothing but desert for miles.
He mumbles something about my smartass mouth before following me.
Like the well, the door of the building has been boarded up, as have the windows.
Not that it’ll stop us, of course—I need only dip one finger in my powers to get rid of such mundane obstacles.
I trace the length of the building with my eyes.
Perhaps it’s a better idea to be less obvious about our trespassing, in case this ends up not being quite as abandoned as it looks.
Or a trap.
“Julian. Let’s circle around and look for another way in—”
A loud thud cuts me off. I whip my head around, my eyes going wide as I watch Julian pick up the boarded door after punching it off its hinges.
His inky eyebrows slant down. “What? This way is faster, no?”
I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Yes, and now everyone’ll know we were here, won’t they?”
He looks at the door he’s holding, then back at me. “Right. I mean… This is obviously abandoned…”
Clicking my tongue, I enter the shadowy interior. The ceiling looms high, covered by spiderwebs, and the concrete floor zigzags with cracks. “And why would you assume so just because there is no one here right now?”
He leans the door against a rusty metal panel, the light from outside spilling through the now-permanent opening. “Because if there was somebody”—he lifts a tray with three inches of dust on it and blows, sending the particles dancing in the stale air—“I’m sure we’d see signs.”
I suppose he has a point. I see no footprints. Nothing seems out of place, the chaos of the interior suggesting abandonment rather than a staged mess. A living soul hasn’t walked this factory in at least a few years.
Was us coming here a waste of time then? Was Ria wrong about the significance of this place? Did her father take Andras somewhere else?
“We might as well have a look,” Julian beats me to it. “Let’s split up to cover more ground faster.”
I nod as he disappears between the machinery.
I follow the conveyor belt system deeper into the building.
Even after such a long time, I can catch the hint of spices in the air, as if the smell clings to the walls and the floor.
I pass by something that looks like a cafeteria, the long tables upturned and the chairs with their legs broken off, and after that I find what must have been the offices of managers and directors.
All of it has been touched by the elements, washing away any potential clues.
After an hour, we reconvene at the entrance. I can tell by the lines on Julian’s forehead that he’s had little success in his part of the factory search, too.
“I really don’t think anyone was here recently,” he starts with, pulling out an old, dusty office chair from behind the reception desk. He plops down dramatically, sighs, and crosses one leg over the other. “But my father must have been, right? Otherwise, why would he have this business card?”
I pluck the small plastic thing out of his palm and study it.
There were a couple other Red Leaf establishments we came across that he could’ve gone to, but with the information Ria shared, this seemed the likeliest place.
Were we wrong? Is there no connection between the two men’s fates, despite what Ria thinks?
I turn around and heighten my senses, calling to the power of my blood.
Red fills the corners of my vision, and my pulse elevates a fraction as my body works harder to tune in to our surroundings.
If a vampire ever stepped foot in here, their presence would linger.
But like earlier, I get no feedback. This factory is a graveyard that no one has disturbed in years.
“Nothing?” Julian quirks one eyebrow expectantly when I face him.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He clicks his tongue and swivels in the creaking chair, the sound piercing the stale silence around us. “This can’t be right. It’s our only clue...”
“We might be at the wrong place,” I point out, placing my hand on his shoulder in a gesture of support. “Don’t give up just because we’ve faced a hurdle.”
His eyes meet mine, dark and thoughtful. The left side of his jaw trembles, then lifts slightly. “Right. Yes, of course. You would know, wouldn’t you? You’ve been at it for months, running into dead end after dead end.”
I squeeze his chin with my thumb and index finger. “And whose fault is that, exactly?”
He grins, amusement and pride flooding those gorgeous reds. “I’ve no idea what you are talking about. Need I remind you that I was but a pitiful prisoner isolated in your fancyass jungle mansion?”
Without meaning to, I lean in, wishing to be closer. To peek inside his soul, to see what I’ll find and if it differs from before now that we are in a temporary alliance. His eyes widen and whatever Julian was about to say next is lost to a sharp inhale as the air between us suddenly grows heavy.
“Uh, Isidoro…” His pink lips move, full and sinfully tempting, as the darkness in his eyes eats up the red.
Heavens, he’s so beautiful, like a Queen of the Night in full bloom amidst the sand and death of the desert.
My thumb slides from his chin to his mouth, pressing on his soft lower lip.
His eyes flutter closed for a second, then open again, flickering with something that stabs me right in the stomach.
My whole body vibrates like electricity has been funneled through it.
Goosebumps scatter across my back, each one setting off a surge of prickles across the rest of my body.
My nostrils flare, catching his scent, so prevalent with its darkness-infused sweetness even here where a minute ago all I could smell was dust, sand and old spices.
This is too much. I can’t fight it. Not anymore. I… I want to—
Glass shatters outside. I freeze, sharpening my hearing. Under me, Julian goes completely still, his ears perking up.
“One of the bottles outside fell,” I surmise, squinting at the grime-covered window even though I can’t see anything.
Julian cocks his head to the side. “From atop the well.” He blinks, frowning in focus. “There is no wind.”
An icy sensation displaces the heat in my gut. I push off the chair and cross my arms, once again calling out to my blood as I reach out to our surroundings. “There is no wind,” I confirm, my insides twitching.
“Shit.” Julian bites off a grin. “I think we might be at the right place after all.” He shakes off his arms and takes a deep breath, then grabs me by the wrist and darts outside.
The sun blinds me momentarily. The well comes into shape a heartbeat later, my car nearby, the yellow nothingness around and the hazy horizon.
Off in the distance, storm clouds have begun gathering, gray-blue and ominous.
The desert around us is still, completely motionless in anticipation, with the only difference from earlier being the shattered bottle at the base of the well.
Julian sprints over to it, dragging me along. His grip is firm, and while I could easily wrench free if I wanted to, I don’t even attempt to.
“It’s definitely the bottle we heard. But if there’s no wind…” He crouches down to finger the glass carefully, which forces me to do the same as well. “How did it get knocked off?”
I stand and spin in a circle. Closing my eyes, I listen carefully, searching, feeling. There’s no change in the environment but the slight scent of far-away rain and electrical discharge.
“A bird? Or perhaps a lizard?” I suggest, heading for the SUV. As if to emphasize my point, a critter skitters from one thorny bush to another. “We should get back and check out—”
“No, wait.” He crawls around the well, ruining his clothes. He touches the sun-warmed stone as if searching for something.
“Julian. There’s nobody here.” I nudge my chin toward the storm clouds. “It could have been a sudden gust of wind we missed or some animal.”
“Wait, I said,” he insists, his long fingers running across the rough stone.
I sigh and retrace my steps back to the well. “What are you looking for?”
He pauses, his gaze meeting mine. “Come down here.”
“What?”
He waves my question off. “Just do it. C’mon.”
Kneeling in sand wasn’t on my agenda for today, but I decide to humor him. For the second time in the last two minutes.
“Can you feel it?” he says, pressing his cheek to the stone. “There’s a draft.”
I put my ear to the spot he’s indicating. A chill surges through me and my stomach turns upside down. He’s right, I can feel something.
“This can’t have knocked the bottle off,” I quickly determine, the angle and strength of the draft not matching up.
“No. But this means that there’s something down there, no? So maybe…” He stands and rolls his sleeves up, smiling ear-to-ear. “We were looking in the wrong place.”
I dust myself off as I get up to my feet. I open my mouth to scold him, because why would anyone go down an old well, but he’s already removing the boards. They weren’t even nailed, that’s how easily they come off. When he’s taken all of them off the well, I don’t trust my eyes.
“Well. Look what we have here. Seems like I was right.” He flashes me a shit-eating grin. “Let me hear you say it, Isidoro.”
I fight off a smile. “Say what?” I tease, peeking over the well’s lip and at the rope ladder leading into the damp darkness below.