Since Kat wasn’t home early Thursday evening, I scoped out Vaughn’s place on my own. As usual, nothing happened. I headed back to the house, spying Kat’s car in the driveway, but I knew she wasn’t there. She was out somewhere with Douche Bag, and to stop from wanting to blow up something, I reminded myself of why she was with him in the first place.
Because of my mouth.
Guilt churned in the pit of my gut as I headed to my bedroom. Once inside, I grabbed my laptop and refocused on Bethany.
I had no idea what I could find on the internet, but it was a start. I typed in her full name, and Google pulled up several articles. My chest hollowed as I started scanning through them. At first, they discussed her as if she were a missing child, and then the later articles hinted that she was presumed dead. Her family had moved away from Petersburg about a year ago, something I personally found strange. If I hadn’t been told that Dawson was dead and only that he was missing, I would probably stay here forever, hoping that he’d someday return.
Unless her family had reason to believe that she was dead.
Or they just couldn’t live in an area that served as a constant reminder. I could understand that.
I stared at a picture of Bethany on a news website. Pretty girl. Dark hair. Bright smile.
There was nothing on the internet, barely even a mention of Dawson, which I’m sure the DOD had something to do with. The lack of anything mentioning him was as if he’d been erased from history. Made sense. After all, we lived here, but when things went south, we ceased to exist.
Bethany hadn’t been at school long enough to get really close to anyone, so there wasn’t a friend I could check with. Dead end there. Closing the laptop, I stood and stretched, growing restless. What else…?
Beth’s house.
Lowering my arms, I smiled wryly. There was one place I could check out. Bethany’s old house. I didn’t even know if anyone had moved into it or if I’d find anything, but shit, it was better than pacing in my bedroom, which was surely coming next.
It was better than doing nothing.
I passed Dee’s bedroom on the way out. The door was halfway open. I stopped and peered inside. She was already asleep. What an exciting way to spend a Thursday evening. It wasn’t even seven. I knew the house wasn’t empty. I could hear Adam moving around downstairs.
I was almost at the door when Adam appeared, coming from the kitchen. The light from the Christmas tree flickered. He glanced at me and then the direction of the door. “You leaving?”
My brows rose. “You staying?”
“Actually, no. Dee’s asleep, and I was just cleaning up after the dinner she made.” He looked up the stairwell, smiling faintly. “I was just heading out. Where are you going?”
First inclination was to say nowhere, but as I stared at Adam, I made a split decision. “I’m going to go check out Bethany’s house.”
Adam blinked. “Come again?”
“Come outside, okay?” He followed me out onto the porch. My boots crunched over the layer of snow covering the porch, blown in by the wind. “Before I say anything else, I need to know you’re not going to repeat a single thing to anyone, including Dee.”
“You’re starting to worry me,” he replied, crossing his arms over his PHS sweatshirt. “This is the second time you’re asking me not to talk to Dee.”
“I know, and if you don’t want to keep her in the dark, then the convo between us ends here. Nothing personal,” I told him. “But I don’t want her knowing any of this. Not yet.”
Adam eyed me for a long moment and then exhaled roughly. “Okay. I swear. I won’t say anything, but this better be good.”
Oh, he had no idea. “Kat saw Bethany at the post office.”
His mouth opened and then snapped shut. A moment passed, and he tried again. “What?”
I glanced at the closed door. “She saw her at the post office, and she’s positive it was Bethany. Kat’s seen her picture.”
He shook his head slowly as he unfolded his arms. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Well, that’s not all.” I kept my voice low as I went on. “You know how I wondered if something had gone down between Dawson and Bethany—if he’d healed her, right?” When he nodded, I continued. “I think he did—no, I’m…I’m positive he did.” Once that was out, the rest was easy. “Dawson healed her and it changed her on a cellular level. It linked them together, bonding them.”
“Bonding them together?” Adam thrust his hand through his hair. “That sounds crazy. You know that, right? It sounds—”
“Matthew confirmed that it was possible.”
His eyes widened.
“Yeah.” I smiled, but it was without humor. “Matthew confirmed that we can heal a human to the point that it changes their DNA. They take on some of our abilities and it links us together. That means if Bethany is alive, then so is Dawson.”
“Holy…” Adam stepped back. “Dawson is alive?”
That spark of hope had turned into a seedling, and damn if it wasn’t growing. “I think so, Adam. I really think so.” I moved to the porch steps, stirring the snow. “Kat saw Bethany with Vaughn. If the DOD has her—”
“Then they have Dawson.” Adam cursed under his breath as he thrust his fingers through his hair again. “I don’t know if I should be happy or scared as hell, because if they have him and Bethany…”
“I know,” I said quietly, staring out over the still yard. “Someone had to have betrayed them. Dawson didn’t tell any of us. I think it might have been someone Bethany knew. So that’s why I want to check out her house. I don’t even know if anyone lives there now or—”
“No one lives there,” Adam said, coming to stand next to me. “We drive past it every so often on the way to school. No one has moved in since her family left.”
That was good news. Still didn’t mean we’d find anything, but it was worth trying.
“And you haven’t told Dee?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to get her hopes up if I’m just chasing a ghost, you know? It would kill her.”
“It will kill you.”
I didn’t respond.
Adam stepped off the porch. “I’m not going to say anything. Not until we have concrete proof, because you’re right, she doesn’t need to go through losing him all over again.” He paused, his eyes meeting mine. “But neither do you, Daemon. You shouldn’t have to experience this again.”
We traveled the several miles to Beth’s old house by foot, which only took us a handful of minutes. We stayed in our human forms so we didn’t freak out the locals. My face stung from the snowy wind as the renovated farmhouse came into view, perched atop a hill.
Snow crunched under our boots as we walked up the sidewalk and hit the front porch. I eyed the front door. It wasn’t just locked, but also had one of those Realtor locks on it. A closed and locked door wasn’t going to deter me. I placed my hand on the center of the door, prepared to blast it into next week.
“Hold on.” Adam stepped back. “We really don’t want to make it that obvious that we’re here.”
We didn’t?
With a quick grin, Adam backed off the porch and disappeared around the side of the house. A few moments later, I heard the click of the front door and then it opened. I arched a brow as Adam held the door open.
“Figured if we had to break something, we shouldn’t make it so obvious,” Adam said as I stepped past him, into the dark and cold house. “Plus the back door didn’t have one of those weird locks on it. Easily broken.”
“Smart,” I murmured, scanning the bare walls as I walked farther into the house.
Adam pulled out his cell phone. A few seconds later, the screen lit up with harsh white light, casting a glow along the floors and walls. We passed what looked like a living room. A couch draped in a light-colored canvas was the only thing remaining in the room. The kitchen was odd, though. A table sat in the corner of the room, covered in a thick layer of dust.
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br /> “Is this normal?” Adam asked, gesturing at the counters. Kitchen appliances were still in their designated spaces. A toaster sat next to a coffeemaker, and both had obviously been sitting untouched since the Williamses moved away. “Do people just leave stuff behind?”
I raised a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe they didn’t need it.”
“Or they were in a hurry,” Adam supplied.
In a hurry for what? To get away from all reminders of their missing, presumed dead daughter? Or something else? God. We would probably never know.
From the kitchen, we headed upstairs. Our footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent house. We found Bethany’s room pretty easily. From what I remembered, she liked to paint, and there was a nice-sized room with an easel by a dirtied window. There were papers on a small desk, mostly assignments from school. An odd pang hit me in the chest when I saw the neat stack of books in a corner. It reminded me of Kat.
This could be her.
One day, someone could be walking through her room, looking for evidence of what happened to her. Shit. That hit me hard, a fist to the lungs and stomach. Made me want to turn around, find Kat, and keep her…keep her safe somewhere, and that had nothing to do with us being connected. And the punch of panic was far too strong for someone who was just physically attracted to another person.
But I already knew that what I was feeling for Kat dug in far deeper than lust.
Adam opened a closet door, revealing that it hadn’t been packed up. Clothing hung from hangers. Jeans were stacked on a shelf. Shoes scattered the inside. “You know,” he said, stepping aside as he looked over his shoulder at me, “I think this is kind of weird.”
“Same here.” I had no idea if her parents had owned this house or rented it. Either way, it didn’t seem normal that this much stuff was left behind.
I riffled through the papers, finding nothing of interest. The same with her closet. What was I really expecting? A list of people Bethany might’ve confided in? Like life was that easy.
Adam roamed out of the room, and a few moments later he returned, his expression unreadable. “I think I found something interesting.”
Following him down the hall, we entered a smaller bedroom. Like the rest of the house, personal items were scattered about, along with dusty furniture. Adam walked over to an open closet and picked up what looked like a shoe box off the floor. He sat it on the stripped-down bed. “If I remember correctly, Beth lived here with her parents and a younger brother. Her dad worked in Virginia somewhere.”
I nodded, knowing this.
“And I’m pretty sure neither of her parents was a doctor. I remember Dawson telling me once what they did, but hell if I can remember exactly now, but I know neither of them was a doctor.” He gestured at the box. “Which is why I find it strange there’s a shoe box with a stethoscope and a blank prescription pad from the hospital.”
Walking over to the box, I picked up the pad. With the light from Adam’s phone, I saw that was indeed a prescription pad from the local hospital. “These cannot be easy to get ahold of nowadays, not if you don’t actually work at the hospital.”
“Exactly.” Adam moved the phone back to the box, shining the light on the stethoscope. He picked it up, running his thumb along the metal part. “Something was either scratched into the metal or engraved, but you can’t make it out.”
I caught it when he tossed it over, and he was right, the markings were ilegible. I dropped it back in the box, frowning. When I walked to the closet, I saw a couple of plain white men’s shirts lying on the floor.
“No one in her family was a doctor or worked at the hospital?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. I mean, at least not her immediate family, but it looks like someone else lived here with them.” Adam sighed. “The thing is, none of this could mean a damn thing.”
Bending at the knees, I nodded again. “I know.” I swept the shirts aside, feeling something under them. “Hey, bring the light over here.”
A second later, white light shone down on what was under the forgotten shirts. My brows lifted. Several unused bundles of gauze sat atop a bedpan, and I spotted a cane in the corner of the closet. A walker was folded up, resting against the back wall. Next to the bedpan was a pack of unused plastic cups with lids and an unopened six-pack of Ensure.
“Someone was either very old or very sick,” Adam commented.
“Yeah,” I murmured, standing up as unease crawled its way down my spine. “Someone who was either sick or old who might’ve worked at the hospital.”
“Uh-huh.”
Something about this struck me as wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What we found might not mean anything and as we scoped out the rest of the house, we didn’t find anything else. Later that night, as I lay in bed, staring at the cracks in the plaster, I still couldn’t shake the discomfort of knowing I’d stumbled across something without knowing what had tripped me.
Chapter 22
Kat was late to trig class Friday morning before Christmas break, entering the classroom a few moments before the bell rung. Immediately, I knew something was wrong with her. She walked stiffly, as if she couldn’t fully extend her legs. I straightened as she made her way to the desk in front of me and watched her sit down very slowly. Concern pinged through me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She turned halfway, her face a shade paler than normal. “Yeah. Just slept wrong.”
Tension poured into me. Slept wrong? Fallen recently? And burned her hand on a stove? “Did you sleep on the floor or something?”
She laughed drily and started to turn back around. “Feels like it.”
My fingers dug into the edges of the desk. “Kat…”
“What?” she whispered, her gaze not meeting mine.
I stared at her for a moment and then sat back, folding my arms. “Never mind,” I said, even though I wanted to ask her how training was last night, but I sensed I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. “You still on for tonight?”
Biting her lip, she nodded and turned back around. Throughout class and the rest of the day, whenever I saw her, she moved stiffly. Dee noticed it after lunch, catching me in the hallway. My sister was worried about Kat, and Kat wasn’t telling her anything. Nothing new there, but the horrible suspicion that there was more to her recent injuries overshadowed the unease from last night.
Would Kat lie about someone hurting her?
The mere thought nearly caused me to lose control of my human form while in history class, because there was only one person who would be in the position to hurt her. Blake. In between classes, I’d kept an eye out for the little punk-ass, but he was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, because even without proof he was hurting Kat, I still wanted to rip his throat out. Just because.
After school, when I didn’t see him show up at Kat’s house around the time he normally did, I decided to head over there earlier than we had planned. The opportunity to talk to her—hell, who was I kidding? I wasn’t passing up the opportunity to just spend time with her.
I darted up the steps, raising my hand to knock when the door opened. I frowned. “I’m really beginning to dislike the fact that you know when I’m coming.”
“I thought you loved it. It enables you to be such a great stalker.” She stepped aside.
“I’ve already told you. I don’t stalk you.” I followed her into the living room, eyeing how she walked. She seemed looser, as if the steps weren’t as pained. “I use it to keep an eye on you.”
“There’s a difference?” She sat on the couch, looking slightly disheveled in her loose sweats and thermal…with…little strawberries on it. What was it with her and fruit?
Cute.
I sat right next to her, so close our thighs touched. “There is a difference.”
“Sometimes your logic scares me.” She smoothed her hands over her pants. “So what are you doing over here so early?”
“Bill didn’t come by tonight?�
�� I leaned back against the cushions.
She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “No. He had something to do with family.”
Family? I had suspected the asshole was hatched from an egg. My gaze roamed over her face and then slid to the laptop. The video app was open, and beside the laptop was a stack of books. “What are you doing? Making another one of those videos?”
“I was planning to. I haven’t done one in a while, but then you showed up. Plan ruined.”
I grinned. “You can still film one. I promise I’ll behave.”
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