The Spider Catcher (Redemption by A.L. Tyler Book 1)

by A. L. Tyler

  Acton nodded curtly. He held out his hand. “Come on, then. Let’s go sit.”

  Ember set the books down next to her bag, took his hand, and forced a smile, unsure of what was waiting for her out in the bar.

  When he opened the door, Zinny was blocking the way. Her glossy lips were forced into a pout as she looked Ember up and down; then, she reached out and pulled Ember into a hug, grabbing Acton by the front of his shirt to pull him in as well.

  “Zinny…” Acton said, his voice full of warning.

  “She can’t take the clothes back to Gina’s,” she said. As Ember struggled uncomfortably, Zinny’s arms held her like a vice. “They smell like us, and she won’t appreciate that.”

  “She’s not going around dressing like Thalia.” Acton responded tersely. “Besides, those clothes are going to smell like you now. She can’t go home in those.”

  Zinny finally let Ember go, pushing her out to arm’s length. She smiled gently. “I’ll wash them for you before you go back. You can wear them out of the house and back, and change in the back room into something that’s more…well, less Gina. And shower, right when you get home—that’s important.”

  Ember’s eyes had gone wide. “It’s true? You’re not…normal.”

  Zinny’s smile never moved, but creases appeared around her eyes. For half a second, she looked decades older than the young, vibrant woman Ember had come to know. “Em, we’re not bad people.”

  She left her hands drift from Ember’s shoulders down to hold her hands. Her dark eyes smiled again as Ember’s met them uncertainly. “Demons?”

  Zinny nodded, looking at the floor for a moment. “Yes, that’s what they call us.”

  “She’s afraid of you.”

  A small laugh escaped Zinny’s lips. “Your mother has never been afraid of me. Now, go sit down.”

  Zinny stepped away and back to the bar, bringing a hand up to wipe at her eyes even though she hadn’t shed a single tear. Ember’s eyes followed her away, and then snapped back to Acton. She smiled excitedly as Acton put a hand on her back and gestured to a table in a corner.

  When Acton pulled out her chair for her, she could no longer contain herself. “Their friends, aren’t they? My mom and your mom are friends—that’s why she has to let you stay.”

  Acton pulled a chair over to sit close next to her. “No. But I’ve long speculated that it’s the reason she has to let me live.”

  Ember shook her head. “But how does that happen? I mean, how did they get to be friends—she hates you all so much. And—“ Ember paused, looking around the bar. “How many of you all are there?”

  “‘Friend’ is a very strong word.” Acton sat low in his seat, putting his arm around her shoulders. He put his free hand on the table, discreetly gesturing. “Almost everyone that lives here. That group is. So is that one. Most of that group, but not the married couple there—they’re kayaking tourists from Vermont. Those over there are from the fish processing plant a few miles from the mainland town…none of them are, in that town. But almost everyone here is. Not Charles, he’s the one exception that Gina has willingly allowed. She finds ways to get rid of the other humans.”

  Ember looked over at him. “Why not Charles?”

  Acton pursed his lips, glancing at her, but then his eyes lit up. Ember looked over to see Kaylee walking up to the table. Asher was walking next to her, and Isaac was trailing her like a faithful shadow.

  Acton removed his arm from Ember’s shoulder’s, composing himself in his seat. Kaylee stood across from him at the table.

  Her smile looked like a sarcastic snarl. “Yes, your majesty?”

  He kicked the chair opposite him away from the table, making Ember jump. “Have a seat.”

  Kaylee eyed the chair, but then her searing green eyes flashed to Ember, who suddenly felt the terror seep from her expression into her being. A slow smile spread across Kaylee’s glossy pink lips as she turned the chair around to straddle it.

  “She’s not my size,” she said with a sneer. “And I’ll be damned if I give her anything—I may as well burn it myself.”

  Acton removed something from his jacket pocket, and set it on the table between them. He sat back and crossed his arms as Kaylee eyed the folded hunting knife. The sneer slipped from her lips, but the icy stare in her eyes remained.

  Isaac took a step forward. “Acton…”

  “Jessica is about her size,” Acton said lightly. “Make it happen. She’s not going around with me looking like this.”

  Kaylee had sunk away from the table, and her cool straddle looked awkward. She looked up at Isaac, and then back at Acton. She smiled again. “Acton suddenly wants to play dress up with his new doll. I wonder why…?”

  Ember blinked, and then her chair slammed to the wall and clattered to the floor as she shot up out of it. The knife was open in Kaylee’s hand, and there were fingers—human fingers—lying on the table where the knife had been. Ember looked from one to the next, counting each perfectly manicured digit as she went; one, two, three…

  Thumb.

  A thumb had dropped into the mess, and Ember felt dizzy. The fingers didn’t look real, and she didn’t know why. They were fingers, each one just lying there, no longer attached to Kaylee’s hand as she slowly sliced them off. She dragged the blade neatly across the joint of her pinky finger, and plop, down it went, landing next to her index finger before bouncing and settling next to her thumb. The bar lights were reflecting off of the polished pink tips, mirrored again in the enamel table top. She went about the bloody business as though she were peeling a potato, dark globs of black blood oozing from each stump and a shocked look on her face.

  Isaac was scooping up the fingers with a look and a grunt of indignation, stuffing them into his pants pocket.

  Asher had lifted his hand to cover his mouth, looking nearly as shocked as Kaylee as he tried to stifle a laugh. He had moved to block the scene from the rest of the room, but it was so dark, and Kaylee hadn’t made a sound despite the screaming expression on her face. Her eyes were wide and horrified as she stared at her mangled hand; small, choked gasps, almost too quiet to hear, escaped her throat.

  No one knew what was going on. Only one of the tourists had looked over for a moment when Ember’s chair had banged to the floor.

  Isaac had finally found his voice. “You could have just made her get the clothes!”

  “Cooperation is so much nicer than compliance, and Kaylee is going to cooperate.” Acton said with a smirk. He turned back to Ember. Her face had gone pale. “Em, you should sit down before you faint.”

  Isaac had Kaylee by the shoulders, hurrying her back toward the door.

  “Ash, get a towel for this.”

  Asher walked off to the bar.

  Acton looked back at Ember again, stopping just short of rolling his eyes. “I’m serious, Ember. Your face is pale, and you’re going to pass out. You need to sit down.”

  Ember felt herself trying to shake her head and nod at the same time, and then grabbing the edge of the table as she lowered herself to the floor. Acton sighed in exasperation, picking up Ember’s chair first, and then scooping her up from the floor to set her in it as Asher wiped down the table. As he left with a rag that looked like it had been soaked in tar, Acton put his arm back around Ember’s shoulders.

  Ember opened her mouth to speak, but all she managed was to lift her hand, staring at the place on the table where Kaylee’s fingers had been.

  “That was unfortunate.” Acton said calmly, leaning over to smell her hair. “Some days, Kaylee needs to be reminded of her place, but I do regret that you had to witness it.”

  Chapter 15

  Ember sat in rigid silence as Asher brought around drinks and a plate of veggies and dip that Zinny had carefully arranged to resemble a teddy bear. Flat slices of carrot made up the body, with little bits of shredded cabbage making the fur, and tiny cut up radishes for the face and eyes. It frolicked through a celery and broccoli forest with a river ma
de of ranch, and as Ember tried to look appreciative while she ate the food, she couldn’t help but stare at Zinny. Mostly, she just couldn’t bring herself to look at Acton.

  We’re not bad people. Ember wasn’t even sure if they qualified as people. The stuff that had come oozing from Kaylee’s hand hadn’t been blood; it had been thick and dark, like chocolate syrup. The fact that Asher had laughed at the sight of a girl cutting her own fingers off was grotesque, and if Acton was to be believed, he had made her do it to remind her he was in charge.

  She could hear them, sitting next to her, laughing and joking about the tourists and how the wife hadn’t figured out yet that the husband was flirting with someone named Beatrice. Asher talked about the women on the island, his loneliness, and Acton made a remark about how his relationships never ended well, and he needed to give up. Then, they were cut short on a conversation about Isaac’s latest “work”—Ember wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was—when Isaac walked back into the bar.

  He had a dark stain running down the leg of his pants from stuffing Kaylee’s fingers into his pocket, but outside of that one reminder, it was all so mundane that Ember almost felt the urge to yawn.

  “Hey.” He said, taking a seat at the table. He picked at the grime around his finger beds. “What did I miss?”

  “Whole lot of nothing.” Asher replied. “Trish might get lucky, so we can expect a screaming match by dawn. Might be he’ll hang around here a few days extra, if she takes off with both kayaks or something. How’s the queen bee?”

  “Ah…” Isaac laughed, shaking his head as he stared at the table. “She’s pissed.”

  Asher reached across the table for a bottle of beer, giving Isaac a significant look as he twisted the cap off. “You keeping those fingers?”

  “I told her I lost them, but, yeah…”

  “You can’t lie to a mind reader, Isaac.” Asher said, sighing as he watched Beatrice sit down in the tourist’s lap. “What the hell are you going to do with her fingers?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Huh. You’re sick. I’ve known a lot of sick guys, Isaac, but you take the cake.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Ember pretended to eat her food, wondering if she would be alive come sunrise, and wondering what she would do after that point if she was. Acton hadn’t spoken a word since Isaac’s return. She supposed that was as close to an apology as he would come for causing his girlfriend to be short three fingers and a thumb.

  “She’s been a trooper.”

  Ember looked up. Isaac was staring at her with a sort of flat interest in his eyes. Asher had answered his silent question, and was opening another beer and pushing it across the table to her. She reached for it, knowing that the motion looked robotic.

  Isaac turned his stare on Acton. “What are you going to do with her?”

  Acton sat forward, like he had been startled from his train of thought. “I don’t know yet,” he replied in perfect mimicry. Then he looked over at Ember and smiled.

  “Does this bore you?” He asked. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

  Ember was shaking her head, frowning. She wanted to give him the answer he wanted. “No. No, I’m not bored.”

  Acton’s smile only widened, and he briefly diverted his gaze before giving her a reassuring nod. “Em, finish your drink. We’ll leave, and go somewhere that’s less boring.”

  Ember continued to nod, but she felt her blood run cold.

  Acton leaned back in his chair, letting his arm fall around her again as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “It’s just out to that place by the spring. You like it there.”

  She nodded again, clutching the beer in her hands and taking quick sips to calm herself down, but eventually her hands were shaking too much. She went to set the bottle down on the table, but didn’t quite hit her mark, and spilled it on her lap. She shrieked as the fluid made contact with her skin, even though by that point it was almost room temperature.

  Acton grabbed the bottle before it hit the floor, giving Ember a quick assessment before going to get some paper towels from behind the bar. When he set them on the table, she only stared at them, so Acton turned his chair to face her and carefully dabbed at front of her pants leg.

  Asher was on his forth beer, but didn’t seem to be even slightly inebriated. “Are you ever going to get sick of playing the babysitter?”

  Acton turned around to glare at him, and Asher held up his hands in a disappointed acquiescence. Acton turned back to Ember, who was hugging herself and leaning forward, curling into a ball in her chair.

  “Kaylee brought the clothes,” Acton said quietly. “They’re in the back room. Let’s go, and you can change into something dry.”

  Ember slowly shook her head. “I’m dizzy.”

  He helped her to her feet, even as she insisted that she felt too sick to move, and she shuffled into the back room, where Acton promptly balanced her against a stack of crates, holding her by her shoulders.

  “You’re afraid of me,” Acton said matter-of-factly. “You should be. But I won’t hurt you. Do you want to go home now?”

  Ember nodded sullenly, staring at the floor.

  “Why?”

  Her mumbled response was so quiet that she was surprised Acton even heard her. “Kaylee’s hand…”

  “Her fingers will grow back.”

  Ember looked up. “They grow back?”

  Acton smiled weakly. “Just like your hair or finger nails. I won’t lie to you—cutting them off wasn’t pleasant for her. She won’t forget it, but she’s not permanently maimed.”

  “That was really disturbing. I’m pretty sure that’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Acton paused, and a smile spread across his face. “That’s possible. If I promise to never do something like that in front of you again, would you forgive me?”

  “I’m pretty sure your promises are crap, Acton.” Ember said with a sudden bold confidence. “You’ve never had any self-control.”

  Acton seemed impressed with her outburst, as though something she had said pleased him deeply. He folded his hands in front of his body and nodded resolutely.

  “That’s true, to an extent. But my promises are not crap.” He gestured around the room. “I have provided you with new clothes, as I promised. You may not remember, but I promised you companionship once. I keep my promises, even when my debtor was too intoxicated to remember.”

  Ember took a step forward. “I think I’m slightly intoxicated now.”

  “I agree.” Acton replied. “I’ll leave you to change, I’ll take you somewhere to sober up, and we’ll come back when Zinny has washed your clothes for you. Then, I’ll take you home, and it will be at your discretion whether you ever come out to meet me again. No hard feelings. I won’t bother you.”

  He folded his hands as he walked from the room, closing the door behind him. Ember sighed, looking around at the clothes. Kaylee had taken great care in displaying them; she had hung a broom across two stacks of crates to create a hanger for some dresses, and laid out several blouses and pairs of jeans on cardboard boxes in front of them. There was a pair of nice dance shoes—the kind with high heels, that Ember hadn’t ever worn before. There was also a pair of knee-high boots, a pair of ballerina slippers, some suede, fur lined clogs, and some strappy sandals.

  None of the shoes were good for walking through the forest. Ember wondered if any of the people—for lack of a better word—living on the island ever wore shoes outdoors.

  Isaac didn’t often wear shoes. She wasn’t sure how she had come by that knowledge, but she knew it was a fact.

  Shaking her head, and watching both doors warily as she ducked into a corner and faced the wall, she changed into a pair of the jeans, and then went to look through the dresses and blouses.

  All of the dresses were covered in plastic, and so clean that Ember would have thought that they were new, except that someone had gone through and reinforced the str
aps with extra stitching and felt supports. Ember flicked through one dress after the next, each lighter than the next, shivering as she thought about going outdoors in any of them.

  When she reached the last dress, she froze. In her reflection on the plastic, she could see a thin, pale face over her shoulder. She spun around, her breath catching in her throat.

  No one was there. But as sure as the goose bumps on her arms, Ember knew she had seen a face, white and angry with dark eyes, staring at her from the far corner of the room.

  “Acton!” She called hesitantly.

  The door opened; Acton’s eyes glanced at her, up and down. “You haven’t changed.”

  “I put on jeans.” Ember said quickly. “Someone was just in here.”

  Acton didn’t move at first, his eyes wandering around the room. Then, he stepped in, and closed the door behind him, looking at Ember uncertainly.

  “There’s no one here, Ember.”

  Ember pressed herself further into her corner. “You didn’t even look!”

  “Because there’s no one here.” Acton insisted. “Now change your shirt. I’m getting bored, and that’s dangerous.”

  He stared at Ember. Ember looked around the room, wondering if a combination of alcohol and nervous ticks created by seeing a woman cutting off her own fingers weren’t getting to her.

  Finally, she looked back to Acton. “Turn around.”

  Sighing, he obliged. Ember avoided looking at any of the dresses as she ripped the plastic off of each one, and then put on a thin cotton summer shirt. She pulled a long-sleeved blouse over it, and then slipped on a shawl. The shawl was orange and the shirt was white with purple sequins, but Ember didn’t care; at least she would be warm.

  “Done.”

  When Acton turned back around, he scowled at her. “You know, those things look nice when Jessica wears them.”

  “Jessica must not get cold easily.” Ember retorted, balling up her clothes before setting them in an obvious spot on a crate. “Now let’s go, or you can take me home.”