I sat up, drenched in sweat and panting. My breath was like a leaden weight in my chest.
The phone rang, echoing through the silence of my house with its hateful wailing. I prayed it wasn’t Derek. I couldn’t take another crime scene, not for a while anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Dahlia.” My father’s familiar yet painful voice filtered over the line.
Light streamed in from the windows, casting looming shadows over everything. I squinted toward the open window and the afternoon light blinding me. I’d forgotten to pull the blackout shades before going to bed.
My pulse raced through my veins and my shoulders tightened with tension as I listened to his labored breathing on the other end. I wasn’t sure how my father had even gotten my number but I was sure Brennan had something to do with it. I’d thank him later for my morning trauma. “Dad?”
“Please, Dahlia, don’t hang up!”
“What do you want?” I snapped.
He sighed on the other end. I couldn’t tell if it was relief or frustration. I didn’t really care.
“I wanted to talk to you. Your mother and I miss you,” he said, sounding desperate.
My rage spiked as he tried to play the victim. I could hear the incredulousness in his voice and it set my nerves on fire in disgust.
“So much so that you send a spy to watch me,” I snarled at him. I hadn’t had enough sleep. I wasn’t prepared to be diplomatic or nice. Especially without having had any coffee.
Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice Brennan’s sudden appearance. Maybe he forgot that I wasn’t a little girl anymore and didn’t believe every word he said. Either way, I was tired of being underestimated.
“Your mother was worried about you. I thought Brennan would be more discrete,” he said in a biting tone. More discrete? More discrete than what? Wait! I don’t care.
“You asked a priest to lie. Not to mention the fact that you asked my oldest friend to lie to me. He was never able to lie to me,” I growled. “Ever!” I finished through clenched teeth. My anger bubbled over into tears, and I hated it. I didn’t need this emotional bullshit before the Manit at full dark. Hell, I didn’t need this emotional bullshit on any day of the week. I still had to talk to Jade about what she’d found and needed a clear head, damn it.
Taking several deep breaths to bury the hurt and anxiety away, I focused my mind on finishing this damned phone call. “Dad, I can’t do this,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Brennan said you were in over your head. We want to help,” he said, worried.
“Like you helped me before,” I spat. I’d officially snapped. I couldn’t even mention my teen years without having a sensory memory flashback. The smell of burning flesh filling my nose and the mind-numbing pain as it pulsed along my skin, through my eyes, making my heart fluttered with the surge of electricity.
“She was only doing what she thought was best,” he muttered as if even he didn’t believe it.
“And you let her!”
“There was nothing I could do,” he said. I thought I heard a catch in his throat but I couldn’t be sure, and it didn’t matter.
“I’m sorry, Dad, but I can’t. It would’ve been one thing if you just didn’t believe me but to add electroshock to the insult.” I was crying again. I couldn’t stop the hiccup as I spoke, but damn it, I was going to get this out.
“I never said I didn’t believe you,” he whispered.
I froze, my mind came to a screeching halt as his words sunk in. His voice had trembled as he’d said them. I was sure of it this time. The knowledge that he’d believed me seared through my brain like a hot iron stabbed through soft tissue.
He’d believed me. He’d believed me? HE’D BELIEVED ME!
“Are you telling me that you believed me when I told you what happened to Brennan and me that night?” My voice was controlled, calm, and frightening, even to my ears.
“Dahlia,” he breathed. “I’ve always known that you were different . . . like me,” he murmured.
I covered the receiver with my hand, hearing the plastic crack in my grip as I squeezed. I sank into myself, where all I heard was the beating of my heart in my ears and the air filling my lungs with each long, slow breath.
“Chipmunk? Are you still there?” he asked. He hadn’t called me that since I was nine years old. Remembering how things had once been, how happy I remembered being . . . before, shut me down. I’d tucked all those feelings of betrayal, disappointment, and rage away into the very large black box in my soul that housed all the pain I couldn’t deal with on my own.
Once that black box had only held the remembrance of the pain my parents had caused, of them sending me off to electroshock therapy. It’d had more entries recently. My little black box wasn’t so empty or so little any more. Bubbling up inside me, that black box was ready to overflow and explode.
“Dad, that just makes your complicity worse,” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry. I know it’s not enough but I am. I wish I could go back and change things but I can’t. Dahlia, please, you have to forgive us. You have to forgive me,” he begged.
I could hear the tears in his voice as he begged me to forgive him, forgive them. I waited for that place in me to crumble, that part of me that was still human, still his little girl. Nothing happened. I was empty. I couldn’t feel the sorrow I heard in his voice, not any more.
“No, Dad, I don’t. Please don’t call me again,” I said before I hung up the phone. My hands shook as I laid them to rest in my lap.
I glanced over at the clock; 1:07 p.m. and I’d only been asleep for a little over five hours. There was no way I was getting back to sleep after that conversation. I suddenly felt dirty.
I rose out of bed on shaky legs and got into the shower, needing to clean last night’s makeup and club dirt from me. As the scorching water washed over me, I had a good long cry.
When I got out of the shower, Amblan called up to me to let me know she was there. After getting dressed and drying my hair, I came downstairs surprised to find her making me eggs and toast.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, skepticism thick in my voice. My trust was on shaky ground these days. I couldn’t handle another bomb, not at the moment.
“Can’t a friend make breakfast for another friend without the inquisition?” she asked, with an innocent, wide-eyed expression plastered on her face. Yep, something was up.
“Sure, I guess,” I said. I took a bite and watched her pour herself a cup of coffee.
“Okay, who died?”
“No one. I’m just trying to be nice.”
Yeah, right. I wasn’t buying it.
“All right.” I sighed. “Give it up. What do you want?” She had an air about her like she didn’t have a care in the world, light and worry free. Plus, she was more family to me than any of my real family would ever be.
“Okay, well, since you asked. I could use a favor.”
I folded my arms over my chest and set a scowl across my face. “Uh huh.”
“My air-conditioning’s broken. Can I stay with you for a few days until it gets fixed?”
“What happened?” I asked, doubting whether I even wanted to hear this story or not.
“See, what’d happened was, the air-conditioner became dislodged and fell from the window casing,” she explained with a weak, yet embarrassed, smile on her lips as she glanced up from her plate at me.
“And how, exactly, did it become dislodged?”
“Kilee kicked it.”
“Why would she kick it?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
“Well, she didn’t realize where her feet were,” she said, batting her eyes at me.
“Oh God,” I groaned, placing my head in my hands. “You were h
aving sex, weren’t you?”
A satisfied glint lit her eyes as a smirk crept across her face.
“Well, can I crash here or not? It’s hot as hell in my apartment without the air.”
In the middle of July, I imagined it probably was hotter than hell in a second-floor apartment with small casement windows that didn’t open all the way.
“Yeah, sure,” I indulged. “But you know the rules,” I said, sounding more like a parent than her friend.
“Yeah, yeah, Mom. No girls. I know. I gotta go to work now but I’ll be back later and we can have dinner.” She bent down and kissed me on the cheek like I was June fucking Cleaver before she walked out the back door.
I kept thinking about the first time I’d met Amblan. We’d been next-door neighbors for a few months and had barely spoken, except in passing. I’d thought for the longest time her name was Rachel. Don’t ask me why. I was at home one day and heard a soft, pensive knock at the door. When I answered it, Amblan was there, dancing back and forth with her hand hidden behind her.
“Hi,” I’d said.
“Hi, ummm, do you have an extra roll of toilet paper?” she’d asked, embarrassed. “I just got home from dinner with my folks and I forgot I was out,” she’d said, trying to justify asking a total stranger for TP. I’d given her a once over and couldn’t help but smile. She’d been about to shit her pants and, at the time, I’d thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I’d strolled to the bathroom so slowly that she’d started screaming at me.
“Hurry up!” But there was laughter in her voice. “This is not funny!”
When I handed her the roll, she’d snatched it from my hand and took off running. We’d been fast friends ever since.
The door closed behind her and I wondered if I’d made the right decision. I could put her up at a hotel, which might be safer. I couldn’t really afford that. Who knew how long it was going to take to get her air-conditioning fixed?
I’d have to tell everyone to keep to the shadows. I wasn’t about to explain to Amblan why there were people circling my house at all hours of the day and night. She was used to certain people coming and going; Jade, Kurt, Dean, and Patrick for sure, but everyone else would need to stay scarce. I couldn’t have Amblan asking too many questions.
I pushed back from the table and went into the living room. I needed something to distract me, something that wouldn’t make me want to cry for hours on end. Popping Disney’s Beauty and the Beast into the DVD player, I fell back into the sofa with a cup of coffee. Even monsters like me love Disney.
After Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, I slid in 101 Dalmatians and watched Pongo and Purdita run through the winter wonderland after Cruella DeVille.
I smelled Jade and Kurt a few moments before they knocked. Wrapped in my yellow Care Bear blanket, I crossed the room and opened the door. Jade and Kurt beamed at me in the early evening light but I could feel the scowl on my face. Jade raised her brows at me and then noticed the TV and shot me a worried look.
“Are you okay?” she asked with wide, worried eyes. “What happened?”
“Rough morning. That’s all,” I said with a shrug.
“It would have to be for you to pull out the Disney,” she said with a smirk.
I usually keep my DVD’s hidden so that no one noticed the abnormal number of Disney movies in my possession. Jade had gone digging one afternoon and discovered my secret. When she’d asked about them, I’d told her that they made me feel better when things got rough. She’d laughed but never questioned me again. We all needed outlets. Mine just happened to be singing princesses, dancing frogs, and woodland creatures.
“Do you sing along?” Kurt asked with a smirk.
“Of course I do! What kind of person doesn’t sing along?” I glanced from Jade to Kurt and they both burst out laughing.
“He sings along, too, even the girl parts,” Jade said, grabbing Kurt’s hand and smiling up at him. He shrugged and beamed down at her. They seemed so happy. I plastered a smile on my face and padded back over to the couch. I could be happy for them. I really could.
“Kurt,” I said. “Am is going to stay with me for a few days. Can you pass the word along to be inconspicuous around the house and no one she doesn’t know inside until she’s gone.”
He nodded and retrieved his cell phone from the clip on his belt. There was no discussion, no questioning, he merely did what I asked. There was a part of me that liked that, could get used to it. A big part.
Jade sat beside me and put her hand on my leg. It was an odd moment of comfort I didn’t expect from Jade. I didn’t brush her aside either. We’d shared exactly one hug and she’d held it much too long. She knew it bothered me and had held it out of spite. She was a shit and liked to get under my skin but I loved her anyway. So the small touch of comfort set my senses into overdrive.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she whispered, as if she could keep anything from Kurt’s ears.
Yeah right.
“Sure,” I said with a casual shrug. “Just some family nonsense,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. I’d self-medicated with Disney cartoons. I didn’t want to douse my denial with reality. That completely defeated the point of Disney.
Kurt sometimes forgot I could hear him just as well as he could hear us.
“I think so, but the Disney’s out,” he said under his breath. “No, she says it’s family stuff,” he answered. “I don’t think so. She’ll be fine, Gaoh.” He listened for a few minutes more and then closed his phone, snapping it shut. Kurt came back around the corner from the kitchen and my glare was on him before he had a chance defend himself. I didn’t particularly like being checked up on. He gave me a pleading expression that softened my resolve. He was following another set of orders. I knew it and it wasn’t fair to bounce him around like a ping-pong ball. That didn’t mean, however, I had to like it. I turned to Jade.
“How late were you here last night?”
“I think we finally left around six this morning?” she said, glancing back at Kurt for confirmation.
“You could have stayed here, you know,” I said, folding my legs under me and tucking the Care Bear blanket tight around my feet.
“I know.” She shrugged. “But I sleep better in our bed.” She smiled at me.
There it was. Our bed. A band tightened around my heart as the urge to protect them and everyone I knew flared in my chest, eating the oxygen like I’d been drowning.
I caught Kurt’s eye. I was pretty sure he read the panic on my face and grinned to reassure me over Jade’s shoulder.
He’ll take care of her. Kurt will protect her, she sighed through my mind.
“So what did you find out?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“Kurt?” Jade encouraged.
He released a sigh of resignation and said, “We found out where Jackson is funneling his money.”
“Great!” I said a little too anxious but I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Jade lifted her bag onto her lap. She dug through it, dragging manila file folders and papers covered in Post-it notes out, and placing them on the sofa between us.
“This should be everything you need to prove Jackson has been moving against the Pack,” Jade said.
“What’s in here?” I asked, picking up the weighty stack.
“I think you should read it,” Kurt said without actually answering my question. “Jade is going to stay here with you while I make a wide sweep of the block before Tag gets here for guard duty.” He peered down at Jade with a pleading gaze. “I’m going to leave you here under Tag’s protection while I help Dean prepare for the Manit. Stay put,” he insisted.
I could’ve told him he didn’t have a chance of making Jade do anything she didn’t already want to do but I think he
already knew that. Hence the begging.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she spat.
“Me neither,” I seconded. I wasn’t helping, and I knew it.
Kurt took the two small strides to close the distance between he and Jade, ignoring my snide remark. He cupped her chin in his large hand and tilted her face up to his. She pursed her lips and pouted like a little girl.
“Humor me, please,” he asked.
She met his eye for a few silent moments before she nodded in agreement.
He pressed a gentle kiss on her still pursed lips, just the merest brush of flesh, chaste and warm, then left Jade and I to our own devices. We both sat back on the couch. She folded her arms over her chest in a childlike pout and I held the stack of papers on my lap as we watched the rest of 101 Dalmatians.
When she put in Peter Pan next, I knew it was bad. As “You Can Fly” played over the opening credits, I started reading the materials she’d given me. It took me the entire movie, with little breaks here and there to sing along just to keep me sane as Jade explained her findings and I read. Jackson had paid money to a subsidiary company that in turn paid a private contractor. Jade had included a picture of the private contractor in her files. The same grinning face from the hotel stared back at me and my blood ran cold through my veins.
Brody Lolek from Atlanta, Georgia. He was an organ donor. Funny, considering any organ he donated could potentially turn the recipient into a werewolf. Married to Migina Lolek, she was Native American, descended from the Omaha tribe.
Jackson had hired the sick fucks killing innocent women around town. I had no doubt I was next on their list.
I should have been surprised. I should have been angry or betrayed. I should have felt something.
I laid the papers and pictures down in my lap and raised my head to find Tinker Bell dusting Captain Hook’s ship with gold fairy dust. I wished I were ten years old again. Everything had seemed so much simpler then.
Sliver of Silver (Blushing Death) Page 21