Cross My Heart

by Elizabeth Morgan

  As my eyes tripped over her belongings, memories began to surface. Just flashes of the few times I would be allowed into her bedroom when she lived with my parents and me. I had always found her jewellery box and perfume bottles interesting—they seemed very elegant and from a classier time.

  Now, they almost looked like relics. A fine layer of dust clung to all her belongings. I was sure that if I picked any of the items up, the space beneath would be perfectly clean and framed by the dirt that surrounded it.

  It was obvious that Heather hadn’t been in this room, most likely since Sofia had passed away. Everything had been left as is, last touched by my aunt and no one else. A shiver raced down my spine. It was almost like looking at a shrine.

  I felt as though I was standing in a tomb. Everything was preserved.

  “I’m so sorry, Sofia,” I whispered, flicking the light off and closing the door behind me. I pressed my head against the wood and sighed. “I’m sorry we weren’t there to say goodbye.”

  My mother was right—Sofia hadn’t wanted anyone at her funeral other than Heather. We couldn’t understand her reasoning for it, but we had respected her dying wishes. However, we should have been there for Heather. It wasn’t fair of Sofia to want her to go through all of this on her own. Grief had a way of affecting people in strange ways. My mother said Heather had sounded fine every time they spoke, but my second cousin had been trained to hide her urges and feelings. I could only hope that Heather hadn’t gone and done something stupid.

  Turning, I glanced at the final two doors; I reached across and opened the one directly across the way, pulling the cord that swayed in the dark. A pop as the light came on, followed by the gentle hum of the fan.

  The bathroom was small and pleasant, your standard bathroom, but it was by far the room that was the most cluttered. A variety of colourful bottled products sat in a shower caddy and in the narrow shelving unit, along with towels and even a first aid kit.

  I left the light on so that Nathan would automatically move toward it when he finally came upstairs. I didn’t like the idea of him walking straight into my aunt’s room, even if it would be by mistake.

  The last room was at the opposite end of the hallway facing Heather’s room. I pushed the silver handle down with some effort, for the mechanism felt stiff. Using my shoulder, I put my weight on the panel and shoved against the awkward barrier. It took a few tries, but finally, the door fell open. I caught hold of the frame before I fell headfirst through the gap.

  My nose wrinkled. The air was a lot staler in here, and although the room was dark due to lack of daylight and electricity, it seemed blacker; crowded, and full. I sought out the light switch only for my hand to hit something solid.

  I flicked the hallway light on and opened the door as wide as it would allow me to, which had to be about a foot before the wood hit something behind it. I pressed my back against the door, managing to gain a couple more inches. Staying flat against the wood, I allowed the hallway light into the room—boxes upon boxes, stacks upon stacks, from floor to ceiling, filled the room.

  Taking my mobile from my jacket pocket, I tapped the torch option and slid inside. I moved my phone around, the pale white light confirming that the door wouldn’t budge any further due to more stacks of boxes piled behind it. I had about a couple of feet to move around in, and that was it. The room was jam-packed.

  I stared at the ominous fort of cardboard. I couldn’t recall Sofia and Alexis coming to us with many belongings nor did I remember Heather and Sofia having much that they needed to bring back with them. Yet, this room seemed to have enough in here to indicate an entire house move.

  I paused as the light from my phone illuminated a word scribbled in black felt-tip on the side of one of the boxes.

  A chill crawled down my spine at the sight of the name that accompanied it. ‘Dorian’s Stuff.’

  Was all this Dorian’s and Alexis’ belongings?

  This had been their house. Had they never gotten round to unpacking, or had Sofia packed all their belongings up once Dorian had died? Maybe once Alexis had?

  I could only recall the odd occasion that Sofia and Alexis had travelled, leaving baby Heather in my parents’ care. The first time had been shortly after their arrival for what I could only presume had been Dorian’s funeral. I learnt later on that it had been a straightforward mess to sort as his close family had been slaughtered by Infecteds when he was just a child. His father’s sister had never wanted custody, so he had bounced around in the system until he was eighteen. Sofia and Alexis had been the only ones at his funeral.

  The other time had been once Alexis had passed. Sofia had taken her ashes to where Dorian had been scattered and had stayed away for a short while. Perhaps she had come here? Perhaps she had packed up her daughter and son-in-law and locked them away in this room.

  I already knew that the basement in this house would replicate the one at my own house. A glance at the hallway ceiling, and I could see a hatch. Did the attic have more stuff up there? Maybe my Uncle Jean’s stuff was up there and there was no more space? An empty room was easy to keep stuff in, I supposed—easier to access, although by the slight warp in the door and how stale the air smelled in here, I would bet money no one had been in here for a long time.

  As I looked further, I could make out the odd word here and there. With every scribble I found, the realization that Alexis’ and Dorian’s entire life was in these boxes burrowed further in my heart. Although they had been together for two years before marriage and just over a year as husband and wife before Dorian was murdered … This is how it had ended for them. Their personal belongings packed up and hidden behind a closed door.

  This entire house felt like a mausoleum.

  My arm fell like a deadweight to my side. Was this what waited for me? Was this how it would be when my mother and father eventually passed? Would I pack them away and lock up certain rooms in their house? Willing to let them go and yet morbidly trying to hold on to them?

  It was almost as if Dorian and Alexis weren’t allowed to rest properly if this sad reminder of tragedy had to be always present.

  A warning.

  “Hey, what have you found?”

  I jumped. My phone slipped from my hand and hit the patch of carpet below.

  “Shit. You scared me.” My heart felt like it was about to burst through my ribcage. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “Sorry.” He peered around the door. “What’s all this?”

  “Just stuff.” I reached down and felt about for my phone, taking hold as my fingers skimmed the cool plastic. “It’s not important anymore.”

  I lifted the light to find him looking at me suspiciously. “If you say so?”

  “I do.”

  “Right, well, I’m going t’head to the shower so, you know, resist the urge to peek.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m sure I will be able t’contain myself.”

  “Any luck with the trainers? This guy’s got pretty big feet.”

  “There’s a pair on the chair in Heather’s room.” I pointed to the open door at the opposite end of the hall.

  “Maybe go catch some sleep. You look about ready to drop.”

  I switched the torch off on my phone. “If I lie down, I might not get back up again.”

  “Couple of hours will do you no harm.”

  Did I trust going to sleep while there was a Vampire in the house? It was Nathan, after all, and he hadn’t tried anything funny yet, but still …

  “I will wake you up if you do.” He shrugged, before disappearing back into the hall.

  I was tired, and the more I analysed this house, this so-called family home … I knew our lives had been sheltered. So very far from what other young women knew to be as normal. What made it worse was I knew that Heather’s life was far worse, if you could call it a life at all. It’s as if she was this hollow creature living with the memories of ghosts.

  I heard a door click, and a second later, t
he sound of running water met my ears.

  Shimmying back through the gap between the door and frame, I took one more glance at the tower of boxes, my gaze lifting and stopping on the lampshade situated just above where I had been standing. Flicking the torch back on, I angled it, and my heart clenched. Though covered in a thick, dark layer of dust, I could just make out the adorable farm animals lining the bottom of the old plastic shade.

  This was meant to be Heather’s nursery.

  Realizing this, seeing in the flesh what my cousins had truly lost, it was too much.

  We had been repeatedly told during our training that we could die. We had been told the story that had been the start of this stupid legacy. We had been told every gruesome detail of our ancestors’ deaths in fulfilling this noble vow. Heather had been told all the details of her parents and how, as a hunter in this family with the Vampyricc Virus, it would be a lot harder for her … we knew all of it. And yet, the stories and warnings weren’t as bad as seeing this. Even being covered in Vampires’ blood, receiving injuries, fighting for survival … It didn’t compare to seeing how a person’s life was reduced to being shoved into boxes and into storage.

  I backed out of the room and pulled the door forcefully to make sure it shut, glanced at my mobile through blurred eyes. Knocking the torch off, I made my way into Heather’s bedroom. Closing the door to block out Nathan’s terrible singing, I sat on the edge of her bed and dialled my parents’ number.

  Chapter Six

  ~ Nathan ~

  “You do know that this is creepy, right?”

  My gaze momentarily slipped to Teen Elle who lay at the end of the bed, her head and shoulders hanging over the edge, the tips of her pigtails brushing the beige carpet below.

  “Like, really creepy. You’re standing over a sleeping woman, watching her. It’s worrying behaviour.”

  “I had Vampires watching me do everything for the last six weeks. How is this any different?”

  “Erm, well, you were an experiment that they were monitoring. Whereas she’s a free, living human woman, and you’re a weird dead creepy dude lurking over her while she’s vulnerable.”

  I snorted. Vulnerable was not a word I would use to describe Elle.

  “Y’know what I mean.”

  “I just came t’check up on her. Told her she was tired.”

  “Well, congrats, you were right. What d’ya want, a medal?”

  “No, hearing you say I’m right is reward enough.”

  Without any effort, she slid off the bed and jumped to her feet. “You’ve checked on her. Now you need t’go away.”

  I had come to wake her up as I had promised. She hadn’t wanted to go to sleep in the first place, so she was no doubt going to be groggy when she realized she’d nodded off, but I guess the crying had wiped out the last bit of energy she had.

  “How do you know she was crying?”

  I arched an eyebrow at the teen. “Duh, Vampire hearing.”

  Ignoring the fact that I could hear her soft sobs from down the hallway and behind a closed door, the fact that her perfect skin looked blotchy was a bit of a clue. I couldn’t say I blamed her. It had been a long and very weird night, and she seemed uncomfortable being in her cousin’s house.

  She currently looked peaceful, relaxed for the first time since I had found her at the cemetery talking to her dead aunt.

  “She’s as weird as you.”

  “It’s not weird t’talk to your deceased loved ones.”

  “That explains why she’s talking t’you.”

  I grabbed my waist. “Oh, my sides, they’re splitting. You should be a comedian.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  I was torn between waking Elle up and leaving her to rest. She clearly needed the sleep, and after watching her aunt’s insane beyond the grave message, well, she needed all the rest she could get because it sounded like we were going on a goose chase to find a needle in a gigantic haystack.

  Besides, the sooner I woke her meant we would be back to her being distant and snappy and constantly looking at me as if she didn’t know who I was.

  It was nice to just look at her, take her in for a moment. Her auburn hair was fanned out on the pillow, her features softer, making the angry, guarded woman I had met last night seem a million miles away.

  Adult Elle. “She’s certainly aged well.”

  “Is that your way of saying that you find her pretty?”

  “She’s not … not pretty.”

  “Jeez. Full of compliments, aren’t you?” She climbed on to the bed, waving her hand in front of real Elle’s face. “Well, she’s definitely out of it because she can’t even hear you talking t’yourself.”

  “I’m not talking to myself. I’m talking t’you.”

  “She doesn’t know that. Any minute now, she’s going t’open those big, beautiful, green eyes of hers and see you standing at the side of the bed, perving over her.”

  “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

  She shrugged. “You tell me. I mean you’re with the real Elle now, so you don’t need t’keep dragging me out. Maybe it’s t’do with the fact that you know she doesn’t trust you, so, you want t’keep me around because it’s safer.”

  And didn’t that just sound extremely pathetic and sad?

  “Well, you’re a very sad man.”

  “You’re a lot meaner than you use t’be.”

  She gave me a wide smile before leaning over sleeping Elle to pull a succession of stupid faces.

  I knew I should wake her up, because even though I didn’t want to admit it, the little figment of my imagination was right—Elle didn’t trust me, at all. And I had no idea how to change that, but watching her sleep was probably not the best way to go about it.

  Uncrossing my arms, I closed the last couple of steps to the bed. Teen Elle sat back as I reluctantly leaned forward.

  “Elle?” I said gently, not wanting to startle her. My hands clenched by my sides in anticipation as I remembered that she had hidden knives on her person. “Elle?”

  No response.

  I gave her arm a gentle nudge. “Elle, you need t’wake up.”

  “Maybe you should kiss her?”

  I angled my head. Eyebrow arched. “What?”

  “Maybe she will wake up if you kiss her.”

  “You mean in like a fairy-tale kinda way? What t’hell do you think this is?”

  Young Elle shrugged. “Nothing about her life falls under being normal.”

  “This isn’t a fairy-tale.” I straightened and looked down at real Elle. She was far from being a princess, had never even wanted to be one when we use to play make-believe in our haven. “Besides, I’m no prince. I’m a monster, remember?”

  “You’re too daft t’be a monster.”

  “I feel like that was supposed to be a compliment?”

  She hopped off the bed and walked over to the vanity table, skimming her fingers over the items there. “You’re more Jester material, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  As tempting as the idea was, and part of me hated to admit that it was tempting, I’d never really thought of her being the type of girl I wanted to kiss. Even though I had meant what I had said, Elle wasn’t ugly, but I mean, she was my friend. My best friend, once upon a time. Sure, she’d aged well. Like, really well, but …

  “Do you want t’kiss her?” Teen Elle appeared at the other side of the bed, palms flat on the duvet cover, curiosity claiming her features.

  My focus slid back to Elle’s face, her mouth. They had been set in a firm line bordering on a frown for the entire duration I had spent with her. Now, they were still, relaxed. The bow of her lip was soft, subtle … yet again, words that didn’t fit her.

  “You do! You want t’kiss her!” Her comment came out in a lyrical fashion.

  “It would be the worst idea in the world.” My focus slipped to sleeping Elle’s neck, to the delicate hollow where her shoulder and throat met. “Y’thin
k its creepy me standing here while she sleeps?” Her skin looked soft … so exposed. “Well, it’s going t’be more so if she catches me leaning over her.”

  Realization struck. “Oh. Aye, she may think you’re trying t’bite her?”

  And I really hated to admit that that idea was far more tempting than kissing her. “Exactly.”

  “And she has threatened t’kill you if you try.”

  “Multiple times.”

  “Yeah, the kiss is a bad idea.” She straightened. “Don’t do it.”

  “I wasn’t goin’ to.” I pulled my focus away from the resting hunter. “It was your idea.”

  She tapped her index finger against her chin. “Technically, it was yours since I’m just your conscious talking.”

  My head dropped to my chest. “God, I hope when I get this Vampire thing under control, you go away.”

  “Only time will tell.”

  Resigning myself to the fact that I needed to get this over and done with—and to end this conversation with my imaginary friend—I leaned forward and gently gripped sleeping Elle’s shoulders.

  “Elle?” I shook her. “Elle, it’s time t’wake up.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and the next thing I knew, I was falling forward and over. My back pressed into the bed I stared up at the wide-eyed Elle currently straddling me. Something cold and sharp pressed against my Adam’s apple.

  “Woah.” My entire body was rigid, my palms flat and held at the side of my head in surrender. “Good morning, sleepy head.”

  “Than?” Her brow furrowed, realization slowly sparking in her eyes. “What the hell?”

  “I told you I’d wake you up if you drifted off.” I shifted beneath her as the knife against my skin grew hotter and that familiar sizzle started to burn my throat, automatically regretting it as the movement drew my attention to how warm and real she felt sitting on top of me. Between her and the softness of the bed at my back … well, a guy could get used to being trapped between such luxuries, especially after sleeping alone on steel for six weeks.