“In suspenders?”
I glance at her and nod.
“Yeah…he came in looking for you. He looked pretty desperate.”
“He’s a soul-sucker.”
She doesn’t laugh this time. “What?”
I slam on the breaks at a stop light. She pitches forward and back again. “Sorry.”
“He sucks souls?” Her voice borders on the edge of hysterics. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Well, I’ve seen people do it, so…there you go.” The car hobbles along. I keep straight as best I can. I’m not in the mood to get pulled over and grilled for why I can’t drive at my age, or why I’m bumbling along without a license to speak of.
“You’ve seen it happen in what? Someone’s head? Not in real life…”
“Both.”
We make it to the neighborhood in one piece, so I speed down the street to our house. The driveway is void of cars. I yank the car into park and hop out.
“You saw someone die?” Gretchen’s voice is nearly shrill.
“Yes, Gretchen. None of this is a joke. And your mom wants you out of town so…” I can’t finish. I don’t want to picture Gretchen lifeless on the floor.
“What about you?” she asks.
I let us in the house and lock the door behind us. “Go pack whatever you can’t live without for a week.”
“Why aren’t you coming with us?”
I race down the hall to Tessandra’s room, my heart palpitating in my ears.
“Tatum!”
When I turn around in her doorway, Gretchen is behind me, tears running freely down her cheeks.
“Why aren’t you leaving, too?”
“No. Gretchen…I can’t.”
“Then I’m not going.”
“You have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything!”
The sooner they get out of town, the sooner I can stop worrying about them. Whether Gage knows what happened to his minions yet remains to be seen, but I know I don’t have time to argue with her. I don’t know how crazy he is, but I’m betting it’s safer to lean on the side of very.
“I have to stay.” I’m going to do what my mom should have done years ago. Trust no one and stand and fight until I die.
“Why?”
“I have to put an end to this crap.”
Gretchen brushes at her eyes. “But you don’t even know what you’re doing! How are you going to stop people who eat souls?”
“I don’t know.”
She sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Then at least it’ll be over.”
Fresh tears form in her eyes, and I know that was completely the wrong thing to say.
“I’m not going to die.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m psychic.” A weak smile passes over my face, but her expression remains pinched and frightened. “Please, Gretchen. Just go grab your phone charger or something. Please.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
“And I don’t want you to die.”
Her bottom lip quivers, but she spins around and heads for her room.
I move to Tessandra’s closet and grab the first bag I see. I focus on tossing in the essentials and hunt around for her phone charger. I know she doesn’t keep it in her bedroom. In the living room, perhaps.
I pass by Gretchen’s room. She’s sobbing hard as she throws a small pile of clothes into a bright yellow Hello Kitty backpack.
“Can I get Emmerick’s number from you?”
She shoves her phone across the bed and keeps her head down, refusing to look at me.
My shoulders sag. “Gretchen…I don’t know what else to say.” I pick up her phone and copy Emmerick’s number into my own. “Gretchen?”
“Just do what you need to do.” She ignores her phone when I try to hand it back to her and throws a pair of headphones into her bag. Anger radiates off of her like a cloud.
I leave her alone and move to the end of the hall. Tessandra’s charger is in the small, closet-sized office off the living room, in the center of the paperwork-covered desk. I pick it up and stand in the room for a moment longer.
It’s not a matter of if he’s going to kill me. It just depends on how much he can put up with. Because I’m not cooperating. They can threaten me. They can break me. They can’t make me help them.
I don’t understand why my mom was running around with someone like him. Not that I knew her all that well, but why would she do that? Her motives are almost as bewildering as Renali’s, who turned against a friend out of jealousy, as far as I can tell.
The house is silent as I trek back to Tessandra’s room. Gretchen sits in the center of her bed, still crying. I need to figure out a better way to explain to her what’s going on. My actions must look senseless and reckless in her eyes. And they probably are.
I dump Tessandra’s charger in the bag and carry it to the front door. I just want them out of here. Gretchen is the only one Shepard threatened, but once upon a time, my mother worried, with reason, about Tessandra’s safety. It’s best to get them both out.
Kalin’s cat sits on top of the island counter in the kitchen, a giant ball of irritated gray-and-black fur. A low growl emits from her throat, and she stares out into the hall at nothing. Tessandra’s bag slips from my hand. I run to the front door. A sleek silver convertible is parked in the street in front of the house, the hood pulled tight into place.
I check the locks. The door is unlocked. Oh God.
Shattering glass breaks the heavy stillness in the air, and Gretchen’s scream cuts through the house.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I shoot down the hall to Gretchen’s room, my heart thumping in my ears. I already know what I’ll find when I get there.
But I stop short in her doorway. She’s alone in her room, in front of her closet, a pile of broken glass at her feet. Angry tears stain her reddened face.
“What did you do?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.
“I shut the door too hard.” Her voice shakes with anger.
“We need to go now. Right now. Get your stuff.”
She doesn’t move. “I’m old enough to know what’s going on.”
“And I’ll tell you. But we need to get out of this house now!”
She narrows her eyes and studies my face.
“Gretchen…” Her bag sits open on the foot of her bed. I grab it and throw it over my shoulder. “Let’s go now. I’ll tell you on the way back to the shop.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, you won’t.”
Irritation twists my stomach. I cross over to her and grab her arm in a grip so tight she cries out in pain.
“Ow! God, Tatum, stop!”
I pull her from the room, my senses on edge and alert for movement.
She pulls her arm from my grasp as we pass the basement door. “If we have time to pack, we have time to talk.”
“No we don’t.” I yank Tessandra’s bag from the floor. Kalin’s cat is still on the kitchen counter, fur still splayed to three times its normal size. “There are more important things going on than your feelings right now.”
Her hurt shows in her face. But when she follows my gaze, her sullenness melts away into panic. “What’s wrong with the cat?”
I rip the front door open and dive outside. She follows me without another word.
The silver convertible is still parked on the curb. The dark tint on the windows make it impossible to see if it’s occupied or not.
Gretchen notices it but bites her tongue until we’re in the car.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” She buckles herself in.
“You have no idea.”
I turn the key in the ignition, and nothing happens. I turn it again, harder, and I don’t get so much as a whiny attempt.
“Tatum?”
Panic expands in my throat. I fumble around the steering wheel for the button that pops the hoo
d. Not that there’s a point. I won’t even know what I’m looking at.
The passenger-side door is ripped half off its hinges.
This time, Gretchen’s screams are cut off by a large hand slamming down on her mouth as she’s dragged from the car.
I scramble out and stare right into Gage’s dark and amused eyes. A streak of sunlight cuts across the thick blackness of his almost wild hair. Not a single line ages his face, but a thin, raised scar cuts across one ear and down through the light scruff along his jaw. It humanizes him in a rather disturbing way.
He stands still for a moment, pinning a squirming Gretchen’s arms behind her back, completely unfazed by her movements as if she isn’t even there.
“Aren’t you pretty?” His words are slow and lazy, like he has all the time in the world. “Much prettier than your mother.”
My stomach turns at the familiar lazy drawl of his voice. Even if I hadn’t just heard it in Renali’s head, my cells remember it well, and hearing it in person amplifies the sickness building up in my body. My instinct is to draw away from him, but I can’t get my feet to move, or any part of my body for that matter.
Gretchen screams behind his hand, and her tears spill over his sun-darkened skin.
He presses the scarred part of his face against her cheek, and she fights harder in his grip. “Shh, shh, little one.” He holds his eyes steady on my face and grins, flashing a row of perfect white teeth and one silver one off to the side. “Shh, darling. I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet.”
My hands tighten into fists by my sides.
“That depends on you, doesn’t it?” he says. “But you don’t need to worry your little head about it right now. I’ve lived a long time, sweetheart. I understand a few things about women. If I kill her now, you may not cooperate with me. You women tend to shut down when you’re upset.”
I find my voice behind the thick cloud of fear coiling in my throat. “What do you want?”
“I left an address for you in the kitchen. Meet us there in an hour. No earlier. No later. She’ll be safe until then.” He tosses Gretchen over his shoulder, handling her much like someone would handle a jacket, and strolls off to his car under an onslaught of kicks and fresh screams from Gretchen.
Her voice is carrying…it has to be. But not a single blind shifts in the surrounding houses. Not a single door opens. He tosses her into the back seat, again like a jacket, and speeds away.
It’s broad daylight! Things like this are only supposed to happen at night. My feet come unglued, and I run into the kitchen to check the time. It’s just after two o’clock.
Thoughts race in circles around my mind. How are they just coming in and out of the house like this? I did lock the door, didn’t I? Unless they’re getting in another way and he just unlocked the door to mess with me? I cross through the house to the living room. The window next to the back patio door is open.
My heart sinks. I move over to it and slam it shut, but when I go to lock it, the latch is missing. Tremors slide up my back and down my arms. No, no. How long has this latch been broken? Did Shepard do this? How did he get in the first time?
Probably through the front door. Everyone was home that night. The door usually isn’t locked until we go to bed. He was probably waiting in my room for hours.
I squash the urge to line the window with duct tape. Instead, I head back outside to the car. I lift the hood and stare. Of course everything looks fine. Nothing is missing. What did he do? I climb into the car and try to start it again. The engine jumps to life.
Odd. I try to search through my brain for any information on Gage, but outside of him sucking the life out of my sister and kicking doors in, I can’t find anything else about him that’s out of the ordinary. Apparently he’s done something to most of the shadow men, which is what I’ll call them because I have nothing better to call them. Shadow men. It could almost make me smile if I wasn’t so scared and worried.
I step out of the running car and cross over to the passenger side. The door is hanging from the hinges but still intact. I lift it off the driveway and slam it into place. It stays shut, but Tessandra is in for a nasty surprise when she gets her car back. And speaking of my aunt, I pull out my phone and ring her at once. I might as well break the news to her now.
While the phone rings and rings in my ear, I go back into the house for the note Gage mentioned. The address is written in green marker on a piece of notebook paper secured to the refrigerator with a business-card magnet. Renali’s business card. As if I needed more proof that she’s involved in this mess. I pull the note free and scan the neat block letters. The address is in a town that’s about forty-five minutes south.
Shit. And I just wasted a good ten minutes running around the house and freaking out like an idiot. It doesn’t matter if I shut the window or even lock the door, but I lock it behind me anyway on my way out.
I waste another minute in the car fumbling with the GPS like I’ve never used it before. I put in each letter of the address twice or wrong. Panic wraps its sharp little claws around my throat again. When I finally get it right, I balance the phone on the dashboard and peel out of the driveway.
I don’t think about what they’re going to ask me to do. I already know it involves me watching someone else die. I just focus on driving straight enough and close enough to the speed limit to minimize the risk of getting pulled over.
My heart hammers in my chest, rattling my whole body. All the times I could have peeked in Renali’s head, just a little bit. I could have saved myself so much pain.
I blink back tears. Crying isn’t going to help me drive. It certainly isn’t going to make me feel better.
The time on the GPS tells me I’m running behind. I press my foot down a little harder on the gas.
Please be okay. Please.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The address, if I’ve been led to the right place, is on a cookie-cutter street in a neighborhood that makes me feel like I’ve driven into an oversized gingerbread display.
The house in question is a duplex on the right side of a cul-de-sac. I park on the street behind a burgundy SUV. Gage’s shiny convertible, with the top still up, sits in the driveway behind a luxury sedan that still has the temporary tag in the back window.
A quick peek into the back seat shows it’s empty.
Overhead, the sun shines warm and bright. Sucking souls and sunlight just don’t go together. It’s not cold outside, but I wrap my hands around my arms like it’s freezing and trek up to the house. The address Gage gave me is the one on the left.
I’m fifteen minutes late. Part of me expects the door to open as soon as I step on the covered porch, but it doesn’t. I wait several seconds before knocking.
A very tall guy I’ve never seen before opens the door, but I know immediately he’s one of them because the air around him is freezing.
“Girl,” he says cordially, stepping aside to let me in. Blond hair hangs long and straight around his shoulders.
The door opens into a living room. A man with a very thick neck and a bald head stands over another man who’s sprawled out face down on some fluffy beige carpet.
My heart stops. I reach out to him and find his brain humming with activity. For a moment, relief floods through my veins, but that’s quickly replaced by dread. Because if he’s alive now, that means he won’t be for long. I resist the urge to do any further poking around in his head. I don’t want to know who he is. I don’t want to know anything.
Gage comes out of the adjacent kitchen, wiping his hands dry on a paper towel that he discards on a plush recliner.
“Mi bella.” His voice and smile are as bright and warm as the sun outside. “You’re late.”
I think about giving him an excuse, but what’s the point?
“I don’t like late,” he says, his smile holding firm. “Just because I’m not going to kill you, doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.”
I hate you.
“Not tha
t you have to worry about suffering yourself. Again, I know women. It’s funny how you have such a high tolerance for pain and yet still fall apart so easily in other ways.”
God, what a douche.
“Where’s Gretchen?”
“She’s fine. Well, she’s intact.”
Anger burns in my veins.
“You have my word as a gentleman,” he adds.
That almost makes me laugh.
“And she’ll stay that way as long as you cooperate.” Three pairs of cold eyes burn into my face.
His word is far from good enough. I stretch my mind out. If I can hop into a stranger’s head just by looking at a picture, I should be able to find Gretchen.
I don’t know where she is, but it doesn’t take long to find her frightened and scattered thoughts. She’s in the dark with her arms tied behind her back, somewhere a lot closer to home than this. I pull away. She’s alive. Nothing’s broken. That’s all I need for now. The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can figure a way out.
“Why am I here?”
“I’m so glad you asked.” He rubs his hands together and crouches down next to the unconscious man. “You’re not just my little bloodhound.” He snaps to the man with the thick neck who in turn hands me a thick white envelope.
I don’t want to reach for it, but they’re waiting. I take it and test the weight of it in my hand. It’s light and solid. Like a paperback. I lift the tab. Inside is a cluster of one-hundred-dollar bills.
“What is this?” The rapid heartbeat returns. Even a rough count of this money is more than I’ve ever held in my life.
“Your payment,” Gage responds. “I’m not savage. Shepard did tell you this was a paying job before you got him killed?”
I shift my gaze to his face. But he’s still smiling. And his eyes are soft with curiosity.
Still, I can’t stop myself from saying, “I didn’t have him killed. I didn’t know…”
“Sure.” He stands. “We’ll get him. He can’t hide forever. Not if he wants to keep you safe.”
Why does everything that comes out of his mouth sound like a threat?
No Rest for the Wicked Page 18