by Joelle Ayers
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I snorted. “Or… don’t bite the bedbugs.”
“You’re so freakin’ funny, Vi,” he responded, sounding about as amused as a cat in bathwater. I knew he was at least smiling, though. He was about the only one who ever did find humor in my lame jokes.
I didn’t torture him with any more of my witticisms. He earned himself a break and, besides, I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and his silhouette was the last thing I saw, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt, he’d still be there when I opened them again.
*****
There was blood everywhere. Too much to have all come from one person. It was congealed on the floor and slathered like black crude in her hair. A single, thin, wine-red streak stretched from where her body lie lifeless on the aged, cement floor. It collected and pooled beside the drain a few feet away. A clear shower curtain was flung carelessly across the room, spattered with more blood and filth from who-knows-where. She’d been stricken multiple times over most of her body with the heavy, copper pipe lying beside her, before the final blow was delivered, ending such a young life.
I knew every single detail the courts said led up to this moment, because… I’d sat through the trial, listened to the excruciating retelling of what they said my brother, ”the monster”, had done to her.
My stomach wretched and twisted as my eyes met hers again—this girl who wasn’t much older than me. In my head, I could almost hear her voice calling out, but that was insane… right?
I mean, she was dead.
I wanted to wake up, wanted to get far away from this gruesome scene and the corpse that seemed to be staring at me. Through the silence, there was a whisper. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I froze, listening harder, watching closer.
I heard it again. One word: “…Wrong.”
I took a step back as my heart raced, but kept my eyes trained on hers, fumbling back until my heel touched the wall behind me.
I awoke with a gasp, cold sweat dampening my skin. The intense, metallic scent of blood was just as potent now as in the dream, making it more difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.
The dream was, of course, only that—a dream. But the girl? She was as real as you and me. Her name was Liz Hardy. We only met once in passing, but that didn’t lessen the impact she’s had on my life. On my brother’s life.
When Cody was first taken away, I spent many nights pacing in my bedroom conducting my own research. From all that, I developed a theory. Josh once warned that I was obsessing over things I couldn’t change, but I disagreed. I wasn’t obsessed; I simply believed that, for everything, there had to be a beginning. An instant where an aligning of events was triggered by some catalyst that set the whole incident in motion.
Good things.
Bad.
So, there had to be a catalyst in this situation, too. Something that got us all from point A—a very typical night hanging out and doing pretty much the same thing we did every weekend; to point B—a father and mother burying their young daughter far before her time.
And my brother sitting in prison cell.
While the mystery surrounding Liz’s death was still shrouded in what I believed to be half-truths and shoddy police work, the beginning was quite clear. I relived that night often in my head. I guess I was in search of that one thing I was sure the detectives missed. Or maybe I was just searching for something to convince me Cody didn’t just have me fooled me all my life.
Did I not know my brother as well as I thought? Was he really capable of taking a life?
There had to be something missing. Something that could prove Cody’s innocence and bring the real killer to justice.
My breathing finally slowed as I settled down, sitting straight up in bed as the images from my dream slowly faded. Josh was out of his seat and coming toward me with quick footsteps. He was alarmed by my sudden reemergence to consciousness, but I nodded, letting him know I was okay.
This had never happened to me. I never had a dream that felt so real my heart raced like crazy. Maybe this was a side effect of being bitten. Or maybe it was just another quirk; a “me thing”.
It was just so… gory. Liz’s face was already seared into my mind for an eternity. But now, it felt like she was… with me. I knew it sounded crazy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling some unseen being stood right beside my bed.
“Vi.”
My eyes left the spot where my eyes were trained, the spot where I felt her, and went to Josh.
“What happened?” He lowered to the edge of my bed and I didn’t miss the concern in his eyes when his hand came down on top of mine.
According to the clock on the dresser, it was well past two in the morning and, instead of sleeping, I was wide awake, staring at Josh while he waited for me an explanation.
But I didn’t have one. Not one he’d understand anyway. I was fully prepared to let it go at that, but his fingers gripped mine now.
“Vi… talk to me.”
Why did he have to do that? Look at me like it’d crush his world if I didn’t tell him what was going on? It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him it was nothing, but I never lied to him before. And this was definitely something.
“I had a nightmare,” I admitted. “About Liz Hardy.”
The name wasn’t one that was never far from his memory either. While he’d mostly followed the trial by way of newspaper clippings and television broadcasts, his life was still greatly affected by Liz’s death as well.
“Why did you call it a nightmare?” he asked. “Why not a dream?”
The horrific flashes of her body on the floor, all the blood, came rushing back to me and there was no other word for it.
“Because that’s what it was.”
I didn’t tell him I thought she was speaking to me, didn’t tell him I felt her even now.
“Coffee,” I blurted. “We need coffee.”
“Shouldn’t you get back to sleep? You’ve got work to do for the newspaper in the morning,” Josh explained, as if I wasn’t painfully aware of my own, full schedule. I breathed deep, ignoring his reasoning when I repeated myself.
“Coffee.”
Pushing the comforter off my legs, I swung them over the edge of the bed. Before standing, I remembered how they were twisted and broken, merely a week ago. It didn’t make sense how, without the aid of a surgeon or even pain meds I completely recovered, but I was grateful.
To Josh.
To the gift he’d given me.
My feet touched the cool slats of the hardwood floor and I left to change in the closet while he continued to sit. I pulled on jeans and a hoodie before joining him in my bedroom again. He said nothing as I grabbed my laptop on the way out of our apartment, headed for the small, hole-in-the-wall diner a few blocks up the street. That’d been our go-to spot when, once or twice a week, we couldn’t sleep and had a hankering for pancakes. Hopefully, tonight’s nightmare was a onetime thing. If not, we’d probably be frequenting the place a whole lot more than we already did.
—Chapter Three—
We took the booth at the back of the awkwardly-long building and I set my laptop on the table. Josh plopped down across from me, the length of his hair hiding much of his eyes from me. I got the feeling he was worried. If the same thought crossed his mind that crossed mine—that the vivid dream was the result of the bite—I understood his concern. However, the important thing to keep in mind was that I was alive and kicking.
Like… literally. My legs worked because of him.
But, if there was something to really be concerned about, I was sure I’d be the first to know. For now, I was content believing my experience with being bitten was the result of there being aspects of who, and what, Josh was—a dhampir—that he didn’t know about yet. After all, he did say I was the first person he’d ever sank his teeth into.
No, really… those were his exact words, and I rolled my eyes just as hard as I’m sure you just did.
“Don’t you t
wo ever sleep?”
I looked up to meet her gaze—Hannah, a freckle-faced girl who’d been waiting tables here on the midnight shift for a couple months. I only knew this much because she mentioned it to Josh several hundred times when she got desperate to make conversation with him. I, personally, hadn’t paid attention to her attendance record.
Her wide grin and chipper tone almost made me forget it was nearly 3 a.m., but the entire act was for Josh’s benefit. Not mine.
As I sat there, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and, for the fraction of a second, I thought I saw the silhouette of someone else beside me. Someone other than Josh who had parked himself on the other side of the table. The light gasp that left my lips when my eyes played tricks on me was drowned out by more of Hanna’s chatter. I did a double-take and, this time, only saw me.
Hanna placed a maroon-colored mug in front of me before reaching into her smock for a set of utensils. “Coffee?”
Knowing already that I’d have to add a ton of cream and sugar to make it tolerable, I replied with a brave, “Yeah, thanks.”
Her eyes shifted to Josh next. “And you?” She was always kinda red in the face when she looked at him, but he barely seemed to notice.
“Uh… sure.” His tone was so dismissive, I almost felt sorry for the poor girl. I think she and I were the only ones who knew she had a thing for him.
“Right away.” Another smile and then Hannah disappeared behind the doors of the kitchen.
The chatter of the few other patrons only served as background noise as I booted my laptop. Vivid images from the dream passed before my eyes every time my thoughts weren’t occupied. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to it than just reliving the hell that tore what was left of my family to shreds. Couldn’t shake the feeling that she, Liz Hardy… wanted something from me.
But what? I mean, I didn’t have the power to change anything. If I did, she’d be alive and Cody would’ve been sitting right here with Josh and I, probably putting Hanna’s liveliness to shame. That was just Cody’s way. He was the life of every party, even when the ‘party’ only consisted of the three of us and the venue was a small, family-run diner in the middle of the night.
I missed him. Everything about him. Josh did, too. Cody was the big brother he never had, but now the entire state of Maine thought of him as a monster—the guy who savagely murdered one of our community’s brightest and best. And now, all of a sudden, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
A pocket of chilled air to my right made my arm prickle with goosebumps.
“Here you go,” Hannah announced as she approached the table again. Lack of sleep made me jumpier than usual, but I played it off with a faint smile. “Just like you like it,” she added.
I thanked her and then moved the mug closer.
She motioned toward my now open laptop. “Finish the article?”
Josh met my gaze when our eyes locked across the table. When Hanna got nosey a couple weeks ago, I lied and told her I was conducting research for an article I had to work on for the campus newspaper. While, in actuality, my side project had completely taken my focus from the news team that once took all my extra time. It was the only way to explain some of the things she caught me searching online when she snuck up on Josh and I like an annoying housecat. She didn’t need to know I was ‘obsessing over things I couldn’t change’ (i.e. my brother’s conviction).
Josh’s words. Not mine.
“Uh… no, not quite. Just a few more quotes to make it more solid, and then Friday’s the big day.”
Her smile broadened. “That’s huge! Your first feature story! Aren’t you even a little excited? I mean… you’ve worked so hard on it. I should know,” she beamed. “You guys are in here practically as much as I am.”
I smiled dimly. “Excited is the wrong word.”
And it was.
It totally was.
Josh smiled a bit, watching the look on my face transition from polite and tolerant to annoyed in record time
“Well… I’m excited even if you aren’t. You never know, one day I might see your name in one of those high-end magazines or a noteworthy newspaper and I’ll be able to say ‘I knew you when’. Not that The Shores Chronicle isn’t a big deal, but you get what I’m saying.”
I nodded and glanced back down at the computer screen. “You never know.”
Josh faced the window to hide a laugh.
My attention was instantly drawn away from the conversation as I signed into the newspaper’s database, SCD. It was frowned upon to use team resources for non-work-related research, but the network wasn’t monitored closely enough for me to get caught, so I’d been taking advantage for quite some time.
“Mind if I take a look?” Hannah asked. She’d already started reaching to turn the screen toward her before I could respond. Without much thought going into the reaction, I quickly put a hand out to block her and moved the computer closer to me with the other. She sighed quietly and Josh sat still as a statue, watching.
There was a curious look on Hanna’s face, but she quickly erased it and smiled again.
“Maybe later,” she added quietly, trying to mask embarrassment.
I didn’t answer as I watched her move on to another table. There was a small part of me that wanted her to feel uncomfortable; hopefully, that would keep her from prying again. I continued to stare as she glanced back in my direction once, and then greeted the man a few booths away with the same bubbly tone with which she’d greeted Josh and I.
It didn’t take long for me to forget about the awkward exchange and lose myself again.
“Whatcha got?” Josh asked, dumping about the tenth packet of sweetener into his mug.
“O-L-I-V-I-A,” I said aloud to myself as I entered the name into the search engine. I reached for my coffee while I waited.
“Olivia, Olivia, Olivia… Olivia Bernhard? Olivia Floyd? Olivia McAllister?” I sighed and leaned into the seat a little. “There are so many of them. This should be fun,” I whispered sarcastically.
“Who’s Olivia?”
My eyes ran down the list of names and the task at hand instantly became twice as daunting.
“A friend of Liz’s. Her best friend, actually. I remember Cody introducing you and I to her the night of the party.”
There were twenty-seven Olivias currently enrolled on our campus and I had no clue which Olivia I was searching for. I had a vague picture in my head of what she might look like, but time had distorted some of her features. Brown hair? No, blonde—definitely blonde, but seeing as how the database provided no photos, this realization didn’t prove to be a helpful one.
Josh sat quietly while I pecked away at my keyboard. His stare was heavy and I knew exactly what he was thinking… more about me obsessing, beating a dead horse. But I felt differently.
Hannah was staring again when I looked up and I had an idea that didn’t make me feel nearly as guilty as it should have. If it weren’t for the fact that I was running out of options so quickly, I never would’ve even considered the thought that had just come to me.
“Josh,” I whispered. “Fix your hair and look cute.”
The curious look that came my way was expected.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” he asked. “And FYI… I’m always cute.”
I took my eyes off Hanna only long enough to evaluate his look and smiled.
“Sexy it up just a little more, kitten. I need you to turn your charm on full blast.”
“Why do I feel like I should be screaming ‘stranger danger’ right now?”
I snorted, but straightened my expression quickly when Hanna turned my way again.
“Be serious! I need you to do some schmoozing for me. With Hanna,” I explained. “I need her help. Get her to sit with us for a bit, and then cozy up to her so I can pick her brain.”
There was a long bout of silence, one that resulted in Josh running a hand through his wavy, blond mane—his halfhearted attempt to
meet my hair request.
I rolled my eyes while envisioning myself licking my fingers to fix it myself. The right way. Just like Mom used to do to me and Cody when we were small and she needed us presentable in a flash.
Today wasn’t the first time Hannah tried to get inside my head, nor was it the first she flirted with Josh. Actually, as soon as I shared that we were only friends, she barely tried to conceal her attraction. So, tonight, I was going to use that to my advantage.
I didn’t even think twice about calling her back over to the table. Her feelings were of no consequence at the moment. It was clear by gauging her facial expression that she was still a little self-conscious because of how I dismissed her a bit ago, but she came anyway.
“More coffee?” she asked absentmindedly, glancing down at my full cup.
“No… no, I’m good,” I replied, shifting my gaze to Josh who sat sipping his coffee. As if we hadn’t discussed a freakin’ thing. Because he’s a guy and guys are sometimes really, really dimwitted.
I kicked him beneath the table and he sprang to life.
Scooting closer to the window, he motioned toward the empty space beside him like one of those women on the shopping channel trying to sell weird whatnots.
“Sit with us. Please,” was the best he could do, his deep monotone making me want to kick him a second time. Only harder. And not in his leg.
However, even though his effort sucked, Josh’s invitation worked. Hanna asked us to wait a sec so she could let her boss know she was taking her break now, and then came back minus an apron. She took the seat beside Josh, grinning.
I didn’t waste any time.
“I was actually hoping you could help me with something while you’re here. The piece I’m writing is a follow-up article about that Hardy girl. You know, the one who died a few months back? You remember that?”
“Who doesn’t?” Hanna scoffed. “It was all you heard about on the news for weeks. Things like that just don’t happen in Bradford Shores.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “And that Cicero kid should fry for what he did to her—the sick bastard.”