I couldn’t believe it, I actually knew where Max was and it didn’t even take me a full day. Everything was falling into place so perfectly.
I was maybe five steps away from the table before Melanie came charging toward me, her eyes electric and determined. “I’m not leaving,” she harshly whispered. “My food is still warm and there’s cute guys here.”
“Melanie, the whole reason we came here was so I could get into contact with Max, and now that I know where he is we need to get a move on.”
“Can’t it wait? It’s not even the evening.”
I gave her a deadpan stare. “I didn’t come here to play hide the salami with Simon and Garfunkel over there. Now, are you coming or what?”
“No.”
I put my hands on my hips, and tapped my foot on the floor as I looked at her with nothing but concerned thoughts. “I’m not fooling around, Melanie,” I told her. I was aware I was becoming more like my mother every single day.
“Neither am I. You want to go sniffing after some dude, go right ahead. Just let me do some sniffing as well,” she said and then grazed her tongue across the top row of her teeth. Oh, gross.
“I’m not going to leave you alone in a strange city, at a bar with two drunk guys trying to get into your pants.”
“You think this is my first rodeo? I’m a big girl, I know how to take care of myself.”
“It’d make me feel better if you let me take you back to the motel.”
“It wouldn’t me. Why the hell would I sit in a gnarly motel room by myself when I could be out having fun? Just go find your man and talk to me in the morning.”
“I know you, Melanie, and I know if I leave you at a bar you’re going to start drinking. It won’t be safe. And how are you going to get home?”
“Uh, duh, the motel is five minutes away.”
“You’re just going to walk?”
“Been doing it my whole life.”
“But drunk?”
“Been doing that almost my whole life, too.” She put her hands on each of my shoulders and physically turned me around so I was facing the door, and then shoved me. I felt like I was an annoying chaperone she was trying to get rid of. “Now, go.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have argued with her a bit longer, put the fear of God into her for staying out at a bar by herself, and then after some convincing, would have thrown her body in the backseat and drove home. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance, and I felt like I was running out of time and I needed to find Max while I had a location. I was afraid, that for whatever reason, this stay at the compound was something temporary and I could so easily miss him by a fraction of a second.
Besides, Melanie had a good point; if anyone could walk the streets of an unknown city completed inebriated and make it home just fine, it was her. It was probably her expertise.
By the time I went to my car, it was pitch black outside. I checked the clock on my stereo and saw it was only a little bit past 3 p.m., but the sky was so thick with gray clouds that every bit of light had been practically obliterated. It really felt like a black tarp had been put over the entire city and I was going to suffocate in the darkness.
Once I headed off Grey Street in search of Erickson, I heard the first clap of thunder rip through the atmosphere, and it startled me so bad I almost zigzagged right off the road. Of all the times for a storm to be starting, it had to be now. I knew a downpour would commence within minutes, so this search for the compound would have to be quick.
I was so nervous my hands were quaking as I held onto the steering wheel. So much time had passed since Max and I last saw each other that I wasn’t sure what to expect of this reunion. Would he be happy to see me? What if he had moved on and found love with some gorgeous, exotic girl from the Philippines and I was just this obnoxious would-have-been, could-have-been ex who was getting in the way?
I lightly slapped myself on the cheek, telling myself to knock it off with these thoughts. This wasn’t supposed to be a romantic reunion. I just came here to warn him, that’s all. That’s all.
I turned on Erickson Street and all the way at the end of the road, positioned right in front of Lake Superior, was the Clementine compound. I knew this because there was a large fence-like wall trailing alongside the sidewalk in front of it, going on for several acres and then abruptly turning toward the lake so that it would lock in all these houses like its own secluded neighborhood. Because I was quite a ways down the road, driving down a hill, I was high enough to see several thatch rooftops from inside the barrier. These were all houses, some small, some big, arranged on opposite sides of this squared center. I was too far to make out the details, but it looked like it was a courtyard with a large stone fountain. There was no roof above this, so it must have been their yard.
Furthest to the right, acting as one of the compound’s walls was a massive building that was the closest thing to a manor I had ever seen. It looked old and like it had survived hundreds of years in this city and its exterior was a faded gray stone which gave it a very gothic appeal. This was only my observation from a distance, so I was pretty eager to get in there and see it in all its glory.
I drove down and parked my Bug on the side of the street and immediately realized that the closer I was to the compound, the taller the fence actually was. It had to have been at the very least seven feet high, which might as well have been up to the heavens for a girl like me who barely reached past five feet tall.
I got out of my car and began inspecting the long gate, trying to find some kind of gap or imperfection that I could squeeze through or even look through. Nothing.
Several feet from my car, I spotted the main entrance. It was a silver gate that didn’t reach as high as the walls surrounding the compound—it was only a little bit taller than I was, so at the very least, it stood five feet tall. In the center was some kind of bronze family crest—the bottom of it had a thick, dark line that swooped down low and curled upward like a sideways crescent moon. Above it was a circle with spiraling lines coming out from it that thickened at the tips like globs. It resembled a sun, but I couldn’t be too sure.
It wasn’t locked.
If this was any other household, I would have just waltzed right up to the front door, gave it a good knock, and then asked if Max was home, but this place was so massive, yet eerily quiet. The fact that it had a gate and a fence made me feel like they didn’t want just anybody getting in there. Maybe Edgar was right and it was some kind of gang. Or was it Allen that said that?
For some reason I couldn’t explain, I didn’t feel right going through the main entrance, so I crept along the fence, my hand trailing along the exterior, looking for the end of it so I could get a good look inside.
Suddenly, it began to thunder uncontrollably. The common joke as a kid was that thunder was just God bowling up in heaven, and in that moment, I understood why. This thunder rolled and rolled and, by the time it quieted down, there was a large crackling boom like a bowling ball had scored a strike. I actually loved storms, but standing out here in the open was not the best idea. There was so much static electricity in the air, I could feel the hairs on my arm standing at attention. I was convinced I was going to get struck by lightning.
I finally reached the end of the fence near the lake. It was so dark, I couldn’t even really see the water, but the clapping of the waves banging against each other and crashing into the sandy shore was a deafening sound, and there was an overwhelming taste of lake water in the air. A flash of lightning lit up the darkened sky, so bright for a brief second, it almost looked sunny. I could see the water in the moment, see how black and rough it appeared from the storm that was brewing, and how far it stretched out looking like an endless sea.
A collection of bushes aligned the fence, and because of how thick and massive they were, I figured I could use it as a ladder to climb on and peek over the fence. I put a foot in a shrub and felt the bundle of twigs beneath it, tested it with a few good stomps to see i
f it could hold me, and then used it like a mini trampoline to get myself high enough to see over the face.
Suddenly, what felt like six little hands went crawling up my pant leg. “What the hell is that?!” I involuntarily yelped. It was a spider. It was a goddamn spider, wriggling its way beneath my pants and up my leg, no doubt in search of some juicy limb for her to bite into and plant a nest of babies. I kicked my leg out and began flailing it around, hoping the spider would realize she and I were just not compatible, and eventually the sensation of creepy crawlers on me went away.
“Thank God,” I said, and then literally shushed myself. Of all the times for me to talk to myself in public.
“What are you doing here?” a male voice unceremoniously called out. Oh, my God, I had been caught trespassing. I was going to jail. Me and spider-woman were going to have to share a cell. My first instinct was to stop peeking, so as fast as I could, I launched myself right off the fence like some kind of trapeze artist, but with the grace of a blind drunk man, and nearly twisted my ankle on the jump back down. I’m pretty sure twenty spiders latched themselves onto me in the process.
I was down on the ground, still standing, but slumped over trying to remove the twigs that had glued themselves to my pants when realization hit me; I knew that voice, quite well, in fact.
Oh, my God.
He was just standing there, red flannel jacket hanging open, wild long brown hair perfectly hanging around his face like be belonged on a cover of 90’s grunge rock album, his pale eyes staring into me in that intense way only he could; that made me feel both intimidated and wildly turned on.
It was Max.
Just like that. There was no grand reunion, no trumpets playing, no slow-mo running toward one another with our arms spread out wide. He was just there. He found me standing in a bush with spiders in my hair. That was our big reunion.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Looking for you,” I responded, and then smiled when I realized I had in fact found him.
“In a bush?”
I looked around at my surroundings, realizing I was in the darkest, most discreet looking corner. I might as well have been in a garbage can. “It’s not what it looks like,” I began and took a step toward him.
He moved back and his face went stern. “You can’t be here.”
“What?” I asked with a laugh. I had sought him out and came all this way, and that wasn’t exactly the response I was hoping for.
“This isn’t the place for you. You need to leave.” His voice was cold, distant, and lacking any kind of familiarity. Suddenly, I was taken back to when we first met, and the dismissive way he treated me that day in the woods. It was like that version of him had made a return, and that was a man I thought I’d never grow to like.
“I just got here,” I said, and my voice sounded pathetic against his. His ruthless demeanor, like he was an unbreakable brick wall, made me uncomfortable to even be speaking to him. “I drove all the way up here.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have, because you don’t belong here.”
I felt an ache in my chest—the kind that only surfaces from the impact of a person’s harsh words, and in my opinion, the worst pain there is. I didn’t know what was going on. Why did he sound so angry with me? Why was he acting like I was the last person on the planet that he wanted to see? It had been quite a while since we had seen each other, but I never expected this.
“Why are you—”
“You should go,” he said slowly, enunciating every word out of his mouth as though I were too idiotic to understand him. I wanted to find a nearby bridge and jump off of it. He put his hand on my wrist and tightly grasped. “Now,” he said.
I had too much dignity to stand there and let him talk down to me any further. I glared at him as my eyes threatened to tear up from anger and sadness, and then booked it out of there, hopped into my car, and never looked back.
I vowed Max Reid would never see me again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time I arrived back at my motel, it was raining cats and dogs outside. I used my hands as an umbrella as I ran up to the steps and to my room, and the floor was so slippery from the moisture attached to the bottom of my shoes that I nearly slipped and fell over twice. Normal Cora would have laughed it off, but I was not in one of my normal moods. My chest ached and felt tight, and my stomach was a little uneasy. I was way more upset than I wanted to be.
I slammed the door to my motel room and sat down on the edge of my bed, slouching forward and resting my face in my hands. The downpour was so bad outside, it had drenched my hair and turned the strands into clumpy spider legs that hung around my face. Each tip dripped rain on the wooden tile, creating this obnoxious splat noise every couple seconds, so I ran my fingers through my tangled, soaked hair and flipped it so it would at least drip onto my back. I needed the silence more than a dry shirt.
I didn’t know if Melanie had arrive back at the motel or not, but I secretly hoped she was still out because I really wanted to be alone for a moment. The image of Max’s emotionless face as he instructed me to leave replayed in my mind like a horrible sitcom rerun. He may as well have been a stranger standing in front of me—a security guard even, telling me the cops were about to be called if I didn’t get off his property. How he could stand there and act as if he didn’t know me was just…
If I was going to drive myself nuts over this, the least I could do was rip off these wet clothes and slip into something warm. Better yet, climbing into bed sounded ideal. I just hoped the room had cable.
My coat was so heavy from all the rain it had sopped up that it dropped to the floor like a rock when I flung it off. I found a pair of dark teal sweatpants and an old band t-shirt I bought at a concert. After I had slipped them on, I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrung out my hair. I decided to go to bed early that night, because what else was I going to do, stay up all night thinking about how I came to town for a guy who didn’t even want me around? Just the thought of it made my face turn red.
I squeezed out a strip of toothpaste onto my toothbrush, but before I had a chance to even place it into my mouth, I was interrupted by a hard knock at the door. I groaned when I realized I had to sideline brushing my teeth, and then stomped my way to answer the door.
“What?” I hissed as the door ripped open. I was sure it was Melanie locked out of her room.
I was stunned. The son of a bitch followed me. Max stood on the other side of the door and he was absolutely drenched from the rain. His hair had little droplets that made the strands look like they were sparkling under the fluorescent hallway lights, and lines of wetness dripped down his cheekbones and lips. He looked like he had been out in the rain longer than I had—perhaps looking for me. A part of me had secretly hoped that were the case, while the more prominent, angry part of me couldn’t care less.
“What do you want?” I barked at him.
His face softened as he asked, “Can I come in?”
“Nope.”
I could see him fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “You’re really going to send me back out in the rain?”
“Absolutely,” I answered, and then attempted to shut the door, but he shoved his foot in the way of the door frame so it wouldn’t close. “Move your foot or I’ll remove it myself.”
“Would you knock it off and let me inside?”
I realized that his hand was barely pushing into the door as I tried to cram it shut and that he was just humoring me by even pretending that there was some kind of struggle to keep it open. I had prayed that this was werewolf strength and that I truly wasn’t that pathetic. I let go and the door whipped open.
“Fine,” I growled, admitting defeat. “You want to talk, you go right ahead, but you’re not coming in.”
“You know anything we talk about can’t be said out in the hallway of a motel.”
“How did you even find me? You ride on the back of my car or something?”
“I track
ed you.”
Wait, he can do that?
“It also helps that you have an obnoxiously bright yellow Volkswagen you drive around in,” he added and then arrogantly smirked. How convenient that we were now joking like buddies when he was the one who wanted to talk. “You stick out like a sore thumb in any parking lot.”
“Great, my car has a stupid color. You can go now.”
“You’re pissed at me—I get that, but I wasn’t trying to be an asshole back there.”
“So, it just comes naturally then?” Priscilla would be so proud of me.
A smile grew on his face, and it was clear my insults weren’t even remotely offending him. In fact, he looked to be enjoying them. God… worst of all, he was doing the crooked grin thing. Was he inside my brain looking for my weaknesses?
Max stepped closer to the door and lowered his voice. “Please let me in,” he said softly, his eyes locked on me in that way of his; where I felt like he was both undressing and hypnotizing me. Ugh… I was going to let him in.
“This better be good,” I said, and then let him inside. I was actually more heated now that I had caved and allowed him to come into my room. What I really wanted to do was sock him in the face and curse him out for ever treating me like that. If his explanation wasn’t good enough, I was going to make sure he got a piece of my mind.
He walked into my room, his shoes thumping against the wooden tile like he weighed a ton and the floor was going to collapse beneath him. I hadn’t realized how small my motel room was, until Max was standing inside of it, doing his best not to crush the top of his head into the ceiling. Why do I not remember him being this tall?
“Nice place,” he commented as he looked around the room.
“I didn’t build it, so no point in complimenting it. It won’t get you any brownie points.” I then closed the door behind me so it was just the two of us alone.
He turned back towards me and smirked. “You’re really pissed,” he commented, looking to be on the verge of a laugh.
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