“I forget what it’s like talking to you,” he said.
I shied away, my eyes open, but barely able to look at him. “What, you haven’t run into any toddlers lately?”
“No. You just… you know how to put a smile on my face.”
I slowly looked up at him and saw him gazing at me, and when the room lit up from the lightning flashing through the motel room window, his eyes never blinked. He was too busy looking into mine, or dare I say looking into my soul, hair drenched, skin moist, blue eyes reading my face like a novel. I didn’t know what to think or what to say. This wasn’t the Max I expected. Something in him had changed and now all my annoying quirks were no longer irritating to him, but seemingly endearing. How bad had his life been this past year that my idiocy brought him joy?
“Max,” I blurted out, not really sure where I was going with the sentence, but felt the need to interrupt the silence.
“Don’t,” he said quickly and then placed his index finger to the center of my mouth. My eyes immediately focused to his hand. When he realized his touch was nearing intimate he pulled away and his face faded into an expressionless exterior. “I get why you came here and I appreciate it, but you can’t stay.”
I was dumbfounded. He had come on so strongly just a mere second ago and now he was taking on this distant demeanor. What was he doing?
His gaze fell onto my lips and for a moment it was like he was speaking only to them. “If you’re really here for me then do me a favor and leave town.” His eyes climbed up my face until we were eye to eye. “Whatever you do, don’t follow me.”
Max didn’t even give me time to argue before he charged out the door, leaving me alone with nothing but the sound of the thunder rolling outside.
CHAPTER NINE
I spent the next hour sitting in bed, flipping through the channels on the TV and doing my damnedest not to think about Max. Ten minutes prior to landing on some made for TV movie about a swamp creature who found love in New York City, I heard a loud bang from next door and knew Melanie had stumbled back home. I was surprised, as I figured she’d be out all night drinking. The bar must have been a bust. I was going to check on her, but the doorknob leading to her room looked like it had been put back together using duct tape and wishful thinking, and thought it best just to leave it alone.
It wouldn’t be bed time for another several hours, and this swamp creature movie just wasn’t doing it for me (except for this nifty tap dancing scene), so I whipped out my cellphone and decided to give Priscilla a quick call. I needed to see how she and Biggie were meshing.
“You’ve been gone five minutes and you’re calling me already,” Priscilla groaned on the other end of the phone.
“Gee, don’t sound so giddy, Prissy, I might think you’re hitting on me.”
“Your lesbian jokes fall flat, Cora. Stop trying.”
“Not as flat as your chest.”
She went quiet for a moment. “Okay, that joke was an improvement.”
“Who said I was joking?” I teased.
“My bra. Now, what are you calling for?”
“I came to check in on things. Have you and Biggie fallen madly in love yet?”
“Oh, yeah,” she snidely remarked. “The first hour, he hid under my bed. The second hour, he shit in my shower, and the third hour, he fell asleep on top of my head, but only after I caught him on the table eating my lunch.”
“Well, what was your lunch?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Yeah, Biggie has a thing for spaghetti sauce.”
“You say that like it excuses it. I almost punched the little fucker.”
“Touch my cat and I will crawl through this phone and punt your head clear off your body.”
“Don’t I get points for saying almost?”
“We can come to a compromise. Where is he now?”
“Sitting on my lap. He doesn’t have fleas or something, does he?”
“No, why?”
“He keeps messing with his dick.”
“Priscilla,” I snapped, embarrassed, and doing my best to hush her. I sounded just like my mother every time we went to a family function and I wouldn’t sit in my seat like a good little girl. “Don’t call it a… he’s a cat. Can you put him on the phone?”
“Are you for real, right now?”
“He likes my voice.”
“Christ, you really are a crazy cat lady.”
“Just put him on the phone.”
“Fine.”
I heard a lot of random noises like she was situating the phone towards her lap, and once the sound went clear I spoke. “Hello, my little B.I.G. I miss you,” I said into the phone receiver, making kissing noises with my mouth and going into my horrid baby talk. “Can he hear me? What’s he doing?”
“He’s licking his balls.”
“Sounds like him.”
“So, how’s your werewolf hunting going? You manage to get Max on a leash yet?”
“Don’t say it like that. You make it sound…”
“Dirty?”
“I was going to say unhealthy, but sure that works, too.”
“Well, have you?”
“I did find him, yes. He was actually just in my room.”
“Please tell me you did him.”
“No, but we talked. It was… it was nice. I said what needed to be said and, of course, he barely took it seriously and claimed he could take care of himself. Then he told me I should leave town.”
“So, what now then?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Go home, I guess.”
“You should have at least slept with him.”
“Not all of us have your candor, Priscilla.”
“Or my body.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I know what I’m doing. Nighty night.” I hung up the phone and slipped under the covers to relax, maybe even go to bed early.
Why was Priscilla’s mind always in the gutter? A couple of naughty suggestions and my mind was quickly drifting into that zip code as well. Should I have acted on impulse and just pulled Max into a passionate kiss and made a night I’d never forget? But that so wasn’t me. I wasn’t some sex kitten who wasn’t afraid to be bold or abrasive depending on her mood. I mean, for crying out loud, I stutter asking a stranger where the bathroom is. I’m definitely incapable of suave seduction.
Shut up, Cora, I told myself and then closed my eyes. Time for bed, you big idiot.
Five minutes later, I was out like a light.
Suddenly, my body jolted, like somebody had entered the room and made a loud noise that my body was reacting to. I didn’t know how long I had been sleeping, but it felt like I had only been out for a few minutes. I wasn’t groggy enough to have been in a deep sleep, but I was still quite confused, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dark.
I screamed.
Standing in the corner of the hotel room was the dark outline of man’s body, and beside him stood another. In a low, menacing, satisfied voice one said, “Wakey, wakey.”
I was too stunned to move.
CHAPTER TEN
“Get away from me!” I screamed, kicking my legs out at the foot of my bed so manically that my feet tangled in the sheets, causing me more damage than it did my intruders.
One of the assailants came close to the bed, strutting almost, and as he walked closer the light from the lamp beside my bed spotlighted his face. There was no ski mask, no black gloves, just a pair of deeply set, shadowy blue eyes, and slick, rain drenched golden locks accompanied with a narrowed, menacing pissed off scowl. I’m not sure what I expected my attacker to look like, but a pretty boy in his twenties was not it.
In his hands was silver duct tape, and as he drew nearer to me, he ripped off a strip of it and then sealed it over my mouth. He pressed it so hard against my cheeks I felt like my face was already swelling. As soon as I attempted to fight him off, another man from the shadows came and helped hold me down. I didn’t even know what h
e looked like because I was in too much of a panic, flailing my body around.
What did they want? Were they trying to kill me?
I tried to scream, but was muffled out by the duct tape.
“Calm down and shut up,” the blond directed to me, rolling his eyes like attacking me was somehow an inconvenience to him. He was definitely pissed about something, and all I could wonder to myself was what I had done to cause this. Who was he? Why were there two of them? And why did it look like they were trying to take me out of the bed?
I prayed Melanie had heard my yelling from the next room and called the cops.
I fought with everything I had, but they were just too strong. No matter how hard I hit, clawed, kicked, screamed, it had no impact on them. Their strength was incomparable—damn near supernatural. I felt drained by the time they yanked me out of bed and forced me into the hallway.
“Cora!”
It was Melanie, and they had her, too. She wasn’t tied up, but a man had her by the arm in a death grip. She must have complied and not fought back, and thus she was given more freedom and didn’t get the duct tape treatment. But why were they after her as well? What had we done? They hadn’t stolen from us, they hadn’t actually hurt us, and for some reason, they were moving us down the hallway and out of the building.
“Cora, what’s happening?” Melanie yelled to me as we were shoved down the weak steps.
I was unable to answer and remained sullen as one of the men shoved me to walk faster. Once we got down to the reception area, Adam the desk clerk would see and send for help, so despite the current situation, I was feeling hopeful. As we made it to the bottom of the stairs and Melanie was walking alongside a man to the door, Adam turned and looked directly at each and every one of us. My mouth was covered in duct tape, Melanie was squirming and whining—it was clear as day we were being kidnapped, yet Adam said nothing.
Oh, my God, he wasn’t going to help us.
Who were these men that they could cause such a hush to whoever they passed? I thought Adam’s silence could have been shock, but the manner in which he stood without motion like some servant led me to believe that the men taking us were even more dangerous than I feared.
Two jet black cars waited outside the motel in the pouring rain, and Melanie and I were practically thrown on top of each other in the back seat. We weren’t even sitting upright by the time the vehicle went speeding down the road. The blond was in the passenger seat staring out the window in a daze while a male brunette steered.
Melanie was still struggling to get off of me and quietly whispered in my ear, “Are they going to kill us?” There was still so much liquor on her breath that I found myself almost envious. She at least got to be drunk for this.
The men never spoke, never looked back to check on us, never even glanced at one another during the ride. All I could hear was the sound of the rain beating against the metal car roof.
We drove for maybe five minutes before the vehicle abruptly stopped. The men got out and each ripped open a backseat door. The brunette pulled Melanie out and the creepy blond yanked me out like I was a rag doll. He was maybe six feet tall, but he was quite slim looking, so him tossing me around like I weighed nothing was downright puzzling.
Once I was out of the car, standing in the rain, lightning streaked overhead and my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe it. We were here. We were at the goddamn Clementine Compound.
No, no, no, no. Now I knew why these men were so strong. They were damn werewolves! We were being kidnapped by freaking werewolves.
I wanted to stick my heels into the ground like a puppy being dragged to the bath, but it was no use. I couldn’t overpower these guys in any regard.
Blond douchebag guy opened the front gate with the crest on the front and then pulled me by the hair right into the compound. He then ripped the duct tape right off my lips so hard I was sure a layer of skin went with it. My hair was pulled back so tightly my head was completely tilted back and I was staring straight into the rainy, black sky. Rain drops poured into my mouth and eyes and I blinked frantically trying not to drown in the storm. I wasn’t even sure where I was walking, only that we passed several statues made of stone and that we were headed to the large manor that was lit up in the darkness of the storm.
Why were they taking us here? Was it because I trespassed? Surely, trespassing wouldn’t cause this much aggression.
One of the other men pulled open the wooden two door entrance and we all walked inside. With my hair still pulled back, I was only able to take in the sights of the ceiling; a rusty old tint of gold layered everything, with the entire ceiling looking to be a design of several clock gears overlapping in this artistically messy way. Every few feet was a light, but in the dead center of the room was a massive chandelier with at the very least over fifty crystal prisms hanging from it, making it look like a rather large, circular lit up flower.
We walked down a few steps into the entrance hall which was sunken in, and the floor was shiny and gold like we were standing on a sheet of glass that was merely reflecting the ceiling and the glowing lights. Captain lame hair threw me onto the floor and I slid like I was on ice. A second later, Melanie was thrown to the floor beside me. She was completely shaken looking, so I put my hand on top of hers hoping I could be someone that she could look to for strength. I think knowing she was scared made me feel a little braver, or at least that I should be a little braver. If I were on my own, I don’t think I’d be able to stand, let alone not fall apart.
I tried to get a feel for where we were, so I slyly peeked around the room. It was a massive, massive entrance hall with several bronze pillars on each side of the room that propped up the second floor indoor balcony. The room’s windows, which looked a lot like church windows, started a good seven feet above where we stood and reached all the way to the ceiling. There were two large staircases in both corners of the room, and in between them was a spacious area that seemed to lead to another wing of this mansion. I just couldn’t see far enough.
“What do we have here?” a deep, quavering voice asked. It startled me at first because of how close it sounded, and when I looked up, I couldn’t believe what I saw; it was an older man, perhaps in his sixties or beyond, seated in a damn throne just a few feet in front of me. A throne. He had long black dreadlocks that draped over his shoulders and chest, and the tips had all gone gray. He wore this tacky red cotton coat with silver and gold buttons sewn on the sides. It was longer than his entire body and half of it was slung over the arms of his luxurious golden seat. He looked like a king.
“I saw this one sneaking around the property. The compound reeked of her,” the blond said to the man on the throne. “Me and the others tracked her scent to some shithole motel in town. Looks like they’ve only been here for a day.”
“And the other?” the man in the throne asked, surely referencing Melanie.
“They came together. We can’t exactly leave anyone behind.”
What did that mean? Leave anyone behind to call the police after they dumped my body in the lake?
The man at the thrown leered down at me; his seat was on a stand a couple feet above me, making me feel so insignificant in his presence. “What were you doing snooping around our property?” he asked.
I tried to answer, but at first, nothing would come out and my mouth just hung open. I didn’t realize how terrified I was until I was forced to speak. After a couple hard swallows, I managed to squeak out a response. “I swear I don’t know anything.”
The blond mockingly laughed and folded his arms. “Funny how you would know to say something like that.”
“What exactly is it that you don’t know?” the older man asked, leaning forward in his seat with a surge of interest. Leave it to me to put my foot in my mouth.
I caught Melanie in the corner of my eye pleadingly staring in my direction. I could tell she was thoroughly confused by our conversation and irritated that I had left her in the dark.
“We were thrown into the back of a car in the middle of a storm, I figured there must be something you didn’t want me to know,” I lied, though my trembling voice betrayed me.
The blond scoffed openly. “Nice cover story.”
The man at the throne held his hand up and said, “Enough,” to the blond, who rolled his eyes, but went silent as he was ordered to.
“Do you know who I am, child?” the man asked me.
I shook my head.
“My name is Aga Clementine and this is my home. We don’t allow trespassers and you have indeed wandered where you weren’t welcome. We can’t have that, and there must be consequences for such reckless actions.”
This sounded like a speech he had recited often and he said it in such a cold, calculated fashion that I knew I wasn’t about to be on the receiving end of his pity. I panicked, fearing that I had not only put myself in unnecessary danger, but Melanie as well. We weren’t close, not by a long shot, but we were family and she didn’t deserve to be killed or imprisoned because of one stupid decision I made.
“My cousin has nothing to do with this,” I told them, spitting it out quickly before he could officially announce my execution. “I just asked her to come on a vacation with me. She wasn’t even the one on the property, I swear. Just let her go. I’m to blame for whatever damage that’s been done.”
“As noble as your plea may be, it is, unfortunately, pointless. She is here now. She knows.”
“No, she doesn’t! She doesn’t know anything!”
“What are you going to do to us?” Melanie asked, her face full of dread.
I shut my eyes, wanting to shield myself from whatever answer this man named Aga would give. Why did Melanie have to ask? I wanted to live in blissful ignorance for as long as possible. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be sudden and painless. I didn’t want to be burdened with the knowledge of it beforehand.
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