The bottle was in her hand, but she had no memory of having taken it from her purse. The cap was off, too, and the medicinal smell of the alcohol burned in her nostrils. Her tongue felt parched and dry; she was so goddamned thirsty.
Angrily, she hurled the bottle away from her. It sailed out over the railing and the water beyond, disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico with an impotent and unsatisfying splash that did not match the wave of emotions that were roiling up inside her.
“You’re not really supposed to be chucking things off the pier,” a familiar accented voice said quietly at her shoulder, and Jeff came to stand beside her. She didn’t look at him.
“No, I guess not,” she said, angry at the way her voice trembled on the words.
“That said, I can’t say I’m sorry to see you get rid of that bottle. I like you better like this.” He placed a hand over hers where it rested on the flaking paint of the rail. “Are you okay, Case?”
She could see his face in her mind’s eye without looking at him—the concern in those golden eyes, the line that would appear between his dark brows. She still didn’t know where he was from, what that accent was…
“Sure,” she said, still not meeting his gaze because she knew the tears in her eyes would betray her.
There was a long silence between them, and she knew he was watching her, even as she watched the sun slowly dip into the sea, gilding the tops of the waves.
“You’re not,” he said finally, squeezing her hand. “It’s time for you to go home, Casey. Time for you to ease your family’s grieving.”
Casey’s insides twisted. New guilt—hotter and more painful than what she’d felt out by the van—burned in her guts.
“I know,” she tried to say, and although her lips formed the words, her voice failed her.
They stood there, watching the sunset and the sky streak with pinks and purples before fading to a royal blue and black.
At last, she turned toward him. His hair was flowing out behind him in the wind off the water, and the dying rays of the sun made his eyes glitter like coins. He looked like some painter’s ideal of a proud, savage warrior from the days of yore, only dressed in jeans and a Tony the Tiger t-shirt.
“Jeff,” she said, and this time her voice was steady.
He bowed his head in his characteristically theatrical way, letting her know he was listening without saying a word. Somehow he managed to never take his eyes from hers when he did that. It was just another one of those strange and exotic things about him—one of the things she liked.
“Come with me.”
“Come with you?”
“Yeah. Come home with me.”
She stared into his face, trying to put all the desperate hope she was feeling into that look. She knew it was unfair… desperately unfair. She shouldn’t be asking him of this now—not yet. But what was done was done. The words had passed her lips, and they hung in the air between them.
“Of course I will,” he said, squeezing her hand again. “I don’t know if I’m crazy for going or not. Your mother might have me lynched.”
“No, she won’t,” Casey said, relief flooding through her. “You’ll be the hero who brought me home.”
“I guess we’ll see about that.” Jeff offered her his arm. “Come on, Case. Let’s find the others and go get some dinner.”
***
Leave it to her little band of friends to find a pizza joint like this one.
Casey wasn’t sure what the motif was supposed to be; she suspected there was no motif at all. Chivalrous Pizza and Pasta might have once started out as having a medieval theme—the oversized pizza pans on the walls like shields emblazoned with coats of arms certainly suggested as much. The forest-green uniform dress worn by their server looked like something out of an especially risqué version of Robinhood. But the effect was marred by the 1950’s jukebox filled with 1980s records and the boomerang formica tops on the tables. There were also a pair of very modern flatscreen TVs hanging at either end of the dining area, each blasting baseball games to the room at large. Between the cacophonous din of the announcers, the diners, and Duran Duran on the jukebox, they were reduced to screaming at one another to hold a conversation.
“Where the fuck’s our order?” Gavin complained, eyeing the shaker of parmesan cheese in front of him as if he were contemplating unscrewing the top and downing its contents.
“Do you ever think about anything but food?” Lisa shouted, toying with the straw in her Coke.
“No.”
Their server sidled up to the table, carrying a couple of pizzas. She leaned over the table, setting the pies down on the wire racks already waiting for them, giving Gavin an eyeful down the front of her blouse as she did.
“Okay, yes. Sometimes,” he amended, flashing Lisa a wicked grin. She just rolled her eyes.
“Your wings will be out in a second,” the server bellowed over the noise and moved away.
The pizza was good, and Casey couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so hungry. She set upon her slices ravenously, keeping up with Gavin’s mechanical efficiency as he put away one piece after another.
“Breathe, Casey,” Jeff said, smiling at her from across the table.
“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “And leave some for the rest of us. Between you and Gavin, we’re gonna end up with just the crusts!”
Casey tried to slow down. She let her gaze focus on the TV. She knew so little about baseball, really. She wasn’t even sure which teams were playing, though she thought one was called the Tigers. She wished they were hockey games—but it was too early for that yet. With a pang, she realized that the start of NHL training camp was only a few weeks away now. School would be starting again soon—what would have been her senior year. What still might be, she supposed, if she went back home.
She didn’t think there’d be any hockey for her though. Not this year—maybe never again—and not just because her heart broke every time she stepped out onto the ice and Emily wasn’t beside her.
Casey blinked away the tears that started to blur her vision. Goddammit.
She took another bite of her pizza as the game went to a commercial. A woman in a newsroom was talking, but Casey couldn’t hear what she was saying. A still image was superimposed beside her though, showing an enormous hairy animal that Casey couldn’t quite identify as either a bear or a gorilla. A caption ran across the bottom of the screen: “Has Big Foot finally been found in British Columbia? Tonight at 11.” That made her laugh. She turned to see if anyone else had been watching, and she found Jeff staring at the screen with ferocious intensity. He hadn’t apparently found it as funny as she had, though.
“Here are your wings!”
The server was back, and she slammed a platter of Buffalo chicken wings down on their table before scurrying away again.
The aroma of the wings reached her just as she was reaching for one, and suddenly she wasn’t hungry anymore. She felt sick—almost faint. She set down the last of her pizza and leaned back against the booth, wondering why she felt so awful. But of course she knew why.
“Dibs!” Gavin cried as he scooped up half a dozen wings from the platter.
“Fuckin’ pig!” Lisa cried.
And all at once, tears were running down Casey’s cheeks, and all she wanted in all the world was to be alone and away—far away—from those fucking chicken wings.
She slid out of the booth and wended her way between the tables—not quite running, but walking fast, her head down. She pushed her way through the knot of people near the doors waiting for tables, and then she was outside.
She wasn’t sure if the warm, muggy night air was any better, but at least there were fewer people out here, and the din of the music and the baseball was muffled to a low drone.
She stumbled toward the van, the tears becoming sobs, and not remembering until she reached it that it would be locked. She didn’t have a key.
“Fuck,” she muttered through gulps of air. “Fuck fuck fuck…”
She knelt beside the passenger’s side door, pulled off her glasses, let her head fall into her hands, and gave herself over to the crying.
Time passed. After a while, she reached for her purse, realizing belatedly that it was still beside Gavin where she’d been sitting in the booth, and that her vodka was gone anyway—out there sinking to the bottom of the fucking Gulf of Mexico. The thought only made her cry harder.
You need to get a grip, Case, Emily’s voice chided in her head.
“Shut up.”
I won’t.
No, of course she wouldn’t. Emily never had let Casey languish in the funks of self-pity she sometimes drifted into when things didn’t go her way…when she got a poor grade on a test…when she missed a goal. Because Emily knew what mattered—what really mattered. She’d always known better than Casey, and for years, she’d kept Casey, in her upper-middle-class house with her upper-middle-class parents and their two nice cars and big screen TVs, grounded.
“Why, Em,” Casey whispered into her hands. “Why did it have to be you.”
An arm came around her, and Casey froze. She hadn’t heard anyone approaching, but she knew the feel of that arm—knew the warmth of that body against hers.
“It’s okay, Casey,” Jeff said gently. “It’s just me.”
He pulled her to her feet and thumbed the button on his keyring that unlocked the van. He opened the door for her, and she climbed into the space behind the front seats with its colorful characters on sleeping bags and pillow cases.
Jeff climbed in after her, closing the door behind him.
For a long time, they only looked at one another. Casey’s tears had stopped as quickly as they’d come, but her face felt wet and hot, and her eyes burned. She wondered where her glasses had gone, but then Jeff was pushing them into her hand, and she slipped them on again.
“I’m sorry,” she said through small gasps, her voice low and croaky. Jeff moved to sit beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side.
“It’s okay.”
Gradually, Casey’s breathing slowed, and she relaxed against him. She felt safe here—at home in the van with its faint smells of weed and booze and electronics.
It’s time, Casey, Emily said in her head, and for once, Casey didn’t mind. That voice was right, of course. It was time.
She pulled away from Jeff and turned to face him. For the hundredth time she missed her contacts—she could see so much clearer with them than these old glasses with their outdated prescription. But they were what she had, so she focused on his face as best she could.
“It’s all right if you don’t want to come with me,” she said, blinking back the tears that threatened again as she spoke those words. She wasn’t sure the words were true, but she knew it was the right thing to say, and so she said them anyway.
“I already told you I would,” Jeff said easily, smiling at her. “Unless you don’t want me to…”
“No,” Casey said quickly. “I do want you to. But there’s something else, Jeff.” She took a deep breath. She could already feel the heat in her face, but he was just looking at her, his eyes filled with concern and mild curiosity.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “I’m going back with you. I promise.”
“Jeff…I’m pregnant.”
There was a long, long silence. Jeff’s expression didn’t change for the span of half a dozen heartbeats.
“You’re what?” he asked, and it couldn’t have been more plain that he was utterly stunned.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, and now the tears did come again, and she found she couldn’t look at him. She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands.
“You can’t be,” Jeff said flatly.
That almost made Casey laugh with bitter amusement. So fucking typical.
“It can be, and it is. I bought the test last night. It was positive.”
Silence.
“But…it can’t be…”
Suddenly, Casey was angry.
“Why, Jeff? Why can’t it be? We’ve only slept together…what, fifteen times in the last month? Twenty? That’s generally how it’s done. Only I was half drunk most of the time, so I didn’t think about what could happen. And now it has.”
Jeff’s hand was on her shoulder, squeezing gently and pulling her to him.
“No, Casey. You misunderstand me.” He held her against him, and all the rage leaked out of her again. Was this what the next few months were going to be like? A rollercoaster of emotions she couldn’t predict, let alone control?
“It really shouldn’t be possible. Remember what I told you when you asked about my scars?”
It took Casey a moment to remember.
“You said you were born too soon. I don’t really know what you meant…”
“Casey…I’m not like you. I’m not even technically human.”
Casey grew very still.
“What do you mean? That’s the stupidest—”
“It’s been happening for a long time now,” Jeff said, talking as much to himself as to her. “A couple hundred years, some say. But it is happening faster now…so much faster.”
“What’s happening?” Casey pulled away from him, not sure whether to be angry or scared at the way he was talking.
“Haven’t you been paying attention to the news? Most people don’t realize it yet. They’re too busy with the crazy election and the wars and the scandals. They haven’t noticed all the weird stuff that’s happening more and more often. Just now, in there on the TV, ‘Big Foot’ found in British Columbia…” He made air quotes with the hand that wasn’t holding her. “It’s almost every day now, and people are going to start noticing eventually.”
“Jeff, you’re not making any fucking sense.”
“I know. Because it doesn’t make any fucking sense. People like me aren’t supposed to exist. We didn’t exist, and now we do…more and more of us all the time.”
Jeff stopped abruptly, sucking in air between his teeth.
“Fuck, Casey…this is bad.”
She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure whether to fear for his sanity or her own. But as she looked into his eyes, suddenly full of fear and pain, a new voice—not Emily’s this time—drifted to the forefront of her memory. Something about three dead at a medical center…and all three drained of blood. And there was more, wasn’t there? A plane that had vanished over St. Louis with no wreckage or signs of a crash…and…
But no…that was crazy. Totally batshit.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, wanting to shut off the voices in her head and ease the anguish she saw blooming in Jeff’s face. “We’ll get through this together, right? You’ll come back with me, and…” She looked at him hopefully, but Jeff had let go of her and dropped his head into his hands this time.
“You don’t understand,” he said again.
“What?” she said, her voice rising. “What don’t I understand?”
“You can’t go back now.”
“Oh, now I can’t go back. I’m pregnant, not dying!”
“Casey…” Jeff broke off, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He lowered his hands and looked at her, and there was something very close to terror in his eyes now—and it made Casey’s blood run cold.
“It’s not going to be human,” he said softly.
She stared at him, but all she saw was fear, and pain, and sincerity.
“Jeff,” she said, matching his tone. “That’s crazy.”
Jeff turned his head to one side, looking toward the back of the van, and Casey followed his gaze, but all she saw were the mounds of music gear piled against the rear doors. She looked back at him.
Jeff was reaching up with a trembling hand toward his face. Carefully, he pulled the mass of long black hair away from his neck and shoulders.
“Look, Casey,” he said, and the words were little more than a whisper.
At first, Casey didn’t know what she was seeing. I
t looked like just another strand of hair growing from the back of Jeff’s neck—a little stiffer than the others…a little thicker…
But then it twitched, and Casey’s heart leapt in her chest. She scrambled back a few inches, instinctively putting space between herself and that…thing.
Jeff let go of his hair and it fell over his shoulders again.
“I’m not human,” he repeated. “And it wasn’t supposed to be possible…for me to make a baby with a human. They told me it wasn’t possible.”
Casey’s heart was hammering in her chest so hard it hurt. She wanted to run, to flee from the van and the band and run as fast and as far as she could.
But she’d done a lot of running lately, and Jeff’s golden eyes were looking at her with such desperate pleading that she found she couldn’t look away.
“But it’s happening so much faster now,” he went on. “Maybe this is part of it.”
He moved closer to her, and Casey stiffened, afraid to let him touch her—but when he put his arms around her and pulled her close, it felt warm…and familiar…and safe…
“We will get through this,” he said. “Whatever the baby is.”
Samhain
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Darkness enveloped him like a shroud as he headed westward through the mountains. The shadows were his—they protected him, they gave him safe passage through the night, and here, far from the lights of the city, they were nearly absolute. He could smell them, a fragrance as clean as sandalwood. He could taste them, as sweet as the waters of a mountain spring. He could feel them, brushing across his cheeks like the silken kisses of a lover.
Only the stars shone their meager light upon the black cloth of his coat, wide-brimmed hat, and trousers. In an hour or so, the moon would rise, and its silvery light would glisten on the shiny leather of his gloves and shoes, making them appear wet in the dark. He loved that look. It filled him with the same delicious joy as the blood that dripped from his blade.
He had, perhaps, stayed too long in the city. But there had been so much there to see…so much to feast upon…so much flesh to feed his insatiable hunger. How many had fallen? More than a dozen, he thought, but less than two. He’d left them in back alleys and on street corners—left them for the milkmen…and the postmen…and the policemen to find.
Haven Divided (The Dragon's Brood Cycle Book 2) Page 36