Chapter Twenty-Four
Holly slept almost all the way to Wednesday morning. She got up twice to use the bathroom and eat something small. Not that she had much of an appetite. She’d been awakened a third time by a phone call from Officer McDonahue saying Hendrick had not been caught. Just wonderful. It was as if the nightmares she’d been having had turned real.
She had checked on Keane, too, who had been sprawled out on the couch instead of in his bedroom. He’d appeared to be sleeping both times, which she knew he wasn’t. He didn’t sleep. He also didn’t get the crap beat out of him, but his face suggested otherwise.
She’d stood over him the second time for at least five minutes. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t given any indication that he knew she was there. He truly looked asleep. Had getting beat up caused his body to need sleep? What was happening to him?
And why, dammit, did you say you loved him?
Looking at the alarm clock by her bed now, she grumbled over it being time to get up for work. Two days out would never do. Always hard to get back on track after missing a day.
She silently got ready and choked down a quick breakfast. She stopped by the couch again before leaving, but Keane still appeared to be in a coma-level sleep. That thought made her reach down and touch his cheek. His eyes instantly opened.
“Hey,” he said.
“Morning.” She jammed her hand into the pocket of her jacket to keep it from lingering on his skin a little longer. “You looked like you were sleeping.”
“I think…” He sat up. “I think I was.” His brows knitted together as he looked up at her.
“Do you feel better?” He certainly looked better. The bruising had faded around his nose, his eye had cleared up, and the slices on his lip and his cheek were significantly mended only after a day’s time. Further proof he wasn’t a human. She couldn’t love him.
“Yeah, I do feel better. Nothing hurts.”
That makes one of us. “Good. I have to go to work. Got Open House tonight. Won’t be home until 7:30.”
At this information, Keane stood. “Did the police get Hendrick?”
“No,” she said. “I talked to Officer McDonahue yesterday. He managed to slip out of their grasp.”
“He’s full of surprises.” Keane kneeled on the couch and rested his elbows on the back of it so he was just below eye-level with Holly. A few inches and she could press her lips to his forehead. Why did she want to do that so badly?
“What time is Open House over?” he said. “I’ll come meet you. I don’t want you alone after dark.”
“I won’t be alone,” she said. “Officer McDonahue said he’d post guards at the school for the night. Assured me he’d be there personally.”
“And he and his team are doing such fabulous work catching Hendrick.” Keane gripped the back of the couch, his knuckles turning whiter than they usually were and that jaw muscle was in the locked position.
“You didn’t fare much better against him, Keane.” She hadn’t meant it as a dig, but it sounded like one. “Hendrick is full of surprises like you said.”
“Why isn’t the school cancelling Open House in light of recent events?” he asked.
“The school department wanted to send a positive message to families that the community is still what it used to be. That their children are safe with us and in the neighborhood. If we cancel, Hendrick wins.”
Keane nodded. “Makes sense, I guess.” He let out a slow breath and looked up at her. “Look, about what you said last night. About loving me. Although I want it too, I don’t know how we could make a relationship between us work, Holly.”
She quickly held up a hand. “Nonsense, right? I know. Stupid. I got swept up in all the emotion of you getting hurt and my parents and everything. My apologies. As soon as I do something important, you’ll be off to kill demons and keep someone else alive. We can’t be together. Shouldn’t be together. I get it.”
The words came out in a rapid-fire stream. Always happened to her when she was telling enormous lies. She wanted them to be together. She did love him. So much. Too much and the thought of him leaving her had her wanting to hide in the house so she’d never do something important. Keane would never be released from her if she didn’t achieve something.
Why don’t you chain him up in the basement, psycho lady? She shook her head.
“I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late.” She gave his hand a quick pat and bolted out the door. She nearly tripped down the front porch steps on her way to the car. As she sat behind the steering wheel, she collected the last scraps of her sane self. She started the car and turned the radio up to an obscene volume hoping it would do more than wake her up. She hoped the music would return a fraction of the normal life she had once been living.
After ten minutes of driving and three alternative rock bands assaulted Holly’s eardrums, Apple Hill Elementary School came into view. The rustic school looked wrong with police cars parked in the semi-circular driveway in front of it. Officers patrolled the perimeter, and she tried to shake off the chill invading her body as she pulled into the rear parking lot.
Officer McDonahue met her at the back door. “Hello, Holly,” he said as he held open the door.
“Morning, Jensen.” She took a good look at him. He, like Luke, was an attractive, well-mannered gentleman. Why couldn’t she pick one of them to love? One of the normal humans? It’d be so simple. She wouldn’t ever find herself trying to explain the abra cadaver to her parents if she could choose a regular man.
But she didn’t want a regular man. Keane had put a curse on her, dammit. That’s what he’d done. He’d made it impossible for her to want anyone else. He was a demon hunter, yet something honest, warm, and tender lurked inside him. Something protective. Something that called to her.
“Are you okay?” McDonahue walked beside her down the hallway to the school’s main office.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Fine.” She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. Just worried about Hendrick like everyone else.”
“How’s your friend?”
Holly froze in front of the office. “What?”
“Your friend. The one that was with you at the bar. The one who mysteriously disappeared while I was talking with you. The one who, according to one of my officers, refused medical attention after encountering Hendrick in an alley.” McDonahue slipped his hands into the pockets of his gray uniform pants and watched her face.
“He’s fine.” What more could she say?
“You’re not telling me something, Miss Brimmer.” He nodded to another officer headed into the office. “Is Mr. Malson your boyfriend?”
“I don’t know what Mr. Malson is, Officer McDonahue.”
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know.” He turned on his heel and strode out the front doors of the school where she could see him checking in with the other officers.
“Batting a thousand today, Brimmer.” She exhaled a long breath.
At lunchtime, Leora grabbed Holly and pulled her into the faculty bathroom near the teacher’s room.
“What is going on?” Leora said.
“I’m not sure anymore.” She shrugged.
“McDonahue asked me a million questions about your boyfriend this morning. What boyfriend?”
Good grief. “There’s no boyfriend, Leora. How did things go with Keith?” Changing the subject was a good plan.
“Forget Keith. Keith sucks.” Leora dismissed the topic with a wave of her hand. “Who’s this guy McDonahue is so concerned about? This Malson character?”
“No one, Leora. He’s no one. Or I’m no one to him. I don’t know.” Holly opened the bathroom door and went to the teacher’s room. She grabbed her lunch and headed back up to her room. It was a complete mess after having a substitute in there.
According her students, the sub had been “the coolest person alive,” which told Holly that the sub had been younger than her and new. Students always loved the new ones. They were like shiny toys, all sparkly
fresh from the package and naïve as hell. Holly had spent the better part of the first three periods puzzling through which of her plans the sub had actually chosen to follow. She wanted to get back on track for the last three periods and tidy up for Open House. She also wanted to call her house and make sure Keane was okay.
Stupid. You’re not going to do that. Of course he’s okay.
The rest of the afternoon passed in slow motion, but finally dismissal time came. Holly spent the next hour organizing her room to accept parental visits. She put out student work samples and some math games for families to try. She brought her first day PowerPoint presentation up on the computer and large TV screen in her room so it would run as parents and students streamed through the classroom. On a table by the homework board, Holly arranged packets of informational articles on ways parents could help students have a successful fifth grade year.
She stood by her desk and surveyed all that was her domain for one hundred eighty days a year. It looked as if she knew what she was doing. Not one indication in this classroom that her world was a complete disaster zone.
After a quick bite at a nearby sandwich shop, she opted to go back to school instead of stopping home before Open House. She hadn’t worked out what she’d say to Keane yet, but something had to be said. She couldn’t let that “I love you” just keep hanging out there between them. She had to take it back and lock it away for good.
Open House took her mind off Keane—some of it anyway—as she greeted and chatted with parents, current students, and former ones. She always liked when students came back to visit her. They were living, breathing examples that what she did in her classroom year after year meant something to someone. Apparently it didn’t mean something big enough to change the world, to set Keane free of her, but she liked to think she was making some small difference in these kids’ lives.
After she’d walked the last parents to her door and gave a “see you tomorrow” to their son, Holly buzzed around the classroom putting away the materials she’d displayed. As she was inside the storage closet at the back of her room, the squeak of a student chair echoed in the quiet.
“Hello?” She hoped this parent would be quick. Open House officially ended five minutes ago, but there were always parents who lingered. “I’ll be right out.”
After sliding the tub of math materials onto a shelf, she flicked off the closet light. Before she could exit the closet, hands came around her neck, and her scream was choked before it sounded. She was dragged out of the closet as her mind tried to remember even one of the moves Keane had shown her. Not at any of the right angles to execute a proper evasive maneuver, she gave in to an old standby—claw like a wildcat. She dug her nails into the hands pressing on her throat.
“It’s going to take more than that, Miss Brimmer,” a man’s voice rasped in her ear. “You cost me the boy the other morning. Now you owe me.” His breath was hot and foul. “Teachers wrote, ‘Alan Hendrick does not work to his full potential’ on this host body’s report cards. That scarred him as a child, Miss Brimmer. Children just want to be accepted for what they are. They don’t need some preachy bitch ragging on them to get motivated. To pay attention.”
Hendrick’s grip tightened on Holly’s neck, and she started to feel dizzy.
“Guess what, Miss Brimmer,” he whispered, his lips grazing her neck. “Alan Hendrick is paying attention now.”
She managed to let out a little whimper, and Hendrick’s body shivered at the sound of it as if he had thoroughly enjoyed the helpless noise. He turned her around, and she stared into green eyes behind wire-framed glasses. Hendrick wore a chin-length wig of wavy, dark brown hair and his mustache and beard had been shaven. Along with the contact lenses and glasses, he’d applied makeup to hide the scar across his brow. In a green dress shirt, brown corduroy blazer, and khaki pants, he looked like any other dad who had come straight from his office cubicle to visit his kid’s school. He didn’t look anything like his mug shot that had been passed around at the faculty meeting. Nothing like the man blocking Holly’s exit in the bar the other night.
Child abuser and master of disguise. She hated criminals with multiple talents.
“At this time, any parents and teachers still in the building should make their way to an exit. Thank you and enjoy your evening.” Mrs. Veraca’s voice rang over the intercom.
“We must follow the principal’s orders.” Hendrick used one hand to hold Holly painfully by the wrist and the other to push aside his blazer. Her eyes zoomed in on the hilt of a dagger at his waist. “If we don’t follow the rules, someone could get hurt.”
She nodded as her mind struggled to come up with a plan. Something. Anything. She did not want to leave the building with this lunatic. She wasn’t particularly fond of staying in her classroom with this lunatic either. No good options here.
“Get your bag, Miss Brimmer.” Hendrick yanked her over to her desk, picked up her school bag, and hung it on her shoulder. “Play the part now, or those cops outside will be putting you back together like a puzzle. A bloody one.” He flashed the dagger again.
Hendrick made her go down the stairs outside her classroom first. She thought about running ahead. She was fast, in shape, but voices in the stairwell told her that a child was at the bottom. Couldn’t risk Hendrick doing something to hurt anyone.
Instead, she took the steps slowly, aware of Hendrick following closely behind her. At the door, two parents chatted with the officer guarding there.
“This police officer is my uncle, Miss Brimmer!” a little, blond-headed kindergartener said as Holly and Hendrick approached.
The officer shook his head as the parents laughed. “Sara, let Miss Brimmer out. She’s had a long day.” He offered Holly a smile and nodded at Hendrick. “Have a nice night.”
“You, too,” Holly managed.
Hendrick said an abrupt thank you, paused a moment to watch the girl, then let Holly go ahead a couple of steps.
Doesn’t want to seem like he’s following me, Holly thought. Now that she had some space, she could think. She wanted to get Hendrick away from the kindergartener even though near the police officer was the best place to be.
Outside, the rear parking lot was dark except for one light shining down from the roof of the school. A few cars huddled around hers, and she instinctively walked toward it.
“Yes. Let’s go for a drive,” Hendrick said.
“The police are probably watching us. Hell, some of them are out here. They’ll come over if you get in with me. They think you’re a parent.” Holly stopped at the passenger side of her car.
“Laugh.” Hendrick put an arm on either side of her, pinning her to the car door.
Her stomach rolled. She wanted this night to be over. “What?”
“Laugh. The police will think you’re just a little whore, bringing a lonely dad home for some extra credit work.” He pressed his hips against hers, and she felt his arousal through his pants. “Playing with you will be fun, though I rather enjoyed playing with your friend in the alley the other night too.”
Hendrick smiled, and Holly noticed he was missing a tooth. Had Keane done that?
Keane. His name pumped adrenaline into her veins. She snaked her hand to the back of Hendrick’s neck. She had a moment to see his eyes widened behind his fake glasses. Had he not expected her to play along?
Good.
She sidestepped and switched positions with Hendrick. Letting her lips hover over his, she brought her knee up with every ounce of strength she had, connecting solidly with Hendrick’s crotch. As he bent forward and howled, she pushed on his shoulders until his head cracked back into the passenger side window. The glass spiderwebbed behind him, and green demon blood sprayed onto her clothes.
Holly fell to her knees, shielding her face. She scrambled to her feet, but Hendrick was quick, supernatural quick, just as Keane had said. His arms were around her waist and pulling her back to the ground before she could get free of the cars parked around hers.
The broken tar of the parking lot dug into her palms as Hendrick turned her around to face him. The last thing she saw before he flipped her over was the beam of a flashlight sweeping over the cars.
She let loose a scream her parents probably heard at the beach house, and the beam of light rushed toward her. Other beams followed from different directions, and Hendrick tried to untangle himself from her.
Tried to get away.
Holly did the first thing that popped into her mind. She wrapped her legs around Hendrick’s waist and kept him from getting up. He half-dragged her along the ground. Her dress ripped beneath her. The parking lot tore at her elbows, but she held on.
“Let go of me, bitch!” He dug his fingers into her thighs, but Holly only squeezed tighter.
“Hands up!” a police officer ordered.
She focused on the officer’s gun hanging over her face and pointing at Hendrick. Three other officers circled around the back of Hendrick.
“She won’t let go of me!” Hendrick shouted.
“I’m not some kid you can do whatever you want with,” Holly said. She wanted to squeeze the life out of Hendrick.
“Cuff him,” the officer said.
Two officers moved in, wrestled Hendrick’s hands to his back, and handcuffed him. Another set of hands slid beneath Holly’s arms and pulled gently until she sat up.
“Holly, let him go.”
When she looked up, she could see McDonahue’s face leaning over her. She unclenched her legs, let them fall to the ground, wondered how much of her underwear McDonahue had seen. The other officers pulled Hendrick to his feet and carted him away. McDonahue helped Holly stand, and he shrugged out of his jacket to drape it around her shoulders. Now that she was free of Hendrick, Holly’s entire body shook.
“Deep breaths. You’re all right now.” McDonahue rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “You just did something amazing, Miss Holly Brimmer.”
Amazing? Something important?
“I did, didn’t I?” She froze for a moment. What if she had done what she was supposed to do? Would Keane sense it? Would he leave right away? “I’ve got to go, Jensen.” She slid his jacket off and handed it to him.
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