Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3)

by Patrick Logan

  Begrudgingly, Corina rose from the floor and walked briskly to the pile of gifts. After no more than a cursory glance, she grabbed one off the top of the pile, briefly inspected the name tag, and then suddenly flung it at Oxford.

  “Corina!” Cody shouted, but Oxford turned in time to catch the present before it struck him square in the chest.

  “What?” she replied, a devilish look on her face. “You said get a present.”

  She paused, meeting her father’s stern glare.

  “Besides, I knew Uncle Ox would catch it.”

  Oxford took it in stride.

  “‘Tis true,” he said, raising his chin high in the air. “In my past life, I was Babe Ruth.”

  Henrietta giggled, as did Seth. Jared turned and saw that his partner had put his knees back to his chest and had turned toward him after Corina had refused their offer of sitting between them.

  So damn cute, he thought, observing Seth’s rosy cheeks and goofy smile.

  This time Marley broke the silence.

  “Open it, Oxford, the little ones are fading.”

  She nodded in Corina’s direction, and the soon-to-be teenager rolled her eyes before sitting back down at her mother’s feet.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Oxford joked, and Henrietta laughed again.

  “Boss!” she squeaked.

  Pinching the red-and-green wrapping paper between thumb and forefinger, the youngest Lawrence brother pulled the paper off in one tear.

  “Awesome,” he said, holding an object up for everyone to see.

  In his pale right hand was a palm-sized sphere of bubble wrap.

  “Wow,” he continued, pretending to examine the package closely. “I’ve always wanted one of these!”

  Jared glanced over at Corina, who was leaning forward impatiently now, her arms wrapped around her knees. The girl rolled her eyes, and Jared caught her mother doing the same.

  “Open it!” Corina demanded.

  “Okay, okay,” he replied, finally relenting.

  The man tore into the package in a way that seemed curiously desperate despite his previous charade. As the bubble wrap fell to the floor, Oxford’s eyes widened.

  “Is this...?”

  Jared craned his neck, trying to see what his brother was holding.

  “Oh my God, is this real?”

  Oxford’s voice had turned serious.

  Finally, unable to contain himself, Jared asked what it was. Even Seth—more drunk than buzzed, he realized—had turned and was trying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious gift.

  Oxford rotated the round object toward the other couch, showing Jared the baseball. There appeared to be writing on the white surface, and although it was nothing more than squiggles from his distance, Jared assumed that it was a signature. Then Oxford spoke again, and his silent query was answered.

  “Mariano Rivera,” he said, awe creeping into his voice. He turned to face his brother beside him on the couch. “How?”

  Cody was beaming.

  “How did you get this?”

  “I didn’t get it,” Cody said, “Corina and Henrietta did.” He paused. “See? This is why you always read the card!”

  Oxford ignored him and gestured toward his niece.

  “Get over here!” he demanded, and again Corina rose and made her way to her uncle. The embrace was tight, and Jared felt his smile returning. Oxford kissed her on the cheek, and the girl made a face before wiping away the wetness with her fingers.

  “Thank you!” Oxford said as she retreated back to her spot on the floor in front of her mother.

  “Don’t sit down,” Jared said, then urged her excitedly toward the pile of gifts. “Go get the next one!”

  Although the smile on Corina’s face faltered slightly, she obliged, grabbing a card this time from the stack of gifts. She glanced at Jared as if to ask, “Is this okay?” to which Jared nodded enthusiastically.

  “This one is for you, Daddy,” she said, and this time, instead of throwing the gift, she walked it over.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Cody replied, taking the card from her outstretched hand. He made a move as if to kiss her on the cheek, but Corina quickly retreated before his lips reached her.

  Cody chuckled and brought the card up to his face.

  “Oooh,” he said jokingly, “‘it’s from Jared.”

  Then he mock shook the card, poised to catch anything that might fall out.

  “Just open it, Cody,” Marley instructed, her patience clearly having run out.

  One glance at Henrietta’s slumped body and Cody dropped the act. After offering the front of the card a polite, cursory glance, he opened it. Even after previously shaking the card as if expecting money or a check to fall out, he was caught off guard by the small, rectangular piece of paper that fell onto his lap. Cody picked it up with one hand while reading the card that he held in the other.

  Jared watched and waited, smirking at the confusion that swept over his brother’s features. He had been smiling so much this evening that his cheeks were starting to hurt.

  “Well?” Marley said when Cody turned his attention to the rectangular piece of paper. “What does it say?”

  Cody didn’t answer right away. When he finally did open his mouth to respond, Oxford, who had been leaning on his brother trying to read both the card and the rectangular paper, suddenly reached over and snatched the smaller of the two from Cody’s hand.

  Cody made a small cry and moved to grab it back, but Oxford turned his body away from him and read it out loud.

  “Johnston Dupree,” he said, his face a mask of confusion. “Director of Talent Recruitment.”

  Cody tried to snatch the card back again, but Oxford turned completely sideways on the couch and kept reading. Jared laughed.

  “Torchlight Publishing, one-five-nine-four—”

  “Okay, okay, give it back,” Cody said, and Oxford stopped reading, turned, and handed the card back to his older brother.

  “A business card?” Marley asked, confused.

  Cody looked down at the card once more.

  Jared could tell by the expression on Cody’s face that he knew it wasn’t just any business card, as Marley had so frankly put it. He turned to Seth and was surprised to see that his partner’s eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply. But that was okay; after all, the man had never been much of a drinker.

  “How did you get this?” Cody finally asked, looking up at Jared.

  Jared shrugged.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Thoughts of his long flight from LA to Northern Vermont—with two stopovers, no less—picking up the wrong attaché case when he had gone to freshen up, and then seeking out the owner flashed in his head—clichéd, yes, but it was actually a rather lengthy tale.

  Jared glanced quickly at Marley, whose expression was a cross between boredom and annoyance, before quickly turning back to Cody, who was staring at him expectantly.

  “No, really,” Jared protested, “it is a looooong story. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Cody paused and glanced down at the business card in amazement; Johnston Dupree was one of the most highly sought-after literary agents in the entire country.

  “Wow,” he said almost breathlessly. “Thank you.”

  Jared felt tears beginning to well in his eyes and he looked away.

  “Corina? Do you want to hand out the next gift, please?”

  3.

  Cody Wasn’t Sure Why he had awoken. He lay in the dark for a moment, eyes open, listening to Marley’s slow and steady breathing beside him. At first he thought that it had been Henrietta crying again—God knows it had been a nightmare putting her to bed. For some reason, she had awoken during the gift unwrapping in sheer terror, and calming her had been nearly impossible. They had tried everything, and only after two full hours of screaming had she not so much fallen asleep as passed out from sheer exhaustion. It had been strange, and more than a little unnerving, as she had been sleeping well for the past few mont
hs. Even though Corina was more than a decade older than her sister, and time, if nothing else, muddled memories, he would have sworn that she had never been as irate as her sister had been that evening.

  Cody sighed and listened closely.

  Nothing.

  After listening for a moment longer, he picked up Henrietta’s faint snoring in the portable crib by the foot of their bed.

  Cody turned his head and glanced at the clock that sat atop the bedside table: 4:07.

  Why did I wake?

  Then he heard it: an audible, if muted, high-pitched beep that came from somewhere outside their bedroom door. Cody continued to lie in the dark and waited another thirty seconds.

  Beep.

  Yep—it was definitely coming from outside his door.

  With a sigh, he gently pulled back the covers and slithered out of bed. As soon as his bare feet touched the hardwood, he instinctively drew them back and sat on the bed with his feet hovering; the floor was as cold as a sheet of ice.

  The sudden movement caused Marley to stir, but when he glanced over, he saw that her eyes were still closed, her breathing still rhythmic. He held his breath, waiting for Henrietta to wake in a fit of fury, but thankfully she remained asleep as well.

  Cody looked at the clock again: 4:07—still.

  Strange.

  Instead of rummaging around in the dark to try and find his slippers and risk waking both Marley and Henrietta, he decided to brave the cold floor. He involuntarily sucked in a tight breath when his feet touched the floor again, but this time he forced himself to his feet.

  Jesus, are the floors always this cold?

  After a few careful steps, he managed to reach the door without waking anyone. The doorknob was nearly as cold as the floor.

  Beep.

  As quietly as possible, Cody pulled the door open and stepped into the pitch-black hallway.

  4.

  Oxford Wasn’t Sleeping. It wasn’t a case of not being tired; on the contrary, he was absolutely exhausted. Although he couldn’t remember what time he had gone to sleep the night prior—hell, he couldn’t remember much at all about last night—he knew it must have been late. And, besides, he had been drunk and high, meaning whatever sleep he had gotten had not been of good quality. Yet despite his drooping eyelids and almost crippling fatigue, he was unable sleep.

  It was the itching. The damn itching would not stop. It felt as if he had taken off his shirt and rolled around on pink fiberglass insulation.

  Even though he was in excruciating pain and even more devastating discomfort, Oxford forbade himself from scratching—a sort of demented penance. He only wished that he could exercise the same resolve when it came to other things in his life.

  Come

  It wasn’t the first few beeps that alerted him to the fact that something was wrong, nor was it that the air in his room had gradually cooled—a sensation that his sweating, shivering, itching body would not even register until much later—but rather, it was the absence of sound. It took Oxford a few moments to realize that the HVAC fan that usually whirred pleasantly all night like a soft, mechanical lullaby had stopped. When he heard the beep again, he decided to investigate.

  The cold floor beneath Oxford’s feet was a relief. He stood, pausing only for a brief moment to use a corner of the damp bedsheet to wipe the sweat from his brow, and left his room. As the only bachelor—aside from their newly widowed seventy-eight-year-old mother—he had offered to take the small room in the loft. Besides, it was the only room with an en suite bathroom, which meant—

  Stop. Don’t even think about it—not today, not with Mom sleeping soundly below.

  The stairway was unusually dark, for which Oxford was grateful; it would not bode well if he ran into any of his family members looking as terrible as he undoubtedly did. He slowly made his way down the staircase, and was again struck by the completeness of the darkness in the hallway below. It took but one more beep for him to locate the source of the sound, and when he did, he immediately knew what had happened.

  Fuck.

  The wind gusted suddenly, rattling the windowpanes above him, and in his hyper-agitated state he nearly leapt back up the stairs.

  Come

  Come

  The wind gusted again, harder this time, and Oxford turned toward the sound, squinting his eyes to peer out the dark windows.

  Was that a voice?

  He shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of the demons and squinted even harder, trying to make out anything through the window.

  It was no use; even though he knew that the entire lawn was blanketed with snow, there were no street lights or lights from other houses to reflect off of it. And tonight, of all nights, the moon had either failed to rise or had decided to remain hidden behind thick clouds.

  He heard another sound—not of the howling wind or the obnoxious beeping, but of a door opening. This time, though, he did not jump, but instead gritted his teeth and tried to stop himself from shaking.

  Thankfully, Cody noticed him almost immediately, and although Oxford could see the man’s eyes widen even in the near pitch-black darkness, his brother did not cry out.

  “The power is out,” Oxford whispered, re-clenching his teeth after speaking.

  “Fuck.”

  “Exactly.”

  A beep sounded, and Oxford saw Cody glance about nervously, trying to identify the source.

  “The fire alarm,” Oxford said, raising an index finger above his head. “To let us know it’s running on batteries.”

  Cody nodded. His pupils, which had returned to their normal diameter, traveled down Oxford’s still raised arm, and he fully observed his brother for the first time. His eyes widened again.

  “Why the hell are you half naked? It’s freezing in here!”

  Oxford hesitated, and that was a mistake. Cody’s brow furrowed.

  “Are you using again?” he asked in a vehement whisper. “Is that why you couldn’t look Mom in the face all night?”

  The man missed nothing.

  This time Oxford answered instantly.

  “No,” he lied.

  He made a conscious effort to stare into his brother’s eyes and not let his gaze wander.

  There was an awkward pause, one that Cody threw out like a net, waiting to see what Oxford would say or do to give himself away. The web, which to Oxford felt like it was made of filaments covered with tiny bees that stung his entire body, fell on him, but he resisted the urge to scratch.

  “We need to get the generator running,” Cody finally said, his eyes still squinting, accusatory.

  Oxford nodded, and only after his brother turned did he dare swallow the cue ball-sized lump in his throat.

  If he only knew.

  5.

  It Took Over An hour with both of them shoveling in the dark to finally gain access to the generator. Hell, it took almost twenty minutes for Cody and Oxford to walk the short distance around the house to the generator’s approximate location. The snow continued to fall even as they dug, making their efforts nearly as fruitless as digging a hole on the beach too close to shore. The larger drifts already reached Cody’s knees. What made it worse, aside from the fact that between them all they had was a crappy, two-dollar flashlight, were the branches: they were everywhere, sitting atop the snow or buried partway into the drifts like sprinkles tossed haphazardly atop a bowl of ice cream. Except these sprinkles were large. And sharp.

  “I think I can grab the pull cord now,” Oxford said, holding the flashlight close to the exposed top of the generator.

  Cody stood up straight, arching his back to alleviate some of the pressure that had built up over the last hour. He should have probably been sweating from exertion, but it was so cold that even this basic physiological function seemed to have shut down.

  “Give it a shot—”

  A gust of wind tore the words from Cody’s mouth, and he tucked his face deep into the collar of his thick down coat to avoid the brunt of it.


  Come

  Oxford raised one eyebrow.

  “You hear that?” he asked his brother.

  Oxford’s fingers finally grasped the plastic end of the starter cord and his grip tightened.

  “Hey,” he repeated when his brother failed to answer, “Did you hear that?”

  Cody looked down at him.

  “Hear what?”

  Oxford hesitated.

  “I dunno, it sounded like someone saying, ‘Co—’”

  A deafening crack sounded from somewhere behind them and off to the right, and both men instinctively ducked, throwing their arms above their heads protectively.

  The crack was followed by a horrible tearing sound, then a poof.

  “Jesus,” Oxford whispered breathlessly.

  He swung the flashlight to the area where the sound had originated, but the weak beam had a hard time illuminating the snowflakes a few inches from the bulb, let alone the dark forested area behind the house.

  “That was a big one.”

  Oxford grabbed the pull cord again, and this time he gave it a yank. The motor barely turned over. He pulled again. The generator mustered a faint whirr. He pulled again. And again. With each successive pull, the engine turned over more; then, like a man with tuberculosis finally clearing the mucus from his throat, it sputtered and roared.

  Oxford breathed deeply, trying to provide his burning, itching muscles the oxygen they desperately wanted.

  “About time,” he said. “Now let’s get back inside before we get raped by one of these falling trees.”

  6.

  Alice Dehaust Awoke With a horrible taste in her mouth and a blistering headache. When she first opened her eyes, there was only blackness. Confused, she closed them, and then opened them again. Panic began to set in, and a small whimper escaped her lips. Slowly, her visual field began to widen like a reverse pinhole, until her pupils let in too much light and she instinctively closed them for a second time. When she opened them next, her irises behaved and she could see normally.

  Where am I? was her first thought, closely followed by, How did I get here?