“I think you'd be surprised, Ruby. We all have demons and dark sides. Some are just better at keeping tabs on them than others.”
“Some don't keep tabs on them at all,” I said, sounding a little more desperate and bitter than I'd intended.
“Well, here's your stop,” he said, parking me in front of the bathroom door. “You gonna be okay in there?”
“Yes, Matty,” I said, slapping my hands down on both of his shoulders. “I have done this before.”
“All right then. Have at it,” he replied, returning to the dining room. “Just yell if you need a hand. And if you're going to pass out, make sure you lock the door. If Jimmy finds you, you'll wish you had.”
His laughter trailed off as he rounded the corner, blending in with the banter coming from the other room. As I propped my head up in my hands, leaning my elbows on my knees, I peed another bottle of wine away. While I sat there, I realized that I never really had a family—not like his. I had parents, but that just wasn't the same thing. I wondered if one day it was possible to have a piece of what the Carmilos had created for themselves, then I laughed out loud until I choked on the bitterness of it. How would I accomplish that? Would I marry some normal human? Adopt some children for fear of recreating what I was? Try to hide from a world of werewolves and other things associated with my kind? Sean would never let that happen, nor would Cooper for that matter.
It was inescapable.
My life had been predetermined. My eyes welled with tears of mourning that I eventually shed for a life I never knew I wanted, then realized I could never have. I clenched my fists so hard my nails drew blood from my palms. The pain stung through my arms—it felt sweet and familiar.
Pain I knew.
Pain loved me.
Perhaps it was a marriage between pain and I that would fill the void in my life.
To have and to hold till death do us part.
4
“Hello?” I rasped groggily into the phone Matty had thrust in my face. He said the thing wouldn't quit ringing, so he decided to bring it to me. It was a restricted number calling—not a good way to start the day.
“Where are you, and why the fuck aren't you answering your phone?” Sean growled. I yanked the phone from my ear, my hungover mind swirling. “And don't you dare lie to me. You're in deep shit up to your eyeballs—you'd better hope I can dig you out of this mess.”
Matty stood in the doorway mouthing “who is it” at me incessantly.
“Sean,” I whispered, covering the mouthpiece of the phone, even though I knew it wouldn't make any difference.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked, clearly perturbed.
“I'm at Matty's parents' house. I stayed the night.” My reply was met with silence at first before a barely audible grumble rolled out of his chest. “You asked. You said not to lie, so there it is.”
“I'll be there in ten minutes. Be outside.”
He hung up before the slew of swears I started to spew actually made it out. I flung the bedding off of me and proceeded to rake my fingers through my mess of curls before getting down on hands and knees to track down my shoes.
“Where are you going?” Matty asked as I buried myself waist deep underneath the bed. I tossed a ballet flat out toward him before replying.
“Sean is coming to get me,” I said, the bed muffling the hostility in my reply. “I have to go.”
When I emerged with the other shoe, I slipped them on and made my way past Matty to the hallway bathroom, locking the door behind me. I squirted toothpaste onto my finger and attempted to wipe away the nasty film that coated everything in my mouth. As I spat it out in the sink, Matty knocked on the door. It bordered on pounding.
“Ruby,” he started, trying to cage the anger in his voice. “Why do you have to leave just because he wants you to?”
“It's complicated, Matty,” I explained, emerging from the bathroom along with the sound of the toilet flushing. “Unfortunately.”
“It seems like it's always complicated with the men you're around,” he sneered, letting the bitterness he felt bleed into his expression. “I'm worried about you, Ruby. Cooper, Sean...I don't trust them—not with you.”
“They're harmless, sort of,” I offered. “Please don't worry. It's really not how you think it is.”
“Isn't that what all abused women say?” he muttered under his breath as he turned to walk away.
“Matty!” I called after him, grabbing his arm to turn him to face me. “Do I look abused to you? I'm fine if I say I'm fine, okay? I know I can't make you understand that, but I wish I could. I had a great time last night with your family, and I love that we're friends, but there are things about me that won't ever make sense to you...can't make sense to you. If you're not able to handle that, then I need to know now. Last night your mom made me an offer that I don't want to refuse, but if you're not on board with who I am and how I live my life, then I'm going to have to. Please don't make me.”
I knew I was hitting below the belt, but I needed to make my point. He looked wounded; it made him look much younger than he was. He lowered his gaze slightly and took both my hands in his.
“You're my friend, Ruby. I'm not willing to lose that,” he said softly, standing close to me in the tight confines of the hall. “But know this, if either of them ever hurts you...” He couldn't finish his sentence, but the squeezing of his grip let me know what he was thinking. He emanated rage at the thought of it.
“I know, Matty,” I said, giving him a little smile. “Thank you.”
A creak of the floor alerted us to our audience at the far end of the hallway. We both turned to see his mother peeking around the corner. A mischievous grin crossed her face when she saw the two of us holding hands.
“I'm so sorry to interrupt you two, but there's a young man at the door for you, Ruby. He said you were expecting him,” she said, sounding slightly confused as she finished.
“Thank you, Carmen.” I dropped Matty's hands and started towards the front of the house. Matty followed tightly on my heels. He may have agreed to my terms, but it was obvious that he wasn't a fan of them. “I'm sorry he bothered you. I was supposed to meet him outside. I must be running late.”
“No bother at all, dear. He's quite a gentleman, in fact he was just complimenting me on my restoration of the original trim in the house. He said not enough people see the value in it,” she informed us, beaming with pride.
“Well, that is true,” I concurred, stopping beside her. “Thank you so much for having me last night. You have a wonderful family.”
I walked past her before she had a chance to snatch me up in another hug. I rounded the corner to see a darker eyed Sean than I was hoping for.
“Sean,” I said in greeting, though I wasn't certain it came across very warmly.
“Ruby,” he returned with the same level of friendliness. He easily turned up the charm factor as Carmen made her way over to us. “I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Carmilo. I should have known Ruby would have been running behind—she does seem to enjoy making people wait.”
“Nonsense, it was no trouble at all. And as for this one,” she said, slipping her arm around my waist, “you be nice to her. She's part of the family now.”
He smiled wide and nodded once, backing down to the threats of the middle aged Italian woman. I couldn't see her face, but there was the slightest vibe of protection coming from her. It was apparent that I really did have a new adoptive mother, and she wasn't about to let anyone, no matter how charming, mess with what she claimed as hers. I smiled outwardly before swallowing it with my hand as Sean shot me a quick but sharp glance.
“Thanks again, Carmen. Tell Dom goodbye for me, please,” I said as I backed away towards the door and Sean. “I'll see you at practice, Matty. I hope you enjoyed your birthday.”
“I did. Maybe we'll do something fun for yours,” he said flatly.
“Sounds good.”
“Shall we?” Sean asked, looking down at m
e while he gestured towards the door.
“Yep,” I replied with a wave to Matty and his mom. “Goodbye.”
They stood in the doorway as Sean and I made our way down the driveway to the street. My anger built with every step. I knew I was about to wave my hand slowly in front of a coiled rattlesnake, but I just couldn't help myself. When we arrived at his car, I snapped.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked, jerking my head to look back at the house. Carmen was still standing in the entrance, so I gave another wave and a smile to make like everything was fine.
“I told you to be waiting outside. You weren't,” he offered. “Get in your car. You're following me.”
“What's going on?”
“No time to explain. You wasted enough time in there. You'd better hope things haven't gotten worse.”
Against every fiber of my being, I shut my mouth and got in my car. I followed him north and out of the city, then wove through traffic on the highway at break-neck speed. Even with my heavily leaded foot, I was having a hard time keeping up.
Sean never drove crazily. I knew whatever I was headed toward was something I would rather be running from.
Intuition could be such a bitch.
5
We walked into a shitstorm.
In a backyard somewhere far outside of Boston, a mass of brothers surrounded what I presumed was a dead body. I was overwhelmed with their feelings of concern, grief, and sadness. I was paralyzed by their anger, hostility, and unadulterated rage, which I knew would shortly be turned on me. Sean had to physically drag me behind him as I dug in my heels—that was one angry mob I had no intention of cozying up to.
The closer we got, the harder it was to breathe. Their emotions were oppressive, clamping down on my lungs like tiny vices hellbent on preventing inflation. My skin crawled as my adrenaline spiked—I wanted to flee. Instead, I was thrust into the center of the emotional melee and smack dab into a bloody crime scene. My eyes fixed on the victim immediately, more accurately his chest; it was still moving.
“He's not dead,” I blurted out with the tact of a five-year-old. I was expecting a corpse, not a soon-to-be one.
“Looks like you’re losing your touch, Bitch,” Jer snarled, welcoming me to the mess. “Oh, right...it's not actually you who's to blame, it's that other Bitch.”
I said nothing while I stared in morbid awe of the man that lay before me. My brain couldn't comprehend how he was still alive. Something in the DNA of the brothers must have made them tougher than the average human because it was highly suspect that a mere human could have survived even half of the injuries he'd sustained.
His throat was so badly torn out that I was certain I was looking at his cervical spine through the moist, hanging bits that surrounded and clung to it. His shirt was shredded, his arms covered in defensive wounds—I definitely saw bone there. The spot he occupied in the yard was slightly depressed, causing his blood to pool around him; it must have been two or more inches deep. The wound had clearly been spurting blood at some point, but wasn't anymore. With every slowing heartbeat, I could see it weakly push out of his neck, dripping down his chest. I knew it had been spraying due to the unintentionally spattered wardrobe of a few of those surrounding me.
It was macabre, abstract human art.
I found myself floating towards the victim, unaware that my feet were even moving. I had to see him more closely—something about his energy called to me. The protests to my approach faded into the background; I paid no attention to them. I foolishly believed that nobody would hurt me as long as Sean was around and still convinced of my innocence.
When I came to hover above the dying brother, I realized that he was a boy, not a man at all—at least he looked that way. He could have been three hundred years for all I knew, but staring down at the bloodstained face of a teenager and seeing the terror in his eyes negated his true chronological age. In my eyes, he was a boy, and my body burned with rage.
“Why aren't you doing anything?” I screamed at Jer before turning to Sean. “Help him! And where the fuck is Sophie?”
I was met with hybrid stares of confusion and hatred from the crowd around me. I was also met with a vicious right cross to the temple, courtesy of Jer. My body crashed violently to the ground before I could even get a hand out to break my fall. I saw stars as I tried to press my torso up out of the dirt. My efforts were in vain, so I pressed my cheek to the cool dirt beneath me hoping it would help ease the splitting pain that was pulsating through my head.
“Stay down, Bitch!” Jer yelled over the top of me, before slamming his boot-clad foot down into the small of my back for emphasis. I didn't see what Sean did in response, but the noise it made rang out, echoing for a long time. I wanted to smile as I heard Jer groan on the ground not far from me, but my head hurt entirely too much for that.
“Where is Sophie?” Sean asked the group surrounding him. He sounded positively frantic by Sean standards.
I heard the tearing of fabric and the muttering of words that either weren't English, or weren't comprehensible by my damaged mind.
“Fuck! It's not working,” he growled. “I need her here now!”
My face was turned away from the vast majority of the action as I lay on the ground. I could see through the sparse forest of legs around that someone was approaching from the front of the yard. Long, thin, naked legs were walking in my general direction.
“Sophie,” I mumbled into the ground. I tried, more successfully, to get myself off my dirty resting place, then stumbled into one of the brothers, nearly falling over again. I clutched his arm while I tried to get the scene in front of me to stop spinning. To my surprise, he granted me use of his arm.
Sympathizer...let me see his face.
The Jer-like face that looked down at me made me jump at first, undoing anything I'd just accomplished by standing still. Jay gave me a wan smile before looking back at Sean as Sophie pulled up beside him.
“Fix him, now,” Sean barked at her without greeting. “You can explain where the fuck you've been later.”
Sophie said nothing as she knelt down beside the boy, running her hand gently through his hair to soothe him. She closed her eyes dramatically, throwing her head back to inhale deeply. Startled, she snapped her head almost immediately back up to look at Sean. Her face looked beyond hopeless.
“Do something!” he yelled, as she gently stood to stand face to face with him.
“I can't,” she said mournfully. “Not anything helpful.”
He stood looking at her for a brief moment, his mouth agape. I'd never seen him at a loss for words before.
“What are you talking about? You've never been unable to heal us...not in the centuries you've served,” he said disbelievingly, before grabbing her upper arm and throwing her to the ground beside the victim. “Fix. Him.”
“I have never been unable to heal those that have needed it in those centuries because you've never presented me with a man marked for death,” she explained, still sitting where Sean had thrown her. “Death is already upon him, Sean. I cannot help him. To try would only cause him more pain than he's already in. It would be cruel. I won't do it.”
“You're refusing to fulfill your duties,” Sean stated as fact rather than question. “You know the penalty that carries.”
The flash of terror in Sophie's eyes spoke volumes; she knew all too well what the penalty was. I wondered if everyone else present did too—everyone but me. As Sean made a move for her, Jer came out of nowhere to stop him, accosting his arm as it shot forward for her. It was aimed at her throat.
“Sean,” Jer said respectfully but firmly. “Sophie would never fail us intentionally; you should know that better than anyone. If she says it can't be done, it can't be.” He let Sean's arm go, but held his gaze. “You refuse to believe your pet could do this, but look at Thomas, Sean. You and I have more history with the RB than any of the others. Look at his wounds! You know I'm right, whether you want to believe it or not. Look at h
im, Sean!”
Sean painfully dropped his eyes to the boy, who lay barely breathing below him. He fell to his knees beside him, taking his limp hand in his own. Sophie scurried back out of reach as Jer knelt on the other side of Thomas, taking his other hand. Jer and Sean stared at each other over the dying brother as his eyes darted lazily back and forth between their faces, his eyes desperately pleading for something.
“Ask him,” Jer ordered. “Ask him who did this. Get the proof you need so we can end this.”
Sean looked down at Thomas, whose face was so pale and distant that I feared he'd already passed.
“Thomas,” he said softly, “please help me. I need to know who did this. Are they here? Blink once if that person is here, Thomas, please.”
We all looked on as Thomas squeezed his eyes shut deliberately, holding them closed for a good second or two before reopening—it took nearly all the energy he had left to do so. Sean's gentle expression hardened as he looked up at me. I didn't know what it meant.
“Show me,” he told Thomas, but Thomas didn't move. “Show me!” he snarled in frustration. Thomas's eyes rolled to Jer as he tried to move his left hand. Jer stroked his hand encouragingly as Thomas white-knuckled Jer's, using the last bit of strength he had. He stared at Jer wide-eyed as a tear rolled down his cheek.
“It's okay, Thomas,” Jer comforted. “Don't be scared. It'll be over soon. Try again, please. She's right there.”
Thomas didn't respond.
His hand went limp. His head lolled to the side. His empty eyes locked on mine. He was dead.
“Goddammit!” Sean yelled, punching the ground next to the body before turning to look at me. His expression was not a promising one.
“Finally!” Jer yelled. “We can end this, Sean...like old times.”
Run.
Sean leaned back and let out a cry so ungodly that it shook me to the core, making the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I prayed it wasn't a call to battle.
Run. Now.
He rose slowly, uncurling himself away from the body he'd just collapsed onto after his outburst. His eyes were black as night.
Framed Page 5