He snorted, trying to bury his amusement. “Seriously? The worst place in the area is down by the old factories. Sure, there are some unsavory folk around there, but they’re not all meth heads and gangsters as you may have imagined.”
The low hanging sun left limited light to showcase the property, but I could still see it well enough to know I’d been wrong.
I opened the door and stepped outside. Reese backtracked to the front porch and unlocked the door with an invitation for me to follow him. The smell of freshly baked cookies lingered in the downstairs, making the rustic décor feel all the more homey. Washed-out brown carpet and bucolic furniture covered the living areas while handcrafted wooden tables and chairs sat in the kitchen. Mounds of books lay spread across the coffee table, there were coats hung on the backs of multiple chairs, opened mail sat on the tops of the counters, and a large wool blanket was sitting in a balled up lump on the three-piece sofa sectional. Mom would never allow such details to go unchecked. The house was still tidy and clean in its own right, but it was clear that people obviously lived here.
This is what a home was supposed to look like. Unlike the $5,000 Italian silk upholstered sofa that Mom never even let me sit on, Reese’s worn couches practically beckoned me to curl up and take a nap right then and there. Every inch of this place was cozy and welcoming.
Footsteps galloped down into the foyer, turning my attention back to the door.
“Peanut? Is that you?”A woman who looked to be in her late thirties came into the family room dressed in hospital scrubs. She stopped dead in her tracks, her hands tangled up in the mass of coffee-brown hair she was trying to wrap into a bun. “You’re not my son.”
Reese ducked back out of the kitchen, offering me one of the soda cans he had in hand. “No, she’s not,” he laughed. “Mom, this is Kat. Kat, this is my mom.”
I politely extended my hand to her after she fixed her hair, only to squeal as she suddenly yanked me forward and ensnared me into a massive hug. I hadn’t exactly been raised in an affectionate household, so random hugs clearly caught me off guard.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I choked out, awkwardly patting my pinned-down arms against her sides.
She finally released her grip and gave me a proper once-over. “Well, now. Just look at you. Sweeter than a honey bun.”
“Minus the toothache,” I half laughed.
“Is this the girl you were telling me about?” Reese’s mom asked, turning her attention back to her son.
Redness suddenly flooded Reese’s cheeks. “Kat’s my lab partner. We were just going to work on a project.”
Based on the peculiar smile she was sporting, Mrs. Blackburn seemed to be in on some kind of inside joke. Considering all the things Reese had said to me over the past year, I could only imagine what he had told her about me. She checked the watch on her wrist, and her eyebrow ticked up. “A bit early for school to be out. Early dismissal?”
“…Sure.”
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” she laughed, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Dinner’s in the oven. Instructions are on the counter. Don’t ruin your appetite on sweets.”
“Will do.” Reese returned her kiss and walked her to the laundry room. She gave me a wave before heading out into what I realized was the garage. A moment later, the house rattled as metallic workings clanked and shuddered. Everything suddenly fell quiet as the garage door slammed back shut upon her departure.
“Peanut, aye?”
Reese gave me a warning glare, but a hint of a smile still tugged at his lips.
“Should I ask?”
“She’s called me that since I was little. You know, like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups,” he mumbled.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
He gave me a light jab with his elbow. “Shut up.”
“That’s kind of adorable, actually. The only thing my mom calls me apart from my own name is ‘smartass,’ and I’d hardly consider it as a term of endearment.” I looked out the front window, watching dust kick up into the breeze as Reese’s mom drove down the gravel driveway. “So…she really doesn’t have a problem with you ditching class…or leaving you here alone with a girl?”
“She trusts me,” he simply shrugged, ushering me towards the basement stairs.
I eyed him, then the pitch-black oblivion at the bottom of the stairs, and then looked back to him again. “Ah…is this the part where you hack me up with an axe and shove my body into the crawlspace?”
“Don’t be silly.” He moved around me and headed down, casting me a teasing grin. “There’s no room in there.”
“That’s reassuring.” I reluctantly followed after him, seeing yet again another surprising motif.
Countless strings of golden Christmas lights were hooked all across the perimeter of the basement ceiling in wave patterns, illuminating the collage of punk rock band posters and logos consuming every inch of wall space. Speakers were positioned in the corner alongside an electric guitar, countless printouts lay stacked across a small computer desk, and there was a sketchpad sitting on top of the…bed?
“Do you live down here?” I asked uneasily.
“Most of the time, yeah. My mom used to do laundry down here,” he said, pointing to a door on the opposite side of the room. “That is, until she wound up breaking her ankle when she fell down the steps. Since then, she kind of has a fear of coming down here, so she let me do with the space as I wished after I brought the washer and dryer upstairs for her.”
“Is she a nurse?”
“Yeah, she’s working the second shift at the hospital. Won’t be home till at least eleven.” Reese pulled out the small paper bag Dr. Fritz had given him earlier from inside his book bag, dumping the contents onto an old fold-out card table. Little black cylinders rolled out across the cracked leather surface. “Turn the computer on,” he instructed before disappearing through the doorway he’d just pointed to.
I did as he asked, taking a seat in the chair parked at the desk.
“I still have a traditional bedroom upstairs, but since I put in the darkroom, I spend most of my time down here anyway. Hence the bed,” his voice echoed out to me.
“Darkroom?”
He poked his head out, a rare, natural smile tugging at his lips. “Come in here.”
Reese ducked back inside, so I got up, seeing the sprawled out cylinders close up. They were film canisters. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim red safelight of the darkroom, but once they did, I was met with an amazing series of photographs hanging up across the space.
“Dr. Fritz found this old ’60s Pentacon for a steal, and I’ve been helping her develop the film,” he clarified, closing the door behind us.
“They’re gorgeous,” I said, taking a particular liking to a photo of a motorcycle burnout. “Are these all hers?”
“No.” His beaming smile became curiously coy. “These ones are mine, actually.”
“Seriously?”
“Is it that surprising?”
I shook my head. It really wasn’t. Any of the photos he contributed to the newspaper were far too artful for the likes of the Mystic Harbor Tribune, and it was evident anytime someone else took the pictures instead. More often than not, the images looked like they’d given the camera to a monkey in comparison.
Reese seemed so in his element in here. Whatever reason we had for initially coming down in the basement was lost on both of us as we got caught up in the entire experience. I asked a billion questions, which Reese was more than happy to answer, and he even taught me how to work the equipment so that I could develop the film myself.
By the time we left the darkroom, the natural light that had been coming through the few basement windows was gone. For that short while, we’d both seemed to have forgotten about everything else. As consequence, reality hit hard once we refocused our attention back to the matter at hand. I handed my phone over to Reese for him to upload the images I had been sent, and he lost me with all hi
s techno-babble in under a minute.
Reese took the singular chair in front of the desk, leaving me with the choice of either sitting on the floor or his bed. I chose the latter, hoping he didn’t notice the shade of crimson I was sure my cheeks had turned.
A half hour later, he got up from his chair. “Well, one thing I can tell you is that both images were taken from the same phone. Bad news, it’s a burner. Untraceable,” huffed Reese, planting himself down on the bed beside me.
“Perfect. Some stranger brought me back from the dead, seems hell bent on harassing me, and I haven’t a clue why.” I looked over at the monitor, shuddering at the image of me all mangled up on the pavement.
Reese bumped me with his elbow. “Hey, we’ll figure this out. Okay?”
I nodded absentmindedly.
“What’s up?”
My vision started to blur the longer I stared at the monitor. “Why wasn’t I turned into a Hellhound? Why didn’t the person who brought me back infect me? How did I even get these?” I dug my fingertips into my forearm, as if I could somehow wipe away the ink staining my skin.
My phone vibrated across the top of the desk. Reese reached up to hand it over to me, but froze at the sight of the screen.
“What?” I took the device from him, seeing a new text message. From: Unknown.
“For I know the plans I have for you.”
Chapter 16
I Know You
The truck jostled as we drove over a set of railroad tracks, snapping me out of my trance. I had assumed Reese was taking me home, but none of the scenery now looked remotely familiar. “Where are we going?”
“To get something to eat.”
I shook my head, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “I should really—”
“Eat something?” he suggested. “It’s nonnegotiable. Firstly, your stomach’s growling like a ravenous dog. Secondly, I have the distinct feeling if I drop you off at home you’re just going to spend the whole night obsessing over this. You need to unwind, for both our sakes.” Reese gave me a cockeyed grin, turning the old beater onto a pothole riddled road. At last, an old neon sign flickered up ahead.
Rockabilly Bob’s Bar & Grill.
I could hear Wynona Carr’s “Please Mr. Jailer” playing the moment we reached the gravel parking lot. The outside of the joint looked like an old dive bar, but sleek 1950s décor greeted us once we stepped inside. Framed posters of rock ‘n’ roll musicians and classic hotrod cars lined the walls while vintage booths and barstools were mapped out across checkered vinyl floors. Even the waitresses were dressed in retro red striper uniforms.
Reese led me to the back of the restaurant where the lights were significantly dimmer. We rounded the bend, coming to the entrance of a gaming hall.
He tossed me a pool stick. “Pick a table.” Reese vanished back into the diner area and returned a few minutes later with two milkshakes and a gigantic platter of nachos. “Best in the state.”
He wasn’t kidding. Between taking turns at the pool table, I still managed to devour half the plate and my entire shake in ten minutes. It was obvious Reese was trying to keep the conversation lighthearted, but it didn’t do much to take my mind off the new dizzying array of questions.
“So what’s the deal between you and Adam?” asked Reese, sinking another ball into a corner pocket. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”
The mention twisted my stomach, but not for the reason I had anticipated. I jabbed Reese with the end of my stick as I made my way around the table to set up my next shot. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, I don’t fancy myself to be an idiot. I’m sure I can keep up just fine.”
“If you must know, Adam and I had been best friends growing up. We were practically glued to the hip, until about five years ago.”
“Come again?”
“We were both raised in a little town in upstate New York called Everett. Back in the good old days when my mom still clipped coupons and painted her own toe nails,” I better clarified. Reese looked at me confusedly, and I laughed. “Despite what my folks might lead everyone to believe, my family didn’t come from money. My mom was an ordinary housewife and my dad was on the bottom of the totem pole at work. The only reason they were even able to ship me off to boarding school was because I received an academic scholarship.”
Now Reese laughed. “So you really aren’t a princess then.”
I shot him a look, but couldn’t hide my smile.
“Is that when you and Adam fell outta touch? Because you were sent away to school?”
Any amusement I had vanished at the recollection. “Not exactly. Everything pretty much went to shit after Adam’s mom was killed.”
“Killed?”
“Fire,” I explained. “The Reynolds’s place was really old, and the electricity wasn’t always reliable. The fire department suspected that the pilot light had gone out, and a spark in a nearby outlet ignited the explosion. The downstairs literally blew up. Mr. Reynolds was out with some buddies watching a game, and Adam and I were at my place. Adam’s mom wasn’t so lucky. She’d just returned home to make dinner. Nathan never forgave himself for not being there to save her.
“Not even two weeks after the funeral, he and Adam were gone. One of my dad’s old friends had just started up his own company and offered Nathan a position with his security firm here in Maine, so the two packed up what little they had and left town. Pretty much overnight, I lost almost everyone I loved. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were like second parents to me, and Adam was my best friend. Then, to add insult to injury, my folks shipped me off to boarding school come the end of the month, where I went to live with perfect strangers nine months out of the year. And I never heard from Nathan or Adam after they moved, not until I came to live here in Mystic Harbor.”
“Why did you guys…you know? It’s obvious Adam still carries a torch for you, and he’s been shooting me unrelenting death glares the past few days. He seems pretty protective.”
“There’s a reason why Carly nicknamed him ‘Casper’. I finally decided to end things with Adam after he ditched me at a dinner party. We were there together for ten minutes before he pulled his whole Spider-Man disappearing act, and the guy never came back. He left without so much as an explanation, and no one heard from him all weekend. It wouldn’t have been so bad…if this hadn’t become something of habit. Adam flaked on me all the time. We’d be out having fun, and then he’d suddenly run off. Guess it makes sense now, considering everything. It’s not like you can tell your girlfriend that you left her so you could go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on creatures of the Underworld.”
Reese didn’t look particularly comfortable, and I couldn’t blame him. But he was the one who asked. “So, now knowing what you know, you think you two will…?”
I shook my head. “Adam isn’t the same. He’d always been funny and silly and teasing when we were younger. What happened with his mom though really hit him hard, and I can’t imagine the lifestyle he leads now is particularly easy either. He has his moments where I get to see the old Adam, but they’re far and few. Honestly, I think nostalgia is what kept us together. At least for me anyway.” It was the most open answer I’d given about our breakup. “Honestly, I hated it when I first moved here, and Adam wound up being the one familiar thing amid all the nauseating dinner parties and political fundraisers. I wasn’t used to this lifestyle. Home for me used to be a crammed two-bedroom apartment, and then it became the academy. Coming here honestly felt like stumbling into an alternate reality. It still does. Adam was the only normalcy I could cling to. But that particular night when he had ditched me for the hundredth time…I had had enough. And I hated him for it, for the rippling effect it caused.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It was the night I met Blaine,” I barely whispered, watching Reese’s shoulders go taut. “If Adam had stayed with me at the party, Blaine would’ve just been another charming host. Someone I never would have given a second thought to.
Someone I wouldn’t have snuck off with.”
That last remark sent a cocked brow at me.
I jabbed Reese with my cue again. “Not like that. As it turned out, he hated soirées as much as I did. The moment we found an opening, we escaped. Together. Wound up spending the night barefoot at the beach.” The back of my eyes burned at the memory. He really had been a decent guy. “If Adam had stayed, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Blaine. We wouldn’t have started hanging out, and he wouldn’t have ditched his friends that night to come to the bonfire…to see me.”
I tried to keep the slight tremble in my hands at bay as I lined up my next shot.
“Here.” Reese moved behind me, adjusting my stance in front of the table. His hands settled on my hips, and I could feel my skin tingle…only, it came from my arm.
I looked down at my left side, seeing the tattooed ink on top of my hand glowing even beneath the fabric of the fingerless gloves. He then wrapped his arms around me.
“You’re losing control of the cue on your backswing. You need to slow down when drawing it to you.” Reese demonstrated, repositioning my hands on the stick. “Now, follow all the way through.”
I did as he instructed, watching the red ball labeled ‘three’ land effortlessly into the center pocket. “You were right.”
“When am I not?” he teased lightly, his breath stirring my hair as he remained behind me.
“I meant about my friends.” I turned to face him, and any amusement fell from his face. “You were right to say that they’re assholes.”
It clearly wasn’t what he expected me to say, because his eyebrow shot up yet again.
“I’ve heard some things about you, things they’ve said and done.”
His body stiffened.
“Is that why you didn’t want to be around me anymore? Because of them?”
He shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that.”
Insidious: (The Marked Mage Chronicles, Book 1) Page 17