by Wendy Laine
We knew each other’s big secrets. That made us something to each other. Maybe we needed each other. We could watch out for each other. He knew about the darkness and what lived in the shadows, and I knew what lurked in Hidden Creek in the light. It was safer for us to be together. We could stop this from getting worse together.
As I stared down at my feet, I saw the tips of his motorcycle boots as he edged closer. I really ought to stop him, but I didn’t. I didn’t even try.
“It’d be safer for us to stay together,” I said. “Logically, I mean. It’s sensible.” It wasn’t just that I wanted him with me. I did, but it wasn’t only that.
“Absolutely.” He slid his arms around me. Mmm. He knew how to hold me just right—not too tight, but tight enough that I didn’t feel like everything inside me would fly apart. “You can’t leave me alone, Piper. I’ll get into all kinds of trouble.”
I rolled my eyes as I looked up at him. “You are being charming.”
“A little.” He kissed my forehead. “You seem to think it’s one of my few strengths, so I’m going with it.” His fingers traced my mouth in its determined frown. “Does this work on anybody? Or do they all just want to kiss you like I do?” He touched the corner of my upper lip. “Especially right here.”
“I don’t know. How about your charm? Does that always work for you?”
“You know, I haven’t noticed one way or the other.”
“Your other girlfriends never said?” I was holding my breath, but couldn’t seem to stop.
He tilted his head. “I don’t know that I’ve had any girlfriends. Just dates now and again. Of course I’ve never stuck around anywhere long enough to have relationships.”
The first sentence had sounded good. The last had killed the buzz of the first one. It had killed it dead. My stomach was sour and heavy at the thought of this being a stopover in the life of Gris Caso. I was a stopover, too.
“You’ll probably leave here soon enough,” I said.
“Not soon. That is the one upside to this town—I’ve got a sort of job security so I can stay and date Hidden Creek’s hidden treasure.”
I snorted.
Leaning down, he whispered, “Piper, I can promise when I leave I won’t want to, and every day I’m here I’ll keep you safe and take you flying every night.” His hands slid along my cheeks, cupping my face. He kissed right beside my mouth before his lips brushed up my cheek to my ear. “Sometimes, we might even leave the ground.”
…
He was wearing that gargoyle shirt he’d worn before.
“What?” he asked as he climbed through the window.
“I like that shirt. It’s like you’re flipping off the world when you wear it.”
“You like that?”
I nodded.
Gris yanked off the shirt and gave it to me.
The warm cotton sat in my hand, and I stared at it. “What?”
“It’s yours,” he said, sitting down on the beanbag in the corner. “I don’t normally wear a shirt at night anyway.”
“Oh.” I pulled it on over the shirt I was wearing and fingered the worn material. It smelled like him. I’d never had a guy give me a shirt before.
“It looks good on you,” Gris said, opening his laptop. “Go get your list.”
Retrieving my list, I sat next to him on the beanbag. It squished inward, shoving me against him.
Gris put his arm around me. “Who’s still on our list?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve added more pages.”
“Well, I started extrapolating out on those final two list items, but I realized if we’re looking for someone who has knowledge, means, and opportunity that limits our suspects. So, your theory is that it’s either somebody from your line or from this other Beaumont line?”
“But they might not have the name Beaumont. Critch once suggested that everyone has changed their names.”
I tapped my pen on my list, yawning. Being this close to Gris was making me sleepy—especially with his shirt off and his warm skin, heating mine. “Maybe it’d be easier to confirm that our suspects can’t possibly be from this other line. We can try looking up their family history.”
“You’ve got fiends outside,” he said, yawning, too. He shook his head. “You’re making me tired. Okay, let me up.” He extricated himself, with difficulty, from the beanbag. Gris stood there, watching the window. “I’m going to turn off the light, other than the nightlight beside you so I can pull them in and kill them. I don’t want them just hovering outside all night.”
“Yep, that’s nosy.”
He grinned at me and turned off the light.
The change of skin to stone might never become less fantastic to watch. Nor would the strength in his movements or his fierce concentration. I was falling for a gargoyle. It was as bittersweet as the last day of summer. I should enjoy it while it lasted, but holding on to somebody planning out their good-byes stung even when it was good.
Then again, it all ended. It all failed. It all turned to dust. Protecting myself and holding too tight to perfect had given me peach-white scars and fewer memories that could make me smile.
Setting his laptop down, I stood up to get a better view.
When he was done, he turned to me and tilted his head as if considering me. “Does it bother you that I’m different in the dark?” he asked in his husky Watcher voice.
“I’m dark inside, even when I’m in the light.” I waited for the words to make me feel apart and cold.
But Gris’s half smile was admiring, warming me from head to toe. He was still here, even though I’d walked away from him twice. He made me want and that wanting didn’t feel dirty or wrong—I felt alive. I wanted to step into the shadows and run my fingers across his hardened skin. I wanted that so much. I loved touching him. And, it felt powerful to know he trusted me with his secret.
“You’re not dark inside.” A second later, he whispered, “Step into the dark, Piper. With me.”
It sounded suggestive and maybe a bit scary. I liked it. I took a step forward right as his hands came out and drew me into the shadows.
Chapter Nineteen
Gris
The nightmare was always the same. The clawing of a monster under my skin, trying to get out, as I stood in a crowd of people. I pushed against it, forcing it down, but it was going to break free at any second. They’d know. They’d all know.
Abruptly, I woke up to someone shaking me.
“Gris! Wake up!”
I blinked stupidly at Piper and tried to orient myself to the room. I was in the house I was renting, not Piper’s room. I’d left there when she’d got up to go to school. I looked at the clock on the windowsill. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”
Piper threw a look over her shoulder.
Right. Question.
She turned back to me and the panic in her eyes broke through my exhaustion. “Gris! There’s a gas leak in your house. I can smell it.”
I could, too, now. I woke up immediately. “Out the window, Piper.” I grabbed my laptop bag, looping it over my shoulder and shoved open the window. “C’mon! Out that window right this instant!” I scooped my phone from the ledge where it’d been charging.
She scrambled across the mattress and through the window.
I followed her out while punching 911 into my cellphone and grabbing Piper’s hand. Yanking her toward a huge cypress near the barn, I said into the phone, “Yeah, I got a gas leak in my house. I don’t know where it’s coming from.” At the cypress, I dropped all but the phone and gestured for Piper to stay.
After following the directions from the operator as well as turning off the gas, I jogged back to the cypress while pocketing my phone.
Piper was pacing, but she didn’t look sick.
“You okay, Piper? Do you have a headache or want to throw up?” I grabbed her face in my hands when she didn’t answer right away. Rubbing her cheeks with my thumbs, I said, “Piper, I know you don’t like to answer questions, but
you gotta tell me you’re okay. I’m trying to figure out if you have carbon monoxide poisoning and we need to run you to the ER—wherever that is.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine, Gris. I wasn’t inside very long.”
Sighing, I grabbed her in a tight hug. She was okay. Everything was okay as long as Piper was okay. I inhaled deeply, taking in the fresh scent of her apple shampoo.”Your hair still smells like you.” I kissed the top of her head.
In the distance, sirens screamed our way.
Pop! Pop! Crack!
We turned toward the back of the house. The kitchen burst into flames, and several of the windows spider-webbed with cracks.
“You don’t see that every day,” I admitted.
“Should we do something?”
“I’m not sure what. It’s not like I have a hose or even a bucket to hold water. The fire department is on their way.”
“Should we go grab some of your stuff out of the house?” she asked.
“Nope. No way.” Luckily, I didn’t have much and the place wasn’t heavily-furnished. My aunt wasn’t getting that Halloween bowl back and, hopefully, they had insurance.
“But it’s burning down, Gris!” I sensed the panic swelling in her and remembered what Dick had said about Piper’s ability to cope in a crisis. Apparently I’d get to experience that firsthand.
“It’s fine, sweetheart. You saw what I owned in the room I was sleeping in. I might go move my bike over here.”
Smoke started pouring out patches of roof, so I moved us to a tree farther away.
“I suspected that roof might not have kept the rain out,” I said.
“Do you think the house will explode?” Piper was starting to bounce around and get shivery.
“I think that only happens in movies, but we can move into the barn.” I laughed. “This might be the only situation where the barn would be a preferable shelter.”
“Gris!” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Your house is on fire! It’s on fire!”
I returned the favor, grabbing her shoulders, and made eye contact. “Dick warned me you weren’t good in an emergency, and he wasn’t lying.”
“Shrapnel! Aren‘t you worried about flying debris? Or explosions or, or, or…” Wild-eyed panic had never made my heart burn like this. She might have been hurt because I was just so damn sure I could do it all on my own. I’d even been pushing her away. If she hadn’t come in, I’d be beyond medium rare. What a stupid way to go.
“Nothing is going to happen. You got me? I’m here. And you’re here. And we’re going to keep each other safe. It’s going to be fine.”
She took a deep breath, and her eyes lost some of that panicked sheen.
I put my cell phone in her hand. “I’ll go move my bike, and you call your mom and tell her that you’re here, and you just saved my life.”
“I’m not sure that’s safe,” she said as I walked toward the house.
“It’s fine.” The house was smoldering. I stopped and turned. “How did you get into my house?” I’d locked everything and checked it. Twice.
“The front door. It was unlocked.”
Hell.
After we’d ruled out most of our suspects last night as belonging to the Beaumont line, I was facing the ugly certainty that my great-uncle was trying to kill me to take back what he viewed as his. If the smell of leaking gas hadn’t covered it, I probably would have smelled the sulfurous scent of whatever cream Critch was using. Maybe that was what was driving him mad—he was creating his own source of bedevilment.
I called my dad while I grabbed my motorcycle boots off the front porch. It was definitely past time to call it. I couldn’t handle all that Hidden Creek was dishing out.
“Please tell me this has nothing to do with another corpse,” he answered.
“Nah, this time it was an attempt to put me six feet under.”
“If this is your idea of a joke, Gris…”
If only. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Somebody just tried to kill me in a fire from a gas leak.”
“Somebody?”
“Pretty certain it was Critch.”
My dad’s sigh was long and loud. “Look, son—”
“I need you, Dad. Piper is right in the middle of this, and she’s more important than my ego.”
“I’m getting in the car now. Keep me updated.”
Paramedics stopped by and confirmed Piper was fine. My aunt stopped by with lemonade and sandwiches. Several of the other neighbors came over to investigate, and more and more of Hidden Creek kept appearing, as well as the sheriff and his deputies.
“Strange that the sheriff is here,” my aunt said.
“Not that strange. Where’s Critch?” I asked Aunt Jess.
She looked startled. “I assume he’s in his room. He’s probably even asleep.”
I snorted. Sure he was.
Aunt Jess joined her family who were hanging on the fence, watching their rental burn down.
“You okay?” I asked Piper again. The paramedic had said she was, but I needed to hear it again from her.
She punched my shoulder.
“It’s a reasonable question,” I said.
“It was the first two times.”
“Well, you didn’t answer the first two times, either.”
She punched my shoulder again. “Why do you figure the police are here?”
I shrugged.
More police arrived. Firefighters went in and out of the smoking house.
“Do you think it’s structurally stable for them to be going in and out? That doesn’t strike me as very sensible,” Piper said.
“They got the fire out quick, and there were enough holes in the walls and roof that I doubt the gas was as sealed up as it could’ve been.” Piper was ramping up into a panic again. I slid my arm across her shoulders and tucked her into my side. “It’s okay. I’m sure they wouldn’t go in there if it wasn’t safe.” Everything else was going to hell, but I had Piper grounding me with her cycling panic. Every time she said the word “sensible,” I wanted to kiss her.
She started tapping her fingers at her side.
“I guess I’ll be sleeping in the barn tonight.”
Piper shuddered. “At least I cleaned out all the rusty metal and buried it over near the fence.”
I stilled. “Are you pulling my leg?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like the smell of rust. Plus, it wasn’t safe having all that around. It was sensible, Gris.”
There it was again. I dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
The entire town was staring us down. I could feel it.
“You’ll probably go stay with your aunt’s family, right?” Piper asked.
“Nah, probably not. I had a difference of opinion with Danny, and it might not be best.” A vast understatement. “Keep away from my cousin and my Uncle Critch, Piper.”
“All right. Danny hasn’t spoken to me if he could help it for a while now. I doubt it’ll be a problem. I’ve never spoken to your great-uncle. Ever. He’s watched me from his window a few times.”
“A few times?”
“Nine times—that I’ve noticed. When I walk past their house, he’s stared at me from that back window. I guess that’s where he lives? He’s never yelled at me or done anything. He just stares. I’ve waved, but he hasn’t waved back.” She shrugged. “He’s old, though. I reckon being old earns you the right not to be polite. I’m hoping so anyways. I’m looking forward to not always being polite.”
“Just the same, stay away from him, too.”
Several of the police strode out of the house and right in our direction.
Here it was. Here was where they told me that it was arson, and my own great-uncle had tried to burn me alive. Hidden Creek really only had Piper going for it.
…
Dad would be here in a few hours, and then we’d be heading to the local police station to have a chat with them. It was what every boy secretly dreamed of—telling the police your
great-uncle was trying to kill you because you’d become a gargoyle and he’d lost his wings. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I’d told the sheriff I couldn’t think of anybody who’d want to kill me, but I’d talk it over with my dad.
Dad had called several times from the road to ask, “Are you sure, Gris? Are you sure?”
No, but I knew I’d locked that door before I’d gone to bed. It’d saved my life that he’d left it unlocked. Piper wouldn’t have tried to get in had the door been locked. She might’ve rang the doorbell, but maybe not. This had to end. If Uncle Critch was terrorizing Piper, too, then that went double. He might’ve even killed Trina and her boyfriend to “save them from bedeviling.” Maybe he saw them when they were high and thought they were gone to the fiends. Who knew what Critch had gotten into his head? No, it had to stop.
When I finally made it back to Piper’s side, it was to find her mom as well as Dick there.
“He’ll stay with us tonight and then he’ll be in your room tomorrow,” her mom was saying to Dick.
They both turned to me expectantly.
I blinked. “Excuse me?” There was a huge crowd of people right outside the fence, and they all seemed to be leaning in toward this conversation.
“You’ll stay in our camper tonight and, tomorrow, you can move into the room above Dick’s garage,” Piper‘s mom said.
They’d all but arranged my life without me. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. “I’m obliged to y’all, but I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not sleeping in your barn.” Piper scowled at me. “It’s too unhygienic. Anything can happen to you while you sleep.” Her fingers snuck in-between mine, and she looked across the crowd gathered with what could only be called daring. It was strange having somebody on my side.
Her mom nodded.
Somebody and her mom were on my side. It sounded like a punchline to a joke.
“The room over my garage is sitting empty, gathering dust,” Dick said.
“Not actual dust,” Mrs. Devon said. She frowned. “Well, we can dust it if it has actual dust.”
“And sterilize it,” Piper said firmly. “A lot.”
“I can pay rent while I’m here,” I said to Dick. It’d be easier than trying to find another place to stay while I was dealing with the aftermath of what Critch had done. Nobody asked why I wasn’t staying with my aunt and uncle, and I was grateful for that. Once the town knew about Critch, it’d spread like wildfire. They might blame us for every bad thing that’d ever happened.