Chapter Seven
Sneaking Suspicion
The end of my shift seemed to take years to arrive, rather than mere hours. The stress of my first day hadn’t gotten any better over that amount of time, either. In fact, just when I thought I might get to hand my tables over and start getting ready to go home, Emily demanded that I empty the trash, and it wasn’t just one bag, or even two, but five giant sacks of it. It was just as well that I could lift multiple bags at once.
The air outside was chilly as I stepped out with no coat. My hair whipped around my face, and I lugged the bags toward where Emily told me the dumpsters were. I rounded the corner and froze.
This was the same alley where I’d saved Chuck from the thugs. Coming out of the side door leading into John’s office was Marshall. He wasn’t alone. I stepped back and pressed myself against the wall, keeping out of sight, though I could see him perfectly well.
He leaned back through the door before backing out, pulling a wheelchair from the building. His passenger was a middle-aged woman, covered with a blanket, dark hair pulled away from her face. Who was that?
“Dane, I don’t want to go home. I haven’t left the house in days. The walls are suffocating me,” the woman said, startling me.
Marshall kept pushing the wheelchair anyway. “Mum, you’re not well. You could catch all kinds of things in there. If you catch even a cold...”
The woman sighed. That was Marshall’s mother? She was so frail, so unlike what I would imagine her to be. I wanted to walk away and stop intruding on their conversation, but at the same time, I was rooted to the spot.
“Don’t start the lecture again,” she said. “I know all of this already. I’m supposed to look after you, you know.”
“How did you even get here?” Marshall demanded.
“I called a cab.”
“Don’t do that again. I thought John was gonna have a heart attack when you showed up.” He stopped to bend and kiss his mother on the cheek. “I love you, but you’re such a difficult woman.”
“I love you, but you’re such a buzz kill. What I have right now is a poor excuse of a life. I need to get out and have fun, Dane.”
Marshall groaned and straightened up. “At least you have a life.” Then he pushed the wheelchair around the corner towards the car park, and I tuned out of their conversation.
It took me a few moments to remember I was still holding bags of trash. I threw them in the dumpster and rushed back into The Hut.
I kept replaying Marshall’s soft attitude to his mother over and over. I’d thought he was a straight up idiot. Then, all idiots must have a reason for being that way. Right? I grabbed the last bags and headed back to the alley. I still didn’t fully trust the guy, but if he could be that caring and protective over someone, he couldn’t be all bad.
Having an after school job was hard. The good thing about it was I was so tired in the evenings, that I had no energy for my graveyard compulsions.
Except, when Saturday rolled around it was my day off.
I spent most of the day at Mercy’s house, listening to her parents argue downstairs while pretending that I couldn’t hear it. When I couldn’t deal with it anymore, I took the Tube home and forced myself to sleep.
A few hours later, my eyes flickered open to moonlight, pouring in through my bedroom window. Stretching, I rolled onto my back and stared up at my ceiling. I was still fully dressed and now wide-awake.
I sat up, trying to persuade myself to change into my pajamas. Downstairs, I could hear my dad laughing on the phone to someone. A few months back, he’d told Daniel and me that he’d been seeing someone. Sometimes, since then, he wouldn’t come home for a few days. Other times it would be in the early hours of the morning. I’d yet to meet this woman, and I didn’t ever intend to meet her. I listened for a few minutes, picking up a flirtatious tone in my father’s voice.
Groaning, I slid off the bed and pulled on my duffel coat. The window always stuck at night, but with a strong heave, I pushed it open and climbed onto the ledge, peering down. It was a long drop down. We were on the sixth floor of our building, and I couldn't even make it to the ground uninjured.
Sucking in a deep breath, I leapt the distance to a lamppost a few feet away and a couple floors down. With the grace of a cat, I landed on the light and slid down the pole easily. Then I plugged in my earphones and took off at a run toward the graveyard.
Before the graveyard even came into view, I could tell something had changed. Evil surrounded the area; so thick, I could taste it. Slowing down, I crept the remaining way, eyes peeled, body on full alert. I knew what was here, but it didn’t mean I was prepared for it.
I stopped, spotting two figures strolling towards the exit gate. A man and a woman. Both extremely good looking, both completely out of place in a dark cemetery. Breath held, I stood with my back pressed against the black gate.
“...Thought she’d be here,” the man was saying.
“Give it time. It’s barely one.”
I sucked in a deep breath. They were looking for me. Why were they looking for me? I wasn’t exactly a threat anymore.
“Think we should circle one more time?”
“Yeah, might as well.” The woman flicked her long, black hair back. “I can’t wait to see how we’ll be rewarded.”
“With power and riches beyond our wildest dreams.” They both laughed. “Fuck knows why he’s so obsessed with that dead Hunter. Now this one. I’ll never understand him.”
I narrowed my eyes. They could not be talking about my mother. I took a deep breath. No, there were loads of other Hunters around. What were the chances it was about my mum?
“You’re not supposed to understand. You’re supposed to follow,” the woman hissed.
There was no doubt, as to what they were now. Both moved too gracefully, too powerfully to be human.
“Hold on,” the man ordered, putting his hand out to stop the woman walking any further.
“What?”
“I can smell her.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t want to get into a fight today. Not when I was so totally unprepared. No weapon. No help. No idea of what they wanted. I was breaking all the rules my mother had consistently drummed into my head.
You see, the thing about the Damned is that they’re strong. Like really strong. A regular human wouldn’t be any kind of match against one. This was why The Sisterhood made us – Hunters. We matched their strength and agility. We sent their souls back to Hell. Sworn enemies. All of this, plus a day job. Like in the memory I’d relived in my dreams last night, my mother had spent most of my life trying to make Hunting sound like something amazing. She would tell me stories before she took me into that graveyard when I was six years old and make us out to be superheroes. The night I turned sixteen, I found out the hard way that she was wrong.
My focus was elsewhere for literally seconds, but it was all they needed. When I turned back, they were gone. I spun around, coming face to face with the woman. She was even more beautiful than before up close. The Damned sure knew how to pick a host.
“Well, well,” she said, smiling widely. “What do we have here?”
I began to back away, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. “Someone in serious need of conditioner?” I offered, gesturing to her split ends.
“I love coming across witty Hunters. It makes it that much better when I kill them. Then they have no snappy comeback.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt.
I was still backing away when I hit something hard. I didn’t need to turn around to know I’d just backed into the other one. My only chance of getting out of this alive was by attacking before they attacked me.
“Can you believe how lucky we are?” the woman said. “Find her on our first night looking? Seal will be pleased.”
“Sssh! Don’t say his name!”
“Oh, what does it matter? She’ll be dead before long.”
I too
k my opportunity. Swinging forward, I punched the woman and ducked as she stumbled slightly and jabbed back - straight into the guy’s nose. I swung out my leg and swept both off their feet. They crashed down to the ground beside me. I should have run then, should have fled for my life.
But, I got cocky.
The woman flipped to her feet and squared up to me. We circled each other for a bit, and then she flew forward at me, slamming her fist at me so hard that my face whipped to the side. Pain burst behind my eyes.
I came back with a punch of my own. The first one connected with her face, but she blocked the second one. She charged at me. I sidestepped, kicking her in the back. She hurtled forward just as the guy stood up. He rushed at me and slammed me into the metal gate, pulling back only to throw a hit at me. I dodged, and his hand went through the bars. Taking this as my opportunity, I got him with an uppercut before smashing his head into one of the poles.
Then the other one was back. She grabbed my shoulders and yanked me backwards. I fell to the floor, but quickly rolled to a crouching position as she went to kick at my head. I blocked her and jumped to my feet, chest heaving. Her fist hurtled towards me, connecting with my cheek. Then her foot kicked in the side of my knee. Something crunched and I dropped in a painful heap, my eyes losing focus.
“You’re not doing so well,” she said, panting slightly. She kicked me in the side, flipping me onto my back, and then her booted foot came to rest on my neck.
“I’m new at this,” I grunted.
“Bad for you. Good for me.” Her foot moved, ready to make the killing snap when I reached up, grabbed her ankle, and twisted. She howled and fell back, allowing me the chance to hobble to my feet. I tried putting weight on my knee, but a searing pain shot up my leg.
I hesitated, looking back and forth between the two, fear flooding through me. The dude still had his arm trapped between the metal poles. The woman was on her back, grabbing at her ankle. If I were to escape, then this was my only chance.
So I ran. Well, tried to run. I hobbled along on my one working leg, dragging the other one behind me. If the man managed to get loose, I had no idea what I was going to do. If my mother were still alive, she’d kill me for this mistake. Turning to check they weren’t following, I spotted a familiar looking dark-haired man inside the graveyard, squatting by a tombstone, just staring at me.
Marshall?
No, there was no way I was seeing right. I turned away. When I looked back to make sure it wasn’t he, I was too far away to see anything. Whoever he was, I hoped they got far, far away from here. I didn’t need an innocent person’s death on my conscience.
I managed to get free and down to the main streets of the city. At least in such a busy place, I could lose them. Still limping, I darted across the road, failing to take notice of the cars. A squeal of tires and the long buzz of a car horn blared before I actually saw the oncoming vehicle.
I turned in its direction, caught like a deer in a pair of headlights when the car’s bumper slammed straight into my stomach.
Everything went black even before I hit the ground.
Chapter Eight
Stalker
A loud buzz of voices echoed through my head as I tried to process what was happening. I was stretched out on something hard, something cold. My whole body ached. Someone’s hands pulled me up from wherever I was and clutched me to their chest. Someone else screamed not to touch me. Had I drawn in a crowd?
I didn’t want to open my eyes. Not yet. If I kept them shut for a little bit longer, then the pain might fade.
“Amerie. Amerie, are you okay?”
I recognized that voice. My eyes snapped open, and I stared up into the most brilliant pair of blue eyes. Marshall’s eyes. I struggled against his hold as he stormed through the street with me in his arms.
He was at the graveyard – I knew he was. Had he set this up?
“Put me down,” I ordered, ignoring the pain.
“I will, in a minute,” he said, tightening his hold. “And I’d stop struggling if I were you. You’re only going to make me hold on tighter, and that’s probably gonna hurt you a whole lot more.”
“I’m fine. Put me down. Now.”
“You just got hit by a car, Amerie. You’re not fine.” I’d heard his caring tone before when he spoke to his mother, and this wasn’t it. This was patronizing.
“If you’re so worried about me, why aren’t you calling an ambulance?”
“You’ll be fine soon enough. Why waste their time?”
He must have been guessing. There was no way he knew how fast I actually healed. Sighing, I let my head roll back so that I looked up at the skyscrapers, and bits of the night sky that managed to peek through. How did he manage to find me? It didn’t add up.
“Are you following me?” I asked.
“No.”
“Were you just at the graveyard?”
“Which graveyard?”
“Montesore.”
“Nope. Can’t say that I was.”
I didn’t believe him for a second. “Take me to a hospital instead of kidnapping me, please.”
Marshall chuckled. “You can’t seriously think you’re being kidnapped, or you’d be fighting me a lot harder. Personally, I think you like being in my arms.”
That was it. I slammed my shoulder against his chest, loosening his arms before shoving both my hands in his face. He grunted and softly dropped me to the ground. I made sure to land with my good leg, though my injured knee was already healing. Both Hunters and the Damned healed fast. Another perk.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “And I’m going home. I don’t know how you keep appearing where I am, but it’s creepy. Stop it.”
“Coincidence?”
“Stalkerism. It’s not attractive, I can tell you that.”
“I’m not stalking you,” he said, his face was serious.
A car whizzed past us so fast it startled me. I turned to give it a dirty look, and when I looked back to Marshall, he was gone.
What the hell?
With a sigh, I limped toward the nearest bus stop, knowing I’d never be able to walk it back to my house until my knee had healed a bit more.
I was glad that it was Sunday, when I awoke the next morning. It meant no school and a whole day to try to recuperate. I inspected myself in the mirror. My knee was still sore, and my ribs were a little tender. I also had a sizeable, black eye, and a cut on my forehead. However, it did give me comfort to know they’d be gone come tomorrow.
I brushed my hair back into a ponytail and padded across the hall into our tiny bathroom. Whoever had lived here before had done horrible things to this room. The toilet seat was half hanging off, something Dad still hadn’t fixed. The walls were stained. The bath had so much lime scale; it had taken me weeks to scrub it off the tiles. Even now, after months of being here, the bathroom was still a mess. I grabbed a dirty towel off the floor and dumped it in the laundry basket - which was overflowing. Guess I needed to do some chores while I recuperated today.
I turned on the taps to the bath, brushed my teeth, and then shoved a load of dirty clothes into an empty wash basket before taking it down into the kitchen. Dad was slumped over the little circular kitchen table with a mug of coffee that was no longer steaming by his head.
I dropped the basket to the linoleum floor and the bang startling Dad out of his sleep. He jumped up, staring around until his eyes found me. If he noticed my bruises, he didn’t say anything.
“Good morning,” I bent down, wincing at the sharp pain in my ribs.
“Is it morning?” he asked, staring down at his watch. “Shit! I overslept. Oh no, I’m gonna be late for work.”
“You’re going in today?”
It was then I noticed he was dressed in a suit and he’d actually combed his hair. My legs almost gave way underneath me. Seeing him like this brought the rawest memory back of how things used to be. When I could rely on him. When he was the main provider for our family. When he cared a
bout us more than he cared about wallowing in self-pity.
“Cindy found me a new job,” he said, standing up. Cindy? Oh right, the girlfriend. “What you said, the other day, about you being the parent...”
“I’m sorry – that was rude,” I quickly said.
“No.” He shook his head. “You were right. I wasn’t the only one to lose your mother, and I’m punishing you kids for it.”
I kept my back to him, not wanting to believe his words. I’d heard this about a hundred times in the last year.
“Oh. Okay. So, what’s the job?”
“I’m back in the accountancy business. At a lot less money, but it’s better than what I’m getting now. In a couple months, we should be able to move into a nicer place.”
“Shouldn’t you get going, then?” I indicated at the clock hanging on the wall.
He swore again. “You’re right. I’ll see you later. Usually, I won’t be working Sundays, but I’m getting trained today, so I’m more helpful tomorrow.”
He picked up the mug of coffee, sipped from it, and then set the mug back on the kitchen table when he realized it was cold. He looked awkward as he rushed from the room. A few moments later, the door slammed, and he was gone.
I switched on the washing machine and headed back upstairs to my bath. The hot water soothed my aching muscles and offered me enough alone time to think about last night.
Why had the Damned been out looking for me?
And who was Seal?
I stared down at the fading purple bruise on the left side of my rib cage. This should never have happened. I was out of shape, unprepared, weak. An easy target. Now, since I’d come into my powers, they could sense me, find me wherever I was. Maybe I hadn’t thought about quitting thoroughly.
There was no going back, though. My mentor was gone, and I wasn’t about to sign myself up for a new mentor, and a death warrant. No, I’d stick to the shadows, avoid graveyards, and keep pretending to be a normal girl.
I needed a distraction for the rest of my day, though, and remembering that Chuck and I were still fighting, I decided to take a trip to his house to clear the air. I dressed in jeans and a roll-neck and tried to cover my bruises with concealer – not that it did much good. Still limping slightly, I started the journey back to my old town where Chuck and Mercy still lived. The thousands of thoughts running through my mind made the journey seem like mere minutes compared to the hour it usually took. I moved on autopilot, and before I knew it, I was outside Chuck’s house.
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