Eyes in the Darkness (The Coveted)

by Ripley Proserpina

  “Prostitutes on the balcony.”

  Oliver’s mother snorted. “Sure. Why not?”

  We were silent for a few moments before she spoke again. “I’m not a Trapper like my husband, but I get a sense about people. And I have a feeling that you’re tied to this land in some way. My guess is that the creature has had its eye on you for a long time.”

  “You said its. I noticed earlier that the guys call it a he.” I glanced at the side-mirror again. Still no truck. “I’ve been thinking of it as a him, too. I guess since they said they thought I was his—its—mate.”

  “Some creatures have genders,” Jacinda said. She leaned her head on her hand next to the open window. The desert flew by, and her golden blonde hair blew around her face. “Sirens are generally female. Incubi are male. Vampires are whatever they identified with as a human. The monster in Loch Ness can reproduce asexually.”

  I wondered if all this information was in those tempting books on Oliver’s shelf. “So shapeshifters-slash-skinwalkers-slash-changelings or whatever, they’re both?”

  “They’re whatever they want to be. From my research, they tend to take on a binary gender when they find their mate. In other words, its specific mate triggers the change. They’re organisms like any other organism on earth. They want to survive and procreate. They can’t procreate asexually, so…”

  Yeah. So. “But the monster has approached me as multiple people,” I said.

  “But never in its own form.” Jacinda tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. Something about her words made me get quiet. I’d seen the creature as Mr. Roberts. Maura. Gran.

  And then there was the night with Colton and Thorn. “I may not remember.”

  “You’ve been made to forget,” she said quietly, “but it could have appeared as a cop or as someone you knew. Colton and Thorn remember the monster, but they don’t remember what it looked like. They just remember its eyes.”

  Eyes.

  A sudden image appeared in my mind, and I gasped.

  Colton pulled me into his arms across the gearshift of his fancy car. His lips were on my neck, trailing fire along my skin. I opened my eyes, and in the passenger window, my face reflected back at me. I met my eyes and smiled, giddy and so happy.

  Everything changed in an instant. At first, I thought I was seeing an animal in the headlights. The eyes started yellow and blue and then changed to bright green. They got closer and closer.

  And I screamed.

  Thorn jumped up from where he’d been lying down in the backseat. His lips were still swollen from where he’d kissed me earlier. The whole night had felt like some kind of dream… now it was a nightmare come to life.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  Colton leaned in front of me, pulling open the glove compartment. “I’ve got a gun.”

  “What is it?” Jacinda’s hand came out and grabbed my arm. “Lacey?”

  “I remembered.” The pressure in my chest was back, and I gripped the spot like it might explode and take me down with it. “Well, the eyes. I remembered the eyes. Just a few seconds before and a few seconds after.” They’d been intense seconds, but that was all they’d been.

  “Yellow. Blue. Green. That’s what those boys remember.”

  I forced myself to swallow. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what it was.”

  “Doesn’t narrow it down. So you remember the eyes, and then it fades away. That’s what Colt and Thorn have in their minds, too. My husband questioned them about a hundred times. They didn’t realize that was happening initially. Trappers spend a lot of time on those websites determining truth from fiction.” She shook her head. “Some poor souls make up stories, and it wastes everyone’s time. Theirs struck us as real right away. Something about how desperate their posts felt. Their utter horror that their girl was alone.”

  Their girl. It felt a little bit more real with those few memories. They’d both been in that car with me. It was a blank spot, but I’d made out with Thorn, and then he was there when I kissed Colton. Had Colt been there when I’d been with Thorn? Shame flowed through me, and I forced myself to look out the window. Were there other things about my life I didn’t remember? Things that made what people said about me true? I had been perfectly fine hooking up with both of them in front of each other. What did that say about me?

  Jacinda squeezed my arm as she pulled the car into the hospital parking lot. “Lacey, you’re very young. You have lots of choices. Take this from someone who has studied cultures for so long, I can’t stop talking about it, even when my kids beg me to. There is no one way to do anything. There is only what works for you.”

  “Jacinda, I’m—I’m not a…”

  She held up her finger. “Something has been done to you. This creature, it’s warped your life. I know you aren’t what they say you are. You don’t have to tell me. Even if you were sleeping with every man in this town, I wouldn’t think that. Sex is normal, it’s healthy. There’s nothing wrong with it. Use protection, and get to know yourself.” She sighed. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but even if that exploration includes one or both of my sons. Now get out of the car, because I can’t believe I just said that, and I’m not saying it again.”

  My mouth fell open. Had she really just suggested she’d be okay with me having sex with both of her sons? This day was getting stranger by the second. I followed her out of the car, and she stopped. “You’re all very young, but not too young to have normal attractions.”

  A motorcycle pulled up into the space next to us, effectively cutting off whatever horrifyingly embarrassing thing she was going to say next.

  I edged past the motorcycle, when the driver’s hand shot out and caught me. Instinctively, I wrenched away, making eye contact at the same time.

  “Oliver?”

  He dropped my arm and pulled off his helmet, shaking his hair free. Now, I knew that in commercials, girls shaking their long hair was deemed super sexy. But I had never imagined that it could be just as sexy with a guy, or masculine.

  It was. It so was.

  He grinned at me, and I took in his outfit. Leather jacket. Heavy boots. His dark hair was the same color as his jacket, and with his deep gold skin, he looked like the cover of some kind of bad-boy motorcycle club romance.

  “I wanted to take you on my bike later.” He swung one leg over the seat and stowed his helmet in a net attached to the back.

  And just like that, I became every girl who had a thing for motorcycles. “Um, yeah.” My voice came out breathy, so I cleared my throat. “I mean, okay.”

  From the other side of her car, Jacinda snorted. “His dad got me the same way.”

  I had a hard time picturing distractible, slightly geeky Ray like Oliver. I could feel his gaze on me, and my face heated. “I had some memories of the night we saw the monster.” Who knew the monster would suddenly become a safe topic of conversation?

  “Yellow/blue/green eyes?” Oliver asked. “Sitting in the car with Colton and Thorn?”

  “Yes,” I answered, wondering how much he knew about that night, and if it changed how he saw me.

  He placed his hand on my lower back, steering me toward the hospital. “Was that it? Did you see its face?”

  “Only my own,” I replied, “reflected in the window.”

  He came to a stop and turned to me. “Was the light on in the car?” he asked.

  I thought back to the flash I’d had. Now that it had returned, I could fish out small details from that night. Colton’s hands reaching for the glove box. The smell of his shampoo as his hair tickled my nose. The light in the glove box had come on when he’d opened it. But the interior? I shook my head.

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure all the lights were off.” Another memory came to me. I lay in the backseat with Thorn, curled into his chest as we stared through the moon roof up at the stars. “Yes, the lights were off.”

  Oliver stared hard, his eyes narrowed. “You can’t see your reflection in the dark unless t
he room—or in your case the car—is illuminated. If it was dark outside and dark inside, you would have been able to make out the scenery at the turn-off. You wouldn’t have seen your face.”

  I tried to make sense of what he was saying. It was true, and the reason I had curtains in my bedroom. I didn’t want anyone looking through my windows at night, because I couldn’t see them.

  “So the monster wore my skin that night,” I realized. “But shouldn’t I have been asleep, or sleepy if that happened?”

  Oliver nodded. “Usually. But just because that’s what we know about other monsters, doesn’t mean it’s true of this one. But don’t stress too much about that. Nothing to be done. It gives me a lot to think about. Come on. Let’s go see your gran. Get this over with. Then you and I are going for a ride. Okay? Lots of things to discuss, and I’ll talk to my dad, obviously. He’s the expert, not me.”

  He reached out, taking my hand. Despite the fact that his mother watched, and had made that really, really poorly timed uncomfortable remark, I let him link our fingers together. It was so nice to have people who wanted to spend time with me. Even if this whole thing had really fallen off the cliff of cray-cray.

  The smell of a hospital was stomach churning. Antiseptic. And stale flowers. Both of those scents made my nose itch. I’d been in hospitals four times, and every time it had ended with a death.

  The first time had been the death of my mother. Technically, she’d died elsewhere. But they’d officially called the end of her life in this very place. Her brother, my uncle Tim, had driven himself to a drunken death a year later. And my gran’s friend, Tappy, had passed away from a heart attack.

  Now, I stood outside of Gran’s room, wearing the sticker that made me a valid visitor pressed onto my shirt, and it was everything I could do to not turn and run.

  “Lacey?” Oliver placed a hand on my back. “Want to talk?”

  I didn’t think I could have opened my mouth and said anything just then, even if someone had offered me a million dollars.

  We were talking all day about monsters. They were real, and one wanted me. Wanted me in the most disgusting way. He’d killed a little boy, and that was horrifying. The monster could do unbelievable things that caused me constant pain.

  And yet…

  I forced myself to swallow. Perhaps the reason I could accept this, perhaps the very truth behind why I wasn’t laughing them all off and going about my day, was because I had lived with a monster my whole life. And she was in that room. The only difference was she was of the human variety.

  I wiped tears that flowed down my cheeks. When had I gotten so weak?

  “Give her a second, Ollie.” His mother’s voice was low, comforting. “This is… complicated.”

  That was putting it mildly. I sucked in a breath, wiped my tears, and stiffened my back. I could always fake strength, even when I was weak and terrified.

  “Sorry.” I shifted on my feet.

  Oliver shook his head. “Don’t apologize.”

  “Can I—” I wiped my face on the shoulder of my shirt to be sure my face wasn’t wet. The last thing I wanted was for Gran to see me weak. “Can I go in by myself first?”

  Oliver and his mom exchanged a glance. Surprisingly, it was Oliver who nodded his permission. Not that I needed his permission, but I’d asked it and—God—I was such a wreck. “You have a minute.” He wasn’t trying to exert control over me, I could sense that. It was more that he was assuring me that whatever happened in there would have a time limit, and he’d be coming in after me.

  That was nice. Backup.

  I pushed open the door and walked inside, fixing my face in what I hoped was a neutral expression.

  Gran watched TV, her bony fingers clutching the remote. Her eyes were narrowed, and I realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She couldn’t see without them.

  I did a quick scan of the room and located them on a table next to the chair that must have been meant for guests. “Hi, Gran,” I said, and went to the table to pick up her glasses. The lenses were smudged, so I took them into the bathroom to clean them.

  I could feel her gaze on my back, though she didn’t say a word. But maybe she couldn’t. I walked back into the room and found her watching me.

  Holding up her glasses as explanation, I approached her. “You look better than I thought you would.” Ohh. That didn’t sound friendly or supportive, and Gran chuckled.

  “Disappointed?” Her voice was thick, and her lips moved around the words as if they were difficult to form. To anyone who didn’t know her, she’d sound drunk, but when she was really drunk, she could enunciate like she taught diction classes.

  She dropped the remote and fumbled for it. I stepped closer and held up her glasses, wordlessly questioning whether I could help her or not. The woman who hated me more than anything grasped for them, but missed and got my hand instead. Her nails dug into my skin before I yanked my arm away and placed the glasses next to her. I didn’t know why it hurt that she didn’t want my help, but it did. Once they were on, I handed her the remote and waited until it was firmly in her grasp before I stepped away.

  We stared at each other, and if I’d thought illness would soften her, then I was wrong. Her eyes spit fire at me, and her left hand trembled like it did sometimes right before she hit me. She probably wanted to and cursed the weakness that kept her from getting a jump on me.

  The door opened and Oliver and Jacinda walked in. “Hello, Mrs. Madison,” Jacinda said.

  Oliver lifted his hand in a wave and then stuck his hands in his pockets, like that was as much of a greeting as he was willing to give.

  “Who are you?” Gran got the words out, but they were barely intelligible.

  Spinning on his heel, Oliver strode toward me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “We’re your neighbors,” he said.

  Gran narrowed her gaze. “Why are you here? I don’t know you.”

  I winced. I hadn’t known these people long, but I liked them—despite their weirdness and Jacinda’s embarrassing comments. These were good people who traveled around saving other people from monsters. They’d taken me in, and they had no reason to have to do that. My cousin had once told me that Gran asked the state to not make her have to raise me. She’d tried to turn me over to foster care. If it wouldn’t have made her look less than pious, she probably would have left me on the street. I was lucky she hadn’t tried to drown me in the bathtub.

  “Gran, Mrs. Chee found you and helped you. You’re alive because of her.”

  Jacinda shot me a kind look, but then shook her head. “Not to worry. I know you don’t know us. I just wanted to let you know that we are going to take care of Lacey until you are able to again. And to ask you what you remember about last night. The exorcism?”

  My gran blinked rapidly. “What exorcism? I… I…”

  We all waited silently for whatever she was going to say. “You can’t stay with strangers,” she addressed me. “You’ll stay with your cousin Christopher until I get back.”

  That sounded like hell. I opened my mouth to argue when Jacinda answered fast. “Sure thing. That’s what we’ll do. We certainly hope you feel better soon.”

  Oliver grabbed my hand and pulled me along as Gran shouted at my retreating figure. “You’re a slut. You’ve never been able to control yourself. Stay away from that boy. Keep your legs closed.”

  Next to me, Ollie whispered in my ear. “I bet she slept with a hundred men before she was eighteen. No one is that obsessed with sex.”

  Jacinda swept past us, heading toward the elevator. “You’re not staying with Christopher. Let them come after me with the police. End of story.”

  I felt like there was something I should have said, some apology I should have made to them, some explanation. But I never had any, so I simply stayed quiet. The Chees killed monsters. But some monsters you couldn’t kill. Sometimes the monsters were human, and you were born into their family. Sometimes they raised you.

  Oliver placed a
helmet on my head and smiled at me. The wind suddenly blew hard, the sound so loud he waited for it to stop before he spoke. “Okay. This ride has a two-fold purpose. The first is fun. You need some, and it’ll help with the bad monster feeling in your chest. It always relieves it for me. The second is I want to see how far the compulsion to stay here will let you go. What are the boundaries? We don’t know yet, and we need to. So when you suddenly feel like you need to turn around and go back, squeeze my waist two times. I’ll turn us around and go another direction.”

  He got on the bike and started it up without waiting for me to reply. I hesitated for only a second. I trusted Oliver, and if we needed to do this, then we’d do it.

  Also—I’d never ridden on a motorcycle before, and I wanted to. Complete the bad girl look and all that.

  I lifted a hand to wave to Jacinda before Oliver tore out of the parking lot. Wrapping my arms as tight as I could around his waist, I shut my eyes and waited to die. Why had I thought this would be fun? It was terrifying! There was nothing between me and the pavement, and no way would I survive if we wrecked. This was so stupid, so stupid—

  “Open your eyes!” Oliver yelled over the wind.

  Was he crazy? I’d rather not see death approach. I couldn’t answer, and so I held on tighter.

  “Lace!” he called out. “Open your eyes and look.”

  Look at what? I opened my eyes and saw he’d driven us out of town onto the highway running north.

  The air was hot, but after the freezing hospital it felt good. We moved fast, but every so often I caught the scent of creosote. I loosened my hands from their death grip and leaned back to watch the scenery. So often I was caught up in the awfulness of the town where I lived that I forgot about the land. And the land was beautiful.

  Shades of brown as far as I could see, mountains rising up in the distance in one direction, and the brown desert curving toward the horizon in the other. It was bleak, but there was a beauty in its bleakness. It was stripped down. Nothing could hide out here.

  Except something did.

  The thought caused a shiver to race up my spine despite the heat and bright sunshine. Anxiety bloomed in my stomach as we went on, getting tighter and tighter until my stomach clenched and I was afraid I’d throw up. Was this what Oliver meant? Was this the compulsion?