Eyes in the Darkness (The Coveted)

by Ripley Proserpina

  Mrs. Ivy turned an ice-cold gaze on me and lifted one eyebrow, waiting. “Jacinda,” I mumbled.

  “Are you—” It seemed to physically pain her to speak to me, but she swallowed and went on. “Why would she take you shopping? Is she doing one of those Big Brother Big Sister things?”

  “I’m staying with her.” I hoped my tone was polite, though I didn’t know why I cared. “My grandmother had a stroke and is in rehab.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Colt’s mom’s face pinched, her lips pursed like she’d sucked a lemon. “Have you been to see her?” she asked in a way that sounded as if she expected I hadn’t. And to her credit, I wouldn’t have visited if Jacinda hadn’t pushed me.

  “I have,” I replied. “Her speech is a bit slurred, and she’s weak. There was no plan yet. I think the doctors are just watching her.”

  “Well…” She put her hands on her hips and sighed heavily. “Give her my best wishes when you see her again. In the meantime, Colt, like I told you the last ten times this happened. No girls upstairs.”

  I took that hit as it was delivered. A reminder that I wasn’t the first girl he’d had upstairs.

  A muscle ticked in Colt’s jaw. “I’m eighteen. I’m not going to be told who I can have in my room and who I can’t. Your rules are your rules. Fine. I’m moving in with Thorn. He’s rented an apartment.”

  He had? I tried not to gape at Colton. Sure, I’d pretend I’d known that, too. Of course I had. I wasn’t hearing this for the first time. No…

  “Colton, you just came home.” His mother’s face sagged in such a way I thought she might actually cry. Maybe I was a cold person, because I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care. “You can’t leave now.”

  He shook his head. “I can. This very second. I’m going to take Lacey where she’s staying. I’ll be back later for my stuff.”

  “Colton.” His mother stumbled forward. “Stay.”

  “Sorry.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I know some of this might not be your fault. But some of it is, and she’s mine. Not one of the girls you’ve told me about before. Nice line by the way. I don’t bring girls home. You and I both know that.”

  “Colton.” I turned toward him. The last thing I wanted to do was witness a fight I was pretty sure I’d caused. Or at least the fact that I existed triggered. “Can we go?”

  He nodded. “Yep.” He took my hand. “Do you want a water or something before we go? Or food?”

  I didn’t think I could ever eat in this house, even if it was a zombie apocalypse and this was the only place with food for miles. Mrs. Ivy made my stomach clench just being near her. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the monster either, more like the general sense that I was never going to be good enough in her eyes, even if I was the first woman to walk on the moon.

  Not that I had aspired to that. Just to go north. To keep going north.

  I held his hand all the way downstairs and out to the car. He had started it and pulled out of the driveway before I spoke again. “Colt…”

  He interrupted me. “The nerve of her. Can’t have a girl upstairs. Told me before. Bullshit.”

  I winced at his tone. He wasn’t mad at me, but I felt the anger, nonetheless. “What I wanted to say is it’s important to have family. I’ve never really had any, not that counted anyway. You have one. Thorn does, too, and so do the Chees. Don’t dump your family for me, Colt. I won’t be the reason anyone else ends up alone.”

  He side-eyed me. “I’m not ending it with my family. I’m putting up some boundaries. If my mother had her way, even when she’s not acting crazy about you, she’d still be picking out my clothes and making my lunches. At some point, she’s going to have to accept that I’m not little anymore. I’m a grown-ass man. I already left once. She’s going to have to find something else to do than obsess over me. Or we’re never going to have a real relationship.”

  “She loves you.” It wasn’t that I was standing up for her, but he had to understand that having a mother who made his lunches wasn’t really a problem. Sure, it was awkward as an almost nineteen-year-old, but the woman wanted to take care of him. “Do you know how many times someone cared enough to make sure that I’d eaten? Let alone make me a lunch? Zero, Colton. Zero.”

  He glanced at me and then back to the road again, not replying.

  “At the same time though, what she did was really shitty, and I’m glad you have boundaries. And that you took up for me. That doesn’t happen a lot.” I reached over and squeezed his leg. “Thank you.”

  “I’m making it my job to take care of you,” he replied, and I chuckled.

  “How about we take care of each other? That would be nice. Like we’re a team.”

  “A team. Okay. I’m on your team.” He smiled at me, and then his gaze went back to the road. “Huh.”

  The sun was just starting to go down, so at first, I thought I was looking at the heat waving off the pavement. The brain comes up with all sorts of explanations to make sense of the unexplainable. After dismissing the heat, I came up with shadows, an overturned car, an animal in the road.

  Colton slammed on the breaks, and his car squealed over the pavement before rocking to a stop. His knuckles were white, and he stared into the darkness.

  “What is it?” I asked. It moved toward us, faster and faster. A storm? A tornado?

  “Hang on,” he got out through gritted teeth and jammed his foot onto the gas. The car rocketed forward, speeding toward the amorphous darkness. It was so dense, I couldn’t see through it.

  “What are you doing?” I squeaked, bracing myself with the grab bar.

  “I’m not going to run away,” he said. “It won’t force me to run again.”

  Oh shit. Oh shit. “That’s the monster.”

  He didn’t reply. The car was eating up the miles between us. The closer we got, the more my anxiety built. My stomach roiled and clenched, but I couldn’t get a word out. I didn’t know what Colton was trying to prove here. What would happen once we got inside that cloud? How far would the darkness go?

  “Colt…” I only had time to say his name before the monster decided he wanted part of this game of chicken. The thing burst into the sky like a wave hitting a breakwater. Oh, God. He wanted to go through it.

  I didn’t argue with him. I wanted all his focus on the road and getting us past that thing. On the other side was Thorn, Aaron, and Oliver.

  “You’ve got this,” I said, just as the darkness swallowed us up.

  It was hard to think about what happened next, hard to understand what was taking place even as it did. There were eyes… yellow, blue, green. They stared into mine. For the next seconds I wasn’t where I was… I was transported back to another time, not one I remembered.

  I watched myself, followed after myself when I was little more than a baby. I toddled, a bit unsteady on my feet as I shrieked in delight and ran toward my mother. We were in the desert. My mother, a man I didn’t recognize, and myself. She laughed at me and then turned back to whomever she was speaking to. I had no idea why I was seeing—remembering?—this.

  That’s when I saw the eyes. Blue. Yellow. Watching. Forever, eyes in the desert, and they wanted me. He’d scented me. I just knew it. And now I was his.

  Then we were back in the now. Those eyes. Watching me. Close. I could almost breathe him in. Was I finally old enough for him to have me? Was I—

  I jolted, and someone pulled me out of the car. Was I still in the car? I didn’t understand. Blood dripped down my nose, and I wiped it away.

  Oliver stood right in front of me. We were on the side of the road. He yanked a necklace off his neck and put it around mine. Why had he done that?

  “What?” I shook my head. Confusion made me clumsy, and I fell forward, Oliver catching me when I did.

  “Compulsion and poison. Details later. Hold onto me. I’ve got you.” He picked me up like I weighed nothing, holding me in his arms as though I was some kind of princess.

  A thoug
ht dawned on me. I needed him to understand. “Colton. The monster.”

  “Aaron has him. All will be well.” He looked over his shoulder. “Thorn, take Colton’s car. Drive straight to my house. We have to wash it down just like we do the two of them. Don’t touch anything you don’t have to. Leave the radio alone. Just hold the steering wheel. Then we’re going to hose it down. Wash you off. All of us will have to be basically anti-venomed.” Oliver walked toward his car. “Hold on, Lacey. Don’t you go under.”

  A smell came up to me, sweet. “What is that?”

  “The necklace. It’s lavender, sage, and other things. Real smells. True ones. You’re going to be fine.”

  I didn’t really understand what happened next, but I seemed to come back to myself when cold water dumped on my head. Cold, mind-destroying water. I screamed out in pain, terror. What was happening?

  Oliver let out a long breath. “You’re okay.”

  He said it, so it must have been true. I was okay. Just freezing. He seemed to sense I was with him again. “Good. Raise your arms. Shirt off. You can do it, or I can do it.”

  I let him, because I still wasn’t sure what was going on. I must have asked him, and he nodded. “Hopefully you’ll start to hold onto information soon. You’re safe. You and Colton were lured into its trap. You’re only still here because we were already coming to get you from his house. Saw it. The thing had you guys for fifteen seconds. He’s crazy strong. But now it’s fine. Or it will be.”

  “Well, your clothes are ruined.” Jacinda wore a small smile as she helped me into the bathroom. “Just take them off and dump them into the tub.”

  I started to strip when Kelly walked in. She held a long plastic stick with a— “Is that a dinosaur head?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Still off-balance, I covered my bra-covered chest as she used the snapping teeth to pick up my shirt and carry it outside. I barked a laugh.

  “She’s something, isn’t she?” Her mom looked after her proudly and then gestured for me to keep stripping. “Get in the tub and turn on the water. There’s a glass bottle with oils inside. I want you to coat yourself in it before you use the regular body wash to get it off.” She put her hand under the shower stream. “It’s good. Get in.”

  I did without arguing. Which said something about my state of mind. All I wanted to do was get this haze out of my head. The vision I’d had in the fog stuck to me, like a bad dream lingers after waking.

  Goosebumps lifted on my arms even though steam filled the shower. I grabbed the oil and poured it into my hand. Some of the same scents from Oliver’s necklace filled my nose now. Lavender. Sage. And something that reminded me of pizza. I kept sniffing. What was that?

  “It’s oregano,” Oliver answered me, and I stuck my head outside the curtain. Jacinda and Kelly were gone. He sat on the toilet, elbows on his knees, and stared down at the floor. “Oregano. Thyme. Dill. Lavender. Sage. They’re herbs that ward and cleanse against evil.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked. His face was drawn, cheekbones standing out like the last few hours had aged him. “Did the monster hurt you?”

  “Hurt me?” He continued to stare at the ground and shook his head. “No. It didn’t hurt me. But it almost got you. If Colt hadn’t kept his foot on that gas pedal, he’d have had you.”

  The idea of being caught and surrounded by that darkness was too much. I closed the shower curtain and put my face under the stream.

  “Use all the oil,” Oliver called out, and I opened my eyes.

  “Oliver.”

  “Please, Lacey?” His voice was tight.

  I picked up the glass container and poured the remaining oil over my head. Spreading the oil, I covered every inch of my body. “Basted.” I sniffed my arm. If it wasn’t for the lavender, I’d smell like a delicious roast chicken.

  Once covered, I washed it all off with the body wash. There wasn’t shampoo, so I used it in my hair. The herbal scent was replaced with whatever kind of boy body wash this was—so strong I could taste it.

  It was quiet in the bathroom except for the sound of the water pounding against the tub. “Oliver?”

  He cleared his throat. “Done?”

  “Yes.”

  The door opened and closed, signifying he’d left, so I opened the curtain. I’d been dead wrong. He stood in front of me, holding a towel, his gaze fixed on my wet body. Finally, he lifted his gaze and handed me the towel.

  I swallowed, and he looked away. “You’re going to be fine after you sleep. Colton is already out cold. He’s also been cleansed. The rest of us will get to it now. He’s out on the couch. My father called, and I filled him in on what happened. We have to take much more serious precautions. Today you had two full-on attacks. We may… we may have to keep you here until we get this fucker.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry for the language. Come on. I know you hate being told what to do, and I don’t want to do that, but to keep you safe and sane, you’re going to have to do what I say for a while.”

  I held the towel around my body. “I think we’ve had a misunderstanding.” I wasn’t clear in the head yet, and whatever I was going to say right then fled away as he led me from the bathroom.

  Thorn leaned in the doorway of Oliver’s bedroom, and Aaron stood by the window. They both turned to look at me when I entered. Thorn grabbed a white shirt that was out on the dresser and handed it to me. I quickly put it on, moving the towel so it was still around my waist.

  “It’s like she got bit by a snake,” Aaron said, but I wasn’t sure to who. “She’s had the anti-venom. Now her body needs to take care of the rest of it on its own. By morning, she’ll feel better.”

  I stumbled toward the bed and fell in it.

  “Are you staying?” Oliver asked Thorn.

  Thorn walked over to me and placed his hand on my head, running his hand through my hair. “Yes. Unless your mom wants me out.”

  “No, I don’t think she’ll be kicking anyone out anymore. We’re safe here,” Oliver said.

  I lifted my head to watch Thorn, Oliver, and Aaron move around the room.

  “Let me show you why,” he continued. “Tomorrow, we’re going to do what we should have done and train you guys in some things. For now, Aaron is going to start by lighting white candles. He’ll do it here and all over the house.”

  Aaron rocked back on his heels. “We light them, and we state our intention to be safe and take care of everyone inside this house.” He closed his eyes and spoke in a low voice I couldn’t hear. Thorn watched him closely. Aaron exited, presumably to go do the same all over the house.

  Oliver held up a bundle of something I didn’t recognize. “This is palo santo and selenite. We’re putting this by the windows and doors. It’ll keep anything else from getting in here.”

  “How did you learn all of this?” Thorn walked over, took the bundle from Oliver’s hand, and placed it by the window.

  Oliver nodded at him, like he’d done it correctly. “My mother. She’s an expert in a lot of stuff. Dad kills, mom heals. We’re not done. Initially, we doused Colton and Lace with rose water, but there’s more. Lacey is about to pass out, so we can go through all of it later. But crystals. Banishing candles. Lacey, there are amulets with protective runes all over them. You have one around your neck right now. Not to mention, there is good old-fashioned salt on all the doorways leading outside. You’re safe here. We don’t always have to take these kinds of protections, but when we need to, we know how to do it.”

  “Thanks, Oliver.” I found my voice. “He found me when I was just two years old.”

  That was the last thing I managed to say before my head hit the pillow, and it all just stopped.

  I woke to the sounds of whispers. Distantly, I knew Thorn was on one side of me, Oliver on the other. They both sat up on either side of me while I slept.

  “This has been going on so long. I can’t even fathom it,” Thorn’s voice was a whisper.

  “It stops. Now,” Oliver whispered b
ack.

  I closed my eyes. It should have been weird that they were both there in the bed with me, but it wasn’t. It was just nice, so sleep drifted back in.

  Fifteen

  I awoke the next morning much more clear-headed, and alone.

  I stared at the ceiling, thinking about what I’d learned yesterday. First off, the monster had been in my life a whole lot longer than I realized. Why? What had it been about me that made the monster think I belonged to him?

  There were tales written about this kind of thing—like Beauty and the Beast—but there was nothing romantic about this situation. This creature was killing. Hurting.

  And I didn’t belong to anyone I didn’t want to belong to.

  I pushed off my blankets and stood, ready to get to work and put this monster in its place. During the night, someone had retrieved the bags of clothes we’d bought and placed them on a chair nearby. Without paying close attention, I chose the first things I found that met all my needs. Underwear. Shirt. Bra. Pants. If it matched, great, if not, oh well.

  My heart pounded as I got ready, and my shoe was half on my foot when I stumbled outside. The door slammed into the wall as I hurried toward the group of people in the kitchen. “I want to kill him. How do we do that?”

  Aaron, Oliver, Ray, Colton, and Thorn stared at me. Maybe they hadn’t heard me clearly. “How do we kill the monster? Can we do it now?”

  Thorn grinned, but Ray was frowning at him. As if he felt him staring, Thorn wiped the smile off his face. “Sorry.”

  “We’re working that out now,” Ray said. “But he’s not like most shapeshifters. So we’re trying to figure it out.”

  They had a map on the table, but it wasn’t like any I’d ever seen before. “What is that?” I moved to Thorn’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder to balance myself as I leaned over.

  He grabbed my hand and tugged me into his lap. “Ley lines.”

  I’d heard of those before. But not in the southwest. “Those are in England, right? They run along Stonehenge?”