Authors: Karina Halle
Suddenly there are knocks at the door beside us.
A scream dies in my throat.
“Breaker isn’t doing anything,” comes Sage’s voice. This time there’s a tremor in it. “And, um, I think we’re not alone down here.”
Oh. My. God. My dad.
“Dad are you okay?” I cry out.
“Yes sweetie,” I hear him say, though his tone is equally as strained. “I think there’s a raccoon down here. A rabid one. Must have gotten in somehow and . . .”
I glance at Jay. We both know that’s not a fucking raccoon.
Jay promptly takes my hand and gives it to Dawn. “Don’t let go of each other.” He turns to face the door squarely. “Stand back from the door,” he commands.
“But that means going down to the racoon,” my dad says shakily. There is something so terrible in knowing two grown men are scared.
“Come on,” Sage says and I hear them walking down. He’s trying to sound brave. “Mid-way, it’s enough.” He pauses. “Okay Jay.
Hurry
.”
Jay comes at the door foot forward, easily stomping the door open with one quick blow. The door swings hard against the wall and comes off the top hinges, the front of the door caved in where Jay’s boot met it.
There are a few seconds where I’m sure something has happened to them, where they don’t appear and it’s only dust motes floating among the iPhone beam.
Then comes my dad, face pale and shiny with sweat, and Sage, who towers over him but looks equally as rattled. Sage nods back at the door.
“We might want to find a way to keep that closed for now,” he says edgily.
Jay nods, reaching past him and pulling the door shut. I’m not sure what exactly we’re supposed to do now with something in the basement
and
something upstairs, when suddenly all the lights go on with an electrical CRACK!
The house hums back to life. The fridge in the kitchen, the fan in the living room.
The five of us stare at each other in that relieved kind of way, like all fears are erased in the light.
But I know that’s not true. There’s still something to be done about the basement and the upstairs and I’m about to ask if we should check on Jacob when he comes back down the stairs, wiping his hands.
“Power is back on,” he says, charming smile on his face. “Wish I still felt like having desert.”
“No, no,” my dad says, his shoulders slumping as he walks down the hall. “That’s perfectly all right. After all that, I’ve lost my appetite. Plus I have a raccoon in the basement to deal with now. I better call pest control.”
He goes into the kitchen and I hear him talking to someone when Jacob grabs my arm and leans down toward me, the smile wiped off his face. “I was able to fix this temporarily but you need to get out of here now.”
“What, why?” I ask, eying his grip on my arm.
He looks over my head at Jay. “You need to take her away for a few days. Three. Maybe five. This house needs to be cleared of all the energy in here. There’s been too much with all of us, it’s like a bloody feast for them and they will continue to feed off you Ada, long after we all leave.”
“Where am I supposed to go? I start school in two weeks, I have to start preparing for that.”
“You’ll figure it out,” he says, more to Jay than to me. “But listen. If you leave, I can close it permanently. Your dad will be safe, don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on him. But he won’t be if you stay. And neither will you.”
I try to breathe. Everything is happening so fast. “I. I guess I can go to Dex and Perry’s.”
“No,” he says sharply. “Not right away, not yet. They’re looking for you closer now. They
know
you. Being around Perry and Dex is too dangerous, the three of you have two much power between you.” He jerks his thumb at Sage and Dawn who are standing nearby, watching this unfold. “Just like them. All of us together like this is a recipe for disaster and it’s my fault for letting it happen.”
“Well then why the hell did you guys move next door!?” I exclaim.
Jacob gives me a dry look. “For your protection on all levels. But we can’t predict everything.”
“Oh really? Finally something you can’t do.” I sigh and rub my hand down my face, stopping before I smear my lipstick. “Okay. I’ll go. Do I have time to pack? I don’t even want to go back up there. What do I tell my dad?”
“Jay will pack for you,” Jacob says, nodding at him. Jay obeys and goes running up the stairs, taking them two at a time with ease.
“Oh my god, he doesn’t know what I want to wear!” I cry out. Not to mention he’s going to have to rifle through my underwear drawer. Fuck. I hope all the dirty laundry is in the hamper.
Bigger things going on here, Ada, focus.
“Your dad,” Jacob continues, ignoring me, “tell him that you’re going out to the movies. Then call him later and tell him you’re spending the night at a friend’s house. Then lie some more. You’re his daughter, love, I’m pretty sure you know how to get away with murder.”
“And the raccoon?” Sage asks, gesturing to the door.
Jacob gives him a crooked smile. “That wasn’t a raccoon but I think you know that, old boy. No matter. It’s not there anymore. The pest people will come but they won’t find a trace.”
“Like it’s all so easy,” I mutter.
“Oh no, love,” Jacob says grimly. “Going forward, nothing will be easy.”
“What if your arm gets chopped off? Can you grow a new one?”
I don’t have to see Jay’s eyes in the darkness to know he’s probably rolling them. “Again, I don’t know,” he says. “And I’m not about to find out.”
It’s been like this the entire drive to . . . actually I’m still not sure where we are going. The moment Jacob told us to get out of the house, we did. My dad didn’t seem to have a problem with me leaving to spend time with “Amy,” especially when Jacob volunteered to help him clean up. Jay packed for me, the duffel bag is in the backseat of Jacob’s Mercedes which we were told to borrow.
Jay’s been driving for about two hours and all I know is we’re heading toward the coast. Cannon Beach, maybe. But the road along highway 26 is dark and winding and even though I’m sure Jay could drive all night, I’m nodding off here and there. Hence all my questions.
I guess it happens again because my chin hits my chest and I’m jolted awake as gravel crunches under the tires.
We’ve pulled into a parking lot of a roadside motel. In the dark it looks epically creepy and I have half a mind to tell Jay I’ll sleep in the car because I’ve had just enough creepy for one day.
“It’s nearly midnight,” Jay says, turning off the engine and twisting in his seat to look at me. “We need some rest.”
“Yeah but . . .” I say, staring at the motel.
It’s not like the Bates Motel, thank god, but it was definitely built in the 50’s or 60’s. A long sloping roof slicked with wet moss, water dripping from the eaves even though it hasn’t rained in a few days. There are ten rooms all facing out to the cars and an office at the end with a blinking neon sign.
“Looks like there’s room,” Jay says, there only being three cars in the lot.
“Yeah and probably with good reason,” I tell him.
Still we both get out of the car and I grab the duffel from the backseat, along with his backpack. He eyes me over the roof of the Mercedes, his face looking sharp and white in the wane light of the single streetlight at the side of the empty highway. “Are you afraid of ghosts? Or just staying in a place that’s not the Four Seasons?”
“Oh please,” I scoff. “When the hell would I have stayed at a Four Seasons? And by the way, there are some hotels that combine luxury and the undead. Ever heard of The Benson in downtown Portland?”
He just nods at the office. “Come on, princess.”
The office manager is a creep. Not in the “Welcome to my haunted hotel” kind of way and not in the wide-eyed, “I’m a good boy with secrets” Norman Bates kind of way. But in the way that he’s staring at my chest the whole time Jay is signing forms and paying for the room, to the point where he licks his dried lips.
“Eyes up here, buddy,” Jay says sharply, pointing his pen at the manager and then at his own face. I’d never seen Jay look remotely murderous before, not even when demon fighting, but murderous seems a good way to describe his eyes now.
“Huh?” the manager looks up at him with a dull stare, oblivious to all except my non-existent chest. He snorts in something awful and swallows it down before handing the keys to Jay. “Room seven.”
Gross. Gross.
Gross
.
I abruptly turn and step out into the night air, trying to keep my dinner down, Jay coming right after me, the blinds rattling on the glass door as it slams shut.
“What a fucking creep,” I swear as we head down toward the room.
“Fuck if I’ll let anyone look at you like that,” he says, his voice taking on the lilting Irish accent again. It would be extremely flattering—his protectiveness—if this accent business didn’t throw me off.
“Uh, Irish accent alert,” I tell him as we stop outside the door.
He frowns and gives me a quick glance while he fiddles with the keys. “What are you on about?”
“You sounded Irish again. You know.
Top of the morning to you, I’m a leprechaun
,” I say, myself sounding like a fucking Lucky Charms commercial.
“That’s racist,” he comments as the door opens. A whiff of musty air comes forward. He flicks on the lights showcasing a hotel room with a Super 8 meets mountain lodge appeal. Which is to say, no appeal at all. Thick yellowing curtains, a green carpet with a myriad of stains, a double bed with itchy looking bedspread. Shitty paintings of trees and pheasants adorn the walls.
Wait. Back up.
Double bed.
“Should we go get a room with two beds?” I squeak.
He steps in the room. “If I go back in there, I’ll ending up punching that guy in the face.”
Now that he didn’t sound Irish, I take a moment to revel in his possessiveness. I like my alpha males and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
He locks the door behind us, slides the chain across, and then flicks on the noisy air conditioner underneath the window. The curtains dance. Then he throws his backpack on the bed and gives me a discerning look. “If you want me to sleep on the floor, I have absolutely no problems doing so.”
“Don’t be silly,” I tell him, though the back of my brain is hemming over the fact that sleeping on the floor wasn’t his first assumption. He automatically thought he’d be getting into bed with me. Which meant . . .
Well, probably nothing.
Unless . . .
Shut it, Ada.
I put my bag on my side of the bed and start rummaging through it, curious to see what he packed.
“Jay,” I say slowly, flipping through my clothes faster and faster. “Did you pack me any actual clothes?”
I look up at him. He shrugs, bringing out those dangerously thin pajama pants of his from his backpack. “I just emptied a drawer.”
“But this is all just bras and underwear,” I tell him, holding them up in the air. Yes, I do have Victoria’s Secret Angel Card. “Miraculously there’s a pair of denim shorts in here but that’s it.”
He stares at me blankly. Although when Jay does blank, it’s like he’s still staring into your soul. “Guess you’ll need to buy some clothes.” He goes back to bringing things out of his bag and then pauses. “Sorry.”
He says this like he’s not used to apologizing. That might be true.
I sigh, loudly and like a little girl who hasn’t gotten her way. It’s the small things that comfort you when you’re under epic stress and scared for your life, though I should be grateful for clean underwear because I have a feeling I’ll need that most of all.
“Here,” he says, reaching across the bed and handing me a t-shirt. “You can use that as a nightshirt.”
I hold it up. It’s a giant Led Zeppelin concert tee shirt. “Where did you get this?”
“Salvation Army,” is his answer.
I hold it up to my nose and smell it. It smells like him, causing my heart to flutter.
“Do you listen to Led Zeppelin? Do you even know who they are?”
That stare again. “I’m not an alien, Ada. I know who they are, just as I know who most bands are. I have every album on my iPhone, from their self-titled all the way to Coda.”
Well I feel stupid. “Good,” I tell him. “That means you’re not as weird as I thought.”
Then before I say anything else, and before he keeps staring at me like that, I take the shirt and the duffel bag and head to the bathroom.
In here the tap is dripping and there are rust stains in the tub. The light is ghoulishly fluorescent and it takes forever for me to try and open up one of the little bars of soap.
I turn the water on until it’s basically scalding and wash my face again and again and again. Jay luckily had the smarts to grab my tooth brush, toothpaste, deodorant and moisturizer, as well as my phone and my purse, which has my wallet, hairbrush and just enough makeup to make me look presentable tomorrow.
I sigh, trying to get air in my lungs, fighting against the feeling of the room spinning around on me. I’m too easily overwhelmed these days, but fuck if I don’t have a good reason.
Putting down the toilet lid, I take a seat, my head in my hands and try to breathe. It’s the first time I’ve been alone since dinner and my mind is chugging along, trying to catch up with all that’s happened.
I texted my father during the drive, telling him I was going with Amy and her family to their cabin outside of Mount Hood. I’ve been there many times and he likes her parents, so even though it was an outright lie, he didn’t question it too much. He did sound rattled though and I know that the dinner was weighing on him. It didn’t quite go as he planned, plus there was the whole being trapped in the basement with Sage and a “raccoon.” I know that had scared the pants off him.
Jay assured me that he would be all right, that Jacob would keep a close eye on him, as would Sage and Dawn, and that he was one hundred percent safer without me in the house for now. I believed that.
I wanted to tell Perry about it, maybe get her to come down and spend some time with him while I’m gone, but I’m not sure that would make anything better. She’d been texting and calling me every day for the past week, making sure I was okay and every single time I had to lie, resorting to snark and sarcasm to get her off my back. The truth is, I don’t want her to worry and there’s nothing she, nor Dex, can do, no matter how special they think they are.
A few times she did ask about Jay, though. Wondering if he was getting me to burn down houses like her Jacob had. I played it off like it was no big deal, that I rarely saw him but even with that, she would end that part of the conversation with “I don’t trust him.”
And in turn that always made me wonder if I should.
Just outside this bathroom door is a man who is supposed to protect—who
has
protected me—and yet I don’t know a single thing about him. I guess he doesn’t even know a single thing about himself.
Although that isn’t true. He loves Led Zeppelin.
I sigh and take off the black dress that drew so much leering from the creepy manager (and yet zero leering from Jay, which is why I wore it to begin with) and slip on the Zeppelin tee shirt. Somehow it feels right, looks right, and is long enough to cover my butt. Not that he’s a stranger to seeing me in my underwear.
I do my business—flicking on the fan and being extremely glad at how loud and rickety it is because the last thing I need right now is him hearing me—and then head back into the room.
Jay is lying in bed, the covers pulled over him, reading a book.
Shirtless.
My mouth drops open and I immediately clamp it shut.
He looks over the book to me, gives me a quick smile. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yup,” I tell him, trying so hard not to stare at his chest. But I do, oh I do! “Just screwing my head on straight.”
He nods and goes back to the pages.
I should walk over to the bed and get in on my side but I’m stuck here. My eyes are drawn to his chest.
It’s massive. I knew it would be. Firm wide pecs, rippled abs you could grate cheese on, rounded shoulders, and everything just as it should be on a beast such as him (though with only a dusting of chest hair –he’s not
that
much like a beast). And again, he’s more tanned than I thought he would be, the summer sun being kind to him. He nearly glows golden in the light from the bedside lamp.
I feel his gaze on me and quickly bring my eyes to his. He raises his brow in question.
“Just trying to see what you’re reading,” I tell him, hurrying to my side of the bed.
“Milton,” he says. “The graphic novel of Paradise Lost.”
“You’re kidding me,” I say, throwing back the covers and peering at the book, glad for something to distract me from getting into bed with Jay.
He shows it to me. “It’s graphic novel of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger.”
I can’t help but give him a puzzled smile as I bring the stiff sheets over me. “I didn’t know you liked those books. You’re full of surprises tonight.”
“You kept on calling the Thin Veil the “Thinny” so I decided I needed to know what you’re were talking about.” He pauses, cocking his head. “Not quite the same.”
“That’s good to know.” I pull the rest of the blankets up, not really sure how I should sleep. My back to him seems like the best, least awkward way (especially as he then can’t wake up to the sight of me drooling in my sleep), but it also seems a bit like a brush-off.
He decides it for me, shutting the book suddenly with a
thwap
and putting it on the table. He leans over to reach for the light switch on the lamp and I steal a glance of his torso as he twists in place, his muscles straining, the hint of boxer briefs under the sheets.
My god, he’s mesmerizing.
The lights go off and I promptly roll to my side, eyes open and adjusting to the dim room. The air conditioner kicks off and then on again, loud, but I can still hear him breathing beside me.
I wonder if I should say something.
Good night?
Thank you?
I’ve never slept with a ginger before?
But all my words stay inside my head, my mouth dry, my body too tense to relax. Having him beside me like this is confusing. I feel like I’m going around and around, unsure how to deal with this, even though this is nothing more than two friends (partners?) sleeping beside each other.