Darker Days

“I know you’re scared, but I’ll be careful.”

I could hardly hear him. My heart started up again, hammering against my ribs. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen. “Garrett, please—”

He slipped the button through the hole. When his fingers went for the zipper, I started to scream.

Thrashing. Kicking. Clawing. Anything to keep from remaining still. I was screaming incoherently—no words—just sound. Awful, ear-damaging sound. Anything that might attract attention. It bounced off the trees and echoed though the forest. My muscles were on fire, straining and pulling to get free.

But it was useless. Like a bimbo from a bad horror flick, I’d run us into the woods. Away from his house. Away from people. We were secluded.

Idiot. I was an idiot.

I continued to thrash, pinned down by strong hands wrapped securely around my neck to keep me in place. Through my hair, I could see his eyes. The icy, almost inhuman sound of his voice was nothing compared to the spark of madness I saw gleaming there. This person wore his face—had his body on like a cheap suit—but it wasn’t Garrett.

The zipper slipped a few teeth and I stilled.

“You’ll see,” he whispered in my ear. Funny how at that moment, I thought about Lukas and the way I’d felt when he’d whispered in my ear. Amazing how the same thing, done under such different circumstances, could have such a vastly different effect.

I tried to push him away again, but my energy was gone. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Instead of the wild thrashing, I should have conserved.

“We’ll be so good together,” Garrett continued. “We were meant to be.”

And then he was gone.

The pressure of his body lifted and the space where he’d been was nothing more than chilly, empty air.

“Where I come from,” a dark voice snarled. “You treat a woman with respect.”

Garrett crashed through the trees and landed somewhere to my right. It was too dark to see, but I knew that voice. Lukas.

“You never raise your voice,” Lukas hissed, his dark silhouette advancing. “You never use foul language.”

He grabbed Garrett by the shirt front and spun him around. Slamming him up against the nearest tree, he said, “And you never lay hands on her.”

For a moment, all I could do was watch. Watch and think. About running myself into the middle of nowhere. About what had almost happened. About what Lukas might be capable of doing to Garrett… Everything felt watery and surreal, but I still knew right from wrong. Regardless of how twisted my insides felt, this hadn’t been Garrett’s fault.

Hip throbbing and wrist on fire, I staggered to my feet just in time to stop him. Garrett was limp in his arms, head lolling awkwardly to the side. His eyes were closed and, even in the dark, I could see the trail of red leaking from his nose and the right corner of his lip.

“Lukas—Stop…” I grabbed his arm as he was about to strike again. My heart hammered so hard that I was sure it would explode from my chest, and I could barely breathe, but I managed to say, “Vida. It was Vida. She touched him in the cafeteria yesterday, remember? He wasn’t thinking straight. He was infected.”

The muscles in his arm twitched, but he didn’t lower his fist.

“Nothing happened. I’m okay.”

He turned to me, eyes wide and mouth agape. For a second, he actually looked angry. Not at Garrett, but at me. “Nothing happened?”

“He knocked me to the ground. That’s all. You got here before it could go any further.” I tugged on his arm again, this time harder, hoping to God he couldn’t hear the terror I felt. “You got here in time.”

Lukas took a deep breath and held it. Slowly, he blew out through pressed lips and lowered his hand. I grabbed it and squeezed, afraid he’d lash out again.

His fingers wrapped tight around mine. He was squeezing so hard, I thought my fingers might pop off. “You’re all right?”

I nodded. “I’m all right.” Truthfully, I was numb, but telling Lukas that would only make things worse.

With my free hand, I tugged the cuff of his shirt. “Let’s get him back to the office. Mom will know what to do with him ’til this wears off.”

Chapter Eighteen

Garrett screamed for almost an hour after we got him back to the office. It got so bad that Mom had to gag him so the neighbors wouldn’t call the cops. Most of it was incoherent. Rage-fed growls and a string of inventive curses, but once in awhile, he’d scream my name.

Mom asked if I was all right and let it drop. She promised to pick it up tomorrow, though, because technically, I’d snuck out and she wasn’t thrilled. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d been covered in mud and wearing the forest floor as a fashion accessory when we walked through the door, either.

I didn’t know what I’d tell her. What I could tell her. With a mom like mine, the last thing you want to do is tattle on someone. His fault or not, she’d have Garrett hanging upside down over an unending pit of ravenous, flesh eating demons for trying to hurt her little girl. And with Dad there? I didn’t even want to think about the things he’d do.

I’d sat quietly and listened to Mom call Mrs. Redding at the hospital to tell her we got into the liquor cabinet. Since we were snockered, Mom told her she was going to keep Garrett here overnight and would bring him home in the morning.

In truth, an associate of Mom’s, a Voodoo priestess named McKenna, was coming over at first light to fling a whammy on Garrett. It would help speed things along. After McKenna did her mojo, Garrett would sleep for a day and wake up normal.

We hoped.

After everything was squared away, Mom and Dad slipped away to follow a lead they’d heard on the police scanner. A nightclub downtown had erupted into a scene from a porno gone wrong. They hoped to catch Lust. I was instructed to stay put, and I think I made Mom more suspicious when I didn’t bother arguing. They headed out and I promptly left Lukas curled up on the couch and retreated to shower.

When I got back to my room, I heaved my backpack onto the bed and pulled out the first thing my fingers touched. My history book. Flipping to a random page, I sucked in a deep breath and gripped the edge of the book like it might try to run away. The words danced in blurry waves, and everything grew hazy. The fiery unease I’d been trying so hard to tamp down since we’d left the woods ignited, and the tears spilled over. I’d been doing a great job ignoring what happened—what could have happened—but here in the dark, alone, it was a neon elephant dancing a jig with bells on in the middle in the room.

I don’t know how long I sat there—curled into a ball and crying like a baby—before he came in.

I didn’t look up as he crossed the room, or as the bed sagged under his weight. I didn’t pull away or stop crying when he slipped behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Normally, I would’ve sucked it up. Even Mom didn’t get to see me bawling like a baby. But part of me wanted Lukas there. I wanted him to see that under my hard shell and weirdness—according to him—I was just a human girl.

Just a girl…

“You’re all right now,” he whispered. His voice sent soothing ripples over my skin and chased away the numbness. A tiny voice in the back of my mind raged at me over the reaction, but for once, I ignored it.

We sat there, silent except for my occasional sniffle. The moon peeked through the window on the other side of the room, casting our shadows across the wall behind the bed.

After a while, the silence got too heavy. Plus, there was something I’d been wanting to ask him. “How did you find me in the woods? How did you know?”

“I saw you leave. Out the window. I followed.”