He shook his head and slunk into the shadows.
Chapter 21
Pain lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
She had woken at five and now was having major trouble keeping herself from waking her sister for no other reason than her own boredom.
She turned to look at Jane—face buried in the pillow, one arm dangling off the bed. Just like when you were eight, Pain thought, grinning. She switched her gaze to the window—gray sky and black palm leaves—and then to the clock on the nightstand. Five-fifteen. The others had stayed up late last night. Jane would kill her. Long shower it is.
She tiptoed out of the room, past Dave and Chad’s door, and to the guest bathroom at the end of the hallway, where she spent a shameless amount of time scrubbing her body under the hot water. By the time she’d dressed and put on her makeup, it was six-thirty, and the hallway was still silent.
With one last glance at her sister, Pain slipped out of the room and to the staircase. If she was lucky, she could grab a snack and be out of the kitchen before she ran into Albert.
She sneaked through the house like a wraith, easily avoiding Martha as the woman moved from room to room, humming to herself and restoring order in the house. She had turned out to be a complete opposite of Albert, with her hearty laughs and smiling eyes. The idea that the gray-haired woman was in fact fifty years younger than Albert couldn’t quite fit into Pain’s head.
Her eyes still on Martha, she slipped through the kitchen door, turned—and came face to face with Albert.
She could’ve sworn he hadn’t been there when she checked a second ago.
“Morning,” she choked out, staring into his icy blue eyes.
The man hummed in response and lowered himself into a chair, putting a jar of jam on the table before him.
Pain grimaced as she turned her back on him and headed to the coffee machine. Having breakfast alone with Albert was not what she’d planned. She took a long time making herself a cup of coffee, while the kitchen settled into a deep, uncomfortable silence.
When she turned around, Albert’s eyes were on her. She tried to ignore his ever-present disapproving frown as she brought her cup to the table and started making a sandwich for herself.
The old man broke the silence. “I’m taking Dave for a walk today.” The words were innocent enough, but his voice held a barely hidden warning. “Martha will have a basket prepared for the rest of you. Go have a picnic at the beach or something. Don’t bother him, and don’t try to follow us.”
Pain paused, then looked up at Albert and held his gaze. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m grown-up enough to admit that I do care about what happens to Dave. He’s one of us now. But I’m not so interested in him that I’d spend my first vacation in years following him around.”
Albert didn’t blink under her stare. At last, he shrugged and sipped his coffee.
She returned to her sandwich, only to freeze when she heard him grumble, “You’re a copy of your father.”
A mask of indifference slid onto her face as she allowed herself a quick glance in his direction. “I’m actually a copy of my mother, but thanks.” With her sandwich done, she took a seat at the other end of the table.
“You may have her looks, but it’s not everything.” He switched his attention to his coffee and newspaper, but now that he’d started, Pain wasn’t going to let it go.
“I didn’t know you knew my parents.” She sipped from her own cup, keeping her face neutral.
“Just your father. Big fella with a broken nose. We met a couple times in San Francisco. It was enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To hear him every time you open your mouth,” Albert said with the coarse self-assurance only old people possess. “He was a good fighter, but I bet not as good as you are now.”
“And why is that?”
The old man looked at her as if she were simple. “Because you’re so much smaller than him. Gotta make up for it somehow.”
She dropped her gaze, muttering, “I don’t remember him being that big.”
Albert scoffed, a sly spark in his eyes. “Next to him, Peter was the short one. Big Bad they called him. And I told ’em they ain’t seen real Big Bad, in their cozy headquarters, with their Beasts fat and happy like kittens. They ain’t seen nothing.”
Pain smirked with the corner of her lips. Now, that was typical old man talk, never mind his near-immortality and limitless power.
“I heard about what happened to him,” Albert continued with a shake of his head. “Nasty business. Too bad they didn’t find the man responsible for it.”
She frowned. “It was a setup. They killed all the Beasts. No one’s responsible for it.”
“Oh.” Albert raised a brow, returning to his coffee with a blank look. “I guess I musta mixed something up.”
She stared at him, looking for any sign of lying, but he seemed genuinely focused on his newspaper. He finished his coffee and got up with a grunt. Pain couldn’t help but wonder how much of that grunting and huffing and slouching was for show.
She snapped out of her thoughts when Jane walked into the kitchen.
Her sister greeted Albert with a smile. “Good morning.”
Pain choked on her sandwich when Albert beamed at Jane. “Good morning, Jane.” He shuffled past her out of the kitchen, leaving the girls alone.
