He shakes his head. "My barber picked this haircut. And seriously, what's wrong with my pants?"
"Nothing. But I bet you love to be prepared for any eventuality."
"Absolutely," he agrees. "That was really cool, by the way. Any other superpowers I should know about?"
I tap my chin, biting down on my lower lip. "I don't think so. The music thing is the only one. It's probably because of my bat hearing. I bet you anything music sounds different to me because of my echolocation hearing."
I don't add that my bat hearing is also so that I can hunt my pray by their breath. That's creepy information he doesn't need to know just yet. If ever.
"That makes a lot of sense," he says.
Needing to move the topic away from vampire bats and how we like to hunt, I decide that questioning him about his own life is a much safer topic of conversation.
"How about you? Any cattle superpowers you'd like to share?"
"Hmm." T-Bone inhales deeply and shakes his head. "I'm built like a bull, and that's about it. I do take orders well, but that's about it."
"Then I guess you picked the right profession. You said it was a family thing, right?"
"I did. My grandfather joined when he was eighteen. Same with my dad. I didn't join straight out of high school. I decided to enroll into university first."
"No! You rebel, you," I tease.
"Laugh all you want," he says, a smile on his face, "but that's exactly how it was seen by both my father and my grandfather." He adds a shrug. "When I turned thirty-one, and I wasn't the head of my own division, they both sat me down and asked me what I was doing with my life."
"Yikes. That's rough."
"It took me three years to get my degree in political science. Then I joined the RCMP. Apparently, it was lost time. But I'm happy I did it. When I was going through my training, I knew myself. I knew I'd made the right choice by joining the force."
"That's very sensible of you," I say, because it is. It also makes a lot of sense. The fact that the men in his family become police officers shouldn't automatically mean that should be his path.
Just like my mother being a killer doesn't mean I'll turn into one.
"I suppose it is reasonable. I had to be sure."
Silence falls in the car, and for a few miles, we ride in without any more interactions. The SUV slides through the night as we head toward Willowbend.
"I just want to add a second superpower that you have," T-Bone says.
I crane my head to look at him.
"You read people. Their behavior, their motives. I bet that would have made you a very good field agent."
I swallow hard, nearly gulping as my throat gets dry.
He's not wrong.
I trained myself to observe people, to garner who they are with as little information as possible. It's made relationships and friendships slightly difficult. I tend to see monsters everywhere.
Not like anyone can blame me. I was raised by one without realizing it for nearly two decades.
7
Mila
The narrow winding streets are replaced by the unpaved dirt roads leading deeper into the forested area surrounding Willowbend.
Being back here now, after all these years, is a little bit surreal.
Ghosts of laughter and good times echo through the wind, making me shiver in the warm vehicle. T-Bone doesn't miss my shudder, and he gives me a side-glance, his eyebrows knitted together with concern.
"Did you come here often?"
"We only rented this cabin for three summers when I was really little. My dad wanted some quality family time away from the city. He thought Mom was putting in too many hours in the lab. He was scared she was losing herself to her work. I remember that she was here with us most of the time. But I also have this weird memory. It was the middle of the day, so that's the middle of the night for you non-nocturnal types, and she was sneaking back into the house. She smelled like blood. When I asked her why, she said she'd had a nosebleed. I replay that moment again and again in my head. It wasn't a nosebleed. She was most likely coming back from one of her experiments. One of her victims.
"I'm really sorry, Mila. If you want, you can stay in the car."
"If she's at the cabin, there is no way in hell that I'm going to sit in here. And if she's not, I need to look around. I need to make sure that there are no more bodies."
I add that last part, trying to sound cavalier and unaffected.
T-Bone doesn't buy it. He nods and inhales deeply. "If you think that's best."
For the last thirty minutes, we ride in silence. I don't know if T-Bone senses that I need to disassociate and retreat back deep inside of myself, but he doesn't say anything. Not even when he pulls into the drive for the lake house.
There are no cars, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't been around since her escape. Not if she was looking for cash and identification papers. I slide out of the SUV, thankful that I still have a few moments of moonlight before the sun comes up and I have to hide behind the SUV's tinted windows.
"She was here." I point to the shed at the back of the property.
The fresh tire tracks lead straight to it. T-Bone squats down, his flashlight illuminating the fresh grooves in the soft dirt.
"These weren't made by a truck. She must have switched vehicles."
"So we know she came here and found her go-bag gone.”
I walk through the back half of the property, and cold snaps through my spine. There is a large swath of land that has been disturbed. Away from the original gravesite. I make my way to it
