Glimpse: Book One of the Glimpse Quartet, page 11
“I’m having a rough night,” I confess, staring through him. His eyes crinkle in the corners when he laughs. His brown leather jacket and olive skin differentiate him from the night, though his inky hair blends into the darkened sky behind him.
“Is this what you typically look like at two in the morning?” I look him up and down for added emphasis, realizing only after I’ve said it that I should have kept my thoughts to myself.
One side of his mouth raises into a smirk. “Actually, it’s after three.”
“Three? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have you out so late. What would the neighbors think?”
“It’s fine.” He chuckles, and I realize I’ve said my thoughts aloud again. Oops . “I wasn’t busy.”
“No?”
He shakes his head in response, clearly unsure what to do with me. Worry creases his forehead while feeling returns to my body in tiny increments, warning me that the shock is wearing off and I am about to panic.
I need a problem to solve, and the most immediate one is sitting in front of me.
“Uh oh. I can see it now. Liam Kayes waits by the phone, dressed in his finest jacket in case a damsel in distress should call for help.” I tilt my head as I conjure the scene, still gripping the jar in my hands.
“What else is there to do in the middle of the night?” He grins. His manner is casual enough, but tension lurks beneath the surface of his calm.
Behind him, red and blue lights turn onto my street. The cruiser stops behind his car and two officers walk slowly toward us, flashlights in hand.
“We got a call about a break-in?” I recognize Officer Mendoza’s voice. His partner, a severe looking woman with brown hair tied back in a no-nonsense bun, keeps her flashlight trained on us.
“Yes, officer.” I stand to greet them and Liam steps out of my way, though he stays close behind me. Officer Mendoza has a daughter one grade below me, but I don’t know her well. The last time this happened, he was the one to arrest my mom.
“Hey there, Blair. Anything missing?”
“I’m not sure. We left after we saw the mess.” What could they take? I had to pawn most of mom's jewelry years ago.
He nods, scanning the front yard with his light. “Okay. We’ll go have a look around. You two sit tight.”
The officers disappear inside, and I fold my arms as the cold settles over me. Liam stands beside me, close but not quite touching. His stillness is calming.
For such a small trailer, it takes them a long time to search. The longer I stand still, the further the cold sinks into my skin. When the shivers give way to trembling, Liam shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to me.
“I’m okay.” I shake my head. He rolls his eyes and drapes the coat over my shoulders anyway.
“You’re cold.”
“And you’re presumptive.” I glare at him, inhaling the rich scent of leather. He sighs, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. When he looks away, I pull the jacket tighter around me.
“Coast is clear.” Mendoza comes out of the house, his partner stoic and silent beside him. “Your house is safe.”
My eyes widen as his meaning dawns on me. “You mean they could have still been in there?”
“Oh yeah,” he nods, “You’d be surprised at some of the places we find people.”
I blink back my surprise, my shoulders growing tense as I imagine someone popping out of my closet tonight. Liam places a hand on my shoulder, his warmth radiating comfort through my body.
“You can look around the house to see if anything is missing, and then we need a statement.” His partner speaks for the first time, her voice a little kinder than her expression led me to believe.
Liam stands guard while I page through the destruction. Even though Mendoza said the house was clear, I am grateful to have him with me. It takes less than an hour to determine nothing valuable is missing, given that we had so little of value in the first place.
Anxious to get the police out of there, I give them my statement and breathe a sigh of relief when they drive away.
“Why would someone break into my house and not take anything?” I stare down the road, unseeing.
“I don’t know.”
There’s something in his voice he’s not saying out loud. Turning to face him, I wait for him to elaborate. His expression is void of information, his eyes locking down anything I could hope to find.
“We should get your mom inside.” His eyes travel to the car. It’s been such a long night, I forgot she was in the back seat for the whole thing . Still, I narrow my eyes and try one last time to extract information from him. Again, he offers nothing.
In the car, I nudge my mother’s arm, but she doesn’t stir.
“Mom?” No amount of shaking can wake her; she’s in another dimension.
“I’ve got her.” Liam taps my shoulder and I step out of the way. He makes it look easy to maneuver her to the edge of the seat where he lifts her into a cradle hold.
“Whoa, you don’t have to—”
“Lead the way.” Even his voice is relaxed. She’s a small woman, but I am still surprised at his strength.
“The bedroom is around the corner.” I lead him through the kitchen to her room. Inside, it’s hard to tell if the mess was made by the burglar or by her. I grab my elbow and clear my throat. When I called him, I had no idea I would end up giving him the full tour. Gia is the only other person in town who has seen this much of my life—apart from the intruder, I realize with a sinking feeling.
“Um, you can set her down there.” I point to the bed and he lays her down gently, making sure her feet don’t fall over the side.
Back in the front room, my limbs feel heavy as the excitement wears off.
“I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. I had no idea how bad it would get at the bar, with the puking, and the break-in—” I am shrinking as I speak, buried beneath my own weight. Tears loom in my voice, but I blink them back and bite my lip. I will not cry in front of him again.
“Hey.” He steps forward and grabs the tops of my arms, his deep-set, grey eyes trained on mine. “It’s okay to need help now and then.”
I am going to bite through my lip if I press any harder. Then I’ll really need help.
“Do you want help cleaning up?” he asks.
“No.” I snap without meaning to. “No,” I say, softer this time, “I can take care of it.”
He tilts his head concern drawing his brow together. “If you’re sure.”
“Yeah.” I plaster on a smile. “Thanks again.”
“Any time.” His voice is void of judgment, unlike most of the people in town. Even the well-meaning ones are condescending most of the time. But then it’s hard to be taken seriously when your dad is dead and your mom’s a drunk.
Loaded silence hangs between us on the way to the door, neither of us able to be completely honest. Whatever he was going to say before about the break-in is trapped in the void of his mind. And I am not about to tell him I'm afraid to sleep in this house tonight.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” I slip out of his jacket and hand it back to him, surrendering the only thing that makes me feel safe in this room.
“Right.” His eyes focus in the present, pulled away from a distant thought. “Thanks.” He stares at me for a long time, quiet.
“Goodnight,” he whispers at last.
“Night.”
The sound of his tires on gravel fills up the night as I hang on the door, watching him drive away until he has to turn. The moment he is gone, a chill runs down my spine. The rummaged living room and kitchen will have to wait until morning, but I can’t sleep in my room as it is.
Cleaning is methodic, at least. It helps to settle my nerves a bit, as long as I don't think too hard about the reason. But every time I think I might be ready to sleep, my blood runs cold and wakes me up again.
Only when there is no cleaning left do I stash the cash jar back in my closet and fall into bed. Staring at the ceiling, I wonder again why someone would bother to break into a trailer of all places. Everyone in town knows we’re dirt poor. Does Becca hate me enough to mess with my head like this?
Another chill creeps through my blood, the invisible thief of joy. As much as Becca hates me, she would never step foot on this side of town, let alone my pathetic trailer. She would sooner wither and die than come here.
I pull the blanket tighter, unable to shake the thought that a stranger has been in this room, has seen everything I own. Somehow this is worse than seventh grade when Becca and Alicia stole my clothes and I had to run through the locker room naked past all my classmates.
No, whoever broke in peeked at so much more than my body. I doubt this room will ever be the same.
Chapter Sixteen
Liam
Bradley’s breath falls in short, measured pants as he runs in front of me at what is admittedly an impressive rate for a human. But with little to distract me from Vaughn’s latest strike, it takes a great deal of concentration to let him keep his lead.
“How was that?” he asks when he crosses the starting line, folding his hands behind his head as he paces back and forth.
“Five twenty-seven.” I pretend to look at my watch, which I forgot to set. Lucky for the both of us, my internal clock is more reliable, anyway.
He shakes his head and coughs. “I can do better.”
“Later.” I clap him on the shoulder and point toward the field. “Let’s do some drills.”
“More agility stuff? You’re killing me.” He bounces from one foot to the other in front of the cones I set out, shaking out his hands.
“You asked for it.”
He deserves more of my focus, given the fact that I could end his career before it starts if he decides to do any tackling drills. But I’m hard pressed to give him my full attention when Vaughn creeps at the edge of my consciousness in every idle moment.
The bastard broke into her house.
For her sake, I cannot ignore this. But experience tells me confrontation is a mistake. And since telling her is not an option, I have to figure out another way to stop him.
Bradley is an excellent running back. It’s no wonder he has three colleges actively recruiting him. But forcing myself to run slower and throw softer is infuriating and tedious when I should be focusing on reconnaissance. If Jason were here, we could really show him how to play. But it’s been a long time since I kept any lasting company.
“Again,” I command, circling my pointer finger in the air when he falls on the ground panting after a set of ladders. He swears at me under his breath but obeys, sweat dripping from his forehead.
If I leave now, Vaughn will inevitably follow me. But that does not mean he won’t kill her for sport on his way out. And I can’t afford another soul on my conscience.
“Water break.” He takes the bottle I offer him and drinks greedily, water pouring down his chin before he drops onto the field.
“When I said I wanted your help training,” he pants, “this isn’t exactly what I pictured.”
Of course he assumed I would act as a running mate and an extra body in the field. But this is boring enough with his making progress; I could hardly sit here and watch him stagnate.
“I wrestled in Florida.” Untrue. Unlike Vaughn I can’t stand earning hollow victories against humans. “Thought you might like to actually play next year. But if you’re cool with warming the bench, we can go back to stretching.”
“Ass.” He rips out a handful of grass and throws it at me, still waiting for his breathing to slow.
“If you really want to have fun, you should try lifting weights with me.”
He lifts himself up on his elbows, his interest clearly piqued. Fuck me.
“Okay.”
I've always been my own worst enemy. “You think you can handle it?”
“I think I better tighten up if I want to get any attention from Ohio State.” The trace of nerves in his voice is surprising. He’s already been recruited by Texas and Georgia. “I just want to have options,” he answers my unspoken question.
After all he has done to make life in Ash Wood bearable, I suppose I can slum with him at the gym. Even if it might kill me to watch him struggle to bench what I could lift with one hand while I pretend to get winded. “We could go in the mornings, if you want. Or the weekends.” If I run there and back, I might actually get a workout in.
“I’m so glad you moved here.” He holds out a fist and I bump it with mine. Son of a bitch. I’m such an idiot.
The red door of my humble bungalow has never looked so inviting by the time I jog to the porch. If nothing else, training with Bradley will help pass the time until I can move on.
As soon as I open the door, I can sense his presence. Breathing through my nose and keeping my face in check, I step into the kitchen where I find him perched on a stool at the bar.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.”
“So you were expecting me? That’s a little pathetic, mate.” He swirls the glass in his hand and takes a sip, his nose wrinkling when it goes down. “This brandy is shit.” He inspects the bottle, disgust plain on his face as he pours me a glass and slides it down the bar.
Knocking it back in a single gulp, I set the glass on the counter and take a seat. “You live long enough, you develop an intimate understanding of Murphy’s law.”
He laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. “It’s almost like you wanted me to find you with the trail you left.”
I was sure I lost him in Arizona. It took three times as long to cross the country as it should have, between traveling on foot for half of it and switching vehicles every couple hundred miles.
“I’ll admit,” he continues, “I was impressed when you chose high school as your cover. Then again, you never did appreciate the benefits of immortality.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t predict how low you would sink.” Clearly I underestimated how much he could service his vanity here.
“That’s your problem, you know. You’ve never been good with people.” He pours another glass and leans on the bar, smacking his lips when he finishes it. “Don’t get me wrong, you’ve put on one hell of a show. It’s made things much easier for me.”
I should have known better than to settle down so soon. But after three years of relative peace, my instincts were too dull to catch the extent of his obsession. “Feeling satisfied, then?”
“Oh, far from it.” The gleam in his eyes is so deep I can practically see his imagination working away, building a hundred different scenarios for how best to torment me. “You know the drill.”
“And I’m the one who doesn’t appreciate the benefits of immortality. You’re telling me you’d rather spend five months in high school when you could be anywhere else? That’s sad.” I cannot imagine anything other than him keeping me here.
“I quite like the humans. By the time we graduate, they’ll have built a shrine for me.”
There was a time, back in London, when we got along. Drunken nights spent listening to him sing off key while we trolled for new adventures play through my mind. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
He ignores me, spinning the bottle on the counter. The sound of my breathing fills the room while he waits, content to take his sweet time. “Have you made up your mind yet? About the mutt?”
The glass in my hand shatters, sending clear shards deep into my flesh. Ignoring the pain, I cock a fist on my good hand and take a swing, the blow connecting to his jaw before he has time to dodge.
His hand rises to the blood on his lip, eyes glowing when he pulls it away. He jabs high and I block it with my forearm, but his second punch lands square in my gut, followed by a knee that misses my face by a quarter of a centimeter.
“The game’s not nearly as fun when you’re this dreadful at it.” His voice shifts from entertained to manic while he paces in front of me. “Two of them in the same town? You should have left the second you found out.”
I pick the splinters from my hand before it has a chance to heal over them. There is nothing more tedious than carving out debris.
“Here I’ve come to chat with my good friend, and you have to go and ruin it.” He chugs the rest of the brandy and then breaks the bottle on the counter, pressing one foot on my instep to keep me from escaping before he plunges it deep into my abdomen.
“See you tomorrow,” he says close to my ear as I double over. I can already tell he’s managed to perforate a lung.
Dropping to the floor, I pull the bottle out as straight as I can manage, my vision doubling as blood pools on the wood in front of me. My head aches, followed by deep, unrelenting pain in my chest when the lung collapses.
Fuck. At least I managed to get the splinters out of my hand.
Slumping against the counter, I ease my way to the floor and wait, watching my skin turn blue as the headache consumes me.
“I hope I die,” I cough at him on his way out. “Just so you can’t go back.”
His answering chuckle is the last thing I hear before the world goes dim.
Chapter Seventeen
Blair
Mom is silent about the night at the bar.
I try to bring it up several times, if only to inform her Jared let her off the hook, but she either pretends not to hear me or changes the subject. Most of the time she avoids me, though it is hard to tell if she does so on purpose or out of ordinary drunkenness.
Regardless, even in our tiny trailer, she is miles away.
“Where are you going?” I ask her from my perch on the armchair in the living room.
“Out,” she answers on her way outside. For a long time I stare at the door, unable to escape the thought that this woman is not my mother.
My mother, when she is not on a bender, is sweet and young and funny. She is the voice humming in the kitchen and brush strokes over a blank canvas until it sings to life.
When she is drunk, it is easier to pretend she is a different person. In the good times, I wait for her to leave. And when it gets bad, I long for her to return.
