Angel Reborn, page 19
I tried to stick to the truth as much as possible—I wasn’t feeling well considering all that was going on, and I was battling something—but it still felt like I was lying.
The untruths and omissions weighed on me. I hated feeling like I had to hide what was happening and how I felt about it, and being sequestered in the house all day didn’t help matters.
Zeck checked in throughout the morning, but for the most part, he stayed outside with his crew or in the base camp they’d pulled together in the garage, which suited me just fine. I liked Nick’s friend, but I was in no mood to make small talk with someone who was basically still a stranger to me.
Of course, being isolated and alone did me no favors either. I just kept replaying the terror of the rooftop and the pool over and over in my head, imagining a hundred different scenarios of how things might have been worse and still might get worse. I also obsessed over what might be happening with Sage at school and Nick in the city.
He’d called multiple times to ask how I was doing, and I’d assured him I was all right, but by lunchtime, I was desperate to escape my own company. I decided I’d invite Zeck inside and offer to make us sandwiches for lunch.
When I didn’t find Zeck at his makeshift desk in the garage, I threw on a sweatshirt and wandered out into the sunlight, squinting as I shielded my eyes with my hand. I considered going to get my cell to call him, but since I hadn’t been outside all day, I thought some fresh air and a walk might do me good.
I scanned the property for any sign of him as I went around the house, and then I approached the guard who stood by the gate that led to the pool and the back yard.
“Do you know where I could find Zeck?” I asked the man, trying to ignore the red mist surrounding him.
“He went down to the gate.”
I thanked him for the information and began walking along the winding drive, but when I rounded the first curve and the gate came into view, I broke into a run.
“I am getting in there one way or another,” Cricket was yelling at Zeck in the distance as she stood toe to toe with him outside her car. “You either let me through this gate, or I will break it down.”
“You break down that gate, and I’ll have you arrested and charged with destruction of property and criminal trespassing,” Zeck said, his voice as calm as could be. “I’ll be happy to let the homeowners know you stopped by, but I’m only going to tell you one more time to get back in your car and leave.”
“And I already told you, I’m not leaving until I talk to my friend. You wanna call the cops? Go right ahead. I bet they’d love to know why you have armed guards harassing people and holding people captive.”
Oh, no. This was about to get ugly.
“Let her in,” I called out as I ran toward them. “I know her, Zeck. Let her in!
“Aria!” Cricket looked as though she may collapse in relief as she rushed to the gate and grabbed hold of the metal railings. “Oh my God, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, slowing as I approached them. “Open the gate, Zeck. Let her in.”
“Nicolaas said no one was to enter while he was gone.”
“He didn’t mean Cricket. She’s not a no one. She’s someone. She’s family. Let her in.”
Cricket and I both glared at Zeck as he hesitated. I knew he was only doing as he’d been asked, but in the moment, seeing Cricket seemed like the light at the end of the hellish tunnel I’d been trapped in all day.
“Zeck, you either let her in, or so help me, I will climb this gate and leave with her, and then you can explain that to my husband.”
Though he looked none too happy about it, Zeck stepped back and motioned to the guard who stood by the security panel.
The gate eased open, and Cricket got back into her car and punched the accelerator, stopping the moment she reached me.
She slammed the car into park and jumped out to stand in front of me, fists clenched at her sides and chest heaving as she looked me up and down with wide eyes that had begun to brim with tears.
I’d never seen Cricket so emotional, and my heart hurt to see her in such distress.
But when I rushed forward to hug her, she took a step back and asked, “What did he do to you?”
The question stopped me in my tracks as much as her putting physical distance between us. “What? What are you talking about?”
“What did Nick do?”
She lunged forward, grabbing me by the shoulder as she pushed my hair back.
“What are you doing?” I pulled away from her grasp and adjusted my hair over my neck, even though I knew the marks from Nick’s bite had healed soon after he made the wounds.
Zeck approached us with narrowed eyes as he watched the interaction. “Is there a problem, Aria?”
“No. No problem,” I told him. “My friend is just upset. Here, Cricket. Let’s get in your car, and we’ll go up to the house where we can talk privately.”
I reached for her arm as Zeck began to walk away, but she jerked out of my reach.
“Did he turn you? Is that why he has you locked up in this damned fortress? Is that why you’re not answering your phone?” She looked past me toward the house, her eyes even more frantic. “Where’s Sage? Oh, God. Did he turn Sage too?”
“What? No! No one turned anyone. Look at me! I’m fine!” I stretched my arms out and turned in a circle, and then I lifted my hair and craned my neck from side to side. “See? Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m still the same person I was.”
That was a lie. But whatever I was at the moment, I wasn’t a vampire.
“C’mon, let’s go up to the house,” I said, running my arm through hers as I tried to turn her toward the car, but she refused to move.
“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” Her voice broke, and the pain in her eyes twisted at my gut and tugged hard at my heart. “I’ve been worried sick about you. Haley, too. We’ve both been trying to call you ever since you went to that damned Blood Ball, and you haven’t been answering your phone. You text us that you’ll call later, but then you don’t. What did Nick do to you?”
“Nick didn’t do anything to me. I’m fine.”
“You say you’re fine, but this morning you texted Haley that you weren’t feeling well and can’t teach this week.” Cricket shifted her weight to one leg, placing her hands on her hips. “So, which is it? Are you fine, or are you not feeling well? And if you aren’t feeling well, why aren’t you home? Why are you being held prisoner here in Nyack?”
“I’m not being held prisoner.”
“You have armed buffoons at the gate who refused to let me in and refused to call and tell you I was here.”
“Buffoons?” Zeck scoffed out a chuckle from where he stood nearby. “As I explained to you before—”
Cricket wheeled on him, unleashing her anger before he could finish his sentence.
“Why are you still standing here? Have you ever heard of the concept of privacy? So help me, God, if you don’t get away from me and my friend, I will make you rue the day you were born, bloodsucker.”
“Bloodsucker?” Zeck’s eyes widened.
“Cricket, he’s not a—”
Zeck cut me off, crossing his arms as he widened his stance. “Don’t bother correcting her on my account. I’m curious to see what’s she’s gonna do next.”
I swear it looked like he was on the verge of grinning, which would not be a good thing. Zeck may be supernatural and therefore self-healing, but I still didn’t want to see him subjected to Cricket in a rage.
She’d already drawn herself up to her full five feet, eleven inches, which put her almost eye to eye with Zeck. But whereas his blue eyes seemed to be filled with devilish mischief, hers held enough menace that a lesser man might have had the good sense to back down.
“You wanna know what I’m gonna do next? I’ll show you what I’m gonna do.”
“Okay, okay.” I stepped in between them, reaching to take Cricket’s hands in mine. “Let’s take things down a notch. Zeck, go back to whatever you were doing, please. And Cricket, can we just get in your car and go up to the house? Please?”
Zeck held up his hands in surrender and began to walk backward toward the guard at the gate. But his eyes never left Cricket’s, and once he’d put a few steps between them, the grin he’d been fighting began to spread across his face.
“Rue the day I was born, eh? That’s a pretty hefty threat.”
“It’s not a threat.” Cricket tried to step around me, but I blocked her. “It’s a promise.”
Zeck chuckled as he turned to walk away, and I was thankful for my body’s newfound strength as I held Cricket back and coaxed her to get into the car.
Twenty-One
Aria
“Just ignore him,” I said once I was in the passenger seat. “Put the car in drive and let’s go up to the house. I’ll make us some lunch. Have you eaten?”
“I don’t want to go in that house,” Cricket said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to be anywhere around these people. I was only willing to come here because I needed to know that you’re all right. Let’s go somewhere else and have lunch.”
As much as I would love to get out of the house and go out and have lunch like a normal person, my life at that moment was anything but normal. Until we knew who was behind the attacks and why they wanted to kill me, it wasn’t safe for me to go out alone, and dragging along a security detail would defeat Cricket’s purpose for leaving, not to mention further convince her I was a prisoner.
Besides that, the last thing I wanted to do was put her in danger. Being seen with me might be enough to put a target on her back.
I also had to consider the very real possibility that at any time I might have another bizarre episode like the ones I’d had in the pool and with the faucet and the arrow. That would not go over well in a public cafe, and it might push Cricket beyond the limits of our friendship.
“You can’t, can you?” Cricket said when I didn’t answer right away. “I was right. You’re being held here against your will, and they won’t let you leave.”
“No, that’s not it. Of course, I could leave.” If I wanted to risk my safety and hers. “But we had a bunch of groceries delivered this morning, so I’d rather just make us some lunch, and we can hang out here. It’s only you and me. There’s no one else in the house.”
It was selfish of me not to ask her to leave. It was a bad idea on multiple levels for her to stay. I told myself I was inviting her in so she wouldn’t get even more upset and suspicious and do something ridiculous like going to the authorities. And that was certainly part of it. But I also wanted her to stay because I had spent the morning with way too much time alone and in my own head. I wanted to hang out with my friend and have some sort of normalcy return.
She shifted in the driver’s seat to face me. “What are you doing here, Aria? Why aren’t you at home? At your house?”
I looked away from her and debated how to answer the question. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I loved her too much to outright lie.
“It’s a long story.” I had no idea how to follow that, so I didn’t try. “How did you know where to find me?”
Cricket shrugged with a sigh. “I drove over to your house this morning after I spent the whole night tossing and turning, imagining the worst. You weren’t there, of course, but your neighbor—the woman we saw at the soccer field, the one with the daughter Sage’s age—she was getting into her car as I was driving away. I stopped and asked if she knew where you were, and she said she hasn’t seen you since Saturday afternoon before the ball. I called Haley and we were even more freaked out then, so she called her mom to make sure you guys had picked up Sage from her house and to ask if you were okay.”
Uh-oh. I hated that I had put Angie in that position. I hadn’t expressly asked her to keep anything a secret, but I knew there was no way Angie would feel comfortable lying to her daughter or hiding things from her. Luckily, I hadn’t told Angie everything, so there were some things she couldn’t reveal.
“What did Angie say?”
“She said you guys had decided to spend a few days at Nick’s house in Nyack, and that we should give you some space and privacy. She said she’d seen you and talked to you and that you were fine. But if you’re so fine, why did you text Haley that you can’t teach this week? Why haven’t you called either of us back? And where is Sage?”
“Sage is at school.” I didn’t fault Angie for giving Haley reassurances and revealing my location in the process. But I doubted Angie gave Haley the Nyack address. In fact, I doubted Angie even knew it. We’d driven here in the middle of the night, and I was pretty sure she’d dozed a bit on the way. “How did you find this house?”
“Oh, that. Do you remember the first time Nick brought you here, and you called Haley and did a video out by the pool?”
“Yeah. You said you loved this house so much you might even be able to live here with the vampires.”
She cut me a look that said that was definitely not the case.
“That will not be happening. But this house, and especially that pool deck, is exactly the kind of environment I want for my future self, so I took some screenshots while you were showing us around and added them to my vision board. And today when I needed to find you, I took the shots of the pool deck and the outside scenery with the Hudson River in the background and did a deep dive with online maps to figure out where to find it.”
“Wow. I don’t know whether to be flattered or concerned about your stalking skills, but if you’ve come all this way, you might as well see the inside of the house in person. You could see if the pool deck lives up to your expectations. Whaddya say, Super Sleuth? You wanna come in?”
“Turkey or ham?” I asked as I made Cricket’s sandwich.
“Turkey. Extra mayo, please.”
“I remember. You want pretzels or chips?”
“Pretzels.”
I’d offered for her to sit at the kitchen table while I made lunch, but she chose to remain standing, leaning against the cased opening that led from the foyer to the kitchen as though she wanted to keep an eye on the front door and the stairs.
“What’s really going on, Aria?” she asked, crossing her arms. “Why are you staying in Nyack? And why are there armed guards keeping you here?”
“They’re not keeping me here,” I said as I put the cold cuts and condiments back in the fridge. “Nick’s family is just big on having security.”
It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Bullshit.” Cricket pushed off the casing and walked toward me and the plate I offered, but when she took it, she stood there staring at me. “Look me in the eye right now and tell me that nothing’s wrong. Tell me my instincts are totally off here, and you aren’t hiding anything.”
I held her gaze, but I couldn’t muster the words she wanted me to say. I couldn’t even take a breath.
I wanted so badly to tell her. I needed to tell someone everything that had happened. Everything I was thinking and feeling and experiencing. Someone who wasn’t a vampire. Someone who wasn’t supernatural and would understand how insanely bizarre this all was. Someone who wasn’t going to feel personally responsible for me and my feelings. Someone who could help me deal with the overwhelming anxiety that had held me in its clutches since that moment on the rooftop.
But even though I trusted Cricket implicitly, and even though she and I had confided our deepest, darkest secrets to each other basically since the moment we’d first met and immediately clicked, she was not the person who would handle my new reality well.
Out of our friendship trio, Haley was the one who would have been the most open to hearing that I’d suddenly developed supernatural abilities. Hell, she probably would have wanted us to get in the pool together to see if I could make another water wall.
But Cricket? She wouldn’t even watch a movie if it had supernatural elements. She wanted no part of it.
“Look, Cricket, I’m sorry I haven’t called you and that I haven’t been more forthcoming in my texts. I know that was pretty shitty of me to just go radio silent.”
“After attending a bloodsucker ball…”
“Yeah, I can see where you’d be concerned.” I turned away from her to grab glasses from the cabinet. “It’s just been a little crazy the past couple of days. I’m assuming you want your usual water, but we do have tea and lemonade, and Diet Coke, of course, but I know you don’t want soda.”
“Water is good.”
Her voice was flat, and she continued to stare at me as I scooped ice into the glasses. It was so unnerving I missed the glass and had to pick up a few cubes from the floor.
“Why did Nick tell the guards no one was allowed in?” she asked. “They wouldn’t even call you to tell you I was here.”
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t weave a web of lies and half-truths. Not with Cricket.
Rubbing my hand over my face with a groan, I turned to face her. “You’re right. I’m not telling you everything because I can’t tell you everything. And trust me when I say, you don’t want to know. I need you to be okay with not knowing. I need you to trust that Nick and I have it under control, or that we will have, and I need you to drop it.”
She continued to hold my gaze in silence, and then she did a one slow nod. “I hear you. I can do that. I can drop it. But would you be okay with that? If the tables were turned, and I’d recently found out I was married to a freaking vampire, and he’d taken me to some bizarre Blood Ball with a whole bunch more vampires, and then I wouldn’t return your calls or tell you anything at all about the stupid ball, and then you found me hiding out behind armed guards and not allowed to leave the property even just to go to lunch, would you be okay with it? Would you say, “Oh, okay, Cricket. No problem. I’ll just stop worrying, and it will all be good. See ya!’ Would you drive away and leave me in that situation?”
