Page 49 of Flock This

“You could fly away.” He smiled wider at his mean-spirited jab.

“You’re such an asshole.”

He paused just beside me, chuckling as though my every reaction was amusing to him. “Maybe I am, but you like me, so what does it say about you?”

I stared at him, frowning.

“What?”

“The more I hear about your past, the more I realize we’re not as different as I thought.”

He lifted an eyebrow as though to tell me he’d heard me and encouraged me to keep going.

“Thralls were talking about how you were the unwanted, how you didn’t have a family, how you somehow got your position despite that. I guess that reminded me a bit of myself.”

“I think that was one reason I was drawn to you,” he said. “I saw you looking so lost, and I knew how hard it was to claw myself to where I am, now, and it made me wonder what you’d make of yourself with time. Maybe that’s why I want to help you, because it feels like a waste to see you fall before we’ve seen what you’ll become.”

“How sweet,” I said, the words dripping with sarcasm.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You’ll understand someday. Eventually, you’ll know everything about me, and maybe then you’ll finally see that we aren’t nearly as different as you think.” He didn’t wait for me to answer back before leaving the room.

I made myself breakfast after he headed up the stairs to his own bedroom. He didn’t need to eat but I sure did. The shake had vitamins, but without real food it made me feel slightly sick. He didn’t have much fresh food in the house, but between the dry and canned goods in the pantry and the things in the freezer, I made something.

Bacon, onions and peppers from the freezer over rehydrated hash browns. The scent was heavenly, and it reminded me that I hadn’t eaten well in a while.

Once I finished preparing my dish, I poured it into a large bowl I found in the cabinet and headed out back. I’d missed the sun, so some time outside sounded fantastic.

The desert spread out, with sparse trees in occasional groups. Instead, there were bushes that stood only around five feet high, at most, and had thin, twig-like branches.

While I lived in the desert, and had all my life, I’d spent the time in the city. It wasn’t a huge city, not one with skyscrapers, but still with every block crammed full of buildings. In the summer, it was fairly dead since the snowbirds went home that time of year, but in the winter there were always people around.

Yet, out here, in the rural area to the north, the high desert as we called it, it felt like a different world. No one else lived in the immediate area, and I wondered just how many acres he owned. I could even spot small mountains that appeared inside the fence line.

Most people would go broke putting up that much chain link fence—especially because it was electrified, according to Kelvin, and I had no reason to believe he hadn’t told the truth.

I ate my meal, then left the bowl on a table outside the back of the house before deciding to take a stroll. I’d slept well the night before, on Kelvin’s balcony, so exhaustion wasn’t hanging so heavily on me.

I had no idea when I’d have the chance to bask in the sun again, so I might as well take advantage of it. If I did, I might just manage to burn away the memories of that room on the roof that he’d shown me, the death inside it.

My feet moved without much thinking on my part. Something about moving my muscles, about the ability to wander aimlessly, felt amazing. It was freeing and I could almost feel my crow stretching her wings. She never cared for indoors, for the suffocating feeling of thick walls and panes of glass.

Sweat beaded on my brow, and I didn’t bother to wipe it. Instead, I let it run down my body, soaking into the fabric of Kelvin’s shirt. Dust clung to me, but I didn’t mind it. In fact, a part of me wanted to plop right down in the dirt, to ground myself by putting my feet directly into the sand to soak the heat into me.

Eventually, I reached the fence line Kelvin had mentioned. The chain link reached taller than I was, making me guess it was six feet. It seemed a bit overkill for a place in the middle of nowhere, but Kelvin was nothing if not overkill.

I leaned closer to the fence, and a low buzzing backed up Kelvin’s statement.

And again, I found myself annoyed that I couldn’t fly. Not that I especially wanted to escape. If I did, odds were that part of the fence would malfunction to let me out. The fact it hadn’t suggested I didn’t really want to leave.

Which unnerved me as much as the fence itself.

Just as I considered trying to find a way over it, however, a gray form moved on the other side. It was large, and as it came closer to the fence, I recognized it.

A wolf.

Except, it didn’t move like a wild animal. I recalled Kelvin saying it was bonded to him, which said he’d infected it with his venom, just like a thrall. I’d heard of some vampires doing it but hadn’t seen it myself. Where humans retained their personality, the venom turned animals into little more than mindless slaves.

The wolf curled its lip up into a snarl, baring its teeth at me, reminding me far too much of Kelvin himself. It came closer to the fence but paused before making contact.

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