Page 34 of Missing Piece
“Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m too short and I don’t trust you not to stab me in the calf,” she deadpanned. “Now get up there. There’s still a second floor and an attic to check out.”
There was no point in arguing with her, so he just pushed the coffee mugs on the counter back and climbed up. There was always something nerve-wracking about messing around with ceiling tiles. It was usually the fact that even if he had been up in one before, he never knew if there would be new bugs or some vicious wildlife that had made its home up there. Or what if there were body parts up there?
Please don’t be something dead. Please don’t be something dead.He pushed the tile up and to the side, peering into the space. “I can’t see shit up here.”
The ceiling creaked above him again. It was a small sound, but it was definitely there. The house settling as the sun went down? He knew a lot of old houses groaned and creaked, but something about it made the hair on his arms prick up. “Give me your phone, I need a flashlight.”
“If you try anything funny with this, I’ll cut your Achilles on your good leg,” Ophelia said as she placed her phone into his outstretched hand.
“Yes, yes, I get it,” Adam muttered as he pressed the button to turn on the flashlight. He let out a small sigh of relief asthe only thing that lit up in the space between the tile and the original ceiling was an endless array of spiderwebs. Nothing human, no dead critters, just a spidery graveyard that made his skin crawl.
“I don’t really see anything-” he began, then squinted. No. There was something there, small and reflective. He grabbed it quickly, the cobwebs tickling the back of his hand.
“You got something?”
“Yeah.” That was all he managed to get out as the hidden phone began buzzing in his hand, catching him off guard. He grabbed the metal framing for the drop ceiling, trying to steady himself as his entire body tried to squirm off the counter.
It was no use. He found himself on his back, staring up at the dust and pieces of ceiling knocked loose from his attempt to catch himself. Ophelia’s round face leaned over him for a moment before she studied the gaping hole he left during his graceful descent to the kitchen floor.
“It’s ringing?” Ophelia’s voice brightened a bit as she snatched her phone back from Adam and pulled the vibrating phone from his other hand.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Adam groaned. His shoulders and lower back screamed at him as he pulled himself up, more dust and pieces of ceiling tile falling into his lap as he felt along his already sore head.
“Should I answer it?” she asked as she crouched beside him. She brushed some of the dust off his shoulder, still staring at the phone as it continued to ring.
“Do whatever,” Adam grunted.
The ceiling above them creaked again. Adam stared up at the hole in the framing, his jaw aching as he clenched histeeth. That sound. Something wasn’t right. “Ophelia—”
“I heard it,” she said quickly, focused on the same spot. “It’s an old house.”
“We should probably leave. You have your hidden object, let’s go before-”
There was another creak, louder, accompanied with the sound of metal on hardwood. Adam winced. He knew that sound. It was all he heard for that last week every time he got up to move around in that windowless room Vincent kept him locked in.
A chain.
“That’s not an old house noise,” Adam insisted as he scrambled to his feet. The bottom of his foot was beginning to itch again. Something was wrong. His whole body wanted him to book it for the front door, burning with the desire to run.
Ophelia just continued to stare up at the hole, as though she was trying to force herself to see through the material into whatever room was above them.
Then the shrieking started. Guttural, pained, blood-curdling screeching that seemed to finally get her attention. Ophelia shot to her feet.
“It might be time to go.”
Chapter Eleven - Vincent
With as long as he had been alive, Vincent had never been one of those vampires who hated the passage of time and the speed of technology. He embraced it with open arms, because he promised himself he wouldn’t end up like one of the old ones who hid from the world and longed for a time when screens didn’t exist and people mysteriously dying of sudden exsanguination didn’t draw too much attention.
Vincent prided himself on being modern.
But his cracked phone seemed to be taunting him and testing his patience. Since the moment Petrov’s ancient truck had rumbled away with his niece and his Adam—no, wait, just Adam—he had been waiting for a message. A call. Anything. Ophelia was perpetually on her phone doing God knows what and yet for some reason she didn’t have the time to send a text saying they got there okay? What if something happened?
What if Adam said something to provoke her? That thought made his stomach clench. Adam was foolishly impulsive and delightfully mouthy. What if he pushed her too far?
I should have considered this before letting her just borrow him.He could just cover himself head-to-toe like Tariq did when he needed to go out during the day, but if he showed up at his neighbor’s house before sunset, he knew it would bother Ophelia. She was volatile and had a mean streak about her, but she kept to her word when it came to serious matters. She promised to look after Adam and not to kill him. Vincent had to trust her.
