Page 199 of Envious Of Fire
This can’t be the end of everything.
Drake bursts out of the house. “Cookies!” he declares, lifting them in the air cheerily.
Moments later, they meet up with the others at the bar, which is overly decorated for the holidays courtesy of Cade. Many from around town are also here, making the inside feel cozy and warm when the trio arrive. Drake and Mikey, who have become rather brotherly over the past few months in every way short of a secret handshake, meet by the jukebox and argue about the music. After greeting Leland and his girlfriend Becks at the bar, Elias and Kyle make the rounds to see the familiar faces. Jeremy and Mariah—formerly known as Blood 304—sit in a booth in the back corner, absorbed by something on Jeremy’s laptop, likely the computer game they’ve been bonding over, despite his still being unable to speak. Silas, one of the two teenage boys rescued from Vegasyn, sits at a table with Layna, both of them sharing a basket of nachos and laughing together.
“I’ve been so restless lately,” says Cade when Kyle joins her at the bar. “I keep going to my computer thinking I might chase one more lead digging into my family tree, then am reminded all over again that none of us have internet. You’d think the stupid shroud wouldn’t block all cell and internet service, too. Isn’t keeping us trapped here bad enough? No, no,” she quickly says, lowering her voice, “I’m not trying to work anyone up. I’m justtired of all the side eye my daughter and I get. Isn’t it better to be stuck here andalivethan hunted and fed on by murderous vampires?”
Kyle takes Cade’s hand. “Don’t overthink it. No one in town is mad at either of you for what you did. You saved us all.”
“Yeah, well, be that as it may, we’re also everyone’s only hope of lifting this damned shroud.” Cade lets out a sigh. She’s clearly had a long day, and this night keeps getting longer. “Just when I thought Layna was on to something this afternoon, nope, it falls through. I think between me and her, we’ve tried something from every single page in that damned grimoire. Nothing, nada.”
“You’ll find the solution someday,” Kyle reassures her. This is a conversation they’ve had many times already.
“I swear, it’s like the book is a computer that just shut off. It’s not responding to anything we’re doing, and I’m out of blue and white candles and burned every last stick of incense there is in this place. Don’t even get me started on the sage.”
Layna laughs too hard at something Silas says, then casually peers over her shoulder at Jeremy in the corner of the room, whose complete attention is glued to his laptop, Mariah clinging to his arm, watching as well. When Layna returns her attention to the nachos and whatever Silas is saying now, she seems distracted, and each of her smiles comes forced.
Kyle feels the heaviness inside her heart. Not that it takes his Reach to see the misgivings in her eyes, too.
“It’s weird for me as well,” says Cade quietly, having followed his line of sight, words nearly drowned in the noise of the room. “If you ask me, I think Layna felt too much guilt over what she did to Jer Bear, and when Mariah showed up after losing her own boyfriend, the two just bonded in their mutual silence and grief.”
Kyle peers at her. “You don’t think they got weirded out bytheir own parents dating?”
Cade’s mouth drops. “What? Me and Juan? We’re not—!”
“C’mon. Everyone knows.”
“We’renota thing!” she protests through an outraged laugh, realizes she caught Leland’s attention behind the bar, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “We’re just friends, we had a sort of fling-thing months ago, it’s over, we’re just friends.”
“Does that include or exclude the secret walk in the park you two had just last week after closing the bar early and you—?”
“This conversation’s over,” Cade decides, gives Kyle a playful flick of her fingers on his arm, causing him to laugh, then heads off to work the room and catch up with others.
The curly-haired sisters who run the bakery enjoy the tray of cookies Drake brought, eating the majority of them. Drake and Mikey, who have finally agreed on the music, dance badly in front of the jukebox nearby. Leland keeps appearing to want to join them, but is afraid Becks will get on his case again about “acting like a man-child all the time”. Doctor Mei, who looks like she’s hit her limit in both socializing and drinking, catches Kyle’s eye just before slipping out the door, giving him a little wave as she departs with a couple of her friends.
That’s when Kyle spots someone unexpected outside through the front door: Patrick. He leans against a streetlight smoking a cigarette in the cold, wearing a long coat but not seeming to mind that it’s barely closed, his sunken eyes staring off, unshaven face, messy hair. It was a controversial but necessary decision on Chief Rojas’s part to finally pardon Patrick and release him from his jail cell. Seeing as he can’t depart the town anyway, Patrick is more or less still incarcerated, only now with a much larger cell.
The longer Kyle watches the man, the more bothered he feels. He can’t hold back anymore. Something about this night is spurring him on. Maybe playing in the snow earlier. Or seeinghis friends having fun. Or the weirdness between Jeremy and Layna. Or the whacky dance Drake is trying to pull off now and the fact that Leland, at last, stopped holding back and hopped the bar to join them by the jukebox, much to Becks’ eye-rolling chagrin.
Kyle slips out the door into the street. Patrick notices him at once, flicks his cigarette, then sighs. “Fucking cold night.”
Kyle leans against the wall nearby, nods in agreement, even if he feels little of the chill himself. “This is my first winter here.”
“It’s when they come out, y’know.”
Kyle peers at him. “They?”
“Yeah. Veins as cold as ice. Hearts as cold as ice. The cold is their fucking temple. Bloodsuckers. Born out of demon’s ice, all of them, they come with the cold. It’s the night my wife and child went missing, a night just like this one, so cold, you can’t feel your toes.” Patrick takes a drag from his cigarette, blows into the biting air. He licks his lips, turns his head toward Kyle. “I’m not going in there, don’t worry. Not makingthatmistake again.”
“I understand,” says Kyle automatically.
“Even with our shared hell, no one in this town likes me, nor do they give a shit what I’ve been through.” He lets out a bitter snort. “Not after I held the precious chief’s son at gunpoint in that pawnshop however many ages ago. Not after shooting you in the face. Don’t they know I didn’t have a choice? Wouldn’t they do the same damned thing if their families were being held captive by a psycho vampire named George? What the fuck kind of vampire name is that, anyway? George? Fucking kidding me?” He lets out another breath of smoke, coughs, wipes his reddened nose. “I’m convinced my family’s dead now. I did it all for nothing. George killed them. And I’m stuck here in this place … stuck here like I might as well have died and gone to Hell. This town … everyone in it … all of it can just go fuck itself.”
Kyle lowers his eyes to the ground, to the snow. He isn’t surewhere to start. “We’re all cut off from our lives now. Some of us have our loved ones here. Some of us don’t. We’re all in the same boat whether we see it that way or not. And besides—”
“Is it true you know George?”
Kyle freezes at the question, stares back at him questioningly.
