Page 22 of Wicked Beasts
At least…until I read the first three words.
My dearest Tristan…
The sudden chill that creeps across my neck has returned, goosebumps pimpling across my body.
“Miss Amara? Dinner is ready!”
Mrs. Wong’s voice startles me, and I nearly leap out of my skin. I quickly fold the letter and tuck it into my bra strap before trying to angle the journal perfectly at the corner of the desk.
I drift through the hallway, my thoughts a swirling mess of words from the letter, uncertainty pressing down on my chest, overly aware of the letter nestled against my breast. I step in through the threshold and into the dining room, only for thewind to get knocked out of my lungs. The head of the table is empty.
Tristan Black is not there. He’s not sitting there, transfixed in conversation. His voice and comfortingly warm tone is not being carried throughout the room.
Everyone else is conversing like nothing’s wrong, like the host’s absence isn’t unusual at all. Even Manu seems engaged in conversation with Mortimer.
I chew anxiously on my bottom lip as I approach the table, my gaze fixated on his empty chair.
He’s supposed to be here.
How can it not beme? How can it not be my fault?
The dining room suddenly feels much colder in spite of the warmth present at the table.
Eighteen
Tristan’s absence during Wednesday dinner gnaws at my spirit as each day passes to the point where I tuck the letter beneath my laptop, refusing to look at it. I already know reading it will not make me feel better, not when it starts with, “My dearest Tristan.”
I’m not sure what I anticipated, but I certainly didn’t expectthis—to slip back into the monotony of routine as though nothing happened, to the point where it feels like he's avoiding me. The purpose of spending time with him was to become closer, and while we shared a fleeting moment of intimacy—or at least, I felt it—I now find myself feeling even more hollow. A part of me wishes I had never asked him at all. Then, I wouldn’t know what exactly I was missing.
Vaguely, I wonder if he has this effect on other women. After all, why should I be special?
Yet, even my active imagination can’t have fabricated the way he looked at me when we went on our walk. Surely, there was something there.
I fear I’m bordering on obsession.
In an attempt to shake myself from this looming depression, I decide to have dinner at the table in the kitchen rather thanretreat to my bedroom like I usually do. Mrs. Wong had made a pot of Portuguese bean soup that she left simmering on the stove over a low heat, with freshly baked personal loaves of bread to go with it, a pot of steaming white rice in the rice cooker.
Gisella is already at the table, shoveling a spoonful into her mouth as she scrolls social media on her phone. I make myself a bowl and occasionally glance back at her as she laughs to herself while watching a video. I grab a spoon and turn to approach her. I don’t really want to ask about Tristan, but perhaps I can get information regarding another mysterious figure in the household.
“Hey Gisella, do you mind if I ask you something real quick?”
“Of course!” she chirps as she puts her phone down and acknowledges the empty seat across from her. “I was just looking at some recipes.”
I gently place my bowl on the table as I take a seat.
“Um…I-I heard someone the other night… About a week ago? I-it sounded like Tristan, but I’m sure it wasn’t. I could have been imagining it, I suppose.”
“I doubt it,” she says, dismissing my doubts with a wrinkle of her little nose as she fishes in her soup for a piece of sausage. “It must have been Dr. Shadow. Night time, right?” she asks as she glances at me and tucks some of her bleached blonde hair behind her ear. “He’s a bit odd like that.”
My breath catches in my throat. Evensheknows who this mysterious Dr. Shadow is.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“Tristan has an older brother—Dr. Shadow—whooccasionallygraces us with his presence.” The way she says his name catches my interest, especially because she doesn’t speak of him with the same hushed fear as Mrs. Wong and Mortimer. Instead, it’s with fascination, or at least intrigue. “My step dad knows him, but I never met him myself. I did catch a glimpseof him from my window one night when he was outside with Manu—striking and undeniably intimidating. Hot, too, if you’re wondering,” she admits with a smirk and gives me a wink as she stirs the soup with the white rice at the bottom of her bowl. “Think Tristan, but…less refined.”
I hadn’t been curious before about what he might look like, not with the fear Mrs. Wong and Mortimer had rooted within me, but now, the thought lingers like a ghost in the back of my mind as I look down at my untouched bowl of soup, a few beans resting on my spoon. If Tristan’s presence already ensnares my senses, what darkness and allure might his brother possess?
“I wasn’t…” I start to murmur, and she cuts me off.
