Page 9 of Safe in Shadow
IT WAS INTERESTINGto have a human of his own to observe, almost like a pet. He followed Grace around, watching her work. He knew she was a bright and empathetic sort of woman by the way her uneasiness grew the closer he got. She looked over her shoulder and cocked her head to listen for his silence every few minutes as she began making his house her home.
Appalling.
It should be more appalling, watching her invade.
Why was he equal parts amused and angered when he should only be filled with fury? She wasn’t evil, like The Stranger, but she still wasn’t welcome.
And yet, Nyx found it entertaining to watch this woman. He liked to rattle doors, ever so softly, just to see her face take on new expressions. It was fun to watch her try in vain to get the lighting brighter inside the downstairs rooms, her lower lip between her teeth, and her breasts heaving under her tight cotton shirt.
“Well. The toilets work; let’s hope the shower does, too.”
Nyx slid along the wainscotting as Grace left the kitchen and mounted the stairs, the hot, wicked feeling surging in him in ways it never had.
She’s so bright and so brave.
So very breakable.
He would have her out by tonight.
Nyx hesitated outside of the bathroom in the wide, sweeping hallway. A few doors away, his swirling pit of misery waited, offering him a permanent escape.
He didn’t take it. Didn’t go near it.
Instead, he slid like a pool of ink into the already dim bathroom and slowly sat in the corner of the immense room, remembering all the other sights he’d seen in here over time.
Soldiers being bathed as they lay on tables and wheeled in on chairs.
The white plague, tuberculosis, creating an endless echoing symphony as young men hunched over the old porcelain sinks, coughing up blood.
His own face in the mirror, gaunt and startled.
Nyx turned away from the mirror sharply before he could see what he’d become and found himself looking at Grace’s bare body as she slid her jeans down her legs.
Her body was more muscular and slender than the bodies of the last women he’d seen. She reached to turn on the hot water and shivered as she rocked from foot to foot on the bath mat, the only warmth in a sea of black and white tile.
“Shit. Shampoo!” Grace squealed and ran across the hall to his bedroom.
Her bedroom.
Theirbedroom?
He’d decide later. For now, Grace sprinted back into the room with a peach-colored bag bulging with tubes and bottles. She selected several and leaned over the edge of the original claw-footed tub. New shining silver pipes and a stiff white curtain made of plastic surrounded the tub, protecting it from his sight.
Ifhe stayed where he was.
I should leave. Wrong. I know it’s wrong to look at her.
It would be wrong to scare her away, then, wouldn’t it?
Nyx weighed his thoughts against his ever-changing knowledge of good and evil.
Scaring Grace away would protect his home and prevent him from slipping into the abyss if he ever made a... mistake.
On the other hand, there was no harm in watching someone performing a task as mundane as bathing.
And she told me to do anything I liked as long as I didn’t harm the house.
What if I promise not to harmher?
