Page 12 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door
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I can see in her eyes something has happened before she even opens her mouth, as I walk in the door from work and begin to slowly unbutton my heavy, quilted puffer jacket.
“What is it?” I frown, hanging it on the peg near the wall to dry and spinning quickly back to her.
“Nothing,” she smiles weakly from where she stands near the staircase, carefully placing her phone on the sideboard.
“I know when you’re lying Pru; you look down and nibble your nails.”
“I do not.” She takes her finger out of her mouth, smiling ruefully. “OK, Tristan called. Nicholas has a lead on who might have taken his father, someone linked to Solomon, and he’s asked if Tristan and I will join them in attacking the guy. Serena and Christopher can’t go because of their big Aspen thing. But don’t worry,” she holds up her hands to stall my interruption, “I told him we can’t.”
“By someone ‘linked’ with Solomon, I guess you mean a vampire. Probably one of the many still loyal to him, even though he’s dead now.” I shudder just thinking about the evil vampire, destroyed so recently by my sisters and their partners, the vampire that had kept us all prisoner, abusing, using, degrading us for centuries. Just the thought of him brings bile to my throat as I force down memories long suppressed, but never forgotten. “Because Charlotte and Nick wouldn’t need back-up if it was a human.”
“Yeah,” Pru shrugs, “but it can wait.”
“Pru,” I shake my head, “Nick has been beside himself with worry since his dad didn’t turn up to the wedding. His father is his only family. You have to go, if there is any chance at all that his dad might still be alive, you need to help rescue him.”
“C’mon,” Pru sits down heavily on the couch, “you and I both know there is zero chance he’s alive – the wedding was a month ago. His father is dead.”
“Then Nick needs closure,” I murmur, sitting down beside her as Orson and the cats make their way to my lap. “And if Tristan is anything like you, he will go even though you told him not to – and he might get hurt without you there, he’s only a new vampire.”
“Tess, I’ve been warring with myself ever since I got the first call. I can’t leave knowing you might do something silly.”
I notice she has begun to unconsciously nibble her nail again, as she speaks.
“And what if he’s not dead,” I whisper, horror filling my eyes, “we both know Solomon and his kind could torture a person for weeks without actually killing them – we’ve endured this. God, could you live with yourself knowing he might still be alive, suffering under some sadistic creature’s whim?”
“Fuck,” she groans.
“Pru, you have to go.”
“I can’t. Not until you promise me, really promise me, Tess, that you won’t do yourself in over this neighbour.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to make that promise. But I think you know that.”
She inhales a deep, long breath, and releases it slowly. I can’t tell what she is thinking, whether she is considering threatening me or my pets or figuring out some other way to have me babysat while she runs off on her errand. But finally, she surprises me be rising and striding to the door.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I push the pets off my lap and stand to hug her goodbye. But she is gone, the door left open and the cold whooshing in where she had stood for a millisecond, considering me, before running out.
Walking slowly to the door, frowning, I gasp as I see a tree making its way up my porch steps.
Orson squeals and, terrified, trots hell for leather down the hallway to hide, as I stand, eyes wide. I watch as the tree falls to the porch timbers and my neighbour straightens up from where he had been bent double, carrying it on his back, hidden by its dense foliage.
As he takes off his beanie, revealing his thick, dark hair, the scent of his damp locks, mixed with the pine and the smell of his blood almost undoes me where I stand. Digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand, I freeze like a statue.
“Pru said you needed a tree,” he says, clapping his mittened hands to clear them of snow, and smiling. “So while I was getting mine, I got you one. Where would you like me to put it?”
‘Oh Lord, this must be Phase 2B.’
“You’ve done a great job restoring the place,” he says, standing back from straightening the tree and casting me a quick look. “Sorry about the snow on your rug – and I might have got a bit carried away with the size of the tree.”
“Oh, uh, don’t worry about it, and thank you,” I squeak from where I stand stiffly in the doorway of my lounge area. I’m as far as I can possibly get from him and the open front door allows in cold blasts of fresh air, diluting his scent. I’m trying not to launch myself at him, and also trying not to be an asshole – it’s a fine balance. “You, ugh, you’ve been in here before?”
“It was my parent’s house,” he nods. “I lived here until the age of twelve. We moved to Miami, but you never forget your childhood home.”
“No, I guess not,” I frown, thinking of my own, a small mud-floored shack, simply decorated, but filled with love. The last time I’d seen it I had waved to Mother and my little sister as I headed down to the paddock for the evening milking of our two house cows, promising I’d bring back some bluebells. But Solomon had met me in the laneway. When I finally did return, close to a century later, having escaped his clutches with Serena, Charlotte and Pru, there was nothing of my home remaining. Early changes to farming practices had seen the small plot taken over by the Earl who owned the land and put to broadacre crops. The house, like so many others, had been put to the torch. No villagers remaining had any memory of my family.
