Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“That,” says Cade with a finger pointed at Jeremy’s startled face, “is not psychological. Lean in closely, you can’t even hear the breath coming out of his mouth, can’t hear him gasping, can’t hear a damned thing. You’ve cast some kind of … of … of silencing hex on him.”
“And a boner hex too, apparently,” mumbles Layna.
Cade takes her daughter’s hands at once. “Baby, this isn’t funny. Jeremy can’t speak or communicate a thing. I gave him a pen and paper and he could barely form a word—just a bunch of squiggles. I gave him my phone, he typed nonsense. There is something extra going on with him. Not to mention—”
“Don’t,” clips Layna at her mother, eyes wide.
Elias looks back and forth between them. “Not to mention what? There’s something else?”
Cade struggles, closes her eyes, then says, “There were … a million birds outside the house.”
“Mom,” snaps Layna through her teeth.
“Like, shitloads of birds, birds all over the yard, all over the roof, birds and birds and more birds, fuck-lots of them.”
“It’s totally unrelated,” growls Layna.
“And when Layna called me and I came rushing home from an errand,” Cade goes on, “I could barely see my house under all those damned birds. I’m talking Alfred Hitchcock number of birds, and I swear, they were staring at me …”
“Oh my god,” mumbles Layna from behind her hands, now covering her face.
Elias gets up from his chair and starts pacing. “Birds,” he mumbles half to himself. “Birds and boners and silencing hexes. And what is Kyle expected to do about any of that?”
“How am I supposed to know? He’s the one who—” Cade stops herself. “I mean, he’s just … well … he’s …”
Elias stops, gives her a look. “Different?”
“Special,” Cade decides to say instead, smiling tightly.
This is all too much for Elias suddenly. Between Kyle not being home and the nightmares, he isn’t sure he has room for yet another supernatural conundrum. “He won’t know what to do any more than I would.”
Cade doesn’t seem satisfied with that. “Kyle always knows what to do. These past several months since he’s lived here in this town, I may not have known the ‘real’ him all that well, but he was always a great listener. He’s patient. He’s persistent.”
“And he’s gone.” Elias turns away, grips his head. “Fuck, I really need some coffee right now.” He heads for the kitchen.
Layna issues a sigh. “Mom, it’s nothing, like I said. We just need to go to the doctor and—”
“More like a witch doctor,” mumbles Cade, to which her daughter says something else, and then the two are bickering back and forth in a way Elias might otherwise find entertaining, had he even an ounce more patience left in his weary bones.
He stops at the kitchen counter, considers putting on a pot of coffee and offering them a drink to see if he can calm them down, change the mood, anything at all.
That’s when his eyes fall on the scribbled note resting by his favorite mug.
A note in Kyle’s handwriting.
He snatches it up at once, devours the words. There aren’t many. He lowers the note to the counter, stares off, silent. His heart rages in his chest, thumping blood with a terrible cocktail of fear and anger.
He barely notices when Cade’s calm voice comes from the kitchen archway. “Everything okay?”
Elias slowly turns, leans back against the counter, continues staring off at nothing, the words swimming laps in his head. He can even hear Kyle’s voice reading them, as if he’s speaking in his ear right now, saying his message over and over.
Cade comes up. “He left a note?” she asks. Elias just nods, out of it. Cade takes the note from his loose fingers and looks it over herself. “Elias. I need to be able to protect my loved ones,” she reads. “I have to learn more about my kind. My kind,” she repeats to herself, sounding sympathetic, then resumes. “I hope you understand. I love you. Just one night of my life they asked for. That’s all I’ll give them. I’ll be back soon. Love, Kyle.”
“Fucking lied to me,” breathes Elias, in shock.
Cade looks up. “Who? Kyle?”
“Said he wouldn’t do this. Said he wouldn’t just—just—”
“What’s he talking about here? ‘One night of my life they asked for.’ Who’s ‘they’?”
“Vampires. Fucking godforsaken real-ass vampires.”
Cade steps back. “Real vampires? What’s Kyle, then?”
“Not anything like them.”
“I’m confused.”
“Can’t blame you.” Elias stares at his mug, the one with “R.I.P. SLEEP” written across it, realizing at once that he has neither appetite nor thirst anymore. He swears, if Lazarus had encountered him while he wasn’t strapped down to the bed, this vampire whose face he doesn’t even know, he would pound him six feet into the ground with his bare fists. He wonders if he has ever felt rage like this before.