Framed (7 page)

“Ruby,” he returned with the same level of friendliness. He easily turned up the charm factor as Carmen made her way over to us. “I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Carmilo. I should have known Ruby would have been running behind—she does seem to enjoy making people wait.”

“Nonsense, it was no trouble at all. And as for this one,” she said, slipping her arm around my waist, “you be nice to her. She's part of the family now.”

He smiled wide and nodded once, backing down to the threats of the middle aged Italian woman. I couldn't see her face, but there was the slightest vibe of protection coming from her. It was apparent that I really did have a new adoptive mother, and she wasn't about to let anyone, no matter how charming, mess with what she claimed as hers. I smiled outwardly before swallowing it with my hand as Sean shot me a quick but sharp glance.

“Thanks again, Carmen. Tell Dom goodbye for me, please,” I said as I backed away towards the door and Sean. “I'll see you at practice, Matty. I hope you enjoyed your birthday.”

“I did. Maybe we'll do something fun for yours,” he said flatly.

“Sounds good.”

“Shall we?” Sean asked, looking down at me while he gestured towards the door.

“Yep,” I replied with a wave to Matty and his mom. “Goodbye.”

They stood in the doorway as Sean and I made our way down the driveway to the street. My anger built with every step. I knew I was about to wave my hand slowly in front of a coiled rattlesnake, but I just couldn't help myself. When we arrived at his car, I snapped.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked, jerking my head to look back at the house. Carmen was still standing in the entrance, so I gave another wave and a smile to make like everything was fine.

“I told you to be waiting outside. You weren't,” he offered. “Get in your car. You're following me.”

“What's going on?”

“No time to explain. You wasted enough time in there. You'd better hope things haven't gotten worse.”

Against every fiber of my being, I shut my mouth and got in my car. I followed him north and out of the city, then wove through traffic on the highway at break-neck speed. Even with my heavily leaded foot, I was having a hard time keeping up.

Sean never drove crazily. I knew whatever I was headed toward was something I would rather be running from.

Intuition could be such a bitch.

5

We walked into a shitstorm.

In a backyard somewhere far outside of Boston, a mass of brothers surrounded what I presumed was a dead body. I was overwhelmed with their feelings of concern, grief, and sadness. I was paralyzed by their anger, hostility, and unadulterated rage, which I knew would shortly be turned on me. Sean had to physically drag me behind him as I dug in my heels—that was one angry mob I had no intention of cozying up to.

The closer we got, the harder it was to breathe. Their emotions were oppressive, clamping down on my lungs like tiny vices hellbent on preventing inflation. My skin crawled as my adrenaline spiked—I wanted to flee. Instead, I was thrust into the center of the emotional melee and smack dab into a bloody crime scene. My eyes fixed on the victim immediately, more accurately his chest; it was still moving.

“He's not dead,” I blurted out with the tact of a five-year-old. I was expecting a corpse, not a soon-to-be one.

“Looks like you’re losing your touch, Bitch,” Jer snarled, welcoming me to the mess. “Oh, right...it's not actually
you
who's to blame, it's that
other
Bitch.”

I said nothing while I stared in morbid awe of the man that lay before me. My brain couldn't comprehend how he was still alive. Something in the DNA of the brothers must have made them tougher than the average human because it was highly suspect that a mere human could have survived even half of the injuries he'd sustained.

His throat was so badly torn out that I was certain I was looking at his cervical spine through the moist, hanging bits that surrounded and clung to it. His shirt was shredded, his arms covered in defensive wounds—I definitely saw bone there. The spot he occupied in the yard was slightly depressed, causing his blood to pool around him; it must have been two or more inches deep. The wound had clearly been spurting blood at some point, but wasn't anymore. With every slowing heartbeat, I could see it weakly push out of his neck, dripping down his chest. I knew it had been spraying due to the unintentionally spattered wardrobe of a few of those surrounding me.

It was macabre, abstract human art.

I found myself floating towards the victim, unaware that my feet were even moving. I had to see him more closely—something about his energy called to me. The protests to my approach faded into the background; I paid no attention to them. I foolishly believed that nobody would hurt me as long as Sean was around and still convinced of my innocence.

When I came to hover above the dying brother, I realized that he was a boy, not a man at all—at least he
looked
that way. He could have been three hundred years for all I knew, but staring down at the bloodstained face of a teenager and seeing the terror in his eyes negated his true chronological age. In my eyes, he was a boy, and my body burned with rage.

“Why aren't you doing anything?” I screamed at Jer before turning to Sean. “Help him! And where the
fuck
is Sophie?”

I was met with hybrid stares of confusion and hatred from the crowd around me. I was also met with a vicious right cross to the temple, courtesy of Jer. My body crashed violently to the ground before I could even get a hand out to break my fall. I saw stars as I tried to press my torso up out of the dirt. My efforts were in vain, so I pressed my cheek to the cool dirt beneath me hoping it would help ease the splitting pain that was pulsating through my head.

“Stay down, Bitch!” Jer yelled over the top of me, before slamming his boot-clad foot down into the small of my back for emphasis. I didn't see what Sean did in response, but the noise it made rang out, echoing for a long time. I wanted to smile as I heard Jer groan on the ground not far from me, but my head hurt entirely too much for that.

“Where
is
Sophie?” Sean asked the group surrounding him. He sounded positively frantic by Sean standards.

I heard the tearing of fabric and the muttering of words that either weren't English, or weren't comprehensible by my damaged mind.

“Fuck! It's not working,” he growled. “I need her here now!”

My face was turned away from the vast majority of the action as I lay on the ground. I could see through the sparse forest of legs around that someone was approaching from the front of the yard. Long, thin, naked legs were walking in my general direction.

“Sophie,” I mumbled into the ground. I tried, more successfully, to get myself off my dirty resting place, then stumbled into one of the brothers, nearly falling over again. I clutched his arm while I tried to get the scene in front of me to stop spinning. To my surprise, he granted me use of his arm.

Sympathizer...let me see his face.

The Jer-like face that looked down at me made me jump at first, undoing anything I'd just accomplished by standing still. Jay gave me a wan smile before looking back at Sean as Sophie pulled up beside him.

“Fix him, now,” Sean barked at her without greeting. “You can explain where the fuck you've been later.”

Sophie said nothing as she knelt down beside the boy, running her hand gently through his hair to soothe him. She closed her eyes dramatically, throwing her head back to inhale deeply. Startled, she snapped her head almost immediately back up to look at Sean. Her face looked beyond hopeless.

“Do something!” he yelled, as she gently stood to stand face to face with him.

“I can't,” she said mournfully. “Not anything
helpful
.”

He stood looking at her for a brief moment, his mouth agape. I'd never seen him at a loss for words before.

“What are you talking about? You've never been unable to heal us...not in the centuries you've served,” he said disbelievingly, before grabbing her upper arm and throwing her to the ground beside the victim. “Fix. Him.”

“I have never been unable to heal those that have needed it in those centuries because you've never presented me with a man marked for death,” she explained, still sitting where Sean had thrown her. “Death is already upon him, Sean. I cannot help him. To try would only cause him more pain than he's already in. It would be cruel. I won't do it.”

“You're
refusing
to fulfill your duties,” Sean stated as fact rather than question. “You know the penalty that carries.”

The flash of terror in Sophie's eyes spoke volumes; she knew all too well what the penalty was. I wondered if everyone else present did too—everyone but me. As Sean made a move for her, Jer came out of nowhere to stop him, accosting his arm as it shot forward for her. It was aimed at her throat.

“Sean,” Jer said respectfully but firmly. “Sophie would
never
fail us intentionally; you should know that better than anyone. If she says it can't be done, it can't be.” He let Sean's arm go, but held his gaze. “You refuse to believe your pet could do this, but look at Thomas, Sean. You and I have more history with the RB than any of the others. Look at his wounds! You
know
I'm right, whether you want to believe it or not.
Look
at him, Sean!”

Sean painfully dropped his eyes to the boy, who lay barely breathing below him. He fell to his knees beside him, taking his limp hand in his own. Sophie scurried back out of reach as Jer knelt on the other side of Thomas, taking his other hand. Jer and Sean stared at each other over the dying brother as his eyes darted lazily back and forth between their faces, his eyes desperately pleading for something.

“Ask him,” Jer ordered. “Ask him who did this. Get the proof you need so we can end this.”

Sean looked down at Thomas, whose face was so pale and distant that I feared he'd already passed.

“Thomas,” he said softly, “please help me. I need to know who did this. Are they here? Blink once if that person is here, Thomas, please.”

We all looked on as Thomas squeezed his eyes shut deliberately, holding them closed for a good second or two before reopening—it took nearly all the energy he had left to do so. Sean's gentle expression hardened as he looked up at me. I didn't know what it meant.

“Show me,” he told Thomas, but Thomas didn't move. “Show me!” he snarled in frustration. Thomas's eyes rolled to Jer as he tried to move his left hand. Jer stroked his hand encouragingly as Thomas white-knuckled Jer's, using the last bit of strength he had. He stared at Jer wide-eyed as a tear rolled down his cheek.

“It's okay, Thomas,” Jer comforted. “Don't be scared. It'll be over soon. Try again, please. She's right there.”

Thomas didn't respond.

His hand went limp. His head lolled to the side. His empty eyes locked on mine. He was dead.

“Goddammit!” Sean yelled, punching the ground next to the body before turning to look at me. His expression was not a promising one.

“Finally!” Jer yelled. “We can end this, Sean...like old times.”

Run.

Sean leaned back and let out a cry so ungodly that it shook me to the core, making the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I prayed it wasn't a call to battle.

Run. Now.

He rose slowly, uncurling himself away from the body he'd just collapsed onto after his outburst. His eyes were black as night.

And they were all for me.

6

For fuck's sake, Ruby, RUN!

As Sean approached, my eyes betrayed my plan, shooting a glance towards the street and ultimately the TT. Jer was coming at me too, which did nothing to improve my situation. My legs twitched in preparation, and I wondered how far I would actually get before they brought me down and killed me. I wondered if Scarlet would take over in an attempt to survive and which one of the big men would be the one to ultimately do me in.

I hoped it was Jer. I couldn't stomach the alternative.

When they were only moments away from me, I turned quickly to flee and immediately regretted it. The swimming sensation took over and I struggled for balance with my first and only step. My escape was not only halted by my earlier concussion, but also by the blinding pain that shot through my head as the visions from a psycho overtook my own.

He stood on the river bank, looking through the surrounding trees. What he saw amused him greatly. The chaos fueled him.

A cacophony of voices drew his attention, summoning him with promise of violence. He tread carefully through the water, not wanting to disturb the scene as it unfolded, content to be an onlooker, rather than participant.

A new role.

He was careful not to get too close
—
more careful than ever before. They circled something, looking inward as two men in the center squared off. A break in the bodies showed the source of all the hostility. A woman, curled up in a ball with her back towards him, her white-blond curls spilling over the ground.

The shouting continued, begging him closer, but he didn't dare. The show wasn't worth the cost of admission
—
he knew that all too well.