Keeper Chronicles: Awakening (16 page)

“How do I forget this?”

“Gabe...” Mia said over the radio.

Never taking his eyes off her, he grabbed a two-way radio from his own pocket and spoke into it. “I heard you. On my way.”

“The house,” she mumbled, putting things together, “that blue thing almost killed me, didn’t it? You weren’t being a jerk. You were protecting me? Shit. How long, Gabe? How long has this been going on? Did one of these...things...kill my father?”

“I don’t have time for this now.” He pulled her to a standing position. “Please do what I asked. Go to the house. Forget you were out here. Forget what you saw. If the others find out you’ve seen, they’ll come for you.” He shoved her back toward the house. “Go!”

She half stumbled half ran back to the bed-n-breakfast and shut the door behind her. Unable to control her raging heart or the thoughts circling her head like vultures waiting for their prey to expire, she hurried to the back of the house and downstairs. Passing her father’s old room, she heard the echo of Mia’s voice and the beeping of some strange machine. Gabe had been careful not to mention anything about her to Mia. What if the girl was one of the “them” he mentioned?

“Hey, Mia,” Rebekah called out, her voice an octave too high. “I’m going to take a bath, okay?”

“Sure,” the girl answered.

Rebekah ran back to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. “Get it together,” she ordered herself, leaning back against the door. “Okay, something crazy happened. And the people you thought you knew have some massive secrets. That’s no reason to panic. No reason to panic, at all. Now, people think you’re taking a bath. You need to turn on the water.”

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to take the five steps from the door to her tub and switch on the hot water. There. That wasn’t too bad. What was next? Waiting for the tub to fill. Okay. Maybe she should put some bubbles in it. She liked bubbles, right? If someone came in, they’d expect her to have bubbles.

She sounded like a lunatic. That she was cognizant enough to realize that only made the whole situation more ridiculous.

By the time the tub filled with water and she sank down into its warm, fragrant arms, her thoughts settled a little and her heart resumed a nearly normal rhythm. Forget, Gabe had ordered her. But she couldn’t. Instead, as she closed her eyes and let the water and bubbles cover her, she categorically searched her memory for oddities she’d maybe overlooked or ignored. Places where she should’ve recognized something wrong.

Once she really started looking, they were everywhere. Times her parents had sent her to bed early as a child with no reason given, the basement stairs locked so she couldn’t go up. Normal parents didn’t lock their kids in the basement, even if it was furnished and homey. Normal parents didn’t have shutters on their house that locked with combination locks or keep swords in the umbrella stand near the door or be black belts in karate or come in after work exhausted all the time with rents in their clothing or have a safe word that if one of them said she’d have to run downstairs and lock herself inside or make her go to sleep each night with ear plugs to block out noise—supposedly because they snored and the walls were thin, which they really were.

How could she have been so blind?

Because her parents had been careful, that’s why. They’d made these drills seem normal, made excuses that always sounded like perfect sense so she wouldn’t question them. As a child, she’d only known what they’d shown her. She was never allowed many friends, and never went and spent the night at someone else’s house. Mostly she hung around Gabe and his family. Now Rebekah understood why. They didn’t want her to learn that there were different ways to live, didn’t want her to question the reality they had created around here. And it had worked. She’d bought into it. If she hadn’t sought out Gabe that afternoon in the storm, she’d still believe it to this day.

She’d still be living the lie.

I have to know what that thing was.

The rest of her parents’ things, however, were still in Mia’s room. Rebekah hadn’t found a place to store them yet. She couldn’t go barging in there, not when the girl was on the radio with Gabe giving him directions about something. If she was going to discover the truth about her parents, about herself, she’d have to do it alone. And she’d have to be a little sneaky.

She couldn’t trust Gabe to tell her what she wanted to know. He was part of the conspiracy, had been lying to her probably since they were children. To get him off her back, she’d have to convince him that she wasn’t looking into what happened, that she was forgetting it, like he asked. As if that were possible.

Tomorrow, during the Halloween party, she’d wait until everyone was distracted and sneak down into Mia’s room. The girl was a part of all this somehow. Once Rebekah knew how and why, she and her new business partner were going to have a very long conversation.

Rebekah slid down into the hot water until it covered her head, small bubbles of air dashing to the surface to explode.

Chapter Sixteen

“I haven’t heard it beep in about a half hour; does that mean we’re finished? I’ve got prep to do for this party tomorrow, and the Hunters want me to contract with the coven.” Mia squeaked through the receiver.

“Sorry,” Gabe answered, rubbing his shoulder, “but I need you to do one more thing for me. Could you come to the gift shop?”

“Gift shop?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you inside.”

Static. “Okay. Give me five.”

“And Mia...” Gabe closed his eyes, and then pressed the receiver. “Bring a knife and a sewing kit.”

“Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Just get over here.”

Everything hurt. The storm had taken most of the day to work out its issues with the world, the monsters coming in unpredictable waves. If he’d been able to stay in one location, he might have been all right, but having to run from the beach to the tower then out to the b-n-b then back to his tower only drained his already sparse reserves. He needed to sleep for a week, or at least an hour, but first he had to get the bullet out of his shoulder.

Gabe rummaged around his small pantry. The Hunters had cleaned out most of his food before moving into the b-n-b, and he hadn’t had time to run to the store. All he had left were some protein bars and a few cans of tuna. Gabe went for the protein bars, unwrapping one and taking a bite as he walked over to the stairs. What he needed was a Thanksgiving dinner or two.

“Hello? Gabe?” Mia’s voice bounced down the stairs into the bunker.

He called up to her. “Down here!”

The witch’s feet appeared before the rest of her. She wore black boots up to her knees and a skirt that looked more like a belt than something that was supposed to cover her legs. On top she wore a simple white t-shirt with an orange skull and crossbones on the front. A blue sweater hung around her shoulders.

“So what’s this sewing you need me to do so desperately?” she asked.

When he tried to lift his arms to take his shirt off, his shoulder locked up and wouldn’t let it raise more than a few inches. “Help me get this off and I’ll show you.”

She looked skeptical. “You know I’m not a doctor, right?”

“I don’t need a doctor,” he answered and gestured to her knife. “I need someone with small fingers who can use a blade.”

Sighing in a way that was clearly meant to show him just what she thought of this, Mia pulled up his shirt and got it twisted off his head. She whistled. “That’s a lot of scars.”

“Tell me about it.” With his good hand, he pointed to the spot in his shoulder where he’d shot himself while killing the Rusalka. “The bullet went in about here. I’m going to need you to dig it out.”

“That’s going to hurt,” she offered. Gabe arched an eyebrow. She nodded. “Scars, got it. You’re a tough guy. So where you want to do this?”

“You’re the boss.”

She scanned the room, then hopped over to the wall and flicked on some more lights. “Let’s have you sit at the table, that way you don’t fall over when I do this.”

As he walked over to the table and sat down, Gabe opened another protein bar and ate it in two bites.

Mia grabbed a bottle of vodka from his pantry and brought it over to the table, followed by a plastic bowl she filled with water from the sink. When she was finally ready, she dabbed some alcohol on Gabe’s shoulder—which was completely unnecessary—and poured some more on the blade. “Ready?”

He glared at her.

“Right. Here goes, Mia the surgeon. Taking charge.” She put the blade against his shoulder and then hesitated. “You know, usually things are dead by the time they face any of my knives.”

“Just get on with it. I need to go clean up the carcasses before one of the guests gets it in his or her head to go for a nice stroll after the storm.”

Mia hesitated again, so Gabe put his hand on top of hers and pushed the knife into the meat of his shoulder.

“Right. Straight to the point then.” She chuckled. “Get it, point. Knife. That was funny.”

Gabe glared, blood running down his chest.

She cleared her throat. Widening the cut, she pulled the dagger out and set it on the table, extracting a pair of tweezers from her sewing kit. She bit her lower lip as she worked, prodding and poking around the open cut.

“I think I’ve got it...” she said, twisting her wrist. “There!” She yanked, and the slug ripped free of his shoulder muscle. “Here, press this against the cut while I get the needle ready.”

His shoulder burned, the blood loss starting to make his vision swim. His body twitched from hunger, apparently forgetting the two protein bars he’d just fed it. Gabe pressed the rag against the wound and closed his eyes. He’d heard a Keeper who died after storm because their blood sugar levels tanked too badly due to loss of blood. Mia hummed as she prepared the needle and thread, apparently not noticing that Gabe was about to pass out. “Could you hurry it up a bit?”

“Oh, shit,” she whispered. “You’re white. Well, you’re always white, but this time I mean you’re really white. Like ghost white.”

“Healing burns a lot of calories,” he whispered.

“I guess that makes sense biologically speaking. The energy would have to come from somewhere, right, so with something like healing it makes sense that the body would pull from its reserves just like it would when running or playing a sport. I wonder if anyone’s ever tried to measure the amount of calories it takes...”

“Mia?” Gabe stopped her. “If I die while you’re running off at the mouth, my spirit will haunt you for all eternity.”

“Sorry. I’ll just...” She gestured to his arm.

He nodded. “Please.”

“Okay.”

When it was all said and done, the stitches took less than a minute. She put a concoction of some kind on his skin before bandaging it, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t necessary. Mia brought him the cans of tuna, which he more swallowed than chewed as she started to put away her supplies.

“Thank you,” he said as she started to leave. Mia opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then closed it, and then opened it again. Gabe sighed. “Go on. Say it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I think you’re a lot nicer guy than you want people to believe. You must really have loved her once.”

“How was she when she came in the house?” He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a new shirt.

“Fine. She didn’t hear me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Gabe snorted. If only that were his problem. “Keep an eye out for her, will you? Let me know if she starts acting strange.”

“I’m not going to spy on her for you.”

He pulled the shirt over his head, but not before he made sure she got an eyeful of his scars. “Think of it as protecting her.”

She studied him for so long he started to wonder if she was doing a spell of some kind. Finally, she turned and started walking up the stairs. “I’ll think about it. Come on over to the house when you’re done cleaning up demon goop, and I’ll make you something real to eat before you kill yourself.”

“Thanks.”

It took two hours and a thorough shower for himself before he was able to take the witch up on her offer of food. The storm had been especially strong, bringing an inordinate number of demons. That meant more dismembering and cleaning. He’d need to order holy water at this rate. Taking apart the Rusalka, cutting up her human arms and legs and head with an axe so he could submerge the pieces in holy water and ensure the demon was sent back to the Red, had been awful. Had someone walk in on him, they’d think he was a serial killer. Gabe wasn’t sure that they’d be wrong.

He knocked on the door to the bed-n-breakfast and adjusted his ranger’s hat. He’d put on his uniform like armor, shielding him against the normal people in the house. Most sat around the fire or played games in the chairs, and he nodded at them as he passed through the main hallway and went back to the staff kitchen.

“Mia?” he asked, pushing through the kitchen door.

“Oh, you came.”

“You invited me?” Gabe stopped. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No,” she shook her Halloween hair. “I just didn’t think you’d come.”

This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come.
Gabe turned to go back to his tower, but Mia shut the door in front of him, blocking his exit. He turned to her.

“Stay. I cooked.”

“I thought you didn’t expect me to come?”

She grinned. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t prepare something for you. Please, sit at the table here and I’ll bring it over.”

He was far too hungry to argue. He watched her work as she pulled something out of the oven, sprinkling salt and pepper across the top. Roasted chicken, from the scent. He’d have preferred beef—the meat held more calories and protein, which he needed—but he’d take anything. Mia cut off a sizeable piece and brought it over to the table.

“Is that your piece?” he asked, looking at fist-sized slice of meat.

“No...?”

“I thought you said you were going to feed me?” Gabe pushed the plate toward her and then walked to the counter and grabbed the pan of chicken. He brought it over and set it in front of him. “This is more like it. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a month.”