4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

T he living room smelled awful.

The boys had all come back here again last night—this time with more beer—and they seemed to be sweating it out in their sleep in the most repulsive way. They also all snored like nothing I’d ever heard in my life, and I didn’t think that Tilly and I had gotten even a second of sleep, despite the fact that we’d been in the bedroom.

The twins were meant to sleep in the other room, but it seemed they all passed out in the middle of their awful game. The TV had been making irritating sounds all night.

Lucas had brought over tacos this time, though. I couldn’t decide if I liked tacos or pizza more, everything was so delicious. I would miss the food from this trip when I was back in the attic.

I moved around the kitchen as quietly as I was able to, feeling my way across the bench to get myself a glass of water. When were they going to leave? Surely, Moriah would send for them at some point.

Was that the sliding door? I paused. Maybe someone was already awake? I heard Tilly’s claws tapping on the floor, so at least she was getting to go outside. Before I could grab the glass, a hand clapped over my mouth, muffling my scream.

“Shh, I just want to talk. It’s okay,” Lucas whispered urgently. “I just want to talk. Don’t scream.”

He lifted me around the waist with one arm like it was nothing despite my struggling, keeping his hand pressed firmly over my mouth. A door shut behind us, and I guessed that we were in the spare bedroom.

“I just want to talk. Please don’t scream,” Lucas pleaded, setting me down gently and slowly removing his hand from my face. “You know it won’t help anyway—your brothers wouldn’t come to your aid.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I rasped, fumbling around for some semblance of my bearings. I was confident that Lucas was standing in front of the door, but I edged my way beside a dresser, keeping the piece of furniture between us.

“I know you won’t believe me, and this is going to sound insane, but I’m genuinely trying to help you. One of the options the Council is considering is opening up a portal and sending through a negotiating party to discuss sending Verity back. I’m not sure if those discussions are in good faith or not, but they clearly see an opportunity for bargaining here, and they’re going to take it.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Lucas hesitated. “I’m sure you know your brothers aren’t overly fond of you.”

“I’m well aware,” I replied, surprised at the bitterness in my voice. It seemed silly to be bitter about it at all at this point, it had always been this way.

“They see the portal opening as an opportunity to…” he trailed off with a noise of frustration, like the words were too awful to get out. But I didn’t feel that way. A sense of perfect calm and understanding washed over me as I saw the future laid out in front of me that I should have always predicted.

“They see a chance to get rid of me. They want to push me through the portal. Into the shadow realm.”

Lucas cleared his throat. “Yes. Or into the in-between, at least. It’s a dark nothing space between the two realms, and it can be difficult for Hunters to navigate. Your brothers seem to think that because I reported Verity’s existence to the Council that this would be something I’m interested in helping them with.”

I didn’t care to question that. Lucas was clearly offended at the slight against his honor, but I had more pressing concerns.

Moriah and Giles wouldn’t help me if I asked them to protect me from the twins. They’d probably throw me through the portal themselves on principle. But also…

Would that be the worst thing?

If there was one thing I knew from the conversations I’d heard through the vents, it was that the Hunters who went to the shadow realm were disgusting harlots who got by there by using their bodies. Something about the Shades being able to feed off of our lust, rather than human fear like they did in the human realm.

I experienced lust. Oh, did I experience lust. That part of me worked just fine.

If there was one job I could absolutely do, it was contribute lust.

Maybe being a disgusting harlot there would be better than being my brothers’ punching bag here? Or maybe I was being naive, and I’d be walking into a situation much, much worse.

Lucas let out a sigh of frustration. “I kind of feel like… like I fucked up. Sorry. I mean, that I messed up.”

“You can use curse words,” I assured him. I wasn’t a little girl, despite the sheltered life I’d led. I was twenty-six years old. And with Justin and Travis for brothers, I’d heard plenty of curse words.

“Right. Okay. I fucked up. In hindsight, reporting the Hunter who defected to the shadow realm might not have been a good call.”

“Was it not the right thing to do? Isn’t that the rules?”

“What if… what if the rules aren’t right, though?” Lucas muttered. “What if I should have used my own best judgment instead of doing what I was told? The way everyone reacted… I don’t know. I feel like I set this huge thing in motion. I thought they’d just send out a couple of people and, you know, deprogram her or whatever. But it was a whole production, and I felt like I’d… like I’d falsely reported a crime that was going to send someone to the gallows.”

I was ill-prepared for this sort of conversation. What would Nana say? Probably something about him needing to stand by his choices and stop complaining. I didn’t want to say that, though. Not when Lucas sounded so upset.

Besides, I’d never really understood why Nana was so virulently against having regrets when she also believed that every experience in life was a lesson.

Were regrets not lessons too? Even if they left a bitter aftertaste?

“I want to set this right. I want to… I don’t know. I could lie. Your brothers aren’t that smart—no offense. If I told them that I knew of another secret portal and I was sneaking you through that, they’d probably believe me. And then I could help you find somewhere to live. To hide out. Away from your family.”

He didn’t sound very certain of that, and I wasn’t about to place my safety in the hands of someone who wasn’t convinced they could secure it. I’d rather make my own decisions—right or wrong—and live with the consequences of them, knowing the choice had been mine.

I’d never gotten to make my own choices before.

“How hard is the in-between to navigate? It’s not like I’m afraid of the dark,” I pointed out gently.

“What do you mean?” Lucas asked sharply. “If you navigate it correctly, you end up in the shadow realm.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “How hard is that to do?”

“Why would you want to?”

I was quiet for a long moment, trying to come up with an answer that incorporated everything I wanted to say without bursting into tears and making Lucas uncomfortable.

But in the end, I couldn’t.

“Why would I not?” I settled on.

“Because,” he spluttered. “They’re… bad.”

“My brothers are bad.”

“Well, yes. But I can help you get away—”

“No, you can’t,” I interjected softly. “Not here in the human world. Moriah has a lot of resources at her disposal—she’s in a powerful position on the Council. And she won’t be happy if I disappear because it’ll mean the possibility of someone finding out I’m related to her is always there. She’d never stop looking for me. If I’m going anywhere, I want to go somewhere that’s out of her reach. With Tilly, of course. I’m not leaving without her.”

“You know Tilly isn’t a proper guide dog, right?” Lucas asked dubiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s a good dog. But I’m almost positive that she wasn’t trained as a guide dog. Does she actually help you navigate? Avoid obstacles? Can she locate objects for you?”

“She brings me my slippers,” I replied slowly. “And her lead?”

“I don’t think those are guide dog-specific skills.”

“She hasn’t really been put to the test,” I said a little defensively. “This is the first time I’ve had to navigate an unfamiliar place. I’m sure she’ll help me a lot in the shadow realm.”

Besides, she was great company and my bestest friend. I wasn’t going anywhere without her.

“Look, we don’t have to make any decisions right now. Verity is still in the hospital. They’re not going to do anything about a portal until she’s been discharged. You’ve got time to think this over. And I’ll come up with an alternative—somewhere here in the nice, safe, Shade-free human realm that you can live peacefully.”

I made a noncommittal sound, not believing for a second that there was anywhere on this earth that the reach of the Hunters Council wouldn’t be able to find me.

“Do you know what they do to Hunters in the shadow realm, Iris?” Lucas asked in a low voice.

“Have sex with them?”

He coughed loudly, choking on his own saliva, and I listened out to see if the ruckus would wake my brothers. “Yes. I thought it was just a rumor, but I’ve overheard some stuff while being in close proximity to the Council over the past few days. Stuff that isn’t exactly widely available knowledge to the rest of the Hunters. That they feed off our lust . I… Do you know much about lust?”

“Of course I know what lust is,” I replied, keeping my voice gentle but not entirely able to hide the impatience in it. I experienced desire just like anybody else. I had wants and needs.

I got lonely.

I got lonely a lot.

“You can’t possibly want that. They’d… touch you.”

I didn’t know how they’d touch me. Maybe it’d be cruel. Maybe it would be worse than the bruising pinches my brothers gave me.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it’d be gentle.

Maybe it would feel good.

If they were feeding off lust, if they needed lust… Surely, it would be more efficient to use pleasure than pain? It was an alluring motivator. With each year that passed, I craved physical touch more and more—I ached with it some days. And if I could provide something they needed, then I might not be a burden. I might actually be valuable.

I wanted so badly to be valued by the people around me.

Of course, it would mean overlooking my other flaws and the Shades might be just as repulsed by me as everyone told me the Hunters were. But on the off chance that they weren’t…

What were Shades even like? Nana had always described them as mindless and evil, but I’d struggled to reconcile that description with a group who we were negotiating a treaty arrangement with, sealed by a marriage between our kinds. From what I’d overheard, there was nothing mindless about them at all. What my parents had attributed to evil seemed more like the Shades fighting for their interests—the exact same way we were.

Had Nana ever said anything else about how they looked? I knew they had a solid form in their own realm and a ghost-like one here.

“In their realm, their den of iniquity, they look like demons that have crawled up from some ancient underworld. Your grandfather saw drawings in the archives once—he said they were the most repulsive creatures you could ever imagine in their true forms.”

That didn’t bode particularly well as far as lust was concerned. Then again, I couldn’t see them. Their touch would matter the most to me, and maybe that felt good? Maybe they smelled nice. That would be a bonus.

“I guess you wouldn’t be the first,” Lucas muttered. “Other Hunters have defected. Maybe their families were raging psychopaths too.”

“That seems a little excessive.” I wasn’t very sure of the words, but it felt disloyal to not try and defend their honor at least a little.

“It’s actually an understatement. You do appreciate that it’s not normal to hide your child in an attic their entire life, right?”

“The twins told you about that?”

“They boasted about that.”

That was an uncomfortable thought. “I know it’s strange. But it would have been disastrous for Moriah’s career in the Hunters if anyone had found out about me. It was really for the best.”

“No,” Lucas said firmly. “I’m sorry. I get that you have Stockholm Syndrome or whatever, but there’s no world in which that was an appropriate solution. There are homes where Hunters who can’t hunt for whatever reason are sent to live. Where they can still contribute to the cause and have a community, and live normal lives.”

I’d heard all about those places in hushed tones from Nana. From what she’d described, they weren’t the idyllic dreamy villages of rejected Hunters that Lucas seemed to think they were.

What would he know about them, really? He didn’t have to learn about those places. He was strong and healthy and an asset to the Hunters. He didn’t have to worry about people or places like that.

There was a noise from the other room and Lucas cursed under his breath. “Hold on, let me see if the coast is clear for you to sneak out of here.”

I’d never really snuck anywhere before, I realized with some amusement. When guests were at the house, I had to be quiet but the TV was always on because Moriah told everyone that Nana had an apartment in the attic. No one had ever trusted me to sneak before.

Lucas did whatever he was doing before coming back into the room, whispering at me to stay quiet as he gently grabbed my wrist and led me out of the room, depositing me back at the kitchen counter where he’d found me.

“I’ll go let Tilly in,” he murmured, pushing the glass into my hand that I’d been patting the counter, searching for.

If he was a bad person, he was doing a very good job of hiding it. So far, I felt much more comfortable in Lucas’s presence than my brothers’. But I also knew not to trust my own judgment because Nana had regularly told me how naive I was to the ways of the world.

I startled as a phone rang, sloshing water all over my hand. One of the twins groaned, answering it groggily. “What’s up, Mom?”

Whatever Moriah was saying, she didn’t sound happy about it. I wondered if it was because she could tell through the phone that Travis had been drinking last night—his muttered grunts and replies sounded extremely rough.

“Yeah, alright. Yes! Okay. We’ll be right there. Sorry. No, we really are sorry—”

There was a dull thud, then Justin groaned.

“Come on,” Travis snapped. “She’s been discharged—she’s going back to that big house they’re all staying at. We’re supposed to be there already. Lucas—sorry, man—you have to come too. Mom’s orders.”

“Of course,” Lucas agreed quietly. There was a lot of shuffling around and muttered complaints from the twins, and I huddled quietly in a corner of the kitchen, hoping they’d just leave without acknowledging me. The second they were gone, I was opening the sliding door. I didn’t care how cold it was. They seemed to have been sweating out the beer they drank last night through their skin, and it was the most rancid smell.

“Bye, Iris,” Lucas said gently as the three of them filed out, the door shutting with a deafening click.

I shook my head slightly, trying to clear that odd conversation we’d had this morning from my mind. Realistically, that was probably the last time I’d ever meet Lucas. If he was smart, he’d take this opportunity to get away from my brothers and pretend he’d never met me.

An urgent pounding on the door woke me up from the nap I didn’t realize I’d been taking on the couch.

“Iris!” Lucas whisper-shouted. “Let me in—if you’re going to go, it has to be now. Verity escaped, everything is in chaos.”

Tilly barked—which was very unlike her—and it felt like she was hurrying me along, encouraging me to pounce on this unexpected opportunity.

Or plunge headfirst into this very real risk.

The moment I unlocked the door, Lucas was inside, hurriedly shutting it behind him. “Can I pack your stuff? If we’re going, we need to go now.”

“Is the portal open?”

I heard his pause of hesitation. “No. I’m not letting you be thrown through some random portal and hoping for the best—”

“That’s my choice, Lucas.”

“—when safer options are available. I know where Astrid Bishop has been hiding out, watching the hospital. I left her a note, asking if she could guide you through safely.”

Oh.

“That sounds less intimidating,” I admitted. “If that’s something she’d want to do.”

“Astrid was the leader of the last exodus into the shadow realm. She’ll welcome you with open arms,” Lucas said, sounding slightly resigned by the fact. “I still don’t feel good about this. My human friend in Tucson has a trailer you could hide out in if we could get you there. We could drive through the night and be there by morning. I just want you to know it’s an option.”

I shook my head. No, that wasn’t what I wanted. A trailer in Tucson had the potential to turn into another attic in Colorado. Another four-wall limit that I couldn’t go beyond, because if the wrong person found out about me, it was all over.

Wherever I went next, I didn’t want to be in hiding.

Although I’d never given him an answer, I heard Lucas rushing around, packing my things. Tilly gave a half-hearted growl like she wasn’t sure whether this was acceptable or not before flopping down next to me with an exhausted huff.

“Alright—let’s go. Come on, Tilly. I imagine someone will be here soon to collect you two since Verity disappeared. Half the visiting Councilors had cleared out already by the time I left.”

He ushered me out the door, keeping a hold of my wrist as he guided me to a vehicle and opened the door. “It’s high, there’s a step to get in.”

My stomach dipped in alarm as I scrambled to get in, having no concept of what I was clambering into. I eventually settled awkwardly on my seat as Tilly clambered into the small space at my feet, ignoring Lucas’s instructions for her to get in the backseat.

“How do you think Verity got away?” I asked as Lucas climbed in next to me and started the vehicle. I startled, not expecting the rumbling engine to be quite so loud. “It must have been hard with so many Councilors in one spot.”

“I wasn’t high-level enough to be let in the room, but they were saying something about a temporary portal—I’ve never heard of anything like it. Are you going to put your seat belt on?”

“Oh. Um. I don’t know how. On the way here, I just sat in the RV. I can’t remember the last time I was in a vehicle before that—it must have been when I was a toddler.”

The silence felt very loud.

“Right. I’m going to lean over you, okay? A seat belt is a strap that goes across your body to secure you in place. I’m going to reach over and grab it.”

I nodded. I had heard of them, of course. From movies. I just didn’t know where they went and how they were shaped.

Lucas got right into my personal space to tug the strap from somewhere above my shoulder, and I sat perfectly still, weirded out by the sensation of his breath on my skin.

It had me second-guessing my ability to provide lust in the shadow realm just a little. I was great at being lustful all by myself, but I didn’t enjoy the physical proximity to Lucas at all.

“Are we going to your house?” I asked awkwardly after the seat belt clicked into place and Lucas moved back, immediately getting the vehicle moving.

“We’re going to Denver,” he answered, voice strained. “Astrid wants the meeting to happen on her home turf. She set the location.”

“Oh.” My hands shook a little. It seemed very risky to return back to my hometown. Then again, perhaps it was a bold enough choice that my mother would never think to look for me there?

“Oh no, Lucas,” I gasped, immediately wracked with guilt for not thinking of it earlier. “This could be really bad for you if Moriah founds out you helped me—what are we going to do? Will you come to the shadow realm with me?”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I definitely wouldn’t be welcome there, Iris. Not after what I did to Verity. I’m covering my tracks here. Worst case scenario, I think I have enough dirt on your brothers to get them to at least help me out—they wanted you gone anyway, right? I’m doing them a favor.”

I don’t think he meant the words to sound as callous as they did. He was just pointing out the honest truth of the situation. It was a painful truth, though.

The farther we got, the more relaxed Lucas seemed to become. “How are you feeling, Iris? I know it was a pretty spontaneous decision, but you’re… Well, you’re free.”

I let out a shaky breath, burying my hands in the fur on Tilly’s neck. “Yes.”

I didn’t know how long for, or what the consequences would be.

But for now, I was free.