5. Allan

Chapter five

Allan

D espite his original flop onto the floor, the monster dog kept eyeing me up. And when I didn't start reading the book, he decided he wouldn't leave me alone. The nuzzling continued until I gave in to his demands. He flipped over, exposing his tummy, begging for scratches.

This beast loved belly rubs.

It took me a few hesitant hand gestures to make sure that him rolling over onto his back to be petted wasn't going to end up with me missing a hand.

To the contrary, he was a bit of whore for attention.

That made me giggle. I wasn't that much different.

"Argus? Where are ya, boy?"

"Shit." I jumped up, startling the dog who scampered up onto its feet. The click clack, click clack of doggy toenails against the hardwood floor made a racket in the small room, all while I tugged at the loose bed sheets, making sure I was sufficiently covered. The door to the bedroom creaked open.

"You're awake. Good. A little sooner than expected though. Betcha your head hurts too." The man in the doorway gave me a tentative half grin while the velociraptor bird sat perched on his shoulder.

Pretty sure my jaw had dropped as I stood there, unable to speak, gawking at the most exquisite specimen of a Daddy I had ever seen.

"You okay, son?" His brows furrowed together. "Kaos, over there, please."

The bird fluttered awkwardly in a half leap, half thrashing of wings over to the front of the bed, then perched on the headboard.

"Kaos!" Daddy man said with authority, "What did you do to my headboard?"

The bird responded with a series of grunts, clicks, and an odd gurgle that sounded like it was being strangled.

Thick dark brows framed the most unreal stone-grey eyes I had ever seen. Wait, were his eyes green? I couldn't tell, and it didn't matter. His chiseled features and salt and pepper beard, which had a touch of unruliness to it, hid a pair of lips I instantly wondered what it would be like to kiss.

He stood taller than me, by a whole head, and his shoulders took up the entire width of the doorway he still stood in.

I kept staring. To the point where it should have been rude.

He redirected his glare at me, "I'm going to take your absolute silence as a ‘no, I'm not okay'," he said, then closed the distance between us. His massive hands were warm as he touched my bare skin and guided me back toward the bed.

"Please say something. I need to know that what happened last night didn't leave you brain damaged."

"I…ah…what?" That was the best I could come up with. I felt like a fool.

The stud of a man before me, mere inches away, squinted as he studied the look on my face.

"Son, do you know what happened last night?"

I shook my head.

"Oh, that's gonna make this next part really difficult. Let's start small. What were you doing on the island?"

His beauty bewildered me, but I managed to come up with one word. "Camping."

"Did you not see the sign?"

"What sign?" Hey, look at that, two words!

"The one telling you to leave the island? That it's a protected sanctuary?"

"Oh, yeah. No one pays attention to those things." I rolled my eyes.

The DILF let his head slump forward as it slowly rolled from side to side.

"What? Did we disturb some nesting birds or something?" The tone of my voice couldn't have been more sarcastic if I had tried.

"No, son. It's not our land."

That didn't make any sense to me at all.

"So, you and your friends went camping. Then what?"

"Where are my friends? And how did I end up here? And where the fuck are my clothes?" I yanked on the bed sheets, pulling them around me, but also trying to signal that clothes would be good.

"We'll get to that in a minute. What happened next?" He waved his finger in a rolling motion as if that was going to pull me out of my train of thought about clothes.

"Ah, dunno… We went swimming, it rained, we got wet. I woke up here."

He gave me a look. I knew that face. My father had used it on me all the time. The look that said, yeah right, there's a lot more here that you're not telling me. And so what if I wasn't. Wasn't any of his business. Besides, I couldn't really remember any of it past running back to our tents.

He pursed his lips. I could feel the frustration rolling off of him.

"I think there might be a little more to it than that?" He cocked an eyebrow as he leaned away from me, but still sitting way too close for me to be comfortable.

He might be playing dad with me right now, but my dick didn't know that, or maybe it did. I always had a thing for older guys. If I wasn't careful about the placement of the sheets, this guy was going to notice my rock-hard enthusiasm for Mr. Salt 'n Pepper.

Fucking traitor of a body part. Focus, Allan. This guy wants answers.

My inner dialogue sounded like my mother giving me a lecture on how I shouldn't piss off my father. Which, from my childhood up to this very day, I continued to do. That memory made me angry. When I get pissy, I get defensive.

"What if there is? So what?"

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

"It does matter, son. Greatly."

"You can quit calling me son. I'm not your son." Although, fuck me if I didn't want to be.

"Okay, this is not going how I wanted it to. Let's start at the beginning. How about a name? I'm Patrick."

Damn him for being nice. Way nicer than my parents had ever been.

"Allan," I mumbled.

"Okay, Allan, nice to meet you. What else happened out there?"

I squinted at him. Something here wasn't adding up, and my gut was telling me to brace for something bad.

"Where are Shawn, Dylan, and Brent?"

"Ah, more names. Okay. Well, at least we have that now."

"Where are they?"

"Allan, there's no easy way to say this…" he trailed off and looked immeasurably uncomfortable.

"Where…are…they?"

"I'm sorry, Allan, they're dead."

"What the fuck?" Panic stirred in me like the eddies in a riptide. My guts knotted, and my whole body tensed as I leaned away from Patrick.

"That's why I want to know everything that happened last night." He sighed and then placed his mitt of a hand on my thigh.

Considering the only thing between his meaty palm and my skin was a thin bed sheet, the sensation was almost too overwhelming, and my dick twitched in response, which was beyond inappropriate, considering what I had just heard.

"I don't understand." I jerked away from his touch.

"I can help with that, but you have to tell me everything that happened. The sheriff found you this morning. He was the first one to discover the accident and immediately came and got me. I found you passed out, face-first in the dirt, and completely naked."

"Why would the sheriff come and get you? Who the hell are you? Some bigshot law enforcement guy?" Red flags, alarm bells. Holy shit, he's a cop. "Wait, I was naked?"

"Ha! No. I have no connection to the police. Far from it. Yes, you were definitely naked. Very naked." He chuckled. Then his gaze glided over my body.

Did he just check me out? Rude. And laughing? I didn't see anything to be laughing at. But if all my buddies were dead, and I wasn't, that meant I was going to be the sole suspect.

"I didn't do anything." Heat swelled from the base of my spine, across my shoulders and up into my face. Those eddies of panic were now full-on rapids, smacking into boulders, and gushing over cliff faces.

I was gonna end up in jail for the murder of Shawn, Dylan, and Brent.

"Well…" Patrick said, but he didn't complete the thought; he left it hanging. That meant I absolutely was the suspect. And there we have it! I'm done.

Fuck. Shit! That was the last thing I wanted. To spend any time in jail.

A billion thoughts swirled through my head. All the stupid decisions I'd made over the last handful of years barreled over me like a tidal wave. I knew they would all come back to bite me, and here I was, with teeth marks in my ass cheeks.

The mental tides of bad thoughts and horrible scenarios in my head were monstrous whirlpools, and they were quickly pulling me under.

"Okay, Allan, I can see the anxiety swirling in your eyes. Calm down. You are not in any trouble…sort of."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"This conversation is not getting any better. Please, can you tell me what happened?" Patrick said again. This time, though, it almost seemed as if he was pleading.

"Why is this so important?" I bit back at him in exasperation.

"Because I'm trying to figure out how you managed to summon a wave swell so large you ended up drowning your friends. That's why, Allan."

"What? A wave swell?" My entire face scrunched together as tight as possible. What the hell was this guy going on about?

"Do you have any inkling of what you are?" Patrick's face mimicked my own.

"Nothing you've said to me in the last ten minutes makes any sense. My friends are dead. I did it or was responsible somehow? Something about water and camping on land we shouldn't have been on. I am so fucking confused right now, and for the last time, where are my goddamn clothes?!"

Daddy-hot, or not, I needed to get the hell out of here. Now.

"I can go find you some of my clothes for now, but I don't think I have much that's going to fit." He stood and walked toward the door, then stopped, turned, and looked at me. Sadness pulled at the corners of his mouth, and his gaze looked troubled. "Allan, I'm sorry. I know this is all a lot. I will help you through this. I don't know how yet. But I will."

He left, disappearing from my sight, but I heard his feet walking down the hall.

"This is fucking insane. I need out of here."

Caw!

I flinched.

Fucking bird.

Argus nuzzled my hand and gazed up at me with the largest, sympathetic puppy eyes I had ever seen.

It made me melt, slightly, as I gave him scritches between his ears.

Patrick reappeared with some clothes in his hands.

"Here, these are the smallest I could find."

"I'm not that fucking tiny." I snapped back.

I probably should have toned it down, a lot. Patrick had said he wanted to help. But he wasn't making any sense, and the last thing I wanted was to wind up behind bars. And right now, it looked as if that was exactly where I was heading: prison.

"Can you turn around, maybe?" I snarled.

Jeez man, what is wrong with you? He just gave you clothes.

"Oh, ah, yes, of course. My bad."

Patrick turned away from me while I dropped the bed sheets and started dressing.

I slipped on a pair of sweats which had been cut at the knee and turned into shorts. They at least had a drawstring I could yank on to tighten around my waist.

An old black T-shirt, with the band name "Depeche Mode" plastered across the back and a single red rose on the front, was long enough to almost be a dress and hung off my shoulders like a tent.

Okay, so maybe I was tiny in comparison to Daddy Patrick.

"Thanks." I stammered, almost incoherently.

Patrick turned around and then bit his lips together, trying to suppress a laugh.

"I look that fucking ridiculous to you?" Again, the attitude. Man, my mouth was trouble, and it was an instantaneous reaction. No bloody filter whatsoever.

"It's all good. Listen, you probably have a massive headache." He touched his head while his face made an inquisitive look. "I want to go visit a friend who I hope will come over and have a look at you. He's better at this stuff than I am. I will stop at the local shop to find something that might fit you better. But I'm going to ask you to stay here."

"No."

"I'm sorry? No?" Patrick's face appeared shocked.

"Did I stutter? I said no. I want you to prove to me my friends are gone."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Allan."

"I don't really care what you think. I don't remember what happened last night, but I woke up here, not in a tent with my friends. You tell me they're dead because something I did called a…a what…wave swell? I don't even know what that means. I don't know you. Who the fuck are you, anyway? You think I'm just gonna trust you and what you say? Hell, no. Prove it. Prove to me Shawn, Dylan, and Brent are dead."

Daddy Patrick sighed but then slowly nodded his head.

"Okay. Fair points. We have to leave right now though; it'll be dark in a few hours, and I don't want to be on the island when the sun goes down."

"Fine. Let's go."

Patrick headed out and I followed. We ended up in his backyard surrounded on all sides by towering trees. Scattered all over the lawn were twigs and branches, obviously deadfall from the storm the previous night.

I remember a storm! Okay, that's one thing.

We got to a dock and for the second time in as many days, I climbed into a canoe. They weren't my favorite boat—tippy bloody things—the rocking always made me nervous. Patrick let me get seated, then got himself comfortable, grabbed an oar and started paddling.

"I'm sure you don't feel well, but this will take much longer if I'm left to do this all by myself."

"Oh. Fine." I picked up the other oar. We pushed off from the shoreline and I started paddling on the opposite side of the boat to him.

"What are you doing?"

I craned my head to glare at him over my shoulder.

"Paddling."

"Not like that you aren't."

"Look we did just fine getting to the island the other night."

"How long did it take you?"

"I don't know, forty minutes."

"Oh gods." Patrick put his oar back into the bottom of the boat and then shimmied up to where I sat. "Okay, first of all, see the foam pads? Put your knees on them. Yes, like that." He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back. "Now, put your bum on the edge of the seat. No, wait…what are you…ugh." He grabbed my waist and pulled me backward. "There."

Again, my dick twitched as Patrick touched my hips. He was so close to me I could feel his body heat, and I could sense his tight muscles. I could smell him. A subtle hint of eucalyptus and mint.

"Okay, now, let's go over how to stroke."

I blushed. Hard.

Before I could think, Patrick had placed himself directly behind me and his crotch was grinding into my back. His arms came forward until his hands were over top of mine.

"You want to keep your control hand over top of the end of the oar like this." He shifted my hand and then overlapped his on to mine. His skin was calloused, but warm, and his arm hair brushed up against my skin. I was going to have a raging boner in seconds. "Then you want to keep your hands about shoulder distance apart." He grabbed my other hand and slid it up the oar's handle. "Good. Right. Just like that. Okay, now, paddling techniques vary, but we should have really calm water there and back, so a simple stroke is all we'll need. Put your oar into the water at a slight angle, twist with your body, and let your core do the work, not your arms. If you pull using your arms you'll tire out too easily."

He plunged the paddle into the water, and then pulled back. I could feel his body twist, so I let mine follow his lead.

"That's it! Good. Now you do one."

I mimicked his actions, and that's when he removed his hands from the oar and placed them both on my stomach.

"Use your core."

I twisted.

"Excellent. All right, keep doing that."

As expected my dick had hardened into steel and throbbed. If Daddy Patrick didn't take his hands off of me, I was going to start leaking.

But then the hands were gone, and he patted me on the shoulders.

Patrick slid to the back of the canoe, and I instantly wanted him back up front with me. Within fifteen minutes, the nose of the boat was pushing up onto the same beach Shawn, Dylan, and I had landed on the other night.

"See, didn't take no forty minutes." He said as he jumped out into water that went up to his knees. He grabbed the front of the boat with me still in it and pulled it up onto the shore with ease, and far enough so I could get out onto dry land.

Muscles pulled, popped, and flexed under his tight T-shirt, making me want to jump him right here. Daddy Patrick was in shape.

I got out of the canoe.

We started to walk up the path where we had positioned the campsite when he abruptly turned and stopped me, "Are you sure, Allan? This isn't going to be pretty."

"Yes." God almighty, gorgeous, or not, he took the dad role a little too far.

When we got to where the campsite should have been, there was nothing there.

"We were right here."

"Yes. I cleaned it up already."

"But…why?"

"Because, like I said, this isn't our land. It doesn't belong to us. You were trespassing, and I got the honors of cleaning it all up."

"Oh, ah, okay. Thanks?" I still didn't trust him. "So, where are my dead friends?" Sarcasm dripped off my tongue like acid.

"This will probably be the first time you've seen anything like this."

He stood still, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply several times. He shook his hands and arms, like he was relaxing. Then raised both hands so his palms were facing outward.

At that moment my skin prickled and tugged like it was being pulled off my body. A heaving at the very center of my chest made my heart beat faster. It reminded me of the beginning of an anxiety attack. A tight-knotted panic formed in the center of my ribcage waiting to explode and fling me off the edge and head first into deep water. Water I wouldn't be able to swim through. Water that would suffocate me.

But it didn't. The feeling intensified, then grew and blossomed all over my body. Radiating warm spots spread across my flesh.

The earth around me shifted. Small pieces of dirt swirled and pulled away as tears appeared in the ground. I moved back several feet behind Patrick.

As the earth continued to shift away, three bodies rose out of the ground, the sandy soil cascading off their corpses like heavy rainwater running down a mountainside creek. As the soil pulled away, I could see the flesh had turned black, but despite the decay, it was easy to identify Shawn and Dylan. The third body had no head. But it was naked, and I knew. I had seen it enough times to know.

Brent was dead.

"Fuck."

"I'm sorry. I told you this wasn't going to be nice."

"I didn't do this." Panic swept over me like a tidal wave, drowning me in scenarios of imprisonment for life, of getting the needle, of…

I started to hyperventilate.

Patrick grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

"Allan, Allan!" He shook me again. "Breathe. Look at me, look at my eyes. Breathe." He placed his warm hand over my chest. I could feel vibrations pulsating from his palm.

I glanced up into those steel greys that carried a hint of green, focusing in on how unworldly they were.

"Calm down, breathe with me." Patrick took a deep breath, then exhaled.

I followed suit.

We repeated that several times until I could speak.

"We can't leave them here. We have to take them back to the city," I said.

"This is why I didn't want to bring you out here, Allan. They have to stay."

"No, but their parents…"

"Allan. You killed them. I know you don't know how, but I will prove that to you. But we can't take them anywhere. They have to stay here, buried and hidden."

"Why?"

"What do you think will happen if you and I drop off three dead bodies?"

"Ah…the cops will get involved?"

"Exactly. And who do you suppose they are going to look at first?" asked Patrick.

"Me because I'm the only survivor."

"Also correct. You're smart." Patrick winked.

"I've already given this some thought."

"You should. This is serious. Now, if all four of you remain missing, then within a few days, someone will report it; there will be search parties, and in the end, law enforcement won't find anything because I will make sure of that. There is no evidence left on this island that something went wrong, other than maybe some shoreline erosion, but the cops won't come onto this island. As I said, it's not our land."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know. I will explain, but not yet."

"But I have to get home. I have to call my parents. I have a shift Monday night at the restaurant."

Patrick put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed them. With a gentle shake, he reinforced his position.

"Allan, the four of you disappeared. That is the way it has to go. Your powers have just manifested themselves. You are a witch. The life you knew is gone. You can never go back. You will need training; you will have to study. There are practical exams you will need to take. But mark my words, the life of your past is gone forever."

I glanced over his shoulder at the three dead and decaying bodies of my friends. I was finally rid of Brent, but the lump of sadness in the back of my throat started tears which welled up in my eyes.

My bottom lip quivered.

Of all the stupid shit I had done…

Water ran down my cheeks in miniature rivulets.

Patrick pulled me into a bear hug and held me tight as my chest heaved. I sobbed.

"What did I do?" The words came out stuttered in between ragged breaths.

"Nothing you could have helped."

I pushed myself away from Patrick, turned and went back to the canoe.

Within a few minutes, he joined me.

"Let's go." I said, as anger percolated and bubbled through me. Anger at myself, at the world, at Patrick, at the lake, and everything and everyone else.

I wiped an errant tear from my cheek.

Life was shit.

I ran up the shoreline to Patrick's cabin and went straight through the back door, ran into the bathroom at the end of the hall, and promptly began throwing up.

Muscles contracted violently, forcing me to heave repeatedly, but other than some water, and the bitter taste of bile, there wasn't much in my stomach. I hadn't eaten in a long time.

"You okay?" Patrick stood in the doorway to the bathroom.

"No, asshole. My friends are dead, and I did it."

"Again, not your fault."

"Oh, fuck off," I yelled into the porcelain bowl. My voice sounded off, stressed, panicky.

"I need to go see a friend."

"Yeah, you mentioned that." The spasms at the bottom of my stomach had stopped. I used the back of my hand to wipe away the spittle and snot from my face. I sat down on the bathroom floor and leaned against the wall.

"Yes, well, I don't like leaving you in this state, but it's kind of important, and I think he can help us out." Patrick turned the tap on, took a facecloth, wet it, then sat down next to me and placed the cool material on my forehead.

Having Patrick touching me again pulled my emotions into a completely different direction—and not an appropriate one either. But the cloth felt good.

A little moan escaped from me.

Fuck.

Patrick chuckled, then moved me forward, placing the cloth to the back of my neck. "There's lots of food in the fridge. Help yourself to anything you want. I'll only be gone an hour or so, but please, I need you to stay here." The look on his face exuded a kindness I hadn't often seen from other adults throughout my shitty life. Plus, I had no wallet, no money, no car… Where the fuck was I going to go?

"Shower?"

"Yes, absolutely. You can use this bathroom if you want, but there's a walk-in shower, and a soaker tub in the ensuite in my bedroom, and you are more than welcome to use that if you want.

"Allan, I know this is all very confusing at the moment, but I promise, I will help you. I just need to figure out how, first, and maybe call in some reinforcements. Give me the hour, and I'll be back."

What the hell was I supposed to do?

I nodded.