28

S taring down at the bag of rotten apples, I nearly loaded my gun and started shooting holes in the walls of this damned Manor. It was playing with us.

I strode into the parlor to find it empty, the soft sound of laughter floating from one of the upstairs rooms. Anger coursed through me, knowing that Koen was up there with that monster, enjoying his time, and putting himself and the rest of us in danger.

While I was suffocating on the thought of staying in one place.

Pushing out into the night air through the front door, I wandered around the Manor’s grounds. Void of sound, it ran a chill down my spine that stuck to my skin. There were no animals… at least in the week of being at Orchid Manor I couldn’t remember seeing or hearing a single one. Not even a rat.

I rounded the corner, my eyes catching sight of Clay, his nose buried in a book sitting at a table that was surrounded by dried and wilted flowers and leaves. His back to the large maze created with cracked branches of dead bushes.

“We’ve been here over two weeks, I think I’ve got cabin fever.” I settled down into my leather jacket to block out the chill of the night air. “You aren’t going to find out anything about it because whatever the hell it is, it’s old and dangerous,” I snapped at him.

He laughed, eyes peering up from the book as he leaned against the iron-framed garden chair. It looked older than the house, licked with rust from the elements on it.

“What the hell are you laughing at?”

“I’ve never seen you get so worked up so quickly.” Clay shook his head and closed the book he was reading. How he wasn’t freezing was beyond me. Wearing a thin black dress shirt, two buttons undone and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he leaned forward on the table and cocked his head to the side. “She hasn’t hurt anyone,” he started.

“That we know of,” I interrupted.

“I’ve cross-checked all the police records, and there've been a few reported incidents on the property. A lawyer in the fifties was admitted to the hospital with what the records stated to be ‘thousands of splinters.’ There have been no other reports that I’ve been able to find so far.”

“We don’t know what it’s capable of,” I said, crossing my arms. “Just because it’s not reported doesn’t mean whatever the hell is in that house doesn’t have an impressive body count.”

“You gotta stop calling her that.” His smile grew lopsided, and he leaned back to look at me.

“It got to you, too.” I closed my eyes, frustrated enough to lash out. “Have you thought it might be a siren?”

“She’s not a siren, Wes.” Clay palmed one of his books and spun it for me. “She told me that she used to help women in need, she wouldn’t get into it but…I think she was making a house call.” He pointed to the house. “I just can’t find any records on who owned the house. It’s like they were scrubbed.”

“So you’ve gotten nowhere!” I slammed my hands down.

“Until you sit your ass down and start helping, you don’t get to yell at me about my efforts!” Clay snapped back.

“You’re working slowly on purpose. You haven’t left the house even though that–” I point to his laptop, “is useless up here. You haven’t even tried to use it.”

“First of all, I have my…” I looked around for the little black box that created my wifi hotspot and furrowed my brows. “Well usually I have wifi, Buttercup, but in any case where exactly do you expect me to use it otherwise? In town? Where we’re wanted by a police force that may or may not be further infected by ghouls?” Clay cocked his head to the side. “Because it’s the only town within two hours of us that might be large enough to have internet, and you want to stroll down there?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on the scanner. The search has died down for us. But you wouldn’t know that because you’ve been too busy with that thing ,” I said. The reality was that just because I hadn’t heard anything over the scanner didn’t mean they weren’t still looking for us, but I was frustrated and the cabin fever was setting in harder than usual.

“I’ve been working my way through the library. It’s got a lot more information than I was expecting.”

“But none on the house.” I pushed the book away and ran my hands through my hair. “You’re making fucking excuses.”

“We decided as a group to stay until I heal and figure her out.” He stared me down, his eyes meeting mine unwavering with defiance. “I’m still doing the first part. ”

“Do it faster,” I growled.

“You’re insufferable. Instead of wasting my time, why don’t you try to help?” Clay huffed.

“I would, but this is the first time I’ve found you outside of that library and away from it .” I accentuated the word, pissed off to no end that we’re having this argument. Again.

“This isn’t about the time frame or a looming threat. The only boot to our throats is yours. Wes, what is going on with you?” He removed his glasses and set them aside, rubbing his hands over his face.

“It’s not my boot. You two are just enamored.”

“What do you want to do? Leave here, leave her? What if you’re right? What if she’s a bloodthirsty succubus, just waiting for us to fall asleep to have her way with us? What then? We leave her to the town. Hope she keeps to herself for a few more years until a Hunter comes along with more sense than you.”

I stared him down, a growl rumbling from my chest. I was fighting to control the urge to knock him out, but he was right. If it was dangerous, leaving the house and the town to the monster’s control was just as bad as staying. At least we could monitor the activity this way.

I just disliked every single second of it.

“Perfect, so we’re sitting ducks in a giant ghost house while you and Koen make eyes at the poltergeist? This is my hell.” I slumped into the chair across from him with a loud groan. “You need to figure this out faster before Koen gets attached.”

“Whining is a bad look on you. No one is making eyes,” Clay protested. “I’m doing my best. ”

“Koen is,” I snapped, making eye contact with him. “This past week, he’s barely left her side; he risked going into town to get her treats. Treats , Clay.”

“He was buying himself treats, and besides, he’s just keeping busy.” The excuse was flimsy. “And you just said activity has died down.”

“No, it’s…” I swallowed the foul taste of anger and fear back down my throat and lowered my voice. “We both know what happens when Hunters get sloppy.”

“You mean when Hunters have a conscience.” Clay arched a brow at me. “There’s a difference. You seem to think having a heart is the end of it all.”

“It is when that heart starts bleeding for the thing we’re supposed to be hunting,” I snarled. Koen would have flinched, but Clay just smirked.

“Humanity is all we have, Wes,” he said, tugging on the fabric of his pants as he sat forward to come face to face with me. “If we lose sight of what we’re trying to do in the world, we’re no better than the things we hunt.”

“Don’t use that philosophy shite on me, Clayton.”

I pushed out my chair, knocking it into the gravel behind me, and stormed from the property, only breathing when the truck door slammed shut. The old visor rattled and dropped, the picture tucked inside falling into my lap like a cruel twist of karma. I would have preferred to instead be slapped across the face or stabbed in the back.

My older brother Wyatt and I stared up at me.

My blood brother.

With his golden hair and big hazel eyes, barely nineteen in the photo, we were off on our first hunt together. I could remember the day like it was yesterday. Everything had been fine; we were hunting a ghost when he changed course and brought me to an old abandoned barn on the edge of town. Introducing me to his new girlfriend, but everything about her and where we were felt wrong; it felt unsafe.

The words he spoke to quell my nervousness repeatedly played in the back of my mind: “ There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, Wesley.” I never scrubbed the sound of his screams that followed as the vampire tore into his flesh from my memory. At such a young age, there was nothing I could do; I had to run. He had sealed his fate, and forced me to be an unwilling accomplice to it.

He let his heart bleed when he had fallen in love with a vampire in the nest. Completely aware of what she was, he fell right into her trap, thinking she wasn’t like the others.

I started the engine, tucking the photo away to forget what I had lost, and peeled from the gravel driveway away from the massive, haunted Manor that mocked me. The knowledge of what I had left behind, alone and at the mercy of a new threat, willingly letting her drain them of spirit until they were easy prey.

I wouldn’t let her take my family.

I couldn’t afford to.