“They tried to burn the other brother alive in his home. These two brothers, whose houses had done nothing but save this town, were rewarded with death and destruction.
“So you see, you can not always believe everything you hear,” she says, looking back at me. I’m at once terrified of her and wildly curious to learn more. “Especially in sleepy little towns like this one.”
Suddenly she stands, and there’s not a single hint of the injury she sustained earlier. No limp, no favoring. She stands tall and sure.
“It was nice to meet you, Alivia Ryan,” she says with a little smile. Teddy shifts around, ready to leave. “If you ever want to hear more sides to more stories…”
She drops something on the bench. I look down at it and back up, only to find her nowhere to be seen.
On the bench, right next to me, are two envelopes. I pick them up. One is simple and on the front it reads For when you have the time to learn some more family history. It’s thick, like there are several pages inside. I set it in my lap and turn to the other envelope. The paper is expensive, with a slight shimmer to its linen color. My name is written on the front in beautiful handwriting. I turn it and confirmation freezes in my veins.
From Jasmine Veltora and the House of Silent Bend.
I’d seen sitting with the stand-in House queen.
But she hadn’t attacked. She hadn’t tried to drag me off. Hadn’t done anything.
There are two sides to every story.
I slide my finger along the wax seal, popping it. From the envelope, I pull a thick piece of paper.
You have been cordially invited to the House’s annual Summer Founders Ball. Black-tie attire required. Saturday, August 29th, 9:00 PM. Town hall.
There are two sides to every story. And suddenly I’m dying to know them both.
“YOU’VE GOT ONE MORE WEEK,” I tell Ian after we get back to his house that evening, just before he’s about to leave to go to work. “One more week and then I’m going home.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks as he finishes packing up what he needs for the night. It’s not just your usual medical bag. He slipped in a handgun and five stakes. He wears his uniform, medical patches here and there, fully looking the part of an EMT, but with a few deadly tricks up his sleeve.
“I’m not going to hide away here for months, training to be a vampire killer, too. I’m not going to waste weeks and weeks cowering away,” I say, feeling my blood boil hot. Which I know isn’t fair. This is coming out of left field for Ian. But I’m tired of what isn’t fair, and right now I feel like I’m standing in the middle of an ocean of it. “One week and I’m going home.”
“You’ve adapted well to pampered life,” he says coldly as he zips the bag and looks up at me. “You’ve spent one week at the Estate and it’s already home?”
“Don’t you judge me, Ian Ward,” I accuse him. My eyes turn cold and hard.
“Whatever,” he says, yanking his bag from the table and heading toward the door. “Rath isn’t paying me enough to put up with your moods.”
Without another word, he walks out the door and slams it shut behind him.
I should have figured Rath was paying Ian. Why else would he invest so much time into helping me? But for some reason, this stings.
Things are frosty between Ian and I for the next few days. He teaches me basic self-defense. He makes me exercise. A lot. I’m in shape, but I’m no athlete. We shoot. He makes me attack him, but I always end up with the bruises. I catch my chin on a sharp rock one day, and he stitches me up like it’s no big deal.
But I’m a quick learner. Even Ian has to admit it.
Three days before I head home, Ian comes home from work. It was a day shift this time. His schedule is unpredictable.
“There’s something weird going on,” Ian says as we practice with the crossbow that evening. He wears a Hipsbro County EMT t-shirt and a scowl on his face. “Like, normal weird, for Silent Bend.”
“What’s that?” I ask as I fire the arrow. I love this thing. I’m just as good with it as Ian. We’re practicing with the wooden arrows.
“So football is a big deal in the South, I’m sure you’ve figured that out,” he starts. And it’s true. School doesn’t start until tomorrow, but everyone is already talking about the all-star high school team they’re going to have this year. “And we’ve got this quarterback that is going to be a senior this year, Tyler Black. He’s already committed to play for some big college. I mean, this kid is a star throughout the state and he’s only seventeen.”
“What so weird then?” I ask.
“He’s been missing for three days,” Ian says as he twirls a stake. It’s his favorite non-thinking thing to do.
“I don’t know, I guess that is kinda weird,” I say as I hit the target dead center.
“The police department informed the EMTs this morning, which isn’t good. And if they’re telling people about it, it means the House had nothing to do with his disappearance.”
So the House controls what the police do and do not look into and make public knowledge. I can see how that would be essential to a House of vampires.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” I say as I set the crossbow down. “I mean, kids go missing all the time for different reasons. Drugs, fights with parents, girls.”
Ian shakes his head. “I don’t know. After being in this town for so long, it’s kind of hard to believe it would be for such a mundane reason.”
“Not everything in the world is tied to the supernatural,” I say, raising an eyebrow at Ian.
He looks up at me from beneath those thick eyelashes of his. “Look, I know things have been a little cold between us the last few days, but I get why you want to go home. And I’m sorry for what I said the other day. It’s not like you asked for any of this.”
And at his words, something instantly loosens up in my chest. I’ve been feeling cold and tight since our little spat, and I hate it.
“Thanks,” I say quietly. “Everything’s happening so fast. I’m just…trying to adapt.”
He offers a small little smile. “You’re doing a pretty damn good job so far.”
I give him a little smile back and catch the shotgun he tosses to me.
THAT NIGHT, AFTER I’M SURE Ian’s fallen asleep, I read what is in the other envelope Jasmine gave me.
It’s a journal entry that was ripped from its binding. The author is unnamed, and the penmanship is sloppy. The paper is old and brittle. But the story is horrific.
This man was there the night the town attacked the Conraths.
A member of Elijah’s house had fathered a child. The mother hid the child’s existence for three years. Until the child died—and resurrected days later. It bit and drained its mother. In front of several witnesses.
They killed the “abomination.” That’s what spurned the attack.
Everything I’ve learned is mortifying. But worst of all is what happened after.
Henry Conrath, my father, broke. The town tried and succeeded in burning him out of his home. But he came to town. He found his dead brother hanging in the tree.
He broke.
In all, he slaughtered thirty-two people in town. Drained them. Tore their limbs from their bodies, snapped their necks.
For all to see.
And when he was done, he returned to his estate and was never seen again.
NOW I KNOW WHY HENRY’S staff look at me with fear. Now I know why so many townspeople fear the night and know about the vampires. Their descendants know what happened that night in 1875. Now I know why the few people I’ve talked to in this town seem afraid of me.
They know what my father did.
And they know what I might do someday.
THE EVENING BEFORE I PLAN to head back to the Estate, Ian and I jog up the driveway. He’s put me through a hellish seven-mile run and only let me stop once every three miles. I’m so not a runner.
“Think you’re going to puke again this time?” Ian teases as we slowly jog up
the driveway. I just look over at him and flip him the bird because I’m too out of breath to say screw you. “That’s my girl.”
I don’t know what he means by that, but I smile all the same. I smile even more when his shoulder bumps mine, and the back of his hand brushes against my knuckles.
It’s clear there’s something wrong the second the house comes into view. The front door is wide open, and everything is unnaturally quiet.
“Elle!” Ian immediately shouts and darts toward the house. Even I find an extra store of energy to sprint forward. “Lula!”
When we burst through the front door, the living room is ransacked. Lamps on the floor, pillows everywhere, broken bits of now unidentifiable objects crunch under my feet. “Elle!” Ian yells and darts toward her bedroom.
She’s lying on the floor, unconscious. “Elle!” Ian yells again as he drops to her side. He’s immediately checking for a pulse. Next he checks her pupils.
“Is she okay?” I ask. My throat is tight, and I’m looking over my shoulder for the attacker. My knees bend slightly, and my fingers automatically curl into fists.
“No concussion, so I don’t think she was hit,” he says, looking her over and slipping into EMT mode. “I’m guessing she inhaled something.”
“Like chloroform?” I ask. My hands shake slightly. I’ve read and been told stories, and yes, I was attacked myself, but this? This is right in front of me. This is tangible and real. I’m in way over my head.
“Something like that,” he says. He gathers her up in his arms and lays her gently on the bed.
“I think they got what they were looking for,” I say as my eyes settle on the cabinet in the corner.
The lock is busted to hell. It’s a tall cabinet, about six feet tall and three feet wide. The doors swing open, half ripped off their hinges. The top shelf contains a few random scattered vials. Glass is shattered across the carpet right below it, the carpet wet.
“Shit,” Ian hisses. “Those are Elle’s toxins. There were at least fifty doses in there.”
“Who is ballsy enough to break into your house and steal something to hunt down a House of vampires?” I hiss quietly.
“Someone completely bat-shit crazy,” Ian growls. He pulls a handgun from the drawer in Elle’s nightstand and steps around me into the rest of the house.
I follow him, just as silent. Quietly, he steps into Lula’s bedroom.
She’s snoring like an overweight hog.
“Lula,” Ian says, shaking her shoulder. “Grandma.”
She suddenly opens one eye, glaring death at her grandson. “What the hell you waking me up fo’?” she demands. “I was havin’ a nice dream about Winston. Why you gotta’ go and drag me back from that?”
“Sorry, Lula,” Ian says. “You didn’t hear anything in the last hour or so, did you?”
“Boy, get out of my room and let me go back to sleep.” She grunts as she rolls onto her side, her back to us.
We both step outside, and Ian closes her bedroom door quietly. “Lula could sleep through a hurricane these days and still not wake up when the house came down on top of her.”
Ian checks his cabin and comes back three minutes later with word that it hasn’t been touched. Whoever broke in is long gone.
“Why does anyone still live in this town?” I ask as I sweep up the mess in the kitchen. “It’s just chaos here, all the time.”
“When your roots run deep, it’s hard to walk away.” He rights a chair in the living room and puts the cracked lamp back on the end table.
“I guess I just don’t get it,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s just not like that where I come from.”
“Like two different worlds,” Ian says quietly.
That’s for damn sure.
IT TAKES A LONG TIME for Ian to settle down enough to go to bed. He rushes into the house about every ten minutes to check on Elle. He takes his medic bag every single time. But she’s going to be okay and everything is quiet.
“You should get some sleep,” I tell him when it gets close to midnight.
“Yeah,” he says in a scoff. “Someone attacked my family and I’m going to sleep tonight.”
A yawn starts to take over and I stretch my arms over my head. “Either you try or I’m going to drug you. I’m exhausted, but you’re keeping me all keyed up.”
“Look, you don’t have to stay up with me,” he says, looking out the window again. “I’ll be fine. Just go in the bedroom, shut the door, and pretend I’m not out here.”
I take a step toward him and place a hand on his forearm. “Ian, everything’s okay now. They’re long gone, they got what they wanted. So calm down.”
His eyes flicker to mine and they burn with intensity. Relaxing is something Ian never does. He’s a born fighter with plenty of fuel to keep him burning hot for a long time. But there is exhaustion in his eyes.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
So, as we’ve been doing for the past seven days, we quietly get ready for bed. We both stand at the sink brushing our teeth, and I can feel the tension and anxious anger rolling off of Ian in waves. I want to reach over and smooth out all of his angry wrinkles. I want to pull him into my arms for a minute and force him to relax. But I just keep stealing glances at him in the mirror.
We change into sleeping clothes. And at 12:31, we say goodnight.
My dreams are scattered and many. At one point my mom and I are taking a walk through the park by our old house. But then something jumps out of the shadows and she’s gone. And then there is a red queen with a giant bear beside her, making demands of me that I can’t understand. And there is Ian, always in the shadows, along with the hint of a man named Henry. But Henry has no face.
I roll in my sleep, tossing and turning and never at peace.
As something jumps at my face with fangs and blood, my eyes fly open.
The bedroom is dim, and it seems fuzzy and unreal as my heart pounds in my chest. The blankets are tangled around my feet, making me feel imprisoned. Sweat coats my skin, the humidity and my nightmares combining. I kick the covers off, lying exposed on the bed staring at the ceiling.
A soft snore all too close pulls my eyes to the corner.
Ian sleeps in a camping chair in the corner of the bedroom. His legs are stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. A shotgun rests in his arms, pointing at the ceiling. I can see a stake poking out of his pocket.
Last I saw him, he was heading to bed on the couch.
But at some point, he snuck back in here without me hearing him. He stood guard. With a gun. Over me, not his sister or grandmother. Through another intended sleepless night.
I lie back down, my cheek on the pillow. I study Ian’s face. The scruff that’s always on his chin. His dark, heavy brows. The tight lines that are already forming around his eyes from the constant worry. His thin lips pressed together tightly, even in sleep.
The heart is a complicated thing. Ian’s. Mine.
I stare at him until I fall back asleep.
I’M BOTH RELIEVED AND ANXIOUS when Ian drives me back to the Estate Wednesday morning. It looks exactly the same as it did when we left, but darker somehow, full of secrets.
Ian insists on carrying my bag up to the door, where Rath takes it. He was waiting for us.
“I work the next two days,” Ian says. He lingers on the porch after Rath has taken my bag into the house. “But maybe I could come by Saturday evening and we can do some more work.”
I’ve never been a good liar, so I do my best. I look Ian in the eye and try to breathe normal and slow. “I actually have something I need to take care of Saturday. What about Sunday?”
There’s a flicker in Ian’s eyes, and I already feel like I’ve been caught in the act. But he just nods. “Everyone will be at church Sunday morning, so we’ll have the run of town to ourselves.”
“You mean you’re not a church goer?” I tease with the hint of a smile.
“Hey, I’ve got nothing against any higher powe
r. My perspective on the big picture is just a little different than a chapel.” He smiles, too. A full one that makes those smile lines form in his cheeks.
And as we say goodbye and he walks back to his van, I realize where the source of my anxiety is coming from.
It’s a separation issue.
I’M ABOUT TO HEAD TO bed that night when Rath knocks on my door.
“Yeah,” I call as I pull my hair up into a knot on the top of my head.
Rath opens the door just slightly and doesn’t look in my direction. “There’s someone here to talk to you, Miss Ryan.”
“Who is it?” I ask in confusion as I walk toward the door.
“The Sheriff,” Rath says. His reaction is conflicted, like he’d very much like to toss him out, but also is slightly afraid of whom I’m about to find downstairs.
The Sheriff is indeed at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me. He takes his hat off when he sees me and gives a little tip of his head.
“Sorry to bother you, Miss Conrath,” he says in his heavy Southern drawl. “But I’ve been tryin’ to get a hold of ya for the past week. Decided to take my opportunity when I saw the lights on in the house.”
“It’s Ryan, actually,” I correct him. We stand there uncomfortably for a moment, and I realize it’s because he never tries to shake my hand.
“Miss Ryan,” he says, giving an uncomfortable look. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you for a while, if you don’t mind.” His eyes dart up to Rath, who is standing behind me, half way up the stairs. “Alone.”
“Okay.” Cause what else can I say?
And when I invite the Sheriff into the library it is the first time I start to feel like this house is actually mine.
“I didn’t get your name,” I say as I close the door behind us.
“Luke McCoy,” he answers. He wanders the library for a minute, observing it in its entirety. He stops in front of the picture of my father and studies it. So I take the opportunity to study him.
He’s young for a sheriff. Thirty, maybe thirty-two. A completely shaved face shows a strong jaw line. Strong hands, strong arms. Dark eyes that reveal dark knowledge.