“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.