Tainted Blood (53 page)

“So what task did you have to complete to get your wings back?”

I saw that wicked hint of a smile return. “I never lost my wings.” The girls stared at Cyrus in confusion and I’ll admit I was intrigued too. “You see, I was not scheduled to fall, I was pushed.” Even my eyes grew wide with this information. “Even angels have their wicked schemes,” he finished as the waitress brought out our orders.

Kiera began to ask another question as the waitress toddled away but Cyrus held up a finger as if to silence her. It worked, to my surprise, but much of Kiera’s behavior lately had been a surprise to me.

“Enough questions for now, my dear. I would like to enjoy my waffle,” Cyrus told her, and then he went on about how he loved to fill each square of his Belgium waffle with butter and watch it melt as the syrup invaded the spaces. Then he set about doing just that. He was an interesting one; there was no doubt about it.

Chapter
28 - Moving Day

On Saturday, Zoey and Kiera helped me pack the last of the items in our apartment and move it over to Carter’s (and what once was Oliver’s place).

“I can’t believe you’re moving in with my fiancé,” Kiera called from the bathroom as she loaded up the last of what was left in there. “It just doesn’t sound right!”

Out in the kitchen, Zoey and I laughed but we exchanged a look that held a secret, one that Kiera should never know about.

Felix had moved all of the furniture out of Oliver’s room and replaced it with my bedroom furniture. He did leave Oliver’s tall dresser under the window and told me that all of Oliver’s belongings were inside of it. It was really strange to be moving into my boyfriend’s bedroom, taking it over, really, and I wondered if Oliver had any idea what was taking place. I also wondered if he knew of any of the events I’d been involved in in the past few days, and how would he feel and react to this information?

Once the last of my items were moved and Kiera and I handed over our apartment keys, a little nostalgically, to Felix, who said he’d take care of the details, Felix then gave me some good news. He told me that all of Oliver’s restrictions would soon be lifted and that he would be released, if he hadn’t already been, from solitary confinement, where he was being held while he came down off of his tainted blood high. It seemed like a long time to be in solitary confinement (again, whatever that meant) because when Oliver had been taken from me, I’d been fairly certain he was back to himself. But now, with this info, I wondered if that tainted blood had still been lingering in his system.

“Expect a phone call tomorrow evening, Delaney,” he said with that dimpled smile of his. “I will make sure it happens.” Then Felix left me there, alone, in my new home.

I wasn’t alone for long. Kiera and Zoey had run Carter to work and returned soon after Felix had left. We had dinner plans, but before we could head out, Kiera lugged the chicken costume into the apartment.

“Will you help put reflective tape on this thing?” she asked, and Zoey held up the tape and with the twist of her slim wrist she smiled like we were oh so lucky to get to be a part of this job.

“What for?” I asked.

“The owner at Shakes told Carter that it was a new rule or something. But I think it’s because Carter almost got hit by a car last night.”

“What?” I said, a bit shaken.

She nodded as she hauled the chicken costume onto the dining table. “Yeah, last night, just before he went in to change out of this thing,” she said with a shake of the chicken suit, “and start work as a dishwasher, you know, for his second shift, he was almost hit by a car.”

I took a seat at the table and soaked in her every word.

“I don’t think it was an accident, though,” she continued. “I bet it was one of those people who were following that Morgan teacher of yours. One that didn’t get caught the other night.”

“What makes you say that?” Zoey asked as she took a seat at the table too.

Kiera plucked the reflective tape from Zoey’s hand and shrugged. “I don’t know. Just call it a hunch, I suppose.” She went to work measuring out the tape for the costume while Zoey and I shared a look.

It was possible Kiera’s theory could be right, but there was a fifty-fifty chance here that it was just an accident. Thankfully, Carter wasn’t working the corner
tonight
. He was safe, doing dishes in the back at Shakes. I wasn’t going to let this new
possible
attempt at his life dampen my spirits. In just about twenty-four hours, I would get to talk to Oliver, hopefully see him very soon after that, and I refused to let anyone or anything take this excitement away from me.

The girls and I went to Shakes for dinner that night. Carter was working as often as he could. Filling in for others and pulling double shifts. Especially since he’d gotten his hours cut due to his new class schedule, and with his upcoming marriage, I think he wanted to prove, mostly to himself, that he could support Kiera and himself. Plus, he had to take the following night off because Kiera’s parents had decided it was time to tell Kiera’s grandmother about the engagement. Her parents had planned to do it over dinner at the grandma’s house that Sunday. I was thankful not to be invited this time. Kiera’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, was not the sweetest woman I’d ever met. Far from it actually. That bossy streak that Kiera had, it was clear where it had come from.

We’d taken two cars to the diner, mine and Kiera’s parents’. I was leaving mine with Carter so that I wouldn’t have to return for him later. He was getting off really late and Kiera said she’d drop me back off at the apartment complex when she headed home to her parents after dinner.

Zoey cracked her gum loudly as we waited to have our orders taken, and I found it extremely annoying. After we ordered, Zoey had rolled her gum into a napkin, and Carter took a break and sat with us for a few minutes.

“Hey roomy,
soon-to-be
wifey
, and Zoey.” He laughed at himself, obviously thinking he was quite clever. He took a seat beside Kiera, who was sitting across from Zoey and me, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Did you get that tape on the chicken suit?”

“Yep!” she beamed up at him. He grinned back, told her thanks, and then turned to me. “Did Kiera tell you what happened last night?”

I nodded, but he told me the story anyway. He didn’t seem to agree with Kiera’s theory that one of Mr. Morgan’s guys had come after him but didn’t bother arguing with her over it. He was a smart boy.

I gave Carter the key to my car before he headed back to work,
and then
our food arrived.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. We dropped Zoey off at her apartment then Kiera took me home. I hurried up the steps as the dark, starless night settled around me. Once inside, I bolted the door and got busy putting the rest of my stuff away.

After some rearranging, and once everything was put away, resting in their new places, I opened the top drawer of Oliver’s dresser, out of pure curiosity. In it, I found the picture of him and his siblings that had been taken on a Christmas morning many years ago. The original frame had been replaced from when I had found it broken on the floor the morning after Oliver and I spent a night in the closet some time ago.

I set the picture back in its place on top of his dresser and stared at the three kids, whose terrible fates had been unknown to them. They’d been just three happy kids at the time the photo was taken with two very loving and happy parents. It panged my heart to think of how the Knight family broke. I was thankful Oliver was a part of my life but it made me very sad to think of how that had come to be, and I foolishly wished away his pain, knowing that would never be possible.

As I went to close the drawer that had appeared to contain mostly clothing, I noticed something. Three somethings, actually. I found my aunt’s watch. The one she had worn for years with its gold band and small face. It was still speckled with blood and my heart ached even more. Next I found the teeth that Felix had dropped into Oliver’s hand on that awful day. A chill ran through me. Lastly, I found the letter that my absent father had given me the day of my aunt’s funeral. I read it again, with tears in my eyes. I took my treasures and stashed them in my nightstand where I found the star necklace Oliver had given me for my birthday. I put the teeth and the watch into the box my necklace had come in and placed the box in the drawer on top of my father’s letter.

With a heavy heart, I put my birthday necklace on and held the stone, making another wish.

That night, I slid under the blankets in
my
new room—that still felt like Oliver’s—and I shivered. The sheets were freezing. It was that time of year to switch to flannel but I didn’t have it in me to get up and change them. Plus, I’d just put fresh sheets on the bed that day. I didn’t need more laundry.

I would’ve thought that with all of the excitement that had recently worn on me, moving, and a full belly—not to mention the past couple of weeks—I would’ve slept soundly that night. That wasn’t the case. It was hard to fall asleep with an aching heart, but somehow, after plenty of tossing and turning, I did manage and wished I hadn’t.

It wasn’t unusual to see Oliver’s gorgeous green eyes as I drifted off. This time though, something was different…

That same building, the big stone fortress or whatever it was that I’d seen in another dream loomed in the background. The sun was setting and birds flew overhead as Oliver held my hand and led me toward that massive building. He was smiling that smile of his that I missed so much and when he spoke I heard nothing. His lips moved and he was talking and I couldn’t hear a thing. Nothing but silence. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t hear him and he looked at me confused for a moment.

Then he looked to the sky, to what I thought had been birds flying high above us. It looked like he was shouting at me, like he was suddenly frightened but I still couldn’t hear. He grabbed my arm and ran, pulling me behind him. Then he was just gone. I stood alone in an immense field. That fortress was in the distance and the woods, where the wolves had chased me in the past, just as far away in the opposite direction.

The sky turned an eerie shade of deep orange and dark figures soared above me. One of those figures swooped down close to me and I ducked as it passed by. When I turned to see where it had gone, I saw Oliver and screamed but nothing came out. I ran for him as fast as I could but it wasn’t fast enough. The thing that had flown over me was attacking him. He was screaming silently, his eyes terrified. He kicked and punched and struggled under the weight of the creature. I screamed for him and he turned his face to me, surprised to see me there. He began shouting and gesturing for me to stay back.

I kept running but I wasn’t getting any closer. The creature
, a life-size stone gargoyle,
ripped Oliver’s heart from his chest, launched itself into the air, and was gone. Oliver’s motionless body was suddenly at my feet; his beautiful emerald eyes were dull and lifeless. I screamed, crying out for help, as I dropped to my knees beside him and that scream broke all of the silence and startled me awake.

Carter flung my bedroom door open a moment later and flipped on my light. I was sitting up in my bed, trying to catch my breath, and I squinted at the sudden brightness.

“You okay?” He was concerned and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.

“I’m fine,” I breathed. “Bad dream.”

“You need me to stay?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

He told me to call him if I needed him and then he flipped the light off, leaving my bedroom door open as he headed back to his own room. It was dark and I could hear the tapping of rain on the roof. Another storm had obviously rolled in. I rested my head back onto my pillow, and in the dark, I faced Oliver’s side of the bed. I reached out to the empty space beside me. I hoped my wish for him to come back to me soon would come true before I lost my mind. I pulled my blankets tightly around me and tried not to sleep for fear of reliving that nightmare.

Eventually, I flipped on my lamp, and while it rained overhead, I hung up all of Oliver’s T-shirts that Felix had folded and stored in Oliver’s dresser. Once I was done with that, I went out into the living room, quietly watched TV and made myself something to eat. I feared I wouldn’t be able to sleep until Oliver came home, and by the time Carter got out of bed, I was doing whatever I could to avoid giving in to how tired I was.

I let Carter use my car on Sunday, so when he left that evening for dinner at Kiera’s grandma’s, I still hadn’t shaken the disturbing feeling I’d gotten from the dream or how tired I was. I was also filled with excitement as I lay on the couch with my fully charged cell grasped in my hands awaiting the call from Oliver, the one that Felix had promised me.

Chapter
29 - A Brother’s Betrayal

It was Sunday evening. The weather was terrible, the power was flickering, and there was an awful feeling lingering around me. I couldn’t shake the silent images of that dream, that nightmare, as I waited for Oliver to call.

I didn’t feel whole without Oliver and I couldn’t wait to hear his voice. He was my entire future. Without him, all seemed pointless. An image of that stone gargoyle flying off with
dream
-
Oliver’s
heart flashed to mind.
I don’t think I
can
make it in this world without him
,
I thought to myself.
What would be the point?