Pretty Nightmare (Creeping Beautiful Book 2), page 9
He pulls back first, bumping his forehead against mine. Then both his hands are on my shoulders and he’s leaning in to me. Almost hugging me.
So I hug him back.
That’s all he was really after. I realize that now. That’s all he really wanted from me.
Not the hug.
The connection.
The support.
The love.
The loyalty.
The truth.
He’s not invincible.
He’s not as strong as people think.
He’s just a boy on the end of a dock looking for someone to keep him honest.
“Look.” Adam sighs. We’re all fucking sweaty now. We’re too close. There’s too much heat surrounding us. The sun is blinding and off in the distance we can hear Indie and Maggie squealing as they play their game on the swings. “I know you don’t want to hear it. And… I’m ashamed to admit this, but I’m not sure it’s true anyway. So I’m not gonna say it.” He lifts his head up and looks at me, his chest rising and falling a little too fast. “But I needed those four years.”
“I know you did.”
“You don’t owe me, McKay.”
“I know that too.”
“But if you stay, I promise I won’t ever do it again.”
I nod. “Sounds fair.”
“So… now what?”
“I dunno. I’m open to seeing where this”—my phone buzzes in my pocket—“where this is going.”
“OK. I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
He looks across the lake for a moment. My phone buzzes again, but I ignore it. I have special buzzes for the important people and this buzz isn’t one of them. So it’s probably spam.
“How…” Adam starts, but then he stops. Keeps looking across the lake. Which kinda makes me uncomfortable, because there’s nothing over there. Nothin’ to see here, people. The cottage is gone. “OK, so how attached are you—”
My phone buzzes again. Like whoever it was hung up and tried again.
“Are you gonna get that?”
“No. Just keep going. It’s nobody.”
“OK, so how attached are you to Indie?”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs a little. “Is it her you want?” He looks over at me.
I think about this for a moment. Because it’s not really an easy question to answer.
“It’s that complicated, is it?”
“Well,” I say, “it is a little. I never wanted to sleep with her, Adam. It wasn’t that kind of love. And when she showed up at my house and started pushing, ya know, I gave in. Pretty easily.” Adam grins at me. Shrugs. “But it was never that kind of love. I mean, I love her. I would do anything for her. But she’s not why I’m here, if that’s your question.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“OK. So that’s the answer.”
Adam sighs again. “Well, she seems to think—” My phone buzzes again. “Jesus. Just answer it. Then you can block it and it’ll leave us alone.”
I pull the phone out and it buzzes in my hand as I look at the screen. Then I just… stop. Go still.
“Who is it?”
I hold the phone up so Adam can see.
“Payphone?” He lifts one eyebrow up at me. “Someone’s calling you from a payphone.” I don’t say anything. So Adam says, “Answer it.”
I don’t answer it. Because I think I know who’s on the other end of that call. And I’m not sure—
Adam grabs the phone, tabs accept, presses speaker, and says, “What?” in his mean, I’m-an-asshole voice.
“McKay?”
And a chill runs up my spine when I recognize the voice.
Adam looks at me. Because he recognizes it too.
“McKay?”
“This is Adam. Who is this?”
But all we get are the hang-up beeps.
Adam holds the phone up and glares at me. “What. The actual. Fuck, McKay?”
I run my fingers though my hair. My turn to be unsure of myself.
“I thought you fucking killed him.”
“What?” I laugh.
“I knew Indie didn’t kill him. I saw him moving around on the ground when I was pulling out to take Maggie to the hospital. So I thought you finished him off.”
“Jesus. I’m not that big of an asshole.”
Adam gets to his feet and starts shaking his head. “You let him walk away. You actually let that little fucker walk away. Core McKay! What the hell were you thinking?”
I get up too. And then take a step towards the shore because one of us is gonna fall off this fucking dock if we try to stand shoulder to shoulder.
“Are you gonna answer me?”
“Look, I get it. He’s—”
“He’s the whole fucking reason she attacked me, McKay.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“Really? And you know this how? Because you were there? That little rapist—”
“Oh, come on, Adam.”
“—was filling her head up with shit. All these years!”
My phone buzzes again. I snatch it out of Adam’s hand and press accept. “McKay.”
“McKay?”
“I just said it was me, Nathan. What the fuck do you want?”
“Is Adam still there?”
I don’t have it on speaker, but it doesn’t matter.
“Yeah, I’m fucking here. Where the hell are you?”
“Nathan.” I turn my back to Adam. “Where are you?”
There’s traffic noises on the other end of the line. I can hear him breathing. People talking loud. Like he’s in a city.
“Nathan!”
But he just hangs up.
Adam snatches the phone, presses call back, and puts it on speaker.
But it just rings, and rings, and rings.
PART TWO - BLESSING IN DISGUISE
Here’s the short reprieve.
The calm before the storm.
The stay of execution.
One final deep breath before you go under.
Better take a big one.
Because you’re going deep.
CHAPTER EIGHT - McKAY
FOUR YEARS AGO
OLD HOME
INDIE’S TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY
I just stand there looking at the scene before my eyes.
What. Is. Happening?
Nathan’s face is so fucked up from Indie’s attack, for a moment I wonder if that’s how he dies today. Choking on his own blood.
My head is spinning with confusion because I’m wearing jeans and I’m pretty sure I was naked just a second ago. Donovan is yelling at Adam as Adam struggles to pull on his own pair of jeans under the pavilion. “Take her now! Now, Adam! Now!”
I don’t even know what Donovan’s talking about. But he’s squeezing my shoulder hard with one hand while the other desperately tries to hold on to Indie.
She is wild. Her eyes have the look of crazy in them as she pulls away from Donovan and rushes back over to Nathan, lying on the ground, face up, his normally blond hair stained scarlet and a long gash in the side of his head that is leaking blood. It pools under him, shining an almost surreal candy-apple color as he coughs and tries to roll on his side.
Indie doesn’t allow it. She kicks him in the ribs over and over. And then the face and I swear I hear a snap or a crunch. And I look away.
When I look back, Nathan’s body is just still. He’s not moaning or trying to roll over anymore. He’s just… blood.
Donovan lets go of me and scrambles to catch Indie again. He locks her in a bear hug and drags her backwards, towards the house, as she writhes, and screams, and kicks her feet.
I’m so fucked up—I know I’m fucked up. I am at that point of fucked-upness that I’m seeing things almost sober and for a moment I actually want to bitch Indie out for not being able to break free of Donovan’s bear hug.
I taught her that move. I know I did.
“McKay!” Donovan is screaming my name as he drags Indie up the porch. “Help me!”
I look at Nathan. But just for a moment. Fuck him. And then I carefully make my way up the porch steps and help Donovan drag Indie inside.
The last thing I see is Adam placing Maggie in his truck. Then the screen door slaps closed and Donovan shoves Indie face down on the dark-wood floors and sits on top of her.
“Here!” He throws something at me.
I feel several hundred seconds behind the action, so I just watch the thing hit me in the chest, then fall to the floor at my bare feet.
“Stick that fucking thing in your leg! Right now, McKay! She drugged us! She fucking drugged us!”
Indie is screaming beneath him like a wild animal caught in a steel trap. Gnashing her teeth like she’s about to chew off a foot if that’s what it takes to escape.
I bend down, manage to pick the syringe up—even though my fingers are tingly and numb—and just look at it.
“Do it!” Donovan is screaming. He’s got a syringe too. And I watch him demonstrate. Sort of. He pulls the cap off with his teeth and positions the plunger in his hand. “Sit on her legs, McKay! Help me!”
I sigh. First he wants me to jab myself with a needle. Now he wants me to sit on Indie. But sitting on Indie seems much easier than figuring out how to stick myself with that needle. So I sit on her legs and Donovan scoots his body up so he’s got her shoulders pinned to the floor, and then, carefully, he injects something into the bulging vein in her neck.
Indie is growling at him.
And that’s how she goes down.
She slips into unconsciousness growling at him.
The next thing I know, Donovan is jabbing me in the inner arm with the other needle. But I don’t go down. I come up. And everything gets just a little bit clearer.
Donovan snaps his fingers in front of my face. “You there?”
“I’m here,” I croak. “I thought you said the leg.”
“Fuck the leg. Takes too long. But you’re not really equipped to give yourself an intravenous inject—never mind.” He shakes his head. “I think we have a dead body in the garden. That’s way above my paygrade. So can you pretty fuckin’ please go take care of Nathan St. James?”
He says all this with a much calmer voice then he did when we’re still talking about Indie.
I look at the screen door. I’m still sitting on top of Indie’s legs. And I vaguely remember Nathan dying in a pool of blood.
“McKay!” Donovan screams it. Right up next to my fuckin’ ear. “Pull your fuckin’ shit together! I need to take care of Indie. You need to go take care of that fuckin’ body out there.”
I nod. Because this is a job I’m good at. Then take a deep breath and feel markedly better than I did just a few seconds ago. I awkwardly get to my feet and as soon as I’m off Indie’s legs, Donovan is dragging her down the hallway.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“This sedative won’t last long. I need to get her into the office and give her something else.”
“That didn’t answer my question, Donovan.”
He has stopped dragging Indie and is now hunched over her body and breathing hard, just outside Adam’s office. His gaze meets mine with a glare you don’t often find in Donovan’s eyes. “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”
And then he continues his job and I watch Indie’s legs disappear inside the office.
A moment later, the door slams.
I consider if the dead body can wait. I should go see what Donovan is doing to Indie.
But a dead body in this heat?
That’s probably not good.
I turn to the screen door and walk through it.
Nathan isn’t dead.
He’s moaning and writhing face down on the pea-pebbled garden path, a short trail of blood behind him, like he was trying to crawl away.
I stand over him. My head is clearer now than it was inside, but I would not call my thinking sharp. So I just consider him for a moment.
And then I wonder aloud. “What the fuck just happened?”
Nathan attempts to lift up his head, maybe prodded to do so by the sound of my voice. Gets it an inch or so above the pathway. Enough for me to see all the pea-pebbles stuck to the blood on his face.
But I can’t see his eyes.
She fucked. Him. Up.
“Help me.” I bend down to Nathan and he says it again. “Help me, McKay.”
“I think… actually… I’m supposed to finish you off, Nathan.” These words come out cold. I’m talking arctic. And for a moment I don’t even recognize my own voice.
I feel like Adam in that moment.
And then I blink and reach for Nathan. I pull him up so he’s sitting and consider my options.
They’re not good ones. Not ones I’d even consider if I wasn’t in the middle of an out-of-control situation. But I only have two. So I’m gonna spell it out the best way I can, in my present situation.
“Look at me, Nathan.”
He can’t, of course. He has not reached a point in this—event?—to open his eyes. But he goes through the motions and his head tilts up in my direction.
“I’m gonna let you live, boy. But we’re gonna come to a little agreement right now. You hear me?”
He nods, then chokes and begins coughing, blood spilling out of his mouth. Probably swallowed it. You can only swallow so much before you get sick and it comes back up. There are plenty of monsters living in the Louisiana woods, but none of us are vampires.
“You’re supposed to be dead. I think. But… lucky you, I guess. You’re not. And”—I sigh and look up at the sky—“I don’t know. I don’t really feel like killing anyone right now.”
He hangs his head and spits out more blood between his legs. “She would never forgive you if you did.” His words come out weak and low and also, a little bit gurgled, on account of all the blood in his mouth.
“Did you see what just happened here?”
He wipes the blood from his eyes. Doesn’t help much. Just smears it around, mostly. But I manage to see a sliver of silver blue in the one eye that isn’t completely swollen shut. “I saw it.”
For a moment I’m confused because I had forgotten what he walked into. He saw more than Indie kicking his ass from the ass-kickee perspective.
He saw us.
What we were doing in the pavilion. What we had been doing all day.
And how that all started in the kitchen.
I turn away from him and start walking down the path.
She tried to kill us.
“McKay!” He coughs. “Where are you going?”
I don’t answer him. Just continue walking towards the house. I go inside and when I walk past Adam’s office to get to the kitchen, I can hear Donovan talking in a low, calm voice on the other side of the door.
But I don’t stop to listen or go in and ask him what’s up. I just continue to the back of the house where the kitchen is and stop in front of the cupcakes and empty champagne bottles.
I know she drugged the mimosas. I think I knew that before Nathan even left with Maggie this morning. But I am truly stunned to notice the little bits of—what are those things?—in the frosting of the cupcakes.
I pick one up, swipe my finger through it, and then I get that feeling in my gut. That feeling that says something has gone terribly wrong while I wasn’t looking.
Daphne berries.
That’s when everything truly comes back to me. Why Adam was in the truck with Maggie.
She ate the berries.
That’s what sent Indie into a frenzy. It wasn’t Nathan catching us having sex. It was just… her. Indie. Reacting. Or overreacting, as per usual.
She didn’t just try to kill us. She tried to kill her daughter too.
I pick up the cake plate where she had arranged the cupcakes in a neat circle and I dump the whole fucking thing into the trash.
When I go back outside Nathan has managed to get to his feet and is limping through the garden in the direction of his cottage. Which is a pretty impressive accomplishment, all things considering.
He’s tougher than he lets on, that’s for sure.
I jog after him. My head is straighter, but not wholly well. So I have to stop and bend over when I get dizzy.
But Nathan isn’t moving very fast either. And he waits for me to catch up before he even gets halfway to the little path that cuts through the trees.
He bends over, the palms of his hands braced on his knees to keep himself from falling forward. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it then. I’m fucking done with you people.”
“You people?”
“Company.” He spits on the ground and then looks up at me without straightening his body. His face is turning into a purple fucking mess right before my eyes.
“What do you know about it?”
He laughs. Well, tries to. Then forces himself to stand back up so he can glare at me through that one half-good eye. “I know what I was told.”
“And who told you? Your grandfather?”
“Did you think someone who was not Company would just be given a little house next to the Boucher family?”
I knew this. Have known it since—well, always. I am well aware of who the Bouchers are. I understand them better than anyone. Probably better than they understand themselves. It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you sometimes. You need to take a few steps back to get a clear picture. And even though Adam and I hardly ever talked about Nathan and his grandfather, we didn’t have to.
This big revelation of Nathan’s right now? It has been an unsaid fact since the day he showed up back when he was still too young to even go to kindergarten.
Nathan spits again, this time off to the side. “So if he wants me dead? Fuck it. He’s always wanted me dead.”
I frown at him. “Who?”
“Who the hell do you think? Adam, of course.”
“Look.” I shake my head and sigh. “We haven’t liked you in a long time. But we never sat around plotting your fucking demise, Nathan. It’s just not like that. We don’t have time to hand out fucks to people like you.”
He chuckles a little. And I can tell it hurts him. It’s quite probable that Indie broke a few ribs when she was spinning out of control. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about that, McKay.”
