It doesn’t matter, I told myself. You are who you are now, not who you might have been. But I knew my mind would circle back to the subject again and again and again.
“Why was it so important to you that I pick up the phone?” I asked. “Just so you could have some more fun poking sticks at me?”
“I’m not poking sticks at you,” Piper said, with exasperation in her voice. “Like I said, I’m trying to help you. Trying to get you to the place where you feel better and all of this shit stops hurting so much.”
I wondered if she was aware of her own hypocrisy, then decided it wouldn’t matter if she was. She’d say anything, do anything, to get what she wanted. And apparently what she wanted was me.
“But it’s obvious you aren’t convinced yet,” Piper continued. “You seem to like Marlene. How terrible would you feel if something happened to her and it was all because you were too selfish to do the right thing and give yourself up?”
My hand clenched on the phone, and my heart gave a nasty thump. “Don’t you dare—”
“But maybe you’d be okay as long as you still had Luke. I wouldn’t want you to put too much faith in the bullshit Marlene was feeding you. Luke was all mine, and would have been mine as long as I wanted him. He’s into you now because he’s on the rebound, and because, hey, you’re available. I know you know all that, but I bet you still have hopes that you and he will, like, get married and have babies and live happily ever after or some such shit.”
“I’m hanging up now,” I said through gritted teeth, but I didn’t actually do it.
“I’m going to take out everyone you care about,” Piper said. “I’m glad you’ve met Luke’s family, because that’ll give me a nice pool of victims to choose from. One by one, I’ll take them away from you, until you have no one left. Let’s see how many losses your conscience can take before you realize you really have no choice.
“Call this number and let me know when you’re ready to give in. And try to remember that, no matter how much it hurts, everything I’m doing is for your own good. I’m still your friend, and I’ll be here for you whenever you’re ready.”
In the end, it was Piper who hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep after getting off the phone with Piper, so when Dr. Gilliam drove me back to my house, I practically fell asleep in the car. We had to drive most of the way across Center City to get home, and it looked nothing like any other Black Friday in my life. The sun didn’t rise till around seven these days, so there were no early-morning sales to bring people out in droves. Stores were open—most of them at least—but there were very few customers visible through their windows.
The city’s maintenance workers did their best, but there was no keeping up with the destruction and mess the Nightstruck and the constructs caused when the sun was down. Broken glass littered the streets and sidewalks, piles of litter blew in the breeze, and graffiti—much of it obscene—was everywhere.
Piper’s call, my lack of sleep, and the dismal sight of the city combined to sink my mood to an all-time low, and I couldn’t wait to get home and close myself in my room for a little alone time. There are times when you want to talk about your problems and times when you want to hide from them. This was the latter.
It wasn’t as hard to park on the streets these days as it used to be, so Dr. Gilliam was able to find a spot right in front of her house. She invited me to spend the day with her and Luke, as I usually did when she wasn’t at work, but I pleaded exhaustion and said I just wanted to go home and sleep for a few hours.
Luke was too much of a gentleman to let me carry my own bag, so he took my overnight bag and I took Bob and we crossed to my house through the courtyard.
A nasty surprise awaited me. When we turned the corner onto the patio right outside my back door, we found a tall ladder propped against the wall and a sprinkling of broken glass below it. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I looked up.
Someone had broken the glass out of one of the windows on the second floor. I didn’t know what had happened to the towel rack bars my dad had installed, but they weren’t there anymore. I supposed they weren’t all that hard to get around, as long as you didn’t have to worry about a vicious German shepherd getting in your face or about the neighbors calling the police.
Under ordinary circumstances, I would have immediately backed away and called the police myself. As the daughter of the police commissioner, I certainly knew better than to enter a house when there was such clear evidence it had been broken into. However, I knew exactly who had broken that window, who had invaded my home, and it wasn’t anyone who could still be hanging around now, in the daylight. I didn’t know where the Nightstruck disappeared to during the day—no one did—but for sure it wasn’t my house.
I took out my keys with a shaking hand. Luke laid a hand on my shoulder.
“That’s probably not a great idea, Becks,” he said.
Even in the midst of my growing rage and dread, I felt a little hint of warmth at hearing him call me by the nickname. Only close friends and family called me Becks, and I couldn’t remember ever hearing Luke do it before.
“We both know who did it and that they’re not hanging around,” I said, twitching away from his hand while trying not to be rude about it.
“Yeah, but we don’t know that no one else took advantage of the opportunity to go in,” Luke argued.
Technically he was right. But I figured most of the burglars and thieves in our city had been subsumed by the night already and weren’t likely hanging out in my house. Also, the police department had more than enough on their plates already without wasting their time on what was probably nothing.
“We have Bob,” I reminded him as I unlocked my back door. I took a deep breath to steady myself, not knowing what horror to expect, before pushing the door open and stepping inside. Not surprisingly, Luke stayed right on my heels.
The good news was that we didn’t find any blood or dead bodies. The bad news was … well, everything else.
Piper and her night-dwelling friends had been thorough. Every stick of furniture in the house was broken. Every cushion and pillow and bed was gutted. Every wall—and in some places even the ceiling—was covered in foul graffiti. Every dish and mirror and knickknack was smashed, every piece of electronic equipment spilling its wiry metal guts.
She’d ransacked my room and my dad’s room, shredding every stitch of clothing. She’d torn pages out of all the books and had even torn up the cute kiddie pictures my sister and I had drawn. Dad said he was storing them so he could trot them out to embarrass us if ever we brought home a boyfriend. He even followed through on that threat with Beth once. I remembered, because my mom had picked a fight about it, irritated with him because Beth was irritated.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the place reeked of spilled booze, cigarette smoke, pot, and urine.
Luke tried to coax me away, but I wasn’t willing to leave until I’d taken full stock of the damage that had been done. Maybe it was like poking at a sore tooth and I should have stopped, but I couldn’t bear not knowing.
Except for what I was wearing and the change of clothes in my overnight bag, everything I owned was destroyed. The house itself might be salvageable—I’d have to have someone come look at it and see—but everything inside it was irreparably ruined.
“Let’s go,” Luke said gently when we had explored every room. He took my arm and guided me toward the staircase. “My mom and I will take care of calling someone to come clean this up. You’ve been through enough without having to deal with that.”
I followed him willingly enough, too numb to argue, even though I thought I should. It had been my choice last night not to give in to Piper’s demands, and it was up to me to deal with the consequences of that choice.
I knew I was in bad shape, because I didn’t even feel tempted to cry. Not when I saw the house, not when Luke and I hurried back to his place to tell his m
om what had happened. Not when Dr. Gilliam hugged me and assured me everything was going to be all right. Not even when they finally left me alone in the guest room to get some rest while they made calls on my behalf.
* * *
The rest of Black Friday wasn’t much better. I probably should have gone out and done some shopping so I at least had a few possessions to my name, but I was too dispirited to manage it. I finally broke through the tear barrier when I had to call my mom and tell her what had happened to the house. Dr. Gilliam had done some research for me while I was moping in the guest room and had determined that it would cost something around an arm and a leg to repair the damage to the house, although of course none of the contractors she talked to would come right out and give an estimate sight unseen.
Whatever the total bill turned out to be, it would be way more than I could take care of myself. I was getting by using a credit card on my mom’s account, but I wouldn’t be able to use it for the repairs, and I wouldn’t have access to any of Dad’s money until the will had gone through probate, which was going to take forever, thanks to the death toll and the shortened workdays. Mom was going to have to handle paying for the repairs from a distance.
My mom was warmer and more nurturing on that call than I’d ever known her to be before, and I desperately wanted to cuddle up in her arms and let her take care of everything. Dr. Gilliam was being great, and I was incredibly thankful I had her, but she wasn’t my mom. I felt like a little girl again, and not in a good way. I cried ugly while clinging to the phone like it was a lifeline.
After that ordeal was over and I had at least marginally calmed myself, I thought again about the call I’d had with Piper last night.
I felt robbed and violated by what Piper had done to my house, but she’d threatened to do far, far worse if I didn’t give in. She’d threatened Luke and his whole family, and I knew the threats weren’t idle. For as long as I resisted, Luke and his family would be in grave danger, and that was a hard concept to live with.
I couldn’t, in good conscience, keep the threat to myself, so I told Dr. Gilliam about Piper’s call. I had no idea where I would go if she decided I was too hot to handle, and I didn’t know if my going somewhere else would in any way help, but I offered.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dr. Gilliam told me firmly.
“But if me being here puts you all in danger—”
“What’s the alternative?” she interrupted. “Piper didn’t threaten to hurt us because you were with us, she threatened to hurt us because she thought it would hurt you. That’s not going to change if you go somewhere else.”
“Maybe I should just give in,” I said. It was the first time I’d allowed myself even to think that, but if I were the good, unselfish person I liked to think I was, shouldn’t I do everything in my power to protect those I cared about? Those who were in danger only because of me?
“Never!” Dr. Gilliam said, taking my shoulders and giving them a little shake. I had never seen her look so fierce. “You don’t deal with bullies by giving in to them. That just makes them demand more.” Her expression softened. “None of this is your fault, Becket.”
But of course it was. I hadn’t told her about my conversation with Aleric, about my realization that I had unwittingly invited this evil into our city. I might not have done anything wrong, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t my fault.
“Do you really think it would help anything if you ran out and became one of the Nightstruck?” Dr. Gilliam persisted. “You’ve seen more than enough of them, of what they do. Is that what you want to be?”
“Of course not!” I snapped, then reeled my temper back in. Piper had said that if I joined the Nightstruck, the pain would all go away. I’d stop grieving for my dad, I’d stop being scared, I’d stop worrying about other people. Maybe there was just a tiny kernel of temptation buried beneath a truckload of denial.
“We’ll take extra precautions,” Dr. Gilliam promised me. “But sacrificing you is not an option.”
I bit my lip and nodded my agreement. If I could have been sure Luke and the rest of his family would be safe if I gave in, then I might have put more consideration into actually giving myself up. But who knew what would happen to me if the night got its hooks in me? I thought I was a pretty good, nice person, but the night would take all of that away from me. Piper had been a pretty good person—if not exactly perfect—before the night took her, and look at what she had become! Who was to say I wouldn’t be a threat to Luke and his family myself, just as Piper was a threat to me?
No, I was just going to have to live with the guilt of being a danger to Luke and his family. And hope Piper didn’t manage to make it exponentially worse before someone somewhere figured out how to return the city to normal.
* * *
Luke’s mom was home for the entire Thanksgiving weekend, and though she was obviously glad for the rest—like my dad, she’d been working so hard the strain was showing on her—I could tell she also felt guilty about taking any time off. I’m sure if she hadn’t been ordered to stay home she would have been out working every night, just as she had been practically every night since the quarantine began.
On Monday night she went back to work. It was the first time Luke and I were going to spend any significant time alone together since Marlene’s startling revelations. Revelations that Piper had denied, of course, but under the circumstances, I was far more likely to take Marlene’s word than Piper’s.
If Marlene was telling the truth and Luke had been into me all along, did that change anything? Surely it at least meant that I should stop questioning his motivation in kissing me the other night. Surely it meant it hadn’t been out of pity or anything like that.
With school on an indefinite hiatus, and with me being unable to leave the house once the sun set, there was very little to do in the evenings. If I were home by myself, I probably would have spent hours with my nose buried in a book, but it seemed rude to do that and just ignore Luke in his own home. Not that I was capable of ignoring Luke when Marlene’s words kept swirling around in my head. I was painfully aware of him at all times.
I was desperate for distractions, afraid I was acting totally weird and giving my turmoil away. I wanted to ask Luke if what Marlene had said was true, but I couldn’t think of a subtle way to sneak the question in, and I didn’t have it in me to just blurt it out. When you came right down to it, I had way too much self-doubt to believe a guy like him could be into me, kiss or no kiss.
We spent some time after dinner playing video games, but I stink at them in the best of circumstances. Apparently I stink even more when I’m distracted. My reflexes were too slow, and I couldn’t seem to remember which control did what. Luke gave no sign that my ineptness bothered him, but he couldn’t be having a whole lot of fun with the nonexistent level of competition I was giving him.
“Why don’t you just play and I watch,” I suggested, after crashing and burning within about five seconds of starting a racing game set to its easiest level. I put my controller down on the coffee table and willed myself to start acting more normal. Any minute now he was going to ask me what was the matter, and I was probably going to blush so red I glowed.
Luke tossed his own controller aside. “I’m kind of sick of all my games anyway,” he said, getting up to turn off his PlayStation. “I’m ready for Christmas and a new batch.”
I think he was just saying that for my benefit, but I wished he would keep playing. Surely if he was playing a game, I’d be able to fade gracefully into the background. After everything Luke and I had been through together, I had finally started to feel at least mildly comfortable around him, but Marlene’s revelation had turned me right back into the tongue-tied, self-conscious idiot I’d been at the start.
And then, after he’d turned the console off, came the moment I’d been dreading. Luke sat next to me on the couch, cocked his head, and asked the Question.
“Is something wrong? Other than the obvious, I mean. You
seem … I don’t know, distracted.”
I forced a smile that I’m sure looked completely fake. “I’m fine,” I lied, but the heat in my cheeks meant I had not a chance of convincing him.
Luke looked down at his hands, a worried expression on his face. “I screwed everything up the other night, didn’t I?”
“Huh?” I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. I was too absorbed in my own turmoil to consider the possibility that he might be having some of his own.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said, and I recoiled. Since he was looking at his hands, he didn’t see my reaction. Which was just as well, because I’m sure I was turning even redder than I’d been already, and my eyes might have been getting a little shiny.
Luke regretted kissing me. So much for Marlene’s story of unrequited love. It shouldn’t hurt so much, not compared to everything else I’d been through lately, but the pain of rejection took my breath away. How stupid and naïve had I been to think he’d want me after he’d had Piper?
“I didn’t mean to make things all awkward and complicated between us,” Luke continued, and he finally turned his head to look at me. When he got a glance at my face, his eyes went wide with alarm. He reached out and took my hand, which was clenched into a white-knuckled fist as I tried to reel in all my raging emotions. I couldn’t have forced a word out of my throat if I’d tried.
“Shit,” Luke said. “I’m screwing things up again.” I shook my head in denial. “Yes I am,” he said, squeezing my hand. Then he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I made things awkward. I assumed that was because I kissed you and it made you uncomfortable. I’m not actually sorry I kissed you.”
“You’re not?” I asked in a breathless whisper. A fragile hint of hope sparked in my chest. Hope had been in short supply lately, and I hardly dared allow it into my life.
Luke reached up and brushed the fingers of his free hand down my cheek. “Not if you’re not.”
My throat was still all tight and achy. I swallowed hard to try to push the lump down and moved a little closer to him on the couch so I could let him know without words how not sorry I was.