Chapter 14
As Ember’s eyes explored the boxes, crates, and cleaning supplies in the back room, she noticed a small box up on a shelf that was overfilled with paperbacks. She turned over a mop bucket to stand on so that she could reach them, carefully taking down the box. She sat back down on her crate and started going through them, regretting that the little collection she had brought with her was lost and gone forever in the fire.
“You can keep them, if you want.”
Ember looked up. Acton had returned. “These are yours?”
Acton nodded. “I’ve already read them. Take them.”
Ember looked back at the books in her lap. They were older ones, by classic authors that she had heard of, but she hadn’t read most of them. She sighed, running her hands down the side of the box. When she looked back up, Acton had tilted his head slightly, looking at her hand flat on the side of the cardboard.
“I don’t think they’ll be safe with me,” Ember said with a frown.
“You can keep them where I live,” Acton said, straightening up. He kept his voice low. “How is your hand?”
Ember had almost forgotten. She lifted her hand and inspected the bandage before turning her palm out to Acton. “It’s fine. It’s healing.”
Acton nodded curtly. He held out his hand. “Come on, then. Let’s go sit.”
Ember set the books down next to her bag, took his hand, and forced a smile, unsure of what was waiting for her out in the bar.
When he opened the door, Zinny was blocking the way. Her glossy lips were forced into a pout as she looked Ember up and down. Then, she reached out and pulled Ember into a hug, grabbing Acton by the front of his shirt to pull him in as well.
“Zinny…” Acton said, his voice full of warning.
“She can’t take the clothes back to Gina’s,” she said. As Ember struggled uncomfortably, Zinny’s arms held her like a vice. “They smell like us, and she won’t appreciate that. No hunter wants demon scent in their home.”
“She’s not going around dressing like Thalia,” Acton responded tersely. “Besides, those clothes are going to smell like you now. She can’t go home in those.”
Zinny finally let Ember go, pushing her out to arm’s length. She smiled gently. “I’ll wash them for you before you go back. You can wear them out of the house and back, and change in the back room into something that’s more…well, less Gina. And shower, right when you get home—that’s important.”
Ember’s eyes had gone wide. “It’s true? You’re not human.”
Zinny’s smile never moved, but creases appeared around her eyes. For half a second, she looked decades older than the young, vibrant woman Ember had come to know. “Em, we’re not bad people.”
She let her hands drift from Ember’s shoulders down to hold her hands. Her dark eyes smiled again as Ember’s met them uncertainly. “Demons?”
Zinny nodded, looking at the floor for a moment. “Yes, that’s what they call us.”
“She’s afraid of you.”
A small laugh escaped Zinny’s lips. “Your mother has never been afraid of me. Now, go sit down.”
Zinny stepped away and back to the bar, bringing a hand up to wipe at her eyes even though she hadn’t shed a single tear. Ember’s eyes followed her away, and then snapped back to Acton. She smiled excitedly as Acton put a hand on her back and gestured to a table in a corner.
When Acton pulled out her chair for her, she could no longer contain herself. “They’re friends, aren’t they? My mom and your mom are friends—that’s why she has to let you stay.”
Acton pulled a chair over to sit close next to her. “No. But I’ve long speculated that it’s the reason she has to let me live.”
Ember shook her head. “But how does that happen? I mean, how did they get to be friends—she hates you all so much. And—“ Ember paused, looking around the bar. “How many of you all are there?”
“‘Friend’ is a very strong word.” Acton sat low in his seat, putting his arm around her shoulders. He put his free hand on the table, discreetly gesturing. “Almost everyone that lives here. That group is. So is that one. Most of that group, but not the married couple there—they’re kayaking tourists from Vermont. Those over there are from the fish processing plant a few miles from the mainland town…none of them are, in that town. But almost everyone here is. Not Charles, he’s the one exception that Gina has willingly allowed. She finds ways to get rid of the other humans.”
Ember looked over at him. “Why not Charles?”
Acton pursed his lips, glancing at her, but then his eyes lit up. Ember looked over to see Kaylee walking up to the table. Asher was walking next to her, and Isaac was trailing her like a faithful shadow.
Acton removed his arm from Ember’s shoulder’s, composing himself in his seat. Kaylee stood across from him at the table.
Her smile looked like a sarcastic snarl. “Yes, your majesty?”
He kicked the chair opposite him away from the table, making Ember jump. “Have a seat.”
Kaylee eyed the chair, but then her searing green eyes flashed to Ember, who suddenly felt the terror seep from her expression into her being. A slow smile spread across Kaylee’s glossy pink lips as she turned the chair around to straddle it.
“She’s not my size,” she said with a sneer. “And I’ll be damned if I give her anything—I may as well burn it myself.”
Acton removed something from his jacket pocket, and set it on the table between them. He sat back and crossed his arms as Kaylee eyed the folded hunting knife. The sneer slipped from her lips, but the icy stare in her eyes remained.
Isaac took a step forward. “Acton…”
“Jessica is about her size,” Acton said lightly. “Make it happen. She’s not going around with me looking like this.”
Kaylee had sunk away from the table, and her cool straddle looked awkward. She looked up at Isaac, and then back at Acton. She smiled again. “Acton suddenly wants to play dress up with his new doll. I wonder why…?”
Ember blinked, and then her chair slammed to the wall and clattered to the floor as she shot up out of it. The knife was open in Kaylee’s hand, and there were fingers—human fingers—lying on the table where the knife had been. Ember looked from one to the next, counting each perfectly manicured digit as she went; one, two, three…
Thumb.
A thumb had dropped into the mess, and Ember felt dizzy. The fingers didn’t look real, and she didn’t know why. They were fingers, each one just lying there, no longer attached to Kaylee’s hand as she slowly sliced them off. She dragged the blade neatly across the joint of her pinky finger, and plop, down it went, landing next to her index finger before bouncing and settling next to her thumb. The bar lights were reflecting off of the polished pink tips, mirrored again in the enamel table top. She went about the bloody business as though she were peeling a potato, dark globs of black blood oozing from each stump and a shocked look on her face.
Isaac scooped up the fingers with a look and a grunt of indignation, stuffing them into his pants pocket.
Asher had lifted his hand to cover his mouth, looking nearly as shocked as Kaylee as he tried to stifle a laugh. He had moved to block the scene from the rest of the room, but it was so dark, and Kaylee hadn’t made a sound despite the screaming expression on her face. Her eyes were wide and horrified as she stared at her mangled hand. Small, choked gasps, almost too quiet to hear, escaped her throat.
No one knew what was going on. Only one of the tourists had looked over for a moment when Ember’s chair had banged to the floor.
Isaac had finally found his voice. “You could have just made her get the clothes!”
“Cooperation is so much nicer than compliance, and Kaylee is going to cooperate.” Acton said with a smirk. He turned back to Ember. Her face had gone pale; when he had said before that he could control people, she hadn’t ever thought he meant he could make someone do something like that. “Em, you should sit down before you f
aint.”
Isaac had Kaylee by the shoulders, hurrying her back toward the door.
“Ash, get a towel for this.”
Asher walked off to the bar.
Acton looked back at Ember again, stopping just short of rolling his eyes. “I’m serious, Ember. Your face is pale, and you’re going to pass out. You need to sit down.”
Ember felt herself trying to shake her head and nod at the same time, and then grabbing the edge of the table as she lowered herself to the floor. Acton sighed in exasperation, picking up Ember’s chair first, and then scooping her up from the floor to set her in it as Asher wiped down the table. As he left with a rag that looked like it had been soaked in tar from all of the unnatural black blood that had come from Kaylee’s fingers, Acton put his arm back around Ember’s shoulders.
Ember opened her mouth to speak, but all she managed was to lift her hand, staring at the place on the table where Kaylee’s fingers had been.
“That was unfortunate.” Acton said calmly, leaning over to smell her hair. “Some days, Kaylee needs to be reminded of her place, but I do regret that you had to witness it.”