Chapter Sixteen
Heart to heart
He didn’t say much else as we drove down the dark, country road to my apartment.
“You must be having a very private conversation with yourself,” I said.
Adrian looked at me briefly, his eyes revealing nothing.
“Either that or I just have a silencing effect on you.” I almost smiled but didn’t.
“You have a lot of effect on me,” he said in a low voice.
I felt my cheeks burn.
I turned my head to look out the window. The silver splash of the moon spilled over the shadowed trees.
“How did you learn to control yourself?” I asked in a whisper. “How did you become like this?”
Adrian sighed, but he had to have known the questions would come sooner or later.
“I was bitten ten years ago, after my eighteenth birthday, when I volunteered to help look for a missing hiker.” He kept his face neutral as he spoke, but I felt his energy level shift. “I spent a lot of full moons chained in a cell in my basement. It was long ago, yet I could still feel myself struggling with the chains, howling until my throat bled. Howling for freedom and something to settle the rising hunger.”
I shivered. “Will I be like that? How come I didn’t shift with this last full moon?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe because you were bitten so close to the full moon your body didn’t yet register the change. I’m sure you will shift with the next, and I won’t lie to you. The first one is brutal and violent, and you won’t remember much of what you’ve done. The beast rules you. Controls you.”
“Is that why you chained yourself in a cell?” I asked.
“Yes, because when the change first happens, you have no control at all. Everything in your path is destroyed. Property, neighborhoods…lives”
“You must be really conflicted,” I said. “I mean beyond the obvious.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you’re a cop, meant to serve and protect life and you are a werewolf, meant to slaughter and kill…”
“I don’t kill, Jade,” he said quickly. “I satisfy my hunger with wildlife, but I don’t have to kill people. Besides, that’s an automatic death sentence right now.”
“And what you did to me back at the club…that’s normal?”
He looked at me then. “What did I do to you?”
“Don’t play games. You did something. I felt calm. Warm.”
He smiled. “I have the ability to calm aggression and nerves. I don’t use it often though. Some of us have special abilities.”
“Why did you use it on me?”
“Because you needed it before you would have done something that you would have regretted.”
“Thank you. I guess.” I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand before turning back toward him. I didn’t realize I was crying. “I don’t want this,” I whispered.
“None of us do.” Adrian admitted.
“How can I control a bloodthirsty beast if I can’t even control my own temper?” I asked.
“I can try to help you,” he said, softly.
“I won’t let you chain me in your basement.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Jade,” he said after a moment. “I meant you can come and stay with me until your first full moon when you will shift.”
I was quiet and let that thought hang in the air.
“I could try to teach you how to control it. Control the anger that raises the beast. Control the hunger that drives it, the fear that excites it…”
“Live with you until the change?” I asked in a voice higher than usual.
I felt heat creep up into my chest, up my neck, and spill onto my cheeks. Was he serious? We barely knew each other. How could we live together?
“It was only a suggestion. I was just trying to help. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about tonight.” Adrian spoke in a low voice.
“You were only doing your job.” I unfastened my seatbelt and reached for the door as he parked the car.
“I meant what I suggested.”
I bit my lower lip and nodded. “I’d be lying if I said I don’t have anymore questions about all this. Would I be out of line to ask you upstairs?”
He gave me a smile. “I’d be happy to answer your questions, Jade.”
***
My apartment is in a brick building in a private development in the middle of the woods. I like my privacy. There are ten tenants in the building. Most of them keep to themselves as much as I do.
“It’s very nice in here.” Adrian commented after walking in behind me. “Your apartment is very nice.”
“Thank you.” I offered while lighting some lamps as I walked by them. “You can have a seat.”
“Okay.” Adrian sat on the brown suede couch with his hands on his lap.
I took off my coat and hung it and my purse on a coat tree near the front door, then slipped off my shoes. I was going to ask for his jacket, but I wasn’t sure yet if he wanted to stay or not. He seemed to be debating and his nervous energy tainted the air.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked.
“About three years.”
He nodded and took a quick look around before his eyes came to a stop on the coffee table where pictures of the missing girls spilled out of the envelope and onto the tabletop.
Instinctively, I reached out to clean them up.
“Those are the girls?” He sat up straighter and eyed them closer.
“Yes.” I sighed.
He picked up a couple of photos, studying them closer before his voice hardened a bit with anger. “Damn, they are so young.”
“They are.” I agreed. “Which is why it’s so important to find them as soon as possible.”
“Still no closer to solving this thing, eh?” He questioned as he set down the pictures.
“Not really. Our only lead is dead and…”
He looked up at me. “And?” He prompted.
“My power seems useless in this case. I cannot see anything. I can’t get a feel for them using these pictures. But maybe tomorrow when I meet with their families, I might be able to connect with them using personal items. I’m hoping.”
“This is really important to you isn’t it? Finding these girls?”
“It is,” I answered.
“So how did they all happen to go missing? Are there any similarities? Consistencies?”
I shook my head. “Nothing like that. Their backgrounds, races, and physical features are all different. The only thing they have in common as far as I know is that they are all virgins.”
“And you confirmed this?”
“To the best of our knowledge, yes.”
“You think it might be a sex trafficking thing?” Adrian quizzed.
“No, it’s a vampire thing. We know vampires took them. Virginity is expensive as far as I know. Men are willing to pay quite a bit of money for young virgins, but I don’t know what vampires are willing to pay for them.”
“And you’ve looked into that…into the vampire sex trafficking possibility?”
“Faust has I’m sure.”
Adrian took a deep breath. “And the guy I shot the first night we met, you think he’s involved?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. He told me some nonsense about knowing my father and nothing about the girls.”
“You think he was lying?”
I didn’t know and because of Adrian, I didn’t get to find out.
“No, I don’t think he was lying. But I don’t know if he knew my father or knows my father.”
“How long has your father been missing?”
“Ten years. My mother was institutionalized a year later. She is at Reginald Mental Health Clinic.”
“Is she physically sick also?” he asked.
“No. She is catatonic.”
“So you were on your own when you were…?”
“Twelve,” I answered. “I was in and out of the system. Different homes, different families, some good, some not. People can be very vicious and cruel.” I didn’t want to elaborate on the abuse I had endured in these homes as a child. “Things got better when I met Stephan and Seth. They made it easier. More tolerable. Then I met Ellie and she took me in.”
“Detective Bates?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I heard about her. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Tell me about Seth.” He urged.
I smiled at the memory of meeting Seth. “I met him soon after Stephan and I became friends. I hit him in the sensitive area during a heated soccer game.” I laughed and Adrian laughed with me. I felt at ease with him. Calm. But I didn’t want to talk about Seth. It was too painful.
“What about you, officer.” I changed the subject before the memory of Seth overwhelmed me. “What’s your story?”
He took in a deep breath and relaxed into the couch. “I’ve lived here my whole life. I have an older brother Zachary. Our mom raised us alone after Dad took off.”
“That’s it?”
He smiled. “What more do you want?”
“Come on, there has to be more to you.”
He licked his lips and thought briefly. “I’m a Virgo.” He chuckled. “I love pizza and playing pool.”
“Very funny,” I said. “No girlfriend?”
His eyes hardened a little bit. I must have hit a sore subject. “I was engaged a while back.”
“But?”
“But…she fell in love with Zachary. They married two years ago and now have a baby on the way.”
I lowered my head. “Oh.”
He nodded. “Oh, is right.”
“Did she know about “you”?” I asked using my fingers as air quotes.
“Not at first. But then I told her and…”
“Do you think that pushed her away?” I questioned.
He shrugged but didn’t answer.
“Was it bad? The bite?” I quizzed.
“Bad enough, but I survived, and I didn’t think I would turn furry later that month, but I did.”
“Did it hurt?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Fear took a hold of me then as I thought about the impending full moon and my own first transition.
“Don’t be afraid, Jade,” he whispered. “If you let me, I will help you the best I can.”
I gave him a smile.
“How long have you been a…clairvoyant?” he asked.
“My whole life,” I answered. “But I didn’t know it. I’m actually a power absorber.”
“That’s a thing?” He quizzed.
I laughed. “Yes, that’s a thing.”
“So what does it mean exactly?”
“Well, I can absorb power from other people by touching them. They can surrender it to me, or I can take it by force if I really want it.”
“Have you ever wanted something that bad? When did you discover it?” He sighed. “Am I asking too many questions?”
I bit my bottom lip. “No. You’re not. I have yet to come across something I want bad enough to take it by force. I accidentally took the empath power from one of the foster parents I was staying with. She fell and hurt herself. I tried to help, but when I did, somehow my power flared to life and took whatever she had to offer.”
“Did it hurt?” he asked.
“Not really. I mean it didn’t hurt me. I don’t know about her. It scared her. I do know that. She got rid of me the next day. I figured something was up when I kept feeling sick every time I’d pass a hospital or would get angry or sad for no reason.”
“You were so young.”
I nodded.
“And…alone.” His voice was pleasant.
“Yes. Madam Stella helped me figure it all out. She has been mentoring me for a long time.”
“She’s good company.” He offered. “I met her right after I was bitten. She found me naked in the alley behind her place. She put a blanket on me and offered me a cup of coffee.”
“Ahh…the coffee…” I said.
He laughed. “Yes, the coffee. How does she do it anyway?”
“I’m not sure, but I know it has something to do with the way the coffee stains the cup after you drink it.” I yawned. Fatigue was setting in.
“I should go,” he said as he got up and stretched. “It’s getting late.”
“Thank you for the ride,” I said.
Adrian nodded as he turned and started for the door.
“Adrian, wait,” I said softly. So softly that I wasn’t sure he heard me. Slowly, he turned around. I sat on the edge of the couch with my hands on my lap.
“Stay.” I urged maybe too quietly.
He gave me quizzical eyes and stood very still.
I felt my cheeks burn bright. “I mean, if we are even going to entertain the idea of living together for a few weeks, shouldn’t we get better acquainted?”
“I suppose we should.” He agreed.