SEVEN
Frustrated, out of sorts, and a little anxious for no good reason, I couldn’t fall asleep until around two in the morning. Even then, I slept restlessly, kind of tossing and turning, and having frequent dreams. Some of them were more like borderline nightmares, like when I dreamed that someone was violently trying to pull me away from Hayden, but I couldn’t see who the person was. Then the dream kind of shifted or changed or something, and I saw that the person trying to pull me away from Hayden was a person who looked exactly like me. I had versions of this borderline nightmare for hours.
However, a dream I had sometime before waking in the morning was much more pleasant. In it, Hayden was right beside me in bed, holding me in his strong arms, and kissing me with increasing intensity. This dream went on for a while, but presently, I became aware in the dream that Hayden didn’t quite smell like himself. Instead of smelling of his usual woodsy, masculine, faintly citrusy scent that had the ability to nearly drive me insane in a good way, he inexplicably smelled more like wet dog or something. However, as if nothing was amiss, he continued kissing me in the dream, caressing the side of my face with his hand, which felt unusually soft and silky.
As pleasant as this sensation was, eventually I felt forced to break our kiss, asking Hayden why he smelled so funny. Stunning, mystifying, and vaguely horrifying me, he opened his mouth to answer, but instead of words, a bark soon came out.
“Hayden, what on earth….” I paused in my sleepy mumbling just in time for him to issue another bark. “Hayden, why are you barking?”
It was at this point that I flicked my eyes open and saw not Hayden in bed with me, but Wanted. Wagging his voluminous golden tail, he was standing beside me on the bed, “kissing” my face with his rough pink tongue. He had been “kissing” me in my dream. Not Hayden. And it had been one of his soft, silky ears caressing my face, not one of Hayden’s hands. I realized that apparently, I had to have left the bedroom door cracked before going to bed the night before.
Although I felt like a complete and utter moron, I couldn’t help but smile, reaching a hand up to give Wanted a scratch behind the ears. It was then that I felt that his fur was damp, and not a moment later, I heard Jen shouting to Wanted from somewhere out in the hallway.
“Wanted! Where are you? It’s time to get back in your bath!”
I called out to her that Wanted was in my room, and soon she came jogging in, heaving a sigh of relief when she saw Wanted on my bed.
“Oh, good. I was starting to think he might have jumped out my bedroom window just to get out of finishing his bath. See, I left my bedroom window open earlier this morning because I was trying to catch this one really cool bird that kept pecking on my screen. I just wanted to, like, bring it in my room and see if it wanted to be my friend or something. But then, I couldn’t catch it, so I decided to go downstairs and make breakfast.
So, I put some bacon in a pan and let Wanted out, but then when he came in, he just smelled like he rolled around in some garbage or something, so I decided to take him upstairs to take a bath. But then, before I could shampoo him, I started to smell my bacon burning, so I went back downstairs to take it off the heat and bring a whole plate of it upstairs for me and Wanted to eat in the tub for a special treat. But then when I got back in the bathroom with the plate, he was gone. So, I’ve been searching for him ever since.”
Wearing a bathing suit for some reason, Jen had sat down on my bed.
Sitting up against the headboard, I just surveyed her for a moment, trying my hardest not to laugh. “Well, it sounds like you’ve had quite a morning so far.”
She snorted. “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it. Did I even tell you how I accidentally locked myself in my walk-in closet while I was looking for my bathing suit? I started to get afraid that I was gonna run out of oxygen in there, so I ended up having to kick the door open, and it knocked into part of my dresser, which made the porcelain clown figurine that my dad got me for my eighteenth birthday fall on the floor, which cracked one of its little balloons off. And then when I was trying to superglue it back on, I accidentally glued my hand to the whole figurine.
Then I started to get scared that I was going to have this clown figurine glued onto my hand for the rest of my life, so I just freaked out, and I ran over to the window that I’d opened trying to catch the bird, and I just started banging my hand and the figurine on the side of the house out the window, and eventually, the whole figurine just broke off my hand and fell out the window onto the ground in a million different little pieces.”
I couldn’t suppress my laughter any longer and finally let loose with a little burst of it.
Jen, however, remained serious-faced. “Honestly, Syd, none of this was very funny. Honestly, I feel like I’ve even been through a little bit of hell this morning. Did I mention that I accidentally busted the light bulb in my closet a few years ago playing racquetball in there, so when I got locked in today, it was completely pitch-dark?
To be completely honest, between that and the fact that the oxygen was getting so thin, I got so scared that I started peeing my pants a little, because the bird pecking at my window distracted me from going to the bathroom when I first woke up this morning. To be really, really honest, I probably even peed half my bladder out in my pajamas while I was kicking open the closet door. Not that it t even mattered in the long run anyway, because after getting myself out of the closet, I realized that my bathing suit was in my underwear drawer, and I soon changed right into it. No pee-pee pants diaper rash for me, like Chrissy sometimes gets. I don’t even play that game.”
Once again, I was unable to suppress a burst of laughter, although this time, I let loose with it while burying my face in Wanted’s side, trying to hide my amusement from Jen. She was still a bit suspicious, though, asking me if I thought that her peeing her pants was “funny” or “super unfortunate, like you should think.”
Able to regain my composure after a few moments, I lifted my face from Wanted’s side, doing my absolute best to maintain a neutral expression. “I think you peeing your pants was super unfortunate. But I’m glad that you were able to change right out of them, and into your bathing suit.”
Looking satisfied, Jen said she was glad, too. “See, it’s necessary for me to change into my bathing suit whenever I give Wanted a bath, because…well, it’s kind of like when I eat baby food with Chrissy. You know how she usually eats more when I eat baby food with her? Well, it’s the same kind of thing with me, Wanted, and baths. Whenever I get right into the tub with him, he stays calmer and lets himself get bathed better, because I’m doing it, too.”
Petting Wanted’s damp fur, I said I understood. “About getting locked in your closet, though, Jen, with no light…well, how did that happen? Why did you lock and shut the door on accident, especially if you knew there was no light?”
I was truly curious.
Jen said it was simple. “See, I wanted to shut the door against Wanted, because whenever he comes in my closet, he always knocks all my shoes off my shoe racks with his tail, which makes a big huge mess that I have to clean up, because he’s not able to do it with his paws. So, when I went in this morning, I shut the door against him, with him on the other side. Then, I tried to turn the closet light on. But then I was like, ‘Oh, damn. There is no light.’
And then I tried to open the doorknob to get daylight into the closet again, but it wouldn’t open, and then I was like, ‘Oh, damn, again. Did I lock this door when I was trying to shove Mel into my closet and lock her in when she came in my bedroom and was annoying me last week?’ Apparently, I did.”
Trying to avoid looking directly at Jen’s endearingly earnest expression, I worked hard to keep all traces of amusement out of my voice and off my face. “Well, that could have happened to anyone.”
“Especially someone who has a sister like Mel. Did you know that she even intentionally pinched me at the party last night? See, this one lady from the campground was telling me some funny story about something that happened to her fifth husband, and when she was done, I said that it was funny, but then I said, ‘Well, I don’t mean to be rude, but how come you’ve gotten married so many times?’ I just genuinely wanted to know.
But then before the lady could even answer me, Mel pinched my arm so hard that a little squeak came out of my mouth. The lady who told me the story was like, ‘Did you say something, dear?’ And I was just like, ‘No, I just squeaked.’ And then the lady went on to tell me a different story, meaning that she probably hadn’t heard my question about why she got married so many times anyway. Meaning that Mel pinched my arm and inflicted a pretty serious injury on me all for nothing. See it there on my arm? See that big purple bruise?”
I looked at where Jen was pointing on her arm and saw a very light bruise about the size of a pencil eraser. “Well, it is a bruise.”
She nodded. “It sure is. Now, don’t you think my dad should ban her from the house for this? Don’t you think he should make her go live on the streets?”
The thought of Mel being made to live on the streets just for pinching her sister seemed pretty extreme to me, but I thought it was probably best if I not say this to Jen. So, instead, I simply mumbled, “Hmm…I’m not sure” while petting Wanted, and then immediately changed the subject.
“So, what happened to the plate of bacon that you brought upstairs for you and Wanted to eat in the tub?”
Jen had reclined on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, and she now sat bolt upright, gasping. “Our bacon! It’s probably rock-cold by now! Well, it’ll still be good, anyway. It’ll still be a treat. See, everyone always has breakfast in bed for a treat, but I was thinking, like, that’s honestly pretty basic, isn’t it? A new treat for our generation should be eating breakfast in the shower or bathtub.
That’s like, something that only royalty would do, or maybe only the most very famous rappers. ‘Until now,’ everyone’s gonna say, though, when I post a picture of me and Wanted eating bacon in the bathtub. ‘No one’s ever eaten breakfast in the bathtub until now.’ I’m probably actually gonna blow up the whole internet with my pictures from the party last night, and then with a bathtub breakfast selfie of me and Wanted. I’ll probably label that one hashtag afterparty, hashtag never went to sleep, hashtag tub life. I’m gonna have to think about those hashtags, though. I can probably come up with some even better ones.”
Jen soon removed herself and Wanted from my bed and left my room to go finish their bath-and-breakfast. After a quick trip to my own bathroom, I went to check on Chrissy in her nursery and found her sleeping like a rock with a faint hint of a smile on her cherubic face. After beginning to tiptoe out of the nursery, I backtracked a few paces for a second look, wondering if her faint little smile resembled an expression that Jen sometimes got. After studying it for a few moments, I was pretty sure that it did, and a momentary image of my baby girl, all grown up in the future, banging her hand and a glued-on clown figurine out a window, flashed through my mind.
No, I thought, giving my head a little shake. Chrissy may resemble her Aunt Jen in looks, but she probably won’t grow up to be exactly like her in personality.
I hoped, anyway. I loved Jen and her personality dearly; however, I figured that being her best friend was one thing, but parenting a child just like her would probably be another thing entirely. And I just wasn’t sure that I was up to the task. After all, at present, I still couldn’t manage to get things right when it came to my marriage.
Around nine, I finished showering and dressing, and then went downstairs to make some breakfast. Hoping I might be able to enjoy a full meal before Chrissy woke up, I’d just had a seat up to the island with a plate of eggs, toast, and melon when Hayden came home. Upon first seeing his face, I immediately thought about my dream when we’d been kissing, and I wanted to make that a reality.
However, Hayden didn’t look like he had kissing on his mind at present. With a slight crease between his eyes, he was clearly tired and tense. After a brief hug and the kind of kiss that could be described as a “peck” I invited him to sit at the island with me while I ate, hoping that he wasn’t going to tell me some sort of bad news about the Warrens.
I was also hoping that we weren’t going to fight. Now that we were on speaking terms again, I just didn’t think I could go back to being chilly with him again, no matter what. Even if things still weren’t completely “right” between us, because we hadn’t even discussed our previous argument, spending time with him at the party the night before had given me a sense that things between us were going to be okay, at least eventually, which gave me a sense of hope that I hadn’t been sure that I’d ever feel again.
While I began eating, Hayden and I at first made a bit of small-talk. He asked me how Chrissy had slept, and if I’d been able to get any sleep myself. I reported that Chrissy had slept just fine, and that I was pretty sure she was over her waking-up-just-to-play stage, fortunately. As for Hayden’s second question, I didn’t want to tell him that my sleep had been plagued by dreams about him, so instead, I just said that I’d slept “okay.”
“And what about you? You don’t look like you were able to take your ‘vampire nap’ last night. Were you at least able to sleep for a few minutes?”
Faint blue circles beneath Hayden’s eyes made me think that he hadn’t. In fact, I couldn’t remember him ever looking so tired.
He said he “hadn’t had a wink,” adding that he was “fine, though.”
“I’ll try to take a nap later today, maybe.”
Still looking tense, he dropped his gaze to the island, and I got the feeling that there was something he was avoiding telling me, and I guessed that that something probably had to do with the Warrens. Maybe, I figured, the little “security breach” of the night before had been a little more serious than Hayden had let on. And maybe he figured that this would once again make me angry and start a fight, with me insisting on taking Chrissy from the farm.
Anticipating this, but feeling like maybe we could just talk about things this time without arguing, I set my fork down after a little while and reached for Hayden’s hand across the island. “Please talk to me. I promise we can just talk, and that I won’t let my emotions get the better of me.”
Having said what I had without doing much thinking, I now swallowed, hoping that the promise I’d just made was one I could keep.
*
Giving my hand a little squeeze, Hayden said I was right, that we should talk. However, worrying me and making me think that I was right about the Warren situation being worse, his tense expression really didn’t change much while he said this.
Surprising me in a good way, he picked up my hand and pressed a gentle kiss against the back of it before speaking again, which he did in a voice that held tiredness and strain. “First, I want to tell you that I’m sorry for leaving the party so abruptly last night. I felt terrible that I had to leave you, especially since we were finally reconnecting after however many days of not speaking, but of course, it really couldn’t be helped.”
I said that I completely understood. “And you shouldn’t have felt bad in any way. You had to go deal with the situation with the Warrens so that you could keep everyone safe. That’s your job, after all.”
Hayden agreed that it was. “For better or worse.”
He looked like it was for “worse” at present time.
“I want to apologize to you for something else, too, Syd. I’m sorry that we went so long without speaking. It’s no excuse, but you were mad; I was mad; and every time I thought about calling you or coming home to talk with you, it was like my pride just wouldn’t let me. I just didn’t want to be sorry about our argument. I just didn’t want to admit that I said some things that I shouldn’t have…things that certainly didn’t help the situation in any way at all.
Then when I saw you from across the barn at the party…I realized what an idiot I’d been. I want our marriage to remain strong, and complete silence and avoidance of issues is no way to do that.” Looking into my eyes across the island, Hayden paused, sighing. “I’m sorry, Syd. I really am. And I’ll never shut you out how I did again. I promise.”
Unexpectedly touched and relieved, I swallowed a little lump in my throat before responding. “Thank you…and I’m sorry, too. You’re not the only one who let their pride get in the way of making up after our argument. I did the same thing. I’m going to take a note from you, though, and make the same promise…I’ll never go so long without speaking to you ever again. No matter what’s going on, or no matter what kind of an argument we have. I promise to keep communicating…even through all this Warren stuff.”
Brightening his tired eyes, Hayden cocked an eyebrow at me with his full lips faintly twitching. “Do you promise to keep that promise?”
Fighting a smile, I said yes. “I promise to keep that promise. Even if we argue again about the Warren situation…even if we argue daily about it…I’ll never shut you out again. We’ll keep talking.”
Hayden said that sounded good to him, then pressed a tender kiss to the back of my hand again, an action that made a little current of something that felt like electricity race from my hand all the way to my toes.
Once he’d lowered our clasped hands again, I asked him how everything had gone the night before. “Is everyone all right? And were the Warren spies all dealt with?”
“Yes, and yes. We were able to track down and kill one of them, and the rest fled in the process.”
Looking deeply into my eyes, Hayden paused, giving his throat a little clear, and I knew we were heading into territory I’d rather we didn’t head into.
“The Warrens are getting a lot stronger, and their coven is getting a lot bigger, because they’re now taking in new non-Warren family members from all over the country. Most of them are vampires who’ve been kicked out of their own covens for deviant behavior, including harming humans. As their group grows, the Warrens’ spying missions on us are also becoming more frequent. They’d already sent another group out early this morning, even before we’d finished taking care of the body of the Warren spy we killed. They’re becoming openly cocky now, thinking that their eventual defeat of us Watchers is pretty much already in the bag.”
With my mouth having become a little dry for some reason, I asked Hayden how many Warrens there were now, and he sighed.
“Our spies have reported that there are about two hundred…maybe even a bit more than that. They’ve recently moved to a larger farm just west of Sweetwater, where their ‘vampire cover’ is that they’re anarcho-communists who are going to share the profits from growing soybeans and corn. Some of the radical activist-type college-aged kids in Sweetwater have even tried to join their group, but of course, they were rejected.
Rejected and nearly drained dry, I should say. The Warrens’ new leader, Axel, apparently allowed some of his people to feed on the kids before clearing their memories and letting them go. They’d been so weakened, though, that one of them apparently passed out and drove their car into a ditch. All the kids were later treated at the hospital for ‘extreme blood loss,’ even though the doctors couldn’t figure out how on earth they’d all lost so much blood without sustaining any cuts or any other injuries when the car went off the road. Eventually, it seems that they chalked it up to some fad diet the kids had been on, thinking that malnutrition could have drastically reduced their total blood volume somehow.”
“And do you think people in Sweetwater are really buying that?”
Hayden said no. “Especially since one of the nurses from the hospital said something to one of her friends about the kids all having mysterious, very tiny puncture wounds in their throats. The nurse’s friend told another friend, who told another, and so on and so forth, to where there’s a rumor in Sweetwater now about there being some sort of an attacker in town who’s trying to collect DNA samples by way of somehow causing car accidents and then drawing blood from people with a needle while they’re knocked out. That sounds completely absurd to people, of course, but you know how people can really get into crazy conspiracy theories in a small town.”
“I know…but it’s good that people came up with a completely wacky theory that has nothing to do with vampires, right?”
Hayden agreed. “But a few more attacks on humans, and people may well start saying vampires…and obviously, that’s a problem. Not to mention that anytime humans are attacked by vampires, it’s a problem for us Watchers anyway. This is why we have to constantly keep the Warrens in check. The only problem with that lately is that because of their growing numbers, I think they’re starting to think that they’ve grown too powerful for us to keep them in check, and they can do whatever they want now.”
“Including attacking Watcher farms, and killing young women and babies that they think might eventually become a threat to them.”
After hesitating for a moment or two, frowning with his jaw clenched, Hayden said yes. “But I want you to trust me when I say that I’ll never let them hurt you or Chrissy, Sydney. I just want you to trust me. Can you do that?”
Avoiding answering his question, I said that it just still seemed like a good idea for me and Chrissy to leave the farm. “Couldn’t we just take a month-long vacation to Alaska or somewhere until you have the Warrens all dealt with or something? We could just go somewhere where there are no Warren groups at all.”
“Right, but then some of the Warrens find you and Chrissy, and then what happens? Then what happens, when I’m thousands of miles away from you?”
Seeing his point but not wanting to admit it right then for some reason, I said nothing.
Hayden had clenched his strong jaw again, and now he unclenched it just long enough to speak. “I need you to promise me, Sydney, that no matter what happens, you won’t try to run with Chrissy, and you’ll stay here on the farm where I can keep the two of you safe. There’s no other way that I keep you both from being harmed…and there’s no other way that our marriage is going to survive all this business with the Warrens. I just need you to promise me that you’ll stay right here, no matter what.”
“So, we’re back to this again, are we?”
Pulling a hand from mine, Hayden raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “My thoughts exactly.”
“Now we’re back to you telling me that I basically have to make peace with you telling me what to do.”
Hayden snorted. “Can you just at least tell me this? Why are you so reluctant to just trust me? I’m your husband, Sydney. Why can’t you just trust me to keep you safe?”
“Because it makes me feel powerless.”
I’d blurted out what I’d said without even thinking about it, but I now realized that the words I’d spoken had been the truth. I couldn’t simply trust Hayden not because I didn’t trust him, but just because the act itself made me feel powerless. It made me feel like I had no control over my own life. Having revelations one right after the other, I realized that my issue during my first argument with Hayden hadn’t truly been that I felt controlled by him, but instead, that I felt like I had no control over my own life myself.
Hayden didn’t respond right away to what I’d said, and to my horror, I suddenly felt tears began prickling behind my eyelids. All I could think was that Hayden probably thought that what I’d said was silly or trivial. Embarrassed, I wrenched my hand free from his to wipe my eyes, even though I could have done this with my hand that was already free.
“I’m not going to shut you out again, because I promised I wouldn’t, but I think I just want you to leave me be right now. Just please go to some other part of the house, or—”
“Sydney, please just—”
“See, Hayden, you may be the leader of this community, and you may get to tell everyone what to do, but I’m not just ‘everyone.’ I’m your wife, and I think that if I ask you for privacy to cry alone, you should respect my request and just do what I’m asking you to do. So, please just leave.”
I needed him to, because my prickly eyes were getting worse, and I was determined not to let him see me cry over something so stupid, just because I’d blurted out some words that had embarrassed me.
After a long moment just looking at me, Hayden rose from his barstool. “Fine. I’ll go, if you really want me to.”
“I do.”
“All right, then. I have to go visit the other homes on the property and check in with some of my fighters anyway before everyone gets some rest. Everyone’s tired, but we still have some security plans to make and some things to deal with. But before I go, as for what we talked about earlier…about me needing you to promise me that you won’t try to leave the farm with Chrissy….”
I’d been staring down at the granite countertop of the island, but I suddenly lifted my gaze. “I get it. I promise to not leave the farm with Chrissy, Hayden. I give you my word, lest to lock me up in some cage or something to keep me from leaving.”
With clear hurt present in his eyes, Hayden frowned at me. “You really think I’d do that?”
I found I couldn’t look at him and dropped my gaze to the island again. I found I couldn’t respond to what he’d said, either.
“Please just go, Hayden. Please just leave me be.”
“All right.”
After a last long look at me, he moved across the kitchen, heading toward the front door but then paused at the threshold of the foyer, as if he had one last thing to say. However, if he did, before he could say it, I suddenly stood, realizing I had one last thing to say as well.