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“What the hell?” Stephanie muttered. What kind of voodoo did he have that people seemed to fall under its power? She didn’t feel a thing, and Meechi bounced with excitement at the scene. In the next instant, Stephanie pressed her nose to the glass and shook from head to toe.
“Meechi,” she whispered and swallowed several times to wet her throat. “What just happened? It’s not clear, but maybe my mind is making up crazy scenarios that are scaring the crap out of me.”
“Mommie,” her daughter said in awe, enough to forget she had taken up calling Stephanie Mom now. “That lion just turned into a man!”
Stephanie clutched Meechi’s hand and dragged her away from the window. She kept backing up until she hit the wall. She stuttered trying to put together words. What did they need to do? Pack, yes, pack and get out of there. She turned toward the stairs, but the front door opened. She froze, still holding onto Meechi. Pain ripped through her chest as the level of fear rose. The thought of the lion turned man attacking them rooted her to the spot.
“Stephanie.” Hawke’s voice this time held no comfort. He’d lied. He knew he’d lied when he brought them here.
“You said the people are different and that they would take care of us. You grew up here, and you knew. That’s what you were hiding.” She turned slowly to face him, her anger replacing the fear. “Are they all like that? Even Toron and Sienna? What are they, some kind of freaky experiments?”
“Go upstairs and calm down.”
She glared at him. “Excuse me? You don’t tell me what to do, Hawke.”
“I said go upstairs until I come and get you, Stephanie. Take Meechi with you.” She didn’t move. “Now!”
She jumped, pressed her lips together, and turned around. Trembling, she climbed the steps and kept hold of Meechi’s hand. When they were in her room, she locked the door and sat on her bed. Meechi went to the window.
“Move away from there,” Stephanie told her.
“Mom, it’s cool. Don’t you think it would be awesome to change into a lion?”
“Not really, no. We might not be safe here. I think I should start packing.” Tremors passing through Stephanie’s hands made it hard to fold her clothes and put them away in her suitcase, but she kept moving. Sitting still might send her over the edge and have her on the floor screaming her head off. She felt like the Twilight Zone had taken over her world, and try as she might, getting out of it wasn’t an option.
By the time her things were put away, her heart had slowed down and the shaking in her fingers subsided. She sat in the chair near the window but didn’t look out. Even thinking she saw something she didn’t want to see would set her off again. Meechi wandered from the curtains to the small stacks of books on the shelf and sorted through them.
“Those probably aren’t children’s books, Meechi,” Stephanie told her.
Meechi opened one and began to read, her hand tucked beneath her chin. Her daughter was a good girl. A bratty child would have complained about being locked away in the bedroom like they were, but Meechi dealt with it the way she did everything, with calm acceptance and her nose stuck between the pages she loved so much. Stephanie should make her tell what book she read, but she’d been aware for a while, Meechi had grown beyond reading material for her own age group. She sighed. A lot had passed out of her control over the last few years. This situation was one more thing, but what would she do? Going back to New York right now was out of the question. No other school anywhere in the country would probably keep the fact that they needed to hide out. Accessing Meechi’s bank account would be a dead giveaway.
Then again, did they have to hide at all? Michael snatched Meechi with some trumped up story of how he was just protecting her from other bad guys. That could all be a lie. She had never been attacked before or run into any trouble. In fact over the years, the only harassment had come from her husband’s family in the form of Melanie, and now Michael. The police arrested him, and she could get a restraining order on the man. They should be able to go back to their regular lives without issue.
Stephanie dug her cell phone out and turned it on. Hawke had advised her not to use it so she wouldn’t be tracked. She waited for it to power up and then noticed the number of voicemails and text messages from her neighbor, Patsy, the woman who sometimes watched Meechi when Stephanie went out.
Stephanie checked the first message. “Hey, Steph, honey, are you still out of town with your new boyfriend? I hope it’s going great. You deserve it. Just checking in. Call me.” She skipped to the next message. “Hey, Steph, I thought I heard a noise at your place. I’m calling the cops. I’ll keep you updated.” The next message set Stephanie’s teeth on edge, and the fear came back with a vengeance. “They trashed your place, Stephanie. Don’t come home. The police seem to think they were looking for clues to where you are. You should call the NYPD. Oh goodness, please be okay. Call me, honey. Let me know you’re all right.”
A knock sounded at the door, and she jumped.
“Stephanie, please, let me in.”
She stared at the door, her fingers wrapped around her phone, squeezing so tight they ached, but she couldn’t make herself relax. Meechi stood up, and Stephanie directed her gaze to her daughter but said nothing.
“Want me to get it, Mom?”
“Yes… No… I…” She put a hand to her head. A migraine pounded there, making it hard to think. The doorknob rattled, and she let out a small squeak when it turned and the door opened. Hawke stood there. He must have gotten a key from Toron.
He walked over to her and knelt down to take the cell phone from her hands. After powering it off, he set it aside. “Sienna, can you take Meechi downstairs for a little while?”
“Sure.”
Stephanie hadn’t realized the woman stood in the doorway.
“No!” She clenched her hands in her lap. “I want her where I can see her, and I don’t… Frankly, I don’t trust anybody.”
“I understand,” Sienna said, but Stephanie heard the hurt feelings in her tone.
Hawke touched her leg, and she jerked away. He didn’t try again. “Do you want to talk about this in front of her?”
