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He had a brother? What in the world?
“Yeah, yeah. He’s a piece of work, isn’t he,” Derek said, and started walking around the room, looking at the nightstand, at the bed, out the window. “He calls me and tells me he needs me here asap. Wouldn’t even pay for a plane ticket,” he muttered. “I am afraid of heights, and I get a little crazy when I’m afraid, but still.” Then he looked at me and shrugged. “He paid for gas, though.”
“Oh. That’s…nice, I guess,” I blurted. Ugh. What the hell was I doing? “Where is Dominic?” I asked, even though I knew I shouldn’t have bothered.
“Fuck if I know,” Derek said and stopped in front of me again, ignoring the wraith’s body as if it wasn’t even there. “Gone off to do his job or something. All he said was to keep an eye on you because he thought this whole thing was a trap.” He spun his finger around the ceiling.
With a sigh, I rubbed my face and went to sit on the bed.
“Thanks, wolf-ass,” I said through gritted teeth. It wasn’t my style to curse, but he just knew how to push all my buttons. It was just so like him. Typical Dominic. He did things his own way, and he didn’t care about anyone else. Why would he even give me a heads up about any of this? Of course, he wouldn’t—I wasn’t skilled enough for him.
“Explain this to me because I have no clue what is going on, Derek,” I said, so angry I could burst.
“Hey, don’t take it out on me,” he mumbled, raising his hand in surrender.
It just spiked my anger more. I stood up, hands on my hips.
“Well, I don’t see anybody else around here willing to give me answers. That guy’s dead already.” I pointed at the wraith. “So, tell me exactly what Dominic said to you—please, for the love of God, just so I can begin to understand what’s happening!”
Could he see the desperation in my face? Maybe hear it in my high-pitched voice?
“Shit,” he said, running his blood-coated fingers through his cropped hair. It was cut so short, it was barely a shadow over his skull. His face was a bit rounder, his nose smaller than Dominic’s. The only thing they had in common were the green eyes, though Dominic’s had gold in them, too. He was shorter by at least a few inches but just as well built. And that bat in his hand…I’d seen that bat. Dominic had used the same thing to break Mathews’s leg back home.
“Look, I don’t know much, okay? All he said was that I needed to keep you safe while he went off somewhere because he thought this was a trap,” he finally said.
“What kind of a trap?”
He shrugged. “No idea. He doesn’t talk much.”
I laughed. “No kidding!”
“It’s not his fault, okay?” Derek said, suddenly angry. I stopped laughing immediately, more out of surprise than anything else. “He didn’t used to be this way. I remember him as a boy. It’s just them.” He whispered the last word and leaned a bit closer, eyes wide open, as if he was letting me in on a secret. “When they came, BAM!” He clapped his hand to the handle of his bat so hard, I jumped back again, terrified. “Caught me right here.” He turned his head and showed me a scar right behind his left ear, about two inches long. I could only see it because his hair didn’t grow there anymore. “But it was worse for him. Not his fault.”
He shook his head, spinning the bat in his hands, closing his eyes, muttering under his breath.
That’s when it occurred to me that Derek was not well at all.
“Who came?” I asked, the curiosity getting the best of me, even though I knew I should keep my mouth shut.
Derek raised his head and looked at me, his face completely expressionless. Like that, he looked a lot more like Dominic.
“Stay here. I’ll be outside,” he said, but even before he’d finished speaking, something moved behind him, something dark and shapeless. My heart almost came out of my throat as I thrust myself forward.
“Get down!” I called, no real plan in my mind other than to do something. Derek moved down instantly, and I jumped in the air just as the new wraith materialized in front of the broken door. I couldn’t see his face, his body, only his shadows, and his gleaming black eyes among them.
I went right through the large hole in the door and slammed onto him with my eyes squeezed shut.
I hit the floor hard, slammed my forehead onto the wraith’s chin, then rolled to the side a couple of times before my body hit the wall. I reached out for it, trying to find something to hold onto, to help me get back to my feet. There was nothing there, just the smooth surface of the wall.
A whistle reached my ears.
“Damn, Teddy!”
My eyes were open, but it took a while to actually be able to see in front of me. When I finally could, I wished with all my heart that I didn’t.
Derek was leaning over the body of a woman on the floor—with a pen sticking out of her eye.
The pen that I’d made for Dominic to write formulas and numbers on that handkerchief. The pen I found in the living room, the one that had been in my hand until a second ago.
