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As they bickered back and forth, I stared at my broken window. My house had gotten beaten up. I stepped toward the mess and out of Rowan’s arms.I supposed it’s just a good reminder that all things could be shattered.The question wascan they actually be fixed?
“Her name is Claudine,” Rowan said, interrupting my thoughts.
I barely knew her. She wasn’t part of my group when I’d been there. “Thanks. I think you guys are going to have to go home with Rowan and sleep elsewhere.”
Caesar crossed to me fast. “Why is that?”
“We have to get the window fixed. Someone has to come and do the work. I won’t risk your daytime exposure. Go home tonight. I’ll take care of it. Oh, and I’m going out Friday. I’m making friends that have nothing to do with any of this.”
Rowan was back but the good feelings from him feeding on me were nowhere to be found. They’d flown out my broken window.
Fifteen
Iimagine if any of them had a clue how to fix a window, they would’ve argued with me, but they didn’t. Caesar grumbled, but at the end of the night, they left me alone in my house. It was the first time I’ve been really alone since Caesar found me. I didn’t know what to do about Rowan. He hadn’t said a word since our re-introduction. He watched all of us, but I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, and I didn’t have it in me to force it out of him.
Not when he’d broken my house.
I slept for a few hours then got up for work. I yawned and recorded the numbers of several people who might be able to fix the window in my phone. I’d call them during lunch. I touched the wall on my way out. Caesar gave me the house to keep me safe, and Rowan had hurt it within minutes of showing up.
Was that just what I should expect to happen? That it would just constantly get beat down? I gritted my teeth. No, it wasn’t. I was going to keep this dang house safe if it was the last thing I did.
I knew I wasn’t being reasonable. I also didn’t care.
Finally, I found someone who would come while I was at work and fix the window. I sent him some money over an app and hoped he’d actually show up and not cheat me. I didn’t really have a choice unless I wanted to miss work, which I absolutely didn’t. It was my third day. I needed to work there longer before I started missing shifts if I didn’t want to get fired.
But leaving the house with the window broken made my stomach hurt, like an unfinished project, and I’d never let that happen in school. I sighed. There was nothing I could do. I hadn’t broken the window. The vampires did, and I needed to remember they were capable of breaking more than just windows. Yesterday, I met a man hiding in the mountains because vampires were so brutal. They still tormented him, even after his girlfriend was gone.
What would happen to me if these guys grew tired of me? Would they? Was it just the blood that kept them with me?
Why was I obsessing?
I’d finally decided it was Rowan’s fault when I got to work. Things were a mess in the store, so who had created the mess in my house mattered less than helping to get the shelves restocked. Everyone had a different story about why things were so askew, but I’d worked enough places to know that it really didn’t matter. We had to get things right or the whole day would go badly. With Stella’s help, we got it done fast. Everything was back where it belonged.
If Stan stood in the corner and stared at my breasts while I worked, I pretended not to notice. I had enough troubles for one day.
At least, I thought that was how it would go until my shift ended. Tired with an achy back, all I wanted was to go home and shower. A text showed a picture of my fixed window—which reaffirmed my belief in humanity, since I’d found a trustworthy person to do the job—and I looked forward to seeing it for myself.My poor house. We only owned it for such a short period, and already it had been damaged.
I had to stop obsessing about it. Or maybe I didn’t. Wasn’t it normal for regular folks to worry about their homes?
“Hold on a second, Maci,” Stan called, making me pause. Stella, who had been really quiet most of the day, stopped next to me, squeezing my shoulder before moving toward the door. We were supposed to go out the next night, and I hoped she still wanted to. There was always a risk where I was concerned that I’d just been really off putting and hadn’t known it. That might be because I spent so much time on my own as a kid.
I tried to smile at him, even though he spent most of his time staring at my breasts. I liked to behave well, even if the people around me didn’t. I couldn’t control their behavior, just my own. If I remained better than I was raised to be, it seemed like a pretty goodfuck youto my mother’s low opinion of me.
So low, in fact, she’d been willing to give me to a man she brought home one night.Or maybe that was the drugs. Maybe I wasn’t being fair enough to her.
“Maci, stop.” I turned at the sound of my name being called again. Stan charged toward me like a man on a mission. Had I done something wrong or was he just going to be obnoxious because he hadn’t gotten enough looks at my bra strap that day?
I was really in a foul mood, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. My equilibrium still lay smashed in my kitchen, my mood as shattered as the glass. I could lay all of my grumpiness at the feet of Rowan for now. At some point, I’d have to own my shit, but I wasn’t there yet.
And, Stan really wasn’t helping my already shitty mood.
“Yes?” I turned back to him.
“Who said you could leave?” I blinked.Is he serious?I looked down at my phone. It was seven o’clock at night. The sun was going down, and I didn’t have any shifts far after sunset—for obvious reasons. In fact, it was half-an-hour past when I was supposed to be done.
I tilted my head, doing my best impression of a vampire. They were intimidating when they did it. Maybe I could be, too.
It didn’t stop Stan. He glanced at my breasts before he looked back up at my face. “Who said you could leave?”
