Page 3 of Half-Blood


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It hadn’t always been like this. I hadn’t always dreaded every workday. Once upon a time I lived in New York City and loved what I did for a living, looking forward to going to work every day. Once my life had been exciting and full of promise, and I had actually enjoyed my coworkers. Back then, I had a future I was really looking forward to. I was going places—everyone said so—and then my life blew up.

I ran from New York City after everything that happened there and came back home to find a job in Atlanta. Not right away, of course. I limped along for another month after the incident that had almost destroyed me, so depressed and humiliated I could barely drag my ass out of bed each morning. I pretended not to notice the sidelong glances or hear the whispers of my New York coworkers. I tried not to care that I was no longer being greeted in the hallways by my bosses. I attempted to be nice when another guy got the promotion that should have been mine. But in the end, I finally admitted to myself that the handwriting on the wall was spelling out my name. My New York City dream was over.

After I returned to Atlanta, I got a job pretty quickly. Actually, I was surprised to be headhunted aggressively by Suzanne Tate, a nice, middle-aged lady, who was now my supervisor at Everest Enterprises. It wasn’t as prestigious or even the same kind of advertising, of course—those top companies were mostly back in New York or Chicago. The position was in sales promotions, which wasn’t the same thing at all, but the best I could find on short notice.

It wasn’t nearly as much money either, but it was a good offer, the best I’d had so far, and since I needed a job right away, I took it. I would have come home sooner if I hadn’t been so involved with Dylan Malone and hadn’t been practically ignoring the fucking disaster that had been happening at home right alongside my own calamity in New York.

My head was aching, probably from the restless night I’d had the night before, full of bad dreams. Nightmares, really, about someone outside my window, tapping on the glass.

In the dream, I rose from my bed and went out to him where he stood in the shadows under the trees. It was Dylan, looking like he did the first time I ever saw him at that party in New York City. So sinfully handsome, his eyes glowing at me and a warm, gentle smile on his lips. He murmured my name and pulled me to him, taking my hand to lead me farther into the shadows under the trees. The next thing I knew, in that crazy way that nightmares change so suddenly, we were lying naked in bed back in my old apartment in New York City, and the sheer, white curtains at the windows were fluttering in the summer breeze coming in the window.

How did we get there? Had the last few months only been a dream? Or was this the dream? I couldn’t remember what had happened and why I was here like this with Dylan, but I didn’t want this bliss to end. Not ever. Dylan cupped my face in his hand and brushed his lips over mine. His lips trailed down to my throat and I felt his teeth sink into my flesh, but it didn’t hurt. I felt the pleasure surge through me and moaned his name, pulling him closer, like I was trying to climb inside him, trying to merge my body with his so we could be one flesh.

“I’ve missed you, Dylan,” I moaned. “I’ve been so lost without you.”

“Shh,” he whispered, his cool lips a balm against my hot skin. “I’m here now, my love, and soon we’ll be together forever. Be patient only a little while longer.”

He bit down on my neck again, and everything became a blur of passion and pain. His kiss was lighting me up, branding me with his desire. I felt as if I were on fire, and I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I was naked in his arms at last, and he pushed me back against the pillows, cradling my face in one hand as he stroked me with the other. I felt the orgasm building inside me until I thought I’d explode.

“Make love to me,” I begged him, desperate for him, and he smiled as he slid over me, his knee parting my thighs.

He surged and thrust inside me over and over and rocked his body into mine, taking all of me, taking everything I was or ever would be. I could feel the orgasm building, the white-hot pleasure overwhelming me, crushing me, crashing into my body until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. My orgasm swept over me, and he moaned with satisfaction as he pulled out of me to bend over and suck down every drop of my come. His mouth was so hot, it burned my skin, and I screamed and thrashed my head to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop. He’d never stop.

I awoke from the dream drenched in sweat, my thighs still sticky. Had I come in my sleep? I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager. I wanted to get up and clean myself, but I was too weak, too tired. I moaned and rolled over on my stomach, falling back into my dreams, where Dylan made love to me over and over again the whole night through.

In the morning, he was gone, of course, and I realized it had only been a dream. What else could it have been? But still, I went outside to look for him before I left for work. I remembered I had been awakened around midnight by the dog next door who had been barking his head off at something in my yard, near the old shed. His barking had been so frantic and so over the top, that I had started to go outside to check the yard, but before I could, I was suddenly seized by a nameless terror. Something told me there was danger out there, and I’d shrunk back away from the window and quickly closed the curtains.

The next morning, everything looked intact inside the shed, not that I would have noticed much in all the chaos. The things my dad used to take care of the yard with were about all we ever kept in there, and he’d never taken great care of his tools. I’d inherited his disinterest and decided lack of handyman skills. There had been a faint, odd smell like something dead, and I’d wondered if a mouse had gotten in and died inside the walls.

Standing there in the yard for a moment before I left for work, I had superstitiously gazed into the shadows under the thick stand of trees at the back of the yard. They’d reminded me of my dreams from the night before that had seemed so real. I’d felt as if I’d really been with Dylan out here, in my dreams at least, and then, in the way of dreams, somehow transported back to my old apartment in New York City.

I hadn’t slept well for the last few months, and it wasn’t the first time I’d awakened to find myself disoriented and confused, feeling like something had happened to me in a dream—something I needed to remember, but it escaped me when I tried too hard to concentrate.

I’d even awakened a week or so ago to find myself outside in the backyard, barefoot anddressed only in pajama pants. Shivering with the early morning chill, I’d taken off back into the house, but I’d been alarmed. I had never sleepwalked before. If it continued, I’d need to see a doctor about it. Even though racking up even more bills was the last thing in the world I needed.

I wished things would go back to the way they used to be, back when my dad was still alive, and I was living my dream in New York City. Back before everything changed. Before catastrophe struck.

Before Dylan.

Chapter Three

By five o’clock that afternoon at work, I was exhausted, but I had to work late to finish the Golden project. My sleep had been disturbed the night before by those nightmares about Dylan and those vague, but alarming noises in the backyard, so I felt drained and tired. I felt that way a lot lately. Thinking maybe coffee would help my headache and keep me awake, I got up from my desk and trudged down to the break room to brew a fresh pot.

As I stood there waiting for it to be ready, I realized I should call Mrs. Anderson and explain that I’d be late coming home to see if she minded staying over. I’d meant to do it earlier, and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten. My brain was like a sieve lately. No wonder I was always in trouble at work.

May Anderson, whose real name was Mei-xing, had always been a good friend to our family. She’d raised her daughter all by herself in the small, aging house next to ours, after her former husband who had done something in the Diplomatic Service in China and had up and left her high and dry in a foreign country, where she barely spoke the language. She was tough and resilient, and I employed her as a part-time sitter for my brother. Like ours, her house was one of the few in our neighborhood that hadn’t been updated and remodeled, but she kept it scrupulously clean, and her lawn was always immaculate.

She was one of the few sitters Tyler liked, because she was good to him, and because she gave him free rein over the TV. He had his entire day mapped out by the shows he had to watch, likeWheel of Fortune,Jeopardyand his absolute favorite game show,FamilyFeud,with Steve Harvey. If he didn’t get to see them, we all suffered in one way or the other.

I sighed and shook myself for daydreaming there by the coffee pot, when I should have gone back to work. I quickly texted May that I’d be late, and then I poured myself a cup of coffee and started back to my desk. The empty halls were spooky and to top it off, today happened to be October thirty-first, or Halloween, an observance of the time in the liturgical calendar dedicated to remembering the dead and celebrating the supernatural.

Oddly appropriate, considering the fact that I’d be dead in the water if I didn’t pull this pet food project off before midnight. Atkins hated me and was not going to let an opportunity to get rid of me pass him by.

Uncomfortable, I pulled at the collar of the costume I was wearing and wished again I’d taken my co-workers’ advice and gone earlier to the costume store. Suzanne, my immediate supervisor, had thought it would be “great fun” for all of us in the office to dress up, and I had finally capitulated and dressed like Jason from the Halloween movies. Unimaginative, but I had little choice. Because I’d waited too late to get a costume, it was literally the only one left in the store.

The costume consisted of cheap, ill-fitting black clothing along with a disreputable camo jacket, a plastic machete and a white mask. I couldn’t very well wear the mask in the office all day, so I had stuck it inside a drawer in my desk alongside the plastic machete that morning.

The upshot was that no one could even guess who I was. I just looked like a badly dressed homeless person, maybe looking to pick up some odd jobs in lawn care with my machete.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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