Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

7. How Very Terrible You Are.

—?—

It takes twenty minutes at the kitchen table for Jessica to come around about the fact that Kyle is, indeed, not dead.

Kyle keeps the details of his story vague, with only a little commitment to the truth—that he thought his family would be better off without him, that he fled to live with Tristan in an off-the-grid cabin in the wilderness and cut himself off from everything. It wouldn’t be until years later that he picked up a paper and discovered the fate of his family, after which a time of mourning passed. Soon after, his and Tristan’s relationship crumbled, and they are no more. Elias is his man now.

“Well, he seems like a … a really great guy,” says Jessica in a daze, trying her best to keep up. She hasn’t taken a single sip of the glass of water Kyle got for her. “I do pray he treats you better than Tristan ever did. Tristan … we all knew there was something dark about him, dark and disturbed and …” She sighs, quickly draws a cross over her chest. “I won’t go into it … but do you think he started it? The fire? I wouldn’t put it past him, how he … took you over.”

“I think I’ll never know who or what started the fire that took my family,” answers Kyle. “There are many possibilities.”

“Only God knows now.” She draws another cross, grips her glass of water, doesn’t drink. She peers at Elias, smiles. “At least you’re not alone. The Lord blessed you with a man.” Kyle and Elias share a look. “It was a dark time for all of us back home. No one knew what to think. Brock was beside himself, totally burdened with guilt. He was certain, fully certain, that Tristan had something to do with it. He felt like he should have done more to warn you, he went on for days and days …” She sighs down at her glass, even her sighs sounding melodic. Then she tilts her head. “Funny thing though, about the bodies.”

Kyle stirs. “Bodies?”

“Well, because they found four of them.” She gestures at Kyle. “If you’re here and alive and still have the Lord’s breath in you, then how’d they find four? Who was the fourth body?”

Kyle shifts in his seat, offers a shrug. “I suppose that might have been the … person who actually started the fire,” he fibs. “Maybe it was an electrician. Or my brother’s violin tutor.”

“Then wouldn’t that have made the news, too? Hmm, that doesn’t seem right …” Her fingers fidget along the rim of the glass as she smacks her lips in thought. “It was just so odd, all of it, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. You know what else I found strange? They could only properly identify your parents. They look at the teeth, you know,” she says as she lifts the glass to take a drink, then doesn’t, simply holding it. “The bodies of your brother and—well, whoever in the world was mistaken for you—I heard both bodies were destroyed beyond recognition from the fire, unable to be officially identified. That’s the word my daddy used, he worked at the station—‘ officially ’.”

That strikes Kyle as odd. “Really?”

“I’m sorry!” Jessica sets the glass down and presses fingers to her lips. “I’m going on and on, talking about this like it’s the weather … This is your family! I’m so sorry for my insensitivity. I get it from my daddy. He’s a total interrogator-type, all of my life, questioning me about every little thing. He and my poor Brock, they … they never saw eye to eye … Lord help me.” She grimaces and tilts her head. “Can you forgive me?”

“Of course,” says Kyle quickly. “It was a long time ago. I’ve made my peace with it.”

“I nearly forgot the reason I came here at all.” She lets out another of her strange, choked laughs. “I could barely see the road, driving so late at night as I did, lost my way twice or so … was a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. Poor Ash … tired and bored and just wanting to be back home. I don’t blame him.”

“Ash?”

Jessica peers at Kyle in wonder. “Yes, Ash, our son. Asher. Didn’t Brock mention our son when the two of you spoke?”

“Oh, yes, of course he did,” says Kyle. “I just … don’t think he mentioned his name.”

“He’s at the hotel. We have a room, somewhere that way,” she says with an indirect gesture, “a hotel just outside Vegas, in Boulder City.”

Just then, Kyle picks up something with his Reach—a note of anxiety, then curiosity, then red-hot irritation. It’s confusing and shifts around restlessly, the way eyes flicker over the screen while watching a movie. But what strikes Kyle as the most odd is that these senses don’t come from anyone in this room.

Kyle gazes back at the living room, where a slim crack in the curtains lets in harsh sunlight, and through it, somehow, his eyes zero in on Jessica’s vehicle parked on the curb.

It’s then that Kyle realizes with amazement that he can see perfectly into the car, all the way from this spot by the table. In the passenger seat sits a teenager playing on his phone. A teen with familiar eyes and a familiar nose, which even scrunches up in precisely the same way as Brock’s did when he was frustrated. Kyle can hear his breaths and heartbeats, too. He even picks up a tension in the teen’s calves. Is he an athlete like his dad was?

How are Kyle’s senses suddenly so sharpened and precise again, like they were last night? Is Lazarus’s blood still at work inside him? Kyle assumed its effects had faded overnight.

Also, why did Jessica lie just now about her son being back at the hotel, when he is clearly waiting in the car?

“I don’t know what came over me,” she goes on, “to head off on this journey so late at night. Ash is going to miss a few days of school, I can already see it … my lovely Brock causing us all of this unnecessary headache. And for what? Why?” She lets out a sigh, appears to gather herself, then resets a smile on her face. “Anyway, back to the point, to the reason I’m here. Do either of you know where Brock headed off to next? Can you help me figure out where he might be?”

Kyle pulls his eyes from that front window, flustered. “I … I don’t know if I’m that much help, but …” She tracked Brock to this house. Kyle has to trust she knows where he went next. “He probably headed off to Las Vegas after leaving here.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, needles jab up the base of his spine to his shoulder blades, making him feel as if he could take flight from his chair completely unprovoked.

It’s a change in Jessica’s emotions Kyle has picked up—a sharp and unsettling change.

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, as if the needles jab her in the back, too. “But … you went with him.”

Kyle’s lips stick together. “Sorry?”

“Why do you say he ‘probably’ headed to Vegas? You went with him, so of course you know. There’s no ‘probably’. I know you went with him, because I went to Vegas first before coming here. His last known location is his father’s suite at the Scarlet Sands Hotel & Casino. Mr. Hastings has many contacts at that place. They showed me footage from all the security cameras. You entered with him, then left alone.”

Kyle’s blood runs cold.

Of course she’d have gone there first. How could Kyle be so stupid to overlook that?

“I … w-well, yes,” he quickly pivots. “I was with him, with Brock. We went in the middle of the night after spending some time here catching up, and—”

“Why did you two go to Vegas together at such an hour?” she asks. There is a perceptible shift in the texture of her voice. Each word is hard and fringed with suspicion, yet still with that lofty, faux-friendly tone underneath, the same one she had when they were having simple conversation a second ago.

Before Kyle answers, Elias jumps in. “Oh, that’s easy. He was going there to find me.”

Her face snaps to Elias’s like a bird tracking prey. “You?”

“We had a bit of an argument the night before,” Elias says, his voice warm, overly casual, swimming with that unmistakably honeyed tone of nothing-at-all-is-wrong . “I’d ran off back to my mom like a big baby. She operates the Scarlet Sands. It’s sort of a family business thing.” Jessica’s eyebrows lift, surprised by that, apparently. “And because Kyle doesn’t have a car himself, well, I guess Brock came dropping in on Kyle at exactly the right time. The two of them drove the few hours to the hotel, found me, Kyle and I made up, and that’s that.” Elias puts a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, gives it a squeeze and a rub, then faces Jessica again. “I bet your husband’s still there, sleeping off his bender in his father’s fancy suite. He was wasted when they arrived, from what I heard. Right, Kyle?”

Kyle swallows, still rattled, but manages a perfectly natural, “That’s right. Drunk as an elephant’s trunk.”

Jessica’s eyes don’t leave Elias’s for quite some time. All trace of sweetness is gone. No smile. Her face has become hard and unforgiving, showing her age, cracks in makeup, weariness.

Then: “I … wasn’t sure if it was you, Kyle, of course,” she goes on slowly, piecing the sentences together, “on the camera, the security camera … but I knew Brock came here to this town looking for you … after seeing that … disturbing video. What was that, by the way?” She turns her glassy eyes onto Kyle now. “Was it just for shock value? Part of some short film project? It seemed somewhat scripted to me. Ash thought it was real. I had to tell him that of course it wasn’t real. Can’t believe everything you see on the internet. Even those heart-string-pulling videos showing a guy with a man-bun giving food to the homeless are faked, all for the views, the phony feel-good vibes and clicks …”

“That’s all it was,” Kyle agrees with a hasty nod. “Just a big fake thing. I didn’t want to do it. I hated doing it. I think most of the postings were taken down by now, actually.”

“I noticed that, too,” she admits, pursing her lips. “It was a shock to learn even my pastor had seen it. He believes in many things, you see, strange things that might make you laugh.” She lets out that choked noise again, shakes her head. “You aren’t a vampire or some strange supernatural being, of course not, how absolutely ridiculous.” That choked noise becomes a full laugh. She brings a hand to her face, gazing off somewhere, lost in her mind, and the humor quickly evaporates. “Vampires are … are terrible abominations of nature. Unnatural and foul. Those are the parting words my pastor gave me before I left on this … oh, this psychotic mission we’ll call it, hunting down my husband, like I expect to find him dead, blood sucked out of him, or worse.”

Kyle drops his gaze to her glass of water, hardly touched, a single teardrop of condensation running down its side. He can’t be sure what he’s feeling, with Elias’s hot emotions surging in from one side, Jessica’s frosty, prickling suspicions on the other, and his own feelings suffocated by both of theirs, forgotten.

And a somewhat clueless teenager in a vehicle outside, his emotions bouncing to every extreme as he focuses on whatever game occupies his attention.

These aren’t insignificant facts that Jessica is sharing. Her congregation literally believes in his kind. Or at the very least her pastor does. Kyle is an “abomination of nature”. How many others believe in their existence? Did Kyle’s video have a more devastating impact than previously thought?

And worse: would word of this reach Lord Markadian?

“Oh.” Jessica peers down at the floor. “You have a cat.”

Kyle and Elias look, noticing the cat a few paces from the table studying Jessica, uncharacteristically brave, not her usual, skittish, run-off-and-hide self, tail twitching.

“Little Lion,” Kyle absently states for an introduction.

Jessica doesn’t smile, but she looks like she tries to. “Cute.”

“I just think Brock’s passed out at the penny slots,” says Elias, bringing her back on track and again employing that carefree tone of his. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“No?” murmurs Jessica coolly.

“Nope,” confirms Elias with a warm, reassuring smile.

Jessica glances at each of them a few more times. Then she lets out a sigh that seems to drop ten pounds off her back. “You know what? I think I will stop worrying. This isn’t the first time Brock’s gone off. He and I, we haven’t really been … the best lately. We disagree … a lot. You know Brock,” she says with a frayed look toward Kyle. “Same as he’s always been deep down inside, does whatever he wants, never apologizes for anything. I thought he had made progress over the years, but …” She lets out another laughter-twisted sigh, shakes her head. “You know what? I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll go.”

She rises suddenly from her chair, causing Little Lion to take off running.

Kyle and Elias rise too, as if synchronized.

She clutches her wallet purse to her chest, clicks her long fingernails on it in thought, then offers a tightened smile back at them. “Actually, I just had a thought. Can we do something else before I go?”

Kyle nods. “Of course. What do you—?”

“Let’s pray.”

She comes up to them with unexpected swiftness, sets her purse on the table, takes hold of Elias’s and Kyle’s hands. After an uncertain glance at one another, the men hold hands, too, all three of them forming a circle.

“Lord, please guide Brock back to the path of goodness, to bring him back home to his wife and son. Lord, please give him the strength to overcome the demons he faces, to see the light, to come home where he is loved, away from the dens of sin that he is so often seduced by, from the places of evil, from devices of Satan that lead him astray. I asked you what I should do. You sent me on this journey, to follow my heart, and my heart is with my husband Brock. I pray, much like you brought Kyle and Elias together for their own journey of love and delivering Kyle away from a path of darkness with Tristan, that you also deliver my husband from his own darkness, my Lord, I’m but your humble servant, begging your assistance in this dark time, oh merciful Lord, thank you, blessed be, amen.”

“Amen,” echo Kyle and Elias with similar breathlessness, as if the air has fled the room.

Jessica lets go of their hands. Her warmth has returned, all trace of suspicion gone from her face. “My pastor is on-call,” she tells them, “as if I truly am on a mission to deliver Brock from evil. Truly, he is,” she insists, likely in reaction to a flash of surprise on Kyle’s face. “He’s willing to send a troop from the church up here to help find Brock, if need be. There are even some local churches that can assist, too. I assured him that sending a Christian army likely wouldn’t be necessary. As if I’ll be facing a horde of blood-drinking Satan worshippers …” She lets out a hearty laugh that sounds more natural than all her others, as if truly finding the idea of such horrific things existing to be absurd. She is at once chipper and sweet again. “I’m ever so grateful you gave me this time. Bless the both of you for letting me interrupt your morning. Oh, let me leave my number in case you hear anything. I’m staying at a hotel in Boulder City, did I say already? They offer free breakfast. Asher is probably up by now eating eggs and pancakes. The eggs are fine, but the pancakes are total rubber. I should go back now, check on him.”

Kyle glances through the crack in the window once again, at the teenager in the car, who seems to have given up on his game, frowning through the windshield, weary of the world.

Does that teenager believe his dad is gone?

Does he care?

Elias is the one to see Jessica out, Kyle standing well away from the door and the morning sunlight that pours in. When at last the door is shut, the men stand in silence for some time, reeling in the aftermath of her visit.

Kyle is the first to talk, his voice small. “Do you think—?”

“No,” says Elias at once, turning from the door. “She has no idea at all. She can guess a thousand things and still wouldn’t even be in the ballpark. She has no hope of finding him.”

“That … does not make me feel better.” Kyle goes to the kitchen, every step slow and labored, exhausted, as he crouches down to fetch Little Lion’s empty bowl off the floor.

Elias comes up to the counter, sighs. “I’m sorry. I bet a part of you wanted to tell her the truth, just to ease her mind.”

“No, actually.” Kyle stops pouring cat food. “I didn’t want her to know anything. I just wanted her to leave.” He bows his head. “I think that’s what’s making me feel worse.”

Elias brings his arms around, hugging Kyle from behind. A silence falls over them, the two saying nothing more.

Kyle lies in bed as the daylight hours pass, the room dark enough to sleep, but he can’t seem to. He listens calmly to the sounds of Elias walking around the house tending to things he’s assumed responsibility over since moving in, as well as working on the sun deck, the noise of which doesn’t bother Kyle at all. But even hours later, he still can’t shut off his mind—Jessica’s words haunting him, seeing her face only in the moments when she looked the most suspicious and cold. It reminds him of how she was like as a teenager, policing everyone at school … class president, teacher’s pet, all of her smugness and pride …

What if she pokes too deeply into the mystery of Brock’s fate? What if she asks the wrong question to the wrong person?

What if someone at the House of Vegasyn decides she’s something that needs to be dealt with and silenced?

All the fears lead down the same winding road to a person Kyle was certain he would never wish to see again.

Tristan.

As much as Kyle hates to admit it, Tristan is the only other person on the planet who’d know what to do in this situation, where to begin, whether they have anything to worry about.

Hours later, however, Elias does not apparently share the same enthusiasm. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m not,” says Kyle, hugging his knees to his chest.

“Did you sleep at all today? Even one hour? How can you even jokingly suggest that we meet with him?” Elias is already pacing the bedroom in a storm of thoughts, his emotional boat rocking at sea, nearly capsized. He’s afraid, yet trying to mask it with strength, just like he did in the shower last night when they were washing blood off of each other’s bodies. “The point is to keep away from all of that bullshit, from those pompous fiends who nearly killed you, who nearly fucking ended you …”

“Have you forgotten our little visit last night and how that motherfucker almost ended you? ”

Elias stops with a huff. “I have not ,” he states curtly.

“As much as we wanna be away from all that ‘bullshit’, we can’t stop the ‘bullshit’ from coming to us . Did you not realize what that was last night?” Kyle asks suddenly, voice lowered to nearly a whisper, as if Lazarus lurks around a corner, listening. “Tristan told me about Them, capital T, Them . He told me many times over our years together, he warned me there were others out there who follow no rules, who are cruel, soulless … He said looking upon one is like looking upon your own death. When we met Markadian and George, I thought they were who Tristan meant all this time, but no. Last night …” He looks away, despairing. “Last night, I now see. I see what else is out there … what I might become, if I don’t …”

Elias comes to the edge of the bed where Kyle sits, still hugging his knees. “You will never be one of Them.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“You know nothing, Elias. And for that matter, neither do I. We’re …” Kyle shakes his head, frustrated. “We’re having the same argument all over again.”

“Listen, I know you want answers, but Tristan? You can’t trust him. He lied to you. Many times. He’s the one who—”

“I spent twenty-six years of my life with him. I loved him—and hated him. I know who Tristan is.” Kyle gets to his feet. “But I can’t protect you, Elias. Not if that thing comes back here. I can’t protect anyone in this town. Do you know how helpless that makes me feel?”

Elias sighs. “I know.”

“You don’t know,” Kyle barks back, fists balled up, crossing the room and coming to a stop by the wall where it’s shattered. “He was so strong, he even overpowered me . How is anyone safe here if more of Them find us? What if he wasn’t even the strongest? Or the most vicious? What if he’s downright tame compared to what’s out there? Elias, you can pretend to be strong all you want, but I can fucking feel your fear.”

Elias casts his troubled eyes to the floor, hands on his hips.

Perhaps they both knew that a promise of a long, happy life out here was too good to be true. Neither wanted to admit it.

And now the reality is at their doorstep.

“Just … please don’t go to him.” Elias speaks slowly, calmly. “I’d like you to think it over some more. Give it time. It’s not good to make decisions when emotional.” Elias drops onto the edge of the bed with a sigh, looks away. “I … can still feel his … his teeth … feeding on my body. Fuck , I don’t even know what he looked like. Why’d I agree to a blindfold?”

Kyle comes back to him, lets Elias rest his head against his side, rubs his short buzzed hair, the pleasantly prickly parts at the base of his neck where it’s grown out a little. Neither speak.

Give it time, Elias had suggested.

Maybe he’s right.

It’s a short time later when Kyle stands at the door, dressed for his shift. “I’ll be just fine here,” insists Elias. “I don’t need any babysitting, I don’t need you to call in, I just want things to go on as normally as they did before. The bar needs you.”

They’ve already gone back and forth a dozen times. It’s no use. Elias’s stubbornness is a force of nature. “I’m still calling you every half hour,” Kyle insists.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Every twenty minutes.” Kyle kisses Elias deeply. It gives him such comfort in the face of everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours. It’s ever so tempting to defy Elias and beg Cade for the night off anyway. The last thing he wants to do is leave Elias alone. “Every ten.”

“Go.” Elias smacks Kyle on the ass. “Dinner will be ready for you by the time you’re back. And by dinner, I do mean a plump spot on my ass you can sink your teeth into.”

Kyle attempts a smile. “Lock up after me.”

“Won’t help anyway against one of Them,” teases Elias, then, “sorry, too soon, ignore that, go, go, go,” as he practically pushes Kyle out the door and locks up behind him.

Kyle sits in their car for a moment, listening to the engine. The radio crackles with a 90s hit he remembers was on a mix tape he made himself back in high school—a song he played for Tristan once that seemed to move him. Kyle closes his eyes and lets the music take him over for a moment, forgetting Lazarus, forgetting the visit from Jessica, forgetting Elias, forgetting his own sense of lonesomeness, and just thinking on his mortal life.

He pulls out of the driveway.

Then heads in the wrong direction.

Kyle is on the highway in minutes. The hum of the road drowns out the music. The night is around him on all sides like a blanket of nothing. His knuckles turn to bones as his grip on the wheel tightens, speeding down the road towards Vegas.

What motivates him now is pure madness.

He can’t go another second leaving Elias in that house by himself, undefended, with no answers for what has happened. He can’t allow Lazarus, or another of Them, or any other kind of yet-to-be-discovered terror to catch them by surprise. Kyle wants no more surprises. He wants answers. He wants—

“Go home.”

Kyle nearly runs off the road, corrects himself, wide-eyed, then glances to the left, to the right, into the rearview.

Then he sees the shape in the backseat. “W-Wendy?” Kyle chokes out. “How the fuck did you—?”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” she states in her eerie, childlike voice. “You could crash your boyfriend’s car. Then where would you be? Your human insurance will skyrocket.”

Kyle grips the wheel even tighter. “Why are you here?”

“To stop you. I sensed you heading our way. It is no good. Tristan would be upset if he knew you were going to him. Only trouble lies ahead if you continue. Please go home.”

He doesn’t slow down, doesn’t turn the car around, doesn’t heed Wendy’s creepily polite demand. “I’m not safe at home,” Kyle retorts. “None of us are.”

“Of course you are. As long as your secret remains, you are all safe. You have kept the secret for four days. Impressive. I hope you can keep it for four months. Then four years. Is this nice?” she asks suddenly. “To set goalposts for you? Am I encouraging you? Is my voice sympathetic enough, or does it ring false? I am working on my ability to emulate human compassion. This is a task Tristan has given me.”

“How did you find me? Are you watching these roads?”

“I sensed you approaching Vegasyn, like I said.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you do anything when we were visited last night by one of Them —capital T— Them ?”

The words bring Wendy pause. “Them,” she recites, like a computer processing a new word. “I was not aware. You had a dangerous visitor?”

“Are you serious?” cries Kyle. “You appear in my car just because I’m driving in a certain direction , yet our lives were in danger last night and you didn’t even fucking know?”

“I am as surprised as you are.” She pauses. “Surprised and annoyed. I wonder how this escaped our attention.”

“So what do I do when one of Them finds us again? What do I do when …” Kyle feels bile coming up when he utters the word. “… when another vampire finds their way to Nowhere? I am no match against one. They’re … fucking formidable.”

The silence from the backseat indicates Wendy is thinking it over. “Fine,” she says. “It will be handled. Go home please.”

Kyle blinks. That easily? “How will you handle it?” he asks.

“It is no concern of yours. Also, I said ‘please’.”

“The psycho vampire isn’t my only problem.” Kyle glances at the unsettling shadow of Wendy in the rearview. “Brock’s wife is sniffing around town. Persistently. She’s actively looking for him. She’s got a whole fucking church behind her apparently, and they are more than ready to send entire search parties out looking for her missing husband at her command.”

“That situation is known. It is also no concern. Please—”

“If you tell me to go home one more time …”

“You do not wish to remind yourself what my anger is like,” says Wendy with her steely apathy. “It is the only emotion that I understand. It is the most honest one. Do you recall attempting to use your heart gift on me? Would you like to try it again?”

Kyle’s foot eases. The car slows, slows, then finally stops, right in the middle of the road, nothing but darkness for miles in every direction.

“Go home,” says Wendy. “We will manage your problems. Stay where you forever belong: in the middle of Nowhere.”

The hum of the car engine fills Kyle’s ears. He can’t bring himself to stand up to Wendy. Perhaps it’s why she was told to watch over Kyle and the people of Nowhere instead of Tristan. Tristan would try to comfort him. Wendy is emotionally arctic.

“It’s nice to be reminded how very terrible you are,” Kyle says to the rearview mirror. “Yes, I do remember the coldness I felt when I connected to you. It wasn’t normal. I know what vampires feel like, and I know what humans feel like … but you’re neither.” Kyle turns around in his seat, looks at Wendy directly, lips curling into a scowl. “What the fuck are you?”

The dark, faceless shape of Wendy seems to stare back.

Almost sweetly, she says: “I so detest that word. Vampire. Do not ever use it again.” After a beat, she adds: “ Please .”

Then she’s gone, vanishing into thin air. Kyle turns in his seat, facing ahead at the road where his headlights burn like torches in a cave, yellowish and harsh. “Fuck you very much, Tristan.” He turns the car around, heads home.