The House of the Wicked (The snake and the raven #1)

25. August

August

The sign for Lak e Abaddon finally appears

“ D o you think King or someone from Dahlia Heights planted the evidence in the trap house?” My eyes jump to her before moving back to the road. We’ve been driving for thirty minutes, and she’s been silent for each second so far. We have a lot to discuss. It’s surprising that this is what’s on her mind.

“You said you don’t really know anything about King?”

“Just what I shared with you.” She’s chewing her lip, staring straight ahead.

I sigh. “I don’t think it was King or anyone acting on his instructions,” I say.

“The police then?”

“Most likely, yeah. Rachel seems to have it in for Ricky.”

“We shouldn’t have gone to see Elijah’s mom,” Nora says as she twists her fingers together. It bothers her we went.

“She deserved some comfort, little raven. Even if nothing came of it, Marna deserved to at least fe el like someone cared about her son,” I say.

“But we don’t. Not really. Because if we did, we’d be doing something. Looking for answers.”

“Sometimes the illusion is just as powerful as the truth,” I offer, knowing how true those words are.

“What do you mean?”

“Just—” Taking a deep breath. I have to tread carefully. “Sometimes you can believe something, and even though it’s not real, the belief that it is can keep you moving forward.”

She smiles sadly to herself. What’s behind that smile, I wonder, but don’t ask.

After a few more minutes of suffocating silence, we pull off the highway and into the dusty parking lot of a small roadside diner. It’s nestled in a grove of enormous pine trees; set against the backdrop of the mountain range we could sometimes see from Hell’s Basin. Switching off the car, I turn to face Nora.

“Breakfast, let’s go,” I say, as Yves parks next to us. “Put a hoodie on or something,” I add, looking down at her breasts, still visible through the thin fabric of the t-shirt.

“Not loving the view?” She smirks at me.

“Loving it a little too much, sweet bird. But so is Yves.”

The diner is classically American. White and black checkered floors, red leather booths, and a counter that wraps around most of the back wall. Nora slides into a booth closest to the door while I wait on Yves. He’s on a call outside. Judging by the tension in his shoulders, it’s either Adam or Adam-related. When he scrubs his hand down his face and pockets his phone, I grin.

“That bad?” I ask.

“L ittle man is going to be a problem,” he says as he shoves past me, following Nora into the booth.

“Nora.” He smirks at her.

“Amy, right?” she asks without looking up from the menu.

“Close, princess. It’s Yves.” He snatches the menu out of her hands as a portly line cook strolls over to our table. The smell of grease and bacon envelopes him like a thick cloud.

“You ready to order? We got no bacon,” he mutters.

“Smells like you ate it all,” Yves says as he levels a disinterested stare at the cook.

“I’ll have eggs benedict.” Nora smiles at him.

“We got eggs. Scrambled or fried.” He doesn’t return her smile.

“Scrambled. With toast. And coffee,” she says.

“Two more of those,” I tack on.

Yves shoves the menus away and steeples his fingers as he watches Nora. He’s not a bad guy. Well, he’s no worse than me. But something about the way he watches her, the interest he’s obviously taken in her… Pisses me off.

“Are you going to be staying with us at the safe house?” she asks him.

“Me, and Alley’s on her way. Maybe your little boyfriend, too.” Fuck. I haven’t told her about Alley and Adam joining us.

“Adam isn’t my boyfriend,” she clarifies while fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

“No, that’s right, he’s with the other one, with the legs.” Yves chokes out a cough as I kick him under the table.

“Thalia. Her name is Thalia,” Nora snaps.

“So…” Yves grins at me before looking back at Nora. “If you’re not with Adam, who are you with? ”

“Why don’t you ask Ricky?” She gives him a bland expression.

“Or I could ask August?”

She laughs. Truly laughs, deep and throaty. “August?” She looks at me. “Tell him, who am I with?”

“We have two hours until we get to the house. Let’s go over some of the protocol,” I say, totally deflecting. “The road in is private, so keeping an eye on traffic won’t be an issue. The only other way in is by boat across the estuary.”

“How do you know this?” Nora asks softly, the suspicion in her tone unmistakable. “I only gave you the directions yesterday.”

“Yves, we’ll take turns monitoring the road and the small dock on the water. Nora, you need to stay inside,” I say, ignoring her question.

“For a week? Fuck that. And tell me how you knew about the house?”

“Yes, for the week. And it’s my job to know.”

Our food arrives, and we eat in partial silence. Partial because Yves makes it his mission to annoy the fuck out of Nora, which annoys the fuck out of me. The second her fork clatters down on her plate, I call for the check.

“ Y ves is…” I sigh, struggling to find the words as I navigate back onto the highway.

“An ass?” She finishes for me and I smile. Yeah, definitely that.

“He’s great at his job, and an ass,” I say.

“Is Dima okay?” she asks softly and God, I’m not ready to talk about this.

“M y father’s checking on her. He’ll make sure she’s okay and let us know as soon as he knows anything, I promise.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to see her?” Another quiet question. This one sounding more like a plea.

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “But if it’s safe for you, I promise I’ll do everything I can to get you to her, Nora.” Her hand moves like she might touch me. I hold my breath as I wait for it, but she drops it back into her lap and nods.

A t some point during the two-hour drive, Nora switches on the radio. Even though driving through the mountains makes the signal crackle sporadically, the blend of soft rock and pop dissolves some of the tension that’s set up house in the car.

When the sign for Lake Abaddon finally appears, it takes all my remaining effort not to groan with relief. After exiting the highway, we bump along a dirt road.

Thanks to the recent rain, the road to the house has turned into a muddy mess; the conservative hour I estimated it would take us to drive to the lake is now spot on.

“I used to spend every summer here,” she whispers from her seat next to me.

I look over at her, but she’s not looking at me. She’s staring straight ahead as the estuary and the lake come into view.

“I don’t remember the summers with my parents, but after they died, Ricky and I would come up here with Dima. Sometimes Adam would join us.”

“With Gracious and his wife?” I ask.

“Sometimes Gracie would join, yeah. But his wife was murdered when Adam was two. So, no. Not her.”

This information isn’t new to me, but it’s not common knowledge, we don’t speak about it. Shifting in my seat, I do my best to act unsettled or surprised by the information. Does Nora know that Gracious is the one who murdered his wife? I doubt it.

“The last time I was here, Adam and I had a huge fight.” She laughs to herself. “Adam was the first guy I slept with.” I physically cringe away from this revelation. “After that first time, he pressured me to do it again, but I didn’t want to. That summer was the first time Ricky left us alone here. He had to helicopter back to Port Manaus. Adam got drunk and acted like a dick. I was afraid of him then, though I shouldn’t have been. I don’t think he would—”

“He would, Nora.” I can’t say what pushes me to that conclusion, but I just know he’s not the kind of person to take no lightly.

“Maybe.” She sighs. “That last time kind of soured this place for me. I haven’t been back since.” She squeezes her eyes closed. It’s clear she’s wrestling those painful memories back into whatever box they’ve escaped from.

“Did your parents leave the house to Ricky?” I ask. Another question I know the answer to, but half of my mission is to get her to see the world as it truly is, not as she sees it. Leading her to the truth that’s already in front of her won’t be easy.

“Oh.” She smiles. “No, they left it to me. He manages it through a trust, but I’ve been allowed to claim ownership independently for a while now.”

“And you haven’t?”

“It's always felt like theirs, my parents... I guess if I took it over properly in name, it would be mine. Part of me felt like that would erase them a little. It’s stupid.”

“I t isn’t. But they wouldn’t have left it to you if they didn’t want it to be yours, Nora.” Just then, the house in question comes into view.

Deep emerald green wooden walls stretch down toward the lake below the house. The rich jewel tones of the paint make the house almost blend into the thick nest of trees surrounding it. It’s beautiful, like someone plucked a 1970s butterfly roof mansion out of Palm Springs and dumped it on the shores of a lake. It’s the kind of house someone like me can’t even dream of owning. Clawing yourself over the poverty line has a way of showing you your place in the world, and my place isn’t in a boat house mansion on the black waters of an exclusive lake.

Parking in the driveway, I reach for my phone. Yves stopped at a grocery store in the nearby town to get supplies for the week. That gives me another hour alone with Nora. Fuck.

After slipping my phone into my pocket, Nora climbs out of the car and walks lifelessly to the front door. The conversation about Dima and her parents has upset her. I don’t need to hear her confirm it when the signs are clear in her watery eyes. Following behind her, we both stop as she keys the passcode into the keypad of the house’s security system.

“No keys.” She smiles over her shoulder at me. “Ricky had this installed years ago.”

The sound of locks sliding free echo around us as the heavy glass and wood front door swings open slowly. Wordlessly, we step into the entrance hall. It smells faintly of damp and smoke and dust. It’s a smell that reminds me of summer vacations I never had the chance to enjoy. I’m still lingering in the foyer when I realize I’m alone. Nora’s walked off into the house without me.

The small boxy entrance hall doubles as a mudroom, opening up into a massive double volume livi ng area. It’s surprisingly modern; vaulted ceilings reinforced with thick wooden beams greet me as I step into the room. A massive fireplace takes up most of the main wall, the wide stone overmantel stretching all the way to the ceiling. A pale gray sectional sofa sits in front of the fireplace, flanked by two monstrous armchairs. To the left of the living room is a wide arch that leads to an eat-in kitchen. Yves is going to be in heaven; I smile.

“Nora?” I call out, unsure of which direction she’s gone in. The staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms is to my left, but a door off the living room stands ajar, drawing my attention.

“In here.” Her soft voice coming from that direction.

I stalk toward it, stopping on the threshold. Like everything else in the house, the room is immense. Whitewashed wooden walls meet honey brown solid wood floors. A massive king-size bed sits in the center of the oval room. A curved wall of wood-framed windows bisected by a set of glass double doors. From my spot in the doorway, I can see they lead out to a private deck. I take another step into the room and stop again. Its weird circular shape extends to the ceiling, where a huge skylight is cut into it.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Wide, possibly double the size of a hula-hoop. And deep, like looking into an oversized telescope. The glass separating the outside world from the snug confines of the bedroom looks to be magnifying. I can’t be sure, but I feel like laying on this bed at night would bring the stars down into the room with you.

Nora sniffs. The sound of her smothering her tears has my head snapping away from the skylight. She’s standing in front of a fireplace; the mantle decorated with picture frames. She has one clutched in her hands.

With out thinking, I walk over to her, stopping a breath away from her back. The picture’s old. Grainy in the way that photographs from at least twenty years ago can be. There are two women in the foreground. Each holding a baby. One baby is clearly older than the other. Two men stand in the background. They’re too far away for me to properly make out their features. But I don’t need superior eyesight to immediately recognize each adult in the picture.

“My parents,” Nora points to one of the men in the back and then to one of the women. “I’m the baby in pink, obviously.” She smiles at the picture.

“Do you know the other people?” I ask cautiously, my heart slamming against my rib cage.

“No, but my parents often brought their friends up here.” She sighs, placing the picture back on the mantle. My eyes are still stuck on the woman next to Nora’s mother.

Mom. God, how long has it been since I’ve seen a picture of you?

“Is it okay if I take a nap?” Nora’s kicked her shoes off already. The hoodie I insisted she wear to breakfast discarded on the floor somewhere. She’s about to shrug off her pants. I can’t move. I have to, but I can’t.

“Yeah.” I take a deep breath and finally turn away from the picture of my mother and Nora’s mother. “Yeah, of course. I’ll get the stuff out of the car.”

The sound of a car door slamming is the only warning I get a second before Yves’ voice fills the house.

“Auggie? I need a hand,” he shouts. I look back at Nora, but she’s already snuggled under the covers, her eyes closed.