Chapter Eight

Reservations

Valek surprised Charlotte when she breathlessly stumbled through the front door. Of course he had beaten her home. The air was blazing in her tattered lungs. There was nowhere else for her to run to now.

“Why did you run?”

Valek’s lips peeled over his fangs when she didn’t answer him immediately. He stormed up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Why did you run away?” he demanded again, shaking her. “It’s me, Charlotte.”

It was all too much for her. She collapsed to her knees. Meredith Price had been right. Valek was a monster.

Valek, keeping his hold on her, also lowered to the floor, transforming his grasp into an embrace instead. She pressed her face into the hollow of his collarbone, wishing it had been a comfortable feeling, like it always used to be.

“It’s just me, Lottie.”

Now he cried, his tears washing his eyes red. Charlotte looked down as they splashed in ruby beads on the floor beside her. “You are safe with me. I promise you that. I don’t know what happened to me out there,” he whispered.

She looked up at him, attempting desperately to steady her breathing, but it continued to break in involuntary gulps, like small children did when they could not control their crying fits. Charlotte closed her eyes against the sight of him, but still felt his weight all around her. She pulled away and quietly got to her feet. After one silent moment looking down at him, she traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom, feeling his gaze on her back the whole way up. She carefully guarded her thoughts until she was away.

She moved over to her vanity mirror and gaped at the streaks of brown caked on her face and clothes. She forced her breaths to come out even and used the side of her desk as a crutch. The soft breeze outside her open window cooled her hot face as she tried to shift one of her shoulders, still drenched with the drying blood. She flinched. The wound stung where the cotton clung to it.

She leaned in a little closer to the mirror, tenderly pulling away her sweater to examine the lacerations further, when Valek’s dark reflection in the mirror made her jump. She spun around to see him looming there sadly against her doorsill.

Charlotte responded by averting her gaze to the floor.

He approached her and lifted his hands without a word to her to examine her.

When she didn’t offer, he said, “I need to mend this, Charlotte, before the wounds become infected. Your body temperature is already a bit high.”

Charlotte gingerly shifted her arm to him, wincing as it moved.

He looked closely at the gash, trying to pull the fabric away to see the damage more clearly.

“I cannot assess how serious this is.” His voice was stoic and empty. If it were possible, which she didn’t think it was, Charlotte’s heart sank a little further. “You’re going to have to take that off.” He rolled up his sleeves.

She froze for a minute, remembering she had nothing on underneath, other than her bra. Blood pooled to her face, and she bit down on her lip. She looked up at Valek who was staring back numbly, but expectantly. Slowly, she turned and began peeling off the sweater, in spite of the voice in her head that had suddenly begun protesting very loudly. He had known her since she was in diapers after all. This wasn’t so bad.

The article of clothing dropped in a heap on the floor by her feet. When she faced him, she heard Valek clear his throat, as if her actions made him nervous as well. Perhaps she should have listened to the voice.

He squinted at the deep gashes in her shoulders, taking one frail arm in his frigid talons. Her heart pounded so frantically, she bet he could see it leaping through her skin. A cool sweat began to form on her brow.

“This is very deep,” he diagnosed with a sigh. “Come downstairs, please, so I can clean it and close it up.” He kept his tone even as he led the way out of the room.

Charlotte meekly followed, making the wood creak beneath her. Her mind flickered back to Meredith Price again as she glanced down at the blood drying on her body. The dull stench of rust and iron circled her. It was probably much more prevalent to Valek, she suspected. The inevitable words resounded in her head once more.

‘Vampire.’

‘You can never be too careful.’

Valek opened the door to his stark office The walls and cabinets were white, sterile almost to the point of being eerie. They did not match the rest of their home at all. This room seemed lifeless, which was appropriate. Being here instantly made her uncomfortable as she began to go through all of the deaths that she knew had happened here. A chill suddenly kissed the tops of her shoulders and she hugged herself.

“Have a seat,” Valek instructed forbearingly, gesturing to the large, leather office chair behind his massive, slate desk. The lack of tone in his voice was unnerving. It sounded hollow and metallic. His eyes seemed to be made of slate.

He went into the cabinet under the sink in the corner and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, suture thread, and white gauze to wrap the wounds in. She watched him carefully, wanting so badly to articulate what she was thinking. She wanted to ask him questions, to solve the problems, but her tongue stayed swollen in her mouth. She just sat there quietly, her eyes fixed on his face, searching for any sign of emotion at all as he walked back over to her.

He leaned casually on the corner of his desk and started to dab the blood away with the alcohol. Charlotte flinched. The smell of it invaded the entire room; Charlotte could tell he still wasn’t breathing.

“Look away, please.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.

He started to sew up the gashes in her left shoulder. Wincing every time the needle poked through her skin, she clawed at the chair arms. Her teeth ground together as she chose something to focus on, deciding to fix her gaze on a drawing of hers that hung on the wall in a black-wire frame. It was a colored-pencil version of both of them, in front of a box meant to resemble their house. Something she had given him when she was ten. The simplicity of the colored markings made her smile. Only he would have found it beautiful enough to put in a stupid frame.

“Done,” he said, releasing her.

She looked at him, surprised. It seemed like it didn’t take any time at all. She got up from his chair. “Thank you.” Without another word, she walked out of the office.

She ran back up the stairs and into her bedroom to find something to cover herself with. There was a time where that situation wouldn’t have been awkward at all, though it was now.

After a quick, hot bath, she rifled through some different tops in her dresser drawer, settling on a cobalt button-down. Without opening it, she slid it over her head and hurried to her closet where she pulled out a light, pink sweater, one Valek had picked out for her last year.

She plopped down on her bed with her sketchbook and a black, graphite pencil, and started sketching, not sure what she was drawing yet, just letting the graphite lines mark where they wanted. Her abilities had significantly improved since that drawing she gave Valek when she was ten.

She suddenly found herself concentrating on that framed picture again, how it looked hanging in his office, and started re-sketching it with the ability she now possessed. Maybe when all of this confusing turmoil was over and things were back to the way they were just a few days ago, she would give it to him.

Focused on what she was doing, she jumped halfway out of her skin when something abruptly chinked against her windowpane. She put her sketchbook down, eyeing the glass, waiting for that deformed Lycan to come leaping through it, bent on revenge.

Something thudded against it again, and she slowly got up and walked over to it. She lifted the pane and looked out into the night. Standing on the ground was Aiden, clutching various pebbles in his hand. He dropped the one he was about to throw and smiled up at her.

“Charlotte!” He waved his hand around above his head.

“Shut up!” she whisper-yelled at him. “Are you really throwing pebbles at my window? Isn’t that a little cliché?”

He dropped all of the pebbles to the ground, his cheeks flushing, his hands scratching the back of his head. “Yeah, I guess,” he admitted. “Come down here!”

“Shh!” She put a finger to her lips. “No! Valek is home. It’s not a good time.”

“I heard about what happened. I think I have a theory,” he said, a little more hushed than before.

“A theory about what? How did you find out about that?” She leaned a little farther out the window.

“I ran into Evangeline. She was carrying a pile of stuffing back to her house.” He shrugged.

Charlotte frowned. “That pile of stuffing was Edwin. But you need to be quiet, Aiden!” Valek would surely hear them, if he hadn’t already.

He smiled. “I will if you come down here.”

Charlotte sighed. How was she going to resist that? “Fine, but not so close to the house!”

“Agreed.”

“Where should I meet you, then?”

“At my house.”

Charlotte looked at her watch. It was one-thirty in the morning. “Isn’t your mother going to be furious with you for having houseguests? It’s amazingly late!” She shoved her watch out toward him, expecting him to see the little ticking hands from where he stood, a full story below her.

“My parents aren’t home.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked the pebbles by his feet. “Look, you’re wasting more time by arguing with me.”

“Fine! I’ll meet you at your house in five minutes if you leave now!”

He smiled up at her. She watched his silhouette disappear back into the trees. Her heart fluttered. She closed her window and turned to see Valek standing once again at her threshold.

She gasped. “Valek! What—?”

“What does Aiden want with you at this hour?” he asked, dryly. His usually excitable features were still bland as ever.

Charlotte sank again. Of course Valek heard them. “Oh…um….” She couldn’t lie to him, he would know. “He wants me to come over.” She fidgeted under the bandages on her shoulders.

“At this hour?”

Valek looked so handsome leaning up against the baroque scrollwork around the doorframe like he was a part of it. It crushed her that she couldn’t just sit down with him and simply talk this out. She wasn’t ready, the humiliation too fresh.

“He doesn’t have school in the morning, and he knows this is the only time I’m ever awake,” she explained.

Valek shrugged, the edge of his words biting. “Have a splendid time.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. He was never this easy. Was he just trying really hard to give her some space? “All right,” she said, making sure he was serious.

He didn’t say anything further.

“Then I guess I’ll be back a little later. I won’t stay out too long.” She took only a tentative step to the door in case he really was having more of a difficult time than he was letting on.

“Be careful.” His voice wavered.

She decided she didn’t want to say anything else to him. Instead, she cleared her throat and uncomfortably brushed past him. But before she got to the top of the stairs, she turned back around to see that he was still watching her, like one of those haunted paintings whose eyes followed you no matter where you stood in the room. Suddenly guilty, she ran up to him and delicately wrapped her arms around his middle. He reluctantly hugged her back.

“Not too long,” he whispered.

She looked up at him before descending down the staircase and out the front door.

The night outside was getting cold, a common autumn evening. Brown and orange leaves crunched under Charlotte’s sneakers as she walked down the road toward the suburb district. The warm glow of the floating, bewitched street lanterns stretched her silhouette long and black across the road. She lifted her hands in the air like claws and studied her shadow. What if she were a monster?

Hands from nowhere reached from the darkness suddenly and wrapped around Charlotte’s face, concealing her scream. She fought with the grasp, only to find she knew those hands all too well.

Aiden released her, laughing.

She punched him hard in the arm. “So what’s your theory, pond scum?”

“Wait until we get to my house,” he whispered, looking around.

“What is wrong with you? You were just screaming at the top of your lungs at my house!”

“Shut up!” He put a hand to her mouth again. “Noisy thing.” She made a face and knocked it away. He wound his fingers between hers and led her a little faster down the street.

“You’re acting really weird.”

She grimaced at their hands woven together. She didn’t like it at all. It felt too warm, somehow. Too normal.

“Oh, so you get to be a freak all the time and I don’t?” He smiled wryly, eyes still darting about the emptiness of the streets.

“Funny, but let’s remember who the freak really is.” She flicked his slightly pointed ear.

“You’re the only human living in a town of Elves and Witches. I would say you’re the freak in this case.”

The two made their way to his house without any more words. It was quiet and dark with the promise of missing parents.

Once inside, he led her into the den where they both sat together on the warm, knit area rug, an olive color on the dusty, wooden floor. He put a finger to his lips. “Don’t make a sound. My brothers and sisters are finally sleeping.” He rolled his eyes.

“So, where are your parents?” Charlotte pried.

“My mom’s in Prague…visiting my dad.”

“Why is your dad in Prague?”

“He works there.”

“He works there?” She blanched.

“It’s a really long story.” He cut her off, and she glowered at him. “He works there at the Regime headquarters. My dad is fourth in command. The Wizard’s Regime headquarters is in Prague.” His explanation seemed to ramble together.

Charlotte frowned, trying to wrap her head around what he was telling her. She had never actually met Mr. Price. “The Regime?  But I thought—”

“Listen, someday I’ll tell you about it, but right now we need to talk about something else.” His bright features faded into seriousness.

Charlotte’s eyebrows mashed together. She had never seen Aiden act this way. She watched him adjust his position so he sat on his knees, his tawny hair feathering a little over his eyes.

The room was completely dark, except for the small amount of moonlight washing in through the foggy windowpane. An apple tree outside cast a veiny shadow on the floor and across her friend’s face.

Aiden apprehensively took Charlotte’s hand again. It made her blush.

She grinned. Her stomach flipped. “What are you doing?”

“I-I wanted to….” He struggled to get the words out. Now she could see his face was turning red. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, gazing at her from underneath his ruddy-colored bangs.

She giggled quietly, nervously. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, Evangeline told me about Valek….”

“It’s fine. Really. I think it was just one of those things that happens when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time…with the wrong person.” She met his gaze on the last word, but they both looked down immediately.

Aiden gently put his warm hand on her cheek—again, much different than the feeling of Valek’s. Her heart jump-started in her chest.

“Almost getting killed isn’t just ‘one of those things’,” he said.

She wanted so badly to argue with him. She wanted to fight him away and tell him he and his mother were wrong about Valek, but she couldn’t, because this time he was right.

Valek had scared her within an inch of her life. She understood he had instincts he couldn’t control, but maybe that was exactly what made him impossible to be around now.

“Is your shoulder okay?” he asked, his face inching closer to hers. She could feel his breath on her lips. The hairs on the back of her neck started to stand up.

“Y-yes.”

He kissed her so gently she barely felt it. Her toes curled in her shoes. He pulled away, a question in his eyes. When he saw she was smiling, he kissed her again a little deeper, moving his lips steadily against hers. Her mouth trembled under his, not entirely sure of what she was doing, but knowing it felt good enough to keep going.

She was so lost in what was happening it surprised her when she felt him pull away again, though, keeping his hand around hers. She looked at him.

“That wasn’t really what I wanted to talk to you about either.” He chuckled.

She laughed a little, too.

“I mean, it was something I wanted to do, but there’s something else…” Aiden reached under the couch and pulled out several pieces of slightly crumpled parchment as Charlotte reeled back to coherency.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“This is a list of all the guards and officers employed directly by the Regime. Every one of them has to go through extensive training, background tests—all that stuff.” Aiden fingered through the different pages, searching.

“So? What does that have to do with anything?” Charlotte wrinkled her nose. It made her uncomfortable Aiden never mentioned that his family was part of the Regime. What else didn’t she know about him? Her thoughts flickered back to Valek, probably waiting sadly at home for her, and began to feel like maybe she had just betrayed him in some odd way—the same way he betrayed her. Suddenly, she found herself wanting to leave.

“You remember the Lycan that attacked us the other day?” he asked, studying the papers.

“Yes, how could I forget? It was the same one that attacked Evangeline and me this evening.”

Aiden froze. “Is it?”

“Yes. He had the same unusual scar across his left eye. Do you remember?” Aiden nodded and Charlotte continued. “And it was hard to tell, but it looked like there was an indent left in his head from when I hit him with my bag,” she explained as Aiden nodded again.

“Interesting.” He pointed to a name on the list. Charlotte leaned over his shoulder. “This guy, Alois Vlcek. Look at the picture.”

“The scar….” She traced the pink line down the strange man’s face. “So, what is this Alois employed to do?”

“He was a guard,” Aiden explained. “He was hired to guard this Occult. He’s trained to smell magic blood, which is why you only get attacked when you leave with one of us. Did you ever notice that?”

“That’s true,” Charlotte realized, rocking back on her knees. “When I left to go to my pond that day, I left by myself. And then it was only when you and I returned together that he was there.”

“Exactly. And then you left with Evangeline tonight.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s it.” He folded the list back up. “That’s what Father’s plan is,” Aiden mused quietly.

“But why didn’t he attack you when you originally left to come find me? When you were alone?”

Aiden cleared his throat. “I don't know.”

“What are you trying to figure out?” Charlotte pried further. “Wouldn’t your father tell you everything you wanted to know, anyway?”

“No.” Aiden huffed under his breath. “Does Valek ever leave the Occult?”

It sounded then like he was almost accusing Valek of something. “No. Valek knows the law, Aiden,” Charlotte fought defensively.

“It doesn’t seem he knows the law to me, Charlotte. He brought you into the Occult, didn’t he?”

Now, Charlotte was sure Aiden meant to accuse Valek of something. It hit her like a ton of bricks and she immediately got to her feet, glaring angrily at him.

“What exactly are you trying to do, Aiden?”

“My father and I spoke about it, and he agrees Valek is in breach of the magic law.”

“That is why that Lycan kept attacking whenever I was with a half-blood, because he isn’t just hunting magic! He’s hunting me with magic! He’s waiting for Valek! ” Fury rolled from her chest, burning in her throat. Panic set in then. Her heart thudded hard against her sternum. “Why would you talk to your father about us? I am mortal, Aiden! I thought you were my friend! You’ve put us in danger! That’s why we have someone attacking us now! They are making sure Valek doesn’t get away because your father is part of the Regime and, because of you, now they know!” Charlotte suddenly found it too hard to breathe. She shut her eyes as she struggled to control her quivering. Her stomach turned over and over as her mind raced about how she was going to get Valek out of this.

“Charlotte—”

“Trust me, this is not going to do you any good! You’re not taking him away from me!” she yelled, not caring anymore about her volume.

“Charlotte, listen,” he pleaded. “Valek is dangerous!”

Charlotte stared at him, her mouth gaping. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice dropped several decibels, becoming soft and pleading.

Aiden stood in front of her, his massive shadow eclipsing her face. “Come on, Charlotte. You can stay with us. I promise it will be better for you than if you return to Valek.”

“I thought you were my friend.” Without waiting for a response, she pushed past him and started back out into the early morning. She’d made it to the living room when she saw Aiden’s sister, Molly, blocking her exit. “Excuse me.” Charlotte warbled.

“Not until you apologize to my brother.” The little Elf stamped her foot.

Charlotte turned back around to see Aiden leaning sadly against the wall, watching her darkly. She looked back to his sister. “Maybe later, Molly. I really have to go.” She smiled, though the action felt plastic.

The little girl frowned.

Aiden walked over to where his sister stood. The sound of his heavy footsteps thumping on the hardwood seemed more overpowering than normal.

“Come on, Molly.” He hoisted her up in his arms.

“But Aiden!” Molly whined.

He grinned at his sister.

Charlotte’s face burned. “Goodbye, Aiden,” she said definitively, and walked out into the night.

She jumped off Aiden’s porch and onto the path toward home. The bleeding hearts that normally grew a vibrant red and orange along the white fence turned brown suddenly before Charlotte's eyes and shriveled to a gray dust. She gasped and glanced over her shoulder to see Aiden peering at her through a window before disappearing back inside his dingy cottage.

She hugged her wounded shoulders tightly and walked briskly, once in a while jogging for some added speed. The angular eyes of the jack-o-lanterns that had been placed on street corners for the holiday seemed to have begun following her movements as she swept past them. Witches were beginning to decorate. All Hallows Eve was the Witches’ favorite, Charlotte recalled, trying to distract herself from her paranoia. Suddenly, she became painfully aware of just how human and alone she was. She glanced around for followers, when she caught the eye of a particularly wicked looking pumpkin grin.

“Charlotte. Charlotte,” the enchanted thing called after her musically. “We know why you are running, Charlotte. Run faster. Run faster. Until you are safely at home.”

Charlotte let out a soft yelp. The Witch community only enchanted jack-o-lanterns for entertainment. Just a mere prank. Charlotte had to remind herself they weren't actually intelligent.

The rest of the pumpkins that lined the other side of the street repeated like the first one had. “Run faster. Run faster. Until you are safely at home.”

Charlotte crinkled her forehead, and did exactly that. She broke into a fast run. It seemed as though the things were following her. She passed dozens of them in a haze of orange as she ran out of the residential district and finally into the town square.

“Charlotte!”

She screamed and fell backward, slamming into a burlap figure. She let Edwin help her up, dusted herself off. She beamed seeing Edwin, sewn neatly back together, and immediately threw her arms around him.

“Edwin! I’m so happy to see you!”

“Jeez, why are you in such a hurry?” he asked, adjusting his glasses that had been knocked askew.

Charlotte cleared her throat. “I was just on my way back home.” She peered back toward where the jack-o-lanterns were. They were again lifeless and staring blankly forward.

The shiny, black eyes behind Edwin's bottle cap goggles, now repaired at the bridge with duct-tape, went blank. “N-no. I-I don’t th-think that is the b-best idea—” he began to warn again.

Charlotte sighed. Not again, she thought. “Edwin? What's the matter now? Is it Valek?”

“No! No! No!” He scratched his head feverishly back and forth. “No! It’s n-not! It's n-not Valek. V-valek. Tr-trouble!” Edwin's head shook violently from side to side like he was about to short circuit. “No!” he said again. His head quickly convulsed to the left once more. “N-no! No!”

Charlotte looked around for someone she possibly knew. Something was going seriously awry in her town. And according to Edwin’s half-baked warnings, it was about to get a lot worse.

No one in the square seemed to be paying attention. There was nowhere else to go but home.

“Valek is in trouble, Edwin,” she concluded. Clouds moved past the moon and thunder sounded somewhere miles away. She wrapped her arms around herself—not to keep warm, but rather to keep herself together. “I have to go.” She proceeded walking again in the direction toward home while Edwin continued to spew.

“N-no! No! No!”