––––––––
The phone rang, shrill and piercing, making them both jump.
James.
Serenity gave Elizabeth another fierce hug and stood to get the phone. She considered taking the call out of the room, but the guilt remained with her after lying to Elizabeth and she didn’t want Elizabeth to feel any more shut out than she probably already did.
“Hello?” she answered.
James spoke without bothering to introduce himself. “Amy is surprisingly okay with going to Sacramento. She’s been meaning to visit her mom for ages. She doesn’t like the idea of me being here and she’s worried to death about you, but she’s happy to take Elizabeth.”
Serenity breathed a sigh of relief. Of course Amy always did what was best, but Serenity had been worried she would fight James and they’d all still be here, right in Jackson’s path.
“That’s great, James. Thank you so much, and thank Amy for me as well.”
“A flight leaves at eight-fifteen tonight,” he continued. “I’ve got the three of you tickets. Amy has some stuff she needs to do first, so she’ll meet you at departures.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll get a cab.”
“You sure? You’ll be safe?”
“I’ll be careful, I promise.”
She heard him pause, and then he said, “Jesus, Serenity. I can’t believe it’s come to this.” Anger still affected his voice.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” She glanced over at Elizabeth sitting on the couch. She watched her mother and so Serenity turned her back, as if her position could affect Elizabeth’s hearing. She spoke into the phone, her head bent, hair falling in her face. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“You’re the one who got involved with a ...” Still he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“I didn’t know what he was when I met him.”
“You should have run as soon as you found out.”
“I did,” she said, quietly. “He found me again.”
James sighed heavily down the phone. “I guess we can’t change what’s already happened.”
Serenity bristled in irritation. “If we changed things, a certain little girl wouldn’t be here. Would that suit you better?”
“No, of course not.”
“Please, James,” she begged. “Let’s not fight. We’ve got enough trouble going on.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry. Be at departures by seven. You need to check in an hour before the flight departs.”
Serenity glanced at the clock; almost four in the afternoon. Once again the day had flown by, but she still had plenty of time before needing to be at the airport.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be there.”
“And you are certain your... friend... will be able to protect you?”
Serenity’s thoughts went to Sebastian. Would he come back for her? She’d been hard on him last night and he might have easily decided she wasn’t worth the hassle. But she couldn’t bother James with their domestics now; he’d done enough.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be the one worrying about you. Please, remember what I said. If you see Jackson, you won’t be able to arrest him. Just get the hell out of there.”
“Okay. If you need me, I’m on my cell.”
They hung up and Serenity was left clutching the phone to her chest. She hated fighting with him, it just felt wrong. James was her best friend—her only real friend other than Amy, and she was a friend by proxy. Serenity hated him thinking badly of her.
Once again the façade of her independence hit her. James and Amy had become her family.
She had to wonder, if someone had no real family of their own, was it so wrong to come to depend on their friends?
Jackson slunk around the side of the building like a city fox.
Every muscle quivered, his nostrils flared.
You’re strong now, he told himself. You have control.
Though breaking into Serenity’s sad little apartment would have been easy, he held himself back. His restraint wasn’t only because of his desire to drag out her torture for as long as possible.
Something was wrong.
Though the scent of Serenity’s blood wafted out to him like onions frying on a hot dog van, he clamped down on his hunger. His sense of smell wasn’t the only sense heightened since the change. Humans gave out a field of energy—a field of life—which he could focus on if he directed his thoughts in their direction. But in Serenity’s case, a mental hole had appeared beside her. He tried to focus on the strange space but the sensation sent spears of pain stabbing through his head, his muscles screaming like they had when he’d first burst from the ground. She seemed to have a protective aura surrounding her like a blare of static.
With all the blinds drawn, Jackson couldn’t just look through the window. The temptation to simply burst through her door, shatter the wood around him, was almost overwhelming.
He couldn’t; not without understanding this change in Serenity. When she’d been in the parking garage, she’d been normal. He’d been able to revel in every last part of her.
Could this thing weaken him? Make him vulnerable? Jackson didn’t know but it did make him angry.
He bit down on the emotion.
Control. It was all about control now.
Hell, it had always been about control. Even when he’d been human, controlling Serenity had been the one thing that made his life worth living; his sole pleasure.
Jackson would need to kill again and soon. The taste of blood was like a drug or really good sex; the more he had, the more he wanted. To stop himself killing Serenity straight away, he needed to take out his urges on someone else.
He might not be able to get to Serenity, but he could still frighten her. Her fear would only make her blood sweeter.
He’d been wrong about his previous existence being about control. His human life had been as much about fear as his inhuman one.
Serenity’s fear.
The minutes dragged like hours and Serenity found her eyes drawn back to the kitchen clock time and time again, willing the hands to both move and stay still. While she didn’t want to be separated from her daughter, she was terribly aware of their vulnerability and she only wanted Elizabeth to be somewhere safe.
A waft of rotten cans and decomposing road kill crept through every gap in the windows and beneath the doors. Serenity wrinkled her nose, her attention shifting to the bin. Had she forgotten to empty the trash last night? Then she realized the smell came from outside and her stomach dropped out of its self.
Oh God, please don’t let it be him.
“Mommy,” said Elizabeth, her shirt sleeve clamped over her face. “Something smells bad.”
“I know, honey,” she said, going to her daughter on the couch. “Don’t worry; it’ll go away in a minute.”
She curled up beside her daughter, her eyes flicking around the small apartment, terrified Jackson would materialize in the middle of the room.
A loud banging on the front door thundered through the apartment, making Serenity jump. She stifled a scream. A second later the banging came again, only this time at the back door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Mommy?” Elizabeth’s voice was a thin whine of fear.
Whoever pounded on the door—and Serenity didn’t have any doubts about their identity—moved from the front door to the back, so fast the transition was almost immediate. In one moment, the banging came from the back, in the next, the front. And then back again.
Serenity clutched Elizabeth in her arms, spinning from one door to the next. Elizabeth started to cry.
“Go away!” Serenity screamed. “Just leave us alone!”
All fell silent.
The atmosphere around the apartment changed. The tension—the thickening of the atmosphere—lifted. The oppressive stench lingered in the air for a moment, but soon drifted away like smoke.
He was gone.
Serenity heaved a sigh of relief and slumped down into her daughter. Elizabeth sniffed through her tears.
“He’s gone now, Mommy.”
“I know, sweetheart. You were so brave. Mommy’s so proud of you.”
Elizabeth nodded against her and Serenity kissed the top of her head.
Why hadn’t Jackson burst through the door? Serenity didn’t think for a second he wasn’t capable of doing exactly that. She had to get Elizabeth away from here. The fear of losing her daughter overwhelmed any fear she had for her own life. The idea of any harm coming to Elizabeth was too much to stand. Just seeing Elizabeth scared hurt Serenity and if this monster got hold of her and did things to her...
Serenity shook the thought from her head. She couldn’t even bear to think about it.
She needed to focus on that one thing right now: getting Elizabeth away from there. Getting from the apartment, to the cab, to the airport, would be dangerous, but she had no choice. She only hoped whatever kept Jackson out of the apartment, would also keep him away as they traveled.
Serenity gathered their things together and placed a call to a local cab company.
They sat nervously waiting for the cab to show up. The case holding Elizabeth’s things sat at their feet like a patient dog.
Still Serenity couldn’t shake the feeling that sending her daughter away was wrong. They shouldn’t be separated.
The blare of a car horn brought Serenity to her feet. She ran to the window and pushed the slats of the blind open with her fingers. A cab waited on the street.
“Mommy?” Elizabeth grabbed her hand and Serenity glanced down at her. Fresh fear was written into her young features.
“Everything’s okay, sweetie. Time to go.”
Serenity grabbed her purse and Elizabeth’s case. Sick with nerves, she opened her front door and they stepped out on the street. They were horribly exposed. At any moment, Jackson might attack them both. Serenity held Elizabeth’s hand, keeping the girl tight to her side, pausing only long enough to lock the door behind them before they ran to the car. Serenity pulled open the door and half-pushed Elizabeth in first before climbing in behind. Quickly, she found the button to lock the doors and hit it down.
The cab driver, a middle-aged Indian man, eyed her curiously in the rear view mirror and Serenity caught his eye.
“She likes to open car doors,” Serenity said, hoping he would buy her explanation and instantaneously wondering why the hell she cared.
Elizabeth sat silent in the cab. Serenity chatted inanely, trying to keep both of their spirits up.
“I can’t believe you get to go in an airplane. How exciting!” Her enthusiasm was as fake as saccharine, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “And you’ll help Amy with Noah, won’t you? You’re such a big girl now. I know Amy loves when you help her.”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. Her small mouth was pressed tight, holding in her emotions. She stared out as the freeway rushed past, the cars moving in the opposite direction in a blur of color.
While Serenity climbed into the cab outside of her apartment, Jackson stood one block from Serenity’s house.
His senses were acute now—those of a predator—growing more powerful by the day. Smell, sight, hearing; everything was so much stronger than when he’d been human. Through the buzz of noise around him, he distinguished the sound of a rat scurrying behind a trashcan, a woman tearing a waxing strip from her leg, her gasp of pain as the strip tore the hairs from the root. He heard the clang of metal on metal as someone replaced the lid of a trashcan, and the faint sliver of a knife slicing though a vegetable.
And then there was his other sense; the one he didn’t believe he possessed as a human. Jackson was tuning in on another level. He sensed the presence of people. He felt their shapes in the atmosphere, as though they left some kind of psychic mark, a dent in the environment.
With his now supernatural hearing, he’d been able to differentiate Serenity’s voice from the rush of other noise around him. He heard her telling the cab driver she wanted to go to the airport, the small grunt of acknowledgement from the driver, and the sound of the key turning in the ignition.
Jackson bristled with rage. Did she think she could run away from him? He would never allow it.
This time he didn’t want Serenity to be aware of his presence. In the apartment he’d had her trapped, but he didn’t want to give her any chance of doing something drastic to escape him. If she died before he got his hands on her, his whole existence lost purpose.
The strange hole beside her had him worried. Perhaps it signaled another of his kind or even the one who changed him? He didn’t understand what the glaring gap meant, but he would have to take things more cautiously than he had intended.
He would run again—he loved to run now. The power and strength he experienced as his legs propelled him forward.
It felt like flying.