Chapter 18 — Grace Period

Kier’s alarm sounded like an obnoxious elephant that got hit by a car. To make it worse, he had put it across the room, so he had to get up to shut the damn thing off. I hauled the blanket over my head and shoved a pillow on top of all that. After the week I’d had, a Sunday sleeping in bed sounded amazing.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be…

“What’s wrong with you!?” Clementine yelled. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to do that? I spent months planning, selecting all the best materials, and keeping the habitat in perfect condition!” This last came out as a wild squeak, and I pictured her flailing around.

Kier sighed.

“What habitat?” I asked.

“She wants some bugs,” Kier said.

The pillow came off my head so fast, I damn near gave myself whiplash. “What kind of bugs? You aren’t talking like spiders, are you? Because I won’t live in a house with spiders all over the place. Oh, god, it’s spiders, isn’t it? She wants to fill the whole house with those, doesn’t she?”

Kier smirked, and I wanted to punch that smug smile right off his face. “No, it’s not spiders. I won’t let her have those with Amber in the house.”

“So, you’re saying there’s a chance she’ll get spiders when Amber is older? How much older? Like twenty? I can live with that. Clementine will probably be out of the house by then, and I don’t have to deal with the creepy, disgusting little things…” I stared into space.

“I haven’t really discussed it with them,” Kier said.

“You should do that and tell them that spiders aren’t an option. No matter what they want, or how well they build habitats, no spiders. You hear me?”

Kier put his hands up. “Got it.”

Then my mind started to turn on what he could be talking about. “Um… just out of curiosity, it’s not like scorpions either, right? I mean, I know that some of them aren’t too dangerous, but I hate those fuckers too.”

“It’s not scorpions,” Kier said.

I breathed out in relief, but my mind just kept throwing different kinds of bugs at me, and I started to get concerned once more. I rubbed my hands down my thighs, and said, “You should probably just tell me.”

Kier still smiled as he grabbed his phone off the dresser. He brought it over to me, clicking on the screen the entire time. He handed it over, and I stared down at roly-polies. At least, I thought they were roly-polies. I’d never seen white ones with black spots before. “Oh. That’s not so bad. Why does she want this?”

He shrugged. “She says that it would teach her responsibility, and while I was trying to figure out why the hell she’d say that, she walked away. I figure this is better than the octopus that she wanted. She begged for me to get her one for over a year, and only stopped when I showed her how easily it could escape and die.”

I had to stop myself from making a sound of sympathy for the poor, stupid octopus that didn’t exist. Also, though… “How much does an octopus cost?”

Kier cocked his head at me. “I didn’t check.”

“Oh…”

He laughed and grabbed his phone again. “All right, give me a second.” He typed on the screen, his brows drawn down in concentration. I stood up on my knees, so that I could watch what he did. His thumb hit one more button, and he turned the screen around to face me.

I nearly threw up.

“That’s… a lot more than I thought it would be.”

“Looks about right to me,” Kier said. “You think they find these octopuses easily?”

“I think they’re all in a tank together, being forced to make octopus babies so that people like this can sell them for outrageous prices. One day, those poor octopuses will be liberated from their prison.”

Kier cocked his head, and I felt my cheeks redden. I’d barely been up ten minutes, and we’d had an in-depth discussion about an octopus that didn’t exist. I felt like I’d either failed miserably or exceeded as my first morning being part of the Nightmare community.

Kier went to shower, and I flopped back on the bed to stare at the ceiling. Since I only had what clothes I’d brought with me, I had to wear Kier’s shirt to bed, with nothing underneath it. I hadn’t thought much about that the night before, but now realized that I’d gotten all cuddly with someone while in nothing but an oversized shirt and panties. My cheeks became even hotter.

Then I realized that Kier would be naked on the other side of that door, and while that shouldn’t have bothered me, it immediately did. Not bothered in the bad sense, either. More like, I started to wonder what his chest looked like… and his stomach. And his back… and other bits of him.

By the time he got out of the shower, I’d buried my head in the blankets, so that he wouldn’t be able to tell what I had been thinking.

I heard a drawer open and peeked from behind the blankets to find Kier standing in just a towel, pawing through clothing in his drawer. I may or may not have squeaked in delight. He had muscle hard packed onto his back, thick with power. Each movement he made, those muscles would writhe underneath his skin, and my stomach would grow a little tighter.

Kier looked over his shoulder at me, and I tried to duck under the blanket before he noticed my stare.

I failed.

But got a nice view of his chest in the process. Much like his back, his front had muscle for days. It matched his thick arms and legs, telling me that a good chunk of his training had been honing his body into a weapon. Emerald and Forrest had the same kind of thing going for them. Why the Authorities needed to look like they could bench press a car, I didn’t know. I also didn’t mind… in the least…

“Are you checking me out?” Kier asked, a smirk on his face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, burrowing into the blankets. “I had a nightmare about cocky boys thinking they can pull off smug. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Oh?” Kier asked, turning to face me fully. He had a happy trail, and I tried very hard not to notice that. I also tried not to analyze why I liked it.

“Yes,” I said, defensive. “Just look at you. All so cocky, and you just walk around, cocky as hell. It’s awful, really.”

“I see,” Kier said, and stretched.

Why is that so fascinating?

My eyes went right to his chest, and I tried not to pant like a schoolgirl. But… damn. Just damn. How could he walk around looking so good like that? Unfair, and also, why had no one else managed to snag him before I came along. What kind of logic was that? The girls in his school must’ve been insane.

“You are the worst. The literal worst,” I said.

Kier shrugged. “I mean, if I have nothing to be cocky about, then why are you saying these things to me?”

“Ah!” I flailed so hard that the blankets wrapped around my legs, and I ended up trapping myself. I pretended that didn’t happen, worried that Kier would have to save me. He went back into the bathroom to change, laughing the entire way. When the door closed, I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, and smiling.

For all of two seconds.

Out of nowhere, a wave of sadness crashed into me. One second, I had been flirting with a boy that I cared a lot about, and the next I had to fight off tears. I couldn’t even figure out why. If Kier saw this, he would for sure think I had lost my mind, but he might also feel bad.

I freed my legs from the blanket and ground my teeth together in an attempt to center myself. It took a lot of effort, but I managed to shove the sadness away. I didn’t know what to feel without it, but I figured it had to be better than pouting for no reason. Kier hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had I.

I told myself that a dozen times, hoping that it would sound believable at some point. We’d done nothing wrong… but I could hear my father’s voice in my head. Telling me that I’d abandoned him, that I was trash, that of course I took the first boy that came along. The words didn’t make sense. They still circled my head in an endless loop, reminding me of why I had left that house.

Of why I should’ve left so much sooner. I could tell myself a thousand times that nothing Dad said had been true, but the words still lingered. They still poked and prodded, and injured me in small ways. I breathed out, and looked around the room, trying to center myself on something. Anything.

Kier didn’t have much in there, but he had a couple of pictures. One of them, on the nightstand, had his entire family. Including his parents. Amber looked days old in the picture, with her ruddy face, and her tight fists aimed to the sky. I picked the thing up and stared down at the familiar faces that looked younger. Amber, obviously, looked the most different. Just a tiny baby, with that kind of anonymity that all babies had to me. Aiden looked cocky, even as a five-year-old. He stood with his arms crossed, and his eyes narrowed at nothing. Clementine looked awkward in her nine-year-old body, with her spindly arms crossed, and her glasses far too big for her tiny face. Ash hadn’t gone through puberty yet, so he looked pretty young and small. But, naturally, my eyes went right to Kier. He had been fourteen when this picture was taken. He looked it, too. He didn’t have the height, the mass that he did now. His face hadn’t hardened into the strong features that I recognized.

He looked like he had hope, and that thought saddened me.

The other two people in the picture, they didn’t warrant my attention, but I gave it to them anyway. The woman looked so much like Brook that it hurt my chest. The dark brown eyes, the black hair that had been grown out to her waist. She held herself with confidence and smiled at the camera like someone had a gun to her head. The biggest difference between them came from this woman’s eyes. She looked cold. Empty. Like she stood there just to put on a show. Not because she felt proud of the five children around her. Not because she wanted to remember them fondly when they left the house. But like she needed to fool everyone into thinking she cared.

The man at her side had the same kind of blank stare. His crystal-clear green eyes shined from his face, and that light brown hair reminded me of his daughters immediately. He had the mass that Kier did. He towered over everyone in the family and looked deadly with his arms crossed. Yet, somehow, his features didn’t look as hard as Kier’s. His eyes didn’t look as steady. I could see elements of my… what? Boyfriend? I could see him in both the adults’ faces, but only in the shapes of eyes and noses. Not so much in personality.

I set the picture down just as the door opened, and Kier came out, ready for the day. He wore an oversized sweater that did nothing to conceal how much power he had in his body and a pair of jeans. They looked comfortable. He looked comfortable.

“I’m going to see what Clementine and Aiden are fighting about,” Kier said. “Maybe I can stop this one before they break another TV.”

“They’ve broken a TV?”

“They’ve broken everything,” Kier grumbled, marching out of the room. Once he had left, I managed to forcibly remove myself from the gloomy feelings and started to get ready. I pulled on the shirt and jeans that I had gotten sick of looking at and left the room. I could hear Kier’s deep rumble throughout the house, telling the kids they needed to calm down.

This house had so much activity, and I kind of loved it. The noise and the movement and the chaos didn’t give me much time for silence. Certainly not enough to worry about my father, and how he would react when he learned that I wouldn’t come back. I pictured him breaking things all throughout the house, and then he’d get angry because he had to clean it up. I wouldn’t have been there for him to push around.

At the bottom of the stairs, someone knocked on the door.

Kier looked up from the kids, frowning. “Why don’t you two go and see what Ash is doing?”

Clementine shoved her glasses up her nose and huffed. “He’s sleeping.”

“Then go wake him up,” Kier said.

“Any way that we want?” Aiden asked.

“Sure,” Kier answered.

The kids glanced at each other, both smiling wickedly, and rushed past me. I felt sorry for Ash, who had done nothing wrong but sleep in on a Sunday. I figured that he would get startled awake soon enough.

Kier turned to look at me. “If it’s someone you haven’t met before, you need to rush upstairs.”

“Got it,” I said.

Kier walked over to the front door and pulled it open. Emerald walked into the house, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I caught a glimpse of his face, and my relief turned to cautious worry. I came the rest of the way down the stairs and rubbed my hands down my jeans. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

Emerald rubbed the back of his head. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

Kier and I didn’t argue with him. We walked into the kitchen, and all took seats at the table.

“First things first,” Emerald said, and pulled a small package out of his jacket. “They put a special rush on this, so that it would get to us quicker. Overnight shipping is a thing if you have enough power, apparently.” He set the packet down and looked directly at me.

I reached for the small black box and pulled the top off. Inside, resting on some white fluff, the necklace sat. The one with the pendant that would tell everyone not to bother me.

“We’ve sent out a notice, to get the word out that you aren’t dangerous,” Emerald said. “By now, most people in town probably know. A chain of emails and phone calls has been made, so you should be safe to leave the house.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, thinking about human police.

Kier nodded. “We can get notifications out a lot faster than humans. We’re more prepared for emergencies than they are. No offense.”

“None taken, I guess,” I said. Hearing the constant human bashing had gotten old, but what had gotten worse, was how I couldn’t argue. So many times, they said something mean about my kind, but I couldn’t rightfully defend them. Not when I’d been thrown away like trash so many times.

“I’d suggest getting her settled in and even starting her in school soon,” Emerald said to Kier.

“Um, right here,” I informed him, waving my hand.

Emerald smirked but continued talking. “We’ve talked with the principal of your school, and they’re willing to let her enroll, but they’re putting Whilda in all of your classes. To ensure that there’s not an incident. For the most part, it looks like the school systems are run the same way,” Emerald said. “You might be a little behind or ahead in some of your classes, but it shouldn’t be too hard to catch up.”

I nodded and took the pendant out of the box. The design still looked simple, but I liked it more now. Somehow, it worked better in person than it had on paper. I ran my hand over the gems that made up the half of the heart and frowned. “These aren’t real rubies, are they?”

“They are,” Emerald said.

My eyes went wide, and I stared at him. “But that would cost… so much money.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kier said, taking the necklace from me. I, naturally, continued to worry about it as Kier wrapped the chain around my neck, and fastened it for me. The cold metal bounced off my throat, and then settled there. Immediately, it felt like a comfortable weight. I touched the thing, running my hand over the bumps of jewels. The jewels that had cost way too much for a necklace I had to wear.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Kier said, leaning on the table again. “Why do you look uncomfortable and unhappy?”

Emerald rubbed the back of his head and produced a piece of paper from his back pocket. “We informed the humans of your decision to leave their society and join ours. We hoped that it wouldn’t be too much trouble, because they really don’t get a say in it. Unfortunately, your father is making things difficult for us.”

He stared right at me.

My stomach dropped, and I shifted forward. “All right. What does that mean, exactly?”

He pushed the piece of paper my way. “Read for yourself.”

I brought it forward, so that it sat between Kier and I, and began reading.

“I’ve reviewed the paperwork that you’ve sent over, stating that Whilda Plier is no longer part of the human community. After going through records and speaking with her father, I find this documentation to be suspect. For one thing, Whilda is a minor, and you are not allowed to take her away from her parent without his express permission. For another, she has only been gone a week. That does not seem like sufficient time for her to make such a decision.

“Furthermore, her father claims that she must have been kidnapped. He reported her missing a few days ago, and she was spotted outside a shelter with a young woman. According to the reports, Miss Plier attacked the young woman unprovoked, but the man we found with this woman claims to have been attacked by a larger man. One that sounds like a Nightmare, based on his description.

“Whilda’s father refuses to sign anything stating that his daughter may leave his custody at this time, and in light of the other evidence that we’ve found, I cannot allow her to stay in your protection. You may either send Whilda over to our station, or we can take her by force. It is up to you.

“You have two days to decide.

“Sincerely, Robert Handler.”

I sat back and rubbed my eyes. “So, you’re saying that they’ve decided you kidnapped me? Based on what?”

“The fact that you’re a young girl with a father that’s being a stubborn ass, and that Robert doesn’t like us. He never has.”

I bit my lip and stared at the paper. “They’re trying to get me back?”

“Yes,” Kier growled, low in his throat. The muscles in his arms stood out, looking deadly. “And they’ve bypassed all the normal methods of doing so. They aren’t trying to go through official channels, but straight for the threats.”

“Can they do that?” I asked.

“Officially? No,” Emerald said. “But this is a small Texas town. It would take a lot to get these people reprimanded, and even if we managed to do that, it would probably only be a slap on the wrist. They’ve got what they consider probable cause and evidence. Your father’s testimony. If this were humans they dealt with, we could do something. But it’s us.”

I rubbed my eyes. “What are we going to do? There aren’t any official channels for us to go through, right?”

“No,” Emerald said. “They’re going to come after you if they want, and we can’t do much to stop it.”

My chest hollowed out, and I couldn’t believe my father would do this. I thought that he would’ve wanted me gone after seeing me carousing around with a Nightmare boy. That seemed as bad as it could get, in the rebellious sense. For most human teenagers, anyway, who didn’t understand what Nightmares really did or who they were.

“What do you think they’ll do?” I asked.

Emerald rubbed the back of his head some more. “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. This was a hostile way of responding, though I’m not surprised. Robert’s never really liked our kind. Not from the beginning. He’s sent us messages throughout the years, all of them petty things, like how we’re parking in the wrong lot or spaces. How we need to keep the outside of our building looking nice, because he has to stare at it. Those kinds of things.”

My nose wrinkled.

“I’m not sending her back,” Kier growled.

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Emerald said. “We’re not giving her up now, and the humans are going to have to get used to the idea.”

“Then what are we doing?” I asked.

“We’ll put them in their place,” Kier said, his voice a deep, resonant burst of power that shouldn’t have had me shivering so hard.

“We’ll wait,” Emerald said, sounding much calmer. “We’ll wait the two days out and see what they’re next move is. There’s nothing more that we can do.”

My stomach twisted around again, and I looked at Kier. He’d kill them right then, I thought. If a human walked through that door, asking for me, they’d get their neck broken. It would be ugly for sure, but that wouldn’t matter. Not as long as he kept me safe. At least, he would think that.

I didn’t want Kier to have to hurt someone or himself, just to keep me safe from someone that might harm me. It sounded strange to say, but true at the same time.

Emerald rose from his seat but paused to look at us. “You have nothing to worry about, Whilda. We aren’t going to let anyone hurt you, and if they try, we’ll remind the humans why we separated our worlds to begin with. And Kier? Nothing is going to touch her. You know that as well as I do. So you can wipe that snarl off your mouth. Got it?”

Kier leaned back in his seat, his leg bouncing.

Emerald continued talking. “Don’t worry. We’re more than equipped to handle this. You know that.”

Kier didn’t look convinced.

Emerald left shortly after that. The second the front door swung closed, I turned toward Kier. He still hadn’t moved, his hands tightened into fists. I took one of those hands, ignoring the way it felt too tense in my fingers. “You all right?” I asked, rubbing the tips of my fingers against his skin. It felt so… weird. I’d gone most of my life without too much physical contact that touching Kier felt strange. Nice, but strange.

“No,” Kier said. “It feels like every time I turn the corner, someone else is trying to kill or hurt you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The tension ran out of him, and he turned to stare at me with soft eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You keep saying that,” I said. “Even though none of this would be happening if not for me.”

“And you keep thinking that you’re at fault, when the only thing you want is to live in a house where you don’t get hit. That’s a reasonable desire.”

“But…”

I trailed off when he turned his hand over and gripped mine. “C’mon,” he said. “We’ve got a two-day grace period, and I suggest that we use it to get you settled into the house.”