I moved into the living room and idly scratched at my chest. Fourteen years I’d known Blake. And fourteen years I’d been feeling emotions. I still wasn’t used to them. Half of my life had been spent not having these sensations. I should’ve been used to them by now. They were only getting worse, more intense, the longer I knew Blake. They were uncomfortable at best. At worst, they made me vulnerable, but that was the name of the game.
Vulnerability.
Blake was mine. Too many people knew it as Blake grew up and as my power rose, so I flipped it. I had to or she would’ve ended up dead by now. If anyone touched her, hurt her, considered even a negative thought about her, they were snuffed out immediately.
Blake herself gave me the rules that I used to live by. No one good. No one innocent. That’s who I couldn’t harm except if someone hurt her. They would pay. That was rule number one for me.
I moved through the rest of the main floor, opening the door to the girl’s bedroom on the first floor. Niko. When she slept, she slept like the dead, so I wasn’t worried about her waking up.
Still. I didn’t go through too many of her things while she was in the room. If she woke up, she’d raise the alarm and Blake would be even more incensed by me.
I’d go through her things later, when she was out of the house.
I avoided the stairs that would squeak under my weight and bypassed the second floor.
I wanted to spend the longest time in Blake’s room, with Blake, so I went to the third floor.
The two guys had a similar layout to her room except the boys’ sitting area was much messier. A cereal bowl sat on a counter with mold growingover it. Weights were left haphazard by their couch. I went through the one boy’s room. Marshall Finch. He looked like an angel sleeping with some drool pooling on his pillow. The framed pictures on his desk matched what I read had been his childhood. He was from a two-parent household. He had two older brothers. He was the baby. They all looked similar, with chestnut curls on top of the head. Brown eyes. Athletic physiques.
A literal picket-fence type of home he grew up in. His parents were still married. There was no history of secrets within the family. No infidelity. His mom and dad both owned a realty business, with his mother being the Realtor. The dad did the books and was the broker. They had a good setup. They were flexible, the mom being home when the boys had hockey practice growing up. The dad rotated in when she had to show a client a home. They were a team. All three boys played hockey. The other two played in college. Both graduated with MBAs. Marshall was the only one who didn’t play hockey in college and now he was in graduate school for biology.
I moved on to the next boy. Heath Nogoskeski. This one I knew.
He didn’t look like his brothers, except he had the same dark blond hair and a full sleeve of tattoos. His brothers were much taller, bigger in build too. They were almost giants compared to this one, but Heath wasn’t little. He was just shy of six feet, and I could see that he kept himself strong.
He slept how he operated during the day. Guarded and on edge. He was frowning in his sleep, one of his hands curled into a fist.
My eyes fell to the bulge under his other pillow and knew what was there. Interesting. I thought his brothers picked up that habit because they worked for me, but perhaps it originated from their home.
His two older brothers pledged their lives to me. Both were good soldiers. Fierce. Ruthless. Loyal. So I would use this connection. There were two reasons I had Blake placed in this house, and he was one of them. The closer he was to Blake, the more rewards I would heap on his brothers’ shoulders.
I moved around his room. Looked through his desk. Rifled through his bag. His wallet.
I was tempted to take his phone, but instead I put mine next to it, the one my tech team gave me. It beeped quietly as I began to clone. If he reached out to his brothers about me, I would be privy to that conversation. While the phone worked, I moved to the head of his bed.
I reached under his pillow, touched the end of a handgun, and pulled it out.
He was a true Nogoskeski. He kept his weapons close when he slept.
I could respect that and put the gun back.
The phone quietly beeped again when it was done, and I put it into my pocket, leaving his room.
Going to the second floor, I stepped into Blake’s area. I wanted to go right to her, but forced myself go through her floormate’s room first. Palma Beauregard. As soon as I stepped inside, I didn’t like how she slept. Open. Naked. Her blanket was thrown to the side. She was splayed out, a perfect victim for another monster.
This was not good. If she were going to have the honor of being Blake’s floormate, she would need to be smarter in how she operated. That included sleeping. She should be on guard, like the Nogoskeski boy.
I didn’t enjoy being in her room. Her perfume was too heavy. It made me want to sneeze, so I left without going through her things and moved to Blake’s room.
As soon as I touched her door, I felt her. The connection grew clearer, stronger, and I pushed open the door to see her.
She thought I was obsessed with her.Amobsessed with her. Yes. That part was true, but it’s more than that for me. It’s always been more than that, though I’ve never told her exactly how much. If I did, the pressure she would feel resting on her shoulders would be too much. She was already burdened by so much because of me. I felt it happening inside of me how it happened the first time I saw her get out of her social worker’s car.
It happened then. The click inside of me.
Something that had been missing was unleashed inside me.
I’d been leaving to kill someone that day when the car turned into our driveway. People knew not to park in our driveway. That was for Miss Marcie, no one else, except a little angel stepped outside of the new vehicle.
