“Hannah was sixteen. I was thirteen.” Jenna crossed the room to the sculptures lining the far wall. She smiled a little when she noticed that Trevor had turned some of them around so they wouldn’t face the bed. She got that. There was a reason all her art was in this room instead of her own bedroom. No one wants monsters staring at them while they sleep. “Hannah took me to the movies all the time, even the scary ones she hated. She was my big sister and would do anything for me.”
Trevor didn’t push, but Jenna still had to take a deep breath before continuing. There weren’t many people she talked with about this part of her life. When her thirteen-year-old self was repeatedly told she was delusional and that she’d made everything up to get attention, it had a way of forcing her to keep things to herself. It was difficult to be open after that, even with someone like Trevor. Someone she trusted.
“We were walking past an alley when we heard a whimpering sound, like a hurt animal,” she finally said, trying to talk loud enough for Trevor to hearbut not sure she accomplished that. When he didn’t complain, she kept going. “I thought it was a dog or maybe a cat. One look at Hannah and we were both running into the alley. But it wasn’t a dog or cat crouched down behind the dumpster. It was the thing we saw tonight. It was this.”
With that, she pulled the sheets off the three sculptures at the end of the row, tossing the fabric aside until Trevor could see what she’d been hiding. He moved over until he was standing directly in front of them, leaning in close to see all the details. Admittedly, there were details aplenty. Why wouldn’t there be? She’d been working on them off and on for almost ten years.
Each sculpture depicted the creature in a different pose, one standing upright, another leaning forward with a fang-bearing snarl on its face, and the last with the thing dropped down on all fours, like it was running across the ground.
“These are incredible. They’re perfect in every detail,” Trevor murmured as he moved from side to side, taking in everything before looking up at her. “You did these from memory? How many times have you seen that thing?”
“Before tonight?” she asked. “Just the one time, when I was forced to watch it drag my sister down into the sewers. But I’ve never forgotten it. The image of that creature, right down to every tiny detail, will be trapped in my head forever. Thesesculptures are the way I chose to cope with the memories.”
She held her breath, waiting for him to say something, fearing the worst. Instead, he simply stepped forward and swept her into a big hug, his strong arms wrapping around her back and shoulders and holding her tightly. She pressed her face to the shirt covering his muscular chest and closed her eyes, focusing on his warmth and comforting scent that seemed to envelop her.
Jenna couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this safe and accepted. A part of her wanted to stay here forever. But knowing there was more she needed to tell him, she forced herself to pull back a little and gaze up at him.
“It happened so fast,” she said. “One second, the thing was staring at us, and the next, it was dragging Hannah across the ground the same way that thing was doing with the woman tonight. I tried to stop it, but it was too strong. And then it was gone…and so was my sister.”
Images of that night flooded her memory, vivid and horrific. She’d never forget the terrified look on Hannah’s face as the creature dragged her away.
“What happened after that?” Trevor asked.
Jenna felt her face heat. “I’m embarrassed to say that I froze. I sat there on the ground behind that dumpster in the alley all night, staring at the lastplace I saw my sister. Connor found me the next morning, pretty much catatonic.”
Trevor seemed to consider that for a moment, his expression thoughtful. “Did you tell Connor about the creature who kidnapped Hannah?”
She nodded. “Connor, my parents, and everyone else. I thought I was helping by telling them exactly what took my sister, but no one believed me. They thought I was either traumatized by what I’d seen or making up wild stories to get attention.” Her mouth tightened. “Like I wanted attention for myself when my sister was missing.”
“So the police never even looked into the possibility that something had dragged Hannah down into the sewers?”
“No.” Jenna was stunned he was approaching this so logically. “As far as I know, the police talked to a few people in the neighborhood and put up a few posters, but within a month or so, they’d already written Hannah off as a runaway and that was the end of it.”
Jenna knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’m not sure what, if anything, Connor told you about his life growing up in LA, but things sort of fell apart after Hannah disappeared,” she said, happy to at least be done with those parts of her memories involving Hannah and the creature. Unfortunately, the rest of it wasn’t much better. “Igot sent to endless therapy in an attempt tofixme, our parents got divorced, and Connor left home to become a cop. Then he ran off to Dallas. Not that it mattered much, I guess. We pretty much stopped being brother and sister the day he refused to believe me. But through it all, I stayed here and searched for my sister.”
Trevor turned his attention to the sculptures again, focusing on the one that was leaning forward with its fang showing. She didn’t miss the fact that this pose looked exactly like the creature in the alleyway had right before it had come at Trevor.
“How do those idiots from the HOPD play into this?” he asked, glancing at her. “Don’t tell me those twits actually found out about that creature’s existence on their own?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. I’ve been searching for my sister—and the creature that took her—for years on my own and finally came to the conclusion a few months ago that I needed help.”
He lifted a brow. “And you thought those four could help you?”
Admittedly, it wasn’t one of her smartest decisions, but she’d been desperate.
“It’s not like I had a lot of options,” she said with a shrug. “In my situation, a paranormal investigator seemed like the best choice, and Hunters of Paranormal Darkness had the best reviews. I didn’t realize until after I paid them their initial fee thatthey’re merely a bunch of posers and wannabes. When we went out to the alley where my sister was taken, all they did was screw around and took videos of each other trying to look scared by theSkid Row Screamer. That was when I realized I was wasting my time and my money. Esme and Maya chased after me, trying to apologize, but I was too embarrassed—not to mention too furious—to listen. Tonight is the first time I’ve seen them since.”
“Do you think they followed us?” Trevor asked.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Owen can be sort of a jerk that way. But in this case, there was no need to bother, since there have been rumors of a creature running around that part of town for months. Years, maybe.”
Trevor’s brow furrowed. “Is that why you had us wandering the back alleys of Skid Row? To find this creature?”
Jenna had the presence of mind to feel more than a little chagrined at the realization that her attempts at subtlety with the takeout meals hadn’t worked as well as she’d hoped. Trevor had picked up on the way she’d cajoled him into those alleys with her.
“I didn’t go in that alley specifically looking for the creature, but I knew there was a chance it might be there,” she said. “What I was actually hoping to see was my sister, like I did a couple months ago.”
