“Cease this whimpering.”
That sobers me, and I do my best to hold in the tears rushing down my face and calm my frantically racing heart.
“Get dressed and come to the manor.” He spins around and stalks back to his slick silver car.
I wonder how he found me. He couldn’t possibly have come across me by accident, could he? Perhaps there are cameras around the property I never noticed.
This is the worst possible thing that could have happened. I'm definitely fucked. I’m going to lose this job, Mr. Edgewood will kick me off the property, and I won’t even have any references for my next gig.
Damn it. Why did I park here? Why did I think this was a good idea?
Still, I do as I’m told, putting the car in drive and heading toward Edgewood Manor.
six
. . .
rupert
This is the second time this week I’ve been bloody furious at eight in the morning.
When I can’t sleep at night, which is painfully often, I wander the expansive grounds of the property. Sometimes I simply stalk through the woods searching for prey, for a deer or a rabbit I can tear open with my claws and do what I was made to do. There’s no feeling in the world like ripping into hot flesh, drinking the blood and then devouring the raw meat.
Human me would have been disgusted, horrified. But the monster craves it. The monster loves to leap onto a wild creature, pinning it to the ground and eating it while it’s still alive. The monster is meant to destroy.
It’s while I’m covered in blood, licking off the remnants of my kill when I spot something bright through the trees. Is that… a headlight reflecting the moon?
I creep closer and find that it is in fact a car. A familiar car. Ms. Austin’s saloon, parked off to the side of the utility road where sometimes people from the water company come out to test the underground water levels.
I peer through the windshield in the darkness, and see her lying on the driver’s side seat, sleeping.
She is sleeping in her car in the middle of the woods, alone.
I see red after that. Why? Why would she be here, where she’s so vulnerable? Why wouldn’t she be tucked neat and safe in a bed somewhere, out of the cold? It’s October already, and it’s not warm any longer after the sun sets.
Instead of breaking into her car, as I’m very,veryeager to do, I storm back to the manor and wake up Kellen from a dead sleep. I demand that we prepare a room for her, and in the morning, he will insist that she move in.
That is the only solution to this. If she cannot find a home to live in, then she will livehere.
The words are final, and Kellen hastens to do my bidding.
peony
I’m hunched over the steering wheel, feeling like I’m headed to the gallows as I drive the rest of the dirt road to Edgewood Manor.
I’m definitely losing my job now. There’s no way I can survive this, discovered squatting on Mr. Edgewood’s property. I have no respectability left. Someone like me, homeless and living in her car, can’t be allowed to serve someone like him.
The stone sinks even deeper in my belly. I’m so terriblyfucked. Just when it looked like there was a chance something might turn around… here I am again, chopped.
My heart’s nearly escaping my chest when I pull up in front of the manor. Mr. Castle stands there waiting, his expression impossible to read. I do so hate that about him. When I get out of the car, though, he doesn’t take my keys.
“I will help you carry your things inside to your new room,” he explains. “Then you will park where the other cars park.”
My new… room? I can’t have heard him right.
“Sorry, can you repeat that?”
He sighs impatiently and opens the back door of my car. “I’m here to help you bring in your belongings. You’re going to live here now.”
