I smiled as I took in Izzy’s cheeky grin and her sparkling eyes and chestnut hair, so different from my own nearly-black hair and equally dark eyes. But then I saw the fingerprint smudge that marred the perfect sheen of the frame.
I didn’t need to wonder if it was already there. I knew it wasn’t. It had been left recently. Someone had picked it up to look at it and then set it back down a little to the left of where it normally sat. I could see a blank space in the dust from where the picture usually was.
Who would go into Izzy’s room? Everyone in my family knew that nothing was to be touched. Ever. Whoever it was didn’t belong there, didn’t know the rules.
And they’d gone through my room to get in, because they’d closed the bathroom door behind them.
A chill ran through me. I thought of the woman who’d attacked me the other night. Had she been in my house since then? Could it have been her? Who was she? What did she want with me? And my sister?
Taking one last look around the room, I went back for my laundry and headed to the washer, my thoughts still on Izzy.
As sisters, we’d been close, had always gotten along pretty well, which just made it that much harder when she was gone. Izzy had always been a bright spot.
She laughed a lot, as did I. It was something that I missed terribly.
I smiled as I remembered that she couldn’t even stop laughing long enough to record a serious outgoing voice mail message on her cell phone. She’d done well up to the very end, when she’d punctuated her greeting with a giggle.
With a sigh, I wished once more that they’d been able to find her cell phone.
No one had seen it since the accident. To this day, I’d give anything to have it, to have some way to hear her voice again, to hear her laugh.
Shaking off my morose reflections, I set my basket down in front of the washer and opened it to put my clothes in. The smell of stale alcohol nearly knocked me down. Already in the washer were some pajamas and sheets. Apparently Mom had gotten sick in bed last night.
She had been in her room when I got home, so I assumed that she was sleeping off a doozy. The doozy part was right, if the smell of vodka was any indication. She must’ve vomited at least eighty proof.
With a sigh, I washed her stuff first. There was no way I was putting my clothes in with that mess.
When I’d finished folding the last of my colored clothes, I picked out some jeans and an apricot sweater, slipped them on and left for the forest. The shorter days meant that it was nearly dark by the time I parked by the familiar sign with the graffiti on it. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was really smart to be going into the woods alone at night with someone out there prowling around looking for me. But then my need to talk to Lucius won out over my caution and I hopped out and headed for the trees.
As I walked the vaguely familiar path, I prayed that Bo was somewhere near, watching out for me. I knew he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and I didn’t feel him, but I really hoped he hadn’t gone to do something else tonight.
My head had begun to throb with the strain of the trip when I saw the small cabin come into view. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Sketchers thumping on the wooden boards, I mounted the steps to the porch and walked to the door to knock. I was a bit puzzled when Lucius didn’t answer right away. With his enhanced senses, I know he’d have been able to pick up on my arrival easily.
I knocked again. Still no response.
Stepping down off the porch, I headed around the side of the small structure to see if there was a back door. I was a little anxious about snooping around a vampire’s house without his knowledge, and even more so about doing it in the deepening dark, but I was desperate to find Lucius.
When I’d made my way back to the front door and was still no closer to finding Lucius than when I’d arrived, I figured it was probably time to just give it up for the night. I still had to get back to my car and the longer I waited, the more dangerous the trip became. These woods were known vampire hunting grounds and I knew the risks of running into one.
I set out across the tiny lawn that encircled the cabin then carefully began picking my way through the dark forest. I hadn’t gone far from the cabin when I heard the faintest of rustling sounds somewhere out in front of me. There was a time (when I’d had some of Bo’s blood) that I might’ve been able to see more acutely in the darkness, hear more noises in the quiet, smell fainter traces in the air, but those days were long gone. I was once more an average, un-augmented human.
I stopped to listen, straining to hear above the sounds of the frogs and crickets. Nothing seemed out of order, so I resumed my journey, albeit a bit more quickly and cautiously.
When I heard another noise, I stopped again to listen, but there was no need.
It was plain to me that there was something walking toward me in the woods, dry leaves crunching under foot.
A twig snapped, and it sounded so close I jumped. My heart was pounding away at my ribs, my muscles bunched and ready for action, and I was just turning to bolt back in the direction of the cabin when I caught a familiar scent on the wind. It smelled like honeysuckle in the summertime and I knew who carried that aroma.
“Lucius?” I whispered.
“Oh, you’re getting better, lass,” he said from somewhere in the trees.
“Where are you?” I was peering into the darkness, but it was no use. The moon was new and the forest was pitch black.
“Here,” he said.
I had no trouble seeing him when he emerged from between the trunks of two huge trees. His uber pale skin shone like alabaster in the low moonlight. And there was plenty of it to see; he was wearing a big smile and nothing else.
My mouth dropped open and I looked quickly away.
“Why are you naked?”
Lucius chuckled. “I’ve been hunting. Why do you think?”
“Oh.”
I could feel the blood heating up my cheeks.
“Were you looking for me?” Lucius asked, coming to stand in front of me.
“Um, yeah,” I said, growing more uncomfortable by the minute.
Lucius was a very attractive man and, though I had eyes only for Bo, it was still disarming to see him in such a state, especially when he was still wearing the pleasure of the hunt so blatantly. His body was strong and stiff from head to toe and everywhere in between.
“Then let’s go,” he said, breezing past me.
I followed Lucius back to his cabin, all the while trying to look anywhere except at his nude back side. When we reached the steps that led to his front porch, I stopped.