“Here you go.”
Troop jerked awake. I must’ve fallen asleep. He turned his head to locate the speaker.
“There wasn’t a tracker in your slate. Sorry it took so long.” Chelsa pitched him his electro-slate.
“Thanks. See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight.”
Troop walked down the short hallway leading to a bedroom. The lights lining the bottom edges of the wall lit up when he passed by the motion sensors, illuminating his path. He passed by a door and heard a thud. Troop paused for a second, and then continued on his way.
“Ah!”
Not sure if someone had gotten hurt, he knocked on the door. “Everything okay?”
There was an incomprehensible reply.
Troop started to turn the doorknob when Kristi’s voice said, “I’m alright.”
Shrugging, he left.
chapter twenty-six
Stevey hunched over an empty whiskey bottle. His eyes wandered aimlessly all over the place. Kristi approached him with trepidation. She had no idea how she had arrived back at Stevey’s shack in the woods. For some reason, she was all by herself.
“Who is it?” Stevey grunted.
“It’s me, Kristi.”
“Stevey doesn’t want to see Kristi.”
“I have some questions for you.”
Stevey threw the whiskey bottle at her head. He had a startlingly good aim and arm; he would’ve nailed her if she hadn’t been on her guard.
“Why did you throw the bottle at me?”
“Stevey doesn’t want to see you. Go away,” Stevey replied with a hint of whining in his voice.
Something vicious inside Kristi erupted and she marched over to Stevey and roughly shook him by the shoulders.
“Answer my questions or else,” she snarled.
Stevey cowered in fear and tried to writhe out of her grip, bringing Kristi back to her senses. What came over me? Kristi wondered. She dropped her hands and took a step back. Stevey ran away from her and hid behind a tree.
“Stevey, I’m sorry,” she called out. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Please come out.”
Stevey didn’t emerge from behind the huge elm tree. “Stevey doesn’t like the questions you ask,” he said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask you.”
“Kristi gives Stevey bad memories,” Stevey stuttered from behind the tree.
An uncomfortable silence blossomed in the air. The silence grew and strangled the space like a weed. It was Stevey who timidly broke it.
“Stevey has something to show you.” His voice was steady now, something that Kristi wasn’t expecting considering he had been trembling with fear just minutes ago.
“Okay. What do you want to show me?”
“Come here. Stevey has a secret to show you.”
Her sixth sense tugged at her gut, warning her to run away from this place as fast as possible. On the other hand, Kristi was curious about what Stevey wanted to show her. She squashed her fears down deep inside and walked over to Stevey.
His back was turned to her when she inched over to him.
“What is it that you wanted to show me?” Kristi asked.
Stevey spun around and lunged at her. His eyes glowed red and razor-sharp claws erupted from his fingers. Kristi ducked to the right and felt the air hiss where Stevey attempted to swipe at her.
“What are you?” she gasped.
Stevey let loose a string of cackles and swiped his claws at her shoulders again. She dodged half a second too late and his ragged nails raked down her left shoulder. Blood welled out from the three gashes. At the sight of her blood, Stevey seemed to be hyped into a feverous state.
“Help!” Kristi yelled into the emptiness.
“No one can hear you,” Stevey grinned a malevolent grin.
He tackled her to the ground. His breath stunk of stale liquor. Flames danced in his eyes.
“Die,” he growled into Kristi’s ear and lazily dragged a single talon across her throat.
She screamed.
Thud!
Kristi bolted upright in bed, banging her head against the headboard. She checked herself for any injuries and then threw a glance at the clock on the bed stand.
“That was just a nightmare,” she reassured herself.
She patted the bed to make sure it was solid and not an illusion while her heart hammered uncontrollably against her chest. There was no point in trying to fall back asleep; she was too disturbed by the nightmare, so she decided to make some French toast for breakfast. Kristi snatched some clothes and tiptoed into the bathroom. Once she had tidied up, she flicked on the kitchen lights and got to work.
Let’s see, she thought, I need milk, eggs, bread and butter. She hummed the theme song of The Phantom of the Opera while gathering all the ingredients and started whisking the milk and eggs together. Then she heated up the pan and greased it with a stick of butter. When she dipped the bread into the egg-milk mixture, she accidently knocked over the bowl of pretzels that had been sitting on the counter, leftover from the night before.
“I’ll clean that up after I make this piece of French toast,” she said to herself.
The pan sizzled and hissed as breakfast cooked on the stove. After she was satisfied that particular piece of French toast was done, she flipped it onto a plate and turned around to clean up the pretzels.
The pretzels were already swept from the floor. She stopped humming and frowned.
Then Kristi looked up and saw Troop observing her from the far side of the kitchen. She knew at once that it was he who had cleaned up the spilt pretzels.
“Thanks,” she said curtly and returned to making breakfast.
“I see you still haven’t forgiven me.”
Kristi dropped another piece of bread into the egg-milk mixture, watching it soak up the liquid. “You best better believe that.”
“Why up so early?” Troop asked. “From what Jaiden told me last night, you’re not a morning person.”
“That is none of your business,” she said, feeling displeased that Jaiden was talking to Troop about her when she wasn’t around.
“Is there any chance that you’ll forgive me? I really don’t want to be traveling with someone who’s going to be giving me the death-eye every five minutes for the next few weeks.” Troop ran his fingers through his hair.
Kristi pretended to think about his question with exaggerated gestures then said, “Let’s see…No.”
The smell of burning French toast brought her attention back to making breakfast. She flipped the burnt piece into the trash and started on the next slice.
Troop said no more and just watched. Kristi pretended she didn’t feel bothered by his presence. Her pretending didn’t last long.
“That’s kind of creepy,” she commented a few minutes later.
“What?”
“You just standing there and watching.” Kristi picked up the dirty whisks, bowls and the pan she had used to make breakfast and rinsed them off. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Not really.”
A bleary-eyed Chelsa stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and giving the impression that she had just woken up. She stopped walking and looked from Kristi to Troop then from Troop back to Kristi.
“Were you two actually having a conversation?”
“Surprisingly, yes,” Troop said.
At the same time Kristi said, “Only something resembling a conversation.”
“We need new ID cards,” Kristi said.
They were packing up their belongings and preparing to leave the Rex Hotel. She was going to miss this plush lodging.
“Already thought of that,” Chelsa replied. “I ordered new cards for you and Jaiden last night. They should have already arrived. We’ll pick them up when we head out.”