Page 32 of Missing Piece
“No, no favors. He just doesn’t say no to me.” She sounded like she was smiling, but Adam didn’t want to risk the tip of the knife going further into his skin by trying to look at her again. She was already pressing hard into his neck. Enough so that if they hit a pothole he was definitely fucked.
“Aren’t you worried about leaving your DNA all over a murder scene?” Adam asked.
“Nope, we’re gonna burn it down when we’re done.” She pulled the knife away from his neck as she began to rummaging around in a bag at her feet. “You smoke, right? Let’s make a deal. You chill out so I can relax and I’ll give you a cigarette. What’s your preference? Menthol? Marlboro man? Whatever the fuck a number 27 is?”
“Why do you just have a bag full of different cigarettes?”
“I stole them from the cigarette machine at Vincent’s club,” she said before she started tapping one of the green boxes against the dashboard. “You look like a menthol guy.”
“You’re right,” Adam admitted. “Can I have one now?”
She unwrapped the pack and pulled out a cigarette. “Open,” she commanded.
It felt awkward having her place the cigarette between his lips and light it for him, but as soon as the smoke filled his lungs he relaxed.
He didn’t even mind the silence between them as he drove. With a cigarette in hand and the window cracked, there was a growing sense of ease. He had never been one to stay quiet in even the tensest of situations, always running off at themouth like some lunatic who couldn’t handle a moment of silence. Because silence meant thinking and thinking meant introspection.
Still, there was something freeing about this. Just driving into a cornfield oblivion, not worried about when his next piss test was or having to spend his entire morning in traffic court as a punishment for showing up five minutes late to a drug court meeting. Now the only pressure he was under was the urge to not die or go insane by the end of his ordeal with the vampire. But that seemed like nothing compared to his never-ending appointments and reminders of where he needed to be and for what. Being captive, he was finally just able to exist.
“This right here,” Ophelia said, pointing at the first house that came into view as they reached the top of a small hill.
There were still tire tracks in the front lawn as Adam pulled into the gravel driveway, some looking fresh and others old and worn from years of someone parking their car on it. The house itself didn’t look half bad, the front porch adorned with large fake deer of varying sizes and potted plants drooping in the rapidly cooling October weather. Strips of police tape fluttered in the wind, still tied to either side of the porch.
It didn’t look ominous, just sad.
“Let’s go,” Ophelia said as Adam parked the truck. She held out her hand.
It took Adam a moment to realize what she was waiting for. The keys. He reluctantly turned the vehicle off, scanning her for any sign of the knife. Where had she tucked it away? “You don’t trust me?” he asked sarcastically as he plopped the keys into her hand.
“Not as far as I can throw you,” she replied as she stuffedthe keys down the front of her hoodie.
Adam climbed out of the driver’s side and adjusted his pants. Going commando had never been a thing he liked, and he certainly liked it even less in jeans. “How come you just got your license?” he asked as Ophelia came around the front of the truck.
“My dad didn’t want to take me right away ‘for the health and safety of the humans I shared the road with’,” she said, rolling her eyes as she did air quotes. “Finish your cigarette and quit stalling.”
Adam took a closer look at her. She was really small, and her face looked impossibly young. He had spent too much time staring at the faces of other drug users, people whose skin had been marred by picking and unfulfilled dreams, but she didn’t look old enough to buy her own cigarettes, let alone drive a car. “How old are you?”
“One hundred,” she said blankly as she grabbed his wrist with her disturbingly strong grip.
“I thought you said you were human?!”
She laughed as she pulled him towards the door. “Relax,” she said, flashing a devilish grin back at him. “I’m sixteen.”
“You’re fucking with me.” Adam yanked his arm away. He grabbed the rail on the porch as a familiar, fuzzy feeling burned through his skull. Anger. He was angry and confused, his head hurt, he didn’t want to walk into a house where people had been murdered with some psycho kid, and he just wanted to stuff pills into his face and forget this entire thing happened. “I’m not setting foot in there until you answer some God damn questions. Your ‘uncle’ has kept me chained up like a fucking dog for the past week with nothing to do and for all I know you’re dragging me in there to kill me. Idon’t want to play this game anymore, kid. I want to go the fuck home.”
She spun around, the switchblade back in her hand as she stomped up to him. “You’re out here as a loan from Vincent, so you do what I want you to when I want you to, got it?” She tapped the tip of the knife against his chest, her face frighteningly serious. No. Not serious. Blank. Zero emotion, like she couldn’t care less about plunging the knife directly into his chest and leaving him for the turkey vultures. “I’ve been nice to you because you’re kind of a dick and you have Uncle Vinny in a knot, but my kindness only extends so far. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. Vampires are the least of your concern if you piss me off, and you are well on your way to doing that. Chill. The. Fuck. Out.”
Adam held his hands up. “I’m sorry. Okay? Sorry.”Add her to the list of weirdly temperamental people who desperately need therapy.
She grabbed his wrist even harder and pushed him towards the door ahead of her. “Open it.”
Adam could feel her staring daggers into his back. She may have been a human kid, but she struck him as just as deadly as a vampire probably was. He took in a deep breath as he turned the doorknob.You can handle whatever is behind the door. She said she’s not going to kill you. Just relax. Look around. Convince them all you’re a good little blood bag with legs and live another day.
The odor of copper and rot hit him first as he opened the door, like a brick wall of stench he couldn’t avoid even if he wanted to. It seeped into his pores, his hair, his gums, sticking to his taste buds like bad theater candy that was made from other bad candy no one wanted. He covered his mouth andnose as Ophelia pushed him further into the house, glancing back at her to see if she had any reaction. She only crinkled her nose for a second before shutting the door.
“Well, this doesn’t look the same as it did last night,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth.
“What about the smell?” Adam gasped, snapping his mouth shut as more of the air entered his mouth. He might never get rid of it. Humid, hot, rusty metal making its way into his mouth and down his throat.
