Page 97 of A Heart So Haunted
I muffled my teasing and worked in quiet. While I shuffled, Hadrian sat beside me and watched. Every now and then, he would movesomething I was finished looking through, or he’d stop and examine the contents—an old rice cooker, another box of children’s toys, a rainbow-colored wooden xylophone with a neon pink stick to match. We didn’t pause until the clock struck two downstairs—even then, the idea of going to bed seemed revolting. There wasn’t enough time—we needed to findsomething, and soon. Anything. A lead, even the slightest.
“You need to rest,” Hadrian said, as if reading my mind. His clawed hand grabbed my own as I started stacking rubber-banded folders by function—old bills, important Social Security paperwork, and more, which I surely didn’t need to get into tonight. The numbers would only float together.
“There has to be something in here,” I grumbled. I reached for another folder.
What I didn’t want to admit was that I’d have ask Meredith if I could raid her back room. Hadrian was right. I could have given her something unknowingly.
This time, Hadrian stood from his crouch. “Landry. It is late.”
“And I’m not tired.”
“Truly?” His eyes searched mine.
“Yes, truly.” A tug pulled at the base of my spine.
I could walk downstairs and take a hard right into the closet. I could see what lay behind the door when the creature wasn’t in there; maybe it would be empty, and I could just hide there for a while. Or maybe the tug meant something else.
Just as soon as the thought came, Hadrian bent toward me. “Landry.”
“Hadrian.” I leveled him with my best glare.
His teeth flashed, their delicate points pearlescent, and there at the very bottom—the open spots on his jaw where molars should have been.
Air became scarce.
More puzzle pieces. One after another, falling into place. Our breaths mingled for a moment. He stood closer than I’d thought, but I didn’t recoil. My body moved without thought. A tiny step closer.
My fingertips brushed his jaw. His breath hitched. I could have sworn his skin lightened where I touched. Not so much gray, but his normal, sun-kissed color. His head tilted.
There, beneath the surface:yearning.
“Landry.” This time, not just my name, but a warning.
I froze.
Maybe he didn’t feel it, what I felt. Maybe that curl of heat, those hummingbird wings, was only me. Maybe they were real, maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were desperation to fill the hole in my heart, the one I still didn’t know what to do with or what belonged there. I just knew that he was here.
If anyone could understand me, my situation, it was him.
My thumb touched the corner of his lip. Drug it over the smooth skin, the crease of his mouth, so close to the point of his teeth.
“He took them, didn’t he?” I whispered. As if I spoke too loudly, he might bolt. “Your father took your teeth.” I didn’t know why it hadn’t connected before, but it made sense as I said it. It had been right in front of me, all along: Haddy running around, his chin constantly bloodied and dripping.
His nostrils flared. “He did.”
Sizzling coals rolled inside me. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.” He closed his mouth to swallow, but his lips parted again. He inched another breath closer. The scent of aftershave and ash between us. This time, I didn’t hear the wet sound of his heart beating or smell the acrid scent of dried blood—it was as if it didn’t exist. “I don’t remember what I did. Just the moment he pulled the teeth. One, I had replaced, but …” He shrugged.
“I’m sorry.” Because I was.
“It made me stronger,” he said. His words ran together. I felt his breath on my cheek, the tip of my nose. Hadrian’s silhouette threatened to shift—a flicker of his human self. He lifted a hand. Brushed his claws over the tender spot below my eye; I felt the points retract, vanish, and then his human palm was against my face and his boneswere changing. The points of his cheeks, his ears retracting, his body rearranging and then—
“I don’t know what I would have done if I were you,” I breathed. The double meaning to my words didn’t get past me.
I don’t know what I would have done had I been alive when you were, I wanted to say.
I don’t know what I would have done had I seen you on the street and seen your smile, is what I didn’t say.
