Page 12 of Five to Love Him
We arrived at the foyer, and the hive just looked at me. Three steps away from the door, he said, “We don’t really understand, but we would love for you to explain it. Ten o’clock tomorrow?”
“Ten,” I said.
He stayed inside, but I could feel his eyes on me as the automatic glass door opened and I walked into the warm September evening and to the 47 cab waiting at the curb.
six
We didn’t even walk Leo to the cab, and we were ashamed of it. The fear that had gripped us at the idea of getting seen—of being found here where we had built a life and found our gleaming one—almost made us drop the tray laden with drinks for the four burly werewolves who had managed to squeeze around the table Leo had shared with his friends earlier.
“It will be fine,” we whispered while we stood in the marble-floored entrance hall and looked after him, our breath fogging against the side panel of the automatic door at St. Auguste. We balled our fists and forced ourselves to smile while we served the drinks. “We are hive. We are strong. We cannot be broken.”
Once Leo was out of our sight, we stepped away from the glass door and looked around the fancy entrance area. St. Auguste was distinguished, a good place to show our world. We spotted a pamphlet about the Cultural Awareness Program among several other education options and picked it up.
What we had understood from the short conversation with Leo and his friends was straightforward, an introduction into the supernatural world, but the program was unique, just like so many things Hawthorne had built here. Just like the underground where we had been hiding from the world above for long enough to make us afraid to walk our gleaming one to his cab.
While reading the pamphlet, we checked our phone. Leo had gotten into the cab, and we exhaled with relief. His home address showed on the screen, and we were tempted to go there, just to make sure he arrived safely, but that would go against his wishes. Those wishes we could understand even if they clashed with what we were feeling.
The supernatural is more than fiction…, the pamphlet started out.
We wouldn’t act against Leo’s wishes, and we wouldn’t touch him when he didn’t want to be touched, not after it had been done to us.
…And a world you didn’t know existed is welcoming you with open arms and new possibilities! We hoped Leo would come to see being with us as that. A new possibility. We would do anything and everything in our power to make it so.
***
We returned to the underground, went back home to eat and sleep, and finished our shift at the Dazzle with two. We paced in front of the house—the end of Silver Line was always quiet and moving two or three of us when there was much on our mind always helped.
We went back to our checkbook but found we couldn’t concentrate on the numbers. Instead, we grabbed a legal notepad from where we kept them in a small cabinet on the first floor, pushed the checkbook aside, and started writing.
Leo. We printed his name in capital letters and underlined it. We knew he liked rum, so we put that down, and we knew the names of his friends, Tate and Ezra. We knew his address and that he attended a class that promised to be a gateway to a world unknown to most humans. And he was looking for work. We wrote all of that down, knowing that making the list would calm us.
We frowned at the notepad and glanced back at our checkbook while heading back inside, our pacing done. We ladled up two bowls of the stew.
He. That man, that vile human whose name we didn’t want to think. He had said he wanted to keep us and dote on us. His doting had been…not that, though he’d been stupid enough to think we didn’t know the difference. He’d wanted to keep us, keep us from going out. At the same time, he had taken advantage of our skill for numbers. Keeping his books clean had turned into a chore, a pain even. He’d kept three of us locked up to do it, had kept two to…
We hated him for it, and now, our knuckles stood out white as we grabbed the spoon, the pen, the trash we were throwing into the dumpster behind the Dazzle.
“We wouldn’t have been afraid to walk Leo to the cab if it weren’t for that human,” we said and stirred the stew. “But he did not break us. We won’t allow ourselves to be broken. Not now that we have found something more than just being alive.”
We reached for the checkbook while tapping the legal pad with the tip of our pen. Obviously we would need another job or a better one. Living above ground, providing for Leo if he allowed it, and living, those things would require more of us.
We pulled out our phone again while doodling numbers on the legal pad, rough calculations and estimates. Hawthorne had listings for job openings and those seeking employment, and we were a CPA with a highly diverse skillset.
***
We didn’t manage much sleep. The idea of seeing Leo again, of talking with him and learning more about him, enough to fill the entire legal pad and not just a page of it, had kept our mind reeling with the sheer possibilities.
We arrived at the Moonlight Diner at half past eight with three, and we wondered whether we could get away with that or whether Leo would think it was too many. Back home, we were on the phone with a werewolf, the owner of a yoga studio, who needed someone part-time, both for bookkeeping and answering phones and making appointments. We wouldn’t be required to wear yoga pants unless we wanted to, the werewolf assured us, adding that the vegan smoothies were included for employees.
“Uhm, h-hi. Do you know what you’re having?” one of the servers at the Moonlight asked us.
He was a big guy and looked like he was scared of his own shadow. His right hand was trembling where it was poised to take our order. The little nametag on his shirt said “Levi.”
“We’re waiting to meet someone, and we’re early,” we said.
He nodded. “Coffee? Food later?”
“Maybe tea is better,” we said. “We’re already anxious. Peppermint?”
