Chapter One

Some of the truth comes out

Chapter One: Revelations

            William sat in the overstuffed chair behind his desk, his secretary crawling all over him. She was almost entirely naked, and all he had were his pants. Lips met with bruising force, bodies pressed together. His hands traveled up her body as hers found their way down his, both finding sexual destinations. He gave himself to her, allowing her to take off his trousers and what little clothing she still wore. The intimate touching and kissing swiftly escalated to fast-paced love making. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a single name that nagged at him the entire time: Natasha. His wife, who waited at home for him to join her in bed, who would be waiting the rest of her life for a husband that would never come home. The clueless woman was too hopelessly in love to realize that he was cheating on her every single night. When the two were finally done, the female, nearly half his age, snuggled up to him in the chair.

            “You leaving your wife, Will?” she asked. He looked at the clock, sighing and shaking his head. This wasn’t quite the answer she’d hoped for; she pushed off of him and gathered her clothing, started putting it all back on. He watched her with longing hunger.

            “Don’t go, Nina,” he muttered. “Come on, we have time for one more round.

            “No. Your wife is waiting at home. And, like you said: your daughter is smart and catching on. It’s only a matter of time. Shower before you go home or she will smell it on you. You stink of lust.” Her voice was poisoned with disappointment, but Nina didn’t say anything else. Getting dressed faster than she usually did, she turned to the large door and paused with her hand on the handle. “Same time tomorrow,” she added before she left him alone in the dark office.

            He gave an irritated grunt and picked up each article of clothing with delicate care, folding every piece with a gentleness he didn’t show unless he was alone. Early on in his affair, he’d had the office and private bathroom redone, adding just enough space in the latter for a shower. Walking toward it, the darkness stealing his sight from him, he felt blindly for the light switch. The unusual darkness went unnoticed in the already impenetrable blackness that came with a starless, moonless night. However, when Will flipped the switch, he realized the lights weren’t as bright as they should’ve been and glanced around.

            “William.” The sound of another man in the room with him made him uneasy; he quickly grabbed a towel to cover his lower half, looking around. Only when his eyes fell on the mirror did he see the man who had spoken. He was barely older than his daughter, Aleksandra; maybe eighteen or nineteen. But something about him made it clear he was far more dangerous than he appeared.

            “Who the hell are you?” Will snapped, turning to confront the other man. Instead, he faced the sheer emptiness of the bathroom; no man stood behind him. He was alone.

            “You won’t see me in flesh and blood until I want you to, William.” Will looked back at the mirror, his motions robotic with annoyance. “You’ll be surprised who sent me.”

            “I’d rather know who the f**k you are.”

            “My name is Cayden. To put it in terms your pathetic brain could process, I am your death.” Giving William no time to argue, a skeletal hand lashed out from the mirror, though a flesh-covered arm was attached. The hand was seeking the heart that beat within William’s chest. Slowly, a full body came through the mirror, seeming entirely human except for the lack of flesh. The skeleton slowly spread over the body, tan skin melting into black bone, fine black hair falling away and eyes vanishing into the abysses where they should’ve been. All of Cayden’s facial features faded away, leaving only the basic, pitch black skull. At last, the shadowy cloak slithered over his black bones, seeming to come from nowhere in particular, covering every bit of the dark skeleton except the fingers. Without any warning, the hand lunged forward, plunging into William’s chest. William tried to make some kind of a cry for help, but it was choked off into a stupid little whimper. “Your friend Jared? He is the reason this is happening. He hired me. To kill you. Guess where he is now, Mister Shatrov.”

            William tried to speak, but it failed again. Slowly, painfully, he watched Cayden’s hand slide from the bone and flesh of his chest. He watched his heart beat in the boney hand. Terror flushed the color from his face as he watched his life pulse in his killer’s dark fingers. Cayden chuckled, an odd, slightly insane sound. With deliberate slowness, he took a single bite out of the beating heart. Each pulse sent a fresh splatter of blood onto William’s unmarred flesh, covering whatever wasn’t shielded by the towel in crimson.

“He is as dead as you, his blood coursing through me, giving me the strength I need and more.” William collapsed; Cayden laughed and took another bite, then finished off the heart of his target as he stepped back through the mirror. The lights came alive when he left the office building, his laugh still echoing for a few more moments.

~~~

            Aleksandra sat against the window in her bedroom, staring out at the empty darkness that was now most of her life. It was well beyond midnight, and her father was not home. She guessed he was off sleeping with some other woman, leaving his wife to worry and struggle to rest. With ease, the teenager could hear her mother’s sighs and whimpers as nightmares overtook her once-peaceful sleep. A glance at the clock told her the exact time was four thirty-seven in the morning; Aleksandra shook her head and went to her mother’s room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Natasha woke up from whatever pathetic sleep she’d managed to drift into, looking at her daughter with horribly tired eyes.

            “Mom, you know where he is,” Aleksandra whispered, her voice painfully loud in the eerie silence. “And you know why he isn’t here.” Natasha didn’t want to accept that her husband of nearly twenty years was cheating on her, and refused to let her daughter speak of the possibility in front of her. She shook her head, the little movement making her head hurt and her entire body sway with fatigue.

            “Aleksandra, you know better. Your father is just-”

            “Working late, I know, I know. But even you can’t be so naïve to think he works so much he would be out until five in the morning working. No. You know it but you won’t admit it. He’s cheating, Mom. Everyone knows.” The phone rang, cutting the conversation short. Aleksandra was the first to rise from the bed, gliding down the stairs and reaching the phone before her mother even found her bearings to stand up. Silence followed the feigned, sleepy greeting. When she finally spoke, there was shock in her voice: “Dead?” Natasha was beside her daughter almost instantly; Aleksandra put the phone on speaker.

            “…found dead in his office. That is all I can say on the phone. If you and your mother come down to the station, we can discuss the details. We want to put you both in protective custody,” the officer on the other end explained.

            “Already on our way,” Natasha said, rushing the cop off the phone. She hung up quickly and whispered to Aleksandra. “Go get dressed; quickly.” Without another word, Natasha too went off to put on a pale shirt and jacket, and jeans; her daughter was in a similar outfit, the only variation being a darker shirt. Aleksandra ignored her mother, grabbing her cell phone and iPod before she glided easily down the stairs. She retrieved a bottle of water for herself and snatched up her mother’s car keys, all in one quick movement, and slipped out the front door to start the car. There was nothing she could say to her mother now to convince her that William had been cheating on her. Somewhere inside, she even hoped she was wrong. But along that same thought, she knew it was impossible. With a small sigh, Aleksandra slipped into the car, the leather interior cold enough to chill her through the jeans she wore, and leaned over to slip the key into the ignition. The blackness of the night vanished, lit up by the headlights; the dark interior came alive with red and green and orange lights and meters.

            Cranking up the heat and turning on some music, she put the seat back and lay down, curled up on her right side. She was asleep before her mother joined her in the car, and the sleep didn’t falter through the entire drive. Natasha’s hand found Aleksandra’s shoulder in the darkness; the car was off, and the only light came from further down the street, a street lamp that was barely bright enough to light the ground directly beneath it.

            “Aleksandra, wake up, sweety,” Natasha whispered softly into the darkness. Aleksandra blinked, jumping a little at the touch. She sat up, the seatbelt drawing up against her throat. Without a doubt, Natasha knew a nightmare had haunted her daughter’s silent rest. “Relax its okay. We are at the station.” Aleksandra undid the seatbelt after a moment, maintaining her silence, and opened the door; she half ignored her mother’s presence, walking into the building quietly and waiting just inside the door. A cop, barely out of his twenties, approached Aleksandra just as her mother joined her. Natasha looked at the cop, who nodded an apologetic hello.

            “I’m sorry to have called you down here at this hour,” he explained. He held out his hand. “I am Nikolas. Nikolas Fallon.” Natasha took his hand lightly, nodding some and introducing herself and her daughter:

            “Natasha Shatrov. This is my daughter, Aleksandra.” Nikolas nodded and smiled a little at Aleksandra, but the smile was sympathetic. Aleksandra, in response to the unwanted show of emotion, shrugged and narrowed her eyes at the young officer. Nikolas seemed shocked, but voiced none of his curiosity to the two young women before him. He gently guided Natasha and her daughter to his desk and sat down behind it, two seats pulled up in front of it. Natasha sat in the seat further from the door, expecting her daughter to take the seat beside her; she was as shocked as Nikolas was when Aleksandra shook her head and walked from the room, back out to be surrounded by other officers.

            “This is hard for her, I’m sure. I don’t think-.” Nikolas stopped when he saw Natasha shaking her head.

            “This is nowhere near hard on her,” Natasha explained. “She hated him. She always insisted that he was cheating on me, trying to make me end it with him. She doesn’t care that he is dead. And if she did feel anything, she’d be happy about it.” Natasha was watching her daughter through the doorway, not realizing the pen Nikolas scratched over a pad of yellow paper.

            “Did your husband hurt her?” he asked. Natasha spun to face him, shock distorting her features. “I have to ask. From what you have told me already, they clearly didn’t get along. She hated him, wanted you to leave him. It seems like she wanted to escape him, which is typically seen with victims of abuse.”

            “William would never hurt her!” Natasha’s voice rose high enough for Aleksandra to hear; as Natasha leaned forward and lowered her voice, Aleksandra looked at Nikolas with a look all too familiar to him: fear, masked with a dark kind of satisfaction. He knew he was right; William had hurt his daughter. Nikolas had no doubt she was somehow tied into the murder of her father, but he couldn’t fathom how exactly to relate a young teenager to a murder like this. He turned his attention back to the widow, planning to talk to Aleksandra later, without the mother present. Something in his mind told him she would be willing to talk, without a guardian or a lawyer in the room.

            “No offense, Ms. Shatrov, but you clearly don’t take your daughter’s word for much anymore,” Nikolas said quietly. Natasha kept her glacial glare trained on the officer, waiting for him to explain further. After a moment, he did: “She was right, Natasha. He was cheating on you. And I am going to assume that she had evidence that you wouldn’t accept either.” Natasha stood, not up to listening to whatever this whacked out cop had to say.

            “You can call my lawyer. Good night, Mr. Fallon.” Natasha had gone from the sad, distraught widow to a pissed off b***h in a matter of seconds; Nikolas was used to that. Aleksandra was watching him quietly, ignoring her mother’s command to follow her outside. But something was off. Was she really watching him? Or was there someone or something behind him? He didn’t turn, but motioned her into his office instead. She stood in the doorway, calmer with her mother out of the building.

            “Aleksandra?” he asked when she stopped walking. She looked at him, her focus sharpening, then turned and sat down lightly in the chair beside where her mother had been. “Aleksandra, can you just clear up a few things for me? Your mother was painfully evasive.”

            “Not from what I heard. I heard her freak out about a minute after coming in, then leaving. So, my guess is that you did not get to ask too many questions at all.” Her phone went off, a text from her mother, but she didn’t obey the message. She set the phone on the desk and watched Nikolas for a while. When he started asking her questions, she gave quick answers, only providing the details he asked of her.

            “Did your father ever hurt you?”

            “Yes.”

            “How did he hurt you?”

            “He hit me whenever I didn’t listen to him. He used to cut me, but the scars would show and people started to ask questions.” She rolled her right sleeve up, revealing a few dozen slashes across her arm. Nikolas didn’t talk for a while, only writing on the same paper he had with Natasha and glancing up at her every now and then. “You have any more questions?”

            “Yes, I do. Not too many, though. Your mother is probably going crazy.”

            “She already is crazy,” Aleksandra muttered under her breath. She stood up, taking her phone, and called her mother, who was waiting out in the car for her. “Mom, go home. I will get a ride from Officer Fallon. He wants to ask me some questions.” Her mother argued, but Aleksandra hung up, ignoring her mother’s complaints. “There. Ask your questions, Mr. Fallon.” As she sat back down, Nikolas sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, pressing his palms together and touching his index fingers against his lips while he thought of a question to ask.

            “Did William ever sexually touch you?”

            “Just like with every other being with tits. He grabbed me a few times, but that was really it.” A thoughtful look overcame her features and she paused, the end of her sentence trailing off a little. Nikolas waited for her to say anything more, but she didn’t for several minutes. He began to worry, and was about to ask her if she was okay when she came out of the trance. “There was one other time, though. He came home late from work….” She paused again, and slowly began to shiver while the memory overcame her.

            “Sweety, tell me what he did to you,” Nikolas pleaded. Aleksandra looked up at him again, and then slowly pulled her sleeve back down. She held up one hand, a sign to wait, then stood and took her phone with her as it began to vibrate again. This time, it was a phone call.

            “Mom, I said I am fine. Can you stop hovering for once? Jesus Christ, when I want to be alone, you won’t go away!” She hung up again, this time turning the phone off for good measure. When she returned to Nikolas, he was sitting on the corner of his desk, nearest the chair she’d occupied moments before; she knew the story had to be told, but she was too afraid. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fallon. I… I can’t. Not tonight…” She pulled out a folded paper, opening it up slowly; her gaze hardened and she ripped it in half, writing down her cell phone number on the back. “Just call me in a couple of days, okay…?” she asked, handing the paper to Nikolas before turning to leave. Her back was to him when he spoke again.

            “Let me give you a ride. Your mother already left, right?” Nikolas smiled softly, though she couldn’t see it; he walked to her and put his hand on her shoulder, a motion she cringed away from. “Come on. It’s freezing out.” She found herself agreeing, walking out while Nikolas got his coat and car keys. She needed the fresh air before being stuffed back into a car. Something flashed at the edge of her vision and she turned, ducking out of the way as a blade whizzed by her flesh. Falling to the ground, her attacker pinned her down beneath him. Staring up at him, she saw that his dark hair hung in his abysmally black eyes.

            His knife was against her neck.

            Time seemed to stop.

            She could see Nikolas and several other cops racing for the door with panic in some of their eyes, guns drawn, but they were moving in slow motion. A voice growled in her head commanding her to look back at the man holding her down, and she found that she had no choice but to obey. His eyes, so endless and devoid of life, burned into hers, and she knew she should’ve felt terror, but she didn’t. She felt comforted by the power in his eyes. He stood up slowly, helping her to her feet as well, and whispered in her ear: “I know what he did. And so did his partner, Jared O’Malley. I know, Aleksandra. And they died for what they did.” Before his words made any sense to her, he was gone, Nikolas replacing him and holding her steady. She swayed a little before turning her eyes to meet his. His lips were moving, but she didn’t hear what he was saying.

            “…to me. Aleksandra, come on, talk to me.”

            “What?” she asked, having missed everything he had said.

            “Who was that?” When he didn’t get an answer, he changed the question: “What did he say to you?” He got a reaction, though not quite the one he wanted. He saw that dark shield come up around her, keeping him from getting the answers he needed. Shaking his head, he took her elbow in his right hand and brought her back inside; she moved with ease, but he could tell her mind was not in the station. “Someone call Natasha Shatrov. Tell her Aleksandra is staying in protective custody for at least twenty-four hours.”

            “You think she will allow that? You saw how she was before,” one of the other officers interjected. Nikolas turned an irritated glare on the older officer.

            “I am not really concerned with whether or not she will let us do it. It’s being done. Her daughter was attacked outside the station, probably by the same guy who murdered her husband. On second thought, Henson, go and get Ms. Shatrov. She should be in protective custody with her daughter.” The officer nodded, grabbing his blue jacket from the back of a chair and disappearing outside through the massive glass doors. Nikolas brought Aleksandra back to his office and sat her down; she hadn’t moved at all without his hand forcing her. Her stride was stiff and uneasy, like something in the office scared her, but there was nothing there that wasn’t before.

            “I want to go home, Mister Fallon,” Aleksandra finally whispered. Her heart was racing, her blood roaring in her ears. She could hardly see through the fog that covered her eyes. Even to Nikolas, her eyes seemed to have lost some color, appearing to have a milky film over them that stole the brilliant glow from her blue eyes.

            “You can’t, Aleksandra. Officer Henson has gone to get your mother. Both of you will stay in protective custody until the killer is caught,” Nikolas explained. He gestured for her to sit down, taking up his place against the corner of the desk, and sighed when she refused. “Look. We are doing this to keep you and your mother safe. And I think this will be the last time we can talk without your mother here. Clearly, you won’t tell me what your father did with your mother around. So tell me now.” Aleksandra froze. She had prayed he would’ve forgotten about that, and shook her head. He saw her withdraw further into the solace her mind offered, and grabbed her arm. “Aleksandra, just tell me what he did to you. I can’t help you unless I know the truth.”

            “The truth doesn’t matter anymore; he’s dead, and so is his partner.” Nikolas paused for a moment, moving to his computer to check the notes he had gathered about William Shatrov. “Jared O’Malley. He’s dead, too, isn’t he?” Nikolas nodded, questions dancing through his mind. “The same way my father died?”

            “I don’t think the details matter, Aleksandra. He’s dead. That shouldn’t matter at all in this discussion. Unless,” he added, “he hurt you too.” She confirmed his statement by turning away from him. “Jesus Christ, Aleksandra, what the hell did…” His voice trailed off, though he had continued to talk; she couldn’t hear him anymore. The wall-length mirror behind Nikolas reflected Aleksandra in the chair, and the open area outside the office, and the dark, hooded figure behind her.

            “Don’t let him fool you, Aleksandra.” It was the same voice that had spoken to her outside, the voice that had come from the man who had come after her. She began to shiver, but didn’t speak. “He was working with them. He was covering up their petty crimes all along. He already knows what they did. He helped them!” The hooded man behind her leaned down toward her, his lips brushing her ear; they were ice cold, moving with a delicate grace no living person could possess when he spoke again. “He deserves to die, just like they did. You want to know how O’Malley died.” It wasn’t a question, but a matter of fact. Aleksandra stood carefully, walking slowly out of the office; Nikolas called after her, but she didn’t hear him. Her steps took her out into the parking lot, where the sun was just beginning to crawl over the trees.

            “I want to know,” she whispered softly. She prayed the man had followed her. She was silent for a long time, waiting for the eerie whisper to give her the answers she wanted. “I want to know how he died. You killed him, right? From what you’ve already said, you killed them both.”

            “Yes,” the wind answered. She turned, catching a fleeting shadow as it danced out of sight. “I killed them.”

            “Who are you?”

            “You will know, in time, Aleksandra. All you need to know now is that I only took the job because I knew what they were doing to you. I may seem a heartless murderer, but I am not.” The voice had taken on a soft, even soothing sound. It almost seemed friendly.

            “How did you kill them, then? At least tell me that, since you won’t tell me who you are.” Aleksandra was getting more new questions than she was getting answers to the old ones. She felt the man pulling away from her, felt his presence fading with the shadows as dawn chased them away. “Please, just give me one bit of information.” As she pleaded, a simple black feather, one that had belonged to a crow, fell just in front of her eyes and danced on the air until it touched the ground.

            “Keep that with you, Aleksandra. That way, I can find you again without having to search. As soon as you are in a home, with this protective custody thing, I will visit you and give you your answers.” Aleksandra nodded, and then felt him go as she picked up the pitch black feather. The glass doors behind her sucked in a breath of air as they opened, and sealed shut when they closed again. Nikolas had finally come out to check on her.

            “I’m fine,” she growled before he could ask. A cruiser pulled up and Officer Henson opened the door quickly for Natasha, who had done nothing but yell at him for the entire ride. She leapt out with the grace of a cat, jabbing a finger at Nikolas.

            “You allowed my daughter to be attacked right outside your station! Are you really that stupid?” Natasha was yelling still, and Henson was flustered; Nikolas stood in silence by the door, waiting for her to run out of steam. “That guy was probably the one who killed my husband, and could’ve killed my daughter too!”

            “Mom, shut up.” Aleksandra was annoyed, at the police and her mother, and was tired. She hadn’t slept before coming to the station hours before, and the half hour drive had permitted only haunting nightmares. “There wasn’t really that much they could’ve done anyway. So just shut up for once and let them do whatever the f**k they are going to do so we can go.” Natasha stared in shock at her daughter, who held the feather in her left hand, which was hidden by her crossed arms.

            “Ms. Shatrov, I understand why you are upset, but yelling at us won’t get both you and your daughter to a safer location any sooner. I’ve arranged a safe house a few miles from here, and have already sent another officer over to check everything out. Officer Henson and I will escort you both back to your home. You will be able to take some things with you, enough for a few days. I doubt we will keep you there for more than that.” Aleksandra rolled her eyes when her mother started to protest and went back inside to get some water. She twirled the feather between her index finger and her thumb, watching it while she took a drink. She could just barely hear Natasha and Nikolas outside, Natasha yelling and Nikolas trying to reason with her.

            How will this help him find me? She paused when she caught herself thinking about him. She nearly dropped the paper cup when a voice in her head answered. It was her voice, but it felt like he had said it. That feather will help him find you because he isn’t freaking human! He is dangerous. He has killed two men, at least, and left their bodies in bloody piles of shredded flesh. That isn’t normal. That isn’t human! She knew the voice in her head was right, but didn’t want to believe that the man outside, the hooded man in the office, was truly so evil when he was the only one who had ever helped her. He was the only one who had saved her from her father and Jared. He couldn’t be that bad, if he had done all of that to help her. Natasha yelled inside to her, startling her; the cup fell from her hand and the water splashed over the floor. An officer she hadn’t seen beside her gave a small smile and assured her he would clean it up. She forced a small smile thanked him, turning toward her mother with an irritated glare.

            “Can you shut your f*****g mouth for once?” she yelled back. She hadn’t heard whatever Natasha had said, and really couldn’t care any less, but she walked back out to her mother and Nikolas. “Let’s just go wherever we are going so I can go to sleep.” With a sigh, Nikolas nodded and walked toward his personal car, a glossy white sports car. Aleksandra instantly took interest in the vehicle. “This is yours?” she asked incredulously.

            “Don’t sound so shocked,” he replied. Aleksandra slid her fingers over the side of the car, looking over the sleek black markings along the doors and on the hood. “It’s an-“

            “Aston Martin. I know.” Natasha impatiently pulled on the handle of the locked passenger side door. Nikolas looked at her, pulling his attention away from the teen. He wanted to growl out a snarky response to her mistreatment of his car. But he held his tongue and unlocked the doors. Natasha was inside in less than a second, ready to go with the seatbelt across her breasts and around her waist, locked securely. He heard the back door open and Aleksandra gave a sigh as she joined her mother inside the sports car. The door slammed shut, and Nikolas was left alone outside the car. Shaking his head, he pulled open the driver’s door and slid between the steering wheel and the leather seat. He reluctantly buckled his own seat belt and waited to hear Aleksandra’s click before he put the car in gear and left the lot.

~~~

            The Shatrov mansion rose up in the distance, backed by the rising sun. The sky behind it possessed an eerily colorful tone, contrasting the tension in the Aston Martin as it sped down the perfectly paved road. Natasha stared out at the trees that lined the road, while Aleksandra just stared at the feather in her hand, spinning it lightly. She sighed, wishing she could get her answers now but knowing there was no way she could. If she could get just a little alone time, for just a little bit, she could try to call to him. But how could she call a stranger?

            Just think of him. He knows when you are thinking about him. The voice, again, belonged to her, but seemed to have his mind controlling the words. She jumped out of the car as soon as it slowed enough, just in front of the house, and dashed inside, then up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door shut, leaning on it for a moment to calm down, all the emotions from everything that had happened finally flooding her mind. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to celebrate. Laughing with giddy excitement, Aleksandra started gathering her clothes and the essentials, moving to the bathroom with light steps to retrieve her toothbrush. She looked up into the mirror and fought back a gasp, her eyes going wide with terror as she spun around to face the blank wall behind her. She was trembling now, struggling to stay on her feet long enough to get back to her bedroom. She fell onto the bed, holding the feather close to her chest. She was trying hard to call him to her, wishing she knew exactly how to do it. Her eyes closed and she rocked steadily back and forth on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest, the feather held tightly in one hand.

            “Breathe, Aleksandra.” It was him. She tried desperately to calm her rapid breathing, feeling his hand on hers. The feather she had held so tightly fell onto the bed between them and he brushed it aside.

            “You,” she whispered, pausing to find the right words, “said he was dead.” The excitement she had felt just moments before was replaced by sheer terror, her skin ashen and cold, even to him. “You told me you killed him.”

            “Aleksandra please let me try to explain this. I was going to wait, but he’s haunting you sooner than I had expected.” He sat more comfortably, moving beside her and gently touching her shoulder. “My name is Cayden Levitan. I am an apprentice of Death. Your father’s business partner, Jared O’Malley, called on a young woman named Annika. She is my human sister. I do freelance killings every now and then, when my mentor allows it. She acts as my manager, if you will. She is human, but gifted by my mentor with immortality. Jared wanted me to kill your father, hired me to do it. He didn’t tell me why, but the look in his eyes when he said it, it screamed his greed. Not money-based greed, but greed nonetheless. They were fighting over you, Aleksandra. When I did a little research on their pasts, I found out what exactly they did, and I took the job.

            “What they did was wrong, and I made O’Malley pay with his life. Your father paid the price as well, but his desire for revenge became very powerful just before his death. He will try to finish what he started, Aleksandra. He will try to kill you, after he has had whatever remaining fun he intends to.” Cayden spoke very softly, as if anything more than the urgent whisper would shatter Aleksandra’s remaining sanity.

            “But you said it yourself: he is dead,” Aleksandra whimpered, shivering from both the cold she suddenly felt around her and her terror. “How can he hurt me if he is dead?” Cayden opened his mouth to answer, but found silence to be the better option, and turned his icy stare to the door, which was partially open from bouncing off of the mirror behind it. The wall-sized mirror had cracked in a spider web pattern from the impact. He heard the footsteps coming up the stairs and knew he should leave, but he couldn’t just go. Not when it was the cop that was coming closer to the room.

            “Aleksandra, do not say a word, okay? Just trust me.” Cayden looked at her in time to see the faintest of nods before he wrapped a veil of shadows around them. No living being could see through it, and Nikolas, to the best of Cayden’s knowledge, was not an Undead. Cayden slowly rose from the bed, helping Aleksandra to do the same; he felt that whatever strength she had left after the scare was fading fast as a secondary fear began to set in. Nikolas pushed the door open slowly and murmured her name. Aleksandra wanted desperately to move away from Cayden and shove Nikolas from her room; it was her only safe haven, the only place that was truly hers, and he was invading it like he belonged within its walls. “Just stay quiet.” When Cayden whispered in her ear, Nikolas paused in his search and called for her again, but he was wasting his breath. Aleksandra didn’t care anymore; something in the way Cayden had spoken to her made the rage and terror fall away.

            “Aleksandra?” Nikolas said again, louder this time. Seeing the room was empty, at least to his eyes, he gave in to a secret urge, his hands sliding over Aleksandra’s bed. A perverse light glittered in his eyes. “Damn, all the stories they told me. To touch her for real.” He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, touching the pillow with a delicate hand.

            What the hell? Aleksandra stared in confused terror at the cop who sat on her bed. He was a totally different man from the one who had been at the station just a few hours before, guardedly asking questions about her father, warily pursuing slight leads in his murder. Cayden held her tightly against his chest, turning her away from Nikolas.

            “He was working with them, Aleksandra. And I have no doubt he will come after you without Jared and your father. I don’t want to know what he will do,” Cayden whispered in her ear. He guided her to the door, stepping around Nikolas and bringing her out of the room, vowing to protect her at any cost.

Author's Note

Chapter One. A little rushed to finish, but here it is.

Reviews

[Tomislav Petricevic]

This is awesome! The whole idea is so original and interesting, I literally got lost inside the story, devouring those paragraphs until I came to the end!
I like when characters die inside stories, because it seems more realistic than the usual happy-ending stuff. It's better if the reader has to worry about the characters, not knowing what will happen next.
Keep writing, please!

[Closed]

Oh my goodness, this is really good! Like REALLY good! There's so much suspense and mystery; it's just perfect. I really like Aleksandra. I tend to like those kind of characters: strong females. I just like how she's really independent. She has a very sad and brutal past, but she is still strong. I see Cayden more as a guarding angel than death's apprentice. I REALLY like it, just to let you know. I can't wait until chapter two! :D

[AK]

Wow! That's a helluva tension building up there. William is dead!?! Wow, I didn't see that coming. I really like his daughter:) it was long and nice. Please keep writing!