Ace of Hearts

7

The moment I walk in, the first thing that hit me is the smell of cheap scotch and bourbon. Papers are littered on the floor around the coffee table like someone was reading and tossed them aside when they were done.

Worst of all, my dad is a drunken mess on the couch. His eyes are bloodshot and glazed over, and it's clear he's struggling to stay awake. "Bean! There you are." His syllables all slur together to the point where they're nearly unintelligible. "I was wondering where you were."

I sigh and bite back tears as another piece of my heart shatters—just like it has every day I find him like this. "I was out with Kol." I whisper as I gently nudge him so he's finally laying down. "We were hanging out at the Grill."

"I don't know about that boy." He mumbles as he nuzzles his face into the pillow. "But if he's good to you, that's all that matters."

"We're not dating, Dad." I try to convince him, but I know there's no point. He won't remember this conversation in the morning. "Get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning." My voice somehow manages to not crack, but a few stray tears fall down my face as I pull the blanket over him.

I take a moment to quietly put things back in order—organizing the papers in a stack, tossing the empty bottles, cleaning the dishes, and setting out some water and medicine for when my dad wakes up. After that, I don't bother to hesitate to leave the apartment.

Fresh air fills my lungs, and I take it in deep breaths as I walk along the empty streets of Mystic Falls. I can only imagine what Kol or Jeremy would say if they knew I did this every night. They would probably get over their differences long enough to post a guard duty on me. Although, now I'm pretty sure they're no longer friends over a much bigger difference than I had assumed.

I make it to town square without seeing another soul. The whole town is quiet, which is exactly how I like it. Empty streets are where the secrets comes to play and their keepers unknowingly give them up. At least, they give them to me without realizing it.

Maybe these nightly trips are part of the reason I never really thought Kol or my dad were crazy. I've seen some strange things the past week, and the supernatural world might be the missing piece that makes sense of it.

I slip inside the bell tower's house and start my nightly climb. Up creaking stairs, through the clouds of dust, past the gears working tirelessly, and to my spot behind the clock face, which has a crack just wide enough for me to see the central area of town.

It's the closest thing I find to peace.

Until the monsters come out, that is. The men and women who live in the shadows and come out only in search of the trouble they crave. A part of me wonders if one day, I'll be like them. Someone who searches for danger in a small town just to feel something, anything—even if one day, it may kill me.

A crack echoes across the quiet streets and snaps me out of my thoughts. Under most circumstances, I would think it was nothing, but in small, vampire filled Mystic Falls, the smallest things usually lead to the biggest secrets.

From my perch, I can hear someone's heavy breathing and a small dragging sound as they get closer. I have to lean off the ledge a fraction to finally get a glimpse of them—a short red-head in pain and stumbling down the street. Her eyes keep darting from an alleyway ahead of her to somewhere over her shoulder— from whatever she's clearly running from.

My first instinct is to run down there and help her to hide, to see how to stop whoever's following her, but the side of me that's started taking over when I came here tells me to wait, keep quiet, and watch. I adjust so that I'm on my feet with my knee propped up on the ledge, and I have a clear line of sight to what's going on.