Dead Skin

Chapter 4

Reese came back empty-handed, with a seething Violet by his side. I didn't have to ask him if they found anything out, I already knew the answer.

Their silent desolation told me everything I needed to hear.

He stood back, taking a moment to run his hand through his hair and exhaling a heavy sigh. I could feel the weight of it from where I stood. My eyes were still on him as Violet shoved past me, bumping my shoulder in the process.

I whipped my head around in reflex, ready to pounce. But her grief-stricken look communicated the necessity for me to keep my cool. To take it a step further, I dug around in the cemetery of my being, trying to find some hint of compassion.

Her sister's missing.

Do I even remember my family anymore?

Just like that, my anger returned. Misplaced maybe, but there nonetheless. Nothing sensible or rational could justify to me why Violet's sister had been able to know about us.

Why was she the exception?

I turned my gaze back on Reese, who was quietly talking with Sam in the corner. Sam's hammer hung at his hip in his tool belt, along with a travel mug, undoubtedly filled with blood. He had a drill in his hand, which was waving in the air animatedly as he spoke to Reese with a fervor I couldn't figure out from here. As the disagreement heated, whatever Sam was insisting on sent him on a passionate rant. He tried to point the drill at Reese, seemingly to make a point, but it went flying across the room.

Reese ducked just in time, narrowly missing the flying object. Within seconds I was standing in front of them.

I pushed Sam. "Hey, um, could ya keep sharp objects away from his face, please? I kinda like that, you know."

Instead of the usual smart-ass response I was used to hearing come from Sam's mouth, he just shook his head and mumbled an apology.

"What the fuck's your problem, anyway?" I asked him.

"Nothing," he said, all that typical Sam-ness wiped from his voice. "Haven't you heard? It's none of our business."

Just as I was about to ask him what he meant by that, Eloise came strolling over, carrying his drill. "Here, Bob the Builder. Lose something?"

And just like that, his easy smile returned—faded, but there. He threw his arm around her and with the other, reclaimed his tool and put it back in his belt. "What would I do without you?"

"Probably hurt someone with something other than your terrible jokes," she said.

He hoisted her over his shoulder and smacked her on the rear. "That's the ninety-seventh time this week you've commented on my undeniable wit. You know what that means."

"Please, not again," Eloise whined, clutching his shirt.

"Oh, yes, my sweet dead one. That was the final nail in the coffin for you," Sam said.

She squeezed her eyes shut as he said it and then let out an audible groan. "This is going to be the longest eternity in all of eternities."

As Sam started to walk away, still carrying her, he tossed back to us, "Don't wait up for us."

At their retreating forms, I heard him tell her, "You've really dug your own grave this time, purple."

Eloise's remark was already out of earshot, though I was sure it was a threat or complaint of some sort—their usual banter, which didn't get annoying at all.

Once I was alone with Reese, I studied him and crossed my arms, waiting for an explanation. When none came, I said, "Well...?"

"Well, what?" he asked, and he started walking before the second word was even out.

I turned to follow him, something that's become quite customary these days. "Any updates?"

I shouldn't have to ask this.

He stopped walking then and glared at me. "Don't you think if I had any, I'd have told you?"

Before I could respond, he resumed his footsteps.

It took everything I had in me not to roll my eyes. "I would fucking hope so," I said. "After all, I am your—"

"I know what you are," he said, spinning his head around to face me, his voice a little too sharp for my liking.

"So then act like it!" I yelled, earning myself a few questioning glances from the others in the room, who'd stopped working to speculate. I lowered my voice when I said to him, "Listen. I understand you're stressed. But please don't take it out on me. I'm trying to help. And I'm trying to understand what the hell is going on."

He nodded, biting on his lower lip like he was biting back something he might regret voicing. A few moments passed and then, "Right."

What the fuck?

"No, not right, actually." I grabbed the back of his shirt after he turned to keep walking, holding it in a firm grip while keeping my own feet planted.

His eyes dropped to my fist. "Lizette, let go of me." Somehow, he's scariest when his tone is this low and calm.

"What did Sam mean was none of our business?"

"Exactly that—none of your business." He yanked his shoulder, effectively freeing himself from my hold, and kept walking.

As I watched him get further and further away from me, I realized why my heart was aching the way it was.

In that moment, the gap between us didn't feel purely physical.

And the kind of distance you can't see, hurts worse.