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CHAPTER TWO

ENDER

“I’m here!” Finn shouts as he rushes through the door and immediately trips over a body.

“Fuck! Shit… dammit… I’m so sorry. I was just running so hard and—Well, this doesn’t look good.

I do want everyone well aware I’m a better detective than this and I don’t generally trip over the bodies. Hell, this is awkward.”

“Which part doesn’t look good?” Marcus asks. “The part where you sent Ender into a place full of vampires who are now all dead?”

I glower at the man who is still over here trying to pin this on me.

“As much as I absolutely despise Ender and wish the very worst for him, I don’t think he did it. Ender seems more prone to… tearing off heads than whatever this is,” Alexei comments as he eyes a body.

“The vampires were already dead before he trotted on in here,” the British man says, as if I’d trot anywhere.

“And you are?” Finn asks the smiley man. It’s rather creepy how much he likes to smile.

“You must be the renowned Finnigan Hayes,” the man says as he holds both hands out.

Finn doesn’t seem to know what to do with both hands, so he tentatively puts one hand out as the vampire grabs it and cups it with both of his while he shakes it with much vigor.

I’m quite glad he didn’t try to do that to me, or I might have accidentally crushed his hand.

“I’m Mads Nielson. I was sent here from the UK council and it’s an absolute pleasure to work with you. ”

The moment I hear that he’s a council member, irritation boils up inside of me as well as regret that I didn’t off him before I had so many witnesses. “So that’s why you were here surrounded by the dead when I showed up. Another council member out to play victim,” I state.

Mads starts laughing before hesitating and seeming to realize I wasn’t telling a joke. “Oh! You really think I killed them? Oh… nooooo . Ha. Not my skillset. After the… uh… lack of employees at the US council, I was sent over to assess what was happening.”

“I don’t care what you were sent over for,” I say. “But if you try to take Rylee from me, I will remove every single limb from your body and then your head.”

With Rylee in my arms and my threat lingering between us, I head toward the door when I hear Mads go, “I bet he’s a blast at parties.”

“Invite me to your next council party and find out,” I retort.

He laughs about that, like anything I said might have been a joke—or maybe he’s a serial killer who finds the idea of death hilarious.

I hesitate when I reach the door and turn to the VRC members. “I am indebted to you for helping me find Rylee… thank you.”

“Of course,” Finn says. “We’re glad to see her okay.”

“She’s such a cutie pie, of course we couldn’t say no to saving her!” Claude chimes in.

“You make it sound like if she was ugly, we’d have thought harder about it,” Finn says.

Claude just laughs, which isn’t reassuring at all.

Once I’m outside, I set Rylee on the ground to look her over before I see that her shirt is moving. How I missed this fact, I’m uncertain. Probably had something to do with the rest of the vampires. Not like everything else was quite distracting. At least she’s finally stopped crying.

“What is in your shirt?” I ask as I eye the shirt that looks close to bursting open.

“Nothin’,” she whispers while refusing to look me in the eyes. It’s very clearly something when it’s stretching the shirt to its limits.

“Rylee, now.”

“It was an accident,” she cries as she pulls the ugliest and dirtiest cat I’ve ever seen out of her shirt. One ear is bent over and hairless, the other has a chunk out of it. Hair hangs in mats and he looks like he was rolled in one too many puddles.

I can’t seem to find words. My brain is telling me what happened but the words just elude me.

“Aww, what a sweetheart. Did you leave the house to save the little kitty?” the irritating council member says as he comes over and kneels in front of Rylee.

Rylee nods vigorously, thrilled to have someone who sees her side and understands it. I’m seeing it, alright, I’m just really not comprehending it.

“I did! He was crying and hurt, and I couldn’t just leave him there or he’d get hit by a car! So I went out and then he ran so I ran after him, and then when I caught him… I realized the evil vampires noticed me!”

“Let me get this straight. You risked your life… for a cat ?” I ask in disbelief. It’s like everything I’d ever ingrained in her head went out the second she saw a cat . I’ve spent so much time with her teaching her how to hide and how to defend herself and she goes and… chases after a cat ?

Rylee’s eyes get super wide as she aims them at me, like this display of innocence will fix everything. Like I’ll forgive her for what she’s done.

“That was very brave of you—” Mads must get a look at my face because he quickly backtracks. “Not… brave? No… that was…”

“What are you even doing here?” I ask him.

“I don’t know! They seemed to want to talk about me, so I excused myself so they could do it without feeling awkward! And then I saw the kitty. I mean, look at that kitty. I’d risk my life for it too!”

“See, Ender? He understands and he’s funny!” Rylee says.

“He’s not funny. He’s a monster. He’s like the guys I told you about.”

Her eyes get even wider. “Like the ones who tell you they have candy and puppies in their van and then they abduct you?”

“Yes, just like that.”

“Mister, I don’t want to get in your murder van. Nuh-uh. I wanna go home,” Rylee announces.

“I… I don’t have a murder van,” Mads says, looking perplexed. “I have a rental car, though. No sweets or puppies, but I could definitely get some sweets if you want some!”

I grab the cat by the scruff of the neck and set it in his hands. “Have a blast,” I tell him as I pick up Rylee and rush off into the night.

Rylee is silent for all of fifteen seconds before she realizes what’s happened. “EN! NO! MY CAT!”

“It’s not your cat,” I say.

If I thought the tears over being abducted by vampires was a lot, it’s nothing compared to the tears over me handing that mangy thing off.

She’s now beating on my chest and sobbing. “You’re. SO. MEAN.”

I stop running and set her on the ground as I stare down at her, positive I misunderstood something she’s just said. “I’m mean? Am I really? I’ve taken care of you and protected you and just ran all over the city to find you after you were taken from me again .”

Rylee can’t even seem to formulate words now because she’s crying so hard. “You! ARE! EVIL! I saved him and loved him, and he was mine and I don’t ever have anything that’s mine.”

I continue staring at her, absolutely unsure of what to do with her. She’s just turned seven, she should just be happy she’s allowed to be happy and instead, she’s throwing a fit over a cat ? I open my mouth to remind her of everything she does have before shutting it. What use is it?

A woman walking by looks at us in concern. It just reminds me that someone like me shouldn’t have someone like Rylee.

“Honey, are you okay?” she asks.

“NO! He’s MEAN.”

So mean, so awful. Then why the hell does she want to stay with me? She acts like I’m the one who abducted her and carried her off, not the one who saved her. All because of a stupid cat.

“Is this your father?”

“No!”

“Who is he to you?” she asks, looking more concerned by the minute.

Rylee seems unsure of what to say before settling on, “A meanie who gave away my cat.”

I stand here as I try to keep my rage stamped down over this woman butting in, as well as my irritation over Rylee making this whole thing a big deal.

It was just a fucking cat. Does she not realize that people want both of us?

They want me dead and her to experiment on and she thinks we should what?

Buy a house somewhere and settle down? Adopt every sad-looking cat that looks our way?

How the fuck could we be on the run with a cat?

Are we just going to tote a litter box with us everywhere we go?

“I can take you to the house of that vampire you liked so much. Orin,” I say. “Do you want to go there?”

“Yes! There’s a pool and a big room, and so much to do and he’d let me have a cat,” she decides.

“What’s going on here?” the woman asks, but before she can ask anything else, I grab Rylee and carry her off to Orin’s.

I set her down on the porch, unsure why I feel so…

weird about this. I don’t actually care what happens to her, right?

I was just… this was all to learn what she was, and then after that I just didn’t have anything else to do with her, so I dragged her along.

But really, was that even fair of me? She would have a better life with anyone but me.

The door opens, telling me that the man Finn calls his father has heard us.

“Rylee?” he asks in surprise. “What’s going on?”

“She wanted to come here,” I say. “You better watch her like your life depends on it, you hear me? If something happens to her, I will destroy you and everything you love.”

“Awfully feisty for a Monday night, eh?” Orin says.

I turn around, realizing that this will work out for the best. If I don’t have to keep returning to her then I can continue my quest to destroy the entire council. I will tear every inch of it down with nothing to hold me back and I will find him while doing so.

“En, where are you going?” Rylee asks. “I thought we were going to stay here.”

I turn back and raise an eyebrow. “We? I’m not staying here. You said you wanted Orin, so here you go.”

She looks alarmed and I’m flabbergasted that a child can even cry this much.

Where do all the tears even come from? Rylee never cried when I first got her.

She really never did much of anything. She just did whatever I told her and barely talked, and now she’s over here raising a fuss. “You’re leaving me ?”

“You said you wanted to stay with Orin.”

“I thought we’d both stay with Orin. Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!” she begs as she clings to my leg like she’s just going to drop down and become a weight for me to carry around.

“Why are you acting like I’m the one trying to get rid of you? You said you wanted to come here.” Apparently, I don’t know how to deal with children because I can’t understand this cryptic nonsense she’s spouting!

“It seems like it might have been a long night for both of you. Why don’t you two stay here for the night?” Orin suggests.

“Absolutely not,” I say.

“It won’t kill you.”

“It very well might.”

“I won’t tell the others that you’re here. Do you have somewhere else to go? Finn said you’ve just been moving around the city eluding people… or him, he’s not quite sure.”

“A bit of both,” I say. “One can only suffer so much of his happiness in their life.”

Orin laughs and then pats me on the back, which I quickly move away from. I’d rather no one touches me if I have the choice. “I won’t tell Finn you’re here. Just stay for the night. It’s supposed to sleet tonight, and you’re going to drag that girl around in it?”

I don’t actually have another place lined up and the previous one is now compromised. “If you don’t mind watching her, Rylee will stay here. Once I find a new place, I’ll come back and see if she wants to go with me.”

Rylee’s grip on me tightens. “No! Please don’t leave me. Please? I promise I’ll be good. I’ll never go outside without your permission again. I’ll be so careful. I won’t cry about the cat anymore.”

I kneel in front of her. “Rylee, I’ll be back. I’m going to simply find us a different place to stay. You can stay here until I do.”

She hugs me tightly. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me. I’ll be really good. I promise. Please. I’ll be the best ever.”

“I’m not leaving because you were bad or you have to be better. I just don’t have a place for us to stay tonight.”

“I don’t care. We’ve had nowhere to stay before,” she says. “As long as I’m with you, I don’t need anything else.”

“How about just for tonight?” Orin says. “Both of you, come on now.”

The only thing that could ever get me through that door is the look on Rylee’s face at this moment. I sigh, unsure how it ended up like this as Orin giddily guides us into his house. He seems far too pleased to let me, a man he should never trust, into his house.

“Just… show us to a room, we won’t make a noise,” I assure him.

“Nonsense! Let’s get you two cleaned up, and then we can watch a movie! How’s that sound?”

“Ooh! Ender loves Moana! ”

“Do I?” I ask, pretty sure she loves it and also loves to torture me by making me watch it over and over.

“We could sing to it!” Orin says, like he just wants to make my day worse.

Dammit, I stepped right into hell, didn’t I?

“Yes! En, will you sing with us?” Rylee asks.

“Does it look like I’ll sing with you?”

That just makes her laugh and leap at me, expecting me to catch her, which I do. Then she grabs my face in her hands. “I’m going to show you all around.” And she leaps back out of my hands. Like… why even jump into them if she’s already moving on to the next thing?

She drags me after her, and for some reason, I just follow, and I can’t tell whether it’s out of fear that she’ll burst into tears if I don’t or whether I’m just willing to appease her in any way she wants because I didn’t like the way I felt when I thought she wanted to leave me for Orin.

“This is the pool. This is the best part! Orin and I have these little blow-up things and then Orin was like pow! And then I won!”

“Sounds like it was rigged,” I say.

“Nuh-uh, I won a hundred percent.”

“Yeah?”

“One hundred percent,” she declares. Then we’re off again. “And this is the the-ater room.”

“Why do you say it so strangely?”

“Because it’s a fancy theater. Theeeeeater. Fancy.”

“Ah yes, I definitely thought you were speaking fancy when you said it like that.”

“How about I show you two to your rooms so you can get cleaned up and continue the tour after?” Orin says as he starts upstairs.

Rylee happily follows him with me trailing behind. “Am I staying in the same room I did last time I was here?”

“Do you want to?” Orin asks.

“Yes! NO! YES!”

“Well, here are two guest rooms. You two can battle for which one you want.”

“I want this one!” she says as she races into the room.

“Did something happen?” Orin asks me.

I watch as Rylee dives right onto the bed, arms and legs sprawled out like a starfish. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You can ask for help.”

“I did. And I got Rylee back.”

“Beyond that.”

I laugh as I look at the man. “The only reason anyone chose to help me was because of Rylee. I’m not foolish. I’m well aware I deserve no help. We will be out of here by tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to be,” he says as he walks away.

But he just doesn’t understand.