Page 3 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Silver

Rock blasts through my AirPods as my feet pound the gravel. I started running last year to clear my head and keep my anxiety in check. By the second mile, I knew this was the right choice. My muscles and lungs are burning, and I foresee exhaustion calling my name later, which means I’ll sleep well.

I ran to the end of my drive toward the highway, but I found a well-beaten trail off to the right before I got there. Deciding it was safer than the highway, I took it.

So far, it hasn’t ended, which is good because I’m nowhere near ready to stop running.

The sun is out, and the temperature has finally reached a beautiful seventy-five. My mind is clear as music and adrenaline keeps it that way. And for a moment, I consider running until my muscles give out.

There’s a clearing up ahead, and I’m curious to see what’s beyond until I’m actually there.

I stop and let my eyes wander over a stately manor behind a Gothic-looking fence with the ugliest grotesques on top of its pillars at the gate.

If it were any other building, it would be an attraction, but this place… This place feels cold and uninviting, even in the afternoon sun.

It’s as if the building has a sentience that screams at you to run .

Suddenly, I wonder if this was where Karen mentioned Aunt Soliel was living too close to. Movement in an upstairs window startles me, and I snap my eyes upward.

The curtain is moving, but there’s no one there.

My stomach stiffens, and I turn back for the comfort of the woods as I take off at a run.

Even though I know it’s probably all in my head, I feel like someone is on my heels.

Gaining my nerve, I whip my head around, still running but glancing back, just in case.

No one.

But when I turn back, pumping my arms to speed up, the feeling returns. That crawling tension that winds up your spine when someone’s behind you and getting closer.

I whimper as I finally clear the path and land on the wide breadth of my gravel drive. The feeling is gone, and I look at the path as I heave breaths, trying not to vomit like my stomach wants to.

What the hell was that place?

Trying to put it all out of my mind, I walk home, all the while watching behind me.

I can’t help but feel like it’s all in my head. I can’t believe that this town is getting to me in only two days.

“Keep it together, Dormund,” I tell myself, carefully walking up the steps to the front door, using the key to enter.

By the time dark falls, I’ve had another shockingly cold shower, made some soup from a can I found in the pantry, and packed up twenty more boxes of Soliel’s things for either auction or trash.

The house is slowly emptying. Well, the downstairs, anyhow.

I tried to adjust the television to make the picture clearer, but I couldn’t figure out how to use the antennas on top and gave up. Now, I’m standing near the front windows, perusing the old spines of books on the shelves surrounding the television setup.

Most are romances, but some are books on the occult, specifically the study of cryptids, witches, and supernatural creatures.

Odd, I never knew Soliel was into that kind of thing. That makes guilt swim in my chest as I shift my eyes to a cobweb connecting the curtain to the wall.

There’s so much work to do here that I feel like it’ll drown me.

Something moves beyond the window, and I take a step back.

My hand clutched on the top of a dusty chair at the edge of the living room, I stare through the pane, my vision outlining each dark shape beyond: my Tahoe, the tree line, the porch railing.

I only caught it from the corner of my eye, but I knew it was someone in the yard.

The New Yorker in me wants to run out there and tell them to get off my property, but the saner side of me, the side in a strange town with strange people and vibes, scolds that idea entirely.

I back away from the window, never letting my eyes depart from the spot until I turn and run for the kitchen. Lifting the phone, I dial 9-1-1, sitting on the stool as my leg shakes with anxious energy until the dispatcher picks up.

“Someone’s in my yard,” I blurt at her before she gets a word in edgewise. “I live in the Dormund estate, temporarily,” I add, knowing I’m giving far too much information because I’m nervous.

“And someone’s in your yard? They’re not in the house, right?” the woman asks as I hear her clacking away on a keyboard.

“No. I don’t think so. I came to call you.”

“Are the doors locked?” she asks.

I swallow, feeling foolish now for calling. “Yeah, they are. It’s just… listen, I’m all alone out here, and earlier, while I was running, I swear someone was following me. Could you send someone out?”

“Yes, ma’am. I already have them en route. I was only trying to make conversation to calm you down,” she replies, and I exhale shakily.

“That’s nice of you. I’m sorry. This place is unnerving, and it’s been a long couple of days.”

She laughs. “Blackmoore is unnerving?”

“Yeah, have you not stopped and looked around lately?” I ask her as flashing lights shine through all the open windows. “They’re here. Thank you!” I tell her, hanging up as I meet the officers at the front door.

One is older and merely tips his hat at me as he walks the perimeter with his Mag-lite shining through the night. The other looks to be in his mid-thirties and is covered in tattoos.

Well, hello there, officer.

I try to remind myself I’m not here to start any seasonal flings and that someone was lurking in my yard, watching me through the window, but my eyes still wander up and down his muscular body.

He grins. “Got a call that said you had someone on the property?” he asks.

I nod, suddenly without words to reply.

“Can you show me where you saw them?”

I lead the officer over to the side of my Tahoe, pointing right where I saw the movement. “They were standing right here.”

He turns and looks up at the house. “Clear vantage point into your windows.”

“Exactly.”

“You always keep the curtains wide open like that?”

His question makes anger rip through my chest. “Excuse me?”

“Well, all I’m saying is if you’d draw those curtains closed…”

“If they were closed, I wouldn’t have realized someone was trespassing. You’d rather I be ignorant of the lurker so that they can break into my house and catch me unaware?”

I cross my arms over my chest.

Strike one for Officer Hottie.

“No, ma’am, I was only saying don’t give them something to look at and…” he trails off as I narrow my eyes. “Are you the homeowner?”

“Yes, I am. I’m getting the place in order after my aunt’s passing.”

I don’t see how any of this has to do with the stalker standing in my yard, but he jots the information down on his little pad.

“Find anything, Scott?” He turns as his partner rounds the front of my Tahoe.

“Nope. Nothing. Not even tracks leading up here.”

“This is a gravel road,” I point out, thinking it obvious.

“We’re standing in grass, which means whoever was here would’ve been too, ma’am,” Officer Hottie says, and my fingers dig into my arms, which I still have crossed.

Scott sighs. “Whoever it is, is long gone now, and being you live so close to…”

Officer Hottie cuts his eyes as Scott and his words die off.

“So close to what?” I prod. I’m sick of everyone dancing around the facts.

“Nothing,” Scott says. “They’re gone for now, but you can contact us if you have any more disturbances. Jake, give her a card.” He pokes his partner in the arm with his Mag-lite before getting back into the passenger side of the squad car.

Jake takes a card out of his breast pocket. “This is my direct number. Call me if you see them again, alright? I’m sorry we couldn’t be more helpful, but hopefully, whoever it was saw the police presence and packed it in for the night.”

His words don’t settle the worry in my stomach.

“Hey,” I call out as he reaches the squad car.

He stops, looking at me over the roof of the car.

“How did my aunt die? Do you know? The lady at the coffee shop alluded to some event I was unaware of, and it didn’t settle well with me.”

A breeze ambles past, and goosebumps rise on my skin as Jake grips the top of the car’s door harder. His white knuckles are visible from here. “She was murdered,” he says.

I’m at a loss as he gets back in his car and turns the lights off.

As they leave and I watch the taillights grow further away, I realize I’m standing alone in the very spot someone was watching me.

Bolting inside, I lock myself back in before I let my mind reel at the officer’s admission.

Aunt Soliel was murdered.

Looking around, I feel like the house looks different. It’s like my perspective is shifting, and now, instead of looking around at clutter, I’m looking around at evidence.

You’re more yourself at home, so who’s to say there isn’t something in this house that explains what happened to Soliel in her final days?

She was in her upper eighties, so when the lawyer said she died from heart failure, I didn’t blink at it.

Her age is the factor that has worry rising in the back of my throat like bile because who in their right mind would kill someone who’s in their eighties?

I look toward the window, wondering if I just glimpsed the shadow of my aunt’s killer as they stood watching me, likely sizing me up so they could get away with their crime.

I’m the Dormund heir, the final living relative of this bloodline. If someone had an issue with my bloodline, I’m the only one standing in the way of their problems disappearing.

You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Rushing the windows, I pull the blinds and the curtains closed, forgetting all about the spiderwebs encasing them until my hands are covered.

I do the same to every window in the house until I’m edging toward a panic attack.

Fuck.

This was supposed to be an easy renovation and flip job. I was supposed to enjoy restoring this house to its glory before making it someone’s home and using the time to center myself.

This is not what I had in mind when I told the lawyer I was coming to Blackmoore.

I’ve only been here two days, and already, the townsfolk look at me as if they’re walking on eggshells when I’m around. I have a stalker and live near some haunted manor everyone seems deathly afraid of.

I chug back mouthfuls of wine before dropping the bottle to the counter with a clang.

“Don’t worry, Sil. It can’t get any worse,” I tell myself.

As a chill spreads through my bones like cracking ice, I regret my words and wish I could take them back.

However, they’re in the ether now, and I know I’ll come to regret them.

Only time will tell how much.