Banshee Series: Series: Books 1 to 6 Bundle

 

Chapter 4

 

Nicole didn’t have to time to look up as she heard the front door open. The newest batch was due out of the oven and she still needed to clean the mixer for the next recipe. She settled on just calling out a greeting as her mother passed by on her way to the stairs. Her mother returned the greeting and waved one hand around the corner in an exhausted display of affection. It wasn’t until she rushed over to the oven that Nicole noticed her mother lingering, leaning back to get a better look into the kitchen. 

 

“Nicole?”

 

She smiled widely and tried to inconspicuously brush the layers of flour off of her hands. “How was work?”

 

“Not bad.”

 

Nicole cringed. That was her interrogation voice. The low crime rate of Fort Wayward and Nicole’s inability to tell a believable lie without a few days of planning stood as a testament of just how effective Constable Dorothy Rider’s interrogation voice was. Nicole plastered a smile on her face and pulled the batch of muffins from the oven like it required the grand total of her focus. It wasn’t until she had the hot tray in her oven-gloved hands, that she noticed there wasn’t any counter space left. The results of dozens of previous attempts ensured that there wasn’t a single flat surface not devoted to tray after tray of cooling muffins.

 

“When is the bake sale?” 

 

“Oh,” Nicole dismissed with a slight chuckle and a wave which, given her grip on the tray, admittedly looked awkward. It wasn’t completely abnormal for her to bake hundreds of muffins on a Sunday night. “All this? No, I was just thinking that it might be nice to have some fresh baked muffins.” 

 

“Nicole,” Dorothy sighed with a mix of annoyance and fatigue. Nicole hated that combination. It was worse than the interrogation tone. “We’re not going through this again.”

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“Your obsessive search for the perfect recipe,” Dorothy searched for a gap in the counter big enough to lean against. Eventually, she gave up. 

 

“It’s not obsessive.”

 

“How many recipes have you tried out, tonight?”

 

“Only ten. That’s not obsessive. It’s due diligence.”

 

“And how many did you go through the last time?”

 

Nicole shuffled on her feet. “Thirty-three.”

 

“So, forty-three recipes?” she snapped, her face twisting up in horror. “How are you even affording this? Where are you even finding that many recipes for the exact same thing?”

 

“Internet.”

 

“Pack it up. You’re done.”

 

“But, I’m so close,” Nicole protested with a whine. “One more tweak and they will be perfect.”

 

Dorothy’s brow furrowed. “Didn’t you do this years ago?”

 

“Maybe,” Nicole mumbled.

 

“What changed?”

 

“Don’t you think they’re a little dry?” She tried her best to sound casual. A bit too much, apparently, because she didn’t fool her mother for a second. 

 

Dorothy heaved a sigh, hooked one thumb lazily around her gun belt, and rubbed her forehead with her free hand. “Who said that?”

 

After numerous attempts to shy away from her mother’s attention, she offered a weak smile. “Benton Bertrand.” 

 

Instead of the teasing she had expected, Dorothy’s attention took on a laser-like focus. “When did you meet the Bertrands?”

 

“When I was coming back from Vic’s place. Their car had broken down so I gave them a lift.”

 

“You went to see Vic? How is he?”

 

Nicole swallowed thickly as she hurriedly went back to arranging her muffins. “I think he’s still sick. And still really into his girlfriend. I didn’t see his parents, though,” she rushed on before her mother could ask any questions that she wasn’t ready to answer. Even just the memory of the hands made her shiver. “Why are you so interested in the Bertrands?”

Chapter 6

The second they arrived at the school, Benton threw himself out of the car and practically fled into the building. Nicole had tried to follow, but he was an expert at hiding in small crowds. Even at lunch, she wasn’t able to lay eyes on him. The longer she didn’t get to talk to him, the more the questions crammed into her mind. She tried to sort everything she had learned over the last few days into something that made any kind of sense. But it was as if she was missing the centerpiece that would hold everything together. The problem was, the longer it didn’t make sense, the more her brain refused to make room for anything else.

 

By the time the last class of the day came around, she was functioning mostly on autopilot. Leaving the locker room, not at all excited for gym class, she drifted out onto the baseball field and instantly searched for the twins. They had adopted their normal styles once again. Meg with her overabundance of eyeliner and aversion to color, and Danny with her hair slightly curled and more feminine. Both of them looked unbearably smug. 

 

“How was your fraud?” Nicole asked.

 

“Do you really want to know?” Danny asked softly. 

 

She really didn’t and let the conversation drop. More students filtered out of the gym and, in the absence of a teacher, formed into different groups and began to chat. It wasn’t hard to pick Zack out of the crowd. It never was. He was tall, boisterous, and a massive flirt. He lumbered over to them, winked suggestively at Meg, and slung his arm over Nicole’s shoulders. 

 

“How are my favorite girls, today?”

 

“I’m good,” Meg smiled. “How’s my least favorite guy?”

 

“Why hurt me?”

 

“Have you met Benton, yet?” Nicole asked. 

 

Zack had been looking forward to the new addition for a while, and she was sure that the two could actually be good friends. Her hope dwindled when she saw Zack’s brow furrow.

 

“You mean the weird new kid?”

 

“He’s not weird,” Nicole said.

 

“Yeah, he is,” Zack said.

 

“He did completely freak out this morning,” Meg noted.

 

“He’s just under a lot of pressure. If you haven’t noticed, he’s had it rough the last couple of days. You’d be a little weird, too.”

 

Meg and Zack shared a smirk.

 

“So,” Meg said. “You’re admitting he’s weird?”

 

“Don’t get her riled up, guys,” Danny sighed. 

 

“Oh, look who finally showed up,” Meg smiled and glanced over Nicole’s shoulder. 

 

She turned and scanned the crowd. Benton tried to melt into the background, but his gray hood was visible against the brick walls. Apparently, he knew his disguise didn’t work all that well, since he hid behind his sunglasses and hunched his shoulders like he could somehow get rid of his height. They turned to each other, Nicole waved for him to come over, but he somehow managed to vanish in the sparse crowd. An act like that had to take a great deal of effort. 

 

“Wow,” Zack chuckled. “This must be so embarrassing for you, Nicole.”

 

“Want to revisit the whole ‘weird’ thing?” Meg said with a smile in her voice. 

 

Nicole tried to shrug it off, but the rejection stung more than a little. She had never really had much experience with it and wasn’t about to accept it. The conversation continued and Zack’s teasing laughter drew her back in, despite herself. Then the air shifted. Within the same instant, everyone fell silent, but no one could place why. A nervous anxiety filled the air as the groups absently shuffled closer, closing their ranks. Nicole’s stomach went cold when she spotted Victor stalking across the grass, closing in on them with a ferocious snarl, his body vibrating with restrained energy. He looked to be out for blood, and she instinctively took a step back. 

 

“Hey, man!” Zack greeted.

 

Despite his happy tone, Zack quickly finished putting his shoulder length raven hair into a ponytail, ensuring his hands were free and his chest protected by the time Victor joined them. 

 

Victor didn’t respond. He just silently joined their circle and stood rigid, hands balled. 

 

“Not that it’s not great to see you,” Danny said hesitantly. “But you look horrible. Maybe you should drop by the hospital.”

 

“Baseball today?” Victor’s voice sounded like shattered glass. 

 

Zack cast his eyes around the group, but none of them really knew what to do. 

 

“Yeah,” Nicole answered. “But don’t you think you should sit this one out?”

 

Victor locked his bloodshot eyes on Zack. “You pitching?”

 

Zack once again looked around for help before answering, “Yeah.”

 

Victor twitched uncontrollably. Still, his eyes were an unwavering force as they locked onto Benton. He acknowledged him with a jerk of his chin before speaking to Zack, “Hit him.”

 

“What?” Zack laughed awkwardly. “You want me to hit the new kid with a pitch?”

 

“As hard as you can.”

Chapter 9

The staircase to the second floor was halfway down a long and annoyingly exposed hallway, with the gift shop at one end and the nurse’s station at the other. A few feet from the bottom stairs was a vending machine that had given Nicole a little bit of cover to creep forward unnoticed. But there was no way she could actually round it to get to the stairs, and consequently Aspen’s office, without being seen. 

 

Leaning heavily against the cool metal side of the vending machine, she peeked around it to check if the coast was clear. There were at least four people milling about the nurse’s station. Apparently, the skeleton staff didn’t have much to occupy their time with tonight because they never seemed all that interested in going anywhere else. 

 

It hadn’t occurred to Nicole until after she had entered the hospital that she would stick out. She knew everyone in town. Anyone who saw here would question why she was here so late. Not to mention that, by now, everyone and their mothers would know what had happened at the diner. Even if she had the world’s most perfectly constructed lie, and managed to execute it flawlessly, word would get back to Dorothy that she had visited. It was the first time in her life that she had actually wished that she didn’t live in a small town. 

 

Minutes dragged on. The nurses chatted, drank their coffee, and while some left to do their rounds, they never left the station unmanned. Do you have to be so damn dedicated? The angry thought was quickly chased by the more reasonable part of her mind that mentioned that dedication in the health industry was a good thing. That reasonable voice was really starting to get irritating. Another minute passed and she knew it wasn’t going to get any better. Either she took her chance or stayed with the ever-increasing risk that someone would walk down the hall behind her. 

 

She snuck another peek, waiting for the right moment when they would all be distracted by whatever it was they were doing. Finally, the opportunity opened up and she took it before she could second-guess herself. The hardest part was to keep her boots from thumping against the tiled floor. She rushed around the vending machine and threw herself into the stairwell. Her knee smacked against the edges of the stairs. The blow sent out a long throb of protest but it wasn’t enough to keep her from scrambling up and pressing herself against the wall. In the shadows of the stairwell, Nicole held her breath and waited for someone to call her name. Once again, it occurred to her much too late that she really should have worked on an excuse. But no one called. No one came. Their conversations and the steady rhythm of clicking computer keys went on, undisturbed. 

 

Sagging with the force of her relief, Nicole silently pulled her feet back under her and stood up. She crept up the stairs, never taking a full breath until she reached the darkness of the second floor. It didn’t take long for the shadows to shift from comforting to confronting. Since none of the businesses ever stayed open past five, the floor was completely deserted. Each one had large windows that looked out onto the street and matching ones that opened onto the hallway she was standing in. The only source of light was the glow of the streetlamps. They filtered in through the vertical blinds and sliced spurs of light across the hallway.

 

Her feet refused to move. Every time Nicole had seen this place, it had been awash with lights and people. There was something inherently wrong in seeing it so empty. It felt like something was watching her from the shadows, waiting for her to come closer. Her eyes searched every inch of space they could find but there were far too many hiding spots to assure herself that she was alone. 

 

Lingering by the top of the stairs, one hand pressed against the wall, she struggled to resist turning on a light. It would be a comfort but was the exact opposite of being sneaky. The sensation of eyes upon her intensified. She tried to dismiss it, to justify it, to reason with the hair on her arms that were beginning to rise, but nothing worked. Memories of her last hiking trip were worth far more than her own assurances. 

 

 She had been hiking for half a day with the cold, constant pressure pressing against her spine. It was only after she had circled back around that she noticed the coyote tracks in the soft earth. Dozens of them. The whole pack must have stalked her for at least a mile and she never saw them. But the most primal part of herself had felt it. Had known the exact moment when she had captured a predator’s attention. It was an unmistakable breed of bone-deep dread. And she felt it now. 

 

Aspen’s office stood at the very end of the hall, the last in the long row of identical doors. The minimal light shone off the metal handle, taunting her. Controlling her every breath, forcing them to go slower than her racing heart, she took her first tentative step forward. The desire to run was instant and forceful. She chanced a glance over her shoulder at the staircase. 

 

“You came here to do something,” she reminded herself. “You’re not leaving until you get the job done.”