Reaper's Hollow: The Complete Series

Chapter 14-1

Chapter 14

Ru awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She glanced at the clock and saw it was past 10:00. Wiping sleep from her eyes, she picked up the annoying device and saw Candice’s face smiling up at her. With a deep breath, she answered. “Hello?”

“Hey there, sunshine! Whatcha up to?”

Ru wondered how someone who likely drank half her weight in tequila shots the night before could sound so chipper. “Nothing,” she replied, pulling herself up into a half-sitting, half-slouched position. “What are you up to?”

“Did I wake you?” Candice exclaimed. “You’re almost always up with the rooster. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just… had a rough night.” Thoughts of her dream, and the aftermath, filled her mind, and Ru looked down at her free hand. Had she really created a glowing blue light there a few hours ago, or was that all a figment of her imagination?

“Oh, no,” Candice sympathized. “Was it your mother again? Or Cutter? It wasn’t Jane, was it? Did she say something mean to you yesterday that you didn’t tell me about.”

“No, it wasn’t anything like that,” Ru assured her. She certainly couldn’t try to explain any of this to her friend right now. “It’s nothing. I just didn’t sleep well. I had a strange dream.” That much was definitely true.

“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I really don’t.” If Ru was going to relive what she’d gone through the night before, she was only going to do it once, and it needed to be with someone who might understand—which wasn’t Candice.

“Well, I need to find some new shoes to wear with my Halloween costume, and I was hoping you’d go with me. What do you say, a little retail therapy to make you feel better?”

“Halloween?” Ru echoed. “It’s barely even October.”

“Yeah, well, I like to make sure I look my best on my favorite holiday. It might take me a while to find the right ones to match my naughty vampire outfit.”

“Is there such a thing as a nice vampire?” Ru wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, but are definitely less slutty ones,” Candice replied with a giggle. “So what do you say? Lunch on me?”

“I’m sorry, Candice. I can’t. I have a stack of papers to grade, and I’ve got to get caught up on my lesson planning.” While both of those things were true, she really didn’t feel like going shopping under the circumstances. And she really needed to talk to Cutter.

“Come on, Ru! You can’t let being a teacher run your whole life. You can grade papers tomorrow. And lesson planning? Who needs it?”

“Candice…”

“Ru! You know, what we really need to do is find you a man, someone who can get your mind off of Cutter. How long has it been since you’ve gotten any? You’re sexually frustrated!”

“You’re… nosey!” Ru shouted back, hardly believing her friend’s gall, although she honestly wasn’t as shocked as she could’ve been. “I’m not sexually frustrated. I’m just busy.”

“You’re always busy,” Candice grumbled. “Fine. Well, if you change your mind, I’m leaving around noon. And if you wanna go out tonight, we’re going to that lounge in Sleepy Hollow. Should be fun.”

“That will fit your affinity for Halloween nicely,” Ru mused. “All right. Don’t count on it, though.”

“Have fun grading papers,” Candice practically groaned before disconnecting the call.

Ru studied her phone for a second. She wanted to call Cutter. She needed to call Cutter. But she was afraid to call Cutter. Wasn’t she opening a huge can of worms if she did? Deciding she wasn’t doing anything until after she’d showered, she headed for the bathroom and turned the water on as she took care of other necessities. Once she stood beneath the heated flow and the room began to fog up, she let her mind wander back to her dream. It had seemed so real. If she’d reached out and touched Thanatos’s hand—or Cutter’s—would it have felt like real flesh beneath her fingertips?

Frustrated at her lack of answers, Ru turned the water off and grabbed a towel. She dried her hair and stepped out onto the bath mat, drying off before the water seeped into the plush, green fabric. As she toweled off her back, she happened to catch a glimpse of her scars in the foggy mirror. Through the dampness, they looked even more distorted than normal. She used her fist to wipe away the water droplets from the mirror and then looked at them again as best she could, craning her head to look in the mirror and scooping her long, blonde, drippy hair out of the way.

They looked the same as she remembered, although the raised area wasn’t as pink as it had been when she was little. Now, it was just a jagged line down the inside of each of her shoulder blades. They didn’t look exactly the same, and they didn’t run smoothly, meandering here and there, forming disconnected trails for about six inches on either side. They were thin, perhaps the width of a long knife’s blade. Ru had no idea how they’d gotten there; she had no recollection of her birth mom, Seraphina, cutting her—or anyone else doing so. Liddy said she had, that her birth mom had tried to kill her. Now, Ru wasn’t so sure. What if this was a product of the “bad people” Liddy had mentioned on the phone a few nights ago?

With a loud exhale, she finished drying off and wrapped the towel around herself, heading toward the closet. Even though she was all alone in her own home, something about walking around with no clothes on didn’t seem right. More and more lately, she’d felt like she wasn’t alone, and having your coworker practically materialize in a dream was reason enough not to put everything on display.

She dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and a lightweight, pink sweater. It was supposed to be a little chillier that day than it had been lately, so she thought if she ended up going out, she’d probably also grab a jacket.

Once she was dressed, she went back into the bathroom and put on some makeup, nothing too fancy—it was the weekend after all—and brushed her hair. Recently, she’d been letting it air dry so she didn’t have to mess with the stupid hairdryer.

After a breakfast of cold cereal and a few minutes spent making up with Piper, who still wasn’t happy about her abrupt wake-up call in the middle of the night, Ru went back into the bedroom and grabbed her cell phone. Deciding she didn’t want to be in the bedroom—the scene of the crime—when she made the call, she took it out to the living room and sat down in a comfy recliner she’d found on the side of the road a few years ago. Most of her furniture was acquired by similar means, but this one was a particularly cozy find.

With a deep breath, she opened her contacts and clicked on Cutter’s name. Part of her hoped he didn’t answer, although she had no idea what kind of a message one leaves on voicemail for something like this. After two rings, she heard his familiar voice. “Hey, Ru. How are you?”

He sounded mostly calm, though there was a tinge to his voice that she hadn’t noticed before, except for when he’d been trying to convince her that she had a secret life back at his house a few weeks ago. He wasn’t nearly as wound up now, though, as he had been that night. “Hi,” she said, tentatively. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, not at all,” he replied. “Just hanging out. Is everything okay?”

The question seemed a little out of place, but she couldn’t blame him for wondering why she might be calling him. She hadn’t exactly been on the best terms with him lately, and she had been more than a little rough when she’d spoken to him in the hallway a couple of days ago at lunch. Had that just been the day before yesterday? Somehow, it seemed like ages ago. She’d wanted to mention her phone call from her mom the day before but couldn’t find a way to bring it up after she’d been so rude to him in the hallway Thursday. “Well, uh, I talked to my mom the other night, Liddy, that is, and she said a few more things about how she got me. And then… I had a weird dream last night. I was wondering, if you had a few minutes, if I could talk to you. I mean, some of what Liddy said related to what you were telling me. And… I guess I’m a little lost. Trying to sort all of this out.”

“Sure,” he said, his voice sounding friendly and not at all pushy the way she thought it might. “Do you want to meet somewhere? Coffee shop or something?”

Ru glanced at the clock. It was just past 11:00. The coffee shop downtown wouldn’t be too crowded this time of day, even though it was Saturday. “Yeah, sure. That sounds good. Maybe at 11:30?”

“All right. See you in a bit.”

She hung up, glad that he wasn’t as freaked out as she thought he might be and that he hadn’t insisted on coming over or taking her back to his house. There was something about that place…. Maybe it was the fact that it was hundreds of years old, or that it was in the middle of a creepy forest, but she just didn’t feel comfortable there. The coffee shop was a much better option.

Ru did a few chores and then checked herself in the mirror before slipping on some boots and grabbing her jacket and purse, heading for the door. Hopefully, Cutter would have some answers for her, although that might be tough since she wasn’t even quite sure what the questions were.