Deerhill

Chapter 8 - Indigo

Chapter 8 - Indigo

The ferry ride back across the water was silent, and so was the car ride home. Drew offered to drive Indigo home first, but Indigo was still drunk enough to be paranoid. It would be just her luck that Molly tracked her down and planned on killing her in her sleep. She was safer in numbers, safer with Leo, Drew and Helia. They were happy to have her. Sounding relieved, even.

Indigo couldn’t recall a lot of what else happened before she fell asleep on her friend’s couch. A few hits off of Leo’s dab pen, and a drink shared between he, Drew and herself after Helia left them to sleep. She woke up sometime so early in the morning it was still dark, fuzzy headed and full of urgency. Urgency for what, she didn’t know. Not until someone shuffled through the hallway and she popped up to see Helia leaning in the open front doorway, talking to someone.

Indigo couldn’t recognize the voice that spoke back to her, nor could she make out the words that were being said. All she knew was that it was a man, and Helia was much to drunk to be letting someone in without Leo and Drew being aware. Indigo pushed herself up despite her limbs aching for more sleep. Her head was pounding, and her stomach felt sick, but she forced herself to stumble over to the doorway anyway.

The man standing there had a good foot on Helia, with broad shoulders like a sports player. He was strong, definitely, and dirty blond. The expression on his face when he noticed Indigo behind Helia made Indigo’s skin crawl, and the hair at the nape of her neck stood up as she recognized him as Jeremy.

“Do Leo and Drew know you’re here?” Indigo asked him, attempting to lean against the wall in a casual way, instead of a drunk and unsteady way. Her mother’s warnings came back to her full force, and she wanted to bash her head into the wall for being so careless.

“Shh, Indigo you’re gonna wake them up,” Helia hissed. “This is Jeremy, I told you about him, remember? It’s okay.”

“Indigo, right?” Jeremy asked her. “You can come and join us if you want, no need to alert the guard dogs.”

“You know she’s trashed, right?” Indigo asked, fighting the way her stomach rolled in disgust at his offer. “She out drank me. Then came home and drank more. She had to go to bed first. No way is she sober enough for you to be here.”

“Stop it, I’m fine,” Helia protested, grabbing Jeremy’s hand and allowing him to pull her outside.

Indigo knew that if Jeremy got Helia in that car, there was nothing she could do to stop Helia from going through with a very bad decision. Indigo wedged herself between Helia and the doorframe and shoved Jeremy’s chest hard with the flat of her hand. Jeremy dropped Helia’s hand and allowed himself to be moved backward, just enough for Indigo to get in between him and Helia. They were standing on the grass lawn now.

“A simple yes would have sufficed,” Jeremy said, his sneer pissing Indigo off.

Indigo decided to go with what she knew and pressed the balls of her feet into the grass, then uppercutted Jeremy as hard as she could. It was enough to make him let go of her and stumble back, and that was all she needed. She tackled him with full force and sent the both of them into the lawn. She had no plan, other than to keep him busy. She was relieved when Helia gasped and ran back inside, hopefully to alert the other two men she lived with.

“You stupid b***h,” Jeremy hit her hard in the side of the head with so much force it knocked her off him. “Hey maybe you should consider your own state right now. You’re a little wobbly, a little stupid.”

Indigo glared up at him as he pushed himself to his feet, the adrenaline coursing through her body starting to override the drugs in her system. “That’s what you’re really betting on here?”

“Yea,” he said, straddling her on his knees and leaning down so that his face was right in hers. “I am. And I think that I’m a lot stronger, and a lot steadier than you. I’m willing to bet a lot.”

“You are sick,” Indigo seethed. “And you are disgusting.”

“And you are just as drunk as she is.”

The intention in his choice of words was enough to send a cold shiver down Indigo’s spine. The reality of her situation started to set in, and with it came panic. She started to shove herself up only to be pushed down again. He took the opportunity to grab her front and slam her back into the ground, making her grunt in pain as it knocked the wind out of her. Maybe Indigo was faster than him, but she had severely underestimated his strength. She had a habit of thinking she was bigger than she was, and this had not been the first time she had been pinned because of it.

She was still fighting her mildly paralyzed state of being winded when she tried to push him off of her. “Get off me, get off!”

“Shut up,” he snapped, pinning her arms in a painful way. He held her wrists together in one hand and dug his elbow into her left arm, and Indigo had maybe a minute to come up with a plan before he got what he’d come there for. Like a fox in a bear trap, she made a hard decision and pushed herself up like she was doing a crunch, smacking the front of her head into his. It pulled her hurt shoulder again, but the crack of her head hitting into his made up for it.

“Ow- f**k,” he said, his hold on her lessening. She lifted her knee and slammed it as deep into his gut as she could, making him lurch and hunch over. She managed to shove him off of her and stand up.

He grabbed her ankle and yanked hard, making her slam back into the ground. Despite her yelling, he was back on top of her, with a sick look of enjoyment plastered across his face. He’d have a black eye from the top of her head, if she didn’t at least sprain his nose, and a nasty bruise across a good portion of his abdomen from her leg. But it didn’t matter, so long as he got what he wanted. Because it was never ever about s*x.

Just as he opened his mouth to taunt her, to make the experience so much worse by being mouthy, the front door opened and Leo and Drew stepped out onto the porch step. That awful, amusement filled grin on Jeremy’s face shifted into something more like annoyance, and Jeremy let go of Indigo to sit back on his knees.

“Get off her,” Leo said. “Pack it up, before I call the cops.”

Indigo scrambled to her feet and stepped away, watching Jeremy intensely as he stood up as well, his movements slow and deliberate. He had lost all interest in her to glare down Leo instead. Leo stood firm, obviously the most steady out of the four of them, since Indigo was pretty sure he spent a majority of his life under the influence. Maybe it was because of the drugs, or because of the adrenaline coursing through her body from the fight she had just been in, but there was something about the way that Leo watched Jeremy that made her uneasy. Like a predatory animal eyeing its next meal. She hadn’t known Leo for very long, but the hungry way he was watching Jeremy was enough to send another chill down her spine.

“You think that you can just come into my house and take advantage of my best friend?” Leo asked him. “Has that gone well for you any other time? Get the f**k off my lawn.”

“Helia’s parents pay for this house,” Jeremy said. “If she wants me here, I’m here. She invited me, it’s not like I just showed up.”

“She’s too drunk, man. Maybe your boyfriend doesn’t have any friends who care whether or not you hit it when he’s drunk, but that’s not how it works here,” Leo said, tilting his head, sizing him up in a disturbing way. “Now do you wanna be my hangover cure, or do you want to be smart and leave?”

“You’ll really give it all up in front of your new buddy?” Jeremy asked, nodding toward Indigo. “You’ll do that somewhere Helia will find the blood?”

“We’re outside,” Leo said, a low rumbling sound starting in his chest.

Jeremy came to the smart conclusion that it was best to stop arguing. He waved his hand in a ‘forget it’ gesture and walked to his car, yanking the door open and getting inside. Indigo watched him drive off before turning to face Leo and Drew.

“She can do what she wants, huh?” Indigo asked with a shaky voice, shoving her panic aside for something to deal with later. “She can make her own choices?”

“He shouldn’t have come here in the first place,” Leo said, his tone surprisingly gentle despite her hostility. Drew shifted around him to put Helia back to bed. “This is not on her. We will not blame the victim.”

“Sometimes the victim has to take blame too,” Indigo said, hearing Drew take Helia back up the stairs. “Leo she has to take accountability, he was going to-”

“I know,” Leo said, raising his hands, as if she was an agitated animal. “I know. I’m upset too. I’m really upset, Indigo. I know. I promise.”

“Then do something about it,” Indigo snapped at him, the adrenaline finding its outlet and landing on Leo. “You cannot keep letting it slide, it is only going to get worse!”

Leo nodded, taking a step toward her. “Come here. It’s okay, come here.”

Indigo felt his arms wrap around her before she had the chance to back away, and every instinct to shove him off failed. Slowly, she felt the buzzing again. Like she had in her hand when they had first met, now coursing through her veins, all the way down to her fingertips and toes. At first it was scary, and then it wasn’t. Then she was five years old, being held by Danica while her mother placed a bandage on her scraped knee. She was safe in Arizona, and nothing worse than a minor injury from climbing too tall of a tree had happened to her yet.

She sank into Leo’s arms and he was something strong to lean on. He walked her back inside, and was happy to hold her while they sat on the couch for as long as she needed the comfort. It was scary, and foreign, but filled some tucked away part of her soul that had been hollowed out and forgotten. She felt very human. She felt very real. She could feel her body, and her shoulder hurt, and her head was pounding, and she was alive. Drew went upstairs to make sure Helia was okay, and not creating any more trouble.

Indigo's stomach gave out and she puked over Leo’s shoulder and down his back. She braced for an unkind reaction, but all he gave was a sigh. No harsh hands, and no angry words. She started to apologize as he leaned her against the couch, but he shushed her softly.

“It’s okay, that happens sometimes,” he said as he stood up and took off his shirt, doing his best to gather all of the vomit in the fabric. “I’ve got it. Let me take care of you.”

“I can’t,” Indigo admitted, her voice sounding so miserable in her own ears she almost cringed. “I don’t know how. You just met me, and I don’t deserve this.”

“You deserve basic kindness, Indigo,” Leo said. He left her just long enough to dispose of his shirt, and despite herself she was half asleep when he came back. He shuffled around in the kitchen and came back with a mug full of tea. “Here, drink this. It’ll steady your stomach.”

Indigo took the mug without comment, and Leo sat next to her on the couch. He found the remote after smacking around the cushions for a moment and clicked the tv on, muting it so it was just them, the flashing lights and changing scenes, and captions.

“You’re allowed to be upset at what he was planning on doing to you, too, Indigo,” Leo said. “You’re allowed to be angry for yourself.”

Indigo stayed silent, wanting to melt into the tv and forget about the whole night. Forget about Jeremy, and scraped knees, and how untrue that statement was.

Indigo woke up the next morning on the couch to soft rock coming in through the kitchen. She sat up to see Leo preparing breakfast. It was early, an appropriate time for Indigo to get up, but she was surprised to see Leo awake and about. He noticed she was awake and turned the volume on his radio down, giving her a sheepish smile.

“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry to wake you up.”

“You didn’t,” Indigo said, sitting up on the couch. “Why’re you up so early?”

“Helia started puking early this morning,” Leo said, turning back to the stove.

“Big surprise,” Indigo said, getting a quiet scoff from Leo. “Are we going to talk about last night?”

“We can,” Leo said. “If you want to.”

Indigo thought about Jeremy, and his body pinning her down, and how badly things could have gone if Leo and Drew hadn’t intervened. She thought about her father, his body pinning her sister down, and how bad things could have gone had she never intervened. She thought about how he looked moments before she had pulled the trigger on him. The shock in his face, the fear on her sister’s.

Eight years ago Indigo had shot her father in the head, and Margot had packed their things and had taken her children on the road. They had come back from a hunt, Indigo, her mother and her sister, to find their father in the middle of a horrific brawl with her sister. Indigo’s father had always been heavy handed with his wife and children, but nothing like this, and Danica refused to talk about what had started the fight.

She’d had blood smeared across her face, and Indigo’s father had broken her nose, and his lip was busted, and all Indigo had seen was a man suffocating her sister with his bare hands. She’d opened the door first, shotgun in hand, to see the brawl happening on the living room floor. She remembered her only thought being “don’t miss.”

“Do you believe in God, Leo?” Indigo asks.

Leo paused, turning again to look at her as he dried his hands on a little orange hand towel. “I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself religious, no. Why?”

“I think about it sometimes,” she said. “God, and death. What do you think happens when you die?”

“What happens when I die?” He echoed, leaning against the counter. “I don’t know if you’ve figured this out yet, Indigo like the color, but I’m not exactly human.”

“I know,” Indigo said. “Still.”

“What happens when I die.” He sighed softly, like he had a secret that he wasn’t sure he should share. “My body dies, and the energy it uses to sustain itself disperses. My brain, fires off neurons until there’s nothing left, the whole physical process, you know. But my soul,” he pauses, pressing a hand into his chest. “My soul stays with my body. Sleeping, eternally. It stays in my body, in my bones. If I’m cremated, I stay with my ashes, scattered like constellations among my favorite places, or in a jar on my loved ones shelf. I stay quiet, and peaceful, and my existence is not. I am not, I am no longer. And it’s easy, and honest, and kind. I simply, am no longer.” Leo smiles softly, reassuringly, then gestures to Indigo. “What about you?”

Indigo had thought about death more than she cared to admit. She weighed the option in her mind constantly, never able to be neither here nor there on the subject. She had considered religion, and the absence of. The atheist's outlook, the omnist, the polytheist. None ever felt right. None ever felt like she got what she deserved. Hell was the easiest option, but it wasn’t. Not really. Purgatory she figured, most likely. But she knew from experience that there was much more than just God, and Satan.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I hope that when I die, I get to see my mother again. I hope that as I’m laying there, breathing my last breath, it feels like when she used to carry me up the stairs to bed. And when I’m shutting down, I get to smell the campfire smoke back home, and taste marshmallows and hot dogs. I hope I get to see my dog who died when I was eight, and he’ll be waiting for me like I’m a kid again. And I hope that when I die, it’s a quiet, summer night, and it feels like I’m laying in the soft grass with my friends.”

“That’s really beautiful,” Leo said softly, and Indigo could tell that he meant it. “Really. That’s beautiful. You must have put a lot of thought into that.”

Indigo stood and went into the kitchen, leaning against the counter next to Leo. “My mother died cold in the woods. I think about it a lot.”

“You only lose your mom once,” Leo said. He had said it once before, but the second time wasn’t any less painful to hear. He watched her physically wince without so much as a blink, then spoke again. “You don’t talk about her.”

“There isn’t much to talk about,” Indigo said, turning her face away so that he wouldn’t see the pain etched into her expression. But she was lying through her teeth. Of course she was, how could she pretend like her mother was anything other than her entire world. But Margot’s rule was secrecy. They were to stay low, with their ears to the ground, out of sight and out of mind. Like shadows. Like birds. But Margot had been anything but a shadow in Indigo’s life. A flame bearer, the leader. Her idol, and her entire world.

How Indigo was supposed to explain that to Leo escaped her. So it was easier to lie. To Leo, who still had both his mother and his father. Leo, who had two beautiful best friends, and all of his siblings safe and sound in his life. Leo, who had enough money to support his friends in their own house. Leo, who played in a band, and was a boy, and had not suffered in the way that Indigo had.

“You’re jealous of me,” Leo said, reaching over to take Indigo’s hand. “I can feel that.”

“You have a lot of things I don’t,” Indigo admitted. “Yea, that makes me jealous. And it makes you stupid.”

“It makes me stupid,” Leo echoed. “You have a tendency to really think people are stupid, don’t you?

Indigo opened her mouth to drive home her argument, but Leo’s phone rang before she got the first word out. He held up a finger to her and answered it, his eyes lever leaving hers as he registered whatever it was the person on the other end was saying. After a moment he held the phone out to her. “It’s for you.”

“For me?” Indigo hesitantly took the phone, setting it to her ear. “Hello?”

“A walking IV,” the woman on the other end said. “A meal on wheels? You are awfully creative, hunter.”

“Who is this?”

“August,” the woman said. “Molly’s ‘walking IV’.”

Indigo winced, her words coming back to her in full swing. Now that she was sober, she saw how she had put August in a bad spot. Why she wanted to speak with Indigo escaped her, but she was glad to hear her voice nonetheless. Her voice meant she was alive. “I may have dragged you into it. I’m sorry.”

“And drag me into it you did,” August said, her tone bordering on angry. “That’s not what I want to talk to you about. A little birdy told me your father’s looking for you, and I wanted to know why I shouldn’t sell you out for my own freedom.”

Indigo’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?” She asked, her vision swaying. “My father’s dead.”

“You think a shot to the head is how you kill a vampire? I thought you were a hunter.”

“I don’t have- what are you talking about?” Indigo asked, having to hold onto the counter to stay upright. “I don’t know if this is some kind of cruel joke or-”

“You really don’t know?” August asked, then let out a brutal laugh. “Oh. I see. Well, I guess now we’re even. You put me in a bad spot, I put you in an even worse one. You can thank me later for the heads up, by the way, once he catches you.”

“Who is he to you?” Indigo asks, unable to help herself. “Kaio was just another human. Why would he be parading as a human? Why would my mother…?”

Indigo watched Leo raise his eyebrows with interest as August continued speaking. “I don’t know about your mother’s dating habits, but Kaio is some vampire, rich guy wannabe on the lower tiers. He’s a powerful killer though, so I heard, and an even better tracker. Sounds like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. You better be careful, sister. Sounds like he’s been hot on your trail for a few years now. And now that your mom’s dead, there’s no one to keep protecting you from him.”

“Why now?” Indigo asked, her vision zooming in and out. Her breathing was uneven now, her head spinning like she was going to pass out. “Why do you know this? Why do you care?”

“Well all of this is from a game of telephone of course,” August said. “I thought we could strike a deal.”

Indigo hated the idea of striking a deal with a feeder- someone who willingly stayed with a vampire as a walking meal for the promise of an opioid-like induced high- but she hated the idea of someone dangerous hunting her down for sport more. She’d thought Kaio was dead in the ground, where he deserved to stay. Now that he wasn’t…

“Shoot,” she said into the phone, Leo turning and grabbing her a glass for water. He pressed the glass full of water into her palm and gestured for her to drink. She took careful sips of water as August started talking again.

“You scratch my back, I scratch yours,” August said. “I have a good friend who’s employed by Molly’s father. He has some work to do on your side of the water, but he’s being stretched a bit thin. You take care of his work, and I’ll make sure a curveball is thrown your vampire daddy’s way.”

“What kind of work?” Indigo asks through her teeth. August just chuckled darkly.

“Cecil lost something very dear to him,” August said. “We’ve been searching everywhere for a while. A teenager, a boy. A unicorn.”

Indigo’s blood ran cold. “What the hell is Cecil doing with a Unicorn?”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. Unicorns were extremely rare, and cherished. Most stayed hidden away, trying to lead peaceful lives away from humans and other monsters. The fact that Cecil had one- or did previously- meant nothing good. That was too much power for one man to take hold of.

“No idea,” August said. “You bring me back this unicorn, and Cecil will see to it that your vampire daddy goes cold in the ground again.”

“How am I supposed to find a unicorn who doesn’t want to be found?”

“Figure it out,” August said and hung up.

Indigo slammed the glass of water down and shoved the phone against Leo’s chest, holding her head over the sink in case the wave of nausea broke through. She managed not to throw up, barely, and Leo rubbed comforting circles into her back as she sucked in deep, steady breaths. “She said my father- I don’t have a father anymore. She said my father is looking for me. Some sort of vampire. I have to do her friend’s work for him- finding a runaway unicorn- and Cecil will take care of my father.”

“Mathew Strauss,” Leo said with a nod. “He’s a good guy. Got sucked into vampire business a few years ago and was shifted Cecil’s way. Cecil is Molly’s father. He’s a lot, very important. He owns most of Seattle territory.”

“Remind me again why Vampires own territory.”

“They’re blood sucking leeches,” Leo shrugged. “No, most of them come from money. They’re old gangsters, that’s all it is.

“Who is Mathew?” Indigo asked. “Is he a vampire too?”

“No,” Leo said. “He’s my cousin, actually. He’s like me, and his favorite human companion is August. They’re in love, I think. They met when Mathew started working for Cecil. I hear about her every now and then, from text messages from his brothers, and word of mouth from his mother. Cecil cuts his men off from their families, so Mathew hasn’t been home aside for swinging by camp every now and then in almost a year. It sounds like he’s starting to lose his mind a little. And if August is reaching out…” he trailed off. “It must be getting bad.”

“Can’t we just get him out of there?” Indigo asked. “Why can’t he just quit?”

“You don’t just quit after starting work for a vampire, Indigo. They make up contracts, real, legally binding contracts. The rules that we play are different from humans. There’s blood that goes into it. It’s a whole other world. We have a council-”

“I know about the council.”

Leo blinked. “Okay. You know about the NCR. Then you know how deep it goes.”

“I have an idea,” Indigo admitted. “So, what? He’s just trapped there?”

Leo shrugged. “Let’s consider looking for that Unicorn. Then we can worry about rescuing him.”

Indigo didn’t like it, and she didn’t like how involved she was now. But there wasn’t a much better option, so she was forced to let it go. She sighed, heavily, and leaned against the counter. “What a mess I’ve gotten myself into.”