Finding Midnight (18 page)

“Fine. I’m sorry. But how do you know he
doesn’t have any family? Where’s his father?”

Summer hadn’t really thought of that. Maybe
the father was looking for his pup, but wouldn’t Ms. Midnight have
mentioned that? But then, she did forget to tell her some very
important facts about the RAT being a cat, and so on.

“I don’t know. It’s possible. If he shows
up, well, we’ll deal with that when that happens, but for now, I’m
taking care of him,” she said.

“You’re very stubborn, aren’t you?” Hunter
said.

She took offense. “What do you mean? I am
not. Why would you say that?”

“Take it easy there. I just meant that when
you set your mind to something you, well, you really mean it,” he
said.

“Of course I mean it,” she said defiantly
and a bit confused.

“I guess what I’m trying to say, very badly,
is that you’re true to your word.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, not everyone is. In fact, many are
not. After all, you’ve kept my secret, as far as I know.”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

“See, that’s what I mean. Not everyone would
do such a thing—help a complete stranger, not to mention a…” He
whispered, “demon stranger. And then to take on a beast of hell,”
he said, pointing to Sully.

Sully responded with a low growl of
discontent. Summer yanked his leash a smidgen just to let him know
she didn’t approve.

“Look. I don’t know what kind of people you
hang out with, but you were hurt; what else was I supposed to do,
just leave you there to die with Sully’s mother? That didn’t seem
right. I’d like to think if you had found me in the same
predicament that you might have helped me.”

“See, that’s the thing. I’m not sure I would
have,” Hunter said.

She was taken aback.

“There was a time I might have…” he said
thoughtfully, obviously thinking back on a better part of his life.
“But I’ve seen a lot in my life and the larger percentage of that
was not of the good kind.”

“So you’ve given up on humanity? Is that
part of being a demon?”

“No. Well, yeah! I guess. I mean just
because I’m…what I am…doesn’t mean that I’m bad. I don’t really fit
in too well as far as ‘demons’ go,” he said, whispering the word
demon and again looking around to see if anyone was listening. “But
after a while when people expect you to be bad, you kind of feel
like hey, if you’re going to accuse me of being bad, maybe I should
be.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,”
she said. She could see he wasn’t pleased. “Just because you’ve had
a bad time of it doesn’t give you a license to go out and do bad
things. In fact, if anything, it should make you buckle down and
stand your ground—defy what they say and prove those who think
you’re bad are wrong.”

“See, that’s just not that easy,” he said,
shifting his weight.

“Sometimes it’s not—in all truthfulness,
most times it’s not, but then who told you it was going to be all
giggles and happy times? If you don’t have the bad, how can you
appreciate the good?”

He smiled. It was more of a smirk at first
but a full out smile appeared after a moment.

“What?” she said, embarrassed suddenly by
his expression.

“You really are quite amazing. I wish I had
met you in another time and place,” he said.

“Why? Is meeting now a bad thing?” she
asked.

“Um, well…” he stammered, “no, but…” He
didn’t finish his sentence.

“Whatever,” she said disappointedly. “I have
to get to work.”

“Right. Me too,” he said, reaching down to
pet Sully on the head. “You’re one heck of a lucky pup.”

“Yup,” Sully responded as Hunter turned and
headed for the cashier.

Surprised by his abrupt departure, Summer
led Sully to the dog food aisle to finish her shopping and head to
work herself.

Chapter 15

With her morning routine out of whack due to
her jaunt to the Feed and Farm store, Summer had completely
forgotten the tea concoction at the house for Sully’s cold. With
him growing with such gusto, she and Dr. Stuart felt it best to
give him smaller meals three times a day than bigger meals two
times a day.

Lacking the tea for his mid-day meal, she
ran home to pick it up. She went into the bedroom, used the
bathroom while she was there and saw something out of the corner of
her eye through the sheer curtains. It was a man. He was squatting
at the far end of the cemetery, seemingly coming from the woods
behind the mansion. He had a black baseball cap on backwards and
dark sunglasses. She stepped closer to the window to get a better
view of the trespasser.

What is he doing?
she thought. He
touched the ground to his left, studied it afterwards then brought
his hand to his face and seemed to smell it. After a moment he
stood and headed towards the cottage. It was then that it dawned on
her who it was. There was no mistaking that sinewy build and golden
blond hair—Jackson. She turned from the window pressing her back to
the wall as if she were hiding, then realizing what she was doing,
felt silly for doing so and looked out the window once more. He was
at the back corner of the cottage. She turned to her right and
watched him walk past the French doors of her bedroom towards the
fence.

She tiptoed to the doors and peeked out the
sheer curtains. He was bent over a bush, rummaging within it and
around it.

What is he doing here? What’s he looking
for?
She wasn’t sure if she was mad or scared. Was he stalking
her? If so, why was he looking in the bushes and inspecting the
dirt? The more she thought on it, the bolder she became. It wasn’t
like he was in her house rummaging through her stuff, but for some
reason she felt violated in a way you might feel if someone
burglarized your home.

She headed out the front door to confront
the intruder. Jackson was inspecting the fence again as he had the
night they had watched movies in the cemetery. “What are you
doing?” she said with her arms crossed.

He stiffened and slowly turned to her,
squinting as he took off his sunglasses. “I…” was all he could find
to say.

He stood for a moment stuttering and looking
horribly guilty, then like lightning he was gone. She’d never seen
anything move so fast in her life. She was bewildered by his
actions and hurt by his need to flee instead of explain. Sure, she
felt a little mad about his being in her space but why wouldn’t he
shed some light on his odd behavior? And why was he always evading
her questions?

She wanted to cry, but refused and instead,
took a deep breath, grabbed the tea, her keys and headed back to
work. Maybe Tori could make heads or tails of what she’d seen.

*****

A late lunch with Tori had not made Summer
feel any better. She had defended Jackson’s actions as she had in
the past, but nothing she suggested as the reasons for his odd
behavior made any sense to Summer. If anything, her mind seemed to
be working overtime and making his actions more suspicious.

She distracted herself with organizing the
drug cabinet in the lab, something she often put off, but a menial
task was just what she needed to get her mind off Jackson. Dr.
Stuart and Tori both knew she saved these projects for times like
these when she needed to work through her thoughts. Though they
both felt bad that she was struggling with something, it did have
its advantages. Last time she was in this mood, she organized and
scrubbed each examination room from top to bottom.

Toward the end of the workday, Summer heard
a commotion in the front office. She ignored it and finish
unpacking boxes from the last delivery, when Tori came running in
out of breath. “You’ve got to come out here,” she said with a
concerned look upon her face.

Summer set the items in her hand on the
nearby workbench and followed Tori to the front patient waiting
area. A couple of patients were up and looking out the window.
Sully was at the door barking, and Dr. Stuart had just opened the
blinds in the front office to see what everyone was looking at.
Summer stepped beside Sully trying to tug him away from the door so
she could see what all the hubbub was about. There in the parking
lot were Jackson and Hunter taking punches at one another.

Tori said, “As far as I can tell, Hunter was
bringing you flowers, when Jackson confronted him, giving him a
good shove. I couldn’t hear any of the conversation but Jackson
looked seriously pissed off.”

Summer said, “Tori, hold Sully,” as she
opened the door to the parking lot. It took all of Tori’s strength
to keep the pup from running out with Summer. Summer ran to the two
men who were hurling insults at one another. There were broken and
smashed flowers all over the ground around them and Jackson was
about to throw another punch when she yelled at him and jumped
between the two, almost receiving a blow from both of the men.

“What is going on?” she yelled.

Jackson and Hunter were both out of breath
and sporting some serious bruises and cuts from the little
showdown, but neither spoke up. Hunter was trying to cover the
black blood oozing from the corner of his mouth by wiping it away
and turning from the eyes peering from within the clinic. Jackson’s
nose was gushing blood and he was trying to pinch the bridge to
stop the bleeding, but it was obviously broken and hurt to do
so.

“Well? What’s this about?” she said first to
Hunter, who said nothing, and then she angrily turned to Jackson.
“Or are you going to run away again?”

The look in his beautiful green eyes told
Summer the anger he’d vented on Hunter was still seething and
barely under control, when he blurted in disgust, “Do you know what
he is?”

“Yes,” she said. Jackson took a step back in
disbelief.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous he is?”
he finally said, tripping over his words.

“Some could say the same about being
involved with you,” she said sharply and impulsively.

This hurt him to the bone. His anger turned
immediately to anguish and embarrassment. He didn’t run this time,
but he turned slowly and walked off looking broken. She wanted to
run to him and make him talk to her, but her anger stopped her. She
just watched him until she couldn’t see him anymore.

Summer turned to Hunter once more. “So are
you going to explain what happened here?” she said, poking him in
the chest with her index finger.

He eyed her as if sizing up the situation
then wiped his mouth of blood once more, replying defiantly,
“Nope.” He left her standing confused and astonished, then climbed
into his delivery van and left.

She watched the van pull out of the parking
lot. Destroyed pink, white and purple flowers encircled her as if
the heavens poured ruined flowers from a cloud only on her. She
crouched and picked up a droopy pink rose. It smelled lovely and
she was sure the bouquet it once graced must have been quite
beautiful before it had met its demise in the altercation between
the arguing vampire and demon.

With both of them gone, Tori came out. She
sensed by Summer’s posture that she needed a shoulder to cry on.
Summer embraced her and sobbed for a long moment while Tori
comforted her but said nothing. Now was not the time for words, now
was the time to purge herself of the events of the day and who
better with than her very best friend.

*****

Summer felt better after a good cry, not
great, but better. She and Sully headed home after finishing with
the last of the customers and shutting down the clinic for the
night. If Summer had her way, she would have been back to
organizing something in the lab, but Dr. Stuart was having none of
that. He insisted she go home, relax and get some much needed
rest.

A quick glance at the creepy house next door
as she opened the gate gave no hint that anyone was home or
anything had changed, so she headed in the gate. Sully was feeling
better and had some pent up energy that needed to be released.
Summer threw the ball for him half a dozen times. Each time he
returned with the slimy ball he did so a bit slower until he didn’t
return at all and went off to make his usual run around the edge of
the property. Sniffing and marking things that caught his attention
was apparently a necessary part of his day.

Summer picked up a hoe and headed to the
garden to take out frustration on the weeds that never ceased to
encroach on the garden beds. This usually made her feel better but
it wasn’t doing the trick for her today so she stepped toward the
bench and plopped down.

It was then she heard Sully barking. It
wasn’t his usual ‘barking at squirrels’ bark. This had a sense of
urgency to it and it made her drop the hoe and run in panic toward
the sound. She found him at the fence near the bush where she found
Jackson rummaging. He was standing on his back feet clawing and
barking at the neighbor house as he had once before. There in the
window was the very large-bellied cat. His white belly pressed to
the window and he was clawing at the glass so fast it looked like
he was pedaling a bicycle. His mouth opened and closed in silent
mews.

“Can you hear what he’s saying, Sully?” she
asked.

He could barely talk between barks but what
he did say disturbed her. “Scared. Needs help.”

She pulled out her phone and took a picture
of the cat. She wasn’t quite sure why that was her reaction. It
certainly didn’t help the poor cat, but perhaps it would validate
her story about having seen a cat at the window.

She left Sully at the fence and ran around
the cottage through the gate and into the neighbor’s yard. She ran
up the unsteady steps to the decaying porch and beat on the door
with all her strength. She heard a thump from within, then suddenly
the barking stopped. She beat on the door more but there was
nothing. No meowing, no creaking or movement whatsoever. She
knocked and beat on the door for nearly fifteen minutes until the
outer edge of her right fist was red, throbbing and tingling.