MAX'S POV
It had been three lessons already and still no sight of Nate. Last time he disappeared he came back with flames flaring out of his nose and a questionable friendship with Alvah. Who could tell what he'd be up to this time round, would he turn up with horns and a hooked tail? I did not want to find out. I would not wait two weeks, just hanging out with Ruby.
Two days ago, Mr. William's s workmates had found his car abandoned in the middle of nowhere. The only prints, DNA that was picked out from the scene belonged to Mr Williams alone. There weren't any leads at the moment. Everyone in Vadille was thinking it, perhaps the same thing that took out Nate's parents, Matt and Brad had taken out Mr William's, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Not the news, not in the papers, not anywhere.
Maybe they were being dumb, or maybe they were in denial. I know am one of the few people that will not fall at Alvah's feet and worship her so am the only one who doesn't have a mesh over his eyes. I can't be the only that noticed each time Nate disappears, Alvah does too then a death occurs. Ruby needed me, I knew she did but it was very hard to be around her with my suspicions so substancial. She needed to be around someone that would tell her it was going to be okay and I just didn't think that. Ruby is smart, she knows me. She can smell a lie just as it starts rolling out if my tongue. She can probably smell it on me too if am a few feet away. the last thing I needed was he interrogations.
I thought about sitting with her during break in plain silence. This had been the routine each time Nate wasn't there. Normally she'd start a conversation out of literally anything, it was like a superpower, she could hold it up and make it interesting and have me thinking. But since her dad disappeared she'd become completely mute. I decided cycling all the way to Nate's would be a good idea. It wasn't hard to get permission to leave school. With Nate gone, all teachers teaching Nate had lost purpose, or so it seemed. There wasn't that one student in their class who's hand would shoot up every five seconds anymore. You could see the way they frowned getting into class and noticing the front desk, missing a stack of books and a nerd sitting behind them.
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It had been long since I was at Nate's. The hedges that always seemed so neatly trimmed were now growing every which way and the grass wasn't giving me f ootball pitch vibes anymore. The garden that had framed the entire house was looking it's worst too. The flowers were squeezing together and withering. Then I remembered, Mrs Huggins was obsessed with her garden. And now, well she was probably actively pushing out Daisies, becoming a garden.
It felt and seed like a different place. The elegance and the intimidation that the giant mansion always exuded must have been buried along with the original buyers of the house. My feet weighed tonnes as I struggled to lift them while progressing further towards the door. The image of Matt and Brad wrapped in light blue soaking red sheets and being lifted on stretchers vividly solidified in my mind and it felt as though I was seeing the whole thing. But I had known Nate longer, he was a nice person. The only flaw in his personality would be rudeness and not intentional. His level of intellect shrinks the rest of us to dumbasses.
I noticed my fingers visibly shaking while I stretched out my hand to press the doorbell. I heard it echo behind the french door. There was a visible trail of dirty footsteps that had dried onto the floor, that led to the master bedroom but I refused to let my mind go there. The living room looked like a picture right out of real estate magazine without Mr Huggins in the living room holding a magazine infront of his face and sophisticated music humming gently into the air.
Nate always answered the door bell on the first press. So I didn't repeat the whole thing. I turned behind me,looking for literally any other single soul, a witness perhaps just incase I was walking right into the jaws of death. i folded my arms into fists and hid them inside the pockets of my gray hoodie, a sudden chill was rattling me to my bones. But it wasn't from the smooth breeze that was gently whistling by, teasing everything with life and swaying them gently. I shook a lock of hair away from my face and was ready to go for it again when I had a stomp, on the wooden staircase, that grew louder with every step. Then a pair of feet in slides in and sweatpants appeared followed by a pale hand that slid along the handle bars. His head was turned down and he wasn't wearing his glasses.
" What are you doing here?" He asked as I shut the door behind me. I shrugged off my backpack and hooked it right next to the door.
" So you're giving me attitude now? Who are you, Ruby?"
I noticed the tense in his shoulders when her name came up. He half turned his head, giving me a surprisingly great side profile as if wanting to say something then he changed his mind. With all the money that he now has under his name I was pretty convinced he had some procedures done to him. Because the Nate I knew did not have such powerful facial features. I was just noticing his eyes were green, or maybe that because he didn't have glasses on. I'd seen him take them off to wipe them. His eyes always appeared sank back in their sockets and had a permanent swelling and redness to them. Allergies, I guess. Now they appeared stern and mystical. They scorched when he stared and had a sort of glint that I was very convinced was causing the chill I talked about. His back wasn't hunched anymore and he had more flesh in his bones. Not to add, no single scar. I wanted to be happy for him. For his glow up. But my insecurities came rising to the surface and I couldn't help but notice he seemed to continue to be like Alvah. There was just something about the air around them that made me want to sprinkle holy water on them and smack them with the Bible. Something dark, perhaps one of the things that make Vadille such a scary place to walk in at night.
" How is she doing?" He murmured.
" How do you think Nate. you know her, she's a worrier! Her dad's missing and now you?"
" Am not missing, am here." He shrugged.
No he wasn't. I would never be intimidated by Nate and yet here I was, wondering where the closest exit is. This wasn't Nate. Nate always had a button up shirt, even for casual wear. He was socially awkward, he couldn't hold eye contact to save his life yet here he was, drilling icicles right into my eyes.
" What is happening dude? There's something up, and I want to know what it is man. I want to help." Nate would have wanted to help anyone losing it. He wouldn't mind how difficult they were being, he'd just try.
" Hey don't worry about me..."He twitched sharply." ...I don't need your damn help..."his head shook vigorously in regret of the words that had just come out of him. His hands gripped the sides of his head trying to block some kind of noise or something. He seemed to be fighting a battle I couldn't understand. " I'll be fine, thanks for checking up on me but you have to leave now or..." for a second there he really did sound like the Nate I knew and then, " Or you could stay, that's a beautiful neck you have there..."
" What the fuck, dude!" I shrieked wishing I had a turtle neck. Something was bothering him. He was possessed, he confimed the validity big my idea to bring a Bible on my next visit. Or better yet, a pastor or something this wasn't mental, this was a spiritual battle and it was completely above and beyond me. I had done my half of the walk and Nate hadn't met me in the middle. I couldn't go past the middle. It would be cruel to me.
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NATE'S POV
Emi was doing it again. Fighting to take charge. Fighting to be fed. I didn't believe at all he was hungry, it felt more personal. Like he just wanted to continue hurting people that I cared about till he and I would become one. Max was quite uneasy, but he couldn't leave me like this, buy I needed him to go. Each time I would try to speak, somehow he'd choke me and speak instead. I don't know how he could do that.
I had seen Emi in the mirror. I had been horrified. I wanted to run as far away as I could. I was never good with horror movies in the first place. I am the type that gets nightmares. But it can be really hard, impossible even, to run away from a beast that is in you. Whats even harder is the choice to sync with it just hanging infront of your face and blocking everything else out.
Alvah wasn't anywhere to be seen. Emi listened to her. She knew his language, she knew when to calm him down. It stroke me right at that moment how incredibly important she was to me She had met him, she knew him inside out. But I had asked her to try keep her distance. I couldn't handle the rush of emotions that went through me around her. And when I wasn't dealing with those I would be fighting with Emilio.
" Are you okay? Do I need to call a priest?"
I tried to shoo him away with my hand but Emi stiffened me soon enough so that all movements I could do were controlled by him. My hands unnaturally hang beside me, not sure what to do with them. I wanted Max to find out, it would save him alot of trouble and questioning. But the way I wanted to do that was by dialogue, not transitioning into that thing right infront of his eyes. I was still healing from the trauma of seeing my own sight in the mirror. No other person deserved to see that.
I felt a familiar buzz under my skin that spread coldness as it moved. Oh no. it was happening . The transition. My nails itched with the struggle to curve into claws. I clenched my fists and teeth but this did nothing to prevent them from doing their thing. I internally pleaded with Emi, swearing to him and begging him. I realized rather too late that I was just fueling him even more. I was basically his cheering squad. That sick bastard.
I knew it was coming to my face when Max's jaw fell open in pure shock and shivers paralysed him. His eyes, now double in size and slowly misting couldn't leave mine, and that's how Emi wanted it to be. He liked it when the victim was already helpless in their place. He did like chases too because they made his victims sweaty and that made him slightly disgusted. Not that it ever stopped him from being his beastly self. I'd never been so helpless and so scared for someone all my life. Emi was going to do it. And why? Because why wouldn't he. As opposed to Alvah being a compulsive feeder wasn't a weakness, to Emi it came off more like a hobby. something he loved about himself and was proud of. No sooner was Emi charging towards the embodiment of fear that was Max than a black blur zoomed from the door behind Max, gripped my head and turned it in a loud snap, hurting me first then shutting Emi Down as we collapsed onto the floor.