Things That Go Bump At Night Part 13

"That sucks." I murmured, picking at my bread.

"It does, but you get used to it, and you get to catch up on the off days."

His off days had been spent with me. He was going to be exhausted.

"We also have off nights with the demons too." I looked up curiously now when he said this. "Sometimes they don't show. They stay underground, or wherever they go." He shrugged. "We find what we can, but it's pretty common that we don't find too many, we get the business done and we're done for the night and we can catch a few hours of sleep."

"Pretty common? What const.i.tutes pretty common?" I asked, I couldn't help but to hope this was one of the "pretty common" nights.

"Five out of seven nights."

That was pretty common.

"So what does that mean? You kill a few and come home?"

"Yes."

Well that didn't seem so bad.

I should have remembered I thought that when it came time to say goodbye to him that night.

"Come on Jake." His dad called from where he waited by his own truck.

Jake nodded over his shoulder to his dad and turned back to me standing at the front door, fighting to keep my chin from quivering. He was dressed in black pants and a long sleeve black thermal shirt, a black stocking hat covered his dark hair and he was armed to the teeth. He had two guns in shoulder holsters and knives of all different sized lined his belt.

"Please be careful." I knew I sounded whiny, but at least it made him smile.

"I'm always careful." He leaned in and kissed me softly, let it linger. Then breathed in as if he were committing my scent to memory. "Stay inside. We have the borders reinforced and the house doubly so, but stay inside anyway. Okay?"

I nodded.

"Alright, I'll see you soon." He reached out and squeezed my hip with his hand, then turned and bounded down the steps to his truck. Ryan was already in the pa.s.senger seat waiting on him. Ana and Quinn were with Mr. Wagner.

Watching Jake drive away was probably one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I went inside long after I'd lost sight of his tail lights. Maria was curled up on a couch in the living room, a movie turned low on the TV. She smiled sympathetically at me when I dropped in to the love seat angled near the couch.

"It gets more tolerable." She said. "It doesn't get easier, but eventually you learn how to let yourself fall asleep for a while, or occupy your mind if you can't."

That was not comforting at all.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

"Twenty years." She smiled fondly. "And I hope to have twenty more years of worry." I knew what she meant by that.

I couldn't sit. I got up and paced. I sat in Jake's room, listened to his music for a while, but my mind wouldn't shut down, so I paced some more.

It was only after midnight when I heard the trucks in the drive. I bolted down the stairs and out the front door. As soon as I spotted Jake I launched myself into his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and I held on for dear life. I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in. He smelled like outside, and sweat.

"I think I'm going to like coming home a whole lot more from now on." He chuckled, and gave me a squeeze, but that squeeze felt different than when he'd left, I leaned back in his arms and looked at his face.

"Are you alright?"

"I will be." He smiled.

"What do you mean?" A new worry bloomed in my chest. Was he injured? He gripped my hips and set me back on the ground in front of him. There was a long tear in his shirt over his right peck. I gasped and looked up at him.

"It's alright. I'm alright." He tucked my hair behind my ear.

"Jake and Ana need to get cleaned up." I heard Mr. Wagner tell Maria at the door. I couldn't help but to look over to Ana. She looked fine to me. Jake took my hand and as a group minus Quin and Ryan, they went to store the weapons- we made our way to the barn. Inside Maria began preparing supplies and told Jake to take his shirt off. When he did I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands. Underneath that tear in his shirt was a tear in his chest. It was diagonally about four inches long, the skin around the middle of it gaped. It looked like someone had taken a serrated knife to him.

Maria ordered him to sit up on her exam table and went about cleaning and numbing the wound before she set to st.i.tching him up.

Mr. Wagner patted his son on the shoulder with a proud and understanding smile.

"That was a different you fighting tonight. Changes things when you have something to fight for, doesn't it?" He nodded to everyone in the room and bid us good night. I watched incredulously as he left. Just left. His son was sitting here nearly ripped in half and he left! I looked back to see if Jake was upset about it and he didn't seem to notice anything was off. I had to remind myself that this wasn't their first rodeo.

Ana, who I had momentarily forgotten was even in the room with us, tossed the medical scissors she'd been using to cut gauze for her own cut that did not need st.i.tches- on her arm. It clanged, metal on metal and I visibly jumped.

"They targeted him tonight you know." She said to me, looking at me with those angry eyes of hers. "They went after him because of you."

"What the h.e.l.l, Ana!" Jake shouted at her.

"Well, she had to know. Maybe now she'll leave you alone." Ana made her way to the door.

"She's not going anywhere." Jake called after her. He turned to me, saw that what Ana had said was starting to register with me. Jake had told me earlier that they'd hunt me down by scent if they had to...did he smell like me? "No. Remi." Maria told him to sit still when he tried to move towards me. Jake scowled at her for a second, then held his hand out to me. "Don't listen to her Remi. We were getting cuts and sc.r.a.pes long before you were ever with me."

I did not know how I felt about this.

"Remi." He stretched his hand. I was going to h.e.l.l for sure. For being not only the weakest person on earth, but for being the most selfish one as well. I reached out and took his hand. Ana was so wrong, there was no way I could ever leave this man alone.

7.

I played with Jake's I-pod while he was in the shower yes, I went right to that song that I hadn't been able to get out of my head since the first time I'd listened to it- and sat in the chair at his desk and listened to it through without singing, just listened. I had a decision to make and I needed to clear my head. Music did that for me. When it ended I sat in silence for a bit, Jake appeared next to me, I looked up at him and he reached out to touch my cheek with his fingertips.

"Will you sing it for me?" He asked I smiled softly and nodded. I reset the song, stood and went to the window and looked out. Red eyes in the woods seemed less scary when Jake was around. I closed my eyes and sang. When I was finished Jake came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, kissed my neck.

"You should sing more often." He went to the bed and fell back he'd be sleeping on his back a long time with that cut on his chest- and tucked his hands behind his head. He looked to me and smiled. "Come to bed." I did, I started to crawl over him to my side, but surprised him when I stopped halfway through and sat on him, my legs straddling his hips. His eyebrows winged up. I leaned over and kissed him, making sure not to touch his chest. His hands went to my hips and he pushed them down while angling his own hips up, grinding me over him. I could feel literally- exactly how much he wanted me. It was an incredibly staggering feeling. He broke from the kiss and groaned, his eyes squeezed shut before he half frowned half smiled up at me.

"I think you were put on earth to torture me."

I laughed on a single breath.

"I can think of worse reasons to be put on earth."

"Ah, so you admit it, you're starting to like me." He teased.

I shrugged, playing coy.

"Maybe a little."

"When was the moment?" He asked, his hands flexed on my hips, but he had stopped grinding me against him. "When you decided to like me?"

"Well, there's kinda two moments. There's the moment I decided I wanted to like you and there's the moment when I did start liking you. Which one are you referring to?'

"Both." All seriousness.

"Um, I decided that I wanted to like you that day in cla.s.s when I told you to go sit somewhere else and you told me no 'cause I wasn't the seat police." He chuckled at that, but waited for me to continue. "But the exact moment I did start liking you was under my tree when you hugged me that first time...." He waited for me to elaborate. "It was the first time in my life that I felt safe. Or that I even knew what the word safe truly meant."

He stared up at me and I felt slightly abashed that's a word not used enough.

"I know it sounds-"

His hand instantly tightened on my hips. "Don't you dare say stupid." He warned. I pressed my lips together. His hands left my hips and he pushed himself up to sit, settling his hands on the bed behind him to balance himself. He still stared, but eventually one of his hands came around to cup the nape of my neck so he could pull me in for a kiss. He flipped me over smoothly to my back again and settled over me, reaching down with one hand to grip my thigh and bring it up to his hip. And he kissed me, with that consuming, burning, searing need. And I just...I just couldn't seem to get enough. I wanted more, tried to take more, but I wasn't sure what more was. How could I get more? I felt desperate. My arms went around his neck and my fingers fisted in his hair. I pulled him tightly to me, trying to figure out how to sate that need for more...but it eluded me. I whimpered in my throat, around his lips, frustrated that I couldn't seem to get or even figure out- what I wanted.

As if my whimper had snapped something inside him, Jake broke away. He was breathing hard, his chest b.u.mped mine with every breath.

"You have to stop me now. Otherwise I won't be able to stop myself." His voice was low, the words pushed his breath past his lips and onto mine and I was desperate to have him back. To give him everything. I wanted it, he clearly wanted it. But...what exactly was it? And what did it mean to give it to him? He saw my hesitation and closed his eyes, "You're killing me." He murmured and rested his forehead against mine for a minute before lifting himself from me. He settled on his back and reached out to bundle me into his side. I laid my head on his chest and heard his thundering heart.

"I'm sorry." I whispered.

"No." Jake said and kissed the top of my head several times. "Don't you ever say you're sorry for that Remi. Ever."

I nodded against his chest and listened as his heart slowed it took a very long time. I decided to tell him about the decision I'd made.

"I want to be a hunter." I said with no conversation leading up to it. I was figuring Jake out and I was sure he was a pretty straight up guy. He was quiet for a time, he absentmindedly yet sweetly- ran his fingertips up and down my arm, but I could feel the tension in him.

"That's a big decision." He finally said, his voice still rough.

"It'd be a big decision if I'd decided the other way too."

I both heard and felt him huff out a soft half laugh through his nose. He knew I was right.

"What prompted this decision?" He asked. I pushed myself up on my elbow to look down at him.

"I can't sit here many more nights worrying while I know you're out there, possibly hurt." When he opened his mouth to argue against that I spoke quickly, before he could. "And I have this...gift." I wasn't sure what else to refer to it as. "I can see them, I can do something about them. I'm not going to pretend I don't because it's a bit scary. I'm not going to sit back, knowing what's out there, and choose to do nothing about it...that makes me a coward. And I don't want to be a coward anymore."

I waited for him to argue with me, to tell me how dangerous it was and how ready for it that I wasn't. I waited for him to tell me that he'd prefer I stay here, safe, while he went out and did the world a favor. I waited for him to ask me to be a coward.

But he didn't.

"Okay. Then tomorrow we'll start you on a proper work out. Get you into training." I nodded and fought the triumphant smile. He didn't think I was a coward. If I hadn't really fallen in love with him before, I certainly did now. I bent and kissed him, it immediately became more and Jake pulled away. "Easy. I'm still a bit amped from earlier."

I laughed softly and laid back down into his chest.

"I will understand this eventually, Jake." I whispered. "And I'll be ready."

"Take your time." He said into my hair. "I don't mind the torture."

Jake woke me early the next morning with kisses across my shoulders because yes, I'd been on my stomach again. I had a light breakfast of fruit and coffee, Jake paired his fruit and coffee with two, yes two, bagels and cream cheese. Then the workout began.

Jake paired me with Ana; neither she nor I were pleased with this, but it was necessary. Ana had a slightly different workout routine than the guys because she was a woman, and while she clearly still hated me, and training me was the last thing in the world she waned to be doing, she did it, and did with a certain amount of respect. Because out there we all had to watch each other's backs, out there her hate wouldn't matter.

She started me with Pilates, explaining that strong, lean muscles were more important to us than bulk and sheer weight. After Pilates she set me up on the weights yes, I was still using the puny three pounders- and showed me a routine that would start to build upper strength. She pushed me, for an hour. There were moments where my body screamed for me to stop doing this to it, but h.e.l.l if I was going to take a break in front of her. At one point though Jake and Ryan joined us and I was momentarily mesmerized by Jake bench pressing three hundred pounds good G.o.d could my man get any hotter?- Ana had to bark at me to focus. After weights she took me to the sparring mat and started to show me the sparring moves. We didn't spar with each other, she didn't come at me like she did with the guys. Instead she taught me moves like a dancer, explaining that it was for balance -though the day would come when she and I would spar and she was more than excited for that day, it would take a blind, deaf and dumb person to not be able to decipher what she meant by that.

After an hour of that, she put me on the treadmill. I told her I would be better off learning something else, I was already good at this part. She rolled her eyes at me and told me that working out wasn't always about doing something new, maintaining was just as important.

She made me run for an hour.

When I was finished my muscles felt like water. Not just a giggly mess of Jell-O, but actual liquid. I sat literally sat; my muscles no longer supported me- in the shower and let the hot water rain down on me for nearly another hour. I finally found an ounce of strength and was able to dress and join the others for lunch. Afterwards Jake explained to me that he had to meet with his dad and his uncle to discuss the protections problem and try to figure out a solution. He probably wouldn't see me all afternoon. I told him that was no problem because I'd agreed to meet up at Kendra's. He drove me to her house and told me he'd pick me up at six. As I made my way up her sidewalk Jake jumped from the truck, he grabbed a hold of the waistband of my jeans and swung me around for one last kiss.

I really loved having a boyfriend.

Kendra and I went for coffee, then to the record store yes, records, because Kendra was just too cool for school. Back at her house we girl talked in her room. She wanted details on my nights with Jake, but aside from kissing, I didn't have too many for her. She called me boring, but I could tell she was both proud and a bit envious that I was still holding on to the only thing that I'd only ever be able to give away once.

"Alright, since you don't have your mom, I feel it is my duty to discuss the importance of the razor with you. Because there will come a day when you do give it up and you don't want to lose him down there."

"Oh my G.o.d, Kendra. EW! I know how to shave."

"I'm not talking about your legs sweetheart. Or your pits."

"Kendra." I leaned forward and spoke slowly. "I am poor, and I lived in a trailer, not under a rock. I know how to shave."

"Well then. You are ahead of the curve." She seemed pleased that my grooming techniques did not need to be discussed, but I think I was more so.

"So...he's really not pressuring you?" She asked.

"Oh there's pressure." I joked, and she squealed and said I was gross. After the laughter died I smiled. "Really, though, he's taking it pretty well. I know he'd like to pressure me, but he makes himself back off."

"You're very lucky to have him Rem. Most guys would have talked you into it by now and would be telling all their friends about it."

"Is that what happened to you?" I asked. She frowned at me, then realization hit.

"Oh, that's right. You don't keep up on the gossip. Yes. Last year. My prom date. After that, I was a full blooded s.l.u.t according to everyone I knew. Even though I'd only ever done it that once."

"Once?" Even I was surprised, and I knew Kendra. But with her confidence and popularity I was still surprised.

"Yes. I learned my lesson. The jerk told everyone. So next time I'm being very careful with whom I do it and when."

I had a thought then.

"What about Jake?" I asked. I knew he didn't have girlfriends per say, but I also knew he did date. He had a pretty girl on his arm for every school event.

"What do you mean?" She asked, very suspiciously and I realized how my question had sounded. She had said she'd be careful with choosing who she'd do it with next and then I say 'what about Jake'. I cracked up laughing. It had sounded like I was offering him to her.