Chapter 25
[[omg yall are incredible! Thank you so much for all the reviews and follows!
I deeply apololgize for the brief hiatus, I've had a lot going on lately that needed my attention.
All is well now, so I thought I'd publish this chapter to get your weekend to a good start!
Thanks again and enjoy! -HCB]]
He's looking at me, studying my face. I'm not sure what to ask first, even though Kandomere made sure I had a list of questions to ask him. I turn on the recording device and get him to state his name and the basics. He cooperates, unimpressed.
I'm looking down at the papers in my hand, and he says "Did we get the boring shit out of the way yet? I want to talk to YOU…"
This guy didn't want to talk to cops, so I have to be myself as much as possible.
I nod, "Yea I think so. Why do you want to talk to me specifically?" I ask, but I already knew.
"Just wanted to meet the person who had the balls to come face to face with me." He says.
"You've been talking to federal agents for a few days now, what's different with me?" I ask him.
"One, you aren't a fed. Two, just because they sit in front of me at a table doesn't mean they've come face to face. You've connected with me, literally. I'm a really nice person once you get to know me." he says, nonchalantly.
"Okay, what happened the other day is nothing short of a mistake, and I assure you it won't happen again. However, I'm here and ready to get this over with, just like you are." I tell him.
"Here's the thing. I ask you a question, and if you answer it-I'll answer one of yours." he says.
I look over at Kandomere, who is having a really tough time NOT coming over here. He may not be near us, but he's got a very small microphone hidden in the junk barrier. I see Monte put his hand on Kandomere's shoulder and says something to him.
I nod at Red and he nods back. "Alright. Deal. Ask away." I tell him.
He doesn't miss a beat, and I can feel his body radiating his motivation and excitement, but his face is straight-hiding it all.
"What are you..you aren't human." He asks, looking directly into my eyes, giving me the window I need to reach into him.
"I am mostly human. There's a bit of me that's changing into something else, but I'm not sure exactly what just yet." I tell him, not wanting to give him too much details. I glance over at Kandomere and he's nodding his head, approving my response to Red.
I look back at him, and he's still looking at me, thinking.
"Now it's my turn to ask." I say, my tone shifting a bit. I hold up a paper with pictures of all his alleged victims so he can see them. "Did you murder these people?" I ask.
He looks at every one of their photos, silently. If he doesn't answer the question I've been instructed by Kandomere to get up and leave immediately. After a few seconds his eyes move to the ground.
"Yes." he says, clearly enough for the recording to pick it up.
I can feel excitement coming from where Kandomere is standing, but I don't look over at him. I was focused on Red. There was nothing there when he said yes. He was completely empty.
Then he looks back up at me, "Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asks.
"Because you're just another person. Sure you've done some bad shit, but you're still just a person. I'm just here trying to figure out what and why." I tell him casually as I look down at the next question.
-2hours later-
I'm inside in the break room, sitting at the small round table. My hands loosely wrapped around a mug of coffee that I haven't taken a sip from. I was in a daze, completely lost in thought about what I had just done. I don't know how long I was sitting like that, until a hand resting on my shoulder pulls me out of it, startling me. I turn and see Nick and I release the breath I didn't know I was holding. He grabs my hand, pulling me to stand up. My arms instinctively went around his neck and he pulled me against him. I realized as he held me how emotionally exhausted I was.
"Hey, you okay?" He asks.
I nod but don't say anything because I don't have the energy. Between reaching inside Red while processing his confessions alone had me beat. Going over all of it again with Kandomere had drained whatever was left. He pulls back a bit and looks at me, his hand under my chin.
"Yeah let's get you home. You need to rest." he holds me and walks with me out of the break room towards the exit. Kandomere comes out of a room and catches up to us, out of breath from trying to hide his excitement. "Aella!"
Nick sighs and turns around.
"I'm sorry, I know you're ready to go. Aella you did it. All of his confessions checked out. He's being transported to processing until the hearing in a few days. This asshole is finally off the streets, and we wouldn't have done it without you. You've more than earned your spot on my team if you'd like. But for now, take a few paid days off. Rest up, think about my offer, and I hope to see you as a member of my team" Kandomere says, holding his hand out. I look up at Nick and a fire of excitement ignited inside him, but it wasn't for this. There was something else there.
"Well, babe?…." Nick says. I look back at Kandomere's hand, then back up at his face. I grab his hand and heard a collective sigh in the room. Kandomere smiles and even his sharp little elf teeth are white and perfect. "Have a good night Aella, and Officer Jakoby." Kandomere says.
He nods and we leave the station towards the hotel.
I'm laying on the bed and Nick is taking my boots and socks off.
"I'm ordering us some sandwiches to be delivered" he says, looking up at me. I'm nodding in and out of sleep so all I managed to get out was a small "mmhm."
He smiles and unbuttons my pants and slides them off me. He wasn't doing it seductively, but more protective. He covered me up and as he kissed my forehead I fell asleep.
Nick POV
Aella fell asleep immediately after tucking her in. I'll wait a few minutes before putting more of her flowers dust in her lip again.
I shower and attempt to wash away the day I've had. Once I'm dry, I slide on boxers ans a pair of sweats. I sit at the foot of the bed rubbing lotion all over my face, suddenly Aella's soft little arms slide around my waist from behind me. Her skin is warmer than usual, and she doesn't smell like herself at all. I turn to look at her and her face is at my shoulders, dropping kisses towards my neck. She looks up at me and her entire eye is black. I stand up immediately and she's confused, looking at me.
Her face saddens and she whispers to come back.
"Aella your eyes…." I tell her. "Go look at your eyes…"
She gets up and goes to the mirror. She sees herself and stares, her face blank.
"Is something wrong babe?" I ask her, going to her. She's blinking and rubbing her eyes.
She doesn't respond to my question but I can tell she doesn't know whether to be fascinated or terrified. "Were you sleeping?" I ask her, looking for clues.
"I was asleep and I felt you…" she said, turning around to look at me. "You're worried about something and it woke me up so I wanting to comfort you."
"Baby I'm fine, I just had a long day is all. I'm more worried about you now" I tell her.
"Well it doesn't hurt…and I am still tired. I guess I'll go back to bed." she says, slumping back under the sheets. She blinks slowly a few times and then dozes off again.
I climb into bed next to her and try to sleep.
The next morning the sun was well above sunrise when I woke. Aella wasn't in the bed.
I sit up, listening, smelling for clues to where she went. A piece of paper was sitting on the dresser by the mirror. I get up and see that's it a note in Aella's handwriting:
In the pool
Come join me when you wake up
Normally I'd have declined, but a swim in the pool with Aella sounded great after the week we've both had. I look out the window down to the pool area, and I see her swimming from one end to the other. When she gets to the end of the pool she sits on the edge and is messing with something at her side. I focus in on her and she moves it into her lap. She plucks a few petals from her orange flowers and puts them into the water while gently kicking her feet to spread the dust. After a few minutes she gets back into the water and swims again. My phone rings.
"Hello?" I answer when I see that it's an unknown number
"Hello, may I speak with Mr…..Nicholas Jakoby?" the woman on the line says.
"..yea that's me, who's this?"
"Hi Mr. Jakoby, this is Lila from the humane society just calling to let you know that Poppy is ready to go home!" She says in her bubbly excited voice.
"Oh! Right…um… I haven't yet gotten to finish completing the other half of my plan, which will only be in a few days, is it okay to come get her in a few days?…" I ask, not expecting them to agree. I quickly start coming up with a quick backup plan until I hear her:
"Oh of course! I'll hold her for another 7 days to give you time to get your home situated, we want the welcome home day to be as perfect as possible. But don't wait too long Mr. Jakoby, Poppy is very popular!" she says, annoyingly chipper.
"Thank you Lila, I'll see you in a few days." I say quickly to get off the phone with that insanity-inducing voice.
I end the call and wonder if that's one of those fake voices people use when talking to thing they called when Aella wasn't in the room. Keeping this secret is hard enough as it is, there was no way I'd be able to blatantly lie to her face.
I change into my swim trunks and went down to the pool with a towel, phone, and badge.
I sit on one of the blue mesh reclining lawn chairs with they have by the pool and watch her swim underwater towards my end of the pool. As she comes up she sees me and her eyes light up. She pulls herself out of the pool and I walk over and sit next to her. I immediately notice that her skin, in the spots where water was sitting, had a small rainbows from the water and light catching her microscopic scales. I bet she glowed underwater. She smiles suddenly, she's looking at my eyes.
"What…" I ask her. She shakes her head, still smiling.
"You were looking at my skin and I felt your chest get warm." She says, almost bashful.
"You….you felt that?" I asked, confused. Her hand goes to my chest.
"Mmhm. I can feel you love me…" she says, but her voice softens at the end, as if she realized what she said from speaking into words.
"You're also hiding something….but…it doesn't feel bad…"she says, her eyes wandering in thought. Then her eyes come back to me wide, "That's a surprise!….What are you gonna do?" she says, suddenly very excited.
I cannot lie to her, so making something up is out of the question.
I sigh. "You will find out soon. I promise." I tell her, biting my tongue to keep from saying more.
She squints and I'm suddenly worried that she can read minds and she'll find out what it is…
"Okay. I hope it's soon. I don't like surprises, and I hate waiting." she says, and slips back into the water. She goes over to her flowers again, pulling the last 2 petals off and grinds them into dust and spreading them in the water.
She used them all?
She turns to me, "get in with me!" she says, half pleading.
I stand up and sigh at her. If I wanted to swim with her, I'd have to eventually get in this cold as water. I walk down the steps and realize that the water is warm. It's an outdoor heated pool. Aella giggles when she sees my realization unfold in front of her.
"No, it isn't cold. It feels amazing…" she says, floating onto her back, her arms straight out beside her.
I walk in until the water went to my chest, if I keep walking I'll go underwater. Orcs don't float very well. Aella being a fey floating in her own pixie dust makes her float and glide through the water like she's a Regal Tang. She swims over to me, and wraps her legs around my waist and hugs me. My arms slide around her and hold her as if she was cold. I feel a heavy sigh escape her and her body relaxed a bit.
"So, when do you think you'll be ready to go back home?" I ask her, gently. I wasn't rushing her at all, but I needed an idea of when I'd be going to get Poppy.
"umm…..we can go visit the house today and see how I feel. If I'm not ready then I'll stay here a few more days. If I am ready then we'll come back and get our things and go home." she says casually.
I nod. "That's a good idea." agreeing with her.
She backs up a bit, ending the hug. She smiles at me and inhales deeply before sinking underwater and swimming away. I head back to the steps to sit down while she swims about.
I start thinking about how to set up her surprise when I hear my phone ring on the chair. I get to my phone just as it stops ringing, and I see that it was Dorghu. I call him back.
"Hey, I'm in the pool with Aella…" I tell him
"No it's all good brother, just letting you know that the house is ready to go." He says.
I look back at Aella, who's still in the water but swimming towards me.
"Alright, copy that. Good news. We'll be visiting the house today, so you're right on time. But I need a favor…." I tell him, hoping he accepts.
"Yea what's going on" He asks.
I lower my voice so Aella doesn't hear. "Can you go get Poppy? Kandomere gave her a week off, and I also took a few days off so she's gonna be at my side the whole time and-" I start, but Dorghu doesn't let me finish.
"Yea I can do that." He says. I sigh in relief and we end the call right as Aella walks up beside me.
"Everything okay?" she says, grabbing her towel.
"Yea, just Dorghu reaching out. Checking in on everything." I tell her, being vague enough to not be lying to her. "What about you…how are you feeling?" I ask her.
She sighs and leans against me, her arms slide around my neck. "I feel better. Putting the flowers in the water helped a lot." she explains to me while she stares at my lips.
"How did you know how to do that?" I asked her.
She shrugged and said it came to her while she was sleeping, and it worked. She uses her finger to turn my chin and face her. She catches my bottom lip in a hard kiss, my tusk just catching her lip. Neither of us notice until I taste blood on her kisses, and I pull back. I see the bottom left of her lip has a bead of blood sitting on it. She's wondering why I'm looking at her, and I'm wondering how she didn't feel that. But what was stopping me the most, was that her blood tasted sweet. It didn't taste metallic. Before I could say anything she brings her lips back to mine, and keeps kissing me. I taste it again, but stronger this time. It tastes as if she has honey running through her veins, but with the normal viscosity of blood, and it tastes familiar. I pull back again and I can see her eyes starting to glaze. I pull back completely, breaking the hug and tell her "let's go upstairs…" before she can object.
On the way up she says that she's suddenly starving. I agree with her, but I'm not wanting food. The sweet of her blood was still lingering on my tongue, and my chest ached to taste it again. It made me uncomfortable for it to be familiar and I not remember from where.
We get to the room and it's cool, quiet, and the curtains are pulled so it isn't bright.
"I'm gonna jump in the shower while you order us chinese food." she says, matter of factly. She walks in the bathroom and turns on the shower. I take off my shoes and order our usual chinese foods through a delivery app. I hear the shower running, and suddenly get the urge to be in the shower with her, touching and holding her. I take off my shorts and walk into the bathroom and I hear her making noises like she's whispering. She continues until she hears me walking in.
"Babe?" she calls.
I slide open the back of the curtain and peek in, eyeing her curvy soapy body. She sees my eyes following the curves of her body.
"Well get in, don't just stare…" she says. So I step in and I pretend not to see her eyes watch my body as I closed the curtain behind me. When I turn back to her, she's standing right up against me, her hands sliding up my chest. She looks around at my chest as if she can see through the skin. She releases a breath as she says "whoa…what's that?"
"What.." I say, not knowing what she's referring to.
"It feels like you're craving something, like you're hungry. But it isn't hunger, it's deeper. Well….lower-OH…" her cheeks turn red and she smiles up at me: half cute, half sinister. She turns and continues washing her body, but her hands are moving slower, her eyes burning at me.
I grab her hips and pull her back against me, nuzzling my face into her neck. I inhale her scent and suddenly it all came together. This was the smell that I couldn't place before. It was her blood.