“This,” Mariana continued, pointing to three men, “is Javan, Vincent, and Farrar.” She turned to the two women. “This is Sabine and that’s Kalare.”
“You’re Caitlin?” Sabine said in a thick Parisian accent, looking me over with an expression that was borderline hostile. I’d just been introduced, so I didn’t really know how she could already have a problem with me, but making enemies of authoritative women seemed to be a specialty of mine.
“The one and only,” I replied tightly.
Javan looked sternly at Sabine before stepping forward, and though he didn’t look particularly older than any of the rest of them, he felt older. He nodded at me in greeting.
“We are the war council.”
*
I hadn’t checked my phone since before we’d passed out at three a.m., so I didn’t see the text from Rachel saying they’d decided to drive through the night and they’d be back by eleven Sunday morning, and could Trish please drop me off around noon. It was now two and I also hadn’t noticed the multiple missed calls and texts asking where I was. Apparently she’d driven over to Trish’s herself to pick me up, and I hadn’t been there. Suffice it to say, when I did finally pull up, on Adrian’s Harley no less, my aunt was livid.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Even in my emotional stupor, it caught my attention that Rachel had just sworn. I’d literally never heard a bad word out of her mouth before. She stalked up to the bike as I swung off, and glared at me.
“You can’t do this, Caitlin! You can’t just go off anywhere you want and not tell me! We’re your family, we are responsible for you, and you have to listen to us.”
She took a step forward and for a moment, I thought she was going to slap me. Instead, and to my great surprise, she hugged me so tight I could barely breathe. There was a moment of silence, and then she let me go.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Master—” Adrian began, but Rachel cut him off.
“You are in trouble, young man. This is the last straw. I am calling your aunt and uncle.”
Joe came out, finally, and I could see Norah looking on from the kitchen window.
“Mr. Master,” Adrian tried again, “please, let me expl—”
Joe shook his head. “Don’t push it, son.”
“Guys,” I interrupted. “Adrian’s brother is missing.”
There was a moment of silence.
“My family was out of town for the weekend while I stayed home with my little brother,” Adrian explained, carefully dancing his way through the truth. “Lucian’s got … special needs. I think he got confused, and wandered away from the house. I called Caitlin, because I didn’t know who else to call. She came over to help me look for him. I’m sorry for not asking your permission, I just—I wasn’t really thinking.”
Rachel looked stricken. It was Joe who finally spoke. “Do we need to call the police, or your family?”
Adrian shook his head. “Police have been called. My family’s back now. We searched the house and the property and even the surrounding woods. He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, Rachel,” I said, turning to my aunt. “It was an emergency.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, looking oddly emotional. “Is there a search party? We can get our coats and boots and call some of the neighbors—”
“My family hired some investigators,” Adrian said, cutting her off. “But thank you.”
Rachel bit her lip, nodded, then pulled Adrian into a hug. He was surprised, but he let her hug him.
Adrian went home shortly after, but not before giving me a quick kiss—directly in front of Rachel and Joe. I guess that was his way of saying, to at least one set of authority figures, that things were going to be different now.
After he left, Rachel hugged me again. And for the first time since I’d moved in with them, I hugged her back. Maybe she hadn’t been there for me, once. But she was here now. And I needed my family. I needed them more than I needed to be angry.
I was saving all my anger for someone else.
I was going to get Lucian back. I was going to find a way for Adrian and me to be together. I was going to hurt Tommie, in whatever form he took, in whatever dimension he was hiding in.
And when all of this was over, I was going to take Lucian and Adrian and go to New York and do my internship and design beautiful things and somehow find a safe place for us all. Because I had something to live for again—not Adrian, not my career, but all of it: I had a future, I had a family.
And that meant I had hope.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alexis
It’s pretty obvious that Velvet would not have been written without you. Not only did you come home from class every day asking to read the next chapter I’d managed to crank out, you were the only person able to coax me out of my hermit cave / bunk fortress to go outside and interact with the rest of the world. We went to the Twilight midnight premieres together, even when you moved three hours away, you gave me notes on Velvet five years after I first wrote it in our dorm room, and you are an incredible and dear friend.