c h a p t e r t e n .
Peter Rumancek
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"YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT I THINK?" Roman Godfrey asked, because no one actually had.
"Not really," Peter replied.
He was stretched out on the couch with a joint dangling from his fingers, and at the current time, he possessed no interest in anything the half-upir had to ramble on about this time.
The rich boy paced back and forth across Peter's living room, covering the distance in a span of about four steps, which for Roman equated to the average stride of a giraffe.
"I think your cousin is a liar," he said. "Either all this ritual bullshit is fake, or she's not telling us on purpose."
He took a drag from the joint as Peter gave it back to him, shivering fingers concealed by designer winter gloves.
"Visions don't just appear on command, fuckwit. Even rituals don't work every time," Peter replied. "Besides, have you even considered the thought that maybe Jude's the one not telling us anything?"
"What?" Roman stopped his pacing, as though the audacity of the werewolf's suggestion had offended him on a profound level.
"That's bullshit. She'd tell me if she- she'd tell us if she saw something important."
"Would she though? Because I don't know what you've been seeing, but I've seen the way she stares off into space. I've seen the way her eyes go blank, like she's not really here, like she's somewhere else. When she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night and still insists everything is fine."
"Maybe she doesn't remember what she sees," Roman insisted.
Several weeks had passed since Jude and Destiny had tried to make contact with her spiritual memories, and since then, nothing had come of it. Of course, Peter wasn't stupid, and like the fresh snow accumulating outside, his doubts had begun to settle in too. Someone had seen something, one of them knew something, and whatever it was, there was a reason they didn't want him and Roman knowing. A reason he could only choose to respect for now.
"I'm gonna go check on her," Roman announced, as if he had been stressing in silence over whether or not he should, ultimately losing the battle. He took off down the hallway and rapped his knuckles thrice against the door to the spare room.
Peter couldn't shake the light smirk on his face. His concern for her was sweet in the most ridiculous, tragic way. Oh what the world had come to- in which his childhood best friend was Roman Godfrey's only soft spot, the only thing that shifted the attention away from himself for a while.
Peter tried to think of a world in which the two of them would be okay, but as it had many times before, the possibility escaped him.
It became clear after a while that the gypsy should find something else to occupy himself with, and so with his mother's grocery list in hand, he headed outside. The December morning air was cold and crisp, cutting cleanly through his coat like a knife. The boy climbed the wooden stairs leading up to the roadside, nearly slipping on several of the frosted steps.
Once in town he was on his way to the grocery store, rounding the corner near the ice cream shop, he spotted her.
Letha Godfrey. She was leaning against the brick wall, her gold-spun hair tucked under the fluffy hood of her woollen jacket, but the locks framing her face caught the sunlight at just the right angle.
The two of them had gotten to know each other more ever since he'd moved here, often opting to sit together in the classes they shared. Maybe it was just that she looked like an angel, or maybe it was just the allure of her being Roman's cousin, but he often found himself in quiet awe of her.
She was eating an ice cream cone, her glossy lips curling in a friendly smile as she caught sight of him.
"Oh hey Peter," she said, her voice light, teasing. "You know, all this time I thought you must be a hermit. I've never seen you out around town at all."
Peter grinned, eyes softening.
"And all this time I thought you were one of the only sane members of the Godfrey family, until I came across you eating ice cream in the middle of winter"
His gaze lingered on her a little longer than intended.
Letha laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as her cheeks flushed pink-not from the cold.
"It's ice cream, good to eat in any weather", she defended, despite her violent shivering. "Besides, I like to suffer for my pleasures."
There was a beat of quiet between them-comfortable, curious. He watched a flake of snow catch in her hair and melt without her noticing.
A quiet hum of energy existed between the pair, something unspoken, but familiar. A pleasant warmth that caressed his soul- providing a nice change from the stress of everything that was happening.
"You want to grab coffee or something?" he asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them. Groceries could wait. Letha didn't answer immediately- instead, she wiped her hand on her jeans and pushed off from the wall.
"Sure," she said, falling into step with him.
The smile on her face made the air feel warmer than it was.
They ducked into the cafe on the corner of the main street, the wood fireplace inside generating a comfortable heat. The place was small and cozy and smelled of cinnamon.
Letha ordered something sweet and absurdly complicated. Peter just asked for plain black coffee.
They slid into a booth near the window, stained glass fogged up. For a moment, neither of them said much. It wasn't the kind of silence that felt strained or forced, not the kind of silence that made things awkward.
He noticed the Godfrey girl observing him, and he didn't know why, but Peter felt a small, pleasant shiver go down the back of his neck.
"So. You and Roman," Letha started, stirring her drink lazily, "you two have gotten close."
Peter shrugged, blowing into his cup to cool down the beverage. "He's alright, when he's not being a pain in the ass."
She smiled at that, eyes glinting with some fondness. "He's always been a pain in the ass. But he means well, sometimes. He could really use a friend like you after everything he's been through."
There it was. The glimmer of sympathy in those pretty blue eyes.
"He um. He told me that you knew Judith too. When you were kids."
"Oh. Yeah. My family and hers were close before she and her dad moved here. We were kids the last time we saw each other."
"It can't have been easy, coming back like this. How are you dealing with it all?"
"It hasn't been too bad. I know Roman's been pretty shaken by it, he knew her for longer. He really liked her, didn't he?" Peter asked.
Letha's smile faltered for a moment-just for a flicker-before she took a sip of her drink.
"Yeah," she said softly. "I think he did."
She toyed with the edge of her napkin, gaze dropping briefly before meeting his again. "Roman doesn't open up easily, so when he finds someone he trusts, it's hard for him to let go."
Peter nodded. He watched the way the steam from her drink curled toward her face like it wanted to kiss her.
"He's been on edge lately. I don't know, he just thinks there's something's off with everything that happened."
Letha arched a brow. "Do you think something's off?"
Peter hesitated, the weight of all the things he couldn't say pressing into the space between them. "I think this town has a way of keeping secrets. I think there's no way something isn't off."
"That," she said, giving a quiet laugh, "might be the most accurate thing anyone's ever said about this place."
They lapsed into silence again, but this one was heavier, thoughtful. Outside, snow began to drift harder against the glass, muffling the world. Peter studied her a moment longer, her smile, the way her hair fell like light over her shoulders.
She looked soft.
Safe.
Peter dreamed that night.
He was standing naked in the middle of a lake, murky black water rising to his knees.
The cold slashed right to his bones, leaving him a shivering mess in the middle of the water as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
A wall of trees lined the shore like monoliths, ancient and always, their branches clawing at a starless sky, trapping him in this endless place. Fog unfurled over the surface of the lake, like a living thing with a pulse.
A full moon swelled in the sky, the only source of light. Where he may have expected to hear the croak of a frog or the buzzing of mosquitoes, the wolf heard only silence, and the faint, distant scamper of his own heartbeat.
Sloshing through reeds and rotting fish that had died and begun to float, Peter caught sight of something on the shore which made him pause.
She was a figure of light, draped in milk white silk, her smooth pale skin stained with inky water and mud. Her back was facing him, golden hair spilling in perfect curls like a halo. He knew it without needing to see her face.
Knew it was Letha Godfrey.
He knew it was her-not from the clothes or the hair, but from the feeling in his chest.
Relief bloomed in his ribs for a single, perfect second.
Then it curdled.
Something sour rose in his throat, leaving a bitter, almost bloody taste in his mouth. He couldn't move. Couldn't call out. The air around him thickened into something unbreathable, like thick smoke without fire. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to wake up, to do anything-but all he could do was stand there, locked in place, dread pooling in his gut. The longer he looked, the more wrong it felt. Her stillness wasn't calm-it was eerie. It was final.
As she walked further into the trees, disappearing in the dark, Peter could not submit to his temptation to follow her even if he wanted to, for the lake held him still, powerless.
In the dark between the trees, in a place he could not see, her scream rang out.
Peter shot up from his bed, sweat pooling in the sheets. Dragging a hand through his hair, he tried to steady himself, lungs heaving. For a long time he just sat there- frozen, heart slamming against his ribs. It wanted out.
The echo of Letha's cry never left him, not even after lurching out of bed and violently washing his face in the bathroom sink. Stop it. Stop it. Stop screaming.
When he looked up, he met his own blue gaze with a certain understanding.
He needed Jude to talk. Talk about what she had seen. Because if she didn't, then they would never come close to avenging her. Never come close to finding out who was doing this.
More would be next. More girls would die.
Letha Godfrey would die.