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CHAPTER FOUR
ENDER
My door creaks and my eyes snap open. I’ve always been a light sleeper, trained long ago to be wary of every noise. It’s not like I fully trust Orin, and I have no idea why he’d even remotely trust me beyond the fact that Rylee does and he seems to really like her. It would make more sense for him to agree to keep me here before running off to tell the VRC exactly where to collect me.
Of course I don’t have to worry because it’s only Rylee trying to sneak into the room.
She’s so loud that I’m not even sure she could sneak into a human’s room and get away with it. She scuttles over to the bed and stares at me as I pretend to be asleep in the hope that she will just go back to bed.
Instead, I can hear Rylee breathing over me… she doesn’t even have to breathe and still she’s going to loudly do it over my head and think I won’t notice?
I pretend I don’t hear her and continue to feign sleep, hoping she’ll just go away.
Seemingly satisfied… for some reason, she backs off. Then instead of leaving, like I’d expected, she proceeds to lie down on the rug like a dog.
That’s fine. If she’d rather curl up on a rug instead of a nice bed, she can have at it. I won’t lose any sleep over it, that’s for sure. She has her own bed with plush blankets just next door; there’s absolutely no reason for me to care. So with that, I try to drift back off to sleep.
Rylee flips this way… and that way… and rolls, and then when she finally falls asleep, she starts muttering things in her sleep.
Like what the fuck is she doing? Summoning demons in her dreams?
I try to sleep, but every time I begin to drift off, she flips and flops some more.
Fine, then I will sleep in her bed.
I quietly get up and slip out of the room before heading over to the other bed. I climb in and close my eyes, thrilled to be free of that nonsense and finally fall asleep, just in time for the door to creeeeak open. Rylee shuffles over again and heavily breathes over me again.
“Rylee, what are you doing? A blind and deaf dog would notice you come in!” I say.
“Nuh-uh. You didn’t wake up when I went into your room!”
“You mean when you stood over me and breathed loudly at me before flopping all around on the floor?”
“Hmm…”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why all of this? You sleep alone all the time. Why are you sleeping on the rug?”
“Because…” She folds her arms over her chest and refuses to look at me.
I don’t care enough to badger her and just pull the pillow over my head. This makes her gasp, shocked that I don’t want to play her little game of “Oh no, Rylee, what’s wrong?”
“If you even cared about me, you would know that I’m sad,” she declares. Like I didn’t just care about her enough to tear the city apart to find her.
Realizing that I will be getting no sleep until I appease the small monster, I cave. “Why are you sad?”
“You were going to leave me.”
“I really wasn’t,” I assure her. “I spent half the night looking for you; I wasn’t planning on leaving you. You acted like you wanted to leave me.”
“I don’t! I just want to stay at the same place with you instead of hiding in different houses!”
“Just… go to sleep.”
“Can I sleep in the bed with you?” she asks eagerly.
“As long as you stop flopping around and summoning demons in your sleep.”
Rylee laughs at that. “I was summoning demons? Marcus is like a demon! He’s scary!”
“Sure, sure,” I say, not having the heart to tell her that most seem to find me scarier.
She climbs into the bed where she immediately falls asleep before kicking me and ripping the blankets from me. I’m left questioning every choice I’ve made tonight as she gets a solid kick in to my shin.

“I’m not going to be gone long,” I say to Rylee, who hasn’t let me out of her sight. “So please just stay here.”
Rylee is absolutely against this. Like… I’ve never seen anyone so against something in my life. She dives out of the chair where she’d just finished breakfast and latches on to my body. Her arms squeeze me tightly as she takes in a big breath, like her main response to this will be tears.
“Don’t you dare start crying.”
“Then don’t you dare leave me!”
Orin is just merrily reading a newspaper as all of this goes on. “Why don’t you stay for a bit?” he suggests.
“Why don’t I not? Do they even make newspapers anymore? And what is even worthwhile reading in there?”
“I like to read the comics,” he says.
Rylee looks up at me pleadingly. “En, you can’t go. We have school and stuff. It’s Tuesday.”
I stare at her in disbelief. She would do anything to get out of “school,” and now she’s willingly reminding me that we haven’t worked on anything today?
Seeing a blank notepad, I grab it as well as a pen and drop them in front of Rylee. “I want you to write me a two-paragraph essay about how you’re going to listen to me and never run out of the house again.”
“That sounds horrible,” she decides.
“What was horrible was me having to find you!” I say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
I scoff. “I wasn’t sad.”
“I’ll make you feel better by showing you my amazing words of wonder. Sit, sit. I need to know how to spell everything.”
“What do you need to know how to spell? You’re a good speller,” I remind her.
“How do you spell… uh… ‘I’?”
“You know how to spell ‘I’!”
“Let’s see… I-E-E-E!”
“Funny,” I say as she grins at me before properly writing the letter.
I shake my head. “In cursive.”
“You never said I had to write in cursive! You know cursive hates me!”
“I really don’t care,” I tell her. “Don’t forget, you’re the one who wanted to do schoolwork today.”
“Urgh.” She groans but begins writing in cursive until I see that she’s got the F wrong.
“F is like this,” I say as I grab her pen.
I still as I sense someone at the door a few seconds before Orin does. “Looks like we have company. I love company,” he declares. “Maybe it’s my wife. She did say she was stopping by sometime soon, but that could be like in a day or two months. She’s absolutely going to love meeting Marcus.”
“Oh, hell no,” Rylee says. “That man is scary. Nobody gonna love meeting him.”
“What did I say about cussing?” I ask. “And did you forget how to speak properly?”
“There is a proper time and place, and speaking about that scary vampire is the proper time and place for sure.”
I ignore her as Orin starts for the door while I regret coming here again. I decide that I don’t need anyone knowing we’re here, so I scoop Rylee up and head farther into the house to hide. It takes me a minimal amount of time to discern that the newcomer is Mads, the council member from last night.
“We’re going to be silent as can be,” I murmur as I sink into a closet and pull the door shut while I hold Rylee against me and listen to Mads greet Orin.
“It’s an absolute pleasure to get to meet you, Orin! My boss, Vivian, speaks highly of you. She told me she’s had some wild nights with your wife.”
“Wild is an understatement,” Orin says. “Pleasure to meet you. Vivian has… spoken of you.”
“Highly, I’m sure,” Mads says.
“Yeah… of course.”
“I actually came to speak to Ender. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a word or two or even three if we’re feeling a bit spicy!”
“I think he wouldn’t enjoy anything more,” Orin says, confirming that he is also out to get me.
Mads laughs. “Where might I find him?”
“No idea. How about this? If you can find him, you can talk to him.”
“Ooh, like hide-and-seek? I’m game,” Mads says, and I feel quite confident that there’s no way this irritating man could find me… until I remember that I have a seven-year-old by my side. A seven-year-old who immediately sneezes… like why the fuck does a vampire need to sneeze?
“Whoops,” she says, like maybe the sneeze wasn’t enough.
The closet door is yanked open and Mads beams in at me. How humiliating is this? I’m honestly not sure if it could get more humiliating. I should have left the house. Or I should have just ditched the sneezing vampire and left as I had planned to do.
“Good morning!” Mads greets us, like any part of this could be good.
“How did you find me?” I ask. “Not… in the closet; obviously I’m aware how you could find me in the closet. At Orin’s.”
“I said ‘Whoops,’” Rylee says, like that fixes everything. Instead, I put a hand on her head and guide her out of the way so I can leave the closet since we’re not having this conversation in this embarrassing position.
“Easy peasy! You still have Claude’s phone which I tracked here,” Mads says. “I’m good, aren’t I? I should be a detective. I think I would look ultra fine with a magnifying glass and a trench coat.”
With that, I decide I’m done. I start walking away, but Rylee has no interest in following me. She was abducted by council members who wanted to do tests on her not that long ago yet here she is, dying to get to talk to the man.
“Mister, how’s the kitty? Are you taking good care of him? Are you loving him? Are you snuggling him? Did you name him? What’s his name? Do you need help naming him? I’m the best at names.”
He kneels down and reaches out to take her hand in his, and I’m shocked as the traitorous child hands it over. “You really want to know how the kitty is?”
“I do! I promised Ender I’d never follow a kitty again, but he didn’t make me promise I wouldn’t ask about the kitty.”
“What a monster!” Mads says as he grins up at me.
I glower at him, in case he isn’t aware that I don’t find his games fun. “Rylee, come on. And you, leave us alone.”
“If you come into the kitchen, I’ll tell you all about the kitty,” he says.
This is obviously an “if you come into my van, I have puppies and candy” situation that I’ve warned Rylee about, but she’s prepared to go into that kitchen. She has never been more willing to ditch all of my warnings. “Okay!”
“Rylee.” There’s a clear warning in that word.
Her smile falls. “I mean, no thank you. I will forever never know anything about the cutest kitty I’ve ever met in my life. I will live to old age, all shriveled up and hunched over and forever wonder what happened to the kitty. I will cry myself to sleep thinking of the kitty.”
Why the hell did I end up with the most dramatic child known to mankind?
“Why can’t you tell her here?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Because I have to tell her in the kitchen,” Mads says. “Come on, it won’t kill you.”
“It might,” I grumble, but Rylee gets what Rylee wants. “You have three seconds of our time.”
“I will use every moment of those three seconds to blow your mind,” he says as he hurries to the kitchen. When we get there, he’s not even in the kitchen, but it doesn’t take long for him to return while holding the cat in his hands. “Here you go! All fixed up! And they even got all those mats out for you and washed him up so he’s sparkling clean just for a princess like you.”
Rylee gasps. Literally gasps. Her arms are outstretched, making her look like a zombie as she shuffles toward the awaiting cat. Even though it’s clean, it’s still an ugly thing with its bent-over ear and a chip missing from the other. Its long hair is missing in some areas where the mats had been, but Rylee seems to think it’s the cutest thing she’s ever witnessed.
Mads is smiling the entire time and even Orin looks thrilled, like he’s watching his son get married instead of Rylee reaching for that ugly thing.
Just shy of him, she freezes and dramatically pulls her hands in before turning away. “I told Ender I wouldn’t,” she says as she heartbrokenly makes her way back to me. Both Mads and Orin are looking at me like I’m a monster… which I am, but I can’t say no to Rylee.
“You can hold it, but we’re not keeping it,” I warn her.
She lets out some unintelligible sound of glee as she rushes over to the cat, gathering him up into her arms as she melts to the floor in delight. The cat is so low-key it’s just along for the ride, thrilled to have human affection and prepared to go through whatever to get it.
I jab a finger at Mads. “We’re going to have a talk in a different room. Orin, is your theater soundproof?”
“It sure is!” Orin says. “Please don’t get blood on the seats… or the carpet… what about here in the kitchen? The floor in here is very easy to clean.”
Mads grimaces before waving at the cat and child. “But I was watching this cute reunion. Come now, child, come with us. Please? What are your thoughts on allowing me to hold you… not at all like a shield.”
“Alone,” I say.
“Sounds concerning,” Mads comments. “But I’ll bite… as long as you don’t bite…”
I ignore him and head toward the theater room that Rylee had shown me last night. Once Mads is inside, I shut the door before turning to him.
“I’m flattered you wanted to have me all to yourself,” he says with a beaming smile like that could possibly make me forget my current plans.
I walk up until I’m directly in front of him and stare right into his blue eyes. “Don’t be. What are you doing here?”
“Returning the cat. As simple as that.”
“You could have sent the cat with Finn or Claude when he comes to pick up the phone, but you chose to come here. Why? You may feed all of that bullshit to everyone else, and they might believe you, but I don’t.”
He gives me a look like he couldn’t possibly know what I’m referring to. “Bullshit? What have I done?”
“You were looking for something when I stepped into that building they’d been holding Rylee in. And you weren’t overly shocked by the bodies either. You weren’t there long enough to have gotten over your shock of finding them dead in such an unusual way. And instead of showing that shock, you were hunting for something.”
“How was I not shocked? When you walked in, I was examining the deceased for signs of wounds. Was I supposed to scream or cry or something? Really, it’s not like I knew them or that I’ve never seen bodies before. I was trying to figure out how they were just… dead.”
I smile at him. “Sure you were. And that’s fine if you don’t want to tell me. But what I want out of you is the name of every single council member, US and UK.”
“Like… to send them valentines?”
My expression has to sour even more. “Yes, I’d like to send them valentines.”
Mads grins and pats my face, so I smack his hand away. “What are you going to do with all of that information?”
“Something I should have done many years ago.”
“I just… like you’re being all vague and my mind is going ‘murder,’ but my hope is like… not murder, you know?”
I grab him by the throat. “If you don’t want to die, you will tell me.”
He slides his hand over mine and it’s weirdly intimate. Like… who the fuck just gently takes someone’s hand when they’re threatening to kill them?
“Murdering me solves nothing. I would be thrilled to help you think of other ways to find answers, but my death isn’t one of them.”
“It’d make me feel better,” I say as he tries to hold my hand, which causes me to pull back. It’s wildly effective.
“But it wouldn’t make me feel better.”
“I mean… you’ll be dead, so you won’t feel anything.”
“I would have to come back and haunt you, and that won’t be fun for either of us.”
“I’ll take my chances. So talk or try your hand at becoming a ghost.”
“Can you at least tell me why you want to know the council members’ names?”
I ignore his inquiry. “You have a picture of them?”
“Yes, we’re such close bros we get weekly photo shoots. Last week we did a photo shoot of us hunting innocent humans and snacking on them. Fun, huh?” he asks. It’s all quite teasing and in turn irritating.
“Fuck,” I say as I grab him and start dragging him over to the trash can.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want to get blood on Orin’s floor, so I’m going to make sure your head falls into the trash can.”
“But why? You’re so angry! Do you ever feel like maybe this is why people think you’re the bad guy? Because you’re so rash?”
“I’ve never been rash a day in my life,” I growl as I grab the trash can.
“My head is certainly not going to fit in there. I don’t even have an overly large head but with the way the bin tapers down, I’m confident my head will roll right out and won’t that make more of a splash? Think of the carpet, Ender. Do it for the carpet.”
I pull the empty trash bag out of the can and yank it over his head, deciding this will suffice until he tears a hole in in it.
“Why the fuck did you rip a hole in it?”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
“You’re a fucking vampire! You don’t have to breathe!” I snap.
“You’re right. My bad. Now the blood is going to leak everywhere. I am a people pleaser, though, so if you’d like me to find a bigger bin, I’m open to it if you give me a valid reason why. Like did I hurt you in a past life? Have we been reincarnated after having wronged each other in the past⁠—”
“Orin’s fucking rich. He can buy new carpet,” I decide.
“Wait, wait… I do have a photo, now that I think of it. No one was pleased I took it and warned me to never take another. Let me see, let me see…”
Mads still has the bag on his head, but it must be clear enough he can see through it. It just irritates me even more, which I’m positive is why he’s doing it. I yank it off, getting a bit of hair with it.
“Ah, do you need even more hair? You already have such lovely hair, why sacrifice mine?”
“The next time you see me, I’m going to be bald,” I growl.
“I apologize. I will not say anything more about your hair or your attitude or about how I must have caused you great sorrow in the past for you to be so feisty with me,” he says as he turns his phone toward me. “That’s me in the middle.”
“Is this… is this from a fucking Halloween party?”
“Sure is. I went as a vampire. See? Isn’t it great? With the cape and the garlic necklace and the fake blood on my face. Everyone loved it.”
I snatch the phone from him and zoom in on everyone else’s faces, unsure why I have to be subjected to such a thing. Everyone looks ridiculous dressed up in Halloween costumes like they don’t have a care in the world—like they don’t give a shit about anything but themselves. I recognize a handful of people, but quite a few I don’t know at all. The issue is that the person I’m looking for isn’t there.
“This isn’t all of the main members.”
Mads flips the phone around and examines it closely. “Admittedly, I haven’t been on the council long. These are the members I’ve met. I don’t believe there are others, but I could be wrong. Could it possibly be someone who has left the council in the past year or so? I joined merely six or seven months ago. Do you have a name for me? If you tell me exactly who you are looking for, I can ask around.”
“No. I have to go. If you touch Rylee, I will remove every single part of you.”
“All parts? Like… every part? I just feel like there are much better ways to spend your time.”
“Do not even look at her.”
“Of course not,” he says as I slip out of the room, having to trust that Rylee will be safe with Orin.