HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 8

To describe the sequence of events of that evening was first to admit the implausible facts that had occurred. My eyes snapped open, instinctively sensing a presence behind Thomas. In a senseless gesture, because it would have served no purpose except perhaps to make me lose my fingers, I brandished the palm of my open hand in the direction of the weapon. But the blast never hit me or Thomas. Our attacker, instead, was hit in the middle of the head. He fell dead, half of his skull torn off from the impact. Shreds of brains were scattered two metres around him. I suppressed a sudden urge to vomit. Thomas stared at me for a moment and immediately summoned me to follow him. I was too shocked to think coherently, so I obeyed him without flinching. Panting, I slipped into the Golf and Thomas drove off with all the lights off. After very long minutes during which my behaviour proved catatonic, we finally arrived at my place. I was now sitting on the couch, shaking nervously, and barely in control.

“Eve, calm down! Listen to me, Eve! Look at me.”

These last words had a soothing effect. Those were the words he had whispered in my ear earlier… Seems like even death and horror didn’t have enough of an impact on me to keep me from thinking about it. I slowly looked up and stared at him.

“You didn’t call the police,” I blurted out, pale as a sheet.

“He’ll be found soon enough.”

“We should have called…”

“Trust me. We shouldn’t be involved in this.”

“But at least an ambulance,” I pleaded, as guilt poisoned my mind.

“That guy is dead, Eve. An ambulance wouldn’t change that.”

“Ho… how did he die?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. It was almost you, that’s all I know.”

“We should have called the police, Thomas!”

I cried, shocked that Thomas remained so calm after coming so close to certain death. Once this morbid idea imprinted itself into my mind, a burst of anger went up to my throat, and Thomas immediately grabbed my arms.

“Calm down, Eve, it’s over now. There’s no camera in my building and I don’t want that inspector to see any connection with Cedric’s death.”

I remembered Inspector Carrere, a rather cute guy in his thirties. With his salt-and-pepper hair colour and hazel eyes, he could easily have passed for an executive. It was his sharp gaze and his ability to doubt everything with a raised eyebrow that automatically revealed his profession as a cop. He hadn’t struck me as unsympathetic, only seeing me at the scene of another murder might change his first appreciation. Also, we hadn’t seen any other shooters in the parking lot, so how did our attacker get hit? I could almost have sworn he had been killed by his own gun, perhaps a ricochet? No. It was impossible. But the more I thought about it, the more my guilt disappeared. This guy could have killed us both, he didn’t hesitate for a second to shoot as soon as the elevator doors opened. Apart from the shock of seeing a dead man for the first time and, moreover, a man who was missing half of his head, I nevertheless had to admit that it was him or us. I chose us, of course.

Thomas took me in his arms and, noting my apparent calm, he decided to get his cell phone. I went up to the bedroom while he made a call. The tone had risen but I didn’t know to who it was addressed. I just wanted to go to bed, the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours was becoming unbearable. I lay down, shaking, at the bottom of my bed. Despite my condition, I couldn’t sleep. I saw the headless man again as soon as I closed my eyes.

The next day, the sun flooded the room. When I went to bed, I had forgotten to close the curtains and the light blinded me. Thomas must have gotten up earlier, so I went down to the living room thinking I’d find him. With all these events, my thoughts collided, I had lost my smile from the day before and my beautiful night of love seemed very far away now. I was torn from my thoughts when I discovered, amazed, Eric sitting on the couch. His piercing gaze gave me another shiver as I stopped in front of him.

“Hello, Eve, you look lovely in that little babydoll nightie.”

“Oh!”

My expression made him smile, so I went upstairs to put on a dressing gown. I can’t explain it, but at that precise moment, I felt angry, maybe it was towards Eric or Thomas. I didn’t care, I was in a bad mood. I went back down to the living room, ready to question Eric about the reasons for his presence there.

“I won’t bother you for long,” he said before I could even open my mouth, “Thomas has things to settle, he’ll be back very soon.”

“Why?”

“After last night’s episode, leaving you alone was out of the question.”

I thought I detected a subtle annoyance in his voice. He looked at me with his brown-green eyes. I tightened the belt of my dressing gown a little more.

“You want some coffee?”

“Gladly.”

Preparing the coffee allowed me to keep a certain composure in Eric’s company, which was even more enigmatic than ever. I have to admit that after the events of the previous day, his presence was beneficial to me, his whole being inspired certain security. My mood became warmer. I invited him to a table and arranged some cakes to accompany our cups of coffee. A silence settled. Eric wasn’t going to start a conversation, so I decided to break the ice with a more interesting topic that had nothing to do with the nightmare the night before.

“Everything going well with Olivia?”

His reaction was surprising as he looked down. I guessed, by his behaviour, that he would have preferred that I wasn’t aware of their relationship, something which was impossible, obviously. Then the outline of a smile appeared on his lips.

“Let’s say she has some ideas.”

“Yes, that, I believe.”

“And you? With Thomas, are you happy, Eve?”

“Uh, fine, thank you,” I stammered, taken aback by the frankness of his question.

A new silence.

“Maybe we could talk about what happened last night?” he resumed.

“Really?”

“Explain everything to me in detail.”

I had to face it and tell him the whole story. Eric looked attentive. I ended up confiding in him my doubt about our hit-and-run.

“Thomas was right,” he said.

“Do you think so too?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think all this is strange, do you?”

“I don’t know, events follow each other at such speed in these moments.”

He answered me as if he had already experienced this situation. I was troubled.

“Eric, you seem to be hiding something from me.”

He stood up, his face closed. In silence, he paced the room. I understood then that a problem of conscience was tormenting him. Suddenly, he straightened up, as if he had sensed something, and that’s when the door opened on Olivia and Thomas.

“Hi, you two!”

Olivia hugged me and then walked over to Eric to kiss him with the tip of her luscious lips. Eric hadn’t detached his gaze from mine so I felt a deep embarrassment, quickly dissipated by the intervention of Thomas, who invited me to follow him upstairs. I complied.

When I arrived in the room, the darkness there surprised me. How had he managed to close the curtains so quickly? He was standing there, in front of the bed, still with that devastating half-smile marking his insatiable dimple on his right cheek.

“I missed you so much.”

Deep down, I knew I should have been much more affected by the death of our mysterious attacker the day before and by the surrealism of the situation. However, my eyes fixed on his, and I no longer thought about it. No, to be honest, I had already forgotten everything. I was devoted only to him and his arms, which lifted me without the slightest effort.

I hadn’t estimated the time spent in the room, but seeing Eric’s despondent face and Olivia’s impatient eyes, I concluded that it must have been a long time. I had all the same taken a hasty shower, and put on an adequate outfit before applying mascara to my slightly puffy eyes. And all this after tidying up my room which, by the way, was still in a pitiful state.

Thomas was still in the shower when I joined my forgotten guests. In front of Eric and Olivia, I told myself that I could very well have gone back up, even if it meant having to wash myself a second time. I took a deep breath and sat down on the chair across from them. Of course, the flow of blood in my cheeks betrayed the discomfort I felt. Olivia was contrite, Eric was pissed.

“We had to leave your house, Eve!” Olivia said in an outraged tone. “What the hell was that? Was there an earthquake up there?”

And I thought they were sulking because of the wait!

“Um...I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my face flushed, to be perfectly honest, “we had...forgotten about you. I’m really sorry.”

“Forgotten!”

Olivia, appalled, stared at me. I felt the painful sensation of being swallowed up by quicksand, but it was short-lived because Olivia’s face softened and suddenly she burst out laughing.

“No, but Eve, you haven’t been a virgin for an hour and you’re already breaking records on the Richter scale! You’re so strong!”

But, even if her more playful tone reassured me, I found their attitude a little presumptuous.

“I haven’t slept a wink all night,” Thomas retorted from the top of the stairs.

Eric glared at him. This time I was furious. A new shiver ran down my spine. But what was this frenzy? I barely recognized myself. It became necessary to control myself, and immediately!

A door slammed. Don’t ask me which one. I was too focused to notice. When I looked up, Eric was watching me with his fiery eyes. I was pretty sure he had picked up something in my attitude, but I didn’t blink.

“We’ll leave you.”

“Are you sure?” Olivia asked him, obviously wanting to stay longer.

I too wanted her to stay. I also wanted Thomas and Eric to explain themselves because obviously there was a problem between them to be solved.

“You two stay!” I ordered them bluntly before softening up. “It’s lunchtime, and I’m hungry, aren’t you?”

In the end, after the theatrical scene played for us by the Panchak brothers, the day ended more hopeful. I had totally expelled from my mind my anger at Eric after having convinced myself that my new life as a non-virgin was bringing its share of hormonal surprises. Although the two brothers barely spoke during dinner, I finally got my long-awaited interview with Olivia. Aside from the murder and the slightly indecent details of my torrid night with Thomas, I didn’t miss a single detail.

“Eve, that’s great!”

I was sure Olivia would say that, and that was why I loved her so much. No one understood me as well as she did.

“Oh, Liv! It was the most incredible night I’ve ever had, I swear!”

“More incredible than this afternoon! I don’t even know how you had the strength to move after such a marathon.”

I burst out laughing. To hear her, it wasn’t normal. Still, I felt healthy and radiant, still perched on my little cloud, the sky vaguely darkened by murder all the same. But I had always had this natural ability to elude the most traumatic events. From now on, I consider this ability an opportunity. Olivia had no idea of any of this, and it relieved me that she wasn’t involved in this whole story. Nevertheless, the events of the day deserved some apologies.

“I’m so sorry for what happened this morning, Liv, I don’t understand what got into me.”

“You know, we almost went home. But Eric thought it was wrong to slip away without warning, so we went out for a good half hour and, on the way back… I thought the house was going to collapse!”

“Oh my God!”

“Yes, I was super embarrassed for you. As for Eric, he was furious. But I’ll tell you, I didn’t see anything unhealthy there, of course, I’d have preferred not to hear anything, but how happy you seemed in your enjoyment, my dear!”

Olivia chuckled in endless laughter. Terribly embarrassed, I ended up imitating her. I hadn’t realised how grotesque the situation was. Luckily it was in Olivia’s character to play it down, but I doubted Eric had taken it so well. But anyway, they really couldn’t say anything. I was home, after all, and no one had asked them to come!

So I quickly forgot my discomfort and went to snuggle up against Thomas. At 6 p.m. they left. Thomas was going to join them but he was still alone with me after a quarter of an hour.

“You had a good day?” he asked me, his face four inches from mine, his arms encircling my waist.

“Excellent! I could spend many more like it, except for the spectre of death in the parking lot and the extremely embarrassing situation this afternoon, of course.”

“Mmm...yes, maybe…”

“Maybe! They heard us… uh… conclude!”

He laughed for a moment, then his face became serious again with, however, still that ironic grin on the corner of his lips. He was reliving that moment in his head.

“Thomas, I’m not kidding, never again! Next time we’ll wait until we’re alone, okay?”

“As you wish,” he retorted while moving away towards the door, “but I’ll always be there if you need to… conclude.”

This time, I was the one laughing. He kissed me passionately before leaving. Was it possible to feel such great happiness? To show a smile from ear to ear every two seconds? To blush with excitement after each mental re-watching of the film of your intimate moments?

Still, the image of the man in the parking lot came back to me like a boomerang, a shadow lurking in a nook, ready to pop into any thought. I quickly consulted the latest news in the local newspaper online. There wasn’t any information on the discovery of the body with half of its head missing. However, there was an article on murder with completely similar characteristics, with the difference that the body had been found in Epping Forest. Unless the headless man had moved forty miles away postmortem, he couldn’t really be the same guy. After a few clicks on other sites without the slightest discovery, I decided to stop there and try to forget this tragedy. I wanted, without constraint, to taste the joys of a beautiful love story. And not without a certain selfishness, I felt I deserved it.

Around 8 p.m., Sam came home and I had a terrible time hiding my new joy. In addition, I constantly had the impression of having the word deflowered marked on the forehead. He had finally gone to bed early. Clearly preoccupied, he hadn’t asked me any questions about my weekend, which came in handy considering the nervous smile I always put on when I happened to lie.