I’d enjoyed being married, so why hadn’t I found someone when Serena hadn’t wasted any time?
Oh God, oh God…
There’s really something different about me, isn’t there?
We finished our walk in record time, so I put Hades and Persephone in their kennel and went inside the RV with Morrigan to sleep off the booze.
Sleep didn’t come.
I checked my phone and found a bunch of new pictures. Artemis—pale and perfect—with little rosebud lips and a shock of downy hair that Taggart probably believed looked just like his. I didn’t tell him it would likely get rubbed off or fall out and then come in a totally different shade a few weeks later. Let him have the fantasy.
Artemis Kivi Wilder. Wonder where they got the name Kivi? It was cute, but I’d never seen it before. Maybe they’d mistyped Kiki or Kiwi?
Despite being happy that I could spend more time here with Sebastian and Molly, my chest truly ached from wanting to hold the new baby. It had been so long since I’d had a child in my arms. When Sadie was born, I’d been so scared. I felt young and dumb. Completely unequal to the task of keeping that tiny perfect human alive.
But babies are funny in that they have the purifying power of a five-alarm fire. Everything unimportant and unnecessary burned away around my daughter, and all that was left was this inescapable desire to protect and nurture and love her with everything I had until the day I died.
I still felt the same, though I never imagined I’d get cut off like this. I stretched my hand out and it met Morrigan’s velvety soft ear. She nuzzled closer in her sleep.
Before my last deployment, I’d been a happy, handsome man. Whenever I was home, I made pancakes and drove kids to pediatrician appointments and preschool and dance. At night, after making love with my wife, I reveled in the fact that my whole family was asleep under one roof. Life was complete in ways I didn’t learn to appreciate until much later.
Family days were halcyon days, the memories summer-scented, like sun-dried linens and the fragrance of newly mown grass. I’d have given anything to go back, but I was a monster now, and monsters needed to live alone.
Except…
Sebastian didn’t think I was a monster. He wanted to be friends with me. And Sebastian definitely needed looking after because his mother was a piece of work.
God knew there were far worse monsters in the world than me.
I set an alarm in case Morrigan didn’t wake me and drifted off thinking about the scenes Hades and Persephone were filming the following day.
Was I their PA now that they were going to be internet personalities? Was I their emotional support biped?
If I was, I needed to stop drinking so much.
My eyelid drooped until I couldn’t keep my eye open any longer.
Sleep claimed me.
The fog hadn’t burned off yet when I woke. It hung thick in the unmoving air. I got the animals up, fed and watered, and then loaded them into the van to head for the staging area. They were supposed to film a scene with two of the werewolf boys, but I didn’t know if they could do it until they had better visibility.
On the way, I noticed the golf cart was missing from Sebastian’s RV, but Molly stood on the porch on the phone speaking urgently with someone. I guessed Sebastian was on the receiving end of the call.
In the clearing, more people milled around than I’d ever seen before. Pulling as close as I could get to the pen, I had to slow twice to ask folks to move out of my way. People seemed to be huddling in groups of three and four, entirely focused on their phones.
It was unnaturally quiet when I got out of the van.
Deacon strode over to me, his expression tightly guarded. “You were with Sebastian Keye last night, weren’t you? Is he at your place now?”
“No. I walked him home around one. Why?”
“How’d he seem?”
His question registered as odd and invasive. “What do you mean, how did he seem? He seemed fine. We were both a little drunk. I walked him back to his rig, and he went inside. What happened?”
“Did he take anything? Pills? Did he snort anything? Did he smoke weed?”
“Hell no. I don’t allow drugs around. They're either illegal or dangerous for the dogs.”
“Craig’s going nuts.” He keyed the microphone on his headset. “No, we haven’t…Not yet, no…She doesn’t know where he is either… How should I know? You knew this would happen. Don’t fucking blame me. He just showed up, and the kid’s not with him. No, I haven’t called search and rescue. Do you want me to?”
Things sounded alarming. “Deacon—”
“I told you so.” He ripped his headset off. “I told him. It’s always some kind of fucking drama with Keye.”
“Deacon, I haven't seen anything like that from Sebastian.”
“He's probably on his best behavior with you, be's an actor. They're all egomaniacs. Anyway, Gina and Marlon worked with him in Beyond the Night and they said Keye’s a used-up cunt of a kid star with delusions of—”
“Knock it off.” I glared at him. “He’s been a nice kid around me.”
“That’s exactly the problem.” He poked me in the chest. “He’s not a kid anymore, but he can’t stop acting like one.” People were staring at us, so I pulled him around to the back of my van.
“Lower your voice,” I said. “And for the record, if you poke me again, you won’t be pulling a hand back. Got it?”
He scrubbed his face with both hands. “Sorry. This is a mess—a seven figure disaster—and it gets worse with every minute we can’t find Sebastian Keye.”
“What do you believe is going on here, Deacon?” I opened both cargo doors so we could talk with a modicum of privacy. “Did Sebastian miss a call for this morning?”
Deacon's PA approached. “Um, sir? I have something.”
“Tell me.”
The kid cleared his throat. “The video everyone’s talking about was uploaded to YouTube last night. It went viral straightaway.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Deacon said disdainfully. He pointed at me. “Is he in it?”
“He didn’t use his phone around me,” I said. “We were too busy with a drunken game of two truths and a lie.”
“Jesus, fuck.” Deacon swore. “Just what I needed to hear.” With an unhappy expression, Deacon took the phone from him and we watched. A younger Sebastian filled the tiny screen. “This is from when Keye was a kid.”
“I know, watch the rest of it,” the PA advised. “Watch the whole thing. It’s not very long.”
“This is why everyone’s so—” Deacon clenched his teeth. “What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know, sir. Looks like a party.”
“Aw, hell.” The clip seemed to show a private home. The quality was poor, like a surveillance video or maybe some kind of a nanny cam. Sebastian looked so young. He always did; that was why he could play teenagers, but in the video he was a teen. Sixteen, maybe even younger.
His face lit up as he talked to some guy twice his age. He was definitely trying too hard. The man was probably industry. He had lots of hair, unnaturally perfect teeth, and a good tan. The camera loved both their faces.