SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 159

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Nine

I was beginning to realize that I had a gift.

Well, not a gift, really... more like a talent. Yes. I, Aerin Vanderhill, had a talent and it was a talent I hated with every fiber of my being, because unlike good talents--such as the ability to sing, or draw, or walk in high heels--my talent was a little more... unfortunate.

You see, my talent was my penchant for constantly finding myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was a talent I had acquired in my youth, the night Lara and I were presumably kidnapped, a talent I had apparently been unable to shake in adulthood and beyond.

Whenever something bad happened, there I was, ready to take the blame for something I'd had no part in. Of course, sometimes I did have a part in it, but most of the time, I didn't.

This was one of those times.

"There's nothing out there," Richard growled, shaking his jacket off as he came back inside the house and closed the front door; behind me and hovering all around were worried faces full of apprehension, bloodlust, and anger. "The others are still looking but I didn't see or smell anything out of the ordinary."

"Something was out there," I said sharply, squeezing my cast with shaking fingers; I stared him down when his eyes met my own. My skin was still crawling. "I've heard that sound before. Back in Italy, right before the attack on the bridge... and also back before I was first turned. I was hearing them before the month I can't fully remember."

Although I could remember some of it. I was simply emotionally disconnected from my attachment to most of those memories, as if they weren't real but nightmares I'd conjured up.

"What did you see, exactly?" Richard muttered, pulling out his phone. "The security system Bash paid for is fully running now and nobody received an alert of any sort. Describe what you saw and where you saw it so I can look back over the security footage."

"There was a definite flicker of movement between some of the trees to my left," I told him, looking at Louise and Randal, who seemed unconvinced and slightly wary of my claims. "Lou and I went out to have a talk with each other, bumped into Mr. Singh, and then I saw movement... right before the noise."

"Nothing could have gotten in," Leo muttered, swaggering forward and setting a rather steady hand on my shoulder. "The security system is fully operational now, so its possible that the noises you heard were the security cameras moving at their scheduled times."

I said nothing, fidgeting with my cast, feeling something off in the core of my gut.

"Anything?" I asked Richard, watching as he tapped at his phone with squinted eyes.

"No," he said, glancing at me. "These cameras did catch an odd flicker of light near the trees you mentioned, but there's a small bird bath in that very spot so its possible you simply saw light being reflected off water."

For emphasis he turned the phone around and showed me the footage. I saw myself and Louise standing there talking with Randal, and then the flicker which looked to me like a wash of moonlight glinting off of said bird bath.

I frowned, looking closer, then tilted my head as the footage suddenly began to shift, jerking and cranking with no sound.

"What's happening?" I asked, pointing at the screen. "Why's it juddering like that?"

"Scheduled movement," he gruffly told me, and I swallowed, unconvinced. "The noises you heard were most likely the security cams running through their scheduled courses."