Monthly Bonus Content #2—Skeletons in the Closet... (Nate Version) (Patreon)

Hollow’s Peak feels far from hollow tonight. With a full moon beaming an eerie corn-coloured light down on the clearing, it adds a naturally terrifying ambience to the decorations strewn about the trees and glade.

Plastic skeletons hang limply from trees, their rubber hands swinging in the breeze as though ushering guests further along the temporary gravel path that winds through the grass. Faux-spider webs add a hazy gauze to the surrounding area, backlit by the glow of purple and green lanterns that dot the broken fence herding people into an orderly queue.

There’s an appropriate amount of ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahhs’ from the townsfolk, but a shiver creeps down my spine like spiders crawling down each vertebrae. I’ve seen too much and experienced too much in these woods to ever trust them again.

Nate’s arm wraps around me, drawing me closer to his side. His warmth envelops me like a shield that I relax into.

“This is supposed to be fun. You do realise that?” he teases with a half-smile that verges on a smirk.

I purse my lips as we shuffle forwards in the queue of people waiting to enter the graveyard, where the true horrors await—at least according to the signs that dot the path—and all only for a small fee. “Considering there are at least a hundred people currently actively trying to hunt me down, you can understand why I might be a little nervous.”

He sighs, kissing my temple. My eyes flutter closed at the gentle contact, the familiar press of his lips enough to calm the rattle in my bones.

“I’m sorry. I only suggested we come tonight because I thought it might be fun to do something away from…work,” he says, leaning into me. “Do you want to go home?”

I shake my head, sliding my hand into his free one and squeezing it. “No. It’s nice to spend some time just us.” I notice a few people eye us in the queue, immediately whispering to their friends. “Well, sort of just us.”

Something buzzes next to my hip, and Nate lets out a groan before dragging his phone out of his pocket. He spends at least forty seconds angrily punching his fingers on the screen with muttered soft curses before his brows arch with relief.

They tighten into a knot again almost instantly.

He steps away, his arm falling from around me as he stares with precise intent at his screen.

The empty space beside me is instantly chill.

My shivering returns. “Is everything all right?”

His gaze sweeps up from the phone, catches my eyes and then instantly snaps away. He shoves his phone in his jeans and swallows hard. “I need to go for a while.”

“What?” I blurt out, my hands falling heavily to my sides. “But this was supposed to be our—”

“I know.” His voice has a sharpness to it that cuts through my words. “But someone—something has come up. I just…I need to go.”

For such a tall man, he slips through the queue and is lost to the shadows so easily, all before I can even manage to form a reply.

The sudden attention of a dozen eyes sink against me. Whispers echo from the crowd as they all begin wondering why I’ve been abandoned before even making it to the main event.

I kind of wish one of those whispers held an answer.

If it had been mission-related, I know he would have told me. If it was personal…well, there’s still a lot about Nate buried beneath the surface. He’s like those old tomes he values so much—bursting with so much knowledge and memory, but all tightly bound by a cover of fear he won’t let me open.

Shrugging the thought off, I stand taller, my gaze piercing into the night where he’d disappeared to.

I follow after him.

-

An owl hoots from above, seeming to signal a path through the trees. The harvest light of the moon highlights Nate’s boot prints as I go. Either he didn’t think I’d follow or didn’t mind that I would. It’s difficult to decide which as I follow them over bracken and muddied puddles.

My steps slow as voices whisper through the branches.

When I recognize the deep, rich cadence of Nate’s sultry voice, a rush of uneasy prickles bite across my skin, but I push on into a patch of deeper shadow and peer around a tree.

It’s definitely Nate stood at the cliff’s edge, the breeze caressing his hair as it blows about his face, getting so much longer than when I first met him. His hands are resting on the arms of someone only a couple of inches from him.

A pool of something vile and acid pours into my chest at the way he’s smiling at them. It’s the same way he smiles at me.

And that’s when my blood freezes.

Because he is smiling at me. Yet, I’m right here.

So how am I there?!

My brain fights with the reality of what I’m witnessing, while my heart battles with the sight of Nate leaning in close to whisper something gently in my echo’s ear. I don’t know whether to look away or march out there and push my apparent doppelganger off the cliff.

My laughter spills out from my echo self across the scene in response to whatever he had whispered before it smooths into a velvety purr I didn’t know I was even capable of.

And my indecision dissolves.

My hands fist at my sides as I take one step out, only to draw to a sudden halt as Nate—who’d been so softly smoothing the doppelganger’s arms—suddenly grips tight and twists the echo’s arm up behind their body.

The two are pressed chest to chest, but there is nothing but anger and revulsion casting dark shadows across Nate’s face now.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know?” he hisses.

The doppelganger’s expression morphs from pain to a tight smile as they shrug. “I thought I’d take my shot.”

Nate leans in slowly with just the merest flash of fangs bared. “Your shot missed.”

Both of them snap glances in my direction as I step out of my hiding place. I didn’t even realise I’d moved.

I clear my throat as I glance over the pair. “I do so hate to interrupt whatever…this is but does someone want to tell me what the HELL IS GOING ON?!” My voice pitches, tearing through the night’s calm and seeming to make the trees quake as a gust of wind rushes through them.

The fury drains from Nate’s face as he pushes my echo self away from him and smiles at me, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It seems this shapeshifter thought I would believe they were really you and give up all the Agency’s secrets.”

“Not all of them,” the shapeshifter interrupts as they brush themself down and rub at their arm. “Just a few little ones maybe.”

Nate shoots them a glare that makes my blood freeze. “I’ll call in the rest of Unit Bravo to have them taken in.”

They roll their eyes. “Can’t you just let me go? It’s not like you told me anything.”

“You tried, and that’s serious enough,” he replies.

The shapeshifter’s head tilts with an unnatural crack as they stare over Nate with growing interest. “Or I could just be you and tell them not to bother.” Before either of us can move, the shapeshifter snaps a hand out with lightning speed and grips his wrist.

My breath sinks into the sudden pit in my stomach as I watch the shapeshifter’s face waver and twist from my features into the form of Nate—a face that I’ve grown to care for so deeply. Their body draws tall, stretching and contorting until it matches that of the vampire beside them, right down to the slight stoop of his shoulders and the depth of his eyes.

It’s horrifically enthralling to watch—like a macabre nightmare I just can’t look away from.

The shapeshifter sucks in a long draw of air and lets it out slowly, as though getting used to a new set of lungs. Their exhale sounds just like Nate’s.

“You know, human,” they say, and my stomach lurches at hearing those words through a voice I’ve come to know so intimately. “When I transform into someone through touch, I not only gain their shape but some of their strongest memories too.” They give a sickly-sweet smile that looks like they might throw up than actually be overcome with happiness. “Nearly all his memories are of you.”

Nate’s whole body tenses, even his fingers flexed to their limit. “That’s enough.”

“But there are a few buried much, much deeper in here,” they continue through Nate’s command, tapping a long finger to their temple, a few wavy locks of dark hair curling around the gesture. They straighten up and grin widely at Nate before clicking their tongue. “Tut, tut, Agent. Someone’s been a very naughty vampire—”

“I said enough!” It’s rare to hear Nate shout, so that startles us both, but the flash of fear that spreads like a crack of webs across his expression is something I’ve seen more and more of late.

He turns his whole body to me with a wobbly smile quivering across his lips. “Go back to the party. I’ll be with you after the others have seen to them.”

My gaze slides behind him. “You mean seen to the shapeshifter that just made a dash for it over the cliff edge?”

“What?” He swings back around, almost toppling over the grassy ledge himself as he lets out an annoyed huff.

I walk to his side and stare into the plunging darkness below. “Do you think they survived?”

“Yes…unfortunately,” he breathes out.

I keep my focus straight ahead and risk asking, “Are we going to talk about what they just said?”

His fingers find mine in the darkness, shivering and cold, and I wrap my hand around his. “Eventually.” He looks at me with an expression so shaken that it makes my entire being ache for him. “I promise I will.”

“Then let’s go back to the party,” I say, tugging on his hand to lead him away. “I think we could both do with some new memories.”

We walk hand-in-hand back towards the cackles and howls of the Halloween-costumed actors dotted about Hollow’s Peak, allowing the sounds to fill the heavy silence that lingers between us as we go.

--

Soooooo long, sorry! :D I tried to really rein it in at the end before it became a novella, hehe!

Also, next month's scenario for N and the MC will be full of happy, sweet romance to make up for all the angsty pain I've put them through in these past few scenarios, lol!