Available Darkness Season 1

grabbed the change jar and dumped its contents onto their unmade bed.
    Leave it alone. He would never do this to you.
    Her hand waved through the cool sea of silver and copper until she found what she was looking for. A single brass-colored key that looked as if it had never been used. She went back into the closet.
    Don’t do it.
    The voice was insistent, but not very convincing.
    She inserted the key. A latch clicked inside.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — John and Hope

    John

    The historic district of St. Augustine was charming; goth eaves arching over the worn, but still mostly gorgeous, moldings of row upon row of peeling Victorians. Street parking was scant in the overbuilt and overcrowded quarter, and unfortunately for the residents, a steady sea of tourists swallowed the majority of available spaces, leaving locals to hitch it several blocks from their mortgages.
    Any other day, and the agitation would’ve creased his brow as usual, but John knew the morning’s half mile walk past homes turned into bed and breakfast spots, interspersed with homes in various states of renovation, would give him an advantage. Hope would never see him point his car west and away from the restaurant.
    He’d have to be quick. His shift started at 10 a.m. and he couldn’t risk being late and having someone call home. He felt the swell of Hope’s suspicions, despite her best efforts. Even if he hadn’t been hyper sensitive to human emotions, which he was, her discomfort was clear. They knew one another well, but John knew Hope like the rising tide of his every breath.
    Guilt tried to set up residence in his mind, but he was quick to evict it. Deception was necessary—no woman could ever love the monster he had once been. Certainly not a woman as sweet and kind as Hope.
    It wasn’t as if he’d sold her on a lie without a center of truth. The John she knew was as real as any other part of him. It was the him he strived to be. The idealized version of himself, freed from his alien instincts and inhuman hunger. He was, by most accounts, the man Hope had fallen in love with—or at least he thought he had been. But then the doorbell rang this morning turning nightmares into reality.
    Had he really killed someone without knowing it?
    Perhaps this John was a guise even to himself.
    That was exactly what he intended to find out.
    John circled his intended block twice, never moving his eyes from the rearview for longer than a second. He couldn’t afford to be followed. He did as usual, swinging the car into the U-Store-It complex, punching his pass code into the dingy aluminum box, then waited for the black metal gate to lurch open and invite him inside.

    * * * *

    Hope

    Hope turned the key and opened the trunk filled with John’s buried past. The smell of cedar brought back memories of her childhood and a giant chest her mother had owned. She almost smiled.
    The contents were neatly stacked—bound journals, a metal lock box, and a red scarf, obviously a woman’s.
    Whose scarf is this?
    She wondered if John was still holding a torch for someone else, and felt the cruel blade of betrayal, even though this was scant evidence at best.
    Hope heard the creak of a floorboard, and jumped, startled, dropping the keys into the trunk with a dull thudding chime. Her heart pounded as she imagined John entering the room and catching her in the act. But he wasn’t in the room. It was probably just the sound of the house settling, she figured.
    She caught her breath and fished the keys from the bottom of the trunk. Her hand brushed a stack of five journals, all in surprisingly pristine condition. The whisper inside her wasn’t shy.
    Shut the trunk and leave John’s past where it belongs—in the past. If he wanted to share it with you, he would have.
    But he hadn’t.
    And why not?
    What’s he hiding?
    Okay, but quick.
    She grabbed the book on top of the stack, a black leather tome with a crimson red strap.
    Her heartbeat sped up as she unfastened the cover and cracked the book open.
    The pages weren’t filled with John’s careful block letters, though it was clearly his writing. The flowing strokes looked as though they’d been scribbled in a rush, despite entries that went on for pages. All 200 pages of the book were packed with writing, and all of it in an odd language. She’d read and seen enough during her years to think she’d recognize most languages in print. She wouldn’t understand them, of course, but she’d at least have an