Dust

XLIII

Shi and I were forced to leave Gael behind at the bar, and walk awkwardly home with Kip. It was convenient, I guess, to have him in case we got lost, but the strange way he kept sideways glancing at us made me beyond uncomfortable. Something tells me he knows more than he's letting on; I don't want to believe it, but I can't shake the feeling in the depths of gut.

Now, I stand in the Echeart's kitchen yet again, impatiently tapping my foot as—you guessed it—Shi digs through more foodstuffs. I've told him about five hundred times that we should probably go and look for that basement Gael mentioned, just to get ahead of the game, but I get the feeling he can't hear me over his rather aggressive rummaging.

Thankful the rest of the family is nowhere near us and therefore can't hear or see the situation, I step forward to grab Shi's elbow. "Shi. Have you heard a word I said?"

He steps back from the refrigerator, and to both my surprise and disgust, has a handful of raw ground beef in his hands. "Hmm?" he says, as if the fact that raw meat is sticking to his lips is not unusual at all.

"What the heck!" I exclaim, swatting his hand. The meat falls to the floor with a sickening flop, making me cringe as it makes contact. Exhaling through gritted teeth, I bend to clean the mess up, muttering to the hunger-ridden werewolf in front of me: "Raw meat isn't good for you—"

"No, no, it's not good for you," Shi corrects, as I walk around him to throw the stuff in the sink. I hear him pushing aside bottles in the fridge and approach him again, shutting it in his face. His eyes narrow. "Come on, Gemma, please don't be the health guru mom."

"I am not being a health guru mom," I counter. "I am simply helping a friend from gorging himself for the stupid excuse of a full moon."

"It's not a stupid excuse. It's quite a valid reason."

"Yadda, yadda—that's all I hear. Now wash your hands and come with me; we should have a look at that basement, shouldn't we?"

Shi groans, but nevertheless ambles over to the sink to wash the assortment of substances off of his hands—from my vantage point, I can see the remnants of the raw beef, potato chips, some more of the same crackers from earlier, and some other unidentifiable crumbs. All of it makes me shudder. At the moment, I don't think I have ever been more glad to be born into my species and not any other. "Ah, the basement," Shi replies, wiping his hands off on a cloth. "Usually the scariest place in all houses. Gotta love 'em."

"Uh huh," I say, then waltz out of the kitchen, going in search of the basement. Before me is the living room, with the couch I spent a few hours rotting my brain on, the staircase beside it. Ignoring the back deck to my left, I tour around the living room, where three doors are installed.

Not hesitating, I go for the first one, nearest the living room television. "Nope. Closet."

Shi checks the one in the middle. "Garage."

"Wait—they have a car?" I ask, thinking about all the time I've spent walking from this house to the main street.

Shi still has his head poked through the door's opening. "An old sedan, yeah, and a motorcycle," he replies, shutting it again. Gesturing towards the last door, he says, "This must be the winner, then."

I allow Shi the honors; his hand grapples around the handle as he cranks it and pushes the door in. We squeeze into the doorway, looking down towards a set of unfinished stairs. They curve around a corner, leading down towards the unknown. "Ominous," remarks Shi, switching an overhead light on. "That's better. Well, ladies first, Gemma."