Sebastian Bear (complete)

THIRTY-NINE

THIRTY-NINE

Madeline wandered down the stairs an hour later, following the sound of clinking dishes. The entire house was in a state of disarray. There were candles lit along the walls, showcasing a thousand tears and holes. The floor was dark wood, maybe at one point it had held a shine but there was nothing but a matte finish coated in a stampede of muddy boot prints. She found Lucian down the main hall, stirring a small pot of white mash. It smelled like it looked. Madeline stayed silent.

"Stop lurking and sit down," Lucian grumbled. Madeline fought the urge to roll her eyes and slid into a chair. She sat across from a table pushed under a flickering bulb that hung from the ceiling by a wire. The grumpy male turned around with two mismatched bowls, tossing hers rather haphazardly in front of her before taking his gruel across the room to sit in peace. She should've assumed he wouldn't eat with her. Not that she even wanted him to. He was ill-tempered, not that she could even blame him. She thought she might be in a similar way had she grown up in such a nightmare.

Madeline picked up her spoon, moving the white mess across her bowl a couple of times. She was almost scared to taste it. She wasn't sure what it was even but didn't feel confident enough to ask Lucian what he'd invented.

"I never said I was a cook," Lucian informed her curtly from across the room. "Eat it or don't, it's no skin off my back."

"I didn't say anything," Madeline snapped over her shoulder. She was too tired to listen to his temper flairs.

"You didn't have to," Lucian retorted. Madeline didn't respond but let her eyes roll heavily as the near-stranger wouldn't be able to see her with her back turned. She did take a few bites. The dinner was relatively tasteless. It was warm though, which was something that she needed. She finished the bowl within thirty minutes and hurried back to the sanctity of Sebastian's room to avoid any unnecessary conversation with Lucian.

She couldn't help but look through Sebastian's things. There were so many sketches of her in that small table. They were taped up against the back of the door, scenes from her childhood followed by laughing etch of her in junior high, at least that's what it looked like. Sebastian was really very good at drawing, though he had told her that in passing.

Then there were books upon books, all read and reread. The closet was packed with dark clothing that she could only assume meant for him to blend in with the rest of that dark world. She had pulled everything out, touched it all. She needed that feeling of being close to him. He had made her braver once. When she was a child he had taken her out of her sadness with his mere presence alone. She wasn't getting it and it hurt a place deep in her chest. She dropped down on the mattress, it let out a heaving squeak.

She hadn't looked under the bed.

She dropped to the ground and threw the hanging blankets out of sight. She pulled out a large box from its shadowy depths. There were bottles, at least two hundred of them, tiny empty bottles. She made a face, head shaking. What was this?

There was a knock on her door so hard she jumped. She moved toward it, opening it knowing full well who would be on the other side of it.

"Yeah?" She asked him. It was curious how contagious his bad attitude was.

"We are going out at first moon. You need to know how to take care of yourself."

"Okay well, where are you going?" She tried to hide the panic from her voice.

"I plan on being here but there are some things that can't be planned for. Be ready in six hours. You won't want me to be the one waking you up." She took his warning seriously. He turned to leave but she called out to him, gesturing to the box of empty bottles she'd discovered under the bed.