Dark Secrets (Dark Heritage #1)

by Samantha Hoffman

  Chapter Two

  The door slamming shut woke me later, and I realized that Alan and Susan were home early. As their three and a half year old daughter Jessica screeched with delight, I jumped to my feet, searching for Two Socks. He couldn’t be in the house or they’d be angry with me, and I definitely didn’t want a fight. Especially after the day I’d had.

  Two Socks chirped from the window, and I saw him perched on one of the oak tree limbs. He was licking himself, almost as if he was too busy to pay me any attention, and I rushed to the window. He was out of my reach, but that didn’t stop me from trying to grab him. He stopped licking himself long enough to look up at me, but he went back to what he was doing without giving me a second glance.

  “Two Socks,” I whispered. “Come here, now. Do you wanna get me in trouble?”

  I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get down himself, and I didn’t want to risk him falling and getting hurt. He meant too much to me, so hopefully I could catch him, close the window, and hide him in my room until tonight when I could sneak him out without being seen. My fingertips brushed his fur, and he pulled farther onto the branch. I got the feeling that he was daring me to come out after him, which I was kind of tempted to do.

  I climbed up onto the windowsill, and swung my legs out onto the oak tree’s branch. It wobbled, but it held steady. It was nearly a foot in diameter, and I was sure it could hold twice my weight without a problem, so it wasn’t the branch I was worried about; it was the fall to the ground if I slipped.

  The breeze rustled the tree, and my branch swayed beneath me. I clutched onto it for dear life, but Two Socks didn’t look the slightest bit concerned. He just watched me with his amber-colored eyes, waiting for me to do something. When the wind stopped, I sat up on the branch and reached for him with an exasperated growl. “Two Socks come here!”

  He growled deep in his throat, startling me. I’d never heard him make a sound like that before, and when I looked up, I noticed someone staring at me from across the street. He was maybe two or three years older than me, and he was a couple of inches taller than six feet in height, making him almost a foot taller than me.

  His hair was dark brown and long, flopping onto his forehead and covering one eye that, even from this distance, I could tell was a very pale, light blue color. He was incredibly muscular, to the point where he looked like a steroid using football player. He crossed his arms and just stared at me, sending shivers down my spine.

  There was a knock on my bedroom door, and I looked over my shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Momma says dinner is ready!” Jessica said through the door, giggling.

  “I’ll be right down, Jessica,” I said, inching my way back to the window. When I dropped back into my room, Two Socks jumped effortlessly to the branch below him, and then to the next, and then to the ground. He flicked his tail as he trotted off, disappearing from view. I shut my window a little harder than necessary and when I looked back up, the guy with the pale blue eyes was gone.

  I headed downstairs to the dining room, trying not to think about the vanishing guy with the pale blue eyes. He wasn’t dead–I wasn’t sure how I knew that; I just did– but normal people didn’t just vanish into thin air like that. I was still thinking about him when I saw everyone sitting at the table, waiting for me. Susan looked annoyed, but Alan gave me a smile.

  “Ronnie, how was your day?” Alan asked as I sat down. “Did you do anything interesting?”

  Does talking to dead people count? “Not really. I got a B+ on my math final.”

  Susan frowned. “Why not an A?”

  I gritted my teeth so I didn’t say something mean, but Alan came to my rescue. “Susan, a B+ is pretty dang good I think. I know I didn’t do that good on my math finals. Any of them.” He looked at me again. “Anything else happen today?”

  “I think we might have new neighbors,” I said, cutting my steak.

  “Oh?” Susan asked politely. “What makes you think that?”

  “When I was upstairs in my room, I looked out the window, and there was a boy I’ve never seen before. He was standing on the other side of the road and he was watching me. It was kind of weird.”

  Alan looked concerned, but Susan just looked like she didn’t believe me. “We don’t have any new neighbors, Veronica. Nobody’s moved into the neighborhood for over two months. I think we would have noticed someone,” she said in that tone that made her seem mature, and made me seem like a spoiled child. I hated that tone.

  “I saw him,” I said, getting defensive in an instant. “He was standing across the street, with light blue eyes and dark brown hair. He was huge, like a football player, and all he did was stand there and watch me.”

  “Why would he watch you?” Susan asked. “I’m sure he has better things to do with his time than spy on a boring teenage girl surfing the internet. Now, just eat your dinner, and stop this talk of people that aren’t there,” she said, a little harsher than necessary. She went back to cutting Jessica’s food for her, and I sighed.

  As my foster parents, they would have had access to my files before taking me, and I knew what they said. A lot of couples refused to take me in because I thought I saw people that weren’t there. They didn’t want me near their children in case I snapped and seriously hurt someone.

  Alan and Susan were willing to take a chance on me because they didn’t have kids of their own, but that wasn’t the case anymore. With Jessica in the house, I got the feeling that Susan was waiting for any opportunity to pack my bags and throw me out. Seeing people that weren’t there would work perfectly for her. I already had a history of seeing dead people, and with my mystery stalker guy that she didn’t believe existed, I’d given her that opportunity.

  “Now Susan, if Ronnie says there was a boy watching her through her window, then I think we should be concerned. Maybe he was checking out the house so he could break in later to rob us. Or maybe he was looking for Jessica’s room. Did you think about that?”

  Susan frowned. “Alan, I highly doubt–”

  “Suzy,” he said, using her nickname like he did when pleading with her, “We can’t take the chance with something like this. What if that boy means us harm? Do you really want something to happen to Jessica just because you don’t believe Ronnie?”

  I knew he won the argument. Susan rarely won when he used her nickname, or when Jessica was concerned, and I could see her impatience fading. Even though she really disliked me, Jessica meant the world to her, and she was a good mother. To her daughter. Not one belonging to someone else. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I’ll go and talk to the neighbors after dinner and ask if any of them have a relative staying with them and, if not, I’ll call the police and make a report. Now, let’s finish eating.”

  An hour later, I opened the window for Two Socks, who’d climbed up to the oak tree and was meowing for me, and I saw Alan walking across the street. He knocked on the neighbor’s door, and it opened to reveal an elderly neighbor whose name I’d never learned. He leaned on his cane, and Alan had to practically shout to be heard. “Sir, do you have any children staying with you right now?”

  The elderly man shouted something in response, but I’d turned up my music to drown it out. Now that Alan had suggested the boy might be a relative visiting from out of town, I realized how foolish it was to mention it. I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of that before. I was probably the only girl in the world that jumped right to murderous, stalking, serial killer. Anyone else would have assumed he was just visiting, but not me.

  Nope; I was just abnormal like that.

  Alan headed over to the next neighbor, and must not have gotten a response he liked, because he looked slightly troubled. I wondered if my first thoughts about the boy were right. He certainly didn’t look harmless; I could see him as a monster that liked to torture or kill people for his own pleasure.

  Alan returned later, and I looked up when he knocked on my open door. “Hey, I talked to the neig
hbors. None of them have any male relatives staying with them, and we’ve gotten no new neighbors in some time–”

  “Alan, I saw him!”

  He put up his hands to stop me before I could go off on another of my defensive rants. “I know. So did the neighbors. They saw him watching our house earlier, and one of them even called to report him. That might be why he left when he did. Ronnie, if you see this boy again, I want you to call the police right away, understand?”

  I nodded and he turned to leave. “Alan?” He looked at me again. “Thanks for believing me.”

  He sighed. “You’re such a good kid, Ronnie. I’m sorry more people don’t see that. You’ve been given up on so many times, and it’s not fair to you. You deserve better than that.”

  I was touched, because I didn’t think anyone had ever said something so nice to me before, at least, not since before my mom died. “Thank you,” I said, biting my lip to keep from crying. When he leaned over and kissed my forehead, I could feel my resolve to not cry breaking, and I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see.

  “Goodnight, Ronnie.”

  He closed the door behind him, and I turned off my bedside lamp, bathing my room in near total darkness. Two Socks climbed out from under the bed where he’d hidden when Alan came in, and jumped onto the bed next to me, curling up on my pillow. He chirped once, and I nuzzled his neck. “Don’t snore,” I told him, pulling the covers up over us both.

  Then I slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep, only to be awoken by growling some time later. When I opened my eyes, Two Socks was standing on my chest, his back was arched, and he was growling deep in his chest, almost like a wild animal.

  When I looked up over Two Socks’ back, I froze with a scream building in my throat. His back was to me, but I could clearly see a large, muscular figure moving around my room, searching silently through my desk and drawers. When Two Socks started to growl louder, the boy’s entire body tensed, and he slowly turned to face my bed.

  It was the boy that was watching me earlier, and half of his face was bathed in the moonlight, highlighting a square jaw and five o’clock shadow. That wasn’t what I noticed most though. His pale blue eyes were glowing in the darkness, almost as if his eyes were on fire. Then he hunched his shoulders, dropped down into a crouch, and growled like a dog.

  I opened my mouth and screamed.