I struggled to my feet and turned to see Jared, tall and solid, on the curb where I had just been standing. My breath caught at the sight of him. The breeze tousled his dark hair. His full mouth curved into the suggestion of a smile, just enough for a dimple to appear at its corner. He stepped off the curb and walked to me, an animalistic grace controlling his every move.
Looking down into my eyes, he asked, “Do you trust me?”
I smiled warily. “Shouldn’t I?”
“Close your eyes,” he commanded gently.
I wanted to ask why, but found it impossible to question him. Unable to disobey, I let my eyelids close and lifted my face toward the sun. Its warmth soothed me, but Jared’s presence comforted me as well, lulled me into a state of abandon.
“It won’t hurt, Lorelei. I’ll make sure of it.”
I frowned in question. “What won’t hurt?”
Before he could answer, I felt the impact.
Something very large and very heavy slammed into my body. It ripped me from gravity’s selfish hold, and I flew through the air an unfathomable distance. My body quaked violently when it landed, broke as it slid into a lamppost.
I waited a short time before asking, “Can I open my eyes now?”
I heard Jared kneel beside me. “Yes.”
I peeked and then laughed at the glittering, magical air around me. “This is strange.”
He smiled at me again, a smile that seemed to know everything unknowable. “Yes, it is.” He placed a careful hand on my chest. “Close your eyes again.”
“Uh-uh. Not this time.”
“Please.”
I tried to shake my head, but my neck seemed to be broken. Curiosity drew my brows together. “Am I dying?”
“Yes,” he said, regret softening his voice.
“How odd. I didn’t think it would feel like this. And it’s the anniversary of my parents’ disappearance.”
“I know.” He seemed sad and I wondered why.
As I watched, he lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. Then, after a brief hesitation, he removed his hand from my chest and shook it. He sighed in frustration and watched me a long moment before looking up toward the heavens.
“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking as though sure someone was listening. He glanced back at me. “I’m sorry, Lorelei.” He placed his hand on my chest again. “Please, forgive me.”
I wanted to say I would forgive him anything. I could feel power emanating from him. I could feel the conflict warring inside him, ripping at his resolve. But before I could respond, he closed his eyes again. And in an instant, life began to flow back into me in great, pulsing waves. I gulped huge rations of air as the stifling weakness I felt evaporated. Strength flooded every atom in my body.
I rested a hand on his, and he opened his eyes again. They were ablaze, bright, like fire at midnight. It startled me at first. As he looked on, an electric current passed between us. It rushed over my skin, causing my insides to tingle in almost painful delight. Slowly the fire in his eyes faded to smoldering embers before the deep darkness emerged again.
“Is she gonna be okay?”
The skaters had gathered around, all color drained from their faces.
Jared winked at me before turning to them. He placed a finger over his mouth. “Shhhh,” he whispered.
Their eyes opened and shut as though trying to clear their heads. They stood up straight, then went back to jumping anything unfortunate enough to be in their paths, laughing and shouldering one another as they rolled down the street. The fact that I lay on the pavement after being hit by a truck seemed to have been forgotten.
I beamed at him. “How did you do that?”
A dimple appeared at the side of his mouth. “Magic.”
His eyes sparkled like the air around us, and I had to force myself to focus.
A male voice intruded into my thoughts. “I know a little magic myself.”
I looked up and gasped. Cameron was standing on my other side, aiming a rifle point-blank at Jared’s chest.
Jared raised his hands instantly as if to block the gunfire. “Be still,” he said in a harsh whisper. And the air thickened, the world slowed to a surreal halt, a frozen labyrinth of objects and people—either out of place or out of time, I couldn’t decide.
Despite this, Cameron discharged the rifle. Bullet after bullet collided with Jared’s chest.
I jumped wide-eyed with every shot fired, feeling as though each deafening sound struck me physically. But no bullets hit me. They hit Jared, each round punching through his body.
The shock of witnessing such violence immobilized me. But only for a minute. Instinct took hold. Without thought, I tried to get to my feet, to block the lead from entering Jared’s body. Before I could lift myself off the ground, however, Jared placed his knee on my chest and held me down.
“What are you doing?” I screamed, clawing at his leg, trying to squirm out from under him, to no avail. I turned my head from Jared to Cameron. “Stop!” I tried to be heard above the roar of the gun. “Cameron, please stop!”
When the rifle was spent, an eerie silence echoed off the buildings around us. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung my nostrils and left a smoky trail in the air.
Cameron grinned at Jared. “Be still?” he asked with a chuckle. “That’s the best you got?” He pulled back the bolt and began reloading the rifle. “News flash, Reaper, that crap doesn’t work on me.”
Jared stood and I took the opportunity to scramble out of the way. Then I realized he’d just done the impossible: He stood.
“I wouldn’t say that’s the best I’ve got,” he said with a shrug, “but it impresses the girls.”
“Yeah, so do bottle rockets.”
“There’s no blood.” I stared up at Jared in disbelief, unable to blink, to comprehend what had just happened. “There’s no blood. He just shot you.”
I studied the frozen world around us: A mother peered into a store window as her daughter giggled and licked a dripping ice-cream cone, a sizable dollop inches from the ground. A skateboarder hung suspended in the air, his skateboard clinging to his feet as he jumped a park bench. His friends cheered, their laughter captured in time like a movie on pause. The camera crew across the street was staring as if in shock at a delivery truck as it passed through the intersection.
Still lying on the ground, I looked back at Jared, at the holes the bullets had torn into his chest. Yet he was standing, breathing. None of it made any sense.
Especially the smile on his face.
He eyed Cameron from underneath his lashes, flashed him a menacing grin. Then he changed, almost glowed, became so transparent, the bullets fell through him to land on the ground in a succession of light taps.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he said, becoming solid again. His white T-shirt still bore the holes of its recent abuse, each blackened by the blast of gunpowder. But not even a blush of red stained it.
Cameron sighed as he dropped another shell into the chamber. “I know,” he said in almost bored contemplation. “My manners suck. I like to chalk it up to a dissatisfying childhood.”
“I’d chalk it up to that narcissistic personality disorder laced with a smidgen of schizophrenia. Your mother would be proud.”
Cameron’s head snapped up in disbelief. Anger watered his blue eyes and hardened his strong features as he chambered a shell and again pointed the gun at Jared.
I leapt to my feet. “No, Cameron!”
Without unlocking his gaze, he shoved me roughly back to the earth, too intent on baiting Jared to bother with someone so apparently inconsequential.
“You’ll tell Mom hi for me, won’t you?” Cameron asked as he eased the trigger back. He received only a click for his effort.
“Magic,” Jared said with a wink.
Undeterred, Cameron took the rifle in both hands and swung. But Jared caught it millimeters from his face and slammed it back into Cameron’s jaw. He stumbled back, tested his jaw,
then charged.
The fight that ensued seemed more mystical than real, as though two gods had chosen Earth as their battlefield. Each possessed strength beyond explanation.
I sat horrified. I winced with every throw, tensed with every collision of fist and body. While the earth stood still, a heated battle raged on the quiet streets of Riley’s Switch. And with every swing, my breath caught, certain it would cause the death of one of them.
But the battle raged on. A fine sheen of sweat covered Cameron’s determined face. Smeared blood trickled from his mouth and temple. He fought as if possessed, as if killing Jared were his one and only goal in life and he was more than willing to die in the process of achieving it.
While Jared seemed physically impenetrable, emotionally he was not so tempered. I felt a war within him. I felt it as easily as I could feel heat carried on a wind. Anger and indignation warred with something higher, something more noble, perhaps empathy or compassion.
The skirmish tumbled across the street, where mother and daughter stood frozen. The only sounds I could hear in the stillness were the raspy breaths of the gladiators and the harsh blows of combat. Even the scents of autumn had ceased to exist in the thick air.
Cameron lifted Jared and threw him onto the windshield of a silver Buick. The car dipped then bounced up and froze, distorted in time as though someone had taken a picture when least expected. The windshield splintered into a thousand shards of sparkling glass, yet held in place, creating a glittering mosaic.
Still on the car, Jared kicked when Cameron charged forward, sending him backwards through the store window, the same window mother and daughter stood peering into. He missed the women by inches.
Again, the glass cracked as if aging before my eyes, fissures webbing throughout the pane. A small crunching sound could be heard; jagged edges surrounded the hole his body created, and yet time held it in place.
Jared slid off the car and eyed the opening Cameron’s figure had carved into the window, waiting for his adversary to reappear.
I held my breath, hoping Cameron had been knocked unconscious so the fight would end.
Please, please let it end.
As I watched the window expectantly, I heard a groan from Jared. I looked over at him. He suddenly seemed dizzy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he clutched his stomach and fell to his knees. My heart jumped in alarm. He struggled unsuccessfully to stand, as I ran to him.
I fell to my hands and knees beside him. “Jared, are you okay?” I asked worriedly.
Of course he wasn’t okay. He’d just been thrown into a windshield. Yet he didn’t have a scratch on him. Cameron bled. A lot. Jared obviously did not. Though his skin remained flawless, his face contorted in agony. He grimaced and doubled over again.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Please, Jared. Please let it stop. This is insane.”
But he seemed lost, confused. “What’s happening to me?”
Just then Cameron kicked through the splintered glass, carrying a ragged piece of wreckage he had pulled from inside the store. He stood over us, bloodied, panting hard with each breath.
I looked up at him. “Cameron, stop.”
“Get out of the way, Lorelei,” he said, a hard warning in his tone.
“He’s hurt.”
“Yeah, but it’s still breathing.” He took the makeshift weapon in both hands like a baseball bat.
“What’s happening to me?” Jared put a palm to his head and gritted his teeth. He held his stomach and doubled over for a third time, as if seized by a wave of excruciating pain. “What’s happening?”
“What’s happening?” Cameron asked with a bright smile. “You’re getting your ass kicked, that’s what’s happening. Now, get out of the way, Lorelei.”
“What are you doing to me?” Jared asked, his voice a caustic whisper.
“I just told you, tough guy. I’m kicking your ass. You have a super short attention span.” He leveled a warning glare on me. “I won’t say it again.”
I realized I was crying. Tears blurred the determined face and ice blue eyes staring down at me.
“Put that down, Cameron,” I said between pathetic sobs. “I mean it.”
Frowning in frustration, Cameron grabbed my arm and jerked me back. I fought his hold with every ounce of energy I had, but he was simply too strong. I felt like a gnat fighting a diesel truck. He tossed me aside as easily as tossing paper into a breeze.
Before I could get my footing, Cameron took the board into both hands and swung. It struck Jared on the side of his head, knocking him onto his hands for balance. Jared looked toward the heavens, as if questioning God Himself, then collapsed onto the sidewalk.
When Cameron brought the board to the ready again, I ran at him. I charged with all my might and rammed a shoulder into his side. It surprised him and was enough to knock him off balance. He stumbled just as the world restarted. And it restarted with a vengeance. The force of time bouncing back knocked the breath out of me.
I gasped for air and glanced around. The skateboarder landed perfectly as his friends applauded his feat. The storefront window shifted with the power surge, showering small shards of glass around mother and daughter. They screamed and jumped back. The everyday noises of town replaced the thick void of silence: cars whirring, birds chirping, people talking—the sounds one becomes immune to until they are no longer there. The Buick’s car alarm began blaring too as it bounced back into position.
Behind me, a delivery truck screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection, its tires smoking in protest. The driver jumped out and ran over to where I was lying before. He scanned the area, confused.
“Wow, what happened to you, dude?”
One of the skaters spotted Cameron. He glanced at Jared, then back again. “Hey, man,” he said, showing his palms, “we don’t want any trouble.”
Without another word, the skaters took off while the mother grabbed her daughter and backed away, her eyes wide and wary. I could hardly blame them. Cameron, spattered with blood and debris, held a board as though methodically planning the deaths of anyone within reach.
I started toward Jared, but Cameron grabbed me again.
“Get to my truck,” he ordered, then shoved me in the direction of his pickup parked down the street.
As I stumbled for the kazillionth time that day, fury took hold. A searing heat laced up my spine. My cheeks grew hot with anger. I straightened to my full height—which, admittedly, wasn’t much—and strode back to Cameron, purpose apparent in my every move. I had been shoved once too often that day. Enough was enough.
Though he was much too tall to stand eye-to-eye with, my pissed-off attitude seemed enough to get his attention. I stood in front of him, feet apart, fists on hips, and glared as ferociously as I could.
He pointed a finger at me in warning. “Lorelei—”
“If I get hit,” I said, interrupting whatever dire threat he had in mind, “shoved,” I continued, stepping closer for effect, “or run over one more time today, I swear by all that is holy, I will make it my personal goal in life to have the person responsible sent to prison on charges of kiddie porn.”
Cameron stared at me, annoyance working his jaw. “Please, go to my truck,” he said at last. “It’s … not safe.”
“You’re not safe.” Though I rolled onto my tiptoes, I still missed eye-level contact by over a foot. “And I’m not leaving him.”
“I have no intention of leaving it. Please, just get to my truck.”
A small crowd had gathered and people were beginning to ask questions, but none dared go near Cameron. I could hardly blame them.
“Fine,” I said through my tightened jaw. I leaned in and poked his chest with an index finger. “But don’t shove me again.”
He dropped his make-shift weapon and surrendered with palms up. “You had me at kiddie porn.”
Satisfied, I scooped up my backpack and waited for Cameron. He took hold of Jared’s ankles and dragged him through the glass on the
sidewalk and across the graveled street toward his truck. Their progress made a disturbing crunching sound.
I followed beside them, wanting to help Jared but unsure of what to do. For the first time, blood covered one side of his face, the side Cameron had hit with the store wreckage.
He was bleeding. Why now?
Cameron continued to drag him over the rough, graveled pavement until we arrived at his aging pickup. Rust and splotches of peeling tan and cream-colored paint held it together. A lopsided camper shell sat perched over the bed. The vehicle as a whole looked like it had recently survived a nuclear explosion.
Cameron dropped Jared’s ankles to open the tailgate and camper lid. Inside, crumpled blankets and pillows covered the bed floor. Dirty clothes formed a pile in one corner along with a few empty water bottles, soda cans, and a box of crackers. I glanced at Cameron, wondered how many times he had slept in his pickup. And why.
As he bent to grab Jared, I tossed my backpack in the bed and crawled inside. Cameron straightened.
“Get out of the bed. You can’t stay back here with it.”
“We have to get him to a hospital.” Despite my best efforts, desperation tinged my voice. “And stop calling him an it. He’s a person, Cameron.”
I thought he was going to laugh at me. Then he heard the sirens.
“It’s no more a person than your backpack is. And I was thinking more along the lines of the morgue.” He lifted Jared with little effort and shoved him beside me in the truck.
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Now, get out.” When I refused, he reached in, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me roughly until I stumbled onto the pavement. “Get in the front seat,” he ordered.
My anger ignited again. As he turned to close the tailgate, I swung a fist and hit him on the arm. Though it hardly fazed him, he did gift me with a quick glance.
“I told you not to shove me again.”
“I didn’t shove you,” he said, reaching for the lid of the camper shell. “I dragged you.”
The lid’s hinge stuck on one side. When he reached to release it, I scrambled over the tailgate and back into the bed.
Death and the Girl Next Door Page 6
