by Traci Finlay
Copyright © 2019 by Traci Finlay
All rights reserved.
Edited by Willow Aster (willowaster.com) and Erica Russikoff (ericaedits.com)
Formatted by Jovana Shirley (unforeseenediting.com)
Cover design by Rena Hoberman (coverquill.com)
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Robert, Robbie, and Andrew
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I was peeling a clementine orange when my brother Ian burst into the kitchen and told me that the monster was gonna get me if I didn’t run now.
It shocked me at first; we hadn’t played that game since we were teenagers. “You’re crazy. We’re grownups, Ian. I’m not going to run for miles and hide in hollow trees like a child, waiting for you to find me. I have better things to do.” I turned back to my orange.
His eyes shone like they did when we were kids and he’d tell me ghost stories by the bonfire in the backyard. “Oh, come on! For old times’ sake. I’m feeling nostalgic.”
“Then go look through your yearbook.”
Ian marched to the table where I was sitting and slapped his hands on it, leaning down and grinning at me. I froze. He did this same thing earlier today, but he certainly wasn’t grinning then—he was screaming at me, and I was screaming back. I realized this was actually the first time he spoke to me since then, and this was obviously his attempt to make up.
My shoulders deflated.
“Come on, Charlotte. It’s my birthday.”
I sighed, and the fact that he actually called me by my name and not male versions like Chuck or Charles like he always did should have been my first indication to stay put. But it was his stupid birthday, and I felt guilty for fighting with him on his birthday. “No script?”
He laughed. “Fine. No script.”
That was fifteen minutes ago, and now here I am, wedged inside an abandoned drainpipe in the middle of nowhere, counting down the minutes until he catches me and I can get the heck out of here.
Round three.
Humiliation is creeping up my spine while I sit here like an idiot, a twenty-four-year-old stuck in a drainpipe. If the neighbors thought we were weird before, I can’t imagine how appalled they’d be now. And even worse for Ian—he’s twenty-nine. I’m more angry than I am claustrophobic, and I’m hella claustrophobic right now.
Happy freaking birthday to my big fucking brother.
A cold breeze prickles my back and sends a chill up my ribs, and I wonder how far the drainpipe goes. And what’s at the other end. And most intriguingly, what’s tickling my shoulder blade. He needs to hurry up.
My quads burn like rodents gnawing at my muscle fibers. I adjust my squat, and now my big toe is bent in such an awkward position that I am envisioning the hyperextension of the tendon. Or ligament. Whichever. Wait, which is which? Ian would make fun of me. You’re all kinds of crazy, Chuck, he’d say, and I wouldn’t complain because Chuck is better than Charles, and he does seem to favor Chuck. I’m reminded how he actually called me Charlotte in the house, and that spooks me. He never calls me by my name unless we’re fighting. Or someone has just been killed.
I left my phone on the table next to my orange, so I can’t even scroll through Instagram while I wait. Not that I could even get it out of my pocket if I did have it. But then I hear it—the distant cracking of the first stick. He’s getting close. The stick-cracking upgrades to footsteps, and he renders a series of irregular pauses while he … I don’t know what. Sniffs the air? Busts out his Charlotte Locator 2000? Whatever it is he does during those spoonfuls of silence is what leads him directly to me. It always has.
Ian promised no script, so all I hear are his footsteps. I close my eyes and imagine his voice when we were kids, reciting his line for round three: I know where you are, Little Spider.
And for a split second, just a second of a second, I wish he would’ve said it. But then his hand locks onto my wrist so tightly that when yanked, it feels like my arm should function better in his grip than in my own shoulder socket.
“Ow!” I scream, and Ian’s threatening growls are interrupted by a hint of laughter.
He pulls again. “What did you do, Charles?” He makes little tugs at my arm, the game momentarily halted and characters set aside since I’m held hostage by the pipe. “You’re like a human cork in there. How are you gonna get out?”
“I don’t know. I knew it was tight in here, but I didn’t realize—I’m actually stuck.”
“You were a lot smaller the last time you were in here.”
“Are you calling me fat?” I say, my voice muffled into my shoulder where my face is currently stuffed.
“No, I’m calling you not twelve anymore,” Ian snorts as his fingers slide between my shoulder and the concrete. “Try tucking your head down.”
I do, and it creates a thin gap between the pipe and my neck. He places his hand on my spine, gently pulling me toward him. My arms sandpaper against the concrete as I make like a cannon drifting out of a barrel. My forearms save me from face-planting in the grimy cement, but then my tailbone scrapes the top and my knees scrape the bottom, and I’m stuck again. I feel the onset of a panic attack. Getting old blows. “Ian, my legs are stuck. Help.”
“Jeez, Chuck.” Ian sits back and rubs his neck, looking around the woods. “The drainpipe is off limits from now on.”
“From now on? Are you insane? I’m never doing this again. Just shut up and help me.” I reach for him, and he grabs my hands and pulls. I wince as my tailbone scrapes across the top of the pipe and my legs warp into positions legs should never be in.
Soon the smell of silver maples and Lake Cadillac transcends the musty earth odor of the pipe. But I’ve no time to bask. The moment I straighten my spine and my foot touches the ground, I take off, even though I want to punch him for making me do this, and now I have a cramp in my leg. Ian doesn’t give me a head start, either. I hear him growling through sharp breaths and feel his fingertips swiping at my shirt and my ponytail. I run harder.
I’m terrified, and I don’t know why. What’s going on? This unidentified fear is ruining what used to be my favorite part of the game. I take it up another notch because I’m still fast—faster than I was years ago when we last played. He’s lucky I love running, or I’d have quit after the first round.
I work my way southwest toward 55, squinting against the blinding red sunset, dodging branches and avoiding logs until I finally see a glimpse of crumbled asphalt and leap over a ditch onto Watergate Road.
I’ve just twisted westbound when I hear Ian bust through the woods and onto the pavement. He’s closer than I thought, and after a mile and a half down Watergate, I’m losing wind. I look up to see the 131 ove
rpass, and, knowing I’m on the home stretch, I make the mistake of glancing back. Ian takes full advantage and throws himself forward, sweeping me off the pavement, and we go sailing into a grassy ditch.
I laugh as Ian pummels me onto the ground, both of us grunting and giggling as we struggle against each other. He’s right—this is nostalgic. I don’t know why I was so scared moments ago.
“What’s the matter, Chuck?” he taunts as he pins my left wrist to the ground. “Get up already.”
I land a right hook to his jaw that knocks him off me. “Never neglect a woman’s dominant hand to take control of her diverting one,” I warn as I leap to my feet and jet.
Ian wastes no time in pursuit; he even manages a smooth chuckle. “Nice punch. That’ll leave a bruise you’ll pay for, for sure.”
I trip on something—my demise—and I’m transported into the dark tunnel of the 131 overpass, slamming into the concrete. The next landmark of The Rise and Fall of Charlotte Stahl.
I lose my bearings as Ian tosses me to the ground, where he pins both my wrists above my head, and I’m finished.
I blink a few times before Ian’s victorious grin comes into view, a jagged cut in his cheek dripping blood on my neck and puddling at my throat. His chest expands and deflates harder than before (he is twenty-nine now), but I quit struggling and blow a blond strand out of my face.
“Not bad for a couple of old-timers, eh? I held out longer than I thought. I really thought you had me back at the road when I—”
“Nope, the game’s not over,” he says and suddenly releases my hands before standing.
“What?” I say to his knees.
“It’s not over,” he repeats harshly, like I’m not the co-creator of this game.
I sit up on my elbows and pull a twig from the pesky strand of hair that’s cupping my face again. “What do you mean? Of course it’s over, that was the third round. Have you forgotten how to—”
He reaches down and grasps my upper arm, heaving me up. “Listen very carefully,” he whispers, as if the trees might be listening. “I’m giving you one more chance. I’m even going to give you a head start. But I’m warning you.” His grip on my arm tightens, and he pulls me closer until his breath hits my ear. “Don’t let me catch you. Because if I catch you, I will kill you.”
Okay, that was never in the script.
“And, for the record, if I get back to the house and you’re there, I will murder you. Do you understand?”
I finally look at him, scanning his eyes for a twinkle, any sign that this is just a huge prank and at any moment he’ll burst out laughing, pointing and saying stupid things like, “You should’ve seen your face!” or, “You thought I was serious?” But his eyes dart back and forth between mine with threats I haven’t seen since we were at the barn with Trevor during The Night That Never Happened.
I mean, I’ve never seen his eyes like that.
He digs his nails into my arm. “Do you?”
“You’re going to kill me… Is this a joke?”
“It’s not a joke,” he whispers. “Do you understand?”
I absolutely have to break eye contact. “I—I’m really confused.”
His hand goes to my throat, and his fingers slide in the blood he’d dripped on it. But it doesn’t hinder him from pressing against my jugular, my windpipe, and now I’m officially and rightfully scared, and eye contact, it is.
“I said, do you understand?” he says a lot more calmly than his hand at my throat says.
I nod.
“Good. Now listen carefully. I’m going to let you go. And you have ten seconds before I hunt you down. This is round four, got it? This is a bonus round, wherein the loser dies. And don’t—” his voice lowers to a diabolic decibel. “Don’t let me find you at the house.” At that, he releases me.
I should’ve just eaten my orange. Shouldn’t have done this.
“Ten.”
I should feel indifferent. Every milestone in my life has been haunted by some form of loss and betrayal—if it wasn’t our mom leaving, then it was the death of my best friend and the incarceration of our father.
“Nine.”
But this is Ian, the only person I have left. This is shock in its purest form, and I’m no longer tempted to laugh at him. I stare instead. I blink twice. Take a step backward. Another.
“Eight.”
Then I’m gone. I don’t know where I’m going, but as those ten seconds dwindle down, a sinking awareness that Ian is dead serious swarms like a nest of bees in my gut. I try convincing myself otherwise, realizing I’m heading toward the house, anyway. But the more his words banter me, the more southbound I curve my steps. Ian is chasing me now, I know it.
I knew I shouldn’t have played.
I was six years old and still wearing my school clothes when Megan Tuck stopped me in my tracks and asked incredulously what I was doing.
“Running from my brother,” I answered breathlessly, peeking over my shoulder. Looking back at Megan’s lilac sweater and cream corduroys, I glanced down at my shin-length skirt that was supposed to be gray with tiny pink roses. But the lace hem was torn and tickling my left shin, and a button was hanging off my magenta cardigan by a thread, and the whole mess clashed with my purple and green sneakers. The only hint of uniform was the mud spackled from my freckled cheeks down to my Nike swooshes.
I evened my breathing, brushing my hair from my face and placing my hand on my hip to mirror Megan’s exact stance. Somehow, Megan’s looked cooler. Probably because she was eight.
Megan leaned back as another girl whispered in her ear. Kara, I thought her name was, with a last name something like Snuffleupagus—which was why I’d dubbed her “Sesame Street Girl.”
Despite Kara’s attempt at whispering, I winced on behalf of Megan’s eardrum when Kara announced that this brother I spoke of, from whom I was running, was Ian. The way she said it and Megan’s reaction made me uncomfortable. Ian was pronounced with equal parts breathiness and falsetto, like she’d fainted into the muscle-clad arms of a boy band. And Megan, a drama tyke, slapped the back of her hand against her forehead at the realization that I was running from Ian, and according to her calculations, Ian would be arriving shortly.
“Ian Stahl is your brother? Isn’t he a sixth grader?” Megan asked, her eyes as round and rigid as dragon nostrils.
“Yeah,” I answered, crunching my nose and dropping the moxie pose.
Kara cupped her hands over her mouth. “He, is so, key-ute!” she said, and both girls began giggling.
My stomach tensed. “Stoppit!” I stomped. “Stop saying that about my brother!”
“Oh, Charlotte,” Megan cooed as she stepped closer and patted my tousled ponytail. “We’re sorry. Don’t be mad. You should feel lucky to have Ian as your brother. What are you guys playing? Chase?”
I ducked away from Megan’s patronizing caresses and roughly rubbed my palm where her fingertips had brushed. “It’s not chase,” I retorted.
“It’s more like hide-and-seek, right?” Sesame Street Girl scooted in on my other side, and I swatted her hand away before it even reached my fly-aways.
Two more girls meandered over, accompanied by a boy on a bike. A girl’s bike. I knew one of the girls from school; her name was Chrissy Kredglen, and she was nursing a Popsicle and holding hands with a brunette at least Ian’s age or older.
I took a step back. “It’s not hide-and-seek. It has a name.”
“Hi, Charlotte,” Chrissy said. “Burken, right?”
I nodded. “Hi, Chrissy. Yes, the game we play is called Burken.” I clenched my little fists, waiting for them to laugh at me.
Instead, Megan cocked her head and wrinkled her eyebrows, her pompom ponytail spiraling to her ribs. “Burken?” she repeated. “What in the world is a burken?”
“Yeah,” the boy huffed. “That sounds stupid.”
My lip trembled, and I took another step back, eyeing the intruders. Chrissy could stay. But I wanted the rest to lea
ve before I could give them a reason to start calling me a Kindergarten Baby—the worst name ever to call a first grader.
“What’s going on?” I heard Ian’s voice behind me and felt his hand on my shoulder. I relaxed my head into him as he put his arm around me.
“Hi, Ian,” Kara blubbered, but Megan kept her cool around the super key-ute older boy.
“What does Burken mean?” she asked, flipping her ponytail and returning her hands to her hips.
“It means hide-and-seek. But it’s in Swedish,” he answered.
“But you’re not Swedish,” Brunette sneered.
“Yes huh!” I taunted, feeling more courageous with my brother there, regardless of whether or not he was key-ute. I was about to stick my tongue out when Ian squeezed my shoulder, warning me to relax.
“Yeah, we are,” he answered calmly. “Our dad said it’s a Swedish game, but we made up our own rules for it.”
Megan seemed satisfied with his answer. “So, how do you play?” she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Kara stood next to her with an awkward grin, her eyes blinking like she was translating Megan’s words into Morse code.
I scanned across each face, trying to picture them playing Burken with Ian and me. Brunette was yawning, and Chrissy was so wrapped up in the battle of the melting Popsicle she wasn’t even listening. Boy-On-Girl’s-Bike had ducked his head the second Ian appeared, his ratty black shoes scuffing pebbles on the sidewalk.
The once-tedious group now resembled marshmallow fluff.
Ian hesitated, conjuring up an answer to a question we surprisingly had never been asked. “Well…” He cleared his throat. “First my sister runs and hides outside somewhere.”
“No,” I interrupted. “First, you say—”
Ian clapped his hand over my mouth.
“First you say what?” Megan coaxed.
“Nothing,” Ian barked, giving me a look that told me to zip it about the script. He looked back at Megan. “So, she runs outside and hides, wherever she wants to, and then uh, then I … I come find her,” he finished lamely.
Megan rolled her eyes. “Sounds like regular hide-and-seek to me.”
