“That’s okay, I forgive you.”
“I never said I was sorry,” I quipped, moving to my bed. “Come lay down. I’m tired.”
Jaron didn’t move from where he stood, wearing a pained expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“Don’t ask me to get in bed with you, Maribel.” His voice was rough.
“Why?”
He pulled a hand through his dark hair and bit his lip. “Do you know what I would do to you if I got into that bed?”
My heart clenched. “Nothing that I didn’t want you to do, and I don’t want to do that—”
“I would never do anything that you didn’t want, that’s true. But the part about you not wanting it, that’s a lie.”
I gasped.
“The only thought running through my mind right now involves tearing off all of your clothes, and it’s hard to stop myself knowing that you want me to… So getting into bed with you is the first thing that I want to do, but the last thing I should do.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to wake your aunt and uncle…”
“No.” My cheeks warmed. “Why do you think that we would have sex? It’s not like I’m experienced in that department—”
“What do you mean?”
Oh God, I hated this conversation. Why was it that I was the freak for being an eighteen-year-old virgin? It’s not like I was Steve Carrel. I wasn’t that old, but everyone acted like it was a huge deal. “I’ve never… you know,” I said, sounding like an idiot.
“You are so adorable, do you know that? You must know that?” He sighed. “Just makes me want you even more.” He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“And what about you?” I asked, sitting up to read his face. I didn’t know what to expect. If an eighteen-year-old female virgin was a needle in a haystack, a male one was a unicorn.
He grinned. “I’ve already told you.”
I pursed my lips. The most sexy man I had ever seen in my life talking to me about sex? Yeah, I think that I’d remember that conversation. “I don’t think so, maybe you talked about it with another girl,” I accused jokingly. But my joke backfired and I felt an unfamiliar sprout of jealousy bubble in my chest. For some reason my comforter suddenly seemed interesting and I trained my eyes on it.
He placed his warm hand on my chin, coaxing me to meet his eyes.
I looked up, his beauty was amazing, and staring into his eyes, I knew he was right to be cautious about lying in my bed. My body reacted just to him sitting on the edge.
“That’s the point, love. There is no other girl, never has been. I’ve never had a girlfriend, I told you that.”
I did remember him saying that. But in today’s society, just because a person said he'd never had a relationship didn’t mean he hadn’t had sex.
“So you’re saying that you’re a virgin too?” I stuttered. How could this god among men not have had women throwing themselves at his feet?
“Afraid so, begrudgingly I might add.” He must have noticed my questioning look, because he continued. “See, my whole life I never was interested in girls, like even when the other dudes in class started going crazy for them. For a while, I was embarrassed and wanted to be attracted to the beautiful girls that chased me around like puppies at school, but no matter how hard I tried to force it, there was nothing there. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my dreams, I might have questioned my sexuality.” He laughed.
“Your dreams?”
He cleared his throat and turned red. “You don’t want the details, but most nights, I would dream of beautiful women that I had never seen. Strangers that taunted me with their elusive beauty in a way that no one ever had outside of my mind.”
My fists balled at my side in response to my fictitious competition. “And now?” I asked.
“Now?” He met my unsure gaze. “The invented temptresses of my youth have nothing on your beauty.” He leaned in and gently kissed my forehead. “Now I see your face when I dream, and sometimes more than that,” he said wryly.
I elbowed him in the ribs and smiled. Maybe I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. I liked being the girl that he dreamed of, clothed or no.
“I never had to try to make myself attracted to you. I just was. The instant I saw you, it was like something inside of me woke up.”
I was sure that his words would have sounded crazy to any other girl, but not to me. He was describing my life. Only I'd never really cared that I hadn’t ever notice a boy… maybe because Sylvia had always told me that it was perfectly normal not to. “I felt the same thing when I saw you standing in that doorway.”
He smiled proudly and brushed his lips to mine gently. “Climb in bed now, you need your rest. Tomorrow is going to be a long day…” He trailed off and a worried look flashed across his face.
He had said he was going to take me somewhere the next day… I had almost forgotten the statement entirely; too preoccupied with the one he had made before it. He had made good on his promise, here he was keeping watch over me, and it was easy to drift off to sleep in the warm safety that seemed to pour from him.
GRAY WAVES CRASHED INTO one another making the sea tumultuous and angry. My subconscious pulled back from the dream playing out before me, it was a repeat, so I shouldn’t be so frightened. How could I be when I already knew how the scene would end? Jaron stood aboard the skiff, crying out into the sky for reprieve from his fight.
“If you’re there, God, help me, please!” he begged as he plunged his bloodied spear into the water to defend me from the sharks.
I didn’t understand how it could be worse than the first time I dreamed it, but it was. Having already experienced it before, I was no longer distracted by the sharks or the cracks of thunder or the crashing of a wave. All I saw was his face; his beautiful, tormented face. The sharks tore at my flesh, rocking the boat I was strapped to, but it looked like Jaron was the one being torn apart.
A fin surfaced on the other side of the boat and he cursed, looking away from me to stick his weapon into the predator.
“We’ll make it,” he half cried as he stabbed at another creature, this time losing the spear in the processes.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to help him. But I could only watch as the sharks ripped at me so ferociously that the small boat almost capsized.
“No, Maribel!” Jaron looked over the side of the boat into my lifeless eyes. He dove into the water and held my face in his hands. Sobs shook his body as he cried out again. “No, love… not you too.”
Then he was dragged under. The swirling blood staining the water ripped at my heart so much worse than seeing my own image torn apart. I waited for the dream to end, but instead, a large wave spun the boat and I understood why Jaron was fighting off the creatures from both sides. There was a body tied there too, a much larger catch, though just as thoroughly ruined. A man was strapped to the boat, a muscular man that might have been handsome if this wasn’t such a macabre scene. The sandy brown hair atop the stranger’s head was the only tell that I wasn’t looking at Jaron’s ruined body.
My voice found me then and I screamed myself awake.
I tore my eyelids open and sat up in my bed, pulling the covers around me. Why was I having such horrid dreams? I had never watched a scary movie in my life! I sucked in a breath and held it in for fear that I’d start screaming again if I released the air. The bed shifted beneath me and I remembered that I wasn't alone in my room.
Jaron was looking at me, wide eyed in a panic. “Maribel, are you—”
“What the hell?” Dylan shouted from the doorway.
The terror of the dream immediately vanished as I realized what Dylan was seeing. A boy was in my bed while I sat shielding myself with a blanket, screaming.
14
DYLAN SPRANG FROM THE doorway with the athleticism of a jungle cat. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t what it looked like, but I was frozen in shocked horror.
> Jaron bounced off the bed quickly, raising both his hands palms out non-confrontationally. “I—” his words were cut off in a whoosh of air as Dylan plowed full force into him.
They both slammed onto my carpeted floor with a loud thud.
“Stop!” I screamed, jumping out of bed. “Dylan, stop! He wasn’t hurting me.”
Jaron wasn’t putting up a fight, just holding his hands up in surrender. That didn’t stop my uncle. Dylan pulled his arm back and pounded his fist into Jaron’s head.
I caught his arm as it swung back to deliver another blow and tugged on it with all of my might. “Dylan, please listen. I just had a nightmare. That’s why I was screaming. He didn’t do anything. I asked him to stay the night with me!”
Dylan stopped struggling against my hold, but his eyes didn’t lose an ounce of the flint burning behind them. I had never seen Dylan angry in my life. I hadn’t ever even seen him bothered. He had always been so calm and collected.
Sylvia crashed into the room behind me, now she was another story. In less than a millisecond, she was running toward us, raging eyes on Jaron.
I couldn’t believe it. “Stop!” I shouted as loud as I could. Everyone gave pause as all of the flame-shaped light bulbs in my little chandelier exploded. Glass rained down around us, and Sylvia moved quickly to shield me from it.
After the glass stopped falling, Sylvia whispered, “Must have been an electrical burst.”
I took advantage of the momentary still before things got out of control again. “Dylan, get off of him!” I tugged on his arm again.
He stood up begrudgingly and brushed himself off. “You better tell us what’s going on right now, young lady.”
If my heart hadn’t been thumping wildly, reminding me that the situation was in no way funny, I might have smiled at his tone. “On the way back from Clarissa’s party, we were harassed by two creepy guys. I was scared and asked Jaron to stay the night with me. Being a fine southern gentlemen, he obliged.”
“Oh, I bet he did,” Dylan spat.
“Nothing happened. Put down the torch and pitch fork.”
Sylvia seemed to key in on a different part of my speech. “What did these men look like?” she asked quickly.
After a second, I reeled off the one thing that stuck in my mind. Oddly I couldn’t remember much else about them. “They both had a weird tattoo running the length of their left arm.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Are you sure?” Dylan asked, apparently temporarily distracted from glaring darts at Jaron.
I took in their faces as they waited for my answer. Dylan chewed his bottom lip, and Sylvia’s perfect face was creased with worry. They looked terrified.
”Yes, I’m sure…” I trailed off, unsure of what else to say. They were freaking me out. “It’s fine, no harm done.”
Sylvia nodded to Dylan, his face told me he disagreed with me on the harm part. “Maribel, say goodbye to Jaron,” Sylvia said curtly.
“What?” I asked. “Can’t he just take me to school?”
Dylan turned purple. “No, he can’t! Now, say goodbye!”
I wasn’t going to say goodbye, not with the tone they were using, like I’d never see him again. “See you at school,” I muttered, looking into his worried eyes. He must have sensed the same thing I did.
“I’ll wait for you by the doors okay?”
I nodded.
Dylan moved aside and gestured toward the door.
Jaron hesitated for a second and then led the way out of my room, Dylan following behind him.
I knew that I should be calming down, but I wasn’t. My heart still hammered like it had when Dylan discovered us. The front door shut, and I knew Jaron had gone.
Sylvia pulled me to the bed and onto her lap. “Are you okay?” she asked, smoothing my hair down.
Was I okay? Was she joking? I had almost been attacked the previous night, found out I might have a strange ability, couldn’t stop having terrible gory nightmares, and Dylan might just have given the love of my life a concussion.
“No,” was all I could choke out.
She squeezed me tighter. “I’m sorry, baby, but it’s about to get worse…” She paused.
I pulled away from her embrace and looked her in the eye. “What do you mean?”
She took a breath. “Those men that you saw have been after us for a while now. We're leaving tonight.”
“Leaving where, what are you talking about?” I stood up and backed away from her, panic gripping my chest.
Sylvia held my gaze. “We’re moving and we won’t be coming back.”
“No!” I shouted. “You can’t do this to me! If this is about Jaron, nothing happened.” I was verging on hysterics, but I wasn't about to leave Jaron or Clarissa behind without a fight. “I won’t go with you.”
Her eyebrows shot up “Calm down, Mari, we aren’t doing this to hurt you—”
“Well it doesn’t matter if you’re doing it to hurt me or not, it is,” I interrupted. My aunt’s face was so full of pain. After a few calming breaths, I tried again. “I love you so much, but I’m an adult now. You can’t make me leave, and even if you could, I would run away every chance I got to come back here… I don’t want to be angry with you guys, just tell me what this is about.”
My aunt closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead like she had a migraine.
Dylan walked in and Sylvia looked up pleadingly. “Mari, go grab some breakfast downstairs,” he said.
I looked longingly at Sylvia, waiting for her to answer me. When I was sure that she wasn’t going to, I brushed past Dylan and ran downstairs, but not to the kitchen. I grabbed some clothes out of the dryer and threw on a pair of jeans and a tank. Pausing in the entryway, I glanced up the stairs. They would be worried sick, but I couldn’t have them drag me away from people I loved for some dark secret that they didn’t feel the need to share. It was my life too. Spinning on my heel, I sprinted out the front door.
School was only about half a mile away, and thanks to swim team, I had the stamina to sprint the whole way. The trip felt like it took forever, even though I knew I was making good time. Paranoia slowed time down to a crawl, and I looked over my shoulder so often that I almost ran into a telephone pole. Finally I reached the school grounds. At first I was worried Jaron wouldn’t be there yet. The place was deserted. It was too early for even the honor roll students. But, I spotted him leaning against the wall by the double doors.
He was wearing a tight black shirt and jeans, stopping me in my tracks. I took time that I didn’t have to admire him from afar. He would look completely at ease leaning against the building to anyone that would happen by, but I could tell by the way that he held his shoulders that he was on edge.
He glanced up from under the dark hair splashing over his forehead. When our eyes me, he pushed quickly away from the wall and started jogging over to me.
“Maribel, why are you alone? Why didn’t they drive you?” He struggled to keep his voice even, but the heat radiating off of him told me that his temper was raging. “I told you not to go anywhere alone.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice. They were about to up and move me out of town,” I said. “We don’t have much time. They will be peeling around the corner any second.” I wanted to hang my head in defeat, but that would mean missing maybe the last chance I had to study his beautiful face.
“They what?”
“They said we're moving today—”
“Come with me,” he said, dragging me across the school yard to the parking lot. “I told you that I had to take you somewhere, and I still want to. But you’re going to find out some things about me and my past. They aren’t good things. If you would rather go with your family, I’ll drive you home right now.” He pulled open the car door and helped me inside. He slipped into the driver’s seat and turned to face me. “So, where to?” he asked urgently.
“I’ll go wherever you want to take me,” I said without even a second’s hesitation
.
His answering smile turned my bones to jelly. “Same goes for me, love,” he whispered before throwing the car into drive.
When we tore out of the parking lot I turned to look out of the rearview mirror, somehow we had gotten away before my aunt and uncle showed up. It felt amazing to break away and be free to do my own thing, but I couldn’t completely smother the guilt “So where are we going?”
He took a breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his tendons popping out. “We’re taking a dark and twisted trip down memory lane.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Before I say where we’re going, I need to tell you the story of how my parents were murdered. It’s only been five years, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Back in a place where I had no worries, no fears, just happiness. You would have loved my parents, Maribel, they were the most loving people in the world. And they were more in love with each other than any two people I had ever seen.” He stole a glance at me.
“We were living down in Abbeville. This place reminds me of it, nice town, close community. When I think of home, that's where my mind goes. I grew up living the American dream, white picket fence, good friends, and wealth. Although I knew my parents would have been just as blissfully happy with nothing but their family.
“That’s how they raised me, never put anything before family. I can’t even count the number of times one of them told me that. Until recently, I could have said that I did them proud in that regard, now I’ve let them down there too…”
He trailed off and squinted his eyes.
His parents sounded so much like Sylvia and Dylan, the love they had for him and each other rang of my aunt and uncle. And they were also always telling me that family came first. I looked out the window and watched the gray buildings fly by as we merged onto the freeway. Had I let them down?
“My mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, until I laid eyes on you. She had corn silk hair that fell down her back. When I was a small child, I would tell my friends that my mother was Rapunzel.” He sighed. “And she was so kind. I remember once on our way back from the city park, my dad hit a squirrel with his car. She cried over the little dead rodent. She was just so loving and tender, it broke her heart. I was only seven, but I hated seeing her like that… so I jumped out of the car and tried to give the thing CPR.”
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