With a sigh, I pocketed my phone and made my way back up to the room to see if Brooke and her friends were ready.
We approached the carnival, the entrance marked by a huge, metal archway, with ‘welcome’ written across it in tall, red and yellow letters. The midway was alive with music and lights. Stalls selling all types of foods—funnel cake, caramel apples, French fries, and hot dogs—were spliced with stands with games such as the Crossbow Shoot, Water Guns, and Balloon and Darts. Stuffed animals hung in clear plastic bags, and more prizes lined every shelf. The big rides such as the Chair-O-Planes, Zipper-ride and Ferris wheel created the biggest attractions, marks queuing to get on. People buzzed around everywhere, the sweet scent of cotton candy and the irresistible tang of frying onions filled the air.
“Oh, boy, hottie alert,” said Kayla, nudging me in the side.
I looked over at her, and she nodded in the direction of a group of guys hanging out around the back of the Tilt-a-Whirl.
“You know who that is, don’t you?” said Brooke. “That’s Flynn Matthews. He’s something of a rising star around here.”
“He can rise around me anytime,” said Kayla, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead, eliciting a squeal of delight from Erin.
Brooke shook her head. “Nah, he’s all about sport. He’s not interested in mucking around with girls. I heard he had a serious girlfriend last year, but she broke his heart and messed up his whole training schedule. It nearly ruined his career, so he’s stayed away from the dating scene since then.” She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Shame. He’s just my type.”
Kayla laughed. “He’s everyone’s type!”
I was listening to this new information and simultaneously watching Flynn laugh and talk with his friends out of the corner of my eye. I certainly hadn’t taken him for someone who was willingly abstaining. Not that I was interested. Even if I was attracted to a guy, I couldn’t imagine how it would work with me being able to catch glimpses of his past or future. What if I saw him cheating on me in the future? Would I end things based on a crime he hadn’t even committed yet, or would I have to wait it out, knowing what he was going to do, but unable to act on it until I caught him in the act?
Lost in my own thoughts, I’d not realized I’d been staring. One of Flynn’s friends—a shorter guy with light brown hair—punched Flynn in the arm, and Flynn jumped away from him, laughing. The movement changed his line of sight, and he caught me watching him. A wide smile spread across his face, and he said something to his group and then started walking over.
Kayla’s mouth dropped open. “Holy crap. He’s coming over.”
Brooke shot me a confused look, but she didn’t have time to say anything. I couldn’t help the slight feeling of smugness that came over me at the sight of the expression on her face. She looked as though she wondered if she’d misjudged me.
“Hey, Beth,” Flynn said, flashing that wide, dimpled grin. His eyes cast over my companions. “Hi, ladies. You enjoying the carnival?”
“We’ve only just got here,” I said, the sudden compulsion to hustle everyone away from him casting over me. “We haven’t even had a chance to look around yet.”
Brooke stepped forward and swung her sheet of blonde hair behind her shoulder before holding out a hand to him. “Hi, I’m Brooke.”
He smiled at her and took her hand. “Flynn,” he said. I tried not to get a flash of jealousy. I had nothing to be jealous about.
“I know who you are.” She flashed her billion-watt smile, and I tried not to cringe. “You’re something of a star around these parts.”
“Oh, you’re local then?” His forehead creased. “I don’t recognize you.”
She issued a small titter of laughter. “Oh, I’m from Sage Springs, but I’ve been away a lot. You’d probably know of my family—the Squires? They own half the land around here.”
He lifted his chin, his aqua-green eyes narrowing slightly. “Oh, right.” He turned his attention back to me, shifting his body slightly so he angled Brooke out of the conversation. “You want to go on any of the rides, Beth? My treat.”
I lifted my hands in defense. “Oh no. I’m not good with rides. I don’t like heights, and I really suffer from motion sickness.”
The other girls were staring at me like I was insane, their eyes burning into me. I did my best not to make eye contact with any of them. I think if Flynn had offered to take any of them to do anything—naked bungee-jumping, diving with sharks, wing-walking—they’d probably have jumped at the chance. I can’t say I wasn’t tempted, if only to give Brooke a poke in the eye, but I didn’t want to give Flynn the wrong idea. While I was sure he was only being friendly, there was just enough tension between us to make me wonder if there was something more than a friendly offer in his words.
His shoulders fell, but he gave a shrug. “No worries. Maybe we can do something a little more …” he searched for the right word. “Immobile next time.”
I laughed. “Sure.”
Flynn stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Later, ladies.” And he turned and walked back to his group, who’d been watching.
As soon as he reached a safe distance, Kayla jabbed me in the ribs again, this time hard enough to hurt. “Okay, spill it. How the hell do you know him?”
“We just got talking.” Not wanting to ruin my sudden allure of ‘cool,’ I added, “In the gym.”
Brooke looked me up and down, and gave a slow nod of understanding. I realized she’d just pieced my sweat outfit of earlier with my assumed workouts in the gym. She was way off course, but I wasn’t going to correct her.
We continued to walk down the midway, rides bordering us on both sides. Screams heightened with a combination of fear and elation filled the air. Different pop songs, fighting to be heard, blasted from numerous loudspeakers, fading away from one ride and strengthening at another.
A stand with hundreds of bags of pink cotton candy caught my attention. The treat was my mom’s favorite, and the sight and smell of the spun sugar evoked a memory of home. A sudden pang of homesickness stabbed me. My mom would always buy me some if we ever went to a carnival or pier together.
“Hang on a sec, guys,” I called out to the others. I hadn’t bothered to bring my purse, but I’d stuffed a couple of bills in the back pocket of my jeans. I waited in line, and when I reached the counter, ordered a bag.
I returned to the girls, the bag already open and the sweet hit of sugar on my tongue.
Brooke arched her eyebrows. “That will turn straight into fat, you know?”
I grinned. “And it’s worth every calorie.”
We started to walk again, and I people watched, taking in all the different groups, trying to figure out which, like me, were new in town.
As I looked over, something—or someone—stole my breath.
Chapter
6
The young man stood, balanced on the edge of the Waltzer, giving each car an extra shove as it passed. The girls inside the cars squealed with laughter, while the guys they were with bit down on their yells, trying to remain cool.
He wasn’t particularly tall and didn’t possess the broad-shouldered physique of Flynn, but he had high cheekbones and a full mouth, combined with a square jaw. A dramatic combination of feminine and masculine features.
Something about the sight of him made me stop short, my new friends continuing to walk on without me. As I stood, staring, he turned his head and caught my eye. Immediately my heart raced, my stomach lurching into my throat. His bright blue gaze eyed me curiously, and he pushed a hand through his jaw-length, black hair. I forced myself to look away. Heat flooded my cheeks, and I stared at the dirt ground, my cotton candy all but forgotten.
My heart pounded a tribal beat in my chest, my breath quickened. I forced myself to lift my head, my eyes automatically searching him out again.
Despite being with their boyfriends, I didn’t miss how most of the girls threw glances in his direction, giving extra screams and head tosse
s whenever their turn came for him to push their cars. He looked to be around our age, perhaps slightly older, but he obviously didn’t go to our school. He had the self-assured air of someone who knew where he belonged, even if where he belonged was constantly on the move. The dark stranger was obviously one of the carnival crowd.
Look at me again, I willed. Notice me.
I’d never learned if persuasion was part of the gifts I’d been cursed with due to my part-vampire gene pool, but this time it seemed to work. He gave another car a shove and then lifted his head and stared right at me.
One side of his full lips turned up in a lop-sided grin, and he gave me a slow, but definite, nod.
Flustered, I didn’t even return the smile, but instead looked away and quickly started walking again, trying to catch up with the other girls, who hadn’t even noticed I’d stopped. My heart still ran in a pitter-patter, hard enough that it seemed to be beating against my ribs, and heat still burned my cheeks.
As I walked, I glanced to my right. He was no longer looking at me, concentrating instead on his job. A gypsy? Was that what he was? Someone who traveled with the carnival?
Suddenly, a strange buzzing sounded in my ears, as though I were suffering from tinnitus after going to a rock concert. The music seemed to slow down, sounding like morphed voices on an old record player. Everything felt distant, and the world seemed to drag around me, the spinning machines now creeping on slow-down. The edges of my vision blurred, but the center of my line of sight sharpened and focused. My gaze was drawn, dragged into a certain spot at the base of the Waltzer, not far from where the dark haired guy was still standing.
I gripped my fists to my sides, but I could neither turn away, nor walk toward the thing that had gripped my attention. I zoned in on a particular spot, the area racing into my vision as though I’d pressed the zoom button on my camera. Metal plates vibrated under the force of the whizzing cars. As I stared, a part of the plate began to move more than the rest, the vibrating turning to actual shaking. A screw popped out of its holding, quickly followed by the one beside it.
Still frozen in one spot, I couldn’t move. In slow motion, one of the cars hit the loose spot, and the whole plate came free. The air was filled with the sound of screams as the plate wrenched away under the force of the movement. Like I was watching a slow-motion car accident on a movie, the car spun off the ride and into the people standing around. A screech of metal on metal filled my ears, cutting right through me. The terrified screams of the bystanders drowned out everything else.
I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. As soon as I did, my hearing went back to normal, my ears popping as though I was on a descending aircraft.
The sounds of the carnival—music, laughter, bells ringing—met my ears. Not the screams of terror I had been expecting. I opened my eyes to find everything was back to normal. No signs of anyone hurt. But I couldn’t change what I had seen. Something was wrong with the ride, and I didn’t know if the accident would happen mere minutes from now, or possibly months, but I had to do something.
My bag of cotton candy fell to the ground and bounced once before coming to a rest. I broke into a sprint and pushed my way between the small crowds of people—fellow student-types, families, even an elderly couple watching the fun—and jumped up onto the edge of the ride where the leather-jacketed guy was standing.
“Hey!” I had to yell to be heard over the music, which was almost painfully loud. “You need to stop the ride.”
He turned to face me, both confusion and recognition passing across his face. “What?”
“Cut the power. Now! There’s going to be an accident.”
Despite my panic, in the back of my mind I was vaguely aware that launching myself onto the ride, and yelling at the cute guy running it, made me look like the one thing I always tried so hard not to be, a freak. In the crowds, people were exchanging glances, and though I couldn’t hear what they said to each other over the music, I knew they were questioning my sanity. But they couldn’t stay where they were. The small crowd was standing in the exact place the runaway car would land.
“Get out of the way!” I yelled at them, sweeping my arm to the right as though trying to herd them. “It’s dangerous. Move out of the way.”
I caught sight of Flynn’s blond head and the concerned expression on his face, and my heart sank.
A hand caught my arm, and the carnival boy dragged me back around to face him.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy or something?”
Sum-ting. Even over the music, I detected the faint Irish lilt in his voice.
“One of the plates is loose. You’ve got to stop the ride or there is going to be an accident.”
“What are you talking about?” He had to shout to be heard and leaned in closer to me. I tried not to tremble at having him in such close proximity. “How could you know that?”
“I … I saw something. A screw came out from beneath one of the cars. It’s not safe!”
Something in my expression must have registered with him. Instead of getting me hauled off by security or the cops, he frowned at the plates of the ride.
He reached out and touched my arm. “Wait here.”
My whole arm fired with goose bumps, and I stared at his leather clad back as he leaped deftly between the spinning cars and to the center of the ride where an older, fat man sat in a booth.
I didn’t see anything, I realized.
His touch on my arm hadn’t caused any images to flash in my head. That had been the second time today I’d not seen something about a person when they’d touched me.
The strange buzzing pierced my head again, and I clamped my hands to my ears. My eyes darted frantically at the spot where I’d seen the screws come loose, but the cars flew by making it impossible for me to see anything.
The accident I’d witnessed, if only in my head, wasn’t going to happen weeks or even days from now. It was going to happen any minute.
“Do it!” I yelled at the booth. “Shut the power down now!”
The ride powered down at the exact moment the car rattled loose. Screams issued around the crowd as the car spun off the track, but at nothing like the extreme speed I had witnessed. Even so, it flipped as it careened off the ride, scattering the crowd, sending people running. The car behind followed, but at a much slower velocity so it came to a standstill half on and half off the platform.
I bolted from the ride and down into the crowd, heading to the overturned car. The muffled cries of fear and possibly even pain came from the couple trapped inside. I was strong enough to flip the Waltzer car, but I couldn’t risk doing so in front of crowds of people. All I needed was a couple of others to make it appear as though the righting of the car wasn’t all down to me.
“Help me!” I cried.
A few of the guys ran forward to help.
Myself, the carnival guy, Flynn, and the friend I’d seen thumping Flynn, all lined up on one side. Together we heaved. The car felt light to me, but the men on either side of me strained, so I forced myself to hold back, though doing so pulled my emotions two ways. I didn’t want to leave these people trapped any longer than needed, knowing they could be badly hurt. I couldn’t smell blood, but I needed to protect myself.
Together, we turned the car over, righting the terrified couple still strapped inside. The girl must have hit her head, as a lump like a golf ball was starting to protrude over her left eyebrow. The boy clutched at his shoulder, wincing in pain. Both were pale-faced and shaking.
Mutterings came from the crowd, a few people nodding or pointing toward me, discussing my foresight of the accident. The crazy reaction I’d had right before the ride broke loose hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Before anyone could accost me and start pelting me with questions, I ducked my head down and shoved my hands in my jean pockets, trying to make myself smaller, less noticeable. I took off, slinking between the rides, planning to put a good distance between myself and the midway.
; A male voice with an Irish lilt called to me, but I continued to walk away.
“Hey! Are you all right?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I picked up my pace.
His footsteps turned into a jog, and he caught me by my arm, pulling me back around to face him.
“Wait up!”
The sight of him took my breath away, like he’d literally punched me in the chest and winded me. The Cupid’s bow, the full lower lip. The sharp cheekbones, and the dark shadow across his jaw. His eyes were an incredible shade of dark blue, especially in the moonlight, cast beneath thick, dark brows which were drawn down in concern. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“What’s the story?” he asked, his eyes studying my face. “How the hell did you know what was going to happen?”
“I didn’t.” I pouted my lower lip like a sulky child.
His heavy, dark eyebrows lifted. “Uh, yeah, you did. You shouted at me to stop the ride.”
I looked away, studying a chip packet someone had carelessly littered. “I told you, I saw a screw come loose.”
“At the speed the ride was going? In the dark?” He couldn’t hide the disbelief in his voice.
“Yeah. Let’s just say I have good eyesight.”
I looked down at where his hand was still wrapped around my forearm.
A red haze descended upon my vision and a beating filled my head—thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. My mouth sapped dry of moisture, and a pain speared tight in my throat. I struggled to swallow. My heart rate stepped up a notch.
Oh crap.
Chapter
7
I yanked myself out of his grip, tears blurring my vision. It was happening again, the thing I’d tried so hard to deny to myself.
The person people saw on the outside wasn’t the same as the person who lurked within the slightly scruffy, try-too-hard exterior. I had darkness inside me. Writhing, coiling, scary darkness. I had been fighting it my whole life, but recently the darkness felt so much closer to the surface. My jaw ached, my throat running so dry I could barely swallow.
Twisted Dreams Page 4
