by Debra Driza
“Mind if I ask who won?”
Oh, he was definitely smiling now; I could hear the laughter lurking. Sure enough, when I mustered up the courage to look, his grin was lopsided, hampered even more than usual by the way he bit the inside of his left cheek.
What did I possibly have to lose at this point? “Me,” I said. Firmly.
His grin widened. “Excellent. You know what this means, right?”
That I have inhumanly fast reflexes, all the better to send my opponent flying across the floor? “That girls are silly?” I substituted instead.
“That. Also, since you won me fair and square, I owe you a prize.”
A prize? “Seriously?”
“I never joke about prizes,” he deadpanned.
“O-kay. But where . . .” And then I saw them. The blaze of lights in the distance, their whimsical glimmer banishing the darkness and transforming a patch of boring countryside into something far more magical.
Like something right out of a fairy tale.
I sat upright, fast enough to make the seat belt snap across my chest. “The carnival? You’re taking me to the carnival?” I didn’t even try to hide my quiver of excitement.
Kids at Clearwater High had been talking about it all week, even Kaylee and Parker. But, like with all destinations that weren’t school, Dairy Queen, or the tack and feed store, Mom had shot down any talk of an outing.
“I take it you like them?” Hunter said.
“I . . .”
. . . actually had no idea, but I was dying to find out. Careful, Mila. “Doesn’t everyone?” I hedged.
After a sideways glance that seemed too knowing for comfort, he shrugged. “Sure.”
I sank back into the seat, welcoming the airy feeling of possibility that unweighted my limbs. The early part of the day might have been a disaster, but this night . . . this night was going to be perfect. It had to be.
When we got to the carnival, Hunter led me past a string of people waiting for Real Bungee Jump Experience!, a ride called Twister that spun in circles, and some game where a guy was wielding a sledgehammer and slamming it into a metal disk. Finally we stopped in front of a shooting game. “Here we go.”
Under the booth’s drooping red canopy stretched a lineup of yellow star-shaped targets. Thirty in total. They were flanked on both sides by an array of stuffed animals—mainly unicorns and donkeys. The gray-haired, scruffy attendant waved a rifle-style BB gun at passersby and called out in a singsong voice. “Come on over, try your luck at Star Shootout! Just hit the inside of the star, nothing to it, and win yourself a fine prize! Three chances for two dollars, nine chances for five.”
Of course, the two college-aged guys who pushed away from the booth all grumbles and stuffed-donkey-free didn’t appear to agree.
Hunter shrugged, handed the guy a five-dollar bill, and accepted the gun. “Promise me you won’t run if I come away empty-handed?” he said, flashing a grin at me.
I laughed. “Promise. But I’m sure you’ll be fine. It doesn’t look that hard.”
“No pressure there,” he teased. But I noticed that as soon as he hefted the rifle up to his shoulder, he tensed. A transformation came over his face—no smiles, just a determined look in his eyes and complete focus on the target.
He even bit the corner of his mouth in this completely adorable way, just before shooting. And missing the first star by a good two inches.
Oops.
He went through shot after shot, some way off, others just outside the star. The last one landed right on the line, but the carny shook his head. “Sorry, it’s gotta be all the way inside. Wanna go again?”
Hunter sighed, shot me a rueful look. “Pretty sure I’d just be throwing my money down the drain.”
“What about your girlie there, she want to try? Or she one of those types who needs a man to handle the gun?” he said with a wink at Hunter.
Ew.
“You game?” Hunter asked with a lift of his eyebrows, already digging into his wallet for another five. If I hadn’t been before, I sure as heck was now, I thought, shooting the attendant a disgusted look and ready to take down some stars. But when Hunter handed me the gun, it was still warm from his grip, and he stood so close, I could barely think, let alone aim.
No, not distracting at all. Between his proximity and having zero experience shooting guns, we’d most likely have to purchase a stuffed animal if we wanted one.
Except . . . that didn’t happen.
Because when I finally lifted the gun, I didn’t even have to think about how to use it. The thing just became an extension of my arm, fitted perfectly in my hands. And when I aimed, something crazy happened. As I stared at the star, something red flickered behind my eyes.
I almost dropped the gun. No. Not again.
“Are you okay?” Hunter asked, still breath-defyingly close.
I shook my head, dazed, clutching the lowered gun like my life depended on it. The red light disappeared.
“Aw, sugar, don’t get cold feet now. Your boy there will still like you, even if you don’t come within five hogs of making that shot.”
I was still shaken, but the carny’s words rekindled my anger. Before I knew it, the gun was lifted and aimed. I took a deep breath, and—
Target: 10 ft.
—swayed when the red words flashed, fully formed this time, but only just. I couldn’t drop the gun again. Hunter would think I was crazy, and the carny . . . well, he’d believe whatever wackadoo story he’d concocted in his head.
Meanwhile I commanded, Get out of my head. Out. OUT.
And then, like my brain took on a life of its own, the star enlarged before my eyes, allowing me to zoom in on the exact center.
Target: In view.
I knew before I pulled the trigger that I’d hit the star, dead-on. And while my legs weakened from the flashing red words, while my hands clamped down on the gun as I tried to shove them out, the actual shooting felt good. It felt so good that I went ahead and shot out the next one. And the next one. And the next.
Until I noticed the crowd gathered around me. The whistles. The carny’s yell of “Sweet cartwheelin’ Jesus!” Hunter’s startled, laughing exclamation: “Admit it, you’re a ringer. I bet you shot guns for kicks back in Philly.”
But when the crowd started applauding, that’s when my stupidity really hit home. Way to stay under the radar. Of course I could shoot a BB into the middle of a teensy-tiny target—and it wasn’t because of years of practice.
I set the gun down, forced a smile at the now frowning carny, who scratched his stubbly chin and stared at the hole-laden targets like he’d never seen them before. “Did we win something?”
We escaped the tent less than a minute later—one medium-sized stuffed donkey richer. And with me vowing to suck at any other game we tried. Luckily, the next booth we hit sold cotton candy.
As we strolled under the lights and listened to the music, I sighed, letting the sugary concoction melt in my mouth. Barring the shooting mishap, this was as close to perfect as it could get. I reached up to wipe a tiny speck of pink from Hunter’s cheek. “You missed your mouth.”
At the word “mouth,” his gaze settled on my lips.
Okay, I’d lied. Maybe it could get more perfect. Butterflies in the stomach? Forget it.. This felt nothing short of a flock of delirious blue jays flapping their wings in a group takeoff. The speck of cotton candy slipped from my hand when we stopped walking, right by a huge roller coaster.
He pulled me closer. “I know the good-night kiss is supposed to happen at the end of the date, but I’m having a hard time waiting.”
“Kiss?” I repeated, my eyes now glued to his masterpiece of a mouth. I’d read once in Kaylee’s copy of Glamour that people perceived beauty based on symmetry. What a shame. Because Hunter’s slightly lopsided mouth was about the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.
“If that’s okay,” he said, his free hand gliding into my hair, like he was memorizing the feel of it.<
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From our left, girls shrieked in terror as the roller coaster took a sudden dive. I tuned them out and nodded mutely in response, saw his mouth draw nearer. My eyes fluttered closed as every bit of my body tensed in nervous anticipation. I was swaying into him—
—and that’s when I saw them. The white walls. Only this time, I saw more. A girl with brown hair. Chained to a chair in a large, barren room, her body pummeled by the glare of too many fluorescent lights.
I saw the back of a white lab coat. The back of a man’s dark head. He stood in front of the girl while her head whipped back and forth. He lifted his arm high, and in his hand . . . a gun?
Oh, no.
I gasped and lurched backward. Something terrible was going to happen, I knew it. Oh, god, he was going to—
I watched as the man’s hand flew down and smashed the gun against the girl’s skull. Again. And again. And again.
Somewhere in the distance, outside the room, away from the icy terror crackling through my legs, my arms, my chest, I heard Hunter’s voice.
“Mila, are you okay? Mila?”
I heard it, but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t yank myself away from the horror playing out in my head.
No, all I could do was stand frozen while more images streamed behind my eyes. Watch the girl thrash against the chains while the man tossed the gun and grabbed a huge power tool off a small metal table. He pressed a button, and a harsh grinding noise filled the room. A drill. A drill.
I stumbled again. No. Please, no.
But of course my mental pleas were useless to prevent a chain of events that had already occurred. The man raised the drill high . . . before plunging it into her chest.
Her scream drowned out everything else.
I felt Hunter squeeze my arms, call my name again. But the man in the lab coat, he’d pulled the gun back out. He aimed it at the girl, the girl whose brown hair was so familiar, and pressed the end of the barrel to her forehead. Unsatisfied, he slid the gun around until it was shoved directly against her scalp.
From my viewing angle, I couldn’t see the girl’s face. But she must have said something. Mouthed something. Because while she didn’t make a move to defend herself, the man’s shoulders jerked back like she’d struck him. He shook his head in disgust.
Her hair. Nut brown and waterfall straight, with just the tiniest hint of wave. It was—
The sharp blast of a gunshot and realization roared through my head simultaneously. Her hair. I saw it in the mirror every morning.
It was just like mine.
My eyes jerked open. The girl vanished, even though, in the distance, I still heard screams. I was still shaking. Something . . . no, someone was shaking me.
“Mila, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not—I don’t—” I blinked as the merry lights and bustling crowd of the carnival came into focus, as I became aware of Hunter’s concerned face blotting out the sky and the pressure of his grip digging into my arms.
Safe, I was safe. There was no gun, no man in a lab coat. The screams were from the roller coaster.
I was safe. Now. But at one time, I hadn’t been.
A shudder ripped through my body, and I realized my cheeks were damp and cold under the breeze. Tears for a me I couldn’t even remember.
At my shiver, Hunter dropped his hands and stepped back. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t feel well,” I managed from between numb lips. Not a lie. “Can you take me home?”
His shoulders rounded, whether in disappointment or relief, I couldn’t tell. “Sure,” he said after a brief hesitation.
His gentle palm on my back guided me through the crowd, out the gates, and toward the Jeep. But for once, his touch couldn’t override the cold that circulated under my skin or the goose bumps I felt racing along its surface. And it was like every trace of magic had leached from the carnival. Instead of a fairy tale, now all I saw was a sad cluster of beat-up rides squatting in an unwanted field. A kiss? Had I really expected it to be that easy? That something so stupid as touching Hunter’s lips to mine would solve all my problems, ta-da! Banish the truth of who, of what, I was? Banish whatever horrors lurked in my past? How could it, when I didn’t even know the complete truth myself?
Only the radio and street noise broke the silence on the way back to the ranch. I knew Hunter kept sneaking looks at me, but I just stared straight ahead. I couldn’t talk right now, not when my pretense at being normal slipped further and further from my grasp.
Without any prompting, Hunter cut the lights on the Jeep when we turned onto my street and then eased the car into neutral a good ten feet from the driveway, where the thick cluster of trees would hide the car from view. He reached across the discarded Starbursts to layer his hand over mine. “Maybe we can do this again sometime, when you’re feeling better?”
His tilted head and wide eyes gave his expression such soulful confusion that some of the icy chains finally slipped from my chest. My lips even lifted into a smile, tiny but genuine. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Then, in a burst of bravery I didn’t see coming, I leaned forward and pressed my mouth briefly to his stubble-roughened cheek. I pulled away before he could react, yanking on the passenger door handle and jumping out into the night.
Fourteen
The living room window was dark when I snuck up to the front door, making me hopeful not only that my absence had gone unnoticed, but that Mom had decided on an early night. I checked my cell phone. No missed calls, an excellent sign.
Relieved that I wouldn’t have to tack another fight with Mom to my growing list of the day’s horrors, I dug my key out of my pocket. Tomorrow, I could ask her about the memory—once I had bolstered up enough courage.
But when I reached for the door, I heard something. A muffled moan, male voices.
I froze with the key barely grazing the lock. The TV? Maybe. But it was unlike Mom to watch the one in her bedroom, and the living room lacked the telltale flicker of lights.
Then I inserted the key into the lock, and the door moved. The door—it was already open. Nothing short of a catastrophe or a stroke would make Mom forget to shut the door. Carefully I inched the door open so I could peer inside. Nothing. Quiet.
I crept inside the darkened room . . . and almost fell flat on my face.
My toe, it had caught on something.
Only that patch of floor should be bare.
Keeping my hands steady against the deepening stirrings of fear, I pressed a button on my cell phone. The light was faint, but it was enough to make the fear explode. The thing I’d tripped on was a green plaid pillow, from the couch. A pillow that had been ripped to shreds.
As I raised the phone, the rest of the room came into view. The couch was overturned, the gaping wounds in the green-and-tan plaid fabric spilling puffy white cotton guts. Wooden drawers from the bureau littered the old hardwood floor. And papers . . . papers everywhere.
And then I realized: the room . . . it was way brighter than it should have been, based solely on my tiny cell-phone light.
Visual scan activated.
The red words shimmered behind my eyes.
Without my permission, my vision zoomed around the room, focusing in on tiny details I never should have been able to see, not this up close and personal.
Night vision activated.
As if the red words weren’t bad enough, this time an impersonal female voice echoed in my head, repeating them. A familiar voice.
My voice, I realized as my knees started to shake. Only a smooth, heartless, digitized version.
I reached for the wall to stay upright as terror crashed over me. I fought the words, strained to silence the voice. At the same time, I heard something stir in the hallway. The faintest wisp of a breath.
Reality pounded me from all directions.
Someone had found us.
Mom.
I vaulted over the cushion and flew past the couch. Just as a lean, tall figure emerged from th
e hallway.
Not Mom. A man.
With my enhanced vision, I saw him open his mouth to shout, and knew I had to silence him before any of his companions discovered me.
I surged forward while simultaneously pulling back my arm. So fast he didn’t even have time to vocalize. And then my fist smashed him in the throat. No thinking involved. Just my left hand, knowing exactly what to do, like I’d performed the maneuver a million times before, slamming into his neck with the velocity of a baseball.
His eyes widened, and a sleek device slipped from his grasp when he futilely grabbed at his throat. I caught the Taser with one hand and snagged his wrist with the other to keep him from hitting the ground. When he fell backward, there was a sickening but soft snap as his arm fully extended and hit resistance. I winced. Shoulder dislocation, at the very least.
I eased him to the floor, and that’s when the red lights, the voice, forced their way into my head again.
Target: Immobilized.
I steadied myself, then crept down the hallway, peering into my bedroom on the right. More chaos in here, much more. My clothes, my papers, they covered the floor like trash, so much that I could catch only glimpses of the red-and-gold rug. Half of my mattress was off the box spring, propped up against it like an indoor slide, a huge slash traveling down the center.
My eyes flew to my nightstand, knowing what I would find. Sure enough, the bronze picture frame was empty. All that showed behind the shattered glass was a brown piece of cardboard. My picture of Dad . . . gone.
I curled my hands into fists, trying to dampen the pain by telling myself they’d stolen a stranger. Dad didn’t exist. Everything Mom had told me—it was all true.
Another strange sound escaped from the back of the hallway. The garage. Mom.
I sprinted down the hall and shoved open the door.
I took in the scene in the blink of an eye. Three men up by the big door—two tall, one short with a wide nose—rummaging through boxes. Mom, tied to the furnace with thin, wiry rope, a splash of gray duct tape over her mouth, staring stoically ahead. And a fourth man in a Windbreaker, standing beside her—smacking a wrench against his palm.
