“That was a fun time,” Nick said. “You were what, thirteen? I think I was sixteen…”
“I was fourteen,” I quickly corrected him. “And way too old to be climbing up in treehouses ‘for old times sake.’”
He winced. “Yeah, that might have been a bad idea. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I guess so,” I said sarcastically, and we both laughed again.
“Oh, you guess so?” he said. He pushed off his side of the hot tub and scooted over next to me, splashing water at me. “Look, I watched a lot of chick flicks that summer.”
“Um, as I recall, you weren’t the only one who had to suffer. We took turns picking those movies! I’ve had enough action thrillers to last me a lifetime.”
“Did we?” he asked. “Oh. That was nice of you.”
“Yeah, I’m a pretty nice girl.” I splashed water back at him and he flinched away, laughing.
I could feel the stiffness of two years of separation melting away now that we were here reminiscing together. Moments like this were what I missed. Nick had always been easy for me to talk to. As hard as the Dentons tried, and as much as I loved my adopted family, I’d still always felt a little different from them—certainly cared for, but never quite fitting in. My adopted home has always fallen just a bit short of home. It was something I couldn’t even explain, and I’d never try to explain it to any of the Dentons. It would crush my parents if I tried, and I knew how stupid and entitled it sounded. I was so lucky to have such caring people around me.
But I think Nick understood, without either of us having to say anything. That was why we had such an easy way with each other. I was reminded of that now, as we sat beside one another, splashing and laughing. He’d escalated the splashes into a full-on water battle, and he finally just dunked his head under the water.
He popped back up and grinned. “What are you going to do now? Can’t splash a guy who’s already wet.”
“Okay! Okay! I surrender.” I giggled and held my hands up. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so open and playful with someone.
“Thank goodness,” Nick replied. “You had me on the ropes there before my brilliant counter-maneuver.” Then he made a face. “Yeesh. I’m burning up in here.” He pulled himself onto the lip of the hot-tub, leaving only his legs to dangle in the water. They were right next to my shoulder.
I didn’t feel hot at all—in fact, I was still perfectly comfortable, but I pulled myself up to sit next to him anyway. “Yeah, me too,” I said. We kicked our feet in the water together.
I could tell that this was my moment. We couldn’t spend much longer in the hot tub together before he’d want to go back up, and the conversation had lulled into awkward silence. He almost seemed to be waiting. If I didn’t say something, it might get awkward. If I was ever going to tell Nick how into him I really was, it had to be now.
But then all my doubts came crashing back. What was I doing? Was I about to ruin the best friendship of my life? What if he didn’t share my feelings, or what if he decided it would make things too weird with Matt? I bit my lip. Why doesn’t anyone teach a class about hard romantic situations in high school? You know, something that would actually be useful.
I glanced over at him and caught him staring back at me. We both smiled nervously. Get it together, Ella, I told myself. It’s now or never.
“Nick,” I said. “I—”
“Nick!” A high pitched, musical voice rang out. “Is that you?”
We both turned to see two pretty girls striding toward the hot tub in matching red bikinis. One of them had curly blonde hair pulled up into a tight ponytail, and the other had a cute brown bob that flipped out at the bottom. They came to stand at the edge of the hot tub and grinned at us.
“Hi, Nick!” the brown-haired girl said. “I told you it was Nick Gauss,” she said to her friend.
“I didn’t know you’d be here for the holidays!” The blonde-haired girl lowered herself into the hot tub without waiting for an invitation. “My family comes every year.”
“Is this your kid sister?” asked the brown-haired girl brightly, studying me. “She looks too young to go to our school.”
“Uh, no,” Nick said. “Hey girls. This is my friend Ella. She’s my best friend Matt’s little sister.”
I winced at the way he said that, and I was furious at these girls for ruining my moment, but mostly I felt embarrassed and intimidated. They were both in great shape—way better shape than I was. And apparently they knew Nick. I grabbed my towel and pulled it tightly around myself.
“So she’s still in high school?” The blonde girl smirked at me.
“I’m going to Gilroy in the fall,” I informed her icily.
Nick nodded toward the the brown-haired girl. “Ella, this is Jenna and—”
“Kristi,” the blonde said. “Nice to meet you, Ella.” Her tone suggested it wasn’t so nice, and the look she gave me was far from warm. “We’re both on the cheer squad for Nick’s team.”
“Do you guys hang out often?” I asked.
The question had been directed at Nick, but Jenna said, “All the time. We have parties pretty much every weekend.” She slipped into the hot tub beside Kristi and flinched. “Wow, this water is hot! No wonder you two had to take a break.”
“What room are you in?” Kristi asked. She was obviously talking to Nick now and not even bothering to acknowledge me anymore.
“I’m in 304, with Matt,” he said. “Matt Denton. Were you two around when he visited?”
“Denton?” Jenna asked. “Oh yeah! I remember that night. Jack’s party, yeah? It was wild. Your friend was cute.”
“We’re in 406,” Kristi said. She raised an eyebrow. “And my parents are staying in the other lodge all week. You should bring Matt around.”
“Hayden and Riley are here too,” Jenna added. “And Hayden brought a bottle of Bacardi. It’s gonna be party central.”
I simmered quietly, helplessly watching Nick slip away from me. He had a big stupid grin on his face now. I’d never felt so much like someone’s annoying kid sister as right at that moment. It was like they’d all forgotten I was here, and it was humiliating. The romance was ruined. My chance to tell Nick how I really felt was gone.
“I’m more of a whiskey guy,” he said. “But yeah, I’ll talk to Matt. Tomorrow night?”
“All week,” Kristi replied. “Come by any time.”
“Are you coming back in?” Jenna asked. “You must be freezing out there by now.”
“Oh, yeah.” Nick pushed himself off the ledge and slid right back into the hot tub. I watched the college girls stare at him hungrily as he stretched his arms over his head. “Man, that’s nice. Are you coming, Ella?”
It was cold outside the hot tub, but I shook my head in spite of the goosebumps spreading all over my arms and pulled my legs out of the water. “I’m actually getting kind of tired,” I said. “Matt must have been right about that jet lag.”
“Really? Oh. Okay,” Nick replied. He seemed disappointed, but I sure wasn’t about to hang out with his stupid girlfriends. What a disaster.
I climbed to my feet and waited for a moment, hoping that Nick would offer to walk me back upstairs. Maybe we could still get a few minutes alone, and I could change his mind. But then Kristi started talking about about the last big football party they’d all been to and he laughed along with her.
I muttered a hasty “good night” and walked quickly away before the situation got any more embarrassing. As I retreated, I heard Nick call out. “Ella? Hey, Ella!”
But he didn’t get up to chase after me.
I tried not to hold back a swelling tide of tears as I hurried through the hallways of the lodge, cold and shivering in my damp towel. I’m not sure what the worst possible outcome for this evening would have been, but I didn’t think it could be much worse than what had happened just now. I was so upset and distracted that I almost didn’t notice that the door to our room was cracked open.
&
nbsp; I’d been ready to rush through and spill the whole story to Katie as I devolved into a crying mess. I’d only been gone half an hour, and I didn’t expect her to be in bed already. But the room inside was pitch black. My self-pity evaporated, replaced by a weird sense of foreboding. Why would she go to bed and leave the door cracked open? She knew I had my key.
“Katie?” I asked, nudging the door wider and edging inside. I shivered. It was ice cold in the room, and my wet clothes weren’t helping. I didn’t want to wake her up if she was fast asleep, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I flicked the light switch next to the door, but nothing happened.
My instincts from every horror movie I’d ever seen told me that I should leave now, go down to the front desk, and tell them the lights in my room weren’t working. Or better still, to go get Matt. But then I felt stupid. This wasn’t a horror movie. This was real life. And if I did go get someone, everyone would think it was hilarious that I’d been scared, and I’d have to listen to them all make fun of me for the rest of the trip.
“Katie? Are you in here?” I asked again, louder.
I heard Katie’s voice murmur something from her side of the room and then the rustle of covers. Relief flooded through me, followed quickly by embarrassment. I was being silly. She’d just gone to bed, which is what I should do too, and then we could talk about what a miserable disaster my hot tub time with Nick had ended up being in the morning.
I closed the door behind me and walked all the way into the room. As my eyes adjusted, I could pick out the bundled lump of Katie in her covers. Then I stiffened. There was someone standing next to her bed. A tall, shadowy figure, not moving—he seemed to be staring right at me. I was afraid my eyes were playing tricks on me. My stomach leapt into my throat and I flattened myself against the far wall. The figure didn’t move.
I remembered the gas fireplace that Katie had turned off earlier, and now I grasped along the wall beside me, hunting for the switch. Screw my qualms about fireplaces! My searching fingers flicked it on and the flames whooshed, filling the room with flickering orange light. I gasped.
A thin, tall man in a black suit stood beside Katie with his hands clasped in front of him. His posture was stiff and formal, his black hair neatly combed, and his lips were locked in a chilling, toothy grin of a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. His pale face was preternaturally handsome, like a model from a magazine, but there was something about him that just felt off to me—a sense of wrongness I couldn’t explain. As we stared at one another he slowly cocked his head to the side like he was studying me, though his expression never changed or wavered.
Terror shot through me, although I was too surprised at first to react. I just stood frozen, spellbound, wondering if I’d had some kind of bad mental break in the wake of my terrible night with Nick. But then the thin man lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.
Silver cracks quickly spread through a circular section of the wall behind him until they formed a shimmering spiderweb and then shattered backwards, revealing a long silvery tunnel that curved away and couldn’t possibly have existed unless it ran through several of the hotel rooms next to us. A strange wind tugged at my hair and pulled me toward the tunnel.
Neither the tinkling crash nor the tugging wind had woken Katie, but it broke whatever fear or surprise that had held me in place.
I decided I’d definitely lost my mind. The flames crackled and popped behind me, warming my skin and warding off the chill that had settled over the room. The stupid fire working was the only thing that made any sense at all at the moment.
I don’t know what you’re supposed to do when you’re certifiably crazy, but the only thing that popped into my head was that I needed to run away from this awful nightmare or hallucination or whatever this was and get help. I tensed, ready to sprint, but then I saw what the thin man was doing.
He’d stopped paying any attention to me. Instead he picked Katie’s blanket up with two hands and threw it off of her in a deft motion. Long, narrow fingers wrapped around her shoulder, and he bent over her to slip his other arm beneath her legs. Katie continued to breathe evenly, her chest rising and falling in the same easy rhythm, oblivious to this bizarre creeper sweeping her out of her bed.
“H-hey!” I said. “Stop!” He didn’t respond. He just straightened, holding Katie in his arms. She slumped like a rag doll.
I began to get angry. Insane hallucination or not, I was getting tired of people ignoring me tonight. There was no way in hell I was going to let this guy walk off with my sister. My eyes fell on the decorative fireplace toolset beside me. It was a stupid thing to put by a gas fireplace, but now I was grateful to have it. My fingers wrapped around the steel haft of the gold-painted poker, and I yanked it free. My towel slipped off as I took a few steps forward and brandished it at the guy holding Katie.
“Put her down, right now!” I shouted. My voice didn’t even quiver. Like I said, I get weirdly courageous once in a while. Especially when it concerns people I care about.
I probably looked ridiculous: a 5’7” teenager brandishing a cheap decoration in a dripping wet bikini. But apparently I was intimidating enough to give the man pause. He dumped Katie back on the bed and turned toward me with that creepy unwavering smile and his weird, dead eyes. I didn’t wait to see what else he’d do. I swung the poker at him as hard as I could. The tip arced toward his face, but his hand shot up faster than anyone should be able to move and caught it.
I was already off-balance when he jerked it away from me, and I stumbled toward him. The man reached out and caught me, his slender fingers wrapping like iron bands around my left arm, and pulled me close. I started shivering, my courage draining out of me as I kicked and pulled at him, panic rising in my chest. His smell was thick in the air around me, and the only way I can describe it is that he smelled cold. Cold and dark.
He raised his right hand above my head. A piercing scream burbled it’s way up the back of my throat, but before it could reach my lips, his hand descended over my eyes. Darkness closed in on me.
Ella
I awoke to dimly-heard whispers, lying on my back in some kind of raised bed with bars on the sides, with a loose white sheet draped over me from the neck down. At first I thought I must be in a hospital, but the room didn’t look like any kind of hospital I’d ever been in before. It was all gray stone, cracked and pitted with age, and my bed seemed to be the only piece of furniture. A grimy tan curtain hung on a rusted rod over the only doorway. It took me a moment to realize why the room felt confining, and then I noticed that there weren’t any windows.
I tried to get up, but my wrists and ankles snapped against fabric. Padded restraints held them firmly.
I strained against them for a panicky moment, but I could tell it was hopeless; they were fastened tightly. I dropped my head back on the lumpy pillow, breathing hard, and tried to organize my thoughts. How had I gotten here? And why didn’t I remember it? A creeping thread of worry crawled up my spine. This place looked an awful lot like what I’d always imagined insane asylums looked like: the hospital bed, the restraints, the gloomy interior. Had I had some kind of psychotic break?
My memories leading up to this moment sure pointed in that direction. What the hell had happened? One moment I was fretting over my disastrous night with Nick and how stupid his girls-gone-wild college friends were, and the next I was fighting off some kind of spooky, magical creeper from carrying Katie into a silver tunnel that shouldn’t have been able to exist.
Stuff like that only happened in movies, didn’t it? It couldn’t possibly be real. But it had sure seemed real at the time. The chill in the room, the weird, cold smell of the slender man, and the solid thwack of steel on his palm as he caught the poker had all been way more vivid than any dream I’d ever had.
I was too confused and frightened to even try to make sense of it right now. First I just needed to figure out where I was. If I’d gone crazy, then my parents were probably getting me the b
est help they could, and I just needed to calm down and wait. It’s not like I had much choice anyway.
The air in the room was several degrees cooler than would be comfortable for anyone, and I shivered, noticing that I was still in my bikini under the sheet. Even worse, I realized that it was still damp. I swallowed and shivered again, only this time it had nothing to do with the temperature. How had I gotten here so fast? And why hadn’t they bothered to give me a proper hospital gown? Even mental patients got dry clothes…
“Mom? Dad?” I called out. My voice sounded small and frightened. The barely-audible whispers had been coming through the curtain in a steady stream this whole time, but they cut off now. The silence was ominous. “Katie?” I asked. “Is anyone there?”
The curtain drew back, and I stifled a gasp. The tall, thin man stood in the doorway, his expression no different than it had been back in my room at the lodge, his eyes just as empty; he grinned from ear to ear, the painted-on leering expression of someone trying to look friendly and almost getting it right, but not quite. My stomach sank. Even if I was having a psychotic break, I was still stuck in the middle of it.
The man and I stared at each other for a moment. My skin crawled. It didn’t feel exactly like he was looking at me, but I felt watched by something all the same.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded.
Instead of answering me, he strolled in and stood at my bedside in the same position he’d held earlier, hands clasped before him. His head turned to the doorway, and I followed his gaze to see two more men with similar builds to the first, also dressed in tailored black suits, wheeling a covered tray into the room. The new men wore surgical masks, and they halted the tray to the right of the first and took up positions on each of the other two sides of the bed to stare down at me. All three of them had the same vacant, slightly-off eyes and the same cold smell wafting off of them.
It takes a lot to frighten a girl whose whole family was burned up in a fire when she was a child, but these guys were doing a pretty good job of it. I was already shaking badly when the two orderlies lowered their masks and revealed the same creepy grins that the first man wore.
Flame Kissed (Seeking the Dragon Book 1) Page 3
