I felt almost deaf from my bellowing, and the easy sound of the rustling branches in the back yard was a relief to my ears.
There was not a soul out there. Where had he gone? Ressler turned to look at me in question.
“Someone at the back door,” I told him, sounding more like a cavewoman.
He ran out and I could hear his pounding footsteps all along the porch as he circled the house looking for whatever had just scared the living daylights out of me. I couldn’t even get up off the floor, I was so freaked out.
“I couldn’t see anyone.” Ressler came back into the house, breathing hard.
“There was a man out there. I saw him right before I came in here. That was the reason I was locking up.” I could hardly speak moments ago but now the words were flying out of my mouth. “His face was at the window and he was laughing at me. He looked…crazy.”
“What do you mean, you saw him and that’s why you were locking up? Could you just slow down and tell me what happened?”
“When I was standing at the window, I saw some guy walking to the end of the street. He wasn’t doing anything, just walking. I started to lock up anyway, I don’t really know why- Just in case. And the next thing, his madman face is at the back door. He was trying to scare me and it worked. Then he just vanishes.”
“How do you know it was the same guy?” Ressler looked confused by all this.
“His jacket. Same jacket. Same wild hair.”
“Okay. Here.” Ressler extended his hand to me and helped me up. “Sit down a minute. I’m just gonna check upstairs.”
I eased myself into one of the kitchen stools and when Ressler left to scout the bedrooms, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder at the kitchen window. I couldn’t see anything apart from my own reflection, but that didn’t stop me from getting up and quickly closing the curtains. That freak was still out there for all I knew, and I was in no hurry to see his face again.
“All clear.” Ressler came back into the kitchen.
I slid up out of the stool. “I’m going to bed. Will you come with me?” I knew sleep was just around the corner because of the sleeping pills and it was so welcome right now, but I didn’t want to be alone.
“Sure.”
Upstairs, I snuggled into Ressler and pretty much straight away, I was fast asleep.
I wasn’t sure whether I was dreaming or not, but the rough pull of a hand on my arm, brought on fogginess that I couldn’t get away from.
“What…” I muttered, trying to prize my eyes open.
“Quick…now.”
I blinked a few times before I was certain I was awake.”
“We need to get out…fire.”
“Fire?” I echoed. I sat up, or I was pulled up. It was hard to decipher which. I couldn’t get my bearings.
“Yes, Fire. Get up now!”
Ressler was next to me, picking me up, and with a deep sigh, he slung me over his shoulder and raced down the stairs with my body banging off his with every step he took. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air and it only just registered what was happening.
My house was on fire. This seemed to wake me up and once outside, I sprang to life. “Ressler,” I started, but he was already running back inside. I wasn’t standing out here, while everything I owned burnt to smithereens and so I ran in after him. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen cupboard.
The smoke was coming from upstairs and so I flew up there, breathless, running into my room first.
Nothing.
Next, I checked my dad’s room. It was coming from the wardrobe.
The attic.
“You need to get out of here, are you on a death wish?” Ressler yanked the fire extinguisher from my hand and yanked me forward by my arm.
“Get the hell off me,” I shouted. “The fire’s coming from the attic, and all my mom’s stuff is up there. I’m going to get it, so you better get your hands off me. I mean it, Ressler.” I cut daggers at him with my eyes. I was going up there, and he couldn’t stop me.
I snatched the fire eqstuingisher back out of his hands and before I could open the wardrobe and climb in, Ressler braced two hands against the side of it and pushed it so far out the way, it slid to the other side of the room.
I looked at him, amazed. “How did you…?” Never mind.
I slid the wall to the side and made my way up the stairs. The smoke was beginning to sting my eyes and I reared my head back, coughing uncontrollably. Oh no, my mom’s stuff was gonna be ruined.
When I was just about to reach the top, Ressler barged past me, grabbing the eqstuingisher from my hands and raced to the top in a few steps. The next thing I heard was the sound of the foam, suffocating the heat of the fire. The smoke was too thick to see any actual flames, but the smell was so pungent, I was choking on it. Tears streamed from my eyes, not from sadness, from the smoke. I couldn’t go any further up, even if I wanted to. It was too congested up there. I would die off the fumes alone.
The sound from the eqstuingisher stopped, and I heard a loud clatter, like something heavy dropping to the floor. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, expectantly. Roughly ten distressed breaths later, Ressler emerged from the smoke, his face and bare arms covered in black residue.
I stepped back, into my dad’s bedroom to let him past.
“Is everything…”
“Burnt to ashes? Just about.”
“Oh god.” I felt like I was gonna hurl. I sat on my dad’s bed and dropped my head into my hands.
“Don’t you have smoke alarms in this house or something?”
“Of course we do,” I said, not looking up.
“Well they sure as hell didn’t sound.”
“We have them, and they work.”
“This was deliberate. How the hell can a fire even start in the attic?”
“It could have been an accident,” I suggested. I think I was trying to convince myself more than Ressler.
“I’m not doing this with you. Someone deliberately set fire to your house and that’s it!” Ressler’s voice was getting louder by the second. “You’re not safe here anymore. You can’t stay here. I won’t let you stay here.”
“It’s my home!” I protested, tearing my hands away from my face. “I’m staying.”
“Over my dead body.” Ressler laughed savagely. “We’re leaving right now. Get your stuff.
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t care.”
“Where am I supposed to go? People will start asking questions.”
“Just get some of your things together. I’ll come back for the rest later.”
I couldn’t see the point in arguing anymore. Ressler wasn’t letting me stay and as much as I hated to admit it, he did have a point. Still resigned to the idea, I cut him a look of fury and stormed into my bedroom, aggressively shoving clothes and underwear and whatever else I thought suitable into my bag.
When I was sure I had everything, I put on my coat and just as I was about to leave, I remembered the most important thing.
My mom’s dream catcher.
I dashed back over to the bed, where I kept it, hanging above the headboard every night, except tonight, the hook was empty.
Matwau
I wasn’t particularly happy to be there and when I walked through his door, Caleb looked even less happy to see me.
Instead of speaking to me, his glare travelled behind me to Ressler. “What’s she doing here?”
I could feel the scowl biting into my face.
Ressler threw my bag down onto the sleek, black leather sofa. “She’s staying here,” he said, offering no form of explanation.
“Why?” Caleb held something in his hand and he quickly folded it up, slipping it into his back pocket.
“Someone set fire to the attic at her place. And someone’s been crawling around tonight, creeping her out.”
Creeping me out? Way to make me sound like a real baby. It wasn’t like I wanted to co
me here. I had no choice.
“How did someone get in to set a fire?” Caleb looked pissed and one look at Ressler told me that he felt the same.
“How am I supposed to know? I was in there all night.”
“Wow, this isn’t Ressler fault,” I cut in. How dare he? He’s busy ramming his tongue down Tamara’s throat while Ressler is with me nearly every second of the day. He had some nerve. Only someone with an ego as big as Caleb’s could pull that crap off.
Caleb made a grunting sound and smiled to himself. “I’ll stay at your place. Give me your keys,” he said, holding his waiting hand out towards me.
“But it’s not safe,” I said, feeling anxious at just the thought of him being alone in there. What if crazy lunatic showed back up?
Ressler handed over my keys to Caleb and I watched the exchange with dread in my heart. I didn’t want him to stay there, no matter how much of a jerk he was.
“Are you coming?” Caleb asked him.
I looked over at Ressler.
“Will you be okay here?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Ressler swiftly leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “Call me if you need me.”
He was just leaving with Caleb when I went to call out his name.
“Pria.” The sound of Leah calling my name, cut me short and the door to Caleb’s closed behind him and Ressler.
Leah walked into the living room with a serious expression on her face for once. She looked just as beautiful as ever in black, Lycra leggings and a fitted white t-shirt. This might be the most casually dressed I had ever seen her, but her beauty was still there, underneath. It was impossible to miss. Her light brown hair was a mass of waves covering her shoulders and most of her back and I found myself wishing I could just change my hair daily, like that.
“Yeah?”
She sat down on the sofa, curling her legs under her and I sat down next to her when she didn’t answer me right away. Something was wrong.
“At Cape Flattery, what happened to Caleb?” she asked me.
“Why?”
“That night, he came back here a different person.”
“I don’t know.” I looked into her intense black eyes. “The witch doctor said something to him, but Caleb swore he was fine- that nothing happened.”
“There’s something inside of him and its dark and growing stronger every day. I can feel it, it’s so strong. It’s not natural.”
I thought about what Caleb told me, about not being himself. It was the truth. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are the only one that can fix it.”
“How do you figure that?” I asked her. “I don’t know where you’ve been, but Caleb hates me.” That was the truth also. In everyday life I was nothing more than a pain in his ass. I felt like the least desirable candidate to do anything to help.
“When he’s with you, the light overtakes the dark and he shows a shadow of himself. When he’s not with you, his heart is as good as dead.”
“I don’t know how to help him,” I said flatly. “He would never let me, anyway. It’s a waste of time.”
“You have to help him.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I snapped back.
“Oh yeah? Then how do you expect to get through any of this without his help? Answer me that. And he can’t help you when he’s turned so bad that he doesn’t care anymore. Because, that’s what’s happening. If this carries on, the Caleb you know, will be completely gone.”
I reared back at her sharp tone. I was so stuck on the idea that Caleb couldn’t stand me anymore that this answer just seemed too easy. Something so far from Caleb’s control just didn’t seem plausible.
“This is really all down to the witch doctor?” I asked.
“I know it is
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know, but you need to do something, and fast.”
“And what about Tamara, how do you explain that?” I asked, feeling superior. I wouldn’t roll over and accept that Caleb was totally faultless in this. If his heart was so dead, then why the sudden interest in the skanky cheerleader all of a sudden?
“I can’t explain that, and I don’t know who Tamara is,” Leah said with a shrug of her shoulders.
So he had never brought her around here then. That was good. Or, Leah was covering for him, which made much more sense. I wasn’t supposed to care anyway, I reminded myself.
“I’ll try,” I said. “I really don’t see what I can do, though.”
“Make sure you do try.”
I’d had enough of this conversation. If Caleb really was changing as Leah put it, there was really nothing I could do. He had a worse attitude with me than he did everyone else.
“Help him, and I’ll help you,” Leah offered.
I met her gaze full on. “Help me, how?”
“You don’t need Ressler to take you to Neah Bay.”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t realize Ressler or Caleb told her anything. She seemed to know most things already and the only thing she ever really offered to a situation was judgment.
“You’re right, I don’t need him. But if I go alone, Ressler, Drake, or Caleb, will only follow me anyway. So I might as well make it hassle free for myself and just bring one of them along. Plus I need Sully’s boat.”
“Sully’s boat,” Leah scoffed. “That piece of junk. We can do better than that now, can’t we?” She suggested, arching her eyebrow. The smallest smile spread across her rose pink lips and I felt myself smile a little, too.
“You want to help me?”
“Want’s a strong word.” Leah stood up and fixed her hands on her hips. “Caleb is going to kill me for this,” she said, still smiling.
“For what?” I asked, still unsure what she was actually planning on doing.
“I hope you’re not scared of heights.”
***
Leah lead me through the bar and outside into the parking lot. She had secured a knit scarf around my neck, gloves on my hands and a beanie on my head. She pulled the scarf tighter, yanking me forward in the process.
“I think that’s tight enough,” I choked out, reaching up to loosen the knot that was slowly but surely cutting off my circulation.
“You’ll thank me later,” she said, checking me over.
I looked down at myself. “What are you looking for?”
“Just making sure you’re ready that’s all.”
“Ready for what? You still haven’t told me what we’re even doing.”
A gust of wind pushed me back as two ginormous wings spread out from behind Leah’s back and set the whole parking lot aglow.
I slung my arm across my face to shield my eyes from the unearthly glow, and when I was sure the light wouldn’t scorch my eyes, I lowered my arm and gasped at her wings.
Blue, white, silver and turquoise glittered all over the surface of the wings, shimmering like tiny butterflies in flight, and that was the only moment I was given to truly appreciate them, when she stepped forward and turned me around, wrapping her arms around my waist and soaring off into the sky.
I squealed, scrunching my eyes tightly closed. I felt like I had left my stomach behind at Sully’s. The air was colder than an ice blast across my face but I didn’t dare move my hands to pull my scarf up and cover my skin.
“Don’t be scared,” Leah said over the sound of the sea and the wind. “I won’t drop you. Promise.” In spite of being ripped thousands of feet into the air, I still picked up the humor in her voice.
I slowly opened my eyes and they instantly took a dry hit of air, forcing me to scrunch them back up.
A few minutes later, I re-opened them, choking on my own amazement as I looked at the dark blue sea below me. I was so high, it was unbelievable. I was- flying.
The sea was rippled with the silver reflection of the full moon that looked like it was in our direct path. If I didn’t know better, I w
ould think we were going to smash right into it.
There was so much I wanted to ask Leah but every time I opened my mouth to speak, the wind took my breath with it, losing it in the night.
Eventually, and I didn’t know when it happened, I must have fallen asleep because the next thing, I am on the ground and Leah is standing over me with a curious look on her face.
I got up off the floor and wiped my butt down from the sandy road. I looked around me. “We’re here?”
“As near as I’m going,” Leah said. “The harbor’s right down that road there.” I looked out to where she pointed along the curving road that disappeared around the bend of the trees.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I had never been left on my own in so long, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“You’re on your own from here. It’s not safe for me to be seen out here.”
Well that was reassuring.
“How will I get home?” I was starting to panic a little. I didn’t want to be stuck out here and I had no money for the ferry. It was still dark out, the sun hadn’t even risen yet. I had told Matoskah I would meet him at ten, or was it ten thirty? I couldn’t even remember. Not that it mattered, I was about five hours too early anyway. And I was tired.
“I’ll find you later.”
“How will you…” I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before her wings were back out and she turned her back to me, nothing more than an oversized black dot now in the sky.
“Ugh!” I kicked my foot into the gravel at the side of the road. What was I supposed to do now?
After turning full circle about four times and deciding the only thing I could do was to go into town, wherever that was. I pulled my beanie down tighter over my head and headed in the direction of the harbor. Where there was a harbor there was a town, right?
The road was dark. The moon was still out and there were no street lights to offer even the tiniest slither of comfort. I reached for my IPhone in my pocket and checked the time. It was almost six in the morning.
Ominous black shadows from the giant spruce and fir trees that lined the road were the only other thing I could see. I could hear plenty of strange noises, but I didn’t really care to find out what they were. The sound of my boots crunching over the road was too loud in my ears and I quickened my pace, hurrying to get to some kind of civilization.
Falling Darkness: The second book in the Falling Awake Series Page 13
