He hadn’t grown since I’d seen him last. Still wraithlike, Franky looked a lot like me with his spiky red hair, light blue eyes and pale skin. At least I wasn’t spotted all over with freckles like he was. Franky beamed like a neon sign proclaiming, “I’m a geek. Please beat me up.” Of course, at this moment someone was taking up the offer.
Quinn O’Neil was one of the bullies at this fine academy. Quinn the jarhead. Usually you didn’t see him without Billy Broadrick, but this morning Billy was nowhere in sight. Instead a pack of newbies surrounded Quinn. Hmmm. Maybe he was branching out on his own this year to become the Capo of his own mafia family of bullying punks.
Quinn and his henchmen stood blocking Franky as they laughed. The bullies had a high old time while Franky’s face contorted with obvious misery. One of the newbies gave Franky a shove and the kid flew back into a wall of other newbies. This brought another chorus of roaring laughter. Why did these dopes always think their behavior was so amusing?
Closing in on the tableau, I just wanted to avoid them and the unwanted attention. With the bullies’ focus centered on their prey, my skirting the edges of the group to enter the building would be easy. Head down. Get past them, I told myself. But a small figure with chestnut hair and ordinary brown eyes filled my memory. Unlike Franky, Adam had had only a few freckles spattered across the bridge of his upturned nose.
Passing the group, I estimated only three more strides to the building entrance.
My hand reached for the door's handle.
Adam had been so much smaller than Franky, I thought. Adam, with his baby-toothed grin and silly chuckle that sounded more like a sheep bleating…and Adam lying crumpled on the banks of the river. That last memory was a lie, however. Adam’s body had never been found. The river swept him away, they'd said.
“Hey.” Almost involuntarily, I turned instead of walking through the open door. “Quinn, are you still stalking Franky?” My words seemed to come from some distant universe, far from myself.
The herd of bullies turned as one in my direction and gaped in disbelief. The only one out of all of us who seemed pleased was Franky. He gawked at me with a toothy grin.
“Huh?” Quinn replied. Never known for his intellect, he just couldn’t keep up.
“Can’t you get that crush under control?” I continued. “When will you understand Franky just doesn’t return your affections?”
“Yeah. I don’t love you,” Franky interjected.
A red blush crept up Quinn’s neck and over his face. He glanced from side to side taking in the reaction of his gang. Their expressions challenged him to respond.
“I thought you killed yourself during the summer," Quinn said to me.
Good serve. I’d have been aced if I hadn’t steeled myself for something like that.
“No, as you can see I didn’t—”
Quinn laughed heartily.
“I killed somebody else. Ripped out his jugular.” I leaned toward him before chomping my teeth together in a bite motion. That cut off his laugh.
“No you didn’t,” he said, but his tone seemed to put a question mark on the end. “You’d be in jail.”
Quinn’s mind had progressed to rudimentary reasoning. Impressive.
“They all said I just snapped, so I wasn’t guilty because of temporary insanity.” I kept my face perfectly still and serious, my voice in a monotone. The question was whether Quinn would be stupid enough to buy it.
He laughed one last huff and turned to his posse. “Come on guys. We gotta go to class.”
They ambled away. Game, set and match.
“Thanks, Kizzy.” Franky beamed at me. “It’s great to have you back at school.”
“Yeah.” I turned and headed into the building.
Franky nipped at my heels. “The summer wasn’t the same without you.”
I walked on. Inside the building, the metal clattering of the locker doors lining the corridor sang around me in a staccato beat.
“Are you doing okay now?” Franky asked, still keeping up with me. “I woulda called but I didn’t know...”
My pace increased.
“Are you coming to the spelunk tonight?” Franky asked
Spelunking in abandoned buildings, tunnels and other dangerous places, hadn’t been high on my agenda since I’d entered the hair-ironing phase. That phase was over now. Maybe going back to spelunking would be fun. But that would mean interacting with a bunch of my former friends.
“Dunno,” I muttered.
“We’re going someplace really sick," he said.
Not wanting to invite more friendly-friendly stuff, I didn’t respond.
“The old hospital downtown,” Franky continued. “We’re going to try to find the morgue in the tunnel between the building and the park.”
I remained silent while continuing to move down the main hall, but Franky kept talking. “It’s supposed to be haunted by yellow fever victims.”
Would this kid not take a silent hint?
“Hundreds of dead bodies were carried through the tunnels to the park at night during the late 1800s. So they could be buried in secret in mass graves and the population wouldn’t panic.”
Moving faster, I finally put some distance between us.
“Okay. See ya later," Franky called after me.
The main corridor gave way to five off-shooting halls, like spokes off a wheel hub. I headed down the first one toward the guidance counselor’s office to get my class schedule. The throng of kids flitted around me like a video in fast forward. Only I moved in slow mo. I was disoriented for a moment but then the musty sweaty sock smell permeating the building comforted me a little.
The first bell of the morning rang. Fantastic. My lateness perfected the crap start to this day.
On reaching the Administration offices at the end of the hall, a guy leaning against the corner locker caught my eye. Maybe his stillness drew my attention. Or perhaps his tall, black haired gorgeousness was the magnet. He wore the typical school uniform consisting of dark blue jacket with green trim over white dress shirt and khaki pants. But while his uniform was exactly like all the other boys in the school, somehow the clothes didn’t fit him. No, that wasn’t right. They fit his broad shoulders and the gorgeous rest of him just fine but they didn’t seem “appropriate” on him. His features might be too angular and sharp to be a traditional “hottie” but to me he was divine.
He’s so fine he’s divine. The familiar thought bounced around all sides of my brain like an echo in the mountains.
Exactly where had I seen him before? I couldn't place him and this freaked me out. Usually the holes in my memory had something to do with “the bridge.” I deliberately relaxed my tightly clamped jaw and forced the thought away.
The guy fixed me with a dark-eyed stare that reflected not a hint of friendliness. Just as I would have walked away and into the Admin entrance, he strode toward me. He was so tall it took only three long steps.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
The grim line of his lips tilted up at one end and he snorted a half a laugh. “My identity is not required,” he said.
His words, spoken in a husky baritone and an odd accent, sent shivers rippling through me. Why was I so affected?
Leaning in, he grabbed my upper arm. A tingling radiated from where he gripped me just below the bullet wound, now just a scar. Not a tingling like a thrill but from some memory of a time when this guy had touched me before. Why couldn't I bring the memory to the surface?
“The Dorchans. Direct me to their location,” he demanded.
“The Dork-who? Are you calling me a dork?” Who did he think he was?
“You have but to answer honest inquiry and you would be troubled no further,” he added.
“You’re cracked.” I jerked my arm against his pinching grip but I failed to get loose.
“They are not on this side of the portal?” he asked. Something I couldn’t interpret passed over his face. “Their coming may yet be prevente
d?”
“Let go of me or I’ll make you eat your tongue for breakfast,” I said between gritted teeth.
Seeming to notice for the first time how hard he was holding my arm, his eyes softened and he relaxed his hand, allowing me to pull away.
“Apologies,” he said with sincerity. His navy blue eyes met mine.
As I stared into those eyes, another wave of déjà vu punched me in the stomach, taking my breath away. After a few seconds, I could finally drag in a gasp of air and speak.
“I do know you…don’t I?”
He didn't answer. Instead, his head lowered and he stared at the ground as if he found my feet fascinating.
Turning on one heel I walked with wobbly legs into the counselor’s office.
* * * * *
Naturally, I had to stay after science class to get the extra homework for the two weeks I’d missed. Mr. Hutson had been nice but I didn’t want any extra tutoring from him. He remembered the old me, the one who cared about flunking a class.
Since it had taken at least ten minutes for Mr. Hutson to do his pity routine, I hoped I would avoid seeing Petra. She’d tried to make eye contact with me throughout class from her seat three rows away. She’d even passed me a note, which of course I didn’t read. But as I left the classroom there she was: Petra Walker all five feet two, eyes of blue, with porcelain white skin and black hair. She resembled the Betty Boop doll I’d seen in my great-grandmother’s chest of memorabilia.
“I might as well be living in North Korea,” Petra said.
“Why?” I asked, helpless to stop myself.
Linking her arm through mine, she began walking with me down the corridor.
“Because my life sucks. Like big time,” she said. “I might as well be living in a dictatorship ruled by a funny looking, crazy, old guy. What am I saying? My dad is Kim Jong Il. The tyrant refuses to buy me an iPod. I guess I’ll have to ‘inherit’ it from Sarah just like everything else.”
Petra was notorious for the hand-me-downs she got from her sister. The uniform she wore today was a little too big and a little too worn to be new. Her only luxury was the silver charm bracelet she proudly wore stuffed almost full with cute symbols of every trip and mile marker in her young life.
“So there’s no middle ground?" I laughed. "No iPod equals living in a communist hellhole.”
“Well, my life sucks in other ways too,” she said. “For example, my best friend hasn’t been talking to me.”
The smile slipped off my face and I tugged my arm from hers. “Back off, Petra and just leave me alone.”
“Jeeze, what’s up your butt?” she asked. “Did you take a bitch enema today?”
This made me laugh again. Petra made it impossible to be teenage angsty for long.
“You’re just gonna have to learn that you can’t get rid of me, Kizzy. You might as well stop trying,” Petra said.
We reached my locker and Petra stopped. Who knows who her sources were, but someone plugged Petra into all the information in the school. She knew everything about everyone.
“I suppose you know the combination too.” I nodded toward my locker.
“I suppose I do, but I’ll let you do the honors.”
Shaking my head, I slid the dial of the lock through the required numbers and opened the metal door. Tossing the science text inside, along with the file folder of homework, I rummaged for the English text I’d need for my next class. Then swinging the metal door of the locker shut with a clang, I turned and saw that odd boy—the one who’d freaked me out—walking in our direction.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
He passed us, but made no indication he recognized me.
“Isn’t he magnificent?” Petra gushed. “His name is Rom Calixo. He’s some kind of foreign exchange student.”
As if he’d heard her, Rom turned and glanced back at us, black brows arching, before he turned and continued away.
“He has the most dreamy accent,” Petra said.
“It sounds strange. Kind of Italian but kind of not,” I commented.
“Maybe he has foreign accent syndrome. I saw that on the news,” Petra said. “There were these two women. One sounded like a cross between German and French and the other sorta Pakistani.”
“I doubt it. That must be rare,” I said. “Don’t you think his lips are too hard?” Petra had always had a thing about lips.
“But I bet they’d look really good all over me.” Petra pouted and made a kissy noise.
Yeah, those cruel lips would look really good on me too. The thought startled me with guilt. Funny. Normally, I could salivate over a guy as much as anyone. Well, maybe not as much as Petra.
“Not that I would let that Rom guy actually touch me," Petra said. "I’m true to my Chase.”
“Chase the cheater?” I asked. “You’re still going out with him?” We began walking toward my English class. I had about two minutes to get there, on the other side of the building.
“Yes, I’m still going out with him, except that he doesn’t know it yet. I’m torturing him a little longer before I forgive him for the Lashonda episode.”
I personally didn’t know what Petra saw in that tall, lanky stalk of corn. Plus, cheating would have been the end for me.
“Chase is not so smart,” she said. “ But he’s pretty.”
“If you say so.”
We reached the center hub of the school and Petra pointed. “Omigod, look at that."
The object of her exclamation lounged against vending machines. Billy Broadrick, in all his oily quarterback glory. With light mocha skin and bluish hazel eyes, Billy would have been in the hot column of my book if it weren’t for his horrid personality. Totally killed his hotness. But it wasn’t Billy alone that had caused Petra’s shock. Juliette, my stepsister, was plastered against Billy with her lips in an open mouth kiss against his. Sick. And not in the cool sick way but in the “I’m gonna vomit” way.
“For never was a story of more gag than this of Juliette and her douchebag,” I said, intentionally mangling Shakespeare.
“When did they start dating?” Petra asked.
Wow. I finally knew something before she did.
“Never mind.” Petra waved her hand. “I don’t want to think about them together. Eww.”
“What’s this about a spelunk tonight?” We turned down the second hall. I might just make English on time.
“It’s gonna be excellent. Ghosts galore they say. Are you coming?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I hedged. “Who’ll be there?”
“The usual mc² suspects: Senji, Franky, me—”
Our friend Senji had dubbed our spelunking group after the Einstein theory of relativity equation. Personally, I thought the name sucked.
“And Chase. I’m sure Chase will be there,” I teased.
“Of course my big, handsome surfer dude will be there. He—Oh no she didn’t.”
Swiveling my head in the direction of Petra’s glare, I spotted the source of her outrage: Chase heading our way with one arm wrapped around some African American cheerleader. Last year, Chase hadn’t been popular enough to bag a cheerleader. But since then he seemed to have filled out some. He wasn’t the lanky nerd anymore but the sun kissed surfer dude Petra had dubbed him.
“Excuse me Kizzy,” Petra said. “I’m gonna have to go now and snatch the weave off the head of that girl with her hands on my guy.”
“Okay,” I called before sprinting the remaining fifty yards to the English classroom. As I moved, I heard an outraged scream erupt behind me, followed by scuffling.
Just when my hand reached to grasp the door handle, another hand with elegantly long fingers snaked around and got there before me.
“Service offered,” Rom's said before he pulled the door wide for me to pass inside. Shit. Of course, that foreign exchange student guy just had to be in my English class.
Chapter Three
Escaping from home that night proved far from easy. I had tried th
e “you let Juliette go out on a school night” gambit. Hadn’t worked. Mom responded with the “you have homework young lady” block. Storming up to my room, I complained as loudly and obnoxiously as I could manage so as to avoid Mom coming to my room while I “studied”.
After locking the door, I changed clothes into black jeans, t-shirt and windbreaker. Red sneakers were my only concession to color. I climbed out of the window, careful not to slip on the slate tiles of the roof that served as an overhang for the front door of our Victorian. From this position I made the short leap to a branch on the nearby Japanese maple and then shimmied down the trunk before landing at street level.
Without much conscious thought, I ran toward the Old Candler Hospital bordering Forsyth Park, about five blocks away. The slight sulfur smell from the paper plant across the river permeated the city air. Overhead the Spanish moss hung like tinsel from the live oak trees arched in a canopy over our street. Fog meant no visible stars and or moon and so the night was unusually dark. It must have been completely overcast. The street lamps cast only pockets of light onto the surface of my path.
Excitement coursed through me as I rounding the block’s corner and the west side of the hospital appeared. The spelunking group consisting of Petra, Chase, Franky and Senji loitered near the gate to the hospital along with one more person…Rom.
“What’s he doing here?” I demanded, a little out of breath as I reached them.
“Our first meeting was not fortuitous.” Rom’s mouth curled in that half-smile half-snarl thing that he did so gorgeously.
An understatement. The guy lacked boundaries. Asking about some—What were the names again? Dor-something.
“What’s the big deal? He wants to join us.” Senji tossed his head. Skinny and on the shortish side, Senji Matsuki wore glasses with thick neon green frames. His hair was ultra straight and black courtesy of his Japanese dad, with a big swath of bang that had a tendency to hang in his almond shaped eyes most of the time. “Besides, you two could be twins.”
Of course Senji referred to the fact that Rom had dressed in an outfit almost identical to mine. Only on Rom it seemed cool and dashing. My look? I’m not sure what you’d call it.
Paranormal Realities (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Box Set) Page 2
