Jake, what are you doing, man? I had to think about something else, quickly, before Emily noticed the growing going on in my pants.
Liam’s gone. The darkness is spreading. Focus. Emily must not have been reading my mind or paying attention to my, um, pants because she didn’t accuse me of being a pervert. Instead, she said, “I think it’s cool that you care about my dad.”
“Of course I do. You know I’d do anything to help Liam.”
You. I’ll do anything to help you.
She smiled at me. “Then let’s bring him home.”
I’d been presented the perfect moment to confess my love for her. Cowardice kept the words sealed tightly inside my heart.
11. Sophie
The Apocalyptic World
Sophie cracked her gum and tapped her left foot in time to the music blaring from her car’s speakers. I’m going to be late for work again.
She’d used the traffic excuse one time too many. “Leave ten minutes earlier,” her boss had said.
He wants me to look like a model to sell his clothes and be on time. Dude’s trippin’.
The L.A. freeway was a parking lot. Sophie didn’t mind. It gave her time to text her boyfriend, Rob, then her best friend, Hayleigh. She looked up occasionally to see if she could move her car a few feet forward. She’d let her foot off the brake, let her car coast a bit, then brake and go back to her phone.
Barely audible over the sound of her gum cracking and music, Sophie heard a car horn. She glanced up, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the driver in the car behind her flipping her off. Though she couldn’t hear him, she could see that he was red-faced and yelling at her.
What the hell?
Sophie looked forward and noticed that traffic had advanced at least two to three car lengths ahead of her.
“Whatever, dude. It’s not like moving a hundred feet matters.” She knew the red-faced man in the car behind her couldn’t hear her, but she said it out loud anyway. Sophie let her foot off of the brake to ease forward. Her car didn’t move. She pressed her foot lightly on the gas pedal, but the car still didn’t move.
Stalled. Shit!
She shoved the gear into park, turned the key first to the off position, then back to on. Nothing.
Dammit!
Sophie turned the volume down, and this time when she turned the key, she heard the engine turning over, trying to catch and start. With the volume down, Sophie could hear the chorus of car horns blasting behind her.
Traffic in the lanes on either side of her had started to creep slowly around her, but it was still bumper to bumper, no one leaving room for the cars piled up behind her to cut into a new lane. Sophie cranked the engine again, and it whined in revolt.
“Come on, you son-of-a-bitch! Come on!”
While Sophie worked the key and gas pedal, she glanced into her rearview mirror. The man behind her was red in the face with anger. He pounded his fists on the steering wheel and gestured wildly at her.
Sophie decided to change her tactic with her car. Yelling at it hadn’t worked. Maybe sweet-talking was what it needed.
“Come on, start, please. Just start so this guy behind us doesn’t ram into you. ’Kay?”
Beads of sweat had broken out on her temples and above her lip. She felt the sweat pull the perfect face that had taken her over an hour to put on melt down her cheeks.
She turned the key and mashed the pedal, but still the car whined but didn’t start. Sweet-talking didn’t work either.
Time for a threat. “Start, bitch, or I’ll sell you for scrap!” she screamed.
She turned the key again, and the engine purred in response.
“Good girl,” Sophie said. She moved the gearshift to D and pressed on the gas. She hadn’t gone but a few car lengths when she saw a blur of red in front of her.
Before she had time to register that it was a red Fiat, instinct caused her to slam her foot onto the brake. But it was too little too late. She couldn’t stop her forward momentum. She heard the crash before she felt the impact as her car slammed into the little red Fiat. Sophie felt her head whip forward then snap back as her air bag swelled and pressed against her chest. The seat belt dug into her shoulder, making her wince in pain.
Before she could take stock of her injuries, she was once again whipped forward and back as she heard metal crunching against metal. She looked in her rearview mirror and saw that the man behind her was already getting out of his car.
Sophie fumbled with the latch of her seatbelt. She heard someone pound on her window.
“Get out here, you stupid bitch!” a man’s voice said.
Sophie’s hands trembled and shook so much that she could barely operate the button to roll down the window.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her throat was so dry that her voice came out like a frog croak. “The guy ahead, in the Fiat. He cut me off. I couldn’t stop in time.”
The angry man shifted his attention to the red car. Sophie watched as the man marched ahead to the driver’s side of the Fiat. With her window still down, she heard the angry man bang on the window of the little red car.
“Get out of your fuckin’ car, you fuckin’ faggot,” the man yelled. He continued to bang and yell obscenities, but the driver of the Fiat neither got out nor even looked in the angry man’s direction. The driver sat still as stone.
Sophie rolled up her window. It did little to drown out the sounds of the angry man or the car horns blaring, but she felt a bit safer with the window between her and the threat of violence that loomed outside.
Sophie felt tears well in her eyes. What should she do? What had my dad said? Why hadn’t I paid closer attention? There was something about getting the driver’s insurance information. But that would require her to get out of the car. Fat chance!
Call the cops. Yes, she was supposed to make a report. That she could do. She didn’t need to leave the safety of her car to dial.
Her fingers shook as she pressed the three numbers, 911. She put the phone to her ear and heard it ring three times, then five, and six. Isn’t anyone going to pick up? I have an emergency here!
Finally an operator came on the line.
“911, what’s your emergency,” he said. The operator sounded as bored with his job as she was with folding clothes at her job.
“I was just in a car wreck,” she said.
“You and half of L.A. Welcome to the club.”
Sophie didn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t even seem to care.
“Okay,” she finally said. “That’s great, but I really need a cop to come here and help.”
“What’s your location?” the operator asked.
“Ummm …” What’s my location? She hadn’t paid attention to street signs as she texted and listened to music and otherwise tried as best she could to pass the time in the traffic jam without being bored out of her skull. She looked up and around for exit signs or other markers, but she was in a spot without any signs. Shit, I don’t know where I am.
“I’m not sure exactly. I’m on the 405 between Culver and Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“How the hell am I supposed to dispatch someone to you when you don’t even know where you are?”
The tears that had pooled in her eyes spilled over the dam. She’d never had to call 911 before. She’d never been in a car accident before. She was scared, and the man on the other end of the phone berated her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice cracked as she talked and cried at the same time. “This is my first accident, and there’s this angry man beating on the car in front of me, and …”
Sophie stopped talking when she realized that the small, red-faced man was walking by her car and back to his. Maybe he’ll stay in his car now.
“Are you still on the line?” she heard the nasally voiced operator say.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Is anyone injured?”
“No, at least I don’t think so. But the guy in the car ahead of me hasn
’t gotten out of his car, so I don’t know if he’s okay.”
As she spoke, the red-faced man again walked by her car, this time gripping a tire iron in his hand. Sophie saw that he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and his forearm bulged as he stomped back to the Fiat. He screamed, “Get outta da fuckin’ car!” When the driver did not oblige, the red-faced man pulled back the tire iron and began to wail on the Fiat’s driver’s-side mirror. Sophie heard glass crash to the pavement.
“This guy is going ape shit,” she said. She’d almost forgotten that the 911 operator was still on the other end of her phone line.
“What?” he asked.
“This guy – from the car behind me – he’s out of his car, and he’s beating a tire iron against the car in front of me. He’s trying to get the other driver to get out, but the other driver is just sitting there. He’s–”
Over the sound of the crashing glass, Sophie heard the loud crack of a gunshot. Then another and a third. Sophie jumped, and her heart thumped hard in her chest.
She watched as the red-faced man fell face-first against the door of the Fiat. His body slid down the door to the ground. It was only then that she saw that the driver of the Fiat had moved. She watched as he pushed his door open, got out, and stepped over the body of the red-faced man. The Fiat driver still held the gun in his hand. He was walking toward her.
Sophie’s hand dropped her phone, but she didn’t hear it fall to the floor of her car. She heard only the sound of her blood rush in her ears. She didn’t hear the 911 operator’s voice ask, “What happened? Were those gunshots? Are you still there?”
“Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t kill me,” she whispered.
A young man, no more than twenty, sauntered toward her. His dark hair hung to his shoulders, his face so pale that the afternoon sun shone off of it. He was thin and fit and dressed in black from head to toe. He stopped at her door, bent down to look inside, and removed his dark sunglasses, revealing large, black eyes.
What … what is he?
He gestured for her to roll down her window. Every instinct inside her screamed, “Don’t!” But despite all sensible thoughts, she felt her hand push the button and roll down the window.
The black-eyed man’s lips curled into a small smirky smile. “You scuffed up my car,” he said.
Sophie knew that the accident wasn’t her fault. But she also knew that it was best to keep that to herself seeing as how the man was holding a gun.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. My dad has good insurance. He’ll pay to repair the damage, I swear he will.”
Sophie didn’t want to look into the man’s eyes. They were creepy. And looking at him made her feel cold. So cold. She shivered.
Even though she didn’t look him in the eye, she felt him stare at her. It was the kind of look she was used to. Young guys, older men. She frequently felt them look at her as she walked away from them. Sometimes she’d look back and see them staring at her butt. Some even blatantly looked her up and down. And there were the nasty creepers, middle-aged men that came into the store she worked in, lying that they were looking for clothes for their daughter when she and the other girls who worked there knew they came in to stare lustily at the pretty, teen girls.
But this guy was no middle-aged creeper. If she hadn’t just seen him blow a guy away, she might think he was hot. She didn’t want to look in his eyes, but something made her look again. When she did, she shivered again, and goose bumps broke out on her arms.
This dude’s not right.
“Come with me,” he said at last.
Without thinking, she blurted out, “No, thanks.” She wished she had taken the time to compose a more diplomatic way of saying that.
“It was not a request, but a command,” he said. His voice had become firmer and deeper. “Come with me.”
“Why?”
He looked her up and down. “You will be my bitch. The master will like you. I know that he will.”
Master? What the hell is he talking about? I bet he’s in some bat-shit-crazy cult or something. Then a horrid thought came to her mind. They want to rape me. Master. I’ll be a sex slave. Fresh, hot tears streamed down her face and fell into her lap.
“Thanks, but no. I … I have a boyfriend,” she said. “And I’m only seventeen. You know, jailbait.”
The black-eyed man let out a throaty laugh, but his eyes didn’t laugh. They remained cold and hard and black.
“Come with me, or die,” he said. To illustrate the choice, he pulled the gun up and pointed it to her head.
“Help!” Sophie screamed. “Help, he’s going to kill me!” Doesn’t anyone see this maniac with a gun? Doesn’t anyone care? Sophie glanced to her right and saw a car next to her. But the driver’s eyes were fixed forward, seemingly oblivious to her plight. Sophie suddenly felt wholly alone in the world, as if there existed only her and the black-eyed maniac with a gun to her head.
“Help me!” she screamed again as loudly as she could. But the driver in the car next to her didn’t even flinch.
“Last chance. You’re one hot bitch, but I haven’t got all day. Come with me, or die.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can.”
“But the police are on their way. And where are you going to take me? Your car is gridlocked. You’ll go to jail.”
He answered with laughter.
“You’ve got a nice rack. You would have been fun,” he said.
The black-eyed man walked back to his car, stepped over the red-faced man’s lifeless body, closed his door, put his gun under the seat, and drove off into the suddenly free-flowing traffic. Away from the sound of sirens. Away from Sophie’s car. And away from her still-warm body slumped over the steering wheel.
12. You Make it Hard to Focus
Emily
My dad was gone. Ciardha’s acrid odor still permeated the entire house. But with Jake standing so close, all I could think about was why he hadn’t kissed me. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he’d wanted to. Why did he pull back?
Jake lingered in the front hallway while I got myself ready to go to meet with the L.T.
Damn him for being so …
Warm and understanding and friggin’ nice to me. If he’d been all Mr. Business Partner, it would have been easier to focus. But he had to go be all Mr. Close-to-the-Way-Things-Were. My heart warmed at the thought of having my best friend back.
Damn him for being so …
Friggin’ hot. Jake had grown about three inches and gotten actual muscles. My mind pictured him as he sparred, bare-chested, his skin glistening with a light sheen of sweat, his eyes wide and deep blue with the rush of adrenalin coursing through him. My heart raced from the heat my thoughts created.
Emily, keep your distance. It isn’t the time to rage with lust.
But my mind wouldn’t let go of the image of a bare-chested Jake, his warm breath on my neck, his strong arms wrapped around my waist as he leaned in …
I’m a Priestess of Brighid. I’ve created portals, traveled through time and space, and bested a black hole. I can control my desires!
I needed to stay away from him both physically and emotionally or I’d be lost in a sea of lust. I had to find a way to control myself. Everything depended on it.
I slung my bag across my body and threw my long coat over it.
“Ready?” Jake asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We walked together and kept our heads down and eyes low but alert. We didn’t talk at all on our way to L.T., each of us alone with our own thoughts.
When we got to the lair, Greta was already there with Tristan. They came together. Interesting. I had just started to let my imagination run wild with thoughts of the two of them getting together when I heard Greta yell at him.
“How presumptuous of you! You think you know everything – like you’re some kind of street-wise guru. Well, you don’t know everything, and you certainly don’
t know anything about me.”
“You’re so defensive. Methinks thou dost protest too much,” Tristan said.
“Ooh! Shut up,” she said. Greta stormed away from him. Unfortunately for her, the room wasn’t very large and it was open and empty, so it wasn’t like she could go to a room and slam the door behind her. That would have made for a much more effective fit of rage. Instead, she had to settle for walking over to me, her back to Tristan, trying her best to ignore him. Her face was a storm of anger. Whatever he said, he sure hit a nerve. Past her shoulder, I saw Tristan behind her, covering his mouth so that his laugh wouldn’t escape.
“He seems to find you amusing,” I said.
“Well, I don’t find him amusing. He’s an arrogant ass.”
“Arrogant? Maybe. But not an ass, though he has a mighty fine one.”
“Ugh, don’t you ever think of anything else? Don’t tell me you’re drooling over him now like you did with Owen. I’d think you’ve got better things to think about than Tristan’s backside.”
“Slow down, Greta, and back the hell off. First, I’m not drooling over Tristan. He’s super hot in every way imaginable, but I’m not interested in him that way. Second, lighten the hell up! If we don’t try to find ways to laugh, we’re going to lose ourselves. And if that happens, Ciardha has won.”
“Whatever.” Greta stormed away from me, but since she’d already run from Tristan, she didn’t have a place to go. She ended up at the table that served as our makeshift weapons depot and pretended to do something significant.
Greta must be having a bad day. I should be easier on her.
“Everyone’s on edge,” Jake said.
“Including me.”
“That’s fair warning,” he said with a smile.
The tension in the room was thick, and it matched the tension in my shoulders, building up to a big ache in my head. Jake’s attempts at small talk didn’t calm me, but only fuelled my desire to punch something.
I walked over to where Tristan was stretching, his legs in a wide stance, bent over into a downward-facing dog. He didn’t register recognition that I was there, so I coughed lightly.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 55
