Matt helps her up. “Leave me alone, Mathias,” Taylin slurs. He speaks softly, patiently, but I can’t hear what he says. “I don’t care. This is all bullshit, just like every time.” I can’t hear his response, but it doesn’t look gentle. “I can’t. This daddy dear won’t let me drink myself into a stupor at home.” She yanks away and stomps in a random path toward the fire. When she finally reaches it she spreads her arms out, like she wants to jump off a cliff…or into the fire.
“She so needs therapy,” Carly says as we jog toward Taylin, arriving just a second after Matt.
“Step back,” he commands.
“What? If I die now, you two will die soon and then we can all start over, without…” Taylin glances sideways and sees me. “Without her!” She jabs her finger in my direction. “Bloody, fucking Siren!”
“Wow,” Carly whispers next to me.
Yeah, wow. Everyone’s looking at me now. Talk about drama. Maybe I should start singing and make my escape. I open my mouth, but Matt shakes his head at me. “He’s almost here. Don’t. It’ll make things…worse.”
I shut my mouth, wondering what could be “worse.” Carly and I stare as the hot fire snaps and dances in the wind. Matt grabs Taylin around the waist and carries her toward the woods away from everyone else. I follow.
Carly grabs my arm. “You’re following them?”
“I want to hear what Taylin knows about all this. She seems in the mood to talk.”
“Good point,” Carly says with a tilt of her head, eyebrows raised. We stride after them to the edge of the woods, where Matt is trying to reason with her.
“Ephesians 5:33, Mathias!” Taylin yells what sounds like a Bible reference. “You and Lucas need respect to survive.” She throws her hands wide. “Respect leading a battalion against Napoleon. Respect saving Catholics from a sexually frustrated, bitchy queen.” She flaps her fingers toward the fire. “Respect being quarterback, playing hockey, whatever.” She jams her thumb into her chest. “But I’m a woman!” Tears well out of her eyeliner-smeared eyes. Matt glances back at Carly and me.
“Hush, Tay. It’s going to be okay.”
“Like hell it’s okay! I need love to survive! Even God orders it. That’s why I’m always the one to die first. I’m cursed more than the rest of you.”
“Tais toi, Tay!” Luke’s order in French makes Carly and me jump together. I spin to see Luke striding toward us. The flames, crackling in the background, seem to surround him, frame him. I stifle a shiver at the vision of Luke walking right out of the flames of hell.
Taylin ignores his order. “If you kill her, we lose you forever, Lucas! I’ll kill her myself before I let that happen.”
Luke stalks past us. Carly’s mouth hangs open. Kill? She definitely said kill. I know she’s talking about me. Everything in me is frozen. My stomach can’t twist, my lungs lie open waiting for air that doesn’t come. Only my heart continues pounding for a long moment, until I suck in a breath. I feel Carly lean into me, either needing support or giving it. I lean back in the same way.
Luke grabs Taylin’s shoulders and gives her a small shake. Matt looks like he wants to break in between them but holds back. His gaze flits across me and lands on Carly.
Luke switches from French, which he knows I understand, to something more ancient-sounding. Maybe Latin. He grinds out a string of words while Taylin twists against his grasp and shakes her head. More tears gush out of her blackened eyes.
A gurgling sound comes up with a burp from Taylin. “Ugh…” she moans as she heaves. Luke steps back and lets her coat the leaves with upchucked tequila. No one moves to help her. Taylin’s hands are on wobbly knees and she bends down almost into her own puke.
“Wait!” I yell and rush forward to guide her knees to a cleaner spot. In her weakened state she lets me. I hold her chin-length hair back from her face. I glance over my shoulder at the three non-moving people. “Carly, what should I do?”
Matt produces a bottle of water from his jacket. Carly blinks and kicks into pre-med gear like I hoped she would. “Don’t make her drink yet; it will just come back up.” Taylin groans and rounds her back upwards like the cat-stretch in yoga.
“Shouldn’t I push on her back?” I ask, remembering when Matt broke up with Carly and she drank herself sick. I’d helped her puke for hours.
“Yeah, lower back to give her something to push against.”
Carly grabs the paper towel Matt’s holding and douses it with water. “Here.” She hands it to me and I mop Taylin’s face.
“Get away from me,” Taylin orders, but I continue to push on her back as she gags.
I try not to inhale through my nose and feel my stomach roll anyway. “God, what the hell did you eat for dinner?”
“I’ll take her.” Luke steps in, but I shake my head without looking at him. Somehow, I need to do this for her. The pain in her accusations earlier, albeit possibly exaggerated by the tequila, seemed very sincere. Even unaware of my role in her utterly sucky life, I still feel sort of guilty. Luke stays close, ready to jump in if I let him.
Carly orders Matt to run back for more water and towels, and he does without question. Carly’s voice holds authority and confidence as she continues to advise while throwing in a few facts about alcohol poisoning. After what feels like frickin’ forever, Taylin’s heaves fade to minor gags and then just shallow breathing. For such a thin girl, Taylin is heavy. I hold her up, her back propped the best I can against my knee.
“Okay, enough,” I whisper and Luke instantly shifts Taylin into his arms. Her head lolls but she focuses on me. She doesn’t say anything. No thanks, no apologies, no explanations. But the scorching pain from before has muted into something close to curiosity.
Luke looks at Matt. “I’ll take her to my house.” Luke tips his head at Carly. “Take care of her. I’ll make sure Jule gets home.”
Take care of Carly? What the hell does that mean?
Matt shakes his head. “Tay won’t stay on your motorcycle and her car’s blocked in. I’ll take her.” Matt glances at Carly as Luke surrenders Taylin to him. “Can you help me?”
Carly nods. What? “Didn’t you just hear him?” I whisper as she pulls away from my hand.
“He needs help with her,” Carly justifies. “I’ll be okay.”
“She’d better be okay,” I look straight at Matt.
He grins roguishly, but then his more sincere, choir-boy smile comes back. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of Miss Ashe.”
Carly smiles wryly up at him. Even hidden behind the cocky look, it’s obvious to me at least that she’s still crushing on him hard. They walk off with Taylin, who has now passed out. They skirt around the clearing, sticking to the shadows, until they disappear into the night.
The wind’s picked up and my hair blows around my head. I glance at Luke. The planes of his face are slashed with splashes of firelight flickering through the thin layer of swaying trees between us and the bonfire. Even without his grin, he’s breathtaking. Gorgeous, with dark, troubled eyes and tousled hair that flicks across his worried forehead. His jaw is tight, his lips a grim line.
“What was she talking about?” I ask. “It obviously involves me. I have a right to know.” Where are these words coming from? Definitely not from the paranoid part of me that realizes I’m standing in the dark woods within arm’s reach of a person with the potential and ability to… I won’t even think it.
“Tay is…” he sighs and cups his hands under mine. “She’s got issues.” He pours clean water over my hands and rubs them with his own, washing away what I can’t see in the dark.
“That’s an understatement,” I murmur. “Thanks.” I wipe my hands on my jean skirt and use my shirt to swipe at my knees where twigs stick.
“You shouldn’t listen to what she babbles when she’s drunk.” He makes the universal sign of “crazy” by twirling his finger by his head. Does he really think that will satisfy me?
“Even drunk, she seemed pretty sure that
I’m the cause of all misery in her world.”
A small chuckle huffs out of Luke. His warm hand grabs mine, and he tugs. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
My heart hammers hard and my irrational brain only focuses on the feel of his hand and the slight, clean fragrance he gives off as he tows me deeper into the nearly pitch-black woods. My rational brain screams that I am in fact the stupid girl in the slasher movie about to be cut into itty-bitty pieces. Just when my rational brain begins to win, we break through the tree line onto a fairway. He pauses as my eyes adjust to the bright moonlight shooting down past the racing clouds. We’re on the golf course. I can see the clubhouse, lit with a cosmos of sparkling lights, across the wide, manicured lawns. My ridiculous rational mind wonders if anyone could hear me scream from there. Stupid rational mind!
I huff in frustration over my paranoid thoughts. This is Luke, gorgeous Luke who left me a locker full of lilacs and feeds my dog chicken bits. A guy who cares enough about crazy Taylin to drive over to the bonfire when it seems he hadn’t planned to come. I intertwine my fingers through his as he draws me forward. About halfway across the lawn he stops.
“Sit,” he instructs. I follow him to the ground. “Close your eyes.”
“O-okay.” I close my eyes. Trust, gotta have trust when you like someone. I do like Luke Whitmore, a lot. I relegate the memory of yesterday to the same place I keep my memory of my mom flipping out.
“Lie down,” he whispers, sparking a shiver through me. I hear the grass compress under him. The air is warm, the late-summer breeze refreshing against my hot skin after our brisk walk.
I lower myself onto my back, the short, thick grass a natural cushion.
“Open your eyes.”
I blink open at the night sky. A large, full moon hides behind wispy layers of clouds. Its bright glow flickers and dims as thick and thin cumulous clouds race between it and us pinned to the earth by gravity. The sky is huge without the trees. A wide circle of black and gray, pinpricked with a few stars, hovers like a blanket overhead.
“Wow,” I whisper at the display.
“It’s even better on a clear night—a million stars without all the lights from town.”
His voice comes from beside me. I turn my face to his. “You come out here a lot?”
“Since we moved here; it’s a good place to think.”
The silence and darkness pack in around us until it feels like I’m floating in emptiness. The thought tightens my stomach. I shift until I feel the firm side of Luke’s arm pressing back. A flash of lightning splinters the clouds overhead, momentarily lighting up the gray, morphing bodies from the inside. Thunder follows a second later, loud and stark. I jerk, my hand grasping Luke’s forearm.
“Isn’t it supposed to be dangerous to be on a golf course in a lightning storm?” I ask, but stay rooted to the soft grass.
“That’s when you’re standing up holding a nine-iron.” Another bolt of lightning flicks in the clouds, followed by thunder. “Although we may get a little wet. You don’t melt, do you?”
I should sit up, ask him to lead me to shelter or run for the clubhouse. But Luke’s hand captures mine. He trails lazy circles with his thumb over the back, up and over my knuckles.
“No, I don’t melt, but Carly might send the flying monkeys if you allow my hair to get ruined.” At the mention of Carly, my stomach tightens.
“Is she going to be okay?” I whisper as if the words themselves show my disloyalty. If I really was questioning her safety, would I have let her go? What kind of friend am I?
“She’ll be fine. Perhaps a little hazy about the events of tonight, but that’s it.”
I stare at him. Even with my eyes wide, Luke’s features are still in complete shadow.
“He’s drugging her?”
I make out the sharp edge of Luke’s profile just before it disappears. He turns toward me.
“There are no drugs involved. It’s more of a…memory spell. To help her forget all of Taylin’s mumblings.”
“A spell? How…?”
“It’s sort of like hypnosis.”
“But why shouldn’t she remember what Taylin said?”
“It will just confuse Carly to know all that.”
“But I’ll just tell her.” Stop talking, Jule! But my lips don’t listen. “Unless…” I swallow hard, my throat constricting; I fight to get the rest out, “…you plan to do the same to me.”
Luke’s face is close, our shoulders now touching, arms overlapping. When did he move closer? He warms the left side of my body. “I haven’t decided yet,” he says, as if he’s contemplating which movie to see.
A sudden thought squeezes my stomach. “Have you… have you done that before? The forgetting thing? To me?” Did we do more than kiss the other night? I am still a virgin, despite the close calls with Derek. I think I would know if we’d…I mean, wouldn’t I know if–
“No, I haven’t.”
I’m able to breathe again. I stare back at his dark features. Lightning splashes white light over them. It is surreal lying here under the oncoming storm, staring into the dark, sad eyes of someone…something sleekly dangerous, lethally beautiful, totally captivating.
I reach slowly for his face and run one finger along his rough jaw. “What are you?”
8
“Some (demons) are also in the thick black clouds, which cause hail, lightning and thunder, and poison the air, the pastures and grounds.”
~Martin Luther
Lightning forms roadmaps in the night sky directly above us at the same time a crack of thunder pierces my ears. I slap my palms over them. “Crap! That was close!” I yell. The rain clouds open as if the lightning sliced through them, releasing a waterfall of fat raindrops. Luke grabs my hand as he leaps up. We run headlong into the black, watery curtain of night. I can’t even see where my feet land. God, I hope Luke knows the course. We rush toward the bright lights of the clubhouse.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook!” I yell, panting. I can barely hear his chuckle over the rain.
Thunder mixes with the sound of my feet splashing through puddles on the spongy fairway. So much for my sandals. I slip twice, but Luke’s hand is more than a guide and he keeps me upright. He slows so we can run side by side. “Whoa!” I yell as I skid and laugh at the ridiculous predicament. I must already look like a drowned horror-movie chick with my mascara running and my tangled hair heavy with rain. All I need now is a bunch of fake blood all over my hands and shirt. I could really give the country club patrons a scare if I ran screaming up to the big glass picture window.
Luke slows as we hydroplane. He laughs, too, and lets go to throw his hands up toward the heavens. He stops, so I do, too. “You got anything else?” he taunts the sky, and lightning answers.
“Are you crazy?” I grab his hand and try to tow him.
“Wait!”
But it’s too late. I lose my balance on the edge of some dark pit. My foot slides downward as the edge gives way. Sand? Mud?
“Ahhh! Luke!” I yell as lightning criss-crosses overhead and cracking thunder shatters the air. It’s so loud, I swear it rattles my teeth. And here I am sliding possibly into a water hazard. Tomorrow’s headline suddenly appears in my head: Teen Electrocuted and Drowned on Golf Course. Foul Play Suspected.
Just as my foot touches water too deep to be a puddle, lightning bursts, showing Luke standing at the top of the incline, staring down. The brightness illuminates his sculpted muscles, obvious now through his wet, clinging T-shirt. The smile that should accompany the laughter of a moment before is gone. His jaw is taut, eyes narrow, chest heaving. He looks almost like he did in the cafeteria yesterday. Was my cry of surprise close enough to a song to change him?
I try to scramble onto dry land, but my feet keep churning in what seems to be sand. It sucks one sandal off my foot. Only a few seconds have passed, but my terror has slowed time. I’m blind in the darkness.
“Jule! Talk to me so I can find you
. Don’t sing!”
“I’m here, Luke. My shoe just fell off. I think I’m in a flooded sand trap. I’m stuck.”
Sand shifts above me as Luke slides down the slope. He lunges into me. My feet are stuck, but his momentum throws me backwards and I plop down in the wet muck.
“Ugh!”
He helps me stand and I wrench each foot out of the sand, but as soon as one steps back down, it’s sucked under again. “God! Is this quicksand?” I ask, panic edging my voice. I’m dirty, wet, trapped, and afraid. And now my ass hurts. I rub it with my free hand.
“This part of the course is under renovation. It’s going to be a new pond.”
“Great. We just might be permanent water hazards.”
Luke laughs. I feel his arms move around my waist, tugging me out of the muck. “Stand on my feet. They’re too big to sink, like boats, really.”
I step onto his feet, my body fully against his. “Are you telling me you can walk on water?” I feel laughter rumble through his chest as I rest my face against it. The heat of his body warms me, calms me. The rain lessens and the thunder grumbles farther away. Luke’s strength envelops me on the edge of the flooded pit. I feel his fingers slide down my spine under my wet hair. His chest rises as he inhales deeply.
“You smell good when you’re wet.”
“You, too,” I murmur, my lips resting against the hollow at the base of his neck.
His finger grazes my chin and he tilts my face up to him. “Like fresh flowers.”
Thank God for Mom’s Herbal Essences shampoo. His fingers slide along my jaw, the tip of one tracing my parted lips. I wait, letting the feel of him wash over me. The clouds thin, allowing the moon’s glow to filter down. He stares at me as he traces the contours of my face, my cheekbones up past my temples, to brush water from my eyebrows. I’m still, quiet; only my breathing and heartbeat break the silence left by the cessation of the rain. Peeper frogs chirp a serenade, and a hum of wind tickles past. I wait. When he doesn’t bend down I reach behind his neck and stand up on tiptoe. I pull and he bends willingly, his arm bringing me even closer against him. The kiss is gentle, as if he’s holding himself back. I tilt my head slightly and touch the side of his jaw. He responds, deepening the contact. My thoughts float away as I fall into the comfortable hold of Luke’s kiss.
Siren's Song Page 10
