Moon Rise

by Marilee Brothers

  My statement had the ring of truth and he knew it. He also knew I was drawn to him. I'd felt the pull of his physical attraction too many times to deny it. But, I could block his dazer. I could counter his magic with my own. I liked Beck a lot. Maybe I even loved him a little, but we had achieved a balance of power, and that was just fine with me.

  He touched the moonstone, dragged his forefinger along the sensitive skin of my neck and tilted my chin back.

  "You still have the demon mark, right?"

  "Um hum.” I knew where he was going and I was along for the ride.

  "And you're wearing the moonstone."

  "Right again."

  "Remember my theory about the moonstone driving the demon DNA out of your body?"

  I nodded.

  "And wondering if the moonstone would block it if I kissed you again? Since we're testing theories..."

  "Mr. Science Guy,” I murmured before his lips touched mine. My arms went around his neck. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, Faye's voice was telling me I was a little too willing to test this theory. But, inquiring minds want to know.

  His hand went to the back of my head. His lips were surprisingly soft with none of the heated urgency of our previous kiss. If anything, I was the aggressor, pulling him closer, wanting to feel the muscular strength of his body against mine. When his tongue slipped between my teeth, I forgot about demon marks and let out a little gasp of pleasure. Immediately, Beck pulled away, breathing hard. His hand was shaking when he turned on the dome light.

  "Let's see your palm,” he said, gulping in air.

  I held my hand up to the light. The demon mark hadn't changed. We looked at each other and slapped hands. The moonstone had worked as Beck predicted.

  "Okay,” I said. “Lesson learned. When we make out, I have to wear the moonstone. Too bad I have to bury it again, huh?"

  His look of disappointment was so obvious, I almost laughed. Then, I remembered something I'd learned from one of Faye little “life lessons.” She'd told me, “You may think the thing dangling between a guy's legs is his most sensitive part, but it's not. It's his precious ego. Never forget that, Allie."

  Because Faye knows about these things, I kept a straight face when Beck said, “You could wear the moonstone Friday night. Nobody will mess with you when you're with me."

  He was probably right, but the implication was that I couldn't take care of myself. I narrowed my eyes at him and opened the door. “I'll think about it."

  He started the truck but didn't move. I'd only taken a few steps when his window zipped down. “Hey, Allie. Come here a sec. I want to tell you something."

  I walked to his open window.

  "Weird, isn't it?” he said. “You and me?"

  What I really thought was weird was standing there, freezing my buns off and listening to my sleet-dampened hair go boing as it turned into a massive ball of frizz. But, bearing in mind Faye's caution about the fragile male ego, I leaned into the open window and touched my forehead to his. “I don't know, Beck. Maybe we just have to let it happen."

  He put his warm hands around mine. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe we do."

  The events at Kizzy's house and Beck's words would remain crystal clear in my memory for years to come. Something special happened to me that night. From that point on, I opened my arms and embraced my otherness. I'd been fighting against the current too long. It was time to jump in and go with the flow. I'd been chosen to embark on an extraordinary journey. I was ready.

  If Beck was part of my journey ... so be it.

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  Chapter Nineteen

  John J. Peacock High School has less than one hundred students, too small to field a regulation football team of eleven players. Instead, we played eight-man football in a special league for small schools. Friday night was the big game. The Fighting Peacocks were hosting the Georgeville Taters, a truly awesome team from the Columbia Basin. A lot of potatoes were grown in the basin, hence the name.

  The game was painful to watch. Most of our students had jobs after school, which depleted the ranks of potential athletes to a pathetic few. Beck and I climbed up the ancient wooden bleachers to the top row. I warned him to sit, not slide, unless he wanted a giant sliver in his studly butt. Nicole was ecstatic because Joey Gregson, the team quarterback, had asked her to the dance. She sat front and center by the cheerleaders, most of whom were her best buds.

  "Why didn't Nicole try out for cheerleader? All her friends are out there."

  Beck, looking buff in a leather jacket, black silk tee shirt and pressed jeans, peered at me through his night-vision glasses. “Same reason I'm not out for football."

  "With your strength and speed, you'd be an awesome football player. Is it the glasses?"

  "No, it's not the glasses. You saw Nicole and me sparring that night."

  I looked down at the cheerleaders struggling to lift a tiny girl onto their shoulders in order to form a pyramid and flashed on Nicole jumping over Beck's head.

  "Couldn't she pretend to be like the others?"

  A group of people climbed the stairs and sat gingerly on the bench directly below us. Beck put his mouth to my ear and whispered, “It's not that simple. When it's fully dark, our strength and speed is probably fifty times better that the average person. If I tackled a guy, I could kill him. If Nicole picked up another cheerleader, she might just throw her into the stands."

  I giggled, imagining Nicole's best bud, Lexie, sailing into the stands like a Frisbee.

  Beck frowned. “Think about the big picture. The cheerleaders and football team practice in the daylight when Nicole and I are like everyone else. The games are played after dark. Imagine what would happen when we got our full powers, not to mention a surge of adrenaline."

  "You'd be the lead story on the network news."

  "Right,” Beck said. “We can't do that to our mother."

  I sobered quickly. Being a half-demon definitely had its downside. At least I didn't have to worry when the sun went down. That thought reminded me I hadn't used TKP for a while. After the kick-off, Beck was absorbed in the game and unwilling to engage in idle chitchat. Bored out of my gourd, I decided to see if I still had the juice.

  Nicole was leaning over the metal bar separating the bleachers from the cheerleaders section, gossiping with Lexie, whose pompoms hung loosely from one hand. I summoned my power and focused on the maroon and white pompoms. Gradually, the sights and sounds of the football game disappeared. It was just the two of us, the pompoms and me, joined by a brilliant shaft of dancing light. I sent the message, Lift! Lift! The pompoms flew from Lexie's hand and hovered in the air for a brief moment before plopping down on Nicole's head like a giant maroon and white wig. Lexie stared, open-mouthed.

  The kid sitting in front of me cracked up laughing. “Whoa! Did you see that?"

  Nicole snatched the pompoms from her head and handed them back to Lexie. She looked around until she found me in the crowd. I smiled and waved. She gave me a warning glance and turned back to the game. I looked over at Beck. He was staring at me, one brow lifted in an unspoken question.

  I shrugged. “Must have been the wind."

  He leaned close and murmured, “Give it up, Allie. You think I can't tell when you're up to something? You vibrate like you're running on a 220 current. The air around you changes. I can see it and feel it."

  I figured offense was the best defense. “Did you tell Nicole I could move things with my mind?"

  "Well, sure,” he said.

  Unspoken, but obvious in his tone was the question, Do you even need to ask?

  Faye always says blood's thicker than water. Beck and Nicole had a stronger bond as twins than Beck and I had as boyfriend/girlfriend, fake or otherwise. Wake up call for Allie.

  Thankfully, the lop-sided game was called late in the third quarter due to the “mercy rule,” invoked when one team was ahead by forty-five points.

  Beck and I joined the rowdy throng heading for
the gym. As the crowd fell in around us, he wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me close, our bodies pressed together and our strides matching. I smiled up at him, aware of the envious looks coming my way from the female population. I was thinking how nice it was to be going to the dance with my sorta boyfriend when I felt a cold chill brush the back of my neck. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a smirking Shane Boldt slouching along directly behind us.

  He was with four other guys I recognized as habitual troublemakers. He smirked and grabbed his crotch in an unmistakable gesture. His buddies howled with laughter. Before I looked away, I noticed he wore a silver chain around his neck. Whatever he'd hung on it was tucked inside his shirt. Since he was a Trimark, I was pretty sure it wasn't a cross. I must have tensed up because Beck asked, “You okay?"

  Even though the brief encounter stomped all over my feel-good mood, I gave Beck a cheery smile and nodded. No sense asking for trouble.

  Before we were allowed in the gym, we had to pass the Hostetler-Miller test. Mr. Hostetler, clad in jeans and a Green Bay jersey, manned the door with Miss Miller by his side. Margaret Miller's sense of smell was legendary. The test went like this: Mr. Hostetler greeted each student by name. When the student responded, Miss Miller leaned close enough to sniff his/her breath. Then, Miss Miller indicated Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.

  Thumbs Up people were sent into the gym. Thumbs Down folk had the choice of leaving or having their saliva checked with a little stick to see if they'd been drinking. Once we entered the gym, we were not allowed to go in and out. In other words, no drinking or drugging in the cars and re-entering the dance, which was okey-dokey with me.

  Mr. Hostetler said, “Hello, Mr. Bradford."

  Beck said, “Hi."

  Miss Miller leaned in and sniffed, gave him a big smile and two thumbs up.

  Same routine with me, minus the enthusiasm. Beck must have used his dazer.

  The gym was packed, the music blaring. We got rid of our coats, and Beck pulled me into the crowd for a fast dance. Let me say, up front, I'm not the world's best dancer. My only other boyfriend, Junior, seemed to be missing-in-action whenever dancing was involved. We'd never had the opportunity to dance together. Sure, Manny, Mercedes and I danced around their tiny living room now and then, but their taste ran to Salsa. Consequently, I was a little nervous.

  Fortunately for me, Beck was an awesome dancer. In the fullness of night, his body rippled with muscle. His movements were graceful yet powerful. He seemed not to notice the reaction of people around him. The girls were practically drooling. The guys looked resentful. Moving to the beat, I decided to relax and enjoy the moment. I saw Nicole and Joey at the edge of the crowd and waved. Nicole waved back, apparently over her pompom snit. Even though she wore her night vision glasses, she looked radiantly happy. She was getting a few envious looks of her own.

  Suddenly, I was whapped by a wildly flailing arm. Knocked off balance, I stumbled forward. Without missing a beat, Beck caught me and spun me around. We kept dancing, both facing the same direction, and I found out who the whapper was.

  "Sorry,” Charles Raymond Atkinson Jr. said insincerely, glaring at me through his oversized glasses. He continued gyrating with his beloved, Suzanne Maloney. Whether or not the whapping was accidental, I couldn't say. Because of my confrontation with Suzanne the day of the video mix-up, I suspected not. But, after observing his enthusiastic but grotesque dance moves, it was obvious he had no control over his arms and legs. Suzanne was dressed in a fuzzy pink sweater, pink hair ribbon, pink jeans, pink socks and pink tennis shoes. She gave me a dirty look, like it was my fault her nerdy boyfriend practically knocked me over.

  From my new vantage point I spotted Mercedes, who was with Roberto, one of her many cousins. She grinned and yelled, “Check it out! Manny and Sonja!"

  I looked where she was pointing and sure enough, Manny Trujillo and Sonja Ortega were grinning at each other and moving to the music. Manny usually goes to the dances alone and dances with all the girls who don't have partners. But yesterday, when were eating lunch, we heard the thunder of Sonja Ortega's approach. She was stuffed into a pair of Spandex jeans, a belly shirt and four-inch, black patent leather heels. The gap between the shirt and the jeans was overflowing with too much Sonja. She stomped over to our table, stood over Manny and fluttered her mascara-thickened eyelashes.

  Instead of calling him Manny like everybody else, she purred, “Hi, Mon-Well!"

  Manny, looking trapped, said, “Uh, hi, Sonja."

  She poked him in the arm with a blood-red fingernail, “You. Me. Friday night. How about it?"

  Manny's face turned the color of ripe plums. His gaze darted frantically between Mercedes and me. Wisely, we held our tongues.

  Sonja stood over him, hands on her ample hips, waiting for an answer. Finally, he looked up at her, licking his dry lips nervously, trying to formulate an answer.

  Sonja smiled broadly. “I'll take that as a ‘Yes.’ Game starts at 7:30. Pick me up at seven. You know where I live ... right?"

  Totally struck dumb, Manny could only nod.

  He and Sonja were dancing at the edge of the crowd. Manny was smiling broadly. Funny how things work out.

  The song ended. The next one was a slow dance. Beck pulled me close, took hold of my wrists and wrapped my arms around his neck. With his body pressed to mine, I could hardly breathe.

  I was wearing the moonstone tucked inside the blue silk blouse I'd borrowed from Faye. After checking the heated glow in Beck's eyes, visible even behind his special glasses, I was planning on an earth-moving, toe-curling lip lock before the night was over. Yes, Allie Emerson—along with the Boy Scouts—was a big believer in the motto: Be prepared. No more demon consequences for me!

  The dance floor was crowded, but I easily spotted Shane Boldt dancing with a skanky-looking girl wearing a crop top and a pair of jeans hanging so low on her hips she had to be going commando ... very convenient for Shane, who had both hands planted on her almost bare buns. Before I could look away, he saw me and licked his lips in an exaggerated gesture. Once again, I had the feeling I should be doing something about Shane Boldt, but I didn't know what. He'd been eager to let me know he was a Trimark. Therefore, he had to be up to no good. I'd considered telling Beck about him, but I didn't want Beck to think I couldn't take care of myself.

  An hour into the dance, I excused myself to go the ladies room. Beck wandered over to talk to his physics teacher, one of the chaperones.

  "Allie! Allie!"

  Oh, shit. Before I could change course, I was face to face with Miss Yeager, whose door I had not darkened since Monday night.

  "I see you're with Beck Bradford,” Miss Yeager gushed.

  She looked downright envious.

  "Uh huh.” I had nothing to lose so I said, “My mother and I haven't heard from our case worker. Did you send your report?"

  "Oh, Allie, let's talk about school biz another time. It's Friday night. Time to party!"

  She wriggled away and latched onto Mr. Hostetler from behind. Startled by Miss Yeager's sudden attack, he whirled around, practically knocking her down. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, then I meandered into the bathroom and checked myself out in the mirror. What a mess! My face was flushed, my hair turning frizzy. It took a while to get myself together and I dashed out the door, hoping Beck hadn't been cut from the herd and carried off by predatory females.

  A large group of senior girls was approaching the bathroom. Suddenly, something hooked my right ankle and I staggered forward. I hit the floor hard, chin first. Stunned, I lay sprawled on the floor, listening to the girls laughing their heads off. With the taste of blood in my mouth, I struggled to my hands and knees and looked up to see Shane Boldt and his punk friends enjoying my humiliation. Excitement over, the girls drifted into the bathroom. I scrambled to my feet and brushed the dirt of my clothes, trying to ignore Shane and his buddies.

  "Way to go, Grace,” Shane sneered.

  "You tripped
me! What's your problem, Shane? Trying to prove you're tough by tripping a girl?"

  He moved closer, his face a mask of rage. I took a step back and glanced around to see if I could spot Mr. Hostetler, but he was out on the dance floor boogying with Miss Yeager.

  Shane hissed, “You're a damn freak, Emerson. Don't think I've forgotten what you did to me and my friends. Payback is coming. Count on it."

  I started to say he didn't scare me—big, fat lie—when I heard a low, feral growl, clearly audible in spite of the loud music. Beck stepped away from the shadowed wall next to the boys’ bathroom. In a blur of color and movement, he was between Shane and me.

  "I didn't quite hear you,” Beck said. “Say it again."

  Shane's mouth dropped open and he blinked. One step back and he was flanked by his buddies. Still full of bluster, he sneered, “It figures. Freaks always hang out together. What's with the goggles, Four Eyes? Your sister's a freak too."

  Beck was as still as stone. When he spoke, his tone was icy and controlled. “Outside. Behind the gym. Now."

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  Chapter Twenty

  Shane grinned at his friends. “Whaddya say, guys? Wanna kick some ass?"

  Personally, I didn't think they looked too enthusiastic. I tugged at Beck's sleeve. “If we leave, we can't come back."

  "Stay here. I'll meet you in the parking lot later."

  Yeah, right. Like I was going to cower inside the gym while he fought my battles. I grabbed our coats and dashed out the door in time to see Beck following Shane and his gang around the corner of the gym.

  "Allie!"

  Manny was standing in the open doorway. “What's happening?"

  "Nothing. Really. It's okay, Manny,” I said and took off running. As much as I wanted Manny along for back-up, he'd get in trouble if we got busted by Mr. Hostetler. My breath hitched in my chest when I thought about the odds. Beck had only me. Shane was backed by four other guys. Sure, Beck was super quick and strong but ... five guys? Should I go back for Manny or scream for help? My moment of indecisiveness ended abruptly when I remembered Shane most likely had a switchblade.