“You're one to talk! Or do I need to remind you about the birthday prank you played on Lance’s sophomore year?”
“I don’t recall,” I responded sweetly with an impish grin.
“You emptied a case of glitter inside the air-conditioning vents of his car! His mom had to get it detailed twice and there is still evidence of the attack wedged between the console. Care to explain who came up with that ingenious plan?”
“We're not talking about me, we're talking about you. Shame, sir. Shame.”
“Yeah well, I learned from the best. Are you free to talk?”
I sighed, looking over at Nate in the seat beside me who was soaking up every word. “Not really, I'm in the car. I'll call you when I get home?”
“Sure.”
“Alright, peace.” I hit the end button and returned it to my back pocket. Nathan looked at me with amusement as I settled back into my seat. “Shut up,” I told him sharply.
Behind his glasses, his green eyes reflected the light from the console, his light brown hair brushed casually to the side of his face. He was tall and lanky for his age, with elfish looking ears and a hint of baby fat still remaining in his cheeks. Nathan barked a laugh while putting his hands up in mock surrender. “I didn't say anything!”
“No, but you were thinking it.”
“Everyone is thinking it, Wynn.”
I huffed in exasperation and went back to staring at the trees outside. “How many times do I have to tell you, we’re not a couple? He’s like my brother.”
Nate actually had the gall to look offended. “So what am I? Chopped liver?”
“You know what I mean,” I snapped. “I’m not interested in him that way.”
Nathan snorted with amusement. “Just because you’re not, doesn’t mean he isn’t. You need to talk to him, or one of you is gonna get hurt.”
“I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself,” I told him stubbornly.
He looked out his window and sighed, “I wasn’t talking about you.”
“You know what? Why don’t you mind your own business, you litt—”
“Kids!” Dad warned from the seat in front of us. “Let’s get along, please.”
“Yessir,” we both responded sheepishly. Dad always had a way of putting an immediate end to confrontation, maybe that's why he became a lawyer.
Before long I saw our house through the leaves and ivy. Dad had gone to great lengths to thin out the weedy growth, but it kept coming back year after year. Hidden beneath the leaves and shrubbery was a charming, red brick manor with traces of Victorian design. There was a porch that wrapped around the back to a patio we never used and a screen door that led into the kitchen. The paint along the wooden porch was weathered and old, fading into a creamy yellow color as it peeled away from the corners.
I opened the car door and stepped out onto the drive, casting my eyes round to see if I could find the stray cat that had taken up residence here. Dad was not too thrilled about the recent addition to the family, but he also didn't put up too much of a fight. As we began shuffling towards the house, the exterior light turned on.
“Cle-o!” I called out into the yard. “Cleo, where are you?”
Dad and Nathan pretended to ignore me while I searched the empty porch. “Wynn, don't encourage her.”
“I don't want her going hungry.”
“Wynn, it's a cat. They’re hunters and scavengers, it’s what they do. She's got food and water on the porch, I'm sure she'll be alright.”
He patted me on the shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze on the way inside. I gave him a halfhearted smile and headed off towards the kitchen. Nate threw together a couple sandwiches, so I grabbed one off the counter and dug in right away — it was exactly what I needed. After I finished and threw my plate down in the sink I headed up the stairs. “You turning in early?” Dad called after me.
“Yup.”
“All right, g’night then.”
“Goodnight.”
As I reached the top of the stairs and approached the doorway to my room, a hollow feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I tried to shake it, but the anxiety persisted.
Something wasn’t right.
My room was exactly the way I left it. I wouldn't exactly call it messy, but anyone else who saw it would. None of the furniture matched and dirty laundry and sneakers were strewn about the hardwood floor. Mom hated my room and was always harping at me to clean it, but I had a system that worked for me and that was all that really mattered. I may have had to occasionally sort through a pile of dirty laundry to find what I was looking for, but that was fine with me.
I retrieved a pair of nightclothes from my bed, a navy blue tank top and a pair of Spiderman boxer shorts. Everybody else thought they looked ridiculous, but I had a soft spot for my favorite super hero, and he was grossly underappreciated in women’s clothing. As I let my hair down from its braid, my thoughts returned to my mother and the ghostly sheen that had begun to creep upon her face. It was accompanied by the familiar pang of loss that always followed.
I missed her.
I missed her so much, sometimes it hurt. There were so many things I would never be able to share with her. She would never see me graduate, or come to Elyse’s wedding. We’d never be able to go on walks again and talk about where I should apply to college. That time with her was gone. Every time we set foot in the hospital, it felt like we were visiting a corpse. She wasn’t really dead, but she wasn’t with us either, and that limbo state made it impossible for us to move on. It pained me to admit it, but even death would at least give us some kind of closure.
Anything was better than this.
As I turned off the light and crawled into bed, it occurred to me that this was my new life’s story — an endless pattern of empty smiles and visits to the hospital. Over and over again we’d been told sometimes these things just happen and all you can do is hope. My last few thoughts before I drifted off to sleep were about what to do once she was gone.
I didn’t even realize that I was crying until my tears wet the pillowcase beneath me.
~ * ~
Sleep did not come that night as easily as I’d hoped.
I couldn’t shake the anxious feeling that something big was about to happen. All day long, I had a knot in my stomach as I went to my classes. When the school bell rang at the end of my final period, I breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed my bag off the floor. My fellow students began filing out the door and I joined the growing crowd to make my way towards my locker.
It was easy to spot among the rows and rows of industrial blue steel, with a purple combination lock and sticker that read, “La Vie Boheme!” plastered to the outside. My fingers twisted the dial until it opened with a metallic — click!
As I was switching out my binders, Alex Richardson came strolling down the hall with a couple of his lackeys flanking him on either side. They were all wearing their brand new letterman jackets and grinning stupidly. I snickered to myself and tried to avoid eye-contact, but one of them saw me laugh and made a beeline for where I stood. Crap.
“What ’choo laughing at, gypsy girl?”
I shrugged and continued what I was doing. “Nothing.”
He punched the locker next to me and I jumped back in alarm. “I don’t like the way you look at us,” he sneered. “Like you think you’re better than me or somethin’. You need to keep that arrogant, gypsy witch-crap to yourself.”
“You really believe that?” I asked him smoothly. “You think that because my mother was Romani, that makes her a witch so I must be one too — is that it? If that were true, don’t you think I’d be one of the last people you should mess with?”
The blood drained from his face and he looked a little less sure of himself. “You ain’t no witch,” he stated, sizing me up defensively.
I nodded carefully, looking him dead in the eye, “Good! I’m glad we’re in agreement. We shouldn’t have any more problems then, should we?”
I coul
d tell he wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but by this point Ryan had seen what was happening from down the hall and was at my side in an instant. His tall and foreboding stature was more intimidating than my own. His messy, blond hair was in constant disarray, but an attractive contrast to his tan skin and dark, brown eyes. A lot of girls thought he was prime real estate on the dating scene, though he never seemed interested in any of them.
“You’re still here, Richardson? I didn’t know they let apes inside the public school system.”
His nostrils flared as he whirled on him. “Can it, Murphy! Why are you hanging with this freak show anyways?”
Ryan nearly growled at him. “Walk away, Alex. Another fight on school grounds will get you kicked off the team, you really wanna take that chance?”
The three of them shared a meaningful glance and I sensed the tension was over. “Just keep the gyp out of our way.”
“I don’t think I was ever actually in your way,” I snapped.
They ignored me and I sidestepped to avoid them as they left, but one of them knocked me with his shoulder as they passed. Ryan cast him a warning glare and stepped in front of me defensively. “Try that again!” he challenged, but they just continued walking down the hallway, disappearing amidst the growing crowd.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. A Neanderthal display like that doesn’t bother me.”
Ryan grinned. “Can I take you home?”
I turned to him, surprised, as I shut the door to my locker. “I thought you had rehearsal.”
“I do, but this is more important.”
Chivalrous as always, I thought to myself ruefully. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Do we need to get Nate?”
Shaking my head, I told him, “Nope, he’s at Lacrosse. It’s just me today.” Ryan beamed at me as I threw my bag over my shoulder and we headed off towards the parking lot. When he put his arm around me, I began to wonder if Nathan could be right. Normally, I didn't put up with that kind of PDA, especially since we were not a couple, but just this once, I let him get away with it and nuzzled my head against his shoulder. Ryan chuckled appreciatively and gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze. When we finally reached his car he pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door for me.
It was a rusted old Buick that had belonged to his brother before he went off to college. The musk of sweat and dirty laundry had permanently fused itself to the fabric and gave the car a sense of being altogether male. I removed an empty coke bottle from the seat and lowered myself into the cab before buckling myself in and kicking my backpack underneath the dashboard. Ryan shut the door behind me and walked around to the other side so he could get in the driver’s seat.
“Thanks for doing this,” I told him once he’d buckled in as well.
“Anytime.”
As he turned out onto the main road, the skies above us cast a wary shadow overhead, then suddenly opened into one of the south’s random storms. Raindrops spattered against the windshield as we idled at a red light. I watched them drip down the glass and meld into one another until Ryan decided to turn on the wipers. They sloshed back and forth across the windshield as he drove down the busy street.
Up ahead I could see the entrance to my neighborhood with the beautiful, drooping branches draped in Spanish moss. Ryan had driven it a hundred times and knew the route by heart. When he turned the curve onto my winding driveway, I started to collect my things. He parked behind Elyse’s Civic and gave me a wary smile. “Is this okay? I could walk you in if you need.”
“No, you gotta get back to rehearsal.”
“Don’t forget, you have to start coming to them too on Monday,” he reminded playfully.
“Yeah, I got it. Lacey and Ms. Carmichael have both emailed me like, a dozen times. I’ll be there.”
“Awesome. I’ll catch you later, ’kay?”
“Kay.”
He nodded as I took off my leather jacket and turned it inside out so it wouldn’t be ruined by the rain. I gave him a withering smile and raised it above my head like a makeshift umbrella to fend off the torrential downpour. I bolted through the rain and thankfully, the door was open, so I waved goodbye to him and let myself inside.
The foyer was warm and dry, and I sniffed appreciatively at the delicious smell coming from the kitchen. After Mom went in the hospital, Elyse dropped out of college and moved back home to help out around the house. It wouldn't last much longer though; now that she was getting married, we’d have to come up with some other way to survive without her making us dinner every night. She was an amazing cook and took great care of the restaurant while Mom was away, ordering the food and supplies needed for dinner service. They hired her as the General Manager once they realized she was looking for work, which seemed to work out best for everyone.
“Wynn, is that you?” Elyse called to me from the kitchen.
I sighed, taking off my shoes and setting my bag down on the floor. “Yeah, it’s me. I got caught in the rain outside.”
She poked her head out from around the corner and tried not to laugh out loud when she saw me. “Oh my goodness, you look like a drowned rat! Come here and get warm while I fix you something to eat.”
Without needing any further encouragement, I walked over to the kitchen and sat on one of the bar stools. When I buried my face into my arms, she leaned over and kissed me on the back of the head. “Long day?”
I groaned while propping my head up on my hands and told her, “Every day in high school is a long day.”
She sighed empathetically and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, hon. What’s going on?”
“Oh, just regular high school drama,” I told her with a laugh. “Alex Richardson is a troll for one thing. Also, I have to start going to rehearsals on Monday, which I am not looking forward to. It was the last opportunity to get my hours in before the end of the school year.”
Elyse snickered to herself before adding, “I told you to space them out across the semester.”
“Yeah, well it’s too late now. At least I get to hang out with Ryan, so that’ll be cool.”
“I don’t envy you, that’s for sure,” she responded with a laugh, her blonde curls bobbing from the back of her ponytail. “If it’s any consolation, it all gets better after high school. That’s what happened for me at least.”
I sighed. “It is, but that’s still several months away and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
She nodded, leaning over the cooker to add some herbs and spices to the concoction. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”
I leaned over to see what she was doing and smelled the air again. “Oh my gosh, that smells delicious! What are you making?”
“It’s one of Mom’s recipes,” she explained. “but I’ve never made this one before, so it’s sort of an experiment. We’ll see how it works out.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be amazing.” I glanced at the rain outside and snickered to myself. “How much you wanna bet Nate comes home early from practice?”
She looked out the window and smiled. “You’re probably right. Why don’t you go wash up before they get here?”
I laughed quietly to myself as I headed up to my room, only to be met by the same sinking feeling as last night that something wasn’t right. I quickly surveyed my surroundings, looking for the source of my uneasiness. Everything looked the same, but felt completely wrong somehow. I turned on the lava lamp that sat on my bedside table and watched as it cast a familiar pattern across the lavender colored walls, trying to figure out what felt so out of place. My room felt … tainted.
Finally, my eyes rested on a long forgotten necklace that was hanging from my dresser — as if it had been placed there for me to see.
Someone had been in my room.
I hadn't seen it for months and now it showed up out of nowhere. Did Dad put it there? Surely a necklace couldn’t have been the source of my apprehension.
It had been a gift from my mother on
my sixteenth birthday, an old family heirloom. It had been her favorite piece as we were growing up, I almost never saw her without it.
Truth be told I'd never expected to be given it in the first place. Elyse was the oldest, after all, that would have made more sense. Whatever her reasons were for choosing me instead, I didn't wear the thing — chokers aren’t my style. It was a round, silver pendant with a triangular amethyst in the center, hanging from a ribbon that could be easily tied at length. I remembered sitting on her lap as a child, tracing its delicate contours with my finger and admiring the purple stone. It suddenly seemed a shame not to wear it when the necklace clearly had meant so much to her.
Why not? I shrugged, taking a seat in front of the vanity and fastening the ribbon neatly around my neck. The pendant hung just above my collarbone the same way it had when Mother wore it. When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I couldn't help but feel that it belonged there — what once was hers was mine now. It seemed to pulse in anticipation, as if hinting at unknown power. My lips parted slightly as I twisted the charm absentmindedly between my fingers. The curious purple gem caught the light and cast a delicate prism against my skin which reminded me of dragon scales.
“It suits you,” a deep, masculine voice echoed from behind me.
Every muscle inside me tensed, because in the reflection of my mirror, a dark figure sprawled across my bed, grinning from ear to ear.
Chapter Two
Speak of the Devil
I whirled in my seat and let out a frightened gasp, but before I had the chance to scream he was off the bed and slamming me against the wall. I cried out in pain as the back of my head made a nasty crack against the door frame, but my muffled shriek was heard by no one. His hand clamped firmly over my mouth, and I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin. The subtle musk of cologne and tobacco still lingered on his fingertips and made me want to gag.
My vision blurred as agonizing pain shot through my skull in response to the brutal impact and I stared at the face of my attacker. He was tall, handsome too, with exquisite, bleach-blond hair and an expensive suit that had a gold chain hanging from the pocket of his vest. His eyes were dark and perfectly set beneath a well-groomed brow line and prominent cheek bones. I expected to find someone like him in the pages of a fashion magazine, not breaking into people’s houses.
Dealing with the Devil (The Earthwalker Trilogy Book 1) Page 2
