by Kristen Pham
The Society of Imaginary Friends
The Conjurors Series
By
Kristen Pham
Copyright © 2014 by Kristen Pham
Chapter 1
It was a flash of dark red hair that yanked Valerie out of her daydream and had her on her feet in seconds. Before the realization of what it meant reached her consciousness, she was already out the front door and halfway to the pickup truck.
“Daniel, no!” she yelled.
It was too late. Her ten-year-old foster brother had pulled the truck out of park, and it was sliding backward down the driveway. Sitting next to him, her blood-red hair ghoulish against her pale skin, was Sanguina.
“Now put your foot on the pedal on the left,” Sanguina coached Daniel, flashing Valerie a knowing grin.
Valerie’s peripheral vision registered a blue van barreling down the street right before she wrenched open the passenger-side door to the truck and jumped inside. Sanguina had already vanished. She hit the emergency brake a second before the truck reached the road, but not before hitting the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
“Hey! Whatcha doing?” Daniel asked indignantly. “You messed me up.”
“Sorry, buddy,” she said, relief coursing through her body. This time, she’d been fast enough to prevent something awful from happening. “But you know you can’t be in here.”
“There was a grown up! That lady was helping me.” Daniel leaned forward, looking past her, but there was no one else in the cab of the truck. “Where’d she go?”
Valerie had no idea where Sanguina went, or where she ever came from, for that matter. She only knew that no matter how fast or how far she ran, Sanguina always eventually found her and tried to make her life hell. Last time, she’d found Valerie living beneath an overpass off the exit of a highway and had provoked a drug dealer into trying to shoot her. The time before that, she’d goaded a school bully into beating up a little freshman right in front of Valerie. That time, she hadn’t been fast enough to help him, and the boy wound up in a coma.
Sanguina was Valerie’s very own personal tormentor, one she couldn’t run from, and what her doctors considered proof that Valerie was certifiably crazy. Because she couldn’t be real.
“Uh oh,” Daniel’s voice suddenly sounded very young and scared.
The front door swung open, and the biological son of the couple she and Daniel were living with stormed outside. Adam, twenty-one, only did three things, as far as Valerie could tell: work out relentlessly, steal from his mother’s purse, and take out his bottled-up aggression on the two foster kids living in his house—when his parents weren’t around.
“Duck,” she commanded Daniel, and scrambled over the boy to get behind the wheel, shoving him to the passenger side. “I’ll handle this.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed as he barreled toward his truck. He jerked the driver-side door open and grabbed her arm, throwing her to the pavement. She winced when her elbow and knee hit the concrete, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of making any sign that she was in pain. She knew his type, and seeing her scared was exactly the thrill he was hoping for.
While she was down, he kicked her in the gut. She jumped to her feet before he got a second shot in.
Her first instinct was to fight back. He’d be in for a surprise, because she’d fought bigger, tougher men than this bully, but she stopped herself, remembering Mrs. Sims’ warning that morning.
“I won’t tolerate any fighting now, hear? Not if you want to stay in my house,” she had said gruffly.
Valerie had given her a small nod, keeping the polite smile she had been wearing for the past two weeks pasted on her face. This was the first time she’d had a real bed and three meals a day since she’d been in the hospital two years ago, and she didn’t want to mess things up. She’d just take a few hits from Adam and keep her mouth shut.
“You’re dead,” he said, a smile of grim satisfaction on his face. He’d probably explain her bruises to his parents as being the result of her careless accident.
“It was a mistake. Take it easy,” she said, automatically slipping into a defensive pose, her arms a little raised in front of her, and her feet anchored firmly beneath her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel sliding out of the truck, probably ready to come to her defense. He was a sweet kid, and the idea of him getting in the middle of this terrified her more than anything else. She tried to subtly nod her head to the side, indicating that he should run, but Adam saw her movement and turned.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he growled. “I saw you get out of my truck. You’re both gonna pay.”
“He’s not a part of this. It’s my fault,” she said. But she’d never been a good liar—probably a big part of the reason why she hadn’t lasted long on the streets.
“It was him who drove my truck, wasn’t it?” Adam said, turning his rage on Daniel.
Daniel’s face was white, but he stood his ground. Valerie protectively stepped in front of him, but Adam shoved her aside. Whenever she found herself in these situations, instinct always took over. Valerie had learned not to think and to just let her movements flow naturally.
She felt as if she was watching from a place deep inside of herself as Adam’s fist came hurtling through the air toward Daniel’s head. Valerie caught Adam’s arm mid-punch, stopping it before it reached its target. Surprise registered on his face before she followed up with a blow aimed at his chest. Her fist connected, and he was thrown back so violently that it looked like he’d been hit by an invisible bus. He crashed into the side of the truck.
“How did you do that?” Daniel whispered.
Adam groaned, stunned. Valerie herself had no idea where her strength came from, but she assumed that it was adrenaline, like mothers who lifted cars when their children were trapped beneath.
She grabbed Daniel’s hand and pulled him toward the house. Once inside, she locked the doors and even checked that the windows were latched shut. Adam would be coming after them, and he’d be mad. She had to stall him until Mrs. Sims made it home.
“In here,” she said, pulling Daniel into a bathroom on the ground floor. Inside, she locked that door as well. “No matter what happens, don’t leave until Mr. or Mrs. Sims get home.”
As always, her strength evaporated rapidly now that the immediate threat was gone. She leaned against the wall for support, sliding down toward the floor. Expending all that energy took a toll, and Valerie knew it would be a week before she felt normal again.
“You okay?” Daniel asked, his face blurry. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” she replied, managing a small smile.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “So, so sorry.”
Valerie had trouble focusing on his words. She was always weak after a fight, but this was more than physical exhaustion. She was being pulled into a tidal pool of blackness. This, too, she was familiar with, and she fought the tug with every ounce of her strength.
She knew that in the darkness, sucking at her consciousness, were terrors greater than anything she experienced awake. But her struggle was useless. Her knees finally gave way, and she fell forward, crashing into the ground. The last thing she remembered was the cool floor against her cheek before the darkness wrenched her under.
