Chapter 15
I didn’t want to go to school the next day. When the alarm went off, I rolled over and covered my head with the pillow. It was too tempting to stay in bed and wait for Alastor to return.
At the moment, my room was silent and I was alone. Alastor disappeared just before dawn; the strain of being seen and heard finally exhausted him. I didn’t like being alone and resented the void his absence left.
Even without Alastor there, I wasn’t ready to go back to reality. Somehow Alastor and I found a way to blur the line between life and death, and I wasn’t ready yet to leave the margin.
When at last I could put it off no longer, I threw the covers back and forced myself to get out of the bed. All around me was the delicious smell of his skin, clinging to my body even after my shower.
There was no time to eat breakfast. I could only give Dad a quick wave and dash out the door.
Even with my late start, I made it to the edge of the school property long before the first bell. Just as I was walking up the sidewalk, I spotted Alastor near a clump of cedar trees at the edge of the woods surrounding the school.
There was that unexpected jolt when I saw him waiting for me. I forgot everything else and went to him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, hearing the excited note in my own voice.
Alastor shimmered slightly as if he was struggling to maintain his form.
“You were missing me,” He said simply as if that explained everything.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to come back so soon,” I said. “I thought you’d be too weak.”
“Why would you think that?”
I smiled, remembering the sensation of floating in the air with him swirling around me, holding me suspended.
“Because of last night,” I whispered.
His blue eyes glowed as they met mine, “You underestimate me.”
I felt that miserable ache in my chest. I wanted to touch him, to feel his lips on mine, but knew it was impossible.
I dared to take a step closer to him, “It’s impossible not to underestimate you, you never cease to amaze me.”
Alastor stepped back, deeper in the shadows as a group of students walked by.
“I missed you as well,” he whispered. “I’m selfish enough to want you all to myself. For the next few hours, I have to share you with these people and I don’t like it. I like it much better when it’s just us.”
I blushed, remembering the feeling of waking up in his arms.
“Me too,” I confessed, stepping closer to him again.
The sound of the bell echoed in the morning air. I hated the sound of it. It was calling me back to reality.
Alastor’s face darkened, but he still managed to smile down at me. “Go on. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Instead of disappearing, he moved deeper into the shadows and just as I was about to lose sight of him in the trees, he faded away.
“I’m never far away, my love,” he whispered in the secret voice only I could hear.
I sighed, acutely aware of the nothingness left after his departure. I could call him back, but that would only weaken him. I’d rather he come back later strong, maybe even almost solid, when I was alone and could be near him.
I turned to go back to school and there, on the sidewalk, was Ashley Richardson. From the look on her face, there was no doubt, she saw the entire thing.
There was no time to react, Billie and Ally spotted me. They were at my side before I reached the sidewalk.
“Where were you yesterday?” Ally demanded.
Billie jumped right in, “Tell us you were with Jonah.”
Helpless, I watched over their shoulders as Ashley disappeared inside the school.
“No,” I sighed. “I didn’t see Jonah yesterday.”
Billie’s eyebrows drew together in a sharp V, “Really? I thought for sure he’d come see you.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, matching their pace toward the school.
Ally turned so she was facing me, gracefully walking backwards. “You two were just so perfect at the dance.”
“Seriously?” I asked, just realizing that other people may have seen the peculiar exchange at the dance between me and Alastor as Jonah.
“Yeah,” Billie chimed. “It was like you two couldn’t get enough of each other on the dance floor.”
“It was pretty hot,” Ally agreed. “I kept waiting for the teacher to say something, but it’s like even they were impressed.”
“That’s just crazy,” I said and left them to go to my first class.
Apparently, Billie and Ally weren’t crazy. Throughout class, people were smiling over at me. I heard whispers about how it was all “so romantic” and how lucky I was for catching Jonah’s eye.
The thing that they were in awe of wasn’t really the chemistry between me and Jonah, but the beauty of the stolen moment Alastor and I shared. Could others sense the sweet agony that closeness caused us?
“I don’t know what it was,” Ally said, picking up the conversation on the way to lunch. “But you two were more romantic than anything I’ve seen in any movie.”
I rolled my eyes, smiling secretly. I took a seat at our usual table in the cafeteria. Normally the three of us were pretty inconspicuous in the crowded cafeteria, but today it seemed everyone was looking our way. I put my head down, resting my forehead on the edge of the table.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I complained.
“It just got worse,” Billie whispered, leaning down. “Here comes Jonah.”
My stomach lurched and began to roll. I didn’t want to see Jonah, I’d be too embarrassed. I could feel the beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead and my hands started to shake.
I smelled his cologne before I saw his shoes walk up to the table. I was too ashamed to raise my head and look at him.
“Becca, are you alright?” He asked.
“Yes,” I whispered, wondering what he thought about all this extra attention.
His left foot began to tap, making me wonder if he was nervous or angry since I could only see his shoes.
“Can I talk to you out in the hall?” He demanded.
Something in the tone of his voice caught my attention. He was angry. I was stunned. He couldn’t blame me for the way everyone was reacting.
I raised my head and faced him defiantly. I stood up quickly, causing my chair to skid across the floor.
“Sure,” I said and followed him out into the hall.
We walked only a few feet from the cafeteria door. A few students were in the hall and watched us in curiosity.
Jonah leaned back against the lockers, looking like some sort of blond high school god.
“Becca, we need to talk.”
Those words never lead to anything good.
“About what?” I said, crossing my arms, trying not to think about how it felt to kiss him when Alastor took over his body.
He glanced at the observers that were trying to look like they weren’t hanging on our every word.
“What’s up?” He demanded. “Do you like me or not?”
I didn’t expect that.
“What?” I asked confused.
My bewilderment only seemed to provoke him more.
“Don’t play games with me Becca,” Jonah snapped.
I spread my hands wide, “Jonah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t like being strung along,” he explained, glancing again at our small audience. “Are you into me or that other guy?”
I began to shake all over and my mouth went dry.
“What other guy?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
“That guy you were talking to this morning,” Jonah hissed. If he was trying to control his temper, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “I don’t like being used.”
“How am I using you?”
Jonah glared at me, “You’re using me to make him jealous.”
I
didn’t know what to say. I never meant to hurt him; somehow he just got caught in the middle.
“Trust me,” I managed to choke out. “It’s not what you think.”
Jonah slammed his hand into the lockers.
“I don’t care what it is,” he barked and stormed off down the hall.
The small audience gasped, whispering and turning to see what I was going to do.
I was just about to run after him when someone stepped up behind me in a cloud of suffocating perfume. Whirling around, I faced Ashley.
“I told you this would happen,” Ashley said with a superior smirk.
I looked at her, so perfect and condescending, and knew that she was the one to tell Jonah about me and Alastor that morning. I felt bad enough about what happened to Jonah without her complicating things further.
There she stood, looking down at me and enjoying my misery. At that moment, I hated her.
Before I knew what was happening, both my hands flew out and shoved her. I was surprised myself and hoped she would be too worried about her manicure to retaliate.
After staggering backwards a few steps, Ashley threw her books down and glared at me.
“You bitch!” Ashley cried, “You’re going to pay for that.”
She came at me then, shoving me back into the lockers and knocking the air out of me. I felt the back of my head hit one of the doors in a loud metal crash.
I winced and slapped at Ashley, just then realizing that she towered over me by at least four inches. I lowered my head and rushed at her, tackling her and sending us both sliding across the floor.
She pulled at my hair, but I was able to backhand her one more time before she somehow managed to get on top of me. Before I could defend myself, she drew back her fist and—
Bang!
Ashley froze as all of the locker doors flew open one after another. Before she could recover from that shock, Principal McGuiness pulled her off of me. He demanded to know what was going on.
She squirmed in his grasp while I struggled to my feet. Even with a teacher holding her back, Ashley tried to reach for me.
The fluorescent lights overhead exploded then and rained shard of glass down on us.
“You girls get to class.” Principal McGuiness ordered, looking down at the remains of the bulb, “I don’t have time to deal with you. This school is falling apart around us.”
Ashley picked up her books and walked off in the direction of the Science labs, trying to smooth her tangled hair. I glanced at the small crowd and saw the panicked confusion on their faces. I couldn’t take it. I slipped out the nearest exit.
On trembling legs, I ran from the school and out into the pouring rain. I ran and ran, not caring where I was going. I was off school grounds and back on Capitol Avenue before I realized it.
Finally I stumbled to a halt. I was cold and soaked to the bone. I couldn’t go home yet. Dad would be there and he would be furious I wasn’t at school.
Standing on the stone steps of the old capitol, I looked around. There was a part of me that expected someone to come out and order me back to school, but no one did.
Across the browning lawn, stood the white gazebo at the heart of the town square empty and forgotten. During the summer, small concerts were performed there, but in the autumn rain it looked dreary and forlorn. I stepped up into it and going to a far corner, crouched down to wait until I could go home.
Alastor appeared, kneeling beside me in a shadowy form, almost immediately.
“Are you alright, my love?” Alastor asked, “Are you hurt?”
I turned away from the vision of him. I couldn’t be with him right then, not with the memory of Jonah’s angry face so fresh.
“Leave me alone, Alastor,” I commanded.
He moved closer to me, the cold air that always surrounded him, making me even colder.
“Are you angry with me?” He asked.
“Do you have to ask?”
Alastor spread his arms wide, “What have I done to displease you?”
I looked over at him, amazed he could even ask.
“Go away and leave me alone,” I ordered as I shivered and wrapped my arms around my knees.
Alastor’s image wavered in the foggy light, “Becca, I—“
“I said go away!”
He said nothing else. He exploded into a powerful gust of cold air and was gone.
I curled up and pressed myself against the rails. The rain blew leaves into stick to the white boards and the tops of my shoes. I was lonely and miserable without Alastor, but I couldn’t be near him at the moment.
What were we doing? Without meaning to, I dragged Jonah into this mess and then Ashley had come along and made things even more complicated.
The rain slacked off to a soaking mist by the time I started seeing other people my age walking on the sidewalks. I stood and brushed the wet leaves off my damp clothes. Guessing that it was safe to go home, I stepped out of the gazebo and headed down Capitol Avenue.
As I walked up the stone walkway, I could see Dad through the first floor windows. The glow of the lamps silhouetted him as he paced back and forth, talking on the telephone.
I broke out in a cold sweat, what if someone from the school called him? He would be furious at me for skipping classes and getting into a fight. It would be bad enough to face his wrath, but if he was to mention how disappointed my mother would be, I would lose it. I knew I couldn’t take that today.
I stepped inside and let the wooden and glass door bang behind me. The foyer was grey in the light of the misty afternoon. I could hear Dad talking on the telephone near the piano in the other room.
“How soon can you get me on the schedule?” He asked whoever he was talking to, “My gutters are full of leaves; I need it done as soon as possible.”
Stepping around the corner, I waved to him and planned to go straight up to my room, but he motioned for me to stay. I tried to look innocent as I leaned against the casement and tried to think of plausible excuses for my behavior.
“Well call me back as soon as possible,” Dad said and hung up the phone with a smile. “So how was your day?”
“Fine,” I said, not wanting to give anything away until I was sure what he knew.
He turned his back to me and went over to the piano where the open phone book lay.
“That’s good,” He said, flipping through the pages.
I couldn’t be sure, but he seemed perfectly ordinary. It didn’t seem like the school called him.
“Well, I’m going to go upstairs,” I said, testing him further. “I need to get out of these wet things.”
Dad glanced out the window surprised, “Is it still raining?”
“Yeah, it’s still raining.”
He was already distracted and dialing another telephone number.
I breathed a sigh of relief and escaped up the stairs. Safe in my room, I took a shower and did what homework I could since most of my books were still at school in my locker. The ones I did have were damp, so I laid them out on the floor near the radiator to dry while I worked.
My room was too quiet and empty without Alastor chattering in my head, but I didn’t call him back to me. I listened to a few CDs and watched a couple of forgettable television shows, none of it very fun without Alastor’s distractions. I was grateful when Dad called me down for dinner.
As usual, he was full of his plans for the house. He talked on and on about the iron fence that used to surround the property and if he should replace it.
“I was thinking about going to look at a few samples in Indy tomorrow,” he said. “Would you like to play hooky tomorrow and come with me?”
Under normal circumstances I would have jumped at the opportunity, but after today there was no way that I could.
“I better not. There’s a lot going on at school tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Dad said, looking like a disappointed little boy. “I understand.”
I escaped up to my room as soon as Dad began cl
earing the dishes, claiming I had more homework to do. I felt bad leaving him with the mess, but I just couldn’t stand it any longer. The silence inside my head was starting to wear on my nerves.
Upstairs in my room, I closed the door behind me and leaned back against it.
“Alastor?” I called out into the emptiness. “Are you there?”
I felt the air stir above me.
“Yes,” Alastor said in his secret voice, but more overly polite and formal than the tone he usually used with me.
“I’m sorry that I sent you away,” I whispered.
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” I argued. “I was just angry.”
“With me?”
“Yes,” I confessed. “But mostly with Ashley.”
Alastor said nothing, but I could feel him swirling closer to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the nothingness. “Can you ever forgive me?”
I could feel him very near me, gathering energy, almost touching me, but not quite.
His velvety voice teased my ears, “I have forgiven you for killing me, how could I not overlook a little tantrum?”
I smiled, feeling him brush up against my face.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Always, my love.”
Spiritus, a Paranormal Romance (Spiritus Series Book#1) Page 17
