“Jim,” I whispered again, punctuating it with a heel to his toes.
“Ouc—” He coughed. “Myrtle, a pleasure. What a relief to be here.” He smiled at the Bulldog and pinched my shoulders—hard. I ground my heel farther into his foot. “It’s been a long day; Ash and I are looking forward to settling in.”
No. No way.
He wouldn’t actually make us stay in this nightmare?
My mouth gaped in imitation of a dying fish. I’d escaped Sunglasses to end up being locked in a glorified cage with a bulldog woman, who had probably descended from trolls and believed children made the best meals.
“Jim!” I squeaked.
“We’ll gather up some of our things and be right in after you, Myrtle,” Jim said, charm dripping from every word. She huffed at us, but shuffled back indoors to wait for us in the darkened doorway.
As soon as she was out of sight, I spun around. “No. No way. Jim—”
“Ash, we’re not leaving.”
“This place is a fucking nightmare,” I hissed. “You can’t make me stay—”
“Watch your language, young lady.”
I gawked at him. “You’re kidding me. We’re faced with this jail masquerading as an apartment complex, and you’re worried about my language?”
“We’ve got a year, Ash. That’s not so bad—is it?”
“Yes. It is,” I shot back.
“Well, you’re going to have to figure a way to make it less bad, kiddo, because we’re not leaving.”
“You want to stay? Fine. I’ll grab my stuff and be gone.” No promise covered this. I didn’t need him—I barely knew him. “It’s not like I’m used to having a dad or anything, I’ll be perfectly fine on my own.”
He spread his arms, as if he could block me from escaping the open driveway. “Ash, please. Give a chance. Just a week—okay? I know we haven’t spent time together for a while, but—”
“Ten years,” I pointed out, wanting him to feel as wretched as I did.
“Yeah, ten years.” He raked his hands through his hair and sighed. Then he took hold of my shoulders. “Ash, I can’t go. I took their money—spent it. I told them I’d have my kid with me, made them promise they’d hold a spot for you in that academy. I made a deal. Please.” His voice broke. Desperation clawed across his features. “We can’t go… I’m sorry, but we can’t. Please, kiddo, I have to pay them back for what I took.”
Air caught in my chest. Wrapped around my windpipe and refused to leave.
Jim was scared. Terrified.
And he was all I had left. He’d taken money from these people and buried Mom with it, and now he had to pay it back. I was deeply afraid that money wasn’t the only thing he’d promised in his deal.
I remembered the gray aura and a chill tingled through my body. The way he’d said the word “deal.” Maybe his soul was gone after all—maybe he’d done it for Mom.
Still, that was his soul, his problem.
But why had he said anything about me? Why was it so important I attend their stupid academy—wouldn’t they just give the spot to some undeserving rich kid if I didn’t show?
Unless they wanted something more from me…
Like a toxic weed, Sunglasses’ shadowy form bloomed in my mind. He’d wanted something from me too, something dark and twisted. Something important enough to track me to my mother’s grave.
I exhaled heavily, trying to push him and all those nightmarish fears out of my head.
“Okay,” I spoke the word so softly the desert wind swept it away. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Okay. We can stay. But if it doesn’t work after a week, we go—agreed?” I stuck out my hand.
He gripped it, gave it a decisive shake.
“Agreed,” he said, relief evident. “Let’s grab our things and see inside.”
I nodded.
Pulling out my guitar and my backpack—a girl had to have priorities, after all—I took a moment to survey our surroundings.
Across the road, something moved beneath the streetlamp.
I froze.
Shit, shit, shit. Had Sunglasses found me? Had he run all the way from Portland to Vegas and now he’d rip out my heart or play my ribs like chimes or whatever it was Scary Things did with their victims?
“Ash. Let’s go.” Jim tapped my shoulder.
“Uh…” I couldn’t turn away from the sight, squinting to make the figure out from amongst the shadows. It surprised me to discover I didn’t want to send Jim over there, that I didn’t want to watch him die. Instead, I said, “Can you give me a sec? I’ll meet you up at the entrance.”
“Sure, honey,” he said softly. “Take a minute. Just not any longer.”
“I’ll be fast,” I whispered.
Tracking the faint crunch of his shoes across the gravel, I waited until I heard him step into the entrance. Then I walked slowly to the end of the drive. I couldn’t yell—that would draw Jim’s attention—but I had other ways of making my point.
There was something in those shadows, I knew it. Spreading my arms, I flipped my hands up in a “come at me” motion.
Because I might be crazy, but I was also damned tired of being scared.
“What,” I whisper-yelled across the street at the shadow, “only brave when chasing girls from behind?”
A guy stepped into the light—it wasn’t Sunglasses.
He was utterly unexpected. Not just because I’d expected to face down Sunglasses, but because he was hot.
He was tall, built like a college athlete. A swimmer, with the potential to tear it up on the football field. The broad line of his shoulders tested a black t-shirt, muscles making a promise of the hardened man he would become. A shaggy mop of dark, wavy hair fell over his forehead and his eyes.
Oh, man.
Those eyes.
My heart gave a funny sideways lurch at the sight. His eyes were a shade of blue that I didn’t think actually existed outside of Instagram. A deep, startling royal blue that should have probably looked black in the low light.
They seemed to say: Don’t go inside.
“Ash,” Jim called from behind me. “We got to go.”
“Yeah, okay,” I shouted, without turning away from the guy.
Deep blue eyes didn’t say a word, yet his hands lifted—in peace or in warning, I honestly wasn’t sure. No, I shouldn’t have been sure. But I was. I felt the warning all the way from my head to my toes.
Don’t go inside, you won’t come back out.
He held out his hand.
I stared at it for a long moment, surprised to find my palm tingling, my fingers reaching for him. Which was crazy. This guy might not be Sunglasses, but he was still a weirdo who crept around in corners and watched buildings from across the street. Who knew what kind of psycho forces might be at work here? He was a goddamn stranger, and I hadn’t come all the way to Vegas to throw my lot in with the first random hottie to look my way.
I’m come to honor a promise.
To get to know my dad, and to go to school.
And apparently, to walk inside an apartment complex that felt like a funhouse at a fair—the haunted kind, that chewed up people and swallowed them whole.
I can’t, I whispered to the stranger.
It hurt to turn, to leave the end of the drive and walk away from the stranger, like peeling a Band-Aid off my entire body. Yeah, there’d definitely been something wacky at work.
Forcing my chin up, I joined Jim at the entrance.
“Ready, kiddo?” he asked.
I braced myself because if the inside of this place was half as bad as the outside, it would be the ugliest building I’d ever had the misfortune of entering—and that included beating out a lot of hospitals.
“Let’s get this over with.” With the stranger’s warning screaming between my shoulder blades, I crossed the threshold.
Chapter Six
Over the course of the night, the rain had moved on, and the November cold had moved in. The pre-dawn air was
sharp-edged, a chill wind slashing across my face and biting into my hands.
Five o’clock in the morning and we’d finished cramming everything into Jim’s ugly old Buick. I’d managed a meager three hours sleep—which was honestly better than the rest of the week. Packing or not, I wouldn’t have gotten any more, because as much as I needed to leave, I’d spend the night hugging a couch cushion and sniffing.
That same cushion now sat in the passenger seat.
Tough shit, new tenant, you were getting a couch without matching cushions.
Parting was sweet sorrow, I thought, staring up at our second-floor window for the last time. My fingers curled around the old pink stuffed dragon with shimmery wings Mom and I had won at the summer fair when I was ten years old. Leaving the apartment was hard enough, but I couldn’t leave the state.
Not without doing one more thing. The only problem: asking would invite all kinds of fatherly questions I wouldn’t answer.
I glanced at him. “Uh, Jim?”
“Come on, Ashley,” he said, waving for me to get in. “Let’s get trucking.”
“Aren’t we going to, you know…” I trailed off, studying how the metal studs on my boot toe caught the pre-dawn light.
“What?” He tapped an impatient tattoo upon the hood of the car.
“Say goodbye,” I whispered.
“I thought you said goodbye last night?”
“Not to people,” I mumbled, “to… you know.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, checked his watch, and then returned his attention to me. “I guess I don’t.”
“To—to Mom. To her grave,” I forced the words out through stiff lips.
“Oh.” Jim’s brows shot up. It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that I might want to visit my mother’s grave before leaving Portland. “Ashley, we were there yesterday and we need to get on the road...”
Glaring at him, I crossed my arms and silently dared him to deny my right to see Mom’s grave.
He should be fine with going—he’d paid for it after all. And, as he’d pointed out, it wasn’t as if we were coming back any time soon. Only a total asshole would prevent his daughter from visiting her mother’s grave.
Guess this is a test.
I realized I was clutching the stuffed dragon to my chest and dropped my arms so it hung negligently at my side.
Jim looked at his watch again and back at me. “Right. Sure. Of course, you can visit. Just remember we need to get going.”
“I don’t need long,” I said and slid into the passenger seat.
The drive to the cemetery was short and uneventful.
I was grateful the sun hadn’t yet topped the city’s edge. There was no reason anyone should be out in sunglasses. Hunkering in my hoodie, I studied the cemetery, with its rows of gray slabs and carefully tended grass covered with fall’s leaves. Bouquets of red and yellow and orange scattered across the grounds, as if nature had put it there for all the residents to share.
The thought of spending the rest of eternity in such a place made me queasy, but Mom had been determined to be buried. I guess I owed Jim at least a month of trying for that alone. I’d had no idea burying someone cost so much money.
Jim pulled over and I quickly got out, not bothering to wait for him.
Walking swiftly away, I was relieved when no footsteps sounded in my wake. I didn’t want any company, not for this.
All too soon, I found the simple square of polished granite stating, “Here Lies Maria Anna Alcantara, Beloved Mother.” Reading those words made my chest ache. Crouching down, I brushed specks of freshly-dug dirt from the surface and laid a hand atop the cold stone.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “Jim actually came through with the extra money for the plot. Cool, huh? The stupid jerks at the funeral home told me it was sweet I’d thought I could bury you for under five grand. I mean, five grand! This isn’t the zombie Hilton or—”
I mentally kicked myself—one didn’t visit graves to bitch about the funeral process.
Coughing, I tried again.
“Er. I mean, It’s pretty nice, actually. Little quiet, but you always liked the quiet. And they spelled your name right, so that’s good.” I bit my lip and looked away, focusing on how the light was beginning to sparkle atop the tall angel statue in the middle. “I found your old journals. When we get settled in Jim’s new place, I’ll probably read them. Or maybe I’ll wait until I’m older. Depends how racy you got. TMI, right?”
My voice cracked and I swallowed hard.
I plunked the dragon down beside the plaque and fixed his wings so they spread outwards. “I wanted you to have some company, so I brought you Draco. He’ll scare off the squirrels or give you a real good show, like those pigeons on the hospital ledge…”
A strained laugh caught in my throat, threatening to morph into a sob.
Bracing myself on the stone, I took a deep breath.
“I have to go away for a while—with Jim. I know you wanted me to give him a chance and I promised and, well, I didn’t want to keep my promise, but I don’t know what else to do. So I guess we’re going to Vegas.” I let out a shaky breath and patted Draco’s head. “He got me into this swanky-sounding school—with real college credits and a fast-track program—and I know you’ll like that. Told you things would work out.”
My mom had been adamant I stay in school—and furious when she’d realized what I’d done with my college fund.
Of course, when I’d done it, I’d imagined we’d be facing the outcome together.
“Guess I won’t be able to see you for a while and… um… Oh, Mom.”
I swallowed again, unable to stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks.
“I miss you, so much,” I whispered, pressing both hands into the headstone until its cold ran through to my bones. “Wish me luck,” I added, attempting a cocky smile. “I’m going to own this academy.”
Forcing myself to get up, I headed back to the car.
The sparkle was more pronounced now, with light bouncing off thousands of tiny, frozen droplets like the cemetery was trying to channel the ghosts of disco balls past. An amused snort huffed through my nose, completely at odds with the tears still streaking down my face.
Stopping just out of sight of Jim, alongside one of three mammoth trees dominating the area, I yanked a tissue out of my pocket and tried to neatly wipe it underneath my eyes in a vain attempt to save my eyeliner.
Why I’d bothered to put on make-up today, I couldn’t say.
Awareness tickled the back of my neck. I froze, my gaze panning from side to side, searching the still cemetery grounds for the source.
Slowly, I tracked the sensation until I was facing back the way I’d come—back to where my mother’s grave lay. Flashes of dawn light sparked across my vision. Partly blinded, I held my hand before my face and squinted into the bright. Something moved, and this time awareness stabbed me straight through the chest.
There was a man watching me from the other side of the graveyard.
Light glinted where his eyes should be.
Sunglasses.
My heart jumped into my throat and beat the drum for retreat. Backing away, I spun around and raced for the car, feet skidding across the frosty ground. Grabbing the handle, I whipped the door open and leaped inside.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted at Jim, reaching over and clicking the central door-lock button.
“Ashley? What the—”
“Drive, Jim!” I yelled.
“Tell me what—”
“Please, please drive,” I begged, fighting with my seatbelt. My eyes were glued to the open space before the car, terrified that any minute a shadow would appear and—oh shit, something moved. A shadow stretching along the ground, reaching for our car.
“Jim!” Sheer terror made my voice high and piercing.
“Okay, okay. Hold on.” The Buick shot forward, tires squealing in protest against the frozen pavement.
Twisting around, I stared at the s
hadow as we drove down the narrow lane connecting the street to the cemetery. Scattered trees and tall, reaching tombstones broke my line of sight, turning it into some poorly animated short as I waited for the next glimpse of my pursuer. As the car swung through the iron gates and onto the main road, I caught sight of a dark figure standing at the end of the drive.
“Ashley…what on earth was that?”
Shaking, it took me a while to get my body to cooperate enough to even look at Jim. I found him studying the rearview mirror with an odd, worried expression did nothing for my self-control. Was he watching Sunglasses?
“Please, please keep going.”
“Alright, kiddo,” Jim obligingly put his foot on the accelerator, and the Buick growled down the street.
I hadn’t been called “kiddo” since I was seven; it caused another bout of water to well in my eyes. Damn him.
“You gonna tell me what that was about?”
I watched the street behind us through the side-view mirror. “Nothing,”
“Pardon me, young lady, but that’s a load of BS.”
“There was a man at the cemetery, and he was watching me, and it was just creepy, okay?” I tried to infuse the word okay with all the angst possible. “He was probably a perv and I wanted to get away.”
“Okay,” Jim’s voice was carefully bland and he stared straight ahead through the windshield. “Have you seen this man before?”
I mumbled something incomprehensible into the soft fleece of my hoodie.
Silence hung in the vehicle for a long moment and signs showing the way out of Portland started flashing with greater frequency along the roadside. A sigh rustled the air next to me, and my shoulders tensed.
He wasn’t going to lecture me, was he?
Jim coughed and fiddled with the Buick’s radio until Kelly Clarkson blasted over the speakers, informing us loudly that ‘you can’t win.’ The reminder was unnecessary; I’d already figured that one out. Jim glanced over as if seeking approval for his choice.
I offered him a weak smile.
“Ashley… where we’re going, Vegas is a bigger city than Portland. It’s practically a different culture. I want you to tell me if any strangers hassle you.”
Rock and Ruin Page 5