The line at the door was moving along pretty quickly now that they were seating people for the concert. As they neared the door, Ree reached into her pocket for the concert tickets Paden had handed her earlier that night.
“Crap!” She reached into her other pocket and grimaced. “I'll be right back. The tickets must have fallen out in the car.” She started to head back to where they had parked and Paden jogged after her.
“Wait up. I'll walk with you,” He slowed to her pace and looked down at her. “It's not safe out here by yourself.”
She suppressed a sigh as she looked up at him and smiled instead. He really was a delight to look at. The moonlight glinted in his eyes, and shone along the planes of his face. His hair waved gently in the light winter breeze. “My, aren't you the chivalrous one today? My very own knight in shining armor.”
“Always at your service, Milady.” He swept a bow in her direction.
She chuckled and hoped it was dark enough to conceal the blush creeping up her cheeks. She just could not seem to stop that reaction when he was around. As she had gotten older, she had been drawn to him. He had a stubborn face, but with an undercurrent of sensuality that hadn’t been there when they were younger. She rolled her eyes at herself. How had she ever missed how cute he was?
It felt weird to be uncomfortable around Paden. She had known him most her life. When she was little she told him everything. When she had reached high school, he stuck up for her. Even when his best friend, her brother Tristan, had started going downhill, Paden watched out for Ree. As the popular jock, he had enough pull to keep the nerdy art girl from being an easy target for jokes and ridicule. All of his friends had been so rich and beautiful, the opposite of Ree. They all lived in a different world than the one she inhabited. Some of them often made a face when he would make a point of stopping and talking to her. Or worse, they had looked at her in pity, making her feel like she was a lost puppy they wanted to pat on the head. Well, all of them except Jules, Bryce, Melanie, and Weylin. They had seemed to get her. And, in spite of Paden’s social status, she had never felt uneasy with him. She was quick to spout off her random thoughts to him where she would normally become tight-lipped with others. She never felt like he was judging her or secretly waiting to get away from her. In fact, he seemed to enjoy her company. After the accident he had made a point of checking up with her every week. He went to her art showings at school and bragged about her to his family so much that his younger cousin, Claire, started going with him, too. He had even taken it upon himself to interrogate her homecoming date last year. But now . . . things were different.
Did he resent looking after her? She had never asked him to fill Tristan's shoes. When Tristan died in the car accident, it had seemed that being around the family had helped Paden as much as it had helped the McKennas. It had been a comfort to have someone to look after her at first, but recently the fact that he treated her like a younger sister had actually started to grate on her nerves. Would he ever be able to see her as a woman? Would she always be the gangly art nerd in his mind? Ree had grown over the years, and while she might never look anything like Juliette, she had fleshed out nicely. Tall and slim, she had natural blond hair, dark blue eyes, and a light sprinkling of freckles over her nose. Some days she liked the freckles, other days they were the bane of her existence. She was definitely not Angelina Jolie, but she wasn’t without her good points. She sincerely hoped he would see that one day.
They rounded the corner just in time to see someone duck into an alley near their car. Both of them stopped in their tracks. “Did you see that?” Ree whispered.
“Yeah.” Paden shivered. It was unnerving to see the skin crawl along his neck. “Be careful, Ree. Let’s make this quick.”
“Definitely,” she agreed.
They hurried to the car and Paden unlocked the driver’s side door so she could search the seats and floorboards.
“Ah ha! There you are!” She backed out of the car and held the tickets toward him. “Got’em!” Paden didn’t notice; he was looking up and down the street, then back toward the alley. “Er, what is it? Did you see something?” She looked around suspiciously.
“I keep feeling like someone . . . .” He trailed off, shook his head, and locked the door. Ree stared at him for a moment before licking her lips nervously. “Like someone is watching you? Like someone is staring at the spot just between your shoulder blades?”
“How did you know?” He shivered and ran his hand across the back of his neck, trying to smooth the goose bumps away.
“I’ve felt that way all night.” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to look calm and sane. Sane was important. “I didn't realize anyone else felt it, too.”
“I was beginning to think I was going crazy.” He chuckled before motioning for them to start walking back.
“You’re not the only one. It’s nice to know I’m not losing it. Not insane.” She settled into a stride next to him.
“Well, sane. Hm. I don't know if I would go that far, Little One.” He chuckled when she frowned up at him.
She hated it when he called her that. It made her sound like she was still five years old. Surely any moment he would reach over and ruffle her hair. That would definitely make things worse. How could she ever get him to see her as an adult if he kept doing things like that? She crossed her arms over chest. “Why do you insist on calling me that? Maybe I should start calling you the Jolly Green Giant.”
He laughed loudly and threw a friendly arm over her shoulders. It was always nice when he touched her. She shivered just a bit in pleasure, careful to not dislodge his arm. He pulled her a little closer, obviously thinking she was cold. “You're just so cute when you’re angry. I can't help it.”
She elbowed him gently in his ribs. “It's not nice to irritate people, O'Reilly. I'm going to have to find a way to get under your skin.”
He looked down at her and there was an intensity she hadn’t noticed before as he scanned her face. His eyes lingered on her lips for just a moment and she felt like he had actually touched them. He gave himself a small shake before shrugging. They continued in silence for a while, and Ree realized they were almost back to the Civic Center. The area taken up with waiting fans was now deserted.
Paden dropped his arm and hurried his steps. “We’re going to miss the cover band! Let's hurry up.”
Ree rolled her eyes. “Relax. They probably haven't even gotten on stage yet.” When he didn’t slow down she quickened her pace to match his long stride. Paden hesitated mid-step, and Ree saw the swirl of black out of the corner of her eye. Seemingly from nowhere a man in dark, dirty clothes stood between them and the steps of the Civic Center. Alarm bells rang in her head, screaming there was something very wrong. Goose bumps ran over the length of her body and she froze where she stood.
“Alastriana,” the man rasped. The cracked whisper sounded like breaking branches in the middle of the night. It sent chills down her spine, causing all of the hair on her head and arms to stand up. Silence made it feel as if they were standing under a bubble, somehow removed from the rest of life in the down town area. Her breath puffed out in a cloud of steam as she felt her heart beat erratically.
Paden grabbed her arm and stepped in front of her, effectively shielding her from view. “Can we help you?” His whole stance had shifted. Suddenly his six-foot, two-inch frame looked intimidating. His muscles were taut and ready for anything. Even his voice sounded deeper and more authoritative.
“Alastriana.” The dark man reached a hand out toward them, his fingers curved into claws. “Give me the Alastriana.”
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By Ella James
The day it happened, things were regular enough.
Halah, Sara Kate, and Bree had spent the night—a chilly October Friday we’d talked through until the sun rose, pink and soft across the Rockies. I awoke to Sa
ra Kate’s knee in my back, sharp enough to poke a hole through my favorite Cream t-shirt. Halah and Bree were curled up on the floor, Halah’s pink subzero “hotsack” tossed over the Miley Cyrus bag Bree’s grandmother had given her the previous Christmas—the year we’d turned 15. Halah called the bag Miss Miley, and at sleepovers at Sara Kate or Halah’s house, I usually fought Bree for her.
This morning, Halah’s curly head stuck up, and her hazel eyes met mine. We grinned, then pounced on Bree, chanting “Miss Miley, Miss Miley, Miss Miley!” till Bree lurched up, her curvy body raining fragments of the popcorn we’d all munched and, later, crunched into my rug.
“Shhhhhh!” That was Sara Kate, lumbering up and glaring at us. She was never a morning person, and she’d been even less one since she’d started hanging out with Ami McVea of the multi-colored dreadlocks and Turn Off Your Radio (KILL THE MACHINE) bumper sticker. S.K. hadn’t actually told me this—I was only her best friend, after all—but I’d overheard her talking to Ami after orchestra practice, saying something about midnight rides, and I happened to know from my college cousin West that Ami and S.K. had been sneaking out on weeknights, riding into Denver to go to (what else?) indie music shows.
“You’re riding with the big dawgs. This ain’t no rusty banged up Beetle,” Halah drawled. She had the most ridiculous faux Old West accent ever, and she was referencing Ami McVea’s VW bug. We—the quad—had called ourselves the big dogs in years past, although I couldn’t quite remember why.
Bree ambled over and barked in Sara Kate’s ear. S.K. batted her off, then slid out of my bed and pulled a Pop Tart out of her overnight bag. Halah braided Bree’s hair, and S.K. painted her toenails with my electric lilac polish, and I straightened my room and made us waffles, which we ate on the downstairs couch, watching Jeopardy re-runs that Halah killed, ’cause that girl made awesomesauce out of random facts, despite what she wanted our school to think. (Re: brainless, badass, and beautiful).
Half an hour later, the four of us stood in the pebbly indention of my driveway, a time-shorn path through the rough grass that dusted the foothills of the mountains.
I looked at Bree and Halah, a unit within our unit, best friends just like S.K. and me. “You guys be careful.” I smiled tightly. “Halah, spare Bobby the crotch shot.”
Bobby Malone was this senior who’d cheated on one of Halah’s cheer teammates—Annabelle Monroe, the blonde cheerleader archetype. Which is why he was also the bull’s eye in the day’s paintball meet-up.
Halah grinned wickedly. “I’m not going for his crotch, Milo. I’m going for his little tiny balls.”
“That’s disgusting.” Bree’s nose scrunched.
“Keep her out of trouble, mkay?”
Bree shrugged. She had a piece of popcorn smashed under her breasts.
“I want pictures,” S.K. called, as Hal and Bree set off.
“Only if they can’t be used against us in a court of law,” Halah called back.
They drove away, aiming for the far-off fence at the front edge of Mitchell property. Hang a left, and they’d be on a gravel road that ran below the massive Front Range, just a tiny ribbon if viewed from the top of the peaks, up by turbines.
Mitchell Turbines.
Mitchell Windfarm.
Home.
S.K. was never much for goodbyes, and after all, we didn’t know that’s what this was. That bright gray morning was just an ordinary Saturday, on an ordinary weekend in our junior year at Golden Prep, the only private arts high school on our side of Denver.
“Have fun with Bambi,” she said, and tossed her black hair, like the glossy, perfect mane annoyed the heck out of her. (For the record, it really did).
“Have fun with Jackie Chan.”
That would be her Tae Kwon Do instructor, a big, smiling hottie whose actual name was David.
S.K. arched one brow. It jutted up over the frames of her black, square-ish glasses.
“Sayonara,” she said.
And that was that.
My plan for the afternoon involved a dart gun, a tracking bracelet, and my beat-up copy of The Great Gatsby.
I had a seasonal reading plan I’d stuck with each year since fifth grade: Walden in the spring, Pride & Prejudice in the summer, The Great Gatsby each fall, and Wuthering Heights every winter (my dad's dad, Gus Mitchell, had been a tenth-grade English teacher). I liked to imagine the rock-strewn, fir-dotted fields that rolled out toward the mountain range as my moors. In the privacy of my favorite woodsy spot, I savored my cold-weather reading with a gusto that made me feel like a walking liberal arts student cliché.
With Gatsby in my pack and the dart gun in my gloved fist, I drifted through the fields, watching fir needles tremble, tracking birds as they rose and fell, formed flocks and scattered. They’d be leaving in the next month, before it got too cold for anything sans fur.
I wondered if my herd of mule deer would already be there: by the creek that threaded through the northeast edge of our land. I hoped not. If they were waiting, I couldn’t sneak up on them. Encroaching winter made it especially important that I tag the last of the year’s fawns—now. When the snow came, their grazing patterns changed. The creek would ice over and the herd would scatter, seeking out the Bancrofts’ hot springs or one of the freeze-proof waterfalls just north of our property, on the land owned by Mr. Suxley.
As I walked, arms stuck in the pockets of my dad’s giant hunting coat, I thought back over the night. I was a cataloguer of events, but like too many other times lately, I felt like I didn’t have enough to file. I seemed to be moving at a different pace from all my friends. Halah—Halah with her unabashed love of Martin Lawrence movies and her closet full of oversized softball t-shirts—had shot off, three light years ahead of me. She had a senior boyfriend on the wrestling team, and she didn’t have a curfew.
Bree was just… Bree. I didn’t even have a scale for how she and I compared. While I thought about everything ad nauseum, Bree never seemed to think about anything that wasn’t practical. The week before, she’d spent half of lunch on her phone trying to find the area’s best dry-cleaner.
And then there was S.K. Sara Kate, my best friend. My other half. My favorite person on the planet—other than my dad, who wasn’t on the planet anymore. S.K. who’d gone with (guess who?) Ami to ComicCon the weekend of my birthday. Who’d recently decided she needed more time to herself. “I’m getting too stressed out by all this stuff.” Stuff being me. The quad. Our fun.
Lately, the thing I liked best about this deer gig was how somewhere else it made me feel. With the sky over my head and the grass crunching under my boots, I could be anywhere. Add a book to the equation, and I wasn’t Milo Mitchell, girl pianist, airheaded over-thinker, tenth-grade chemistry straggler, secret wallflower, lover of anime. I was Catherine. Well… maybe someone slightly less insane. Daisy Buchanan? Okay, someone moderately less shallow. Haruhi Suzumiya.
Made-up (and insane!) though they were, those people knew what they were about. Knew what they wanted. Whereas me… I got my kicks sedating mule deer.
I pointed myself left, toward the mountains, and picked up my pace for the last half-mile to the pine grove. There was a bluff oak right at the front of the grove, beside a big pancake-looking boulder; next to the skinny evergreens, it resembled a pom-pom in mid-cheer.
When I was growing up, this had been my dad’s favorite spot. He and mom had come to Colorado to build the turbines—Mitchell Wind Turbines, his own patented design—but his real passion was outdoors stuff. As a little girl, I’d gone tromping through the fields and scaling cliffs with him. He’d taken me to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Death Valley and Yosemite, but he’d really loved to take me to the bluff oak.
“It’s an anomaly,” I could hear him say. “Supposed to be down South. Not out here with all the firs.”
And yet, it was.
I walked under its limbs and stared down at the etched stone marker:
Faulkner Dursey Mitchell
1964-2010
And then, under that, in tiny, sharp-edged caps:
IN WILDERNESS, THE PRESERVATION
OF THE WORLD
I didn’t like the marker, though I knew my dad had chosen it. In his absence, I’d grown irritated with the message. Preservation. What a stupid concept. My father wasn’t preserved under the headstone. He was gone, and he was becoming more and more gone all the time.
Still, that didn’t stop me from my pilgrimage. Since that awful day almost two years ago, I’d visited the marker and the bluff oak often. Actually, I’d treated this place like Mecca until two months ago.
It had been the first Saturday after school had started. S.K. spent the night but left early the next morning for her first date with Ami. Halah was at a cheer retreat, and Bree was… somewhere. I don’t remember.
I’d left at the same time as S.K., and by the time I got to the pancake boulder I was falling asleep on my feet. I took a nap—the boulder was that flat—but maybe an hour later, I was jerked awake.
I felt like someone was over me—I felt the hairs raise on the back of my neck. I rolled off the rock and jumped to my feet, ready to bolt. But no one was there. I ducked a second later, because I felt it again, and then I yelped. A needle pricked where my head met my neck, and the pain was inside my brain.
The terrifying thing was, it felt invasive. Like someone was reading my diary—while I stood naked in front of my class.
I left immediately, and spent the walk home freaking out. But I found my way back the next day. And felt the same thing. It wasn’t as sudden, or as potent, but the feeling, like I was being measured, was still there.
And it was there Wednesday, when I went back after half a week: that stripped-down-to-the-cells, stuck-under-a microscope, known-inside-and-out, freaky deaky looked-through feeling. Was I hallucinating? The last thing I needed was another mental health issue to deal with. Obviously, I needed to find another way to feel close to Dad.
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