by Eden Beck
Fortunately, it’s neither. Just some other guy paying for his gas. I dump my change onto the counter and stick my hand back into my pocket again to get the rest of it. I can hear the man behind me huffing in annoyance.
“Sorry,” I mumble as I turn around to apologize while still trying to get the rest of my change. These jeans are too tight, and my fingers can’t seem to reach down to the bottom of the pocket. If we had any more money, I would have gotten new jeans for school.
“Looks like you need some help,” the man sneers.
Before I know what’s happening, he thrusts his hand down the front pocket of my jeans and pulls me away from the counter and closer to him. The coffee in my cup spills over, splashing his arm with the scalding hot liquid as the cup drops from my hand.
I stare up at him in a mix of both horror and surprise, and his angry coffee-burned glare stares right back. Everything seems to move in slow motion as I try to pull the man’s hand from my pants and simultaneously avoid the clenched fist raising at his side.
I’ve seen this before, seen the rage boil over. I’ve been on the receiving end of a fist like that, and often, for much less than spilled coffee.
Before the hand can strike, however, I’m suddenly flanked by two pressing bodies.
It’s the boys from before, and this time, they’ve brought the third.
I didn’t even hear the door open again, but I guess that’s because I was too focused on fighting off this freak who still has a hold of my jeans. The third boy with them now is every bit as handsome as the other two; muscular, with blackish-brown hair that is just a couple of inches shorter than the others.
His face is more angular than the other two boys, and when I catch sight of his eyes, I see that they are as close to solid black as you could get without looking like a supernatural creature. He grabs the man’s hand and jerks it backward out of my pocket. It makes a sick, snapping sound as he does, causing the man to cry out in pain.
I stumble backward but the youngest boy from earlier catches me, propping me back up to steady footing. He just as quickly lets me go as if he’s touched something without permission and is suddenly afraid of a scolding. The three boys surround the guy who grabbed me, looking like a pack of predators closing in on their prey.
They say nothing, and in return, the man who harassed me looks like he’s staring into the loaded end of a shotgun … and he knows it.
“You okay, dear?” the gas station attendant says as I feel him put his hand on my shoulder. I seize up at the touch, even though I know he means well.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, shrugging him off as carefully as I can without somehow offending him too.
I’m really not quite fine, though. I’m shaken up, my clothes soaked and stained with coffee, and my nerves shot. As if they weren’t already. I turn my attention back to the boys, but they—as well as my harasser—is nowhere to be seen.
In just the time it took for the cashier to grab my attention, they’ve all vanished.
“Where did they all go?” I ask in near hysterics. I’m really hoping that he doesn’t tell me I imagined that whole scene, because I’m already pretty close to questioning my own sanity.
“They scared that guy off and left.”
It’s all I can do to stifle a sigh of relief. At least they were real.
“But I only turned around for a minute. I didn’t even hear them go.”
“They’re good kids,” he says as he picks up the empty disposable cup from the floor and heads to go grab a mop from the back. “I don’t expect that other guy will be bothering you again.”
“I wanted to thank them,” I say, still standing there in the aftermath of what just happened.
The old man leans his mop up against the side of the counter and walks to the back of the store, emerging a minute later with a fresh cup of hot coffee to hand to me.
“This one’s the house,” he says, forcing one of his own smiles. “Sorry you had that happen to you this morning. I promise, the people here aren’t usually like that.”
“Do you know who that guy was?” I ask.
“Nope, never seen him before. Good thing the boys were still here though.”
“Yeah,” I mumble under my breath. “Good thing.”
But something seems off about the whole thing. I saw the boys pull away in their Jeep the first time, so how did they all leave so fast again without me seeing them go? And what happened that guy who grabbed me? For him to take off as quickly as he did, he must have been scared shitless.
I know I would be, in his position.
I thank the old man for my coffee and try my best to wipe up my clothes before I leave the store and start down the path toward school again. Despite the cashier’s reassurance, I still hear the howling coming from the woods as I walk. The only difference this time is that it sounds a little closer than before.
5
Kaleb
My whole body feels like it’s on fire.
The scent of her still lingers on my tongue, like the memory of something half-forgotten and yet familiar. More than that—it rakes down my throat, it whispers in my ear, it tugs at something feral in my core.
“What was that?”
Rory’s voice drags me unwillingly back into the back seat of his car. The leather is worn and soft, cracked and scraped where one-too-many close calls have left long claws scrabbling out the open top of the Jeep.
“Tell me you didn’t smell that too,” I say, daring one more glance over my shoulder at the last remnants of the old gas station flickering through the trees as we pull away. I can still remember her shocked face looking back at me through the glass.
Those wide eyes, staring through me as if she can see my very soul.
“It was desperation, nothing more,” Rory says.
I eye him warily. “You keep talking like that, and your voice is going to get stuck like a growl forever.”
I catch the flash of his grimace in the rearview mirror.
Marlowe swings back an arm from the passenger’s seat to pat me on the shoulder. “Down boy, you got what you wanted after all.”
I blink back surprise.
“What I wanted? You think I wanted that?”
I see the flash of the man’s hand reaching out to the girl, see the intent plain as day on his face.
“You got to play the hero,” Marlowe says, settling back into his seat. “And got to save the damsel in distress while you were at it.”
I press my lips together, feeling the bite of teeth on the inside of my cheek. I don’t want to be silenced. I’m not used to this.
Outside the window, endless trees scroll by as if in some sort of montage. Washington. I always wanted to visit when I was younger, back before …
No.
It’s best not to think about what was before. I have enough to think about now. Enough to prepare for.
I fall back into the seat, but I can’t get my muscles to relax. I can’t get that girl out of my head.
Neither, it seems, can Rory.
For all his talk earlier, for all he claimed he wanted to avoid these new tenants of our father’s, it’s his hands that keep gripping tighter to the steering wheel—the sound of stretched and protesting leather growing louder each time his fingers flex.
“Romulus never should have let them rent the cabin.”
“This again?” Marlowe’s voice is tired. It’s not like him to have to keep the peace this long. Rory’s new, unchecked temper, hasn’t gone unnoticed. “What’s done is done.”
“And look where it’s gotten us,” Rory says, stretching out his fingers on the wheel again, as if measuring his own grip against the grain. “We could have killed that guy.”
“And he would’ve deserved it,” I mutter.
This time, Marlowe doesn’t disagree.
“I mean, Rory,” he says, shrugging at the eldest of us, “I’m kind of on Kaleb’s side here. That guy, if we’d killed him …” He shrugs again. “Let’s just say I d
on’t think he’d be missed.”
Of course, Rory isn’t so easily convinced.
“Or,” he says, sharply, “he could have turned out to be a member of a rival pack. You never know these days. If we’d killed him …”
“Stop.”
There’s a warning in Marlowe’s voice now. It’s different than Rory’s. Less measured.
“Come on, Rory,” he says. “You know we would have sensed it.”
“Not with that damn girl stinking up the place,” Rory snarls.
My whole body tenses. Rory’s eyes are fixated on the road, but it’s clear his mind is elsewhere.
“So that’s what you call it?” I lean forward and draw in a breath so deep it rattles my lungs. When I let it out, it rushes out of me like a longing sigh. “That scent …”
“Careful now,” Marlowe says, “or you’ll get drunk on it.”
I peek open my eyes at him. We’ve almost gotten to school already, but Rory seems to have slowed the car. He’s no longer racing to the parking lot like a madman on the run. He still sits rigidly in the driver’s seat, but I can tell he too is watching Marlowe out of the corner of his eye.
There’s a glint in Marlowe’s eye that I haven’t seen in a while.
He sits forward as well, that glint completing the conspiratorial note in his hushed voice.
“That scent … that girl …”
“Marlowe …”
We both ignore Rory.
“That girl,” Marlowe continues, “carries a scent with her that we’d be fools to ignore. Tell me Rory, honestly now, have you ever smelled anything like it?”
Smelled.
That doesn’t seem to be the right word, but it has the right effect on Rory.
Though I didn’t think it was possible, he stiffens even more.
“Come on Marlowe, it was probably just something spoiled in there. You know how they keep that place.”
“I’d recognize the scent of rot,” Marlowe snaps. “This wasn’t it.”
I scoot even further forward in my seat. I can feel the same fire in my eyes that I see in Marlowe’s. My hands reach forward to clap onto either of Rory’s shoulders. He flinches, but the car stays firmly in the middle of the one-lane road.
“You know what that scent is, don’t you?”
I try to keep my voice light, but a note of accusation somehow pushes through still.
“Rory, come on.” I play on his one weakness. “You know this all so much better than we do. Tell us you don’t know what that was.”
Marlowe’s gaze shifts to me for half a second, and as much as I know it pains him to do it, he plays along.
“Yeah Rory,” his voice drags out, teasing, “you’re not going to turn down an opportunity to sound like a know-it-all, are you?”
Though Rory’s jaw works like he’s thinking about whether or not to punch Marlowe, I know him better. Or, at least, I hope I do.
After a long moment of silence, Rory finally breaks the uneasy tension.
“Fine,” he growls.
The car takes the last turn up the road and into the school parking lot. He takes a sharp turn into one of the marked spots furthest from the doors. The last of the tension between us dies with the roar of the engine as he shuts it off.
“But we should talk to Lydia first. What I think it is …” he trails off and shakes his head. “If anyone can tell us for sure, it’s her.”
I keep my eyes trained on the sliver of Rory’s face still visible in the rearview mirror. I ache for more answers. I want to know what it is that he thinks he knows, but that he has to ask our mother about first.
But I also know when not to test him.
So all I can do is wait, even though part of me thinks I already know where this is headed.
And Rory might be anxious, but me?
I’m excited.
It’s grown all too quiet around here lately.
6
Sabrina
The school is small and quaint, but in better shape at least than the gas station. A lady with a button-down flannel and knee-length denim skirt hands me a folded piece of paper when I check into the office, but doesn’t offer much else in the way of guidance.
“Thanks,” I say as I open the paper to see my class schedule. It looks like the printer was running out of ink because I can barely make out the last few lines.
She forces a smile at me as I walk away, left to my own devices to find my way around. Even though this single building houses everything from kindergarten through twelfth grade, it’s small enough to pretty much get the lay of things at first glance.
The day is about as tedious as I figured it would be. The classes are all pretty much the same as everywhere else, with only vague differences between the teachers, who all look like they should be meeting up for bingo at a diner or something after school.
For the most part, no one gives me any special attention for being the new kid. I might have expected that with some of the bigger schools I’ve drifted through, but here … I expected it to be a lot more difficult to blend in.
In fact, if I wanted to, I could just disappear, and no one would notice.
Normally that thought would be comforting, but this time it heightens that uneasiness I’ve felt since I got here.
I don’t remain completely invisible for long, however. Just as I’m trying to stuff a bunch of old textbooks into my rusty locker, a girl with a pea-green cardigan and oversized square glasses heads straight for me. Her style reminds me of one of those girls who is too mod to be considered geeky, and she knows it.
“Hey,” she says as she smiles at me. She waits a second while I struggle to get the old, bent metal to shut and stay shut, before she continues. “I’m Jess, and you are?”
“Sabrina,” I answer. “Today’s my first day here.”
“Yeah, we know.”
I wonder who she means by “we”. I’d started to think that maybe I was actually becoming invisible.
“I thought no one had noticed,” I say as I try to play off my own awkwardness. “Not that I mind. Sometimes it’s better not to be noticed.”
I have to stop myself before I blurt out my whole sad sob story. No one wants to hear it. Better to keep these sorts of things to yourself.
Thankfully, Jess doesn’t seem to care enough to dig deeper.
“Don’t take it personally,” she says, waving one hand in dismissal, “usually more of us would be all up in your business and asking you a million questions, being the new girl and all. But the boys are back in town, so … you know … everyone is a bit preoccupied.”
“That’s sounds like a song from the eighties,” I say with the start of a laugh, but then I see that she’s being serious. “What boys?”
“You mean you haven’t noticed them?” One of her eyebrows arches up a bit in disbelief. “Speak of the devils, here they are now.”
She points over at a huddle of backpacks gathering around three boys in the hallway. I know, before I catch sight of their faces between those surrounding them, who I’ll find.
“Oh my god, it’s them,” I whisper to myself, not realizing that I’ve said it out loud.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head and dart a sideways glance their way. “Who are they?”
Jess leans up against the lockers and performs a mock swoon.
“Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. Rory is the oldest, pretty much close to the same age as Marlowe. Kaleb is the youngest, but all three of them are seniors. Don’t ask me how that works. Their family owns this giant mansion a couple of miles from here. It’s buried up in the hills, but most of the locals find a way to ‘stumble’ up there from time to time, just to get a look.”
I bite my tongue, wondering if the mansion just so happens to be the one my mom was telling me about. The one on the same land as our little cabin. I don’t like to think of the locals “stumbling” around in the woods, in my woods, hoping to catch a peek at a local landmark.
Jess is watc
hing me when I turn back to her. “Everyone knows about them, like everyone,” she says with emphasis on the last word.
“Are they celebrities or something?”
“Nah, they’re just weird and eccentric. No one can quite figure them out. And then there’s the fact that boys like that don’t exactly belong in a town like this.”
I blink up at her. “And that means?”
We’re interrupted as a tall boy with short-cropped hair sidles up to Jess and playfully nudges her on the shoulder.
“Which means that they make the rest of us look like gremlins compared to those shampoo models over there,” he says.
Jess lets out an irritated sigh as she’s forced to look away from said shampoo-models down the hall.
“Don’t listen to Tom, here,” she says to me, “he’s just jealous.”
“And why would I be?” the boy, Tom, interrupts again. “It’s not like it matters. They’ll be here for a few weeks, and then they’ll be gone again.”
It’s his turn to glance down the hall, but his face doesn’t take on that same enraptured look as Jess’ does.
“But that’s the thing,” Jess says, undeterred. “They’ve been gone for about a year and no one expected them back this soon. Of course, this time there is the added curiosity about the extra one.”
“The extra one?”
“Yeah, Kaleb. Last time they were in town, everyone swears there were only two brothers. This time, there’s three. Half the kids here say they remember Kaleb and the other half say they’ve never seen him before.”
Tom lets out a huff. “A bunch of suck-ups, that’s what it is. Everyone just wants to pretend they know them better than everyone else.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “So you’re calling your classmates liars?”
He takes a second to consider this. “Maybe not outright liars … but …” He shrugs. “If the shoe fits, you know? I mean, it isn’t exactly a secret that Marlowe was adopted. Kaleb probably was too.” He stares down the hall for a second, and I wonder if he’s thinking about that Jess said earlier about the mansion when he adds under his breath, “The lucky bastard.”