Death and the Girl Next Door d-1

by Darynda Jones

  Cameron wore a menacing grimace as he leaned into Jared. “That whole walking-and-carrying-a-tray-at-the-same-time thing must really have you baffled.”

  Jared smiled. He smiled … and stepped even closer. “I was walking before you were even a speck on the horizon.”

  Cameron’s mouth tightened. “Just making sure I had the right guy.”

  “And do you?” Jared asked with raised brows.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Jared closed the distance between them. Every person in the room stopped breathing. Anticipation glistened in their eyes as they waited to see what would happen next.

  “You know,” Jared said in a husky whisper I could barely hear, “your heart’s beating a little fast.” His smile disappeared. “I can take care of that for you.”

  As though steeling himself for some mortal blow, every muscle in Cameron’s body tensed. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. “Do whatever you want to me,” he said under his breath, “just stay away from Lorelei.”

  Lorelei? Me? I snapped to attention. Did he just say stay away from me?

  “I think you’re the one who needs to stay away from her. Stalking, Mr. Lusk, is not a pretty habit.”

  Wait. How did Jared know that? How did he know Cameron had been following me? And how did I suddenly become the topic of conversation?

  “You can’t have her,” Cameron said.

  “Really.”

  “I swear to God,” Cameron continued, his blue eyes watering with emotion, “you’ll die screaming if you try.”

  Jared’s features darkened. His lids narrowed and he lowered his head to watch Cameron from underneath his lashes, like a cougar preparing to attack. “Let’s take care of that heart thing, shall we?” He raised a hand toward Cameron’s chest.

  “What’s going on here?”

  At the booming sound of Principal Davis’s voice, Jared straightened and dropped his arm. Anger lined the principal’s stern face as he charged forward.

  Cameron eased back too, though just barely. His chest rose and fell as adrenaline rushed through his body. Then the side of his mouth crept up, suggesting a smile. “Don’t worry, Reaper, we’ll continue this later.”

  “You just stay alive that long.”

  “Wouldn’t dream otherwise.”

  “Lusk, is there a problem?” Mr. Davis asked as he crossed over to them.

  Both young men ignored him for what seemed like an eternity before they finally looked away from each other. I’d never felt such palpable tension in my life.

  “Mr. Kovach,” Principal Davis said through his teeth, unused to being ignored, “I would hate to see your first day here at Riley High turn out unfavorably.”

  Jared released a slow breath then looked at him at last. “So would I, Mr. Davis.”

  “I suggest you get something else to eat. And you,” he said, jabbing a finger toward Cameron, “come with me.”

  Cameron chuckled then leaned toward Jared again. “You can’t do it here anyway, Reaper. Too many witnesses. I know the rules.”

  “Lusk,” Davis warned.

  Cameron turned to follow him out the door. As he stepped past, his stare locked with Jared’s again. Their shoulders brushed and each gave a light shove, reiterating the fact that their confrontation was far from over.

  After Principal Davis escorted Cameron out of the building, the room erupted in dozens of conversations. They echoed against the walls, but through it all, no one could take their eyes off Jared. They watched, waiting for his reaction. Just as I did.

  With a frustrated sigh, Jared scrubbed his face with his fingers, then raked them through his hair, his muscles still contracted, ready for a fight.

  “Jared,” I said. He turned and looked at me, his dark eyes pinning me to the spot, his gaze so intense, I forgot what I was going to say. After a moment, I improvised. “Jared, I—”

  “It won’t hurt, Lorelei,” he said, interrupting me. Confusing me. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “What won’t hurt?”

  When I tried to rise again, he stepped back, his expression suddenly guarded. Glitch’s death grip held, so I didn’t get far before being pulled back to my seat.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just stared, observing me so fiercely, I struggled to breathe under the weight of it. Then, without another word, he backed away, turned, and strode out a side door.

  “Okay,” Brooklyn said, “that was weird.”

  I sat stunned for a long time before Glitch’s grip on my arm registered. “Ouch, Glitch,” I said, slapping at his hand.

  “Oh, sorry.” He let go but took hold of me again as I stood and started after Jared.

  I turned on him with a glare. “Glitch, I need to talk to him.”

  “I doubt he’s in the mood for small talk.”

  “Let go.”

  “Just give him time, Lor. Call it a guy thing.”

  I stood there scowling at him a solid minute before giving in. With a jerk of my arm, I freed myself and sat back down. The fact that he was probably right didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “Who does Cameron Lusk think he is?” I asked, incredulous and more than a little baffled. “Why would he do that?”

  Glitch drew in a deep breath and held it before offering his version of an explanation. “You have to consider the source,” he said, grabbing the ketchup bottle. “Lusk is different.”

  “That’s for sure,” Brooklyn said.

  I watched as Glitch busied himself with a sudden urge to smother his fries in ketchup and realized he was holding something back. I felt a disturbance, like an undercurrent just below his too-calm exterior. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s just different,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “You know. Not quite like the other kids on the playground.”

  Brooklyn knitted her brows. “You’re going to have to give us more than that, Glitch. We’ve already seen the fruit. We need the juice.”

  He paused his assault and looked up, his mouth a thin line. “I don’t know,” he said, trying to dismiss our inquiry. “He probably has anger issues. Not unlike the average juvenile delinquent, if you ask me.”

  Brooklyn sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That’s the best juice you got?”

  “It’s pretty much the only juice I got. On Lusk anyway.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She wagged an index finger at him. “Didn’t something happen between you two once?”

  Glitch stilled.

  She was right. The spring break of our second-grade year, he’d gone on a camping trip in the mountains with his Boy Scout troop. Something happened on that trip. Something bad. And I’d known that Cameron was involved, but no one would ever tell me more, including Glitch.

  Brooklyn hadn’t moved to Riley’s Switch yet and didn’t know him then. But he changed, withdrew. He stopped coming to school and almost had to repeat the second grade, but his parents got him through summer school despite his total shutdown.

  I remembered it so vividly because he’d stopped talking to me. We used to play at the park a lot or he would come hang with me at my grandparents’ store. When he stopped talking to me, I was too hurt and too lame to realize he’d obviously experienced something very traumatic. My grandparents had to point it out. They convinced me to just be his friend, explained that he would come back to me when he was ready.

  When third grade started, he slowly became himself again. He started joking and horsing around. And when Brooklyn moved to Riley’s Switch and joined our group, he seemed to bounce back like nothing had ever happened. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was all just a cover. The light in his eyes had never shone quite so bright as before that spring break.

  Could this have something to do with what happened to him? Now that I thought about it, he and Cameron had been friends in the second grade. But not afterwards. They hadn’t spoken two words in eight years.

  I studied him as he studied his fries. In the soft
est voice I’ve ever heard him use, he said simply, “He’s strong.”

  “Strong?” I asked, almost as softly. I scooted closer. “Strong like how?”

  Tension creased his face. “Just strong.”

  Brooklyn seemed to sense his distress as well. She moved closer too. “You know you can tell us anything, right?”

  I’d told her the story. She knew that Glitch had gone away one person and come back an entirely different animal. We were only seven, but in those few weeks, he seemed to grow older, become hardened, almost jaded. And lost. It took a long time for him to find his way back, and as badly as I didn’t want him to regress, at the same time, I wanted to know more. Cameron’s name seemed to be cropping up a lot in the last few days, and I wanted to know why.

  Glitch rubbed his mouth. He did that when he didn’t want to admit something. After a long moment of contemplation, he said, “He’s not just strong, he’s, like, really strong.”

  “You totally need a thesaurus,” Brooklyn said, giving up on the empathetic approach.

  He sighed. “I don’t know how else to put it.”

  “Exactly why you need a thesaurus.”

  “Do you mean in an unnatural way?” I asked, a little more understanding. After all, I’d been there. I’d seen what he went through, what that camping trip had done to him. And I’d wondered a thousand times what happened. I’d even touched him. Nonchalantly, so he wouldn’t know, but I’d touched his hand to try to get a vision. Unfortunately, my visions seemed to pick for themselves where and when to show up.

  His cheeks reddened. “It’s going to sound stupid.”

  That piqued my interest even more. “You know that’s not true.”

  “Yeah, it is, because when I say strong, I don’t mean a normal strong. I mean strong in a supernatural way.” When Brooklyn’s lips pursed, he tightened his jaw. “Told you it would sound stupid.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she said. “I’m just not sure what you mean.”

  Since Brooke didn’t shut him down or make fun of him, he seemed to grow more confident. “Think about it,” he said, straightening in his chair. “Have you ever noticed how he never gets into fights? How nobody ever messes with him? How when he walks through the halls, it’s like Moses parting the Red Sea?”

  We both half nodded and half shrugged. Clearly Brooke had never really noticed either—Cameron was such an outcast and rarely garnered any attention—but we were both eager to hear more.

  “There’s a reason,” he said, “no one will fight him. No one would dare. Even Isaac Johnson, the biggest defensive lineman Riley High has to offer, steers clear of Cameron Lusk.”

  “Ha,” Brooklyn said, pointing at him. “You almost had me. Isaac Johnson doesn’t steer clear of anyone.”

  “And Cameron Lusk isn’t just anyone,” he whispered loudly. He glanced around the room, making sure no one was listening before he continued. “That’s what I’m trying to say. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “Okay,” I said, seeing my chance to find out what happened that year and going for it, “so what is he capable of?” I held my breath, hoping beyond hope he’d open up.

  But instead of opening up, he withdrew once again, as he had so many times before. “I don’t know. Just stuff.”

  “Fine,” Brooklyn said, her tone questioning, “let’s suspend disbelief for just a moment and say you’re right. He’s unnaturally strong. First, how do you know all this? And second, why haven’t we heard of this great and unusual strength before?”

  “I don’t know,” Glitch repeated defensively. “Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

  “Another one?”

  “We don’t go around talking about how strong other guys are, you know?”

  “But if he’s that strong,” I said, pushing just a little, “surely we would have heard something.”

  “We just don’t talk about it, okay? We just don’t.”

  I suddenly realized he hadn’t been avoiding the topic of Cameron’s strength, but downright hiding it. I leaned in and looked into his hazel green eyes. “What happened, Glitch?”

  His shoulders lifted as he took in a deep breath, and I thought he might give in. He gazed at me without blinking, like a memory had taken hold. Then he glanced down at his massive pile of ketchup.

  “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head as if annoyed with himself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I put my hand on his, partly to be supportive and partly hoping for a vision. “Glitch—”

  “We need to warn Jared,” Brooklyn said.

  I gasped. I hadn’t even considered what all this would mean to Jared. “You’re right. We have to find him.”

  “I don’t know, Lor,” Glitch said, taking hold of my hand before I could get out of my seat. “Your Jared seems perfectly capable of handling himself. But you still haven’t answered me: Is Cameron Lusk stalking you?”

  “No, it’s nothing.” I fished a fry from the carnage and ate it while trying to ignore the doubt on his face.

  “I think the more pressing question,” Brooklyn said, concern lining her eyes, “is what the bloody heck was Jared talking about? What won’t hurt?”

  My gut tightened at the mention of Jared’s statement, knotting painfully. Both of them looked at me as if I’d know the reason for such a bizarre promise. Well, I didn’t. But I did know it was bothering me a lot more than it was bothering them.

  WAKING UP DEAD

  For the first time in three days, Cameron Lusk seemed nowhere to be found. I walked out of the Java Loft and glanced around warily, expecting to find my stalker skulking in the shadows.

  “Want me to walk you home?”

  I turned as Glitch poked his head out of the coffee shop, whipped almond toffee cappuccino with nonfat milk in hand.

  He raised his brows in question. “My pie’ll be out soon. What’s your hurry?”

  With a smile, I said, “No, you and Brooke enjoy. And don’t fight! I have some research to do.” We hadn’t seen either Jared or Cameron since lunch, and Glitch’s confession about Cameron had me super curious.

  His gaze traveled across the street to the town square. “What are they doing?”

  A camera crew had set up shop in front of the old Traveler’s Inn, a historic and—according to town gossip—haunted hotel. It was the biggest tourist attraction Riley’s Switch had to offer, big being a relative term.

  “I think it’s the Tourist Channel,” I said, shielding my eyes from the sun. “They’re doing a special on haunted hotels in America, and ours made the top ten.”

  “Cool … and yet, creepy.”

  “This coming from a guy afraid of turtles.”

  Taking offense, Glitch straightened and pointed a finger at me in warning. “Turtles are not the innocent, harmless creatures everyone thinks they are. Mark my words. They’re secretly planning to take over the world. And then where will we be?”

  I couldn’t help but giggle at the seriousness of his admonishment before shrugging my shoulders.

  “Taken over! That’s where.” He glanced at his table. “Oh, my pie’s ready. Sure you don’t want some?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okeydokey, then. We’ll be over later.”

  Just like every year, I was apparently still under a suicide watch and would be for the next week. I had to admit, with those two around, I didn’t have time to get too terribly depressed about my parents. Still, the minute they left my company, the sadness leached back inside me, as if it had been waiting all along, lurking in the shadows until it got the chance to slither inside. My dependence on their presence was getting ridiculous. It was high time I grew up and learned to cope with my parents’ disappearance on my own.

  With a wave to shoo him inside, I turned and headed toward the library, determined to overcome the blahs all by my little lonesome. The public library stood in the middle of the town square in what was once the courthouse. Though I often went there to read and relax and just catch my breath, I
usually ended up chatting with the director of the library, and my grandmother’s best friend, Betty Jo, instead. But what better place to do research? Librarians had an uncanny knack for amassing not only the talk around town, but the talk’s history to boot.

  As I approached one of the three stoplights Riley’s Switch had to offer, an overenthusiastic skateboarder decided to stop right behind me. He failed. He tumbled off his skateboard and crashed into me, knocking me off the curb.

  After almost twisting an ankle, I turned and stared him down, impatiently waiting for an apology. He was young and Asian with a slight build, which was probably a good thing. I could have been crushed.

  “Sorry,” he said as his friends snickered behind his back, joking and shoving one another.

  “No problem.” I stepped up and turned back to the light. Freshmen.

  An October chill had settled in the air, making me wish for a jacket. My thin apricot shirt did nothing to block the crisp wind, and my capris left my ankles exposed and goose bumpy. I totally should have listened to my grandmother this morning. She always seemed to know what I should and should not wear in an eerie, sixth-sense kind of way.

  As I waited for the light to change, the skateboarder, who’d been practicing tricks on a park bench, lunged into me again. I couldn’t believe it. I turned and narrowed my eyes on him, forcing him to mumble another insincere apology between laughs. This was getting ridiculous. Still, as a sophomore, I needed to exude a certain level of maturity. Maybe it would rub off, though not likely.

  When I turned back to the light, I heard his friends teasing him, and a pang of empathy stabbed me. I shouldn’t have given him such a cold glare. He was just being a boy.

  Probably more to save face than to retaliate against any actual offense, he pushed one of his annoying comrades. The friend pushed back, hard, ramming him into me for the third time.

  But this time the force was too great to keep my balance. I stumbled into the street, dropping my backpack and skidding across the graveled road on my palms and knees. Before I could even conjure an emotional reaction, I heard my name behind me, like a whisper on the wind.

  I struggled to my feet and turned to see Jared, tall and solid, on the curb where I had just been standing. My breath caught at the sight of him. The breeze tousled his dark hair. His full mouth curved into the suggestion of a smile, just enough for a dimple to appear at its corner. He stepped off the curb and walked to me, an animalistic grace controlling his every move.