by A. E. Davis
“Care to share?”
“Not really.” I looked back at the ocean.
“Cool. I get it.”
“Do you?” I asked, looking back to his face again. “I doubt that.”
“Can you be sure?” Again his brow hitched up a notch as if daring me to say otherwise.
“Actually, I think I can.”
“Really?” His dark eyes glittered. “I’m all ears.” He lifted his hair away from his ears, smiling, like he was waiting for me to divulge some great secret to him.
I smiled, I couldn’t help it. “Nice ears.”
“Thanks. I’ve been told they are one of my better attributes.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, can’t you tell?” He turned his head from side to side, lifting his hair again.
“Stop.” I pushed his arm.
“What?” He gave me a look of innocence, dropping his hands back to his sides.
“Thanks for that.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“Dragging me back from the brink of my funk,” I said, smiling.
“I was hoping it would work. These ears haven’t failed me yet.”
“Well, they are quite nice… for ears.”
“Wow, thanks.” He beamed brightly. The wind shifted and he shook his hair from his face. Pressing his hands on the rock, his fingers touched mine and a tingle of awareness shot up through the tips.
I pulled my hand away and set it in my lap.
He watched but didn’t say anything.
“So…” he hedged. “ How’s your friend?”
“What friend?”
“The one from the dance,” he said giving me a strange look.
“Oh, you’re talking about Glinda.” I couldn’t believe I had forgotten. “She’s doing much better.”
“Good. I was worried about her.”
“You were?” I didn’t know why this surprised me, but it did.
“Well, yeah.”
“I thought you didn’t know her.”
“I don’t.” His brows creased. “Well, I didn’t but I do now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saved her, remember?”
“Oh right, you’re a hero,” I mumbled, my mind straying back to Sandy.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but…thanks, I think…”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. “Of course you are. I just have a lot on my mind.”
“It’s cool.”
I exhaled a slow stream of air. “I know I’m not making much sense.”
“Well, I did come and interrupt your funk, so…”
I laughed a little. “You did do that.”
“We have an old Indian saying for times like these.”
“Really, what might that be?” I asked suddenly curious.
“Damned if I know. I can’t ever remember.”
I laughed again, this time a real heartfelt one.
“Better?” He reached over and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I needed that.”
“I could tell.”
“So you never did tell me what your real name is?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” I bumped shoulders with him. “You promised to tell me.”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you or…”
I froze.
“Amber, hey…” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me slightly. “I was kidding.”
His face came back into focus.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked sounding angry, not at me but for me.
“I just spaced…”
“No. Screw that. Something happened to you. Tell me,” he ordered his voice hard.
It was like a dam broke, just like with my mom and I ended up telling him everything that happened with Jason, Kirk and with Sandy. However, I did leave out some major parts of the story where Viktor and Vincent were concerned. For some reason I didn’t feel like I could share those parts with him.
When I finished he scrubbed his hands over his face. “That is so messed up.”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“How is this guy, Jason, even out?”
“Got me. They say he is doing better.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “That guy sounds like he has some real issues.”
“I agree.”
“What about the other guy you were telling me about?”
“Kirk?”
He nodded. “Yeah, what happened to him?”
“Ken thinks he’s probably in Canada by now.”
“Why Canada?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
Lucky gave me a weird look. “What about the girl, Sandy. How did she …”
I cut him off before he could say the dreaded “d” word. “I don’t know.”
“Where did it…happen?”
“I don’t know that either. Ken say’s they are still investigating it and he can’t tell me while the investigation is still underway.”
“What about the Roth brothers, did they come up?”
A shiver of unease flitted over me. “Why are you asking about them?”
His eyes turned hard. “I was just curious, that’s all.”
“They don’t even know her.” I wasn’t sure why I was lying to him about them.
“Oh.” This seemed to placate him a bit. “So, were you close to …you know…her?”
“Not really. I only met her a few times.” When he gave me a questioning look, I added, “It’s just so wrong. And it reminded me of what happened to me and Glinda.”
“I can see why.”
“Can you?”
He gave me another weird look. I couldn’t say as I blamed him too much, considering what I just told him. “Yeah, I can. When I saw your friend and that thing was leaning over her, I freaked. Luckily Bear was with me, he took off and chased whatever it was away.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? I thought you found her after?”
“No.” He shook his head and stared at the ocean, his face a stern mask.
“What did you see?” My voice came out as breath of air, barely audible.
“This is a pointless conversation,” he said. “You won’t believe me, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?” A surge of irritation shot through me.
“Because, you won’t,” he said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Come on,” I coaxed. “I told you my story. And it’s out there…like alien invasion…out there.”
“Alien invasion?” His lips titled up at the corners.
“Well, yeah, my story is pretty out there, don’t you think?”
“Nah. It makes sense to me.”
“It does?” I couldn’t mask my shock.
He angled his body towards mine and grabbed hold of my hands. “Listen, Amber,” he began…
My heart jumped into double time. I had a feeling he was about to tell me something and whatever that something was I didn’t think I wanted to even know about. But I made myself stay put. I made myself listen even though everything in me was telling me to leave before he pulled my blinders off. I was afraid but determined too. “Go on,” I urged.
He seemed to be battling with some inner turmoil, like he didn’t know if he should say anything. “I like you,” he said.
“I like you, too.”
His brow lifted. “I really like you.”
My brows creased more. “I really like you, too.”
He exhaled. “Okay, so I am going to tell you something and I don’t want you to freak out…okay?”
“Oh—kay,” I said slowly, still not sure if I even wanted to hear what he had to say.
“You know about the Twilight books, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, none of that shit is real.”
“That’s what I thought.” A surge of relief washed over me.
“But…”
It disappeared just as quickly and I was tense again, l
ike a string about to snap. “Go on.”
“There’s some shit here that you just don’t understand and I want to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“It’s just better,” he said. “The less you know, the safer you will be.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you see?” he asked. “I don’t want you to get it,” he said. “It’s just a lot of superstition anyway.”
“Let me guess. Does it have something to do with you being a descendent from a wolf?”
His eyes narrowed. “Kind of.” He shrugged.
“Oh, come on!” I scoffed. “Just spit it out.”
“Bear is not really my dog…” he paused for effect. “He’s my brother.”
I froze. “What?”
His face was expressionless, but then his lips twitched giving him away.
“Shut up!” I snatched my hands from his and pushed against his chest, hard. He didn’t even move.
He laughed and trapped my hands under his. “Come on, I had you going for like a minute, didn’t I?”
“No. I’m not that gullible.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe you.”
“Come on…” He nudged me. “You were thinking about it, weren’t you?”
“For like a second.”
“Ha. I knew it. You Twihardaholics are all the same.”
“I am not a ….whatever you said. Besides, I just started reading the book,” I defended, not mentioning I had also just watched the movie. “It’s not like I knew the story before.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Come on. You can tell me.”
“What?”
“That you were hoping I was going to turn into a werewolf and defend you from those ghastly Vampires.”
“You told me they were real.”
“Yeah, about that…” He gave me a sheepish look. “I was just messing with you. I was just telling you what you obviously wanted to hear.”
“I’m not one of those people.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I am not,” I told him. “Sure, I get the whole eternal life, never aging thing, but it doesn’t mean I believe in Vampires or Werewolves for that matter.” I shivered with distaste.
His face was once again an unreadable mask and I started to think I may have gone too far with my joking. “Lucky…”
“Shhh,” he whispered. His body tensed as he stood, staring at the tree line behind us. “Wait here.”
“What?” I stood up. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t move.”
Before I could ask anything else, he took off running. His long hair whipped outward, as his body agilely maneuvered over the rocks and driftwood. Then he disappeared into the tree line. Once he was out of sight, I started second-guessing telling him I would stay put. Dark clouds roiled above and the wind howled, pressing against my body. The rain that had been a drizzle before, now picked up, and slashed against me like icy needles. Pulling up my hood, I stood and tried to see what was going on in the woods but past the immediate tree line there was nothing but blackness.
I stayed on the beach staring intently into the woods waiting for him. But as time passed, bringing more rain and darkness with it, there was still no sign of Lucky. He didn’t come back.
Shivering, I made my immobile feet move forward. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go and see if he was all right, even though I was terrified to do so. Unlike him, it took me awhile to make my way over the rocks and driftwood. When I got to the tree line, I stopped and looked in the darkened shadows for some sign of movement. I was terrified to go in the woods. My last foray into the woods alone didn’t pan out to well for me since whacko Kirk dragged me off to who knew where before I passed out and somehow, magically, ended up back in my driveway.
Ken said I must have escaped and driven myself home, but since I was in shock that I didn’t remember. I doubted that. Somehow, I knew someone else had helped me but to this day, I still didn’t know who. Although, I did make a very short list of who could have helped me and both their names started with the letter ‘V’. I just didn’t know which one.
“Lucky,” I called. The wind pressed against my back, pushing me forward. I stepped into the fold of trees and the howling wind stopped like someone turned off a switch. Now it was eerily silent, with the exception of the sound of my pounding heart. I took a few more steps and called out again, “Lucky.”
Nothing. It was quiet--too quiet. There were no birds chirping or bugs buzzing. I couldn’t even hear the leaves rustling in the wind or the rain. But there was something I did hear…breathing…heavy, gasping for air, breathing. For a moment, I thought it was coming from me but then I realized it wasn’t coming from me at all. Prickles rose on my skin and every fiber in my body was telling me to run. Slowly, I turned to my left. Two glowing eyes stared back at me.
Spinning around, I ran as fast as my feet would carry me back toward the beach. Brambles and sticks pulled at my clothing, like they were trying to keep me from leaving,—I didn’t realize how far I had come. Heart pounding, I fought my way out.
The breathing grew louder, spurring me to move even faster. Clutching my side, gasping for air, with my aching limbs protesting, I finally broke from the confinement of the woods onto the beach. But it didn’t matter. I could still hear the breathing and the heavy footfalls eating up the ground behind me and I knew that whatever it was, I couldn’t out run it. Tripping, I fell to the ground. Pain shot up through my hands and knees. Scrambling up, I stumbled towards the water somehow knowing if I could make it inside I would be safe. With all I had, I used one more burst of strength and ran headlong into the frigid water. It slapped against my body, as if it was trying to push me back out, stealing my breath at the same time.
A wave slammed against me, knocking me face down, burying me under the icy blanket of waves. My body ripped backward and forward, rolling in the white water. I knew on some level I wasn’t very deep but I had heard somewhere you could drown in just an inch of water. And I was in more than an inch—two feet at most. But no matter how hard I tried to gain ground to rise, the waves kept crashing on top of me, pushing me back down. Water stung my eyes, filling my nose, ears … my breath was almost out,—I couldn’t hold it much longer. And just when I had come to the realization I was going to drown—something grabbed hold of me, yanking me upward.
Gasping, I gulped in as much air as my aching lungs would allow. Another wave smacked me in the face and shot down my open mouth, choking me. Heaving, my body tried to expel the water immediately. It burned my throat as it came back up warmer than it went down as I tried to stay upright.
An iron cage wrapped around my body and blocked another wave from pulling me back under. Wiping my eyes frantically, I tried to see what had hold of me, still terrified of what it might be. My body was forcefully dragged from the icy grasp of the water to the beach and dropped down on the sand with little regard or care. I felt like a bag of discarded trash. When my vision cleared, I looked up into a pair of eyes the color of thunderclouds just before a storm and just as fierce.
“Viktor?”
thirty one
“What the hell are you doing here?” his voice was just as fierce as his eyes, but the velocity of it was dragged away in the howling wind and rain as it slashed against him, wetting his hair making it black as onyx.
I blinked stupidly up at him, still gasping for air, not believing he had just very likely saved my life.
“Come on.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me up off the beach.
Stumbling, I tried to follow him, but his strides were too large. He didn’t seem to notice and kept dragging me along behind him from the beach.
When we got to the parking lot, he let go and looked at me. His eyes just as fierce as they were on the beach and his breath was coming in ragged gasps, just as mine was. He shoved me towards my car. “Go home,” he ordered.
“B—but,” I chattered, freezing.
He swiped his hand over
his face, slinging water in every direction. “What?”
“I can’t go home like this,” I croaked, my throat raw from all the salt water I swallowed.
“Damn it, Amber!” He growled. “I have to get out of here.”
“Go then,” I yelled, getting riled.
He looked over his shoulder. “Damn it!” he swore again.
I followed his line of vision. A few people were walking quickly up the beach towards us. I spotted Lucky in the lead, his steps measured, deliberate. He seemed angry or frightened. I couldn’t tell which from my vantage point. Relieved he was all right, I lifted my hand to wave, to let him know where I was.
Viktor stepped in front of me, blocking me so I couldn’t see Lucky any longer. “Get in my truck,” he ordered.
“No.” I held my ground, shivering.
“I swear, Amber, I will carry you if you don’t get in my truck this instant,” he warned.
“Yeah, riii-ght,” I stuttered, still shivering as the wind and rain beat against me making me even colder.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Before I could say another word or make an objection, he lifted me in his arms, and flung open his door. He tossed me inside like a sack of potatoes. He jumped in right behind me, slamming his door shut.
I scrambled across the seat and tried to open the door.
The locks clicked.
Part in shock and part in anger, I turned to look at him.
He gave me an eerie smile. “Buckle up.”
His truck roared to life and he threw it into reverse backing out of the lot so fast the scenery blurred before my eyes. The wheels spit out gravel as he spun around and threw his truck back in drive and sped out of the lot.
Bracing myself on the dash, I jerked on my seatbelt with my other hand.
Reaching forward, he cranked on the heat.
I was shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was from cold or anger. “What the hell are you doing?” I yelled, finally finding my voice.
He glanced over at me. “Doing what you asked.”
“What?” I gaped at him. “I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
His jaw worked and he stared straight ahead. I barely saw the “No Vampires Allowed” sign as he swung out onto the main road. He hit the turn so quick the tires of the truck made a screeching noise on the wet pavement.