She gave me a half-frown, as if not expecting me to be quite so forward, but then said, “Yeah, sure,” and handed me the camera.
I deliberately reached in too far as she passed it over, the back of my hand making contact with her fingers. I braced myself.
The necklace dropped into her hand. Her fingers curled around it, and she lifted it, pressing her fist to her heart. “Thank you,” she said, her gaze lifting to take in Laurel standing in front of her. “Where did you find it?”
“That girl had it. The one we’ve been watching.”
“What? How did she get it?”
“She picked it up off the floor when your chakras were thrown out of line because of this damn planet alignment. You should be more careful.”
“I was hardly in any state to be careful.”
“I know, but something’s off with her. She’s involved with the carnival somehow. If we’re not careful she could ruin everything …”
“Beth? Beth?”
I realized Melissa was speaking to me in the real world. I blinked, trying to regain focus. It wasn’t often I picked up such clear visions. Normally they were only tiny glimpses. I could only assume it had something to do with the fact we’d all touched the necklace and had connected our energies somehow.
“Beth?” she said again. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, sorry. I’m a bit of a daydreamer.” I pushed the camera back to her. “The pictures look great.”
Flynn saved my awkwardness by choosing that minute to return. He stopped right in front of me. “Okay, ready?” he asked.
Melissa squinted up at him, and then back at me, clearly wondering what the deal was.
“I’m just getting some details for the article,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to explain myself to her.
She lifted her eyebrows, a small smile on her lips, and gave a nod that said, ‘sure you are.’
I got to my feet, stepping into Flynn’s side. I sensed eyes watching as we walked from the pool and out onto campus. The image of the tattoo on his upper back played on my mind. Did it mean Flynn had something to do with whatever happened to Brooke?
“So where do you want to walk to?” I asked.
“How about a hike out through the forest? Not too far, but enough to get away from all the people. Having everyone shouting like that for the last hour makes me want to escape to somewhere quiet.”
I wanted to suggest the library as being a perfectly decent, quiet place in which to talk, but didn’t want to appear to be a total nerd. Besides, though my dreams had pointed toward the forest as containing something threatening, I couldn’t avoid the place forever.
“Sounds great.”
I wondered how sensible it was to go walking in the middle of a forest, in the evening, with a boy I thought might be connected with the kidnapping of my roommate, and the occult drawings I found on her body. Yet I considered myself to be a fairly good judge of character, and I didn’t get any sense of darkness coming from Flynn. Not like Riley. I felt a stab of guilt at the thought of Riley, though the guilt was misplaced. After all, attraction alone didn’t give you a hold on another person.
Anyway, I doubted Flynn could do me much harm, even if he wanted to. In reality, I was more likely to hurt him than the other way around. My control over my bloodlust seemed to be getting weaker by the day. I wondered if it was this place that was causing it, the people I was around, or perhaps it was just me.
We headed off campus and turned a couple of blocks until the road led to a forest trail. Flynn walked with long, strong strides, and I hurried to keep up. We headed out along a trail into the forest. It was peaceful this time of the evening, the heat of the sun waning, insects buzzing around our heads. I swiped at a couple of mosquitoes which whined by my ear, though I didn’t want to kill the bugs I shared an evolutionary trait with.
Flynn slowed, allowing me to catch up. “So, have you seen that carny guy again?” His tone was terse, and I felt myself bristle. Was this the reason he’d brought me out here?
“No,” I lied. “Have you?”
He glanced at me, confused. “Why would I have?”
“Why would I?” I snapped back.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess he seemed kind of interested in you.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m interested in him.” My voice was sharp. I couldn’t help myself.
He held up his hands in mock submission. “Okay, okay. No need to get defensive.”
“Anyway,” I said, “aren’t we supposed to be talking about swimming?”
“Sure. I just wanted to show you something first.”
Alarm spiked through me. Was this where it was all about to go wrong?
Flynn stepped off the track and moved between the huge trunks of the old pine trees, ferns brushing against his legs.
I hesitated.
He turned back to me. “You coming?”
I’m fast and strong, I reminded myself. If he tries something, I’ll rip his throat out.
I widened my eyes, staring down at the ground, shocked at myself. Where the hell had that thought come from?
We seemed to be walking in a random direction through the forest, not sticking to one trail or another, but Flynn moved with certainty, as if he knew exactly where he was going. We cut between the tree trunks, birds settling in the branches overhead to roost for the night. The heat of the day had waned, and where the foliage grew dense, casting deep, thick shadows onto the forest floor, the air almost became chilly. In the distance, I became aware of a noise—a low thrumming and grinding of machinery, though it seemed to be coming from below us.
I frowned. “What is that?”
“The noise, you mean?”
I nodded.
“It’s the Squires Mining Corporation. They own and mine most of the land around here. When they’re not digging up the ground, they’re chopping down the trees to make wood pellets for fuel.”
“Oh, right,” I said, my thoughts already drifting. Was this the same company Brooke said her parents owned? I hated to think of the beautiful forest being destroyed like that.
“How much farther?” I asked, trying not to get worried. We seemed to have been walking for awhile, and I felt like I’d completely lost any idea about how to get back.
“Almost there.”
We stepped into a clearing, and my breath fell away. Several pools of water were dotted around the clearing, each one a similar size, except one, larger pool in the center. They were perfect ovals of still, glass-like water. They seemed almost manmade, the way the edges of the pools met the forest floor. A few rocks crested the sides, but otherwise they appeared to be perfect. The water was an aqua green, almost exactly the same shade as Flynn’s eyes.
I turned to Flynn. “What is this place?”
His gaze cast over the pools, a proud smile on his face. “Just part of the forest I found.”
But there was something more, I could sense it. The very air seemed to hum, the plants and flowers too perfect. I felt as though I’d walked into a painting, something that appeared to be real, lifelike, yet wasn’t.
“I brought you here for a reason, Beth.”
His voice broke me from my thoughts. I turned to look at him, half expecting him to be wielding a knife, or a length of rope. But the expression on his face wasn’t murderous. “You did?”
He stepped in closer to me, closing the gap. “I like you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“What?” His words came out of the blue, making me step back, widening the space between us again. Of all the things I’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.
Flynn frowned. “Why do you seem so surprised? I’ve been hanging around, trying to get your attention, wanting to watch out for you. You’re smart, and spiky in a kind of frustrating way at times. You’re crazy beautiful, but you don’t dress to show off like all the other girls.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Would you stop saying what?” he hissed in frustr
ation.
I could barely believe what I had heard him say. “I’m sorry, but you think I’m beautiful?”
He laughed. “Of course you are. With those amazing, big dark eyes and your pale skin, and all those dark curls. You look like a cross between Bambi and a porcelain doll.”
I almost had to laugh at his description. “And you think that’s beautiful?”
“More beautiful than any other girl I’ve ever seen.”
His words snatched my breath from my lungs. How was Flynn Matthews—the guy at school every girl wanted to be with, and every guy wanted to be—standing here, saying this stuff to me? I remembered how he’d looked with his clothes off, water streaming down his tanned body. I’d be crazy to turn him down. But I had to. While I couldn’t deny that I was physically attracted to Flynn, I had three problems. The first was that the barrage of images I suffered with every day wouldn’t do anything to nurse a healthy relationship. The second was that I still didn’t know what Flynn’s involvement was with Brooke’s missing night. And the third was that, though I liked Flynn, he didn’t make my emotions surge in the way Riley did.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Flynn. I’m not sure I’m ready for all of this. I mean, I only just got to Sage Springs. A lot has happened …”
His aqua eyes darkened a shade. “It’s that carny boy, isn’t it?”
I detected anger in his voice.
“No!” I said, though I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a lie. If Riley had never entered the picture, would I be falling into Flynn’s arms? Yes, but if you did, a little voice said, what would you see of him? “Nothing has happened between Riley and me.”
“But you want it to.”
“I don’t want anything right now! I just want to settle down to my studies and be a normal college student.”
“That boy is dangerous, Beth.”
“What do you know? You don’t even know him!”
“I don’t need to know him, I know the people he is with. You stay away from them, do you hear me?”
He reached out to grab my arm, and I jerked away. “You don’t have any say in what I do.”
“Get real, Beth! Why the hell won’t you listen to me?” His anger was building, his square jaw strained.
From out of nowhere, my hair suddenly lifted and whipped around my face, my clothes blowing hard against my body. Above my head, the branches of the trees rustled and swayed. The wind had started as suddenly as if someone had placed a wind machine beside us.
Water splashing made me turn my head. Each of the pools were no longer still, waves rose and crashed on the edges, some splashing onto the forest floor.
“What the hell?”
Flynn followed my line of sight and paled beneath his tanned skin. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Hang on a minute. What’s going on? Those pools were still as glass a moment ago.”
“Must be the wind,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me back toward the trees.
“Where the hell did the wind come from?” I allowed myself to be pulled this time, freaked out by the waves lifting seemingly from nowhere, slapping and splashing. The gusts lifted leaves from the forest floor and blew them like tumbleweeds. The trees strained against the wind’s strength.
As we moved through the trees, I glanced back. The blustery weather had fallen still as quickly as it had started. The pools were once again motionless mirrors. If it wasn’t for the dark patches marking the ground around them, where the water had dampened the soil, I would have questioned if I imagined the whole thing.
Chapter
14
We made our way back to campus in silence, neither mentioning the strange event at the pools, nor Flynn’s declaration for me.
It had fallen dark by the time we returned to the dorms, though the night was clear, the stars bright in clusters above our heads.
Only after Flynn said goodnight and left me outside my dorm, did I realize I’d never had a chance to ask him about anything to do with swimming. I must be the worst reporter in the world, and Dana was surely never going to ask me to write her an article again. The second thing that dawned on me was that I hadn’t seen anything about Flynn when he’d grabbed me to pull me away from the pools.
I didn’t always get glimpses into people’s pasts and futures every time they touched me, but the number of times I’d not gotten anything from someone over the past few days was unusual.
I’d made out to Flynn that I was heading back to my room, but my head was spinning way too much to go to bed. I’d never been more awake. Though we must have walked several miles through the forests, I felt jittery and alert—as though I’d downed a couple of cups of coffee too many. Once again, I found myself wanting to avoid my room because I didn’t want to face Brooke. She was probably at a party or some other social, but I didn’t want to risk happening upon her and discovering the symbols on her skin hadn’t faded over the day. I wondered what they’d been drawn in—obviously not pen or chalk, as other people and Brooke herself would have been able to see them. Maybe some kind of sap my vision could pick up on? Or maybe I’d been able to pick up on some kind of psychic trace where someone had simply marked the shapes out on her skin with their finger. Perhaps they didn’t exist at all. I’d simply seen a trace of where someone else’s energy had touched her skin.
I waited until I was sure Flynn was well out of the way, and then headed down toward the car lot. Did I want to drive? No, not tonight, I needed to burn off some energy. I wondered when I would get my old car back. It had been a few days now and I’d not heard anything. The garage said it would be a while to get the parts in—seemed they didn’t keep many parts for an Audi around here.
Pocketing my keys, I started to walk. This time I stayed on the main road, heading down toward the beach. I told myself I was avoiding the forest, but the truth was that every step took me closer to Riley and the darkened carnival.
Full headlights blazed in the road ahead, making me squint and lift my hand to cover my eyes. The car was going too fast, and I stepped away from the curb, sure this was a gang of guys out joyriding, probably with a few beers already consumed. The car screeched to a halt right beside me, and my heart catapulted into my throat. I didn’t stop, but picked up my pace. I wanted to break into a run, but the sensible part of me prevented me doing so in case they’d simply stopped to ask for directions, and I made a fool of myself by running down the street in a panic.
Three big guys, all in their late twenties to mid-thirties, jumped from the car and headed straight for me. They moved with surprising speed, staring at me with anger and violence in their eyes. I realized they knew exactly who I was. They hadn’t driven past me by accident, they’d come to find me. These guys were from the carnival. I thought I recognized one of them as the man who had been talking to Bulldog Mackenzie when I’d last been at the carnival. I opened my mouth to scream for help, but before I could get any sound out, the biggest of the men jumped me, punching the air from my lungs. I gasped, but barely had time to breathe again before he’d grabbed me around the neck and slammed me up against the wall which ran parallel to the sidewalk.
Pain rocketed through my back and ribs. I would have cried out, but I still had no air, and the man’s thick, sweaty fingers wrapped around my throat, throttling me. A flash came to me; the man who had hold of me was crouched down before a couple of big slabs of metal. In his hand he held a screwdriver, and he lodged the point of it into one of the screws in the slab and began to twist. But he didn’t unscrew it all the way. Instead, he only loosened it, though enough for the thread to be showing, and then moved onto the next. Something made a noise and he looked around, sharply. Now I could see the rest of the picture—painted clown’s faces leering down, brightly colored swings, flashing lights—and everything fell into place. He was at the carnival, and he was loosening the screws in the Waltzer. A voice came from beside him, ‘You done what we discussed, Jordy?’ He nodded. ‘All done, Boss.’
&nbs
p; I blinked and the scene vanished, only to be replaced by the all too real one in front of me.
“You’ve been at the carnival again, poking around,” he said, his face only inches from mine. His spittle hit my skin as he spoke, his rancid breath—like old meat—washing over my face. “People have seen you there.”
“Let me go!” I managed to choke out, my voice strangled.
“Keep your mouth shut, little girl, or we’re going to shut it for you. Permanently.”
Where was everyone? I prayed for a car to drive by, or for some other college students to come walking down the road, perhaps heading to the beach for a party, or even to make out, or skinny dip. But the road was deserted apart from me and my three friends.
No one else was going to get me out of this situation. I needed to save myself.
Remember who you are. What you are …
Red descended over my vision. “Yeah,” I managed to spit back, recovering my breath. “Just you try it!”
The guy glanced over his shoulder, his eyes widening, a sneer of a smile spreading over his fat, smug face. His buddies laughed, haw haw haw, as if this whole thing was nothing but a big joke.
He turned back to me. “This is going to be a pleasure.”
I held back, wanting to strike at exactly the right moment. I might have my strengths, but there were still three of them and one of me, and each of them alone outweighed me three times over.
“She’s old enough, right, Jordy?” one of the other guys called.
Jordy sneered again. “Just about. Not that it would matter too much, though.”
“Drag her behind the wall,” the other guy suggested. “No one will see us then.”
Jordy was already pulling at his belt, unbuttoning his fly. “I get to go first. I ain’t having your sloppy seconds.”
Bile filled my throat. Did they really mean to do what I think they did?
Jordy released my throat. He pushed me to the side, shoving me down the sidewalk so he could get me behind the wall which divided the road from the adjoining scrubland. While I didn’t want to be taken out of sight of the main road, if I was forced to do something extreme, I wanted to be seen by the general public even less than they did.
Twisted Dreams Page 11