The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1)

by Dela

  Mom emerged first from the kitchen. Her strawberry-blonde hair was curled, and she wore the gold necklace Dad gave her for their ten-year anniversary. It looked like it came from a different planet entirely than Valentina and Gabriella’s gaudy jewelry. The fragile, thin chain blended with the color of her flesh.

  “Mitch, she’s here!” she yelled upstairs. “Thanks for bringing her home on time, Lucas. I hope you guys are hungry.”

  “Thank you for inviting me over for dinner tonight, Mrs. Moss,” Lucas replied.

  “Not a problem. We love to have company.”

  “Want some help, Mom?”

  “No thanks, honey. Everything is ready. Will you just get Lucas something to drink? I’m going upstairs to fetch your dad.”

  I had started toward the kitchen when I noticed Lucas in the living room, staring at the black-and-white portraits hanging on the wall.

  “Is this you?” He pointed to a picture of me when I was six. My two front teeth were both missing, my hair was in pigtails, and I was wearing a swimsuit.

  “Yes.” I blushed.

  He snickered quietly. “You were . . . cute.”

  “You don’t have to be nice.”

  He faced me with a sincerity that filled the room, leaving no trace of annoyance. “I meant it.”

  While I was caught off guard, he looked at the next and the next. His smiled changed a level at each picture. It made me anxious, and my humiliation crystallized the moment he laughed out loud.

  “So this is the Lucas Castillo I have been hearing so much about,” Dad said as he walked down the stairs, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. “It’s nice to finally put a face to the name.”

  He extended a hand, which Lucas shook firmly.

  “Nice to meet you too,” Lucas said. He pointed to the pictures on the wall. “Did you take all these pictures?”

  “Lori and I did. We’re a bit obsessive with the camera, if you couldn’t tell. Didn’t Zara tell you we have a photography business along the lake?”

  Mom nudged Dad’s shoulder and looked at Lucas. “You don’t have to answer that. Come in, come in. The food is getting cold.”

  We followed them to the kitchen, where Mom tried not to smile as Lucas held my chair out.

  “So, Lucas, how did you and Zara meet?” she asked, passing the roasted carrots.

  The task of scooping baby carrots onto a plate was simple, but Lucas did it bewitchingly, so graceful and handsome were his smooth hands, and for a moment I wished I was those baby carrots. He knew exactly what he was doing and turned to me innocently. “Carrots?”

  I yanked the glass bowl away from him. He was doing that thing again that made me stare for no reason. How come I didn’t have that kind of voodoo? If only he gawked at me like I did at him.

  “Actually, Zara and I met at Lucky Pin,” he said, smiling as I looked away in annoyance.

  “Oh? Do you go there often?”

  He chuckled quirkily. “I don’t really see a need to anymore.”

  Mom’s eyes lit up, but I was worried about Dad. He took his time chewing, and after he swallowed, his mouth worked silently, like he had something stuck in his teeth.

  “I must say, I’ve noticed a nice change in Zara’s behavior since she’s been hanging around you,” Mom said. “After the crash, she was so moody and angry.”

  “Mom!”

  Dad coughed. “Where do you live, Lucas?”

  “I live just off the Eighty-Nine on Fallen Leaf Lake.”

  “Isn’t that government property?”

  “Our land? No. It’s been in our family for years.”

  “Sounds beautiful,” Mom interjected as she sliced her salad. She looked kind of manic. Who slices salad? “So, your mother tells me you also have a sister, and she is married?” Her pitch rose, fishing.

  “Yes. Dylan and Gabriella grew up together. He proposed to her as soon as he heard that we were leaving the country. I guess he couldn’t stand to live without her,” he said. His eyes flicked to my plate, making the food in my mouth catch in my throat.

  “What are you studying, Lucas?” Dad asked.

  Lucas chugged a large gulp of water before answering, “Public affairs.”

  Mom shifted in her seat. “Oh, that sounds nice. Political maybe?”

  “Pardon me for asking, but why did you guys have to leave?” Dad interrupted.

  “Dad!”

  “What? It’s a perfectly normal question.”

  “It sounds like you’re accusing him of being exiled or something,” I said.

  Dad looked to Lucas. “Were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t.” He chuckled, his dimple showing in his uneven smile. “We moved because my dad wanted a change. He’s been retired for a few years, so there was no job holding him back.”

  “What did your dad do for work?” Mom asked.

  I used my finger to scrape salad and stroganoff into one bite, hoping it would make the contents on my plate disappear faster. This dinner must end, the sooner the better.

  “He was in trade and exports,” Lucas responded.

  “Exporting what?” Dad wondered.

  “Stone.”

  “Stone?”

  Lucas set his fork down and wiped his mouth clean. “Yes.”

  “Natural stone?”

  “He traded both, natural and faux stone, sir,” Lucas said, resting his arms on the table.

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Well, any kind of stone.”

  “Stone from where?”

  Oh, Dad, are you serious? At this rate, dinner would last all night. I laughed with unbelief. Come on, Dad, stone. Stone means stone. Who cares where it comes from? Lucas seemed unmoved by the nosiness, as if he expected it—or enjoyed it.

  “Well, mainly limestone from Mexico.” Lucas was suppressing a smile.

  “Huh. I would never have guessed. Interesting.” Dad finally put a bite into his mouth. “Well, if your parents ever get bored of being retired, you tell them to stop by our shop anytime. We’d love to show them Tahoe.”

  “That’s very nice of you. I’m sure they would love that.”

  I looked at Lucas’s plate. It was untouched.

  “Lucas, try the rolls, they’re my favorite,” I urged dramatically.

  He managed to take a few bites as Mom and Dad ate. His bites were larger, which cleared his plate faster.

  “So I bet you two are just the cutest at school. Young freshmen. I remember . . .” Mom said unexpectedly.

  “Mom!” I mouthed stop to her, but she just shushed me. “We’re just friends,” I insisted.

  Lucas sipped his water with a grin visible through the clear glass and then glanced at his watch. “I should probably get home.”

  I shot up quickly. “I will walk you to the door.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality. Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Moss. It was very good.”

  “What was that?” I whispered, once we were at the front door.

  “That was great,” Lucas whispered back. I couldn’t tell if his meek expression was sarcastic or just plain naïve.

  Snow gusted in when he opened the door. I crossed my arms to block the bitterness.

  “I’ll be here at nine to pick you up,” Lucas said. He lingered a second, his eyes wavering, then unexpectedly leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Good night,” he said before disappearing through the door.

  Once he’d driven away, I stood on that doorstep for a solid minute. The warmth of his lips lingered on my cheek even as I helped wash the dishes and later as I got ready for bed. I peeked outside, secretly hoping it was Lucas’s car across the street, and felt disappointed when it was a black Mercedes-Benz. Lucas had told me one day which series Andrés’s car was; I vaguely remembered S, but I wasn’t sure. There we
re numbers, and although Lucas didn’t tell me the exact total, I distinctly remembered that his car was worth more than my house.

  The kiss that probably meant nothing still excited me enough the next morning that I raced to get dressed.

  “Be home later, Mom. I’m going to Lucas’s after school,” I said.

  “Again?” I could hear the human suspicion in her tone as she peeled a banana.

  “Still just friends, Mom.”

  A thin fog greeted me outside, but its sheerness promised it would leave by early afternoon. Lucas was leaning against a white Range Rover in a black T-shirt. He had a wide grin.

  “Is this yours?” I asked, sliding onto the stiff leather as he held the door open.

  “Yes.”

  Inside was a futuristic red dashboard and custom gray leather, just like his Lexus, except that this car was unused. The new-car smell was nice, but I missed the tropical scent of his other car.

  All the way to school, Lucas’s cheeks were locked into a permanent grin. He maintained this peculiar expression all day. I worried that something was stuck.

  “All right, what is it?” I asked as we left school.

  “We need to go shopping for some meat,” he finally said.

  “Meat?”

  “Niya and Malik are hungry. We need to stop at a supermarket so we can feed them.”

  “Again, there is no we in this equation,” I said, lighter this time. He seemed kinder today.

  “You’ll be the one feeding Niya and Malik,” he fired back. I felt sick.

  Still, I laughed. “Seriously?”

  He chuckled as he shifted gears. We rolled through the glorious white mountains, but the calm and beautiful creatures kept popping into my mind—the meat-hungry wild animals that were for sure going to kill me. I was surprised when Lucas pulled into the ordinary local supermarket, bypassed the parking lot, and parked in the alley in the back by the empty pallets. He left me inside the running car and knocked on the dilapidated back door. A fat butcher with a bloody white apron answered. The man watched as Lucas spoke, then nodded. Lucas pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and passed it into the butcher’s hands.

  The butcher disappeared inside and reappeared dragging a brown bag the size of a cow. By the way he struggled, I could tell it was heavy. With no attempt at disguising his strength, Lucas picked up the heavy bundle and threw it with ease to the top of the car, where it landed with a thud. The butcher said nothing. He nodded once and retreated back inside the building.

  Lucas opened his door and stepped up to tie down the meat before getting back into the car.

  “What was that?” I asked, disgusted by the large carcass above. The more I thought about it, the more I felt the urge to gag. Lucas noticed and grinned.

  “A zebra. I ordered it a month ago.”

  When we reached the gates to his house, I noticed two dark, spotted figures against the stark white snow, charging through the trees. They followed us all the way through the woods to the side of the house, where Lucas parked just outside the garage. In the passenger mirror, I could see them jumping furiously to get the meat.

  “You ready?” Lucas sounded too enthusiastic.

  “Are you crazy? I’m going to die out there!”

  “No, you’ll be fine.”

  Lucas jumped out and practically skipped to my door. The jaguars didn’t even glance at him, too focused on the fresh, bloody meat above my head. They jumped fiercely for it as Lucas opened my door and held out his hand. I leaned away—these were not the animals I knew.

  “I’m not going out there!” I yelled. “They’re hungry! They’ll bite me!”

  “Come on, don’t you trust me?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Look, I’ll show you.” He turned to face his pets. “Niya, Malik, sientanse!”

  To my amazement, the spotted jags sat. Still, their lips pulled back to show jagged teeth and release hungry growls. Lucas ignored them as he pulled the bag off the car and set it in front of my open door. A patch of black-and-white fur peeped through as he unwrapped the burlap. The zebra’s head was missing, and the rest of the body had been dismembered. It was a heap of bones, juicy red meat, and sparse patches of fur.

  “Watch.” Lucas slid his cardigan sleeve up to his elbow and bent down. He picked up a leg and threw it into the woods, out of view.

  Niya ran after the meat, and Malik stayed, waiting. Lucas waved me out of the car, but I couldn’t move.

  “Come on, Zara. Honestly, would I make you do this if it wasn’t safe?” he asked. He held his bloody hand away from his side as thick drops of blood fell to the loose pebbles by his sneakers.

  I inched reluctantly outside until the smelly pile of flesh was at my feet. I stared at the pile, trying to find a piece that didn’t look so big, or so bloody. But it didn’t exist. I settled for a leg. As I pulled my sweater up on one arm and bent down to grab it, Malik growled. I jumped.

  Lucas didn’t intervene. He waited patiently, coaching me with steady eyes to move. I let another moment pass before going in for the leg again. Meaty muscle squished between my fingers, and the blood dripping down the back of my hand was cool. I chucked the leg as hard as I could, but I wasn’t surprised to see it fall far short of where I’d hoped. Which is to say, it plopped down on the gravel of the driveway a few feet away. Malik sprang for it anyway, picked up one end in his teeth, and dragged it off into the woods.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked. Lucas was chuckling softly. “What are you laughing at?”

  “Nothing. You did it. I didn’t think you would.” Lucas cleared his throat and pretended to have a serious expression. “I like a girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.”

  I looked at the pile and then my red hand. The stench of butchered meat rose, and I had to turn my head away to breathe. The gagging was nearly uncontrollable. I squeezed the bridge of my nose with my clean hand.

  Lucas stepped in. “Allow me.”

  He grabbed another leg and a part of the body and chucked both into the woods. Then he threw the smaller pieces after them. The jaguars were nowhere to be seen. The only evidence was the bloody bag at our feet.

  “Isn’t that going to attract bears?” I asked, my voice distorted through my pinched nose.

  “Nah. That meat will be gone in ten minutes. And Niya and Malik like to bury the bones. Sometimes their mutt behavior is really strange. Let’s go clean up.”

  I turned, but stopped in my tracks as I finally looked at the garage. I knew that every member of his family had their own car, but it was overwhelming to see them neatly parked together in pairs, black and red, gold and orange, and finally white, where the Lexus stood alone. I’d never seen so many cars with some type of turbo exhaust on the backend in one place. I thought of Max and Casey first, and then I thought of that one word: horsepower.

  Lucas got to the door before he noticed I wasn’t behind him. “Ah, you got me. I was trying to not show you the garage.” He walked around and started pushing my back with his clean elbows. “Because I knew this is the reaction I’d get.”

  “Do you own all of those?” By now the blood on my hand was freezing—a unique, new kind of nasty discomfort.

  “A perk of being ageless, I guess. The Aluxes picked them out for us.”

  “The what?”

  He pushed me along more quickly as the blood crusted in the toasty house. Lucas turned on the faucet in the kitchen sink and made me go first. I scrubbed at it harshly, aiming the spray under my fingernails as my gag reflex worsened. The water ran red.

  “How’d it go?” Dylan asked in the middle of a heave.

  I scrunched my nose and shook my head as I held my breath, hoping the bile would stay in my body.

  “Me neither,” Gabriella said. “It’s disgusting.”

  When I finished, I moved over and let out my
breath. Lucas’s tattoo glowed brightly underneath his shirt as he scrubbed.

  “You ready?” Dylan asked, breaking my stare.

  “Sure.”

  I wanted to wait for Lucas, but I knew he’d probably beat me down since I still had to change.

  “Where’re Andrés and Valentina?” I asked as we passed the large stone statue in the great room.

  “With your parents, setting up Mexico,” Dylan said.

  “Are they . . .”

  Dylan chuckled. “No. Andrés still has humanity in him. He doesn’t like to brainwash people unless he has to. They’ll arrange it over dinner.”

  Dinner? I was scared to think of my parents’ reactions. Hey, Mitch, hey, Lori, demons are chasing your daughter, and we need you to come to Mexico for a little while. Dinner would be a disaster. They would never allow me to see Lucas again.

  I swallowed bile and went up to change.

  Lucas was the only one who watched me every time I trained over the following weeks. I got stronger as things got harder, but Lucas became unbearable. He was now the one pushing me physically, repeating again after each blackout. He was harder than Dylan, and I hated it. I didn’t know what I’d done to make him think I was this strong, but I wasn’t. I could never forget that I was the one who chose to walk toward the screams when I blacked out. I should have gone the other way, but I didn’t.

  Friday after Thanksgiving, while everyone I knew went shopping for the holidays, I hung from a steel pole fifteen feet in the air, blisters open and seeping, staring at Lucas in a silent plea for mercy. My body was weak, and I knew I only had seconds before I fell again. Dylan caught me for the first time when Lucas didn’t budge. When I came to, I glared at Lucas angrily.

  “Again,” he said, a soulless statue.

  Later that night, as the snow fell, I cried, and the next night, and the next. I knew whoever had night watch heard me, but no one related it to Lucas. It was hard going to school each day, hearing what the others did on the weekends while I trained with gods. And it was hard that my mom didn’t believe me when I told her Lucas and I were only friends. But it was harder still that Lucas never admitted what I knew he’d felt under the starry sky.