DARK REBELS
Rebels Rising
Caitlin Falls
Copyright © 2014
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
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Cover Art: Book Cover by Design
Published by: Rascal Hearts
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 1
“What are you doing later?”
Krista looked up from the books on her bed and then at Janine, her best friend. “I don’t know; maybe I’ll go raid the frat house, see if I can find dumb jocks and kegs of beer.”
“Yeah, okay, what are you really doing?”
Krista flipped the pages of a textbook, looked down at the complex math problems on those pages and groaned. “Probably committing an act of utter despair, like eating a whole bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and drinking a two-liter of Mountain Dew.”
“A big bag or a little snack-sized bag?” Janine came closer. Her crinkly red hair had been liberally pasted down with gel and scrunched into curls that looked both crisp and oily.
“Party-sized. Family of four sized.”
“Uh-oh, something really is bothering you. You only break out the Cheetos...”
“Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, don’t get it twisted.”
“Oh, excuse moi! Flamin’ Hot Cheetos when you are really upset. Is it girl’s week?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so; you always start right after me, and I haven’t yet.”
“Maybe you were sneaking out to the frats then.”
Janine tossed a pillow at her and Krista ducked, a little laugh spilling from her mouth. “Where are you going?”
“I have a study group.”
“What are you guys getting into? No, don’t tell me—particle physics as seen through the eyes of modern romantics.”
“You are really weird, you know that? And it’s quantum physics, specifically foam and cosms.”
“Oh, that sounds fun.” She faked a big yawn. “Maybe you will meet someone really hot there, like that tuba player you used to crush on back in junior high.”
“Oh, shut up!” Janine laughed. “Don’t remind me. I plead insanity, and since I was thirteen, I think that’s fair enough. I’m heading out. See you afterwards?”
“Yeah, I might go for a run or something.”
“Okay, well, see you after study.”
“See you.”
Janine left, and Krista rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her mood shifted so fast; it went from happy to sad to content to confused like quicksilver. She had no idea why, either: she had woken up feeling odd and slightly nervous, and the feelings had just gotten stronger throughout the day.
She had been going to take off for her daily workout, but she decided that was not what she really needed. She needed to exercise, but she needed a break from the gym. Maybe she would go for a run through the campus instead.
***
Krista’s feet slapped against the asphalt, sending flat bursts of sound into the chilled air. Her brown eyes were fastened on the street sign in the distance, and her breath hissed in and out of her lungs.
Slap, thud, slap, thud...
The day had begun well, with the sun showing up in a picture-perfect blue sky, the warmth that had been promised seemingly on its way, but then the wind had come in, bringing the cold with it.
Slap, thud, slap, thud...
A wooden gate attached to one of the cookie-cutter houses creaked back and forth. It was a disturbing sound, a lonely sound, and it broke Krista’s concentration. The gloomy landscape of small tract houses on withered yards, affordable and sensible sedans in every driveway, porches with wicker furniture stripped of its cushions, and the gray dome of the heavens hanging over it all depressed Krista to no end.
Why the hell did I ever agree to come to Luke’s College? It was a question that plagued her. She was sure there had been other offers, but for some reason she could not seem to remember any. She could recall, very clearly, her high school running records and her best friend Janine, who was also at Luke’s—and her roommate in the cramped dorm room—but she could not remember wanting to attend that place.
The wooden fence’s gate creaked and moaned, that sound—a long, echoing scree, scree—rubbed against her every nerve ending. She tried to block it out, but her hearing was good, too good, as it always had been.
The sea lay a third of a mile away. She cut across a yard, stepping into red mud on the way through, and made for it. The streets were cramped and narrow, the houses backed against each other. This was a town on the ocean, but not a resort town. The shore here was still cold and mostly empty; the winter did not lend itself to visitors, not that there were many in the summer, either.
Or at least, that was what she heard. Krista had opted to wait for winter quarter to start college—and why was that?—and Janine had told her that little nugget of information. Janine had sounded happy about it, but Krista could not imagine why.
She made it to the water’s edge, where a thin, sickle-sliced shingle of sand stretched past the tall grass and sea oats, and she ended her run there, bent double to catch her breath. The ocean screamed at the sand, poking little air holes into the brown grit. A lone crab scuttled away from her foot and she watched it go.
Everything felt off and wrong, but she could not have said why. She had fallen asleep earlier, boredom and a course that did not interest her taking a toll on her body and mind. She had woken up feeling the oddest need to get out and run, to escape. That feeling had been so insistent that she had put on her running shorts and shoes and a light hoodie, then grabbed her iPod headed out.
The music had bothered her. Her hearing had always been good, just like her vision and her sense of smell and touch. Her mother had joked that she was able to hear around corners...wait...that felt wrong...that creeping sense that something was wrong, that something was not what it should be came back.
“I know what it is; it is the temporary insanity I was going through when I picked this place breaking. I don’t feel like things are not normal, I feel like they are trying to get back that way.”
Her words echoed across the water. A gull dipped and wheeled, dove, and came back from the gray-blue waters with a fish dangling from its beak. She shuddered.
She had run four miles, and she still felt like she was supposed to go somewhere, that she needed to run, run as far and fast as she could...but to where? The town surrounding the campus was small, the streets rolled up at nine at night, even the ice cream parlor closed early.
“Keep running, and do it now.”
Krista spun around, but the voice had no owner that she could see. Too bad too—it had sounded like a guy, and a hot one at that. Not that there weren’t hot guys on campus—they were just all too busy with work to have any fun.
Her brow creased. She closed her eyes and tried to think, but the susurration of the sea intruded, whiting out her thoughts. The crab was gone, the sky was going that dismal indigo and purple that signaled night approaching, and there was nowhere else to go, so she turned toward the campus.
As she turned she saw a house clinging to the edge of the cliff, high above the sea. S
he frowned; she had never noticed it before. It was easy not to see it: its stone walls and wooden doors blended into the cliff’s face like it had been carved from there.
Krista stared up at it, her eyes narrowing as she concentrated. There was a flicker at one of the windows. It was just a tiny motion, but she saw it. There was somebody up there...and they were looking at her.
Terror exploded in her and she ran, her legs churning up water and wet sand. Some of it hit her calves as she went, and she shuddered, afraid to look down—certain that if she did it would not be sand clinging to her but...
“Krista! Wake up!”
Krista jerked upright in the twin bed. Janine stared down at her, her wide brown eyes rimmed with her usual pink eye shadow. Why she wore that ugly color was anyone’s guess— it did not suit her or her red hair at all. Krista’s mouth was dry as she croaked out, “What happened?”
“I think you were having a bad dream.” Janine dumped her books on the bed across from the one Krista lay in. “You were thrashing around so bad I thought you were about to fall out of the bed.”
Krista sat up, pushing her curling blond hair away from her face. Had it been a dream? She could almost swear she still smelled the sea...her thoughts were interrupted by Janine turning on the television, the loud canned laughter covering the silence. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven.”
The window showed darkness when Krista glanced at it. From down the hallway came a whoop of laughter, vibrating through the thin walls, and again she wondered just what she was doing there. The room was small and heavily cluttered with stuffed animals, photos of her and Janine’s families, their desks and stuff. Krista stared at a picture of herself as child, gap-toothed grin showing and hair in two pigtails. Why could she not remember that person?
Her stomach growled. “You want to head over to the cafeteria? I am starving.”
“Yeah, sure, just let me run down to Nancy’s room and give her these notes. She missed class today, she still has the flu.”
“Don’t bring it back with you,” Krista said.
“I know, right? I should probably just toss it in the door at her and run.” Janine vanished, leaving the door to their room slightly ajar. That annoyed Krista and galvanized her as well. She swung her legs out of the bed, and stared. Dried sand clung to her calves, a strand of seaweed wrapped around her ankle. Her feet were covered in the fine brown grit. A wave of dizziness struck, had she gone for a run...sleepwalking? Or rather, sleep running? What the hell was going on here?
The sound of the gate creaking came back, and she staggered out of the bed, wiping her feet and legs on a crumpled blouse that was nearby. The sand rattled as it hit the cold tile floor. She winced; sometimes she wished her hearing was not so acute.
Janine’s footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Krista hastily tossed on jeans and kicked the blouse under the bed. She did not want Janine to see it, and an inner voice told her to hide it, but she could not figure out why. She and Janine had been best friends forever; they told each other everything.
Not this, never this...
There it was again, the voice of the guy from her dream. He was whispering to her, in her ear, and she shivered. Was she losing her mind? Maybe she had gone to a party and someone had drugged her drink or something, it happened all the time. Date rape was practically an epidemic on college campuses...
Yes, but this was Luke College—home to the science geeks and mathematics nerds. The schedules were so intense, the tests so hard that lots of kids dropped out or failed within weeks. The best minds in the country started here. There were few parties and fewer drugs because nobody wanted to spoil their best asset.
“Sounds like an advertisement to boring central,” Krista muttered.
“What?”
She smiled at Janine, a small false smile. “I was saying I am starving to death. Let’s hope they have something better than chili mac or soggy boggy pizza on the menu.”
Janine laughed. “That brings back memories, of the grade school variety.”
It did, too. Krista could see herself and Janine, both of them wearing jeans and shirts and their hair in matching beribboned ponytails, staring down at plates of food in a cafeteria. She could almost smell the chalk dust.
They walked down the quiet hallways. It seemed everyone was either studying or at the cafeteria, and Krista asked, “Do you ever wish we had gone to a school that had more social life?”
“No, why would I? I mean let’s face it: we were not very popular in high school either.”
They weren’t? No, they weren’t. They had gone to the prom together; neither of them had had dates. She had worn a light blue dress with a thin ruffled edge at its hem and her mother’s three-inch pumps, which she had fallen out of right on the dance floor. Neither of them had ever had a boyfriend, or at least not a serious one, and they had decided together to come to Luke, only she had waited and come later because...
Because her mother had been sick.
Panic set in. Her mother. She could see her mother’s face in her mind—a woman who looked a lot like Krista herself only older, and with shorter hair, but she could not feel anything.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Prom.” It was partly true.
“That was awful. I mean, not you falling down on the dance floor, just all of it. I never understood why people felt like that was so great. It’s just tacky decorations and cheap food and the same music you can hear at home for free, only you have to a pay a crap ton of money to get in the door.”
“I guess it keeps people like Lindsey Gunn and Peter Faulk happy.”
Who were they? She knew as suddenly as she questioned that. Lindsey was the resident mean girl and Peter her boyfriend. They were the couple du jour and had ruled the school with their money and looks and clothes and their petty cruelty. High school tyrants, well—where were they now?
Lindsey had reduced Janine to tears in a bathroom once, had smiled sweetly while she mocked everything about her. Krista had tried to defend her, her own rage threatening to suffocate her—how dare Lindsey screw around with her best friend that way! Things had not worked out though, and she had had to lead a sobbing Janine out and home.
A rush of friendship filled her, and she smiled at Janine. They had been through a lot together, they were best friends, and it was not Janine’s fault that she was going crazy or something.
The cafeteria loomed ahead, and the smell of pizza hung on the air. The two girls looked at each other and burst into laughter. “It just figures, right?” Janine asked.
“It does.” Krista began snapping her fingers and singing lines from an old Alanis Morrisette song. Janine groaned and tried to hush her. “Stop!”
“You loved Alanis when we were kids! Say it! Say you loved Alanis!”
They playfully wrestled a bit at the entrance to the cafeteria, both of them laughing and tickling the other. Krista sang louder just to be annoying, and Janine finally wrapped both hands around her mouth and pretended to choke her until she stopped.
“Okay, you win,” Krista said into Janine’s palm. “Let’s go get some soggy boggy pizza.”
***
The next few days passed. Krista went to class, sat through the lectures, and did her school assignments, but her mind was always somewhere else. She went to the gym to work out every evening; she had to, it was a near compulsion that she could not deny, and she did not mind.
Running on the treadmill helped to clear her mind. She had gone back to her dorm that night and dug the blouse out only to find not one grain of sand on it anywhere. Terror had hit her, hard, but so had rationale.
She had reasoned that she had been sleeping so hard that she had translated part of her dream into waking life, and had somehow hallucinated (dreamed) the sand on her body. That had comforted her, allowed things to go back to normal, sort of.
She had begun noticing things lately. Like the guy across from her in the gym right now. He was always the
re when she came in, working out and watching her intently. At first she was flattered, thinking he wanted to ask her out, but after a day or two it began to creep her out. He never made any weird moves on her or tried to approach her, but he was always there, always. If she stayed two hours so did he, if she went at eight, or six, or four it did not matter—there he was.
He did not work there; she asked. He was too old to be a student, unless he was a few years behind, and while that was possible, Krista doubted it. Luke was for the best and brightest. There was something about him that made her think of a goon from a movie: he had a dull look on his face, only his eyes ever seemed to have any life in them, and they merely looked dark and strange.
Maybe he was a teacher’s aide or associate professor? She never saw him anywhere else on the campus, just in the gym. He seemed to be a permanent fixture there, and while his workouts seemed to be okay on the surface, there seemed to be no reason for him to be there, except to watch her. That was totally stupid and she knew it (why would he do that?), but still the feeling that he was watching her, checking her out, and not in the I-want-to-take-you-to-dinner-way, but assessing her like a doctor or something stuck with her.
Her dreams were also causing her problems. She would wake up in the middle of the night, rolling over with one hand held high in the air to ward off a blow that never came. Janine would be tucked into her own bed, not hanging over Krista’s with a gun in her hand.
Krista had woken up the night before with her mouth dry, her heart pounding, and that guy’s voice ringing in her ears, urging her to run, run and keep on running. She had actually gotten out of bed and begun hunting for her running shoes before it hit her how dumb that all was. Where would she go?
To the house on the cliffs, that inner voice answered.
She had ignored that and gone back to bed. Janine had rolled over, yawning hugely, and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, I just thought I had to use the bathroom but I guess not.” It was a lame excuse for her behavior, but it seemed to satisfy the other girl because she rolled back over and began snoring lightly.
Rebels Rising (Dark Rebels, #1) Page 1