“Oh, what’s this?” Mr. Straum took the slip from the awkward girl, who scurried out. His eyes studied the paper. While the rest of the class continued testing out their marble shooters, he handed me the paper and said, “Mr. Wilkes needs to see you immediately, Miss Niles.”
My stomach twisted in a thousand knots. I wanted to be the receiver of the yellow slip, but I hadn’t been serious. I wanted to go back to the principal’s office, like, never. It was too dusty, dark and crowded in there with tons of papers and yearbooks. Plus, Mr. Wilkes was too happy and gleeful for my taste.
I started walking out of the classroom when Mr. Straum said, “Hurry back!”
Hurry back.
I never thought I would ever want to hurry back to physics. But, in this case…I wanted to.
No, scratch that, I thought as I silently entered the principal’s office. I wanted to run back to physics. Not because Principal Wilkes was standing there watching me while grinning like a loon, for it wasn’t him.
It was someone else.
Someone who looked to be in their early twenties, with dark black hair and piercing black eyes. His tall frame was well-dressed; he wore a black suit with a red button up shirt beneath it.
He looked very devilish in those clothes.
He saw me enter and freeze, not moving an inch. A handsome smile spread across his face as he took a hand out of his pant pocket and held it up to me. “Kassandra Niles? I’m Agent Rain. It’s good to meet you.”
Agent? Agent of what? Why was an Agent talking to me?
I finally got myself together and shook his hand. I was taken aback by his super strong grip.
Instead of offering pleasantries, like he did too willingly, I asked, “Where’s Mr. Wilkes?”
“Oh.” Agent Rain leaned against the front of his desk and put his hand back in his pocket. “He’s out on a donut run, apparently.”
That’s strange. I was pretty sure principals didn’t go on donut runs… “Then why—”
He cut me off, the semblance of pleasantness replaced by one of accusation, “You know why you’re here.”
I shook my head and swallowed hard. “No. I don’t.” In cases like this, I learned it’s best to deny everything. Plus, I was fairly certain he shouldn’t be talking to me without an adult here.
“Where’s John?”
I stood firm. “I don’t know where he is.”
Agent Rain cocked his head, intent. “Then you know he’s missing?”
So he just thought he’d catch me in a little word trap? I didn’t think so. “No. He hasn’t been in third period, or at lunch for a while. He’s missing?” I pretended to act worried and surprised at the news. It came easier than I thought, considering the fact that I killed him.
Agent Rain narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down, over and over, which made me very uncomfortable, causing me to squirm in my seat. “Tell me what you know, Kassandra, and everything will be alright.”
I felt strange under the gaze of his dark eyes. It was like all brown eyes reminded me of John’s. Didn’t Alyssa just say they wanted to keep this low-key? Sending an agent to question me didn’t seem like any low-key action I’d heard of.
“I don’t know anything,” I finally said.
He was a liar. He said everything would be alright if I told him what I knew.
He stood and moved closer to me, getting in my face. “Tell me what you know.” The words came out no louder than a harsh whisper, but it still sent chills down my spine.
For a split second I was going to tell him everything. And by everything, I meant everything—as in the Nightwalkers, the Osiris ritual, the Purifiers, the whole nine yards. But then I realized what I was about to do, so I kept my mouth zipped firmly shut.
“Kassandra,” Agent Rain’s voice softened a little and his face became sympathetic. “I need to know what you know in order to find John.”
“I…don’t know anything Agent Rain…” I stole a glance at his dark eyes. They seemed to stare straight through me. Just like John’s used to. I was mesmerized.
For a moment, he just gazed at me, like he was waiting for something. It felt like we were standing there for hours, though I knew we weren’t.
“Are we done here—” I took a few strides so I was at the door. With my hand on the doorknob, I tilted my head. “—Agent Rain?”
“Go,” he whispered faintly.
But I was long gone by the time he said so.
Teenagers were screaming today in the cafeteria. Or, at least, to me it seemed like it. Maybe everything only seemed louder because I was on edge ever since meeting Agent Rain. Who was he? Who did he work for? And how did he know that John was missing when Alyssa said they wanted to keep it quiet?
I pondered these questions, hoping that, for whatever reason, my mind would suddenly come up with the answers. And, surprise, it didn’t.
I could not focus on whatever Alyssa was saying. I saw her mouth moving, but no sound came out. I thought she talked about some boy, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. How could she be so calm while her brother’s gone?
“He said, we need to talk, which made me start wondering—” Alyssa kept talking, completely oblivious to the fact that she lost me twenty minutes ago.
But I heard her say four words: We, need, to, and talk. Those words I remembered John saying when he knocked on my door. Minutes before I shoved my sword through his heart. I was having a flashback, just like the millions I already had in the past few days. Except something was different about this one. Time seemed to stop as I felt a sense of Déjà vu while I frantically glanced around the cafeteria.
My gaze stopped as I saw the trash can, or more accurately, the person behind the trash can.
People were motionless while they munched on their food. Girls were petrified as they gossiped about what the jocks were wearing or who they were dating. The lunch ladies were inert as they were caught in mid-drop.
But I saw him.
John.
He was there by the garbage can, staring at me with his dead eyes. “Kass…” he spoke, like he had done in all my other premonitions. He held out a hand. I blinked and the hand became bloody. Only it wasn’t John’s bloody hand. It was Agent Rain’s.
These visions would kill me if the Demons didn’t.
Alyssa’s face brightened when I reached her car. It was a small, cute light blue vehicle that only had enough room for two. Maybe three. If those three people were really, really tiny.
“You made it. I wasn’t sure if you’d remember,” Alyssa spoke with a genuine smile.
I tried to smile back, forcing a teeny, tiny one out. I faked a laugh, but it sounded authentic. “Nope. I’m here and ready. But let’s get this show on the road because my dad wants me home in time for dinner.” Lie. But hey, who cared? Not me. Not anymore.
“Oh, yeah. Okay.” We got in her car. She put the stick shift in reverse and began to drive to her house.
It took us only ten minutes to reach her house, a perfectly-sized beautiful bungalow. One that was alone and isolated from all the other houses on the street, which both relieved me and worried me.
It would be the perfect house to fight some Nightwalkers in, and also the perfect house to get captured and kidnapped and no one would hear you scream. But I could take care of myself, so I wasn’t too concerned about the second one.
Though, after walking in the house, I began to reconsider my previous statement. Someone was in the kitchen, someone I just met today, in the principal’s office—except he no longer wore a suit. He dressed casually, like a normal person, one who wasn’t a liar.
Alyssa walked in behind me and set her purse and keys down on the kitchen counter. “Oh, Kirk. How was your day? Did John call?”
“Nope,” Kirk answered before looking at me. Before meeting me with those dark eyes.
Agent Rain was…Kirk? Kirk Rain? John and Alyssa’s older brother.
I stood there, not knowing what I should greet him with. I was totally
caught off-guard.
“Oh.” Alyssa turned from Kirk to me, remembering that I was behind her, and decided to introduce us, being the only amicable person in the room. “Right. Kirk, this is my friend, Kass, and Kass, this is Kirk.” She motioned to him, in case I was confused as to who Kirk was, which I definitely wasn’t. “My older brother.”
I now understood where he got his looks from. And his eyes. His dark, intense eyes. They were just like John’s. I thought that the first moment I met him, but now I saw that they were really like John’s, as in a carbon-copy.
Crap. I was in trouble.
And he knew I knew something. Little did he know (or maybe he did) that I was the one who killed John.
Wait.
Wait a second…did that mean that Alyssa knew something too, or was she oblivious to her brother’s rendezvous with me in the principal’s office?
“Very nice to meet you, Kass,” Rain said as he extended his hand, just like he did a few hours ago, meaning that he didn’t tell Alyssa that we had a talk during school. And that talk involved John and his disappearance.
“Yeah. Nice to meet you.” I didn’t offer my hand because I didn’t want to. Not again. And I never, ever wanted to look into those dark eyes. But, somehow, I had a feeling that I was going to see a lot more of this guy from now on.
Which was just so great.
And that, my friends, was pure sarcasm.
Instead of being polite, I turned my head to Alyssa and said, “Can we get started on math? I need to be home soon.”
Her face seemed confused at the fact that her brother, the one I didn’t kill (yet), and I didn’t shake hands or meet eyes. Well, at least he acted as awkward as I did, which made me feel better. Apparently, he didn’t know she was going to bring me home.
Alyssa interrupted the silence, saying, “Come on, we can set up in my room. I’ll tell Kirk to make us some snacks.” Kirk raised his dark eyebrows, making Alyssa casually whisper, “He’s the best cook in the house, for some reason.”
I pretended to laugh, even though deep down I wasn’t sure if I was going to eat anything he made. Poison, anyone?
A while later, when we were scattered on her bed, our math books open and pencils in our hands, Alyssa asked, “Is this right?” She handed me her paper.
Truthfully, everything was wrong. So I told her that. “No.”
“No?” she repeated. “How is this wrong?”
“Simple,” I answered, because to me it was. The girl was good at equations but not good at applying the equations to word problems.
Rain opened the door, carrying a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. They knew my one, true weakness already. I never ate these cookies anymore because the last time Gabriel tried making them, the kitchen caught on fire. That was eight years ago, but he still refused to try to make them again. And Michael, well, Michael didn’t really bake sweets. Which made me sad more often than not.
The cookies’ delicious scent entered my nose. If Heaven had a smell, I hoped it was this one. Alyssa laughed when she saw my face.
“They smell good, I take it?” Rain smiled, reminding me of John in the process. Which, in turn, made me sober up. He was toying with me, the jerk.
“Um.” I looked down at my bare feet. I took off my combat boots, and I wondered how long it would take for me to put them on and run out the door. I shrugged his question off. “They smell alright. I guess. I mean, if you’re a fan of chocolate chip cookies.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m out.” Rain set the tray down in front of me, purposely, I bett, and began to walk out. “Have fun studying.” He gently shut Alyssa’s door.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, after making sure he was out of earshot. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head no, feeling it was too hard to explain. I couldn’t explain it to her even if I wanted to.
In an hour, I told her I had to go home, and I never wanted to look at another long word problem again.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Alyssa said, standing up.
“No,” I responded before she closed the distance between us. “No, that’s okay. You stay here and work on that problem. Just do it like all the others. It shouldn’t be too hard. Show it to me tomorrow first period, before the bell.”
“Okay.” She smiled in response. “Thanks a lot for today, Kass.”
I shrugged, said “Anytime,” and made my way downstairs. I felt uneasy as I headed to the door, fearing that I would run into Rain. Something about him made me feel queasy, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just the fact that he reminded me of John. No. There was something else there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Yet.
I twisted the handle and stepped out into the harsh, unyielding sunlight. It was a beautiful day. Truthfully, I didn’t want it to be a beautiful day. I wanted every, single day from now on to be rainy and gloomy—the way I felt.
But then everything turned to doom and gloom the moment I saw Rain doing some yard work. With his shirt off, no less. I rolled my eyes; I got enough of that at home. If Gabriel was feeling abnormally lazy, he would walk around without a shirt for days on end. And I didn’t need to see any of that. Trust me.
He must have sensed my presence, turning his bare upper body to glance at me.
It was weird, like one of those movie moments, where the girl and the guy noticed each other at the exact same time, meeting eyes and staring longingly. Except we didn’t stare longingly. We glared, as if we hated each other. Which, at this point, I kind of did.
There was something about him I didn’t like. What was it?
I had planned on clutching my books for dear life and running out of the yard, but when I looked forward, I realized he was directly in my path. He stood straight up, tilting his head at my slow approach. His firm hands held a shovel, and he wiped his sweaty forehead on his defined bicep. The ab show in front of me made me wonder if John looked anything similar underneath all his clothes.
I’d never know, now.
“Hey,” Rain called me over, dark eyes narrowing.
I bit my lip and sluggishly walked to him, wondering what he wanted.
After bending slowly to retrieve a nearby water bottle, he leaned on the shovel and took a swig of water, never breaking eye contact. “Thank you.”
I bit my lip harder, cracking it on the inside and making it bleed into my mouth. “For what?” I forced myself to ask, though I truly wanted to leave and never come back.
“For helping her out. She’s going through a lot, with John gone and all.” Rain dropped the shovel and stepped closer to me, which made me take a few steps back. I had to keep space between us, because the closer he got, the more he reminded me of John.
And almost every time I thought of John I got emotional. I got angry. I grew regretful. Feelings I didn’t want to have in front of his suspicious older brother.
I wanted to ask him why he called me down to the principal’s office, if he really was an agent or if he made it all up, but all I could do was take more steps backward.
His striking dark eyes narrowed. “Am I making you uncomfortable, Kass?”
“If I said no, I don’t think you’d believe me, Kirk. Or would you prefer Agent Rain?” I countered. However, all my smart-alecky remark did was make him snicker.
“If I were you, I’d change my tone.” His jaw clenched and his face muscles tensed.
“Well, good thing you’re not me, then. Because this is my normal tone. You wouldn’t want to see me any other way, trust me.” I tried my best to make myself sound tougher than I currently felt. Though I was at the point that if this guy gave me an evil look, I might melt. Rain looked remarkably like John. Darkly handsome in a way that made me remember why I was so attracted to him. I couldn’t handle it anymore.
A smile zipped across his face, like he was the Cheshire Cat. “Was that you trying to threaten me? Because if it was, you need to work on it, little girl.”
Did my ears mistake me, or d
id he just call me a little girl? Oh my God. He did. That pissed me off instantly.
I took a step forward this time, ignoring the fact that I was uncomfortable and he was shirtless, because I was infuriated, and I just couldn’t let it go. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me.” A corner of his mouth turned upward.
I clenched my teeth. This guy was practically asking for me to go Rambo on him.
“I’m leaving.” I tried sidestepping to get past him, but he grabbed my arm.
“Be careful out there, Kassandra. The world’s a dangerous place.” Rain stared down at me hard for a few moments before releasing his grip on me.
“I know,” I growled, making a big show pulling away from him. I hurried away as I began my lonely walk home. The world’s a dangerous place, were his exact words. Didn’t I know it. Didn’t. I. Know. It. And I didn’t stop when I heard Rain say something else.
“No, you don’t know. You have no idea.”
What was up with that guy?
Chapter Five – Kirk
I watched her go, hands tightening around the shovel. I watched the way she hurried off, throwing a glance back at me as she reached the sidewalk. She sent me a deep frown before disappearing.
The sun beat hot on my back, sweat rolled down me easily. I hadn’t expected Alyssa to bring the girl to the house. I hadn’t expected a lot of things, actually. Like the pull I felt toward her. Really, it didn’t surprise me that John was obsessed with her. It didn’t surprise me one bit.
Behind me, I heard the front door open as Alyssa stepped out and walked beside me. I glanced at her, knowing she saw the tension between me and her friend. How could I tell her that I went against what we agreed on? How could I word it nicely that I attempted to interrogate her friend even though we agreed to wait on it?
I couldn’t, so I kept my mouth shut.
The wind whipped her crazy hair. Her soft gaze studied me, and she slowly asked, “What was that about?”
Staked! Page 18