Pull

by Anne Riley

  Until an arm curls tightly around my neck.

  I try to scream but can’t conjure more than a squeak. I swing wildly with my umbrella, hoping to connect it with my attacker’s head, but then it’s wrenched out of my hands. My eyes dart left, right, looking for someone— anyone—who can help. But the few people who have braved the storm are running toward shelter with their eyes down, raincoat collars popped. I’m standing in the middle of the willow trees. No one will see me through the leaves and rain unless they’re looking for me.

  And no one is looking for me.

  I twist with every ounce of strength in my body while clawing at the man’s hairy, muscled arm. My voice isn’t working, so I mouth the word “no” over and over. This can’t be happening. There’s no way I’m getting attacked in the one place people won’t notice.

  Brakes squeal. A car door slams. Another man, speaking some foreign language, shouts to my attacker. He loosens his hold just enough that I can turn to see his face. As I strain to look over my shoulder, a voice echoes in my head: Notice as much as you can. You never know what tiny detail could save your life.

  I’m sure my father has said this to me at some point; we’ve certainly had our share of “what to do if you’re kidnapped” conversations. But if I’m recalling something he told me, then I’m recalling it in the wrong voice.

  It sounds just like Papa.

  I catch a glimpse of my attacker’s face, and all other thoughts are erased from my mind. He’s huge, with shaggy brown hair and bulging muscles. Veins pop out on his forehead and neck. An orange light reflects in his pupils—it must be a streetlamp, but somehow it isn’t illuminating us at all.

  “Turn around,” he growls, and then he hits me in the face so hard his knuckles crack across my cheekbone and lights explode in front of my eyes. The man shouts something to his accomplice, his voice deep and rough. I’m too stunned to understand his words.

  He starts dragging me toward the car.

  Remember what I gave to you, Papa’s voice says again. Focus. You have the talent, dear girl.

  What talent? What am I supposed to do?

  My head lolls to the side. I can barely keep my eyes open. Rain splashes in my face as my feet make feeble attempts to protest the dragging. I hear the pop of an opening trunk.

  Then a familiar feeling blossoms inside my stomach.

  Something is pulling me into myself. There is an unbearably loud whooshing sound, even more deafening than when I first heard it. And suddenly my kidnapper isn’t holding me anymore. I’m not being held by anything, or standing on anything, or sitting anywhere. I just am. My eyes crack open; everything around me is lost in a blur of motion. I try to curl into a ball to keep myself from imploding, but I can’t move. I’m too weak.

  It’s happening again.

  Does that mean he will be here?

  White light flashes in front of my eyes, painfully bright, as if someone has taken a picture of me from two inches away.

  And now I’m running across the heath with my umbrella over my head, approaching the willow trees, just like a couple minutes before—and Albert is sprinting toward me, drenched with rain.

  EIGHT

  HYSTERICAL SOBS WORK THEIR WAY UP MY THROAT AND I sink to the ground. Fat raindrops pound into my back and onto my head, but I hardly notice them. I don’t know if my legs are working anymore. I’ve never felt such a lack of control over my body, not even as I watched Papa die. But knowing what almost happened to me—knowing that man almost put me in the trunk of his car to take me God knows where—the terror of that almost-reality is crippling. Wetness seeps through the knees of my jeans as I gasp for breath, and my fingers squelch in the mud, leaving two perfect imprints of my hands.

  Two attacks in Blackheath in the same week. There hasn’t been this much crime here since—well, ever.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I remind myself I’m okay. I’m not being hit in the face or loaded up in somebody’s car. Nobody has an arm around my neck. And the guy that I’m pretty sure just saved my life is running toward me.

  The other two guys I saw through the window at Prime Time—one with red hair, the other with dreadlocks—are jogging across the heath about twenty paces behind him, pointing at the willow trees and nodding at each other.

  “Stay where you are!” Albert calls to me, even though I’m barely moving. My knees feel like they’re made of overcooked noodles.

  He hurries toward me while the other two guys run straight for the trees, their shoes churning up pieces of the muddy ground. I wipe a lock of wet hair out of my face and blink as the sky pelts me with cold, stinging drops of rain. A wheezing sound comes through my chattering teeth. I’m shaking, but not from the cold, even though there is a chill seeping through my clothes. I can’t erase the image of that man’s face—his horrible eyes as he hit me, the stringy hair that hung like curtains around his square jaw.

  Albert barely manages to stop before he skids into me, but I’m too numb with shock to care that he almost ran me over. His soaked green T-shirt clings to him like plastic wrap and his black hair drips water down the sides of his face. The scar by his left ear seems more pronounced than it was in the video store, maybe because he’s been running. His waterlogged jeans hang low on his hips and he grabs my elbow, cold fingers digging into my skin. I still don’t know whether to trust or fear him, but one thing’s for sure—accepting his help is a much better option than getting wrestled into the trunk of a car. He tugs on my arm and I shakily get to my feet.

  “Are you okay?” he says in a rush. Thunder booms behind him. He flinches. “Do you feel all right?”

  I nod, then point unsteadily at the trees. “Your friends—you have to stop them. There’s a—”

  “Don’t worry about my friends; they can handle themselves. Just come with me.”

  The redhead has already ducked beneath the droopy branches where my attacker is waiting. The guy with dreadlocks is right behind him. Do they know he’s there?

  I shake my head at Albert. “No, you don’t understand—”

  “I do understand,” he says, pinning me with a sharp gaze. “And so do they. Let’s get out of here.”

  I tear my arm from his grasp. “Would you please shut up for one second? There’s a huge man under those willow trees who attacked me and tried to stuff me into the trunk of a car, and your friends are headed right for him.”

  My heartbeat throbs in my palms. I can feel it because my fists are clenched, and the adrenaline that must have been pumping through my veins for the past few minutes is surging with fresh strength.

  He stiffens. Rain leaks from his hair into his eyes. He rubs a hand over his face, but I don’t know if it’s because of the water or because of what I’ve said. He’s wearing his watch again, the simple black digital one.

  “What are you talking about?” he says in a low voice.

  I drop the umbrella, which has hung uselessly from my hand since this conversation started. It thuds onto the soggy earth by my feet. “You tell me.”

  Thunder rumbles overhead.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” he says.

  “So you ran after me and sent your buddies into those trees because you felt like it? You asked if I was okay on a whim?”

  There is nothing like a wave of frustrated anger to get my head right again. I’ve nearly forgotten the terror I felt just a few moments ago.

  He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Important thing is, you’re safe. But we need to get you out of this rain.”

  “It does matter, and a little rain never hurt anyone.”

  He laughs, although I can tell he’s not amused. “That’s up for debate.”

  I step closer and tilt my head so I can look him in the eyes. Even though we’re standing in the middle of the heath, there’s enough soft light from the nearby streetlamps to show me the outlines of his features.

  “Forget about the rain,” I say. “Something strange is happening.”

  He is as still as stone. “
Strange how?”

  “I’m positive that man under the trees attacked me just a few minutes ago. But before he could finish the job, everything rewound and I was back on the heath, before the attack. And you were running toward me.”

  “Impossible,” he says as a gust of wind sprays drizzle across our faces. “You haven’t been attacked at all.”

  The calm in his voice is maddening. I feel like a child who’s just been told the bullies at school are a figment of her imagination. “Then why are you saving me, Albert?”

  He steps so close to me, I can hear the rhythm of his breathing and smell the rain on his skin. Part of me wants to back up, but another part—the more powerful one— insists on standing my ground.

  The muscles in his arms tense as he clenches and releases his fists. “A better question—how do you know my name?”

  Oops.

  “I saw you at the video store,” I admit. “I heard someone call you Albert. And I paid attention to you because I’d seen you save a girl’s life the night before. Funnily enough, she got attacked the first time around, too. I guess when you watch the same event end two different ways, you remember the guy who changed the outcome.”

  Recognition floods his eyes.

  “You told me to go home,” I go on. “You said the heath was dangerous. I asked you what had happened, and you wouldn’t tell me. Is any of this ringing a bell?”

  He lets out a long breath and puts his hands on his hips. Then he looks at the ground. I glance toward the trees, where the redhead and the guy with dreadlocks are quietly dragging my attacker toward a green and white Volkswagen bus. The attacker’s stringy brown hair hangs in his face and his legs aren’t really working. He’s alive, I think, but incapacitated.

  “What are they going to do with him?” I ask.

  When I turn back to Albert, he’s giving me a piercing look, as if he’s trying to see past my flesh and into my mind. I’m tempted to break the silence by asking another question, but something stills the words before they leave my mouth. He’s about to speak; I can tell by the way the tip of his tongue runs over his lips. Then, so quietly it seems he’s talking to himself, he says, “Are you one of us?”

  A thrill goes up my spine. “One of who?”

  “You’re not, then.” He wipes the rain from his eyes. “But if that’s the case, then how are you aware of it?”

  “Aware of what?”

  The text message alert goes off on my phone. I ignore it.

  Albert raises his eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to check that?”

  With a sigh, I pull my phone out of my back pocket, trying to shield it from the rain with my hand. The text is from Paul.

  Come home ASAP!

  Something’s happened, something bad. Paul never asks for help unless he has no other options, and considering that today was his first day at SPARK, the possibilities for disaster are absolutely endless.

  “I have to go,” I say. “Tell me quickly. What am I experiencing? What is it you think I’m aware of?”

  He runs a hand through his wet hair. “It’s not the kind of thing I can explain in a matter of seconds.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.”

  We stare at each other in a wordless stalemate. Unbelievably, he breaks first.

  “Look,” he says with a sideways glance, “let me at least walk you home.”

  “No, I’ll be fine.” I step away from him, slipping a little in the squelchy earth.

  He points at the willow trees. “You were just attacked out there. And you want to walk home by yourself?”

  “I’ll be okay. Our house is thirty seconds away.”

  “Your house? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

  “I’m not,” I say as Paul texts again: Rosie! Come home! “I’m fine. I have to go.”

  “Right,” he says with a clipped tone. He glances into the sky, still thick with angry clouds. “Be careful. Don’t stay outside any longer than you have to.”

  “I won’t.”

  I’m not sure what he’s more worried about—me getting attacked again, or the storm. He’s staring into the sky like it’s personally offended him by deciding to produce rain, and when the lightning pulses through the clouds, he flinches.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I ask.

  He frowns. “Sorry?”

  “The man under the trees. I saw your friends put him into their car. What will happen to him?”

  Albert gazes across the heath at the Volkswagen bus, which is idling with its headlights on. The lights flicker once, then again, and Albert waves at it.

  “You don’t want to know,” he says. “Trust me.”

  Of course. No details, nothing that could be considered helpful information. For all I know, they’re going to dissect him and put his organs into glass jars.

  Wait a minute…

  “Are you a serial killer?” I blurt.

  He tilts his head back and lets out a single laugh. “That’s certainly a good theory, but no, I’m not. Though you don’t want to know what I’ve got in my cellar.”

  “You certainly have a lot of opinions about what I do and don’t want to know,” I say. “It’d be nice if I could make those decisions for myself.”

  Another text from Paul. Yo! Are you getting these? I put a hand to my forehead. His timing could not be any worse, but if he’s having a crisis, I’ve got to help him.

  “I have to go,” I say, and break into a run toward Camden Row. I look over my shoulder once. Albert is still standing there while the rain pours down around him, watching me.

  NINE

  I SKID TO A STOP AT NANA’S FRONT DOOR WITH A SOLID block of dread in my stomach. Did Paul have a bad day at SPARK and do something stupid in an effort to escape? Or did they all have some kind of accident on their way home from dinner? Nana could have had another breakdown about Papa, or Dad’s temper could have gotten out of hand. Maybe he lashed out at Mom. Or, even worse, maybe he lashed out at Paul, and that’s why I’m being paged so urgently. My little brother could be cowering in his room, alone, desperately trying to recuperate from whatever soul-stabbing words my father yelled at him.

  It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. To either of us.

  I burst into the house, soaking wet and gasping from my full-speed run down Camden Row. “I’m here,” I call, throwing my key onto the table. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  Silence.

  The entryway is empty. I don’t hear any footsteps creaking on the second floor. He did say to come home, didn’t he? I rip my phone out of my pocket and open Paul’s first message—was I supposed to go somewhere else?

  No. I’m in the right place. So where is he?

  Someone shouts in the backyard—muffled, but clearly a yell. I sprint through the kitchen and erupt onto the covered patio—

  —where my little brother is lounging on one of the wrought-iron chairs with his hand on his belly, laughing in great loud guffaws.

  The rain is still pouring just like it did the whole way home, but the awning over the patio keeps the area perfectly dry. It wasn’t yelling I heard—it was Paul’s laughter, but it’s been so long since I heard it, I’d forgotten what it sounds like.

  Two other guys stand with their backs to me, one in a gray hoodie and the other in a long-sleeved black T-shirt. The one in the hoodie has a shaved head and a stockier build than his friend, whose shaggy black hair skims his narrow shoulders.

  The one in the black shirt turns around with a smile that’s more of a grimace. He has a hooked nose and droopy eyes, and he’s missing a canine tooth. Judging from the wounded state of his gums, he lost it recently. The shorter one looks over his shoulder at me. His eyes are circled with bruises. Both guys have either been in a fight or an accident, but Paul doesn’t seem injured, so what—

  Hold on.

  I know these guys. They’re the muggers from the heath, the ones who attacked the girl and then promptly got
their tails kicked by Albert. And now they’re standing in Nana’s backyard.

  Oh, crap.

  My fingers dig into the doorframe as I try to breathe normally, but the acid in my stomach is boiling. My brother obviously met these guys somewhere, maybe at SPARK, and they hit it off. Now he’s brought them home to introduce them as his friends. And, apparently, to parade me in front of them like a first-prize pig at the state fair.

  Fabulous.

  “Told you she’d come,” Paul proclaims with a wide smile. “Rosie, this is Max”—he points at the bald guy— “and Luther.” The tall guy—Luther—gives me another gap-toothed smile. “I told them about you, and they wanted to meet you before we went out.”

  This was the reason for his urgent texts?

  “All right, love,” Max says. “We’ve heard quite a lot about you. Didn’t expect you to be quite so wet, but I can’t say I’m disappointed.” His eyes focus on all the wrong sections of my body. I cross my arms to block his view.

  “Paul,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t betray my brewing panic, “can I talk to you in the kitchen, please?”

  He scowls. “Why?”

  “I just need to talk to you.” Come on, I say to him with my eyes. Please don’t be too dense to pick up on the fact that something is terribly wrong.

  He looks from me to his new friends, then back.

  “Okay.”

  We walk into the kitchen and I shut the door. It seems weirdly quiet inside after the patter of the rain; maybe the noise will protect our privacy. With a deep breath, I face my brother, doing my best to keep my hands off my hips. The last thing I want is to come off like Mom right now. “First of all, I’m not some kind of eye candy you can show off to your buddies. Got it?”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “And secondly, where did you meet them?”

  “At orientation,” he says with a shrug, backing up to lean against the counter. “They were at my table.”

  I shake my head. “They have to leave. Right now.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Shh! Keep your voice down!”