Midnight Secrets

by Rita Stradling

  “Wait; what? No. Bad,” I drew out the words, shaking my head vigorously even though she probably couldn’t see me. I quickly searched through my mind for some other solution but, unfortunately, none of my friends on this side of town had cars. “Wait!” I yelled. Snatching the phone from her, as gently as physically possible, I pressed “end” on the screen.

  “January, I was calling Mrs. Roberts.”

  “I know someone who drives, and he might even have a truck, and he’s nice.” While I talked, I immediately pulled up Lucas’ number on my phone and dialed.

  He answered on the third ring, and when he spoke, I could hear the smile in his voice, “Hey, April. Little late for tutoring.”

  “Hey, Walter, hardy har. So, I’m really sorry to do this to you, as I only met you yesterday, but our van broke down in an area I’m not really familiar with. There are only factories and no street lights here. It’s north of Hooper Street. We’re just looking for maybe a ride to the Roberts Mansion, and we can pay you a little bit, not that much, but I can owe you more.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll head over there with my brother right now. We’re on our way. And, there’s no need for you to pay us, seriously,” he said the last part with a chuckle.

  “Thank you so much. I will owe you one — a big one.” I gave my grandmother thumbs up before reaching for the car door handle. “Here, let me figure out exactly where we are.”

  “Wait. Whatever you do, don’t get out of the car. There’s only one area inside of Brightside that looks like that — unless you’re in the boonies.”

  “We were heading back from Alfred’s Country Diner.”

  “Yep. We know exactly where you are. Hold tight, and you’ll want to lock your car doors if you haven’t already.”

  The moment he hung up with that ominous warning, my grandmother’s phone started ringing. Mrs. Gina Roberts flashed across the screen in big black letters.

  I winced a little as I handed over the phone. “Sorry. But at least now you have something to tell her. Or, you could not answer and text her that it was a butt-dial.”

  “Honesty is always the best answer,” Nana responded, predictably. “Mrs. Roberts, I need to apologize for calling you so late.” Nana grew silent for a moment, and I heard some slurring type sounds on the other end. “Our van broke down, and we couldn’t reach anyone, but my granddaughter was able to contact a friend. I really am sorry that we bothered you. We seem to have it all in hand.” Nana paused again. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that . . . I, uh . . .” She pulled the phone away from her head, lighting up her face again. “I think it disconnected.” Less than thirty seconds later, Nana’s phone blared out the default ringtone, displaying that the phone number was unknown. “Hello?” she answered before handing her phone to me. “It’s for you.”

  “Where are you?” A male voice demanded as soon as I answered the phone.

  “Lucas?” I asked as my heart picked up its tempo, and butterflies took wing in my belly. A second after I asked, I was kicking myself. How could Lucas possibly call my nana? Stupid. I knew who this was. My butterflies definitely knew who this was.

  “Justin,” he said.

  “Justin, yeah…” I paused. “So, no worries. We have someone coming to get us. We’re totally gravy. See you later.”

  I started to hang up when I heard him say. “Lucas — the one who mows our lawns.”

  “Uh, yeah. Also, the guy who goes to your school,” I snapped, but I immediately regretted my defensiveness. Seriously, why was I fighting with Justin? Lucas did mow their lawns.

  “Where are you guys?” Justin asked again. “Some areas of town aren’t safe. I’ll come to take you home, and Lucas can tow your car to the mechanic. I’m already in my truck. Just give me the directions.”

  “We’re fine. Everything is fine. Thanks. I’m hanging up now,” I said, feeling like a jerk because he was trying to help, but I wasn’t going to blow off Lucas for anything either.

  “Look. I kicked everyone out of my house and jumped in my truck, and I’m driving out of the gate right now. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll help. If nothing else, I can take your grandmother straight home,” he said. “Wasn’t yesterday her first day working for my mom? She’s probably tired.”

  Seriously?

  I just managed not to throw my phone across the van. The guy was so manipulative that he didn’t even have the decency to hide the fact he was manipulating me. He just went around, making uncomfortably good points, and getting me to go along with what he wanted. And, he was right. Nana had to be exhausted after dealing with my mother’s drama all day. She didn’t need to be dealing with a late-night ordeal. “Fine. We’re next to some warehouses on the way back from Alfred’s Country Diner.”

  “See you in five minutes. Don’t leave or get out of your van,” he ordered before hanging up.

  “Looks like we’re going to have two sets of …” I trailed off as a figure stepped out from behind a building a few feet from the side of our van. I could only really see them by their glow, which was a startlingly pale, ashen white. I had seen every color of glow, but white was something I’d never seen before. Maybe they were hypothermic? They were small, but it was impossible to see any more than that.

  The figure stopped beside my door, and my heart skipped a beat as I noticed that in the chaos of all the phone calls, my door was still unlocked.

  The person tapped on the glass, and I used the excuse of rolling down my window an inch to leverage down my heavy metal door lock.

  “I am so sorry to bother you, but I’m stranded. Can I use your phone?” a female voice asked.

  “Oh.” My grandmother reached up, and our cab illuminated with light. “Oh, good. The light still works. Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  When the dome light illuminated, I could make out the girl’s features. She looked college age, perhaps nineteen or twenty, with long blond hair that fell about her beautiful features. She wore a Brightside Community College t-shirt and shorts. Her blue gaze passed back and forth between my grandmother and me. “My stupid date ditched me in this alley when I wouldn’t sleep with him. Can I use your phone or maybe get a ride to my parents’ house?”

  “Oh, that’s just terrible,” my grandmother said. “But we’re unfortunately stuck out here, too. Here, January . . .” Nana passed over her phone, “Let her call whoever she needs to.”

  This girl had to have seen us break down. I hesitated a second. Between her abnormal glow color and the fact that she approached us in the dark alley, a chill was creeping down my spine. “You can use mine,” I said, finally. My phone was a crappy pay as you go, and if she stole it, I’d just get another one. I didn’t roll down my window any further, just held my phone through the crack. “The battery is pretty low, though. Sorry.”

  As I held my phone out to the woman, her finger brushed mine, and a spark of static electricity passed between us.

  She jumped, hissing and yanking her hand away, and for a split-second, her face morphed. Her skin turned leathery and gray. Sharp ears poked out of her blond hair, and long fangs came down from all six of her front teeth and up from the bottom as well. I blinked, and she was normal.

  “Holy shit. Are you a...?” I trailed off, realizing there was no way I could finish asking if she was a vampire with Nana there.

  The girl looked between us and then she sprinted down the alley in the direction she came, leaving me holding my phone halfway through the window.

  For just a second, I considered going after her. Had I actually come into contact with another vampire for the first time ever? Did I imagine her fangs? But then reality hit. Her fangs didn’t look anything like mine — there were ten or more razor-sharp teeth coming from the top and bottom. No neck or wrist could survive that. No. Either she wasn’t a vampire but something else entirely, or I freaked myself out and imagined the whole thing. Nana wasn’t screaming her head off, so clearly she hadn’t seen anything, but it was possible that I blocked her view.

 
A much more terrifying thought hit me as I stared into the dark. If that girl was some sort of supernatural monster, the way she approached our car was not how you introduced yourself to an ally. It was the way you approached a mark.

  “Poor child. She was really jumpy.” Nana pursed her lips and shook her head. “Going after her would probably scare her more.”

  I leaned over and slapped my grandmother’s lock down. “Let’s call the cops instead. That was a classic first move of a robbery. There are probably a bunch of big dudes waiting in those bushes.”

  Nana sighed. “Well, her need seemed genuine to me. But, I agree, we should wait in the car until we get help. That girl knows where we are and that we will assist her, and we shouldn’t waste our car battery.” She turned off the dome, and down at the end of the street, I just caught sight of three pallid, glowing figures as they disappeared around the corner.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Headlights broke the darkness about two minutes later. At the same moment, my phone chimed out with a text.

  Lucas: It’s us, so don’t get scared when two big guys jump out of my truck.

  “It’s Lucas,” I told my grandmother as I shot off a text message to him.

  Me: Careful, there were some creeps hanging around here earlier.

  Lucas: It’s cool. We’re always armed.

  I didn’t know Lucas or his brother very well, but I felt immeasurably relieved that they were armed. I had started to call the police when I realized that the only thing that I could report was there was a scared girl in an alley that I suspected was trying to rob people. Meaning, I might just be sending the creature a dinner on patrol-car wheels. I still wasn’t sure what I had seen, or if I had seen anything at all, but my imagination was sure running wild.

  The truck turned around halfway to us and backed up the vehicle until their taillights sat only about a foot from our front bumper. The truck doors swung open on both sides, and two huge figures jumped out. I recognized Lucas in the illumination of the truck’s dome light as he crossed over toward our van. As they walked away from the low light of their vehicle, the glow that emitted from within them intensified into a rosy radiance.

  I shoved the door open and hopped out of the van as my grandmother did the same. “Hey! Thank you so much for doing this!”

  “Of all the places to break down, you break down on Murder Alley,” another guy called out as he circled the truck.

  “What?” Fear pulsed through my chest, and I spun so fast, I almost lost my balance. “Was someone killed here? What does Murder Alley mean — exactly, please?”

  “Zack, what the hell, man?” Lucas said, clapping a hand over the other guy’s shoulder. “They’ve been sitting here in the dark.”

  “Damn. Sorry. It’s just an old urban legend,” Zack said with a wave of his hand. “People say that killers dump their bodies in this alley and the PD covers it up to keep Brightside bright.”

  “That does not make Murder Alley any less terrifying,” I said.

  My grandmother whispered something that I was pretty sure was a prayer.

  “Nah. I swear to you that my brother Zack is just teasing you guys. He doesn’t know when to turn it off. There are a lot of muggings over in this spot. That’s all.”

  Somehow, I wasn’t convinced, but I managed to say, “Thanks, Walter.”

  “No problem, April. Let’s hook up your van and get you guys out of here.”

  “Hey, wait. I thought your name is January,” the other guy said. “And his name is definitely not Walter. Otherwise, my whole life has been a lie.”

  “It’s an inside thing,” Lucas said. “You’re outside of it, Zack.”

  “Wait, we already have nicknames, and I’m out of it? Oh, screw that. That’s just wrong.” The glowing figure on the left held out his hand to my nana. “Please, excuse my dastardly humor, ma’am. Nice to meet you. I’m Zack, by the way. Lucas’ better-looking twin.” I couldn’t see much of him through the glow, but I could tell that he was just as big as Lucas, close to six and a half feet, with broad shoulders.

  After they’d mumbled their “nice to meet yous,” Zack offered me his hand. “Zack. So, do you like Shorty or Blondie better?”

  “For what?”

  “Nickname . . .” he said it like duh.

  “Uh, let me get back to you on that one. I need to tell you something, Lucas, and I hope it’s okay,” I called over to where Lucas was already crouching between the vehicles. “So, Justin Roberts is coming to pick up my grandmother because he insisted on doing it. I’m sorry, but I, unfortunately, need to wait for him to arrive.”

  “So, are we talking another Justin Roberts — one with human emotions?” Zack asked as he headed over to help his brother.

  I whistled. “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “Sorry,” Zack said as he crouched down. He didn’t sound sorry. “That’s the best way to tell us apart. Lucas is kindness personified, and I have no filter. Let’s get your car hooked up . . .” he winked, “So we can leave the moment Satan arrives.”

  “Satan is very real, young man. And, he’s not a teenage boy who does have feelings,” Nana said, and though I couldn’t see her expression, I could feel her glare.

  “Sorry, ma’am, I’ll be more considerate next time,” Zack said, actually sounding contrite this time.

  It took the Baldwin brothers less than ten minutes to hook up the car, and, though I offered to help repeatedly, they did it on their own. In no time, the van was attached to their large truck by several cables, and the boys were giving my grandmother instructions for how to set up the van for towing.

  Headlights lit the road again, flooding all of us in light, and a second truck pulled up behind Lucas’ vehicle. The driver’s door swung open, and Justin climbed out, seeming in no hurry. He wore a t-shirt and jeans that hung low on his hips. His dark hair looked tousled and messy, but it only added to how good looking he was.

  “Hi, thanks for coming,” I called over, as my ridiculous butterflies danced a jig. “We’re just about finished here, so you and my nana are welcome to leave while we take this beast to the nearest mechanic.”

  When I nudged my grandmother toward Justin, she sighed. “Honey, I don’t want you to have to take care of this late at night. It’s my van. It should be my problem.”

  Wow. Now I really regretted not confiding in my grandmother about how much I didn’t want to be around Justin. Didn’t was the wrong word. I shouldn’t be around Justin. He had a singular talent for obliterating my self-control.

  “I’m good, Nana. You know me . . . always up for an adventure,” I said, my voice strained. My stomach kept flipping, and I was pretty sure my butterflies were confused enough to be throwing a full-out festival.

  “We can actually fit both, Blondie and her grandmother,” Zack offered. It seemed that he’d chosen my nickname for me.

  In the light of the headlights, I could see that Zack and Lucas were either identical or very close to it. They both wore their dark hair military short around a face with strong, wide features and a chiseled jawline and had a prominent set of dimples on display. Zack held out his hands. “Justin, man, you don’t need to be here —”

  “Any way you all want to do this is fine with us.” Lucas interrupted before clearing his throat meaningfully, “We’re happy to take either of you or both.” He grinned over at me and shrugged. “My aunt is heading over to her garage about half a mile from here. She was going to do a quick check on the engine and work on it in the morning. And she offered to do it for the price of parts only — if it’s not totaled. Which, unfortunately, it might be from what she said.”

  My grandmother let out a long sigh. “I should probably go with you and meet your aunt. I won’t allow her not to be paid, but perhaps we could work out a service trade.”

  “Nana, you should rest. I can go talk to their aunt,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt because my motivations weren’t entirely altruistic.

  She was shaking her head even before I finish
ed speaking. “That wouldn’t be right, honey. You go home and rest.”

  “Nana, seriously,” I said, probably sounding a little desperate. “It would be a jerk move for me to ditch Lucas while he’s doing me a favor.”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” Lucas said, making me grind my teeth at how freaking inconveniently nice the boy was.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” Nana said, and when she headed for the Baldwin brothers’ truck, Zack helped her inside and closed the door behind her.

  Well, that was that.

  Justin leaned against the bumper of his truck, fully visible in the illumination of Lucas’ headlights. His lips twisted into a smile that I didn’t particularly like. “I was actually hoping to talk to you, January, about this scholarship, so this works out for all of us.”

  Nope. Not for everyone.

  Lucas called over, “You’re going for the scholarship?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  “Awesome. I’m free for studying any time tomorrow. We can give your grandma a ride to her van if she needs one.”

  I held my breath for one beat of silence, knowing that if I agreed to let these guys tutor me, I’d have to study my ass off and compete in the trials. I wouldn’t do them the dishonor of asking them to help me and then not giving it my all. But it was a slippery slope. If I took the test and got into the school, it would be almost impossible to say no. It would be like running a marathon, winning a trophy, and choosing to leave it behind. If I just didn’t run, I’d be fine without the prize. There was always the possibility that I would fail and fall short. But I’d been hesitating here at the starting line, and this was the moment where I’d ultimately need to decide on whether to go.

  I glanced at my grandmother, thinking about what she said in the van. Biting my lip, I turned back to the Baldwin brothers. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.”

  “Hell yeah, Blondie. But we should probably get your grandmother’s van to my aunt; she’s waiting.” Zack grabbed the door handle to the driver’s door. “You good with being alone with the devil — oh, oops, I meant, are you okay with being alone with Justin.”