by B. F. Simone
Dozier / THE KEEPER'S VOW / 409
The
Keeper’s Vow
by
B.F. Simone
Copyright © 2010 by ChunkyCatBooks
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.
[email protected]
www.FrancinaSimone.com
Dedication
Alan Heathcock once told me never to apologize for myself.
And so, this book is dedicated to my best friend and husband, Juan—who has never asked me to.
CHAPTER ONE
Katie should have known this morning that it would be a bad day. The smell of edible breakfast should have set her off.
If anything, she should have known when Mr. Rhineheart didn't care that she’d asked to go to the bathroom five minutes after class started—she should have known that very moment, when he said, "Don't forget the hall pass."
Not now, with this strange boy staring and talking to her like she was mentally-ill. "Look," he said, "I need you to come with me." He had “attitude” written all over his long face. One of those kids who thought they were above everything.
"And I need to pee.” She walked past him toward the bathroom. To be honest, she really wanted to run to the library and hide there until the end of class. They’d just started Shakespeare, and it was better to fall asleep in the library than in front of Mr. Rhineheart.
"Katalina," the strange boy said with way too much authority. No one called her that. Why was he still following her? Who did he think he was?
"Do I know you?"
"I already told you. I need to talk to you."
And, she thought. His shirt was a little wrinkled—like he didn't care—his black pants fit not too big or small, and he wore ankle-high boots. He wasn’t in full dress code. Either he was one of those kids who thought he was above the rules, or the kind of kid who just liked to test the teachers. He could have been cute if he combed his hair—and didn't come off like a giant douche-bag.
He narrowed his blue eyes and she changed her mind. He couldn't have been cute if he tried. Not with eyes that probed and prodded like that. "Too bad," she said, pushing the bathroom door open and leaving him behind.
She stood in front of the mirror scrolling through her phone. Only two-minutes passed and she was already going crazy. There was no one to text. The only person she could talk to was Allison, but Allison would only lecture her for skipping class again. The same Allison who’d, just last week, said, “Ew, skipping is like wearing a knitted-hat in the summer. It’s embarrassing when you’re caught and there is no benifit.”
“I happen to like wearing knitted-hats in the summer,” Katie had said knowing Allison was referring to Katie’s favorite orange and white, hand-knitted, hat with the lopsided puffball. It was the first and last thing she ever knitted; no matter how much it resembled a traffic cone, she was proud of it.
“Which is why you see nothing wrong with truancy.”
But Allison was wrong. Katie did see the problem. The problem was her standing in a bathroom starting at wads of toilet paper and tampon wrappers.
“Just go to class. Study once in a while. It’s not that hard,” Allison said, stuffing her math book in her locker. Math was the only thing Katie was better at than Allison. Watching Allison slam the book all the way to the back of the locker, gave Katie a little satisfaction. Maybe she sucked at making fashion statements in her school uniform or always being right, but Katie had a C plus in math and Allison only had a C minus it was a start.
“It is hard. Brian would understand. He’s my best-friend,” Katie said. Allison eyed Katie as she closed her locker, her red, silky hair swung back and forth in a high ponytail. “I’m kidding—second best-friend. Lighten up a little. I have next year to worry about grades and college. No one ever counts your junior year.”
“Are you serious? You’re going to end up at some no-name community college, if you even make it out of high school. You’ll end up like Olive-Branch Knowles—aspiring to be a protest leader of free love. Teachers blame MTV, I blame her hippie parents.”
“Be quiet she’s right there,” Katie said as Olive marched down the hall in her knee-length-Hamilton-High-School-navy-blue skirt, smiling and shaking hands with anyone who either didn’t see her coming or was too dumb to avoid eye contact. For a week, last year, Katie obsessed over farm-animal rights and boycotted all dairy products until she realized she was boycotting her favorite and most important food group. Even though she went back to slurping milkshakes, chomping cheese-sticks, and downing gallons of ice cream, Olive still considers it a perfect conversation starter.
Katie grabbed Allison and headed toward the science hall. “Alright—alright I won’t skip anymore. At least not this week,” Katie said, catching a glimpse of Brian in the class just across from hers. He was, sitting on top of his desk talking to someone she couldn’t see. Even though his back was turned to her she knew, by the way he slouched, that he was smiling—those eyes probably turned into little leprechaun-green rainbows. She could walk over to him now, and they could hate school together—but he’d probably ignore her for his “more popular” friends.
“Katalina,” a voice, too familiar, said. It was the same boy from this morning. He frowned, shoving through bodies as if he and his destination were more important than anyone else's.
“Who’s that?” Allison said just as put-off at hearing Katie’s full name.
“I don’t know. He was harassing me this morning when I left class.”
“Not another hall monitor reject?”
“Those kids have no lives.” Katie agreed. Last year, Principle Boyle got the smart idea to have hall monitors in a high-school. An incident involving pepper spray and handcuffs shut down the program. Though, some super do-gooders still lingered—probably in some underground club scheming to keep the halls free of Taco-Tuesday wrappers.
“I need to talk to you,” he said when he reached her. If he had said please, or hadn’t been looking at her like she spit in his cereal, she might have stood there and listened. One thing was for sure, he acted like a bully—and just like he missed the memo about her name, he missed the one about her being a bad target.
“About what?”
“We need to talk in private,” he said, raising his eye brows and placing a stiff finger on his left temple. All of his long fingers were calloused.
He stuffed them in his pockets.
“I don’t know you. We don’t have anything private to talk about.” The more she stood there the uneasier she felt. She didn’t know him. Hamilton High wasn’t a big school. It was private. Everyone knew everyone, and yet she had never seen him before.
“My name is Tristan. Now you know me.”
“Unless you can think of a reason for me to go running off into some dark corner with you, don’t count on it.”
“Smooth, Kay,” Allison said.
Katie blushed, “I didn’t mean it like that.” She hit Allison with her chemistry notebook as the bell rang. She opened her classroom door and shrugged at Tristan. Whatever he wanted would have to wait.
After school, Katie saw Brian standing near her locker, surrounded by a crowd of girls complaining about weekend homework. His short brown hair looking a little too dry and his lips a little too cracked. She wanted to douse him in moisturizer. It was a mystery how he stayed popular with those dry lips. If anyone knew the real him, the Brian whose room smelled like moldy Doritos and cheese—the kind of cheese she wouldn’t touch even if it were deep fried and dripping marinara—he’d probably die of shame and she’d be his only friend.
&
nbsp; They locked eyes for a moment before he turned his attention back to his fan club. The girls giggled and Katie continued to her locker.
“Hey Katie,” Brian said, pulling on the back of her book-bag
“The Brian fan club is getting bigger,” Katie laughed, “And so is your head—stop flipping your hair like that. It makes you look like such a poser.”
“It’s not posing if you’re the real deal.”
Katie rolled her eyes and gagged as she opened her locker and shoved her books inside. She wasn’t going to go anywhere near that ego.
“I’m so glad it’s Friday. Let’s go to the movies,” Brian said.
“Aren’t you grounded? Lucy specifically said, ‘If you can’t keep your room clean you can’t have a life,’ to which you said—”
“I’ll just tell her I’m studying at your house. She’s been way uptight lately. God, she’s annoying.”
He wasn’t being fair. He was never fair about Lucinda and that bothered Katie. Lucinda was the perfect mother. He was lucky and he took it for granted.
Allison appeared from around the corner and Katie felt the tension. “You guys done now? We’re supposed to be at your house in twenty-minutes,” Allison said, ignoring Brian completely.
“There goes the movie,” Brian complained.
“Oh happy-happy, joy-joy,” Katie grumbled as she adjusted her book-bag and followed Allison out of the school.
She had completely forgotten today was the day they were going to help her with the yard work. Ever since her dad found out she’d turned her room into a hamster-breeding laboratory he gave her yard duty as a learning exercise: “how to be responsible and tell your parent you’re breeding rodents in the house.” He’d only found out because she accidentally bought a gerbil with a nub for a tail and introduced it to its not so friendly mating partner. She had no idea, when she put the poor dead gerbil in the plastic-lunch bag, that it would fall out of the trash can and onto their driveway for her dad to find.
But, she did know the “learning exercise” was just an excuse to pawn off yard duty. Their yard was no paradise. Weeds didn’t just grow there, they had originated there and it didn’t help that the grass was on some type of steroids and grew ten-times faster than everyone else’s. It was already catching the neighbor’s attention, but their stuck-up neighbors could afford gardeners. They had to be the only house in the neighborhood that didn’t have landscapers.
He had banished her to Hell.
“I’m not picking weeds. I’m saying that now,” Brian said as they neared her house.
“I don’t care what you do, I’m just glad you guys are going to help,” Katie said, dragging her feet.
It was extra hot today. No breeze. No clouds. She was minutes away from backbreaking pain and itchy skin. It didn’t help that every house she passed was fit for one of those home and garden magazines.
“We should split the yard into three parts, we’ll get it done faster that way,” Allison eyed Brian, “And no one will get stuck pulling all the weeds.”
“Good to see you’re using those tremendous math skills you’ve got,” Brian said.
“Well Brian, I’m so busy succeeding in all my other classes, math gets pushed to the back burner. But I would consider one ‘C’ acceptable, wouldn’t you?”
Brian frowned and stared at the sidewalk, “Don’t be annoying, Allison.”
“You started it,” she snapped back.
Katie sighed. They hadn’t always been like this. Only for the last two years. One summer everything was great, but within the first year of high school, they couldn’t stand to be near each other. It took a lot of begging to get them both to agree to help her. This would be the first group activity they did since sophomore year when they all got detention for starting a food-fight with Christi Taylor.
“Hey,” Allison said. “Isn’t that the kid from earlier?” As they moved closer to Katie’s house, she saw him standing on her porch, with his wrinkled shirt, fitted pants, and that same pissy look.
“Who’s that?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How does he know where you live?” Allison slowed her steps and furrowed her brows.
Katie played back every conversation she had with him. He had come from nowhere. She tried remembering his name but could only come up with the names of people she already knew—people she had known for years. People who didn’t know where she lived.
He stood there, watching, as she walked up her driveway.
“What are you doing here?” she said, glad Allison and Brian were standing next to her.
“What do you think?” he frowned.
“I think you can leave.” She was creeped out by the way he stood staring at her. His hair was too black, his eyes too blue, and his skin too smooth. Even in his stillness he was too alive. She felt something deep in the back of her mind; stirring, behind a rattling cage.
Tristan.
He said his name was Tristan.
“I’m only going to tell you this one more time. In fact, I’m making it easy for you. Let’s go inside and talk.”
Allison and Brian were both staring at him. Surely they could see it too. He was off—on some brand of crazy.
“Get off my property. I don’t know you and we have nothing to talk about.” She said it and meant it, but she was curious about what he wanted. After all, he had tried to talk to her twice that day; however, he was at her house. This was creepy. She didn’t want him thinking he could stalk her.
She walked past him and to her door—to show him he didn’t phase her. He’d have to work harder if he wanted any of her time.
He grabbed her arm. “This isn’t a game. We need to talk now.”
“Get off me!” she yelled.
Brian pushed his way in-between them. Tristan grabbed Brian and threw him so hard against the wood-railing, it creaked.
Katie pulled her arm, but it was useless. Panic pricked the back of her neck. He dragged her down the stairs towards the driveway. Toward a car parked on the curb. Katie screamed for him to let go. Allison ran past her and stopped midway between them and the car.
She held up her hands. “Look, if all you want is to talk we can calm down, sit on the porch, and you can talk to Katie.”
Tristan stopped.
“Let go of me,” Katie said, yanking her arm back, but it was like pulling at a stick stuck in a cement wall.
“Kay, he only wants to—BRIAN STOP!”
Katie turned to see Brian lunging at them with a knife in his hand. Tristan shoved her onto the grass and she rolled. She tried get up; when she looked up, she sank back down. The knife stuck out of Tristan’s chest. A knife.
“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Katie couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She could only watch as blood grew, bigger and wider, on his shirt.
Allison cursed. She ran over to Tristan, but he pushed her away and pulled out the knife.
Katie swallowed down vomit as blood gushed out.
“Fucking great,” Tristan said, stumbling onto the grass next to Katie. “Who the hell carries around an iron pocket-knife?”
“How…how’d you know? You couldn’t know unless you’re a—” Brian started.
“Shut up,” Allison snapped. “Brian, you have no idea how lucky you are.”
“What are you talking about?” Katie screamed, eyes still on the growing puddle. Blood poured out of the rip in his shirt. “Oh my god. Brian, what did you do? Oh my god.” Tristan’s face started to pale and his breath grew short and hollow.
“I…he’s not like us. He can’t be.” Brian said, standing in the middle of her yard, just as pale as Tristan.
“Kay, can you do me a favor?” Allison said, her eyes darting up and down the street. “Put your hands on his chest and press down hard. Okay?” Allison knelt down and rummaged through her book-bag like a madwoman.
“What? Shouldn’t we call the police?” Katie swallowed down more vomit and started to cry. How had this happened? Wh
y had this happened? Tristan tried to sit up, but fell back down.
“This is all your fault,” he said to her, grimacing.
“Kay, do what I told you. Now.” Allison pulled out her phone.
Katie reached out trembling hands over his chest and pressed down lightly. The warm blood spilled between her fingers. Harder, she thought, but she couldn’t stop shaking.
Tristan screamed. “You’re making this hurt so much more than it should.”
“Sorry,” she cried, shaking even more.
“Lucy?” Allison said into her phone, “Brian just—can you come to Katie’s house immediately. There’s been an accident—no, Brian’s fine. He stabbed someone—no, not like that—Katie is here too. Okay, hurry.”
Katie looked at Allison. “We’re supposed to call the police, right? We—we should call the police. Why would you call Brian’s mom?!”
Allison knelt down next to Katie. “You’re doing really good, Kay. We are going to press down a little harder. Okay?” Allison placed her hands firmly on top of Katie’s.
Why the hell hasn’t she called the police? Katie pressed down harder. There was so much blood. Too much blood. What could Brian’s parents do? This boy might be dead by the time they get here. He was going to die. Here. On her lawn—all because she didn’t give him five minutes of her time. She cried harder, gasping, as her tears mixed with his blood. They were all going to go to jail. Her life was over. They had killed a boy.
“Kay, I need you to calm down. Okay? Lucy is going to be here any minute and everything will be fine.”
“He needs blood, he’s losing so much,” she said, “Why haven’t you called the police? We could explain we thought he was kidnaping me. It was an accident. It was an accident, right?” Katie looked at Brian; he offered no answer. He turned around and vomited on her dad’s rosebush.
“Kay, we aren’t calling the police. This is a special situation.”