by R. T. Lowe
“Yeah, but the dreams have gotta have something to do with his parents,” Harper said, scooting her suitcase back and forth across the floor in front of her. When no one responded, she looked over at Caitlin, waiting for her confirmation.
“Makes sense,” Caitlin said with a little shrug.
“I don’t think so.” Lucas gave them an adamant shake of his head as he stepped toward the door. “He won’t talk about his parents with me. But that’s not what’s goin’ on.”
“I don’t know,” Harper said. “I talked to him about his parents once and it made him really uncomfortable. He’s got some serious issues with the whole thing.”
“Of course he does,” Caitlin replied. “Who wouldn’t? It’s tragic. I feel so bad for him.”
“But that’s not it,” Lucas insisted. “I’m telling you, it’s got nothing to do with his parents. And get this—he’s also been out a few times late at night and he won’t say what he’s doing. We’d all get back from the library at eleven or whatever and then he’d leave the dorm. He’d come back around two or three. And one time, he smelled like smoke.”
“Maybe he smokes?” Caitlin quipped.
“No he doesn’t.” Lucas made a face at Caitlin that left no doubt he thought she was being a moron. “And it wasn’t cigarette smoke. It was like smoke from a fire—an actual fire. And with the fire in your old room”—he pointed the pen at Caitlin—“who knows? Right?”
Harper fiddled with the nametag on her suitcase, wrinkling her forehead. “That’s kinda weird.”
“There’s more.” Lucas checked his hair in the wall mirror next to Allison’s closet. “You have to admit it’s strange that he just left school without saying a word to anyone. He didn’t take anything with him either. It was like he was running from something.”
Caitlin nodded slowly. “That’s true.”
“And even weirder”—he tossed the pen in the air; it flipped end over end, reached its zenith, stopped, then fell, landing softly in his fingers—“is what I think happened to the Faceman.”
“The Faceman?” Harper said, her eyes snapping wide in surprise.
“Yeah. Don’t you remember?” Lucas crossed the room again and sat on the edge of Allison’s desk, resting his feet on her chair. “On the day the Faceman was killed, Felix thought I was dead. He thought somebody had killed me. He was running around all crazy. And when he saw I was alive, he gave me a pretty serious bro-hug. And he bled all over me, remember?”
“The homeless guy hit him in the nose,” Caitlin said.
“Sure,” Lucas snorted. “A random homeless guy attacked him with a tennis racket and told him I was dead. That couldn’t have happened. That just can’t be true, right? Don’t you think that’s bullshit? It’s gotta be.”
“It doesn’t really add up when you put it like that,” Harper said thoughtfully. “Especially when he thought Allison was dead at the start of the year. Why does he keep thinking everyone’s dying?”
“Good question.” Lucas nodded at Harper. “I called him out on it too. I told him I thought he killed the Faceman, and that the Faceman broke his nose.”
“That’s absurd!” Caitlin snickered. Then she paused, her eyebrows knitting together. “So um… what’d he say?”
“He laughed at me and made a joke of it. Said I was crazy. But you know what’s really crazy? Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that his nose healed in like four hours?”
“I don’t know.” Harper got up from Caitlin’s bed and stretched. Her clothes were form-fitting and stretchy—travel attire—and she was wearing her favorite pair of brown boots; one of them was sagging a little so she bent over and pulled up on it, tugging it back into place. “He said it was just a bloody nose.”
“Seriously?” Lucas said. “And you believe that? You saw it. It was huge and all busted up.”
“It did look pretty bad,” Caitlin agreed.
“So what are you saying?” Harper asked with skeptical shake of her head. “Felix has a magic nose? Felix killed the Faceman? Please. How could he have killed the Faceman? The pictures I saw online were disgusting. The Faceman’s head was all… gross.” She made a squinchy face and shivered.
Lucas slid off the desk and settled into the chair. “I don’t know what’s going on with Felix. But it’s something. And it’s something big. And you know what we’re going to do next semester?”
Harper and Caitlin looked at him blankly.
“You guys can’t be that dense.” Lucas let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. “We’re gonna find out.”
“Oh,” Harper muttered.
“Whatever you say,” Caitlin said, her voice going high with feigned enthusiasm. “When we get back, we’ll uncover the great conspiracy behind Felix the serial-killer-slaying-boy-with-the-magic-nose. Now can I write you off as an idiot?”
“I don’t know,” Harper said to Caitlin, apparently reconsidering Lucas’s suspicions. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s on to something.” She turned to Lucas, pulling on her ponytail. “Do you think… um… you think Allison’s… involved?”
“No question,” Lucas said quickly.
Caitlin glanced over at the clock beside her bed. “We should get going. The cab’s probably here.”
“Wait a sec!” Harper shouted suddenly. “Shit! I totally forgot to sign up for English next semester.”
“You what?” Caitlin said.
“Dammit!” Harper checked her watch. “Professor Weems makes you meet with her in person if you’re going to take her class. I really like her and she’s the easiest grader in the department. She said she’d keep office hours until noon today. I gotta go talk to her.”
“We have a flight in two hours,” Caitlin reminded her, sounding tense.
“I’ll be there.” Harper picked up the leather coat draped across the top of her suitcase. “I’ve got the number for the taxi company. You guys go ahead and I’ll meet you there. It’ll just take me a few minutes.”
“We’ll wait for you,” Caitlin offered.
“The taxi’s already here,” Harper said. “And Lucas has an earlier flight.”
Caitlin frowned. “Okay, but you better not be late. You know I don’t like to fly by myself.”
“I’ll be there.” Harper slipped into her jacket and started toward the door, pulling her suitcases behind her. Then she stopped and turned around. “I almost forgot. I guess this is it, Lucas. I can’t believe the semester’s over. It went by so fast.”
“We’ll be back before you know it,” Lucas replied lightly. “But if you feel like you’re missing me during the break, all you have to do is check out my website. There’s a picture of me with my shirt off looking awesome and ripped and drinking some ice cold Super-Six-Pack-Power-Protein-Plus.”
“You’re drinking that cat piss on your website?” Harper said, smiling.
“It’s actually just water, but don’t tell anyone.”
“Why do I have to share a taxi with this animal?” Caitlin said, sighing at him. “Do you have any idea how much I’m looking forward to not seeing you for a whole month?”
Chapter 58
We Meet Again
“How can you still be hungry?” Allison said to Felix as they entered the 7-Eleven on Cove Rock’s main commercial strip. “You just ate a six-egg omelet and a pig plate.”
“It wasn’t a pig plate. It was the pound-o-pork-platter. And I think I may have gone without food for almost a week. So cut me some slack.”
“Can you grab me a water?” Allison asked as she sidled over to the magazine racks next to the registers.
Felix made his way to the snacks aisle and perused the shelves, trying to decide if he was in the mood for sweet or salty. He wasn’t in any hurry. They’d gotten up just after sunrise and had breakfast at his favorite Cove Rock diner. It was still early. Bill would get his swanky SUV back before noon.
Felix had actually managed to get some sleep last night (dreamless sleep) and other than his bottomless appetite there did
n’t seem to be anything wrong with him—physically at least. But as soon as he woke up, the promise he’d made to Allison started weighing on him and a new emotion—regret—crawled into his gut, nesting like a territorial animal. Allison would never understand the darkness eating away at his insides. For the rest of his life, every single day would be an endless battle to lock away the memory of killing his parents to the depths of his consciousness, to some place deep below the surface. And like a poisonous snake hiding in the cool shade of a rock, it would lay there in silence, lurking, waiting for the opportunity to slither out from under to torment his mind and threaten his sanity.
Even if he somehow found the strength to cope with the insatiable guilt, he could never forget the terrible images or erase them from his mind. Allison wanted him to save the world from Lofton. But Felix didn’t know if he could save himself. At least in that regard, for the first time, he now felt a connection with his real mom. He understood what it was like for her to live with the knowledge of killing her friend. He understood how she must have longed to escape those feelings. He didn’t blame her for deciding that death was the only real escape; he could relate. Yes—he’d made a promise to Allison. He would keep that promise. But only for today. He couldn’t promise her next month, next week or even tomorrow. Today was the best he could do.
As Felix checked out the dizzying selection of artery cloggers, a woman with short blonde hair passed by his aisle, shooting him a discreet sideways glance. She breezed by so swiftly he nearly missed her. Going with salty, Felix reached for a jar of honey roasted peanuts. Then he froze, stopping in mid-motion.
The blonde woman had a sawtooth scar on her cheek.
He blinked, and a memory—a picture—formed in his mind, an image of a woman with blood flowing from her nose. It ran down her face in sheets, yet she appeared unconcerned, her eyes focused and calculating. And on her cheek—her right cheek—was a scar shaped like a high voltage warning.
No way, Felix thought, shaking the memory from his head. That couldn’t have been, could it? He plucked the jar from the shelf and ambled down the aisle, trying to appear relaxed, pretending to look for chips. He took a moment to steady his breathing, then stole a glance at the security mirror in the corner, high up on the wall near the ceiling.
The woman had stopped in the juice section of the beverages aisle. She was tall with broad shoulders and long slender arms. Felix watched as she took a small container of orange juice from a refrigerator and held it up to her face like she was skeptical of the expiration date. She lifted her chin, her eyes flitting up to the security mirror.
Felix glanced away just in time and began feverishly studying a bag of Fritos corn chips on the shelf in front of him, resisting an overwhelming urge to look up at the mirror. The scar looked similar to one he’d seen before. But the woman who bore it, the woman at Martha’s house, had long red hair. Of course you can cut hair. And dye it. He needed to get a better look at the scar to be sure, to dispel any doubts. His heart beating fast, he sucked in a deep breath and raised his eyes to the mirror.
She was gone.
Felix was stunned into stillness, but only for a moment. He grabbed a snack-sized bag of barbecue chips and headed for the beverages aisle, treading cautiously while still trying to act like he was just loading up on junk food for a road trip. When he reached the aisle, he turned, pulling up for an instant in surprise.
He wasn’t alone.
Near the far end of the aisle, a man and a woman, deep in conversation, were at the self-serve coffee bar. Both were well-dressed, tall and solidly built. Felix could see the man’s face, but the woman’s back was turned to him. He tried to listen to their conversation, but the refrigerators were emitting a low humming sound and some kids a few aisles over were arguing about something and making a terrible racket; all he caught was one word: “sugar.” The man filled a paper cup with coffee, then lifted his eyes to peek over the woman’s shoulder.
Felix turned his head before the man’s eyes could lock on his. He kept walking and glanced up at the security mirror behind them. He located the woman with the scar; she was in the aisle he’d just vacated—the snacks aisle—and a man with dusty brown skin and midnight-black hair had joined her. Felix gasped inwardly. Even from the slightly distorted image in the oval mirror, he could tell that the man was put together like a tank.
He swallowed hard, a trickle of warm sweat slaloming down his back. He tucked the chips under the same arm that held the peanuts, and without looking, fumbled around for two bottles of water. Using his foot to close the refrigerator door, he started toward the registers, passing by the coffee bar, getting as close as he could to the couple without alerting them that he was trying to listen in on their conversation.
But they’d gone quiet. The man was staring stupidly into his cup and the woman seemed to be under the spell of a packet of artificial sweetener she was holding in her fingers. Then from her lips came the word “sugar.” She said it quite clearly, and not in response to anything the man had said to her.
What is that, some kind of code word? Felix wondered as his eyes flickered down the snacks aisle. The man with the black hair was on the move, approaching the back of the store. The woman was still there, studying the list of ingredients on a Snickers bar like it included the meaning of life. This time, Felix got a good look at the right side of her face. There was no doubt about it. His pulse quickened.
The scar was the same.
He walked faster, but not so fast as to draw attention to himself. Allison was right where he’d left her. “Hey!” he whispered over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she said distractedly, holding out an issue of Us Weekly in front of her. “Got my water?”
“Allie,” he hissed through his teeth.
“Can you believe this?” She kept her eyes on the magazine. “It’s an article about Dirk Rathman. It says that since his little press conference, the ERA’s gotten five hundred thousand new members. Most are high school and college kids and twenty-somethings. They’re saying some parents are pissed because of the tiger tattoo thing, but the ERA’s relaxing its rules. So now kids can get the fake ones and—”
“Allison!” He nudged her with his elbow.
“What?” She twisted her neck to look at him, annoyed at the unprovoked jostling.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me,” he said without moving his lips. “Keep reading.”
“Okay,” she said warily, dropping her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Remember those people at Martha’s?” He looked up at the security mirror behind the registers. The two people at the coffee bar hadn’t moved and the woman with the scar was in the same aisle, but now she was idling toward the chips section. He couldn’t find the shorter man. He’d disappeared.
Allison nodded hesitantly. Her shoulders tensed up.
“They’re here.”
“Here?” she said, her eyes shifting, apprehension creeping into her voice.
“Yes. Here. As in, here in this store.” Felix checked the mirror again.
“Okay.” She bit down on her lip for a moment. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just be cool,” he whispered. “Just give me that and keep your eyes on me. Don’t look around. I’m watching them.”
Allison handed him the magazine and they stepped over to the closest register. A sullen, pimply-faced high schooler bagged the items and Felix paid in cash.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking the plastic bag from the clerk.
The automatic doors whooshed open as Felix led Allison out of the store past an entry sidewalk littered with gum wrappers and peanut husks. They swiftly made their way through the parking lot to the Range Rover.
“How many?” Allison asked as soon as they climbed into the car.
“Four. I think.” He stared at the entrance, squinting into the morning sunlight reflecting brightly off the glass store front. “Two men and two w
omen. I’m not sure about the two getting coffee. They were acting weird. Kept saying ‘sugar’. They definitely aren’t locals. I guess they could be tourists. Maybe from Europe or something; their clothes are a little tight. The other two were at Martha’s.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. The woman with the red hair’s in there, the one with the scar on her face. She’s blonde now, but it’s definitely her. The guy with the black hair is in there too. The last time I saw him, he was trying to gut me.” Reflexively, his hand went to his chest.
“What are we gonna do?”
“Sit here until they leave.”
“To see if they’re all together?” she asked a short pause later, her brow creasing.
He nodded. He had to know how many were after him.
They didn’t have to wait long. All four emerged from the store at the same time like a scene from a movie: Dark clothes, hard expressions, unhurried movements so graceful a soundtrack must have been playing in the background as they crossed the lot and slipped silently into a black Mercedes SUV parked at an adjacent Exxon.
“I guess you have your answer.” Allison watched them through the windshield.
“Yeah. I guess I do.” She was right. Question answered. There were four. Now what?
“Who do they think they are anyway, the Cullens?” A smile played on the edges of Allison’s lips.
Felix snickered.
“Sorry.” Allison laughed. “I think I’m spending too much time with Lucas.” Her expression turned suddenly serious. “They’re Protectors, aren’t they?”
Protectors.
The word alone caused Felix to shudder as though the marrow in his bones was frosting over, chilling him to the core.
He nodded.
“What’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Oh.”
“How about we just get the hell outta here?” Felix pushed the ignition button and shifted into drive, wheeling out of the parking lot and onto Main Street.