“Stay away from Thad,” Kristen said in a voice as venomous as her stare.
Jerusa’s skin went clammy and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. And either she had gone deaf or the whole cafeteria was now watching this exchange in silence. Jerusa had no choice but to turn and face Kristen.
“Excuse me?” Jerusa asked, unable to mask the quiver in her voice.
“Don’t play stupid with me.” Kristen had one hand on her hip while pointing in Jerusa’s face with the other. “My friends saw you riding in his Jeep.”
A tiny collective gasp lit around the table and Jerusa knew there would be hell to pay for not disclosing this major detail to her friends. Jerusa wanted to explain, but she couldn’t get the words past her tongue.
“Don’t try to deny it,” Kristen screeched. “What kind of skank are you, messing around with another girl’s boyfriend?”
Alicia materialized next to Kristen. She threw up her hands and leapt at Kristen with the ferocity of a lion, and had she been a corporeal being, she would have snatched every golden lock out of her spiteful little head. But much to Jerusa’s dismay, the ghost passed through Kristen without disturbing so much as a single strand.
Kristen followed Jerusa’s eyes to the empty space next to her. “What are you looking at, you nut-job? Did you even hear a word I said?”
Jerusa had wanted to apologize, to fall down before the blonde goddess and beg for forgiveness. She hated confrontation, hated being in the spotlight. She could feel the eyes of the entire room upon her.
One of the cafeteria monitors, a large woman that looked as if she’d been carved from an oak tree, stepped up behind Kristen.
“Is there a problem?” she asked in a voice surprisingly genteel for her size.
“No problem,” Kristen said, keeping her eyes tethered to Jerusa’s. “Just talking.”
The monitor looked to Jerusa for confirmation. Jerusa gave a quick nod. Anything to make this moment pass.
“Okay, then,” the monitor said, as if this ended the matter.
“Just stay away from Thad or I’ll add some more scars to your collection,” Kristen turned and walked away before Jerusa could respond.
Jerusa’s cheeks burned hot, her pulse throbbed in her ears. The world seemed to be off-kilter, surreal and unstable. The gossiping crowd in the cafeteria sounded like a swarm of buzzing locusts. Her own group of friends sat silent.
Jerusa stood up, though her knees felt like they were made of soft rubber, and left the cafeteria without a word. The girls she called friends — but were really no more than acquaintances — would be angry with her for not disclosing what had happened with Thad. Jerusa didn’t care. She was a girl full of secrets.
At the end of the day, when the bell rang, Jerusa pressed through the torrent of students rushing to their lockers, swimming against the current until she spilled through the front doors. Before she even made it to the bottom of the steps, she heard her name drift over the murmur of the crowd. There was no need to turn and look. She could recognize Thad’s voice anywhere.
After the horrible things her mother had said to him, and considering Kristen’s warning, Jerusa thought about making a break for the Tardy Lot and the path through the woods. Instead, she turned to face him, and his smile made her knees want to knock together.
“Hey, I’m sorry about Kristen getting in your face. I told her never to do that again.”
“You did?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Jerusa felt a stupid grin spreading across her face and choked it back. “And I’m sorry about yesterday, y’know, with my mom.”
Thad’s eyes widened as the memory washed through his mind. “I’m not going to lie, that was intense. I thought she was gonna rip my face off. Is she always like that?”
Jerusa shook her head. “No, not very often.” No, her mother had many levels of dysfunction. More than enough to spread around.
“I know she’s your mom and you love her and stuff, but I suggest you find your own place as soon as possible.”
Though he meant it as a joke, the thought of living on her own, out from under her mother’s thumb, was an intoxicating idea, but one that brought on a hangover of guilt.
“Anyways, I wanted to ask you a question. It’s going to seem a little crazy, but I think it would be a lot of fun.”
Jerusa’s mind raced over several scenarios from mischievous to downright criminal. “Okay, go ahead and ask.”
“Will you go to the prom with me?”
Jerusa was struck dumb with shock, but managed to choke out, “Prom?” She stood with her mouth open, her eyes wide and bulging. Her mind begged her body to do something. Speak, cough, blink, laugh, cry, run, dance, anything except standing here like the most awkward statue ever.
“Prom,” Thad said, clearly pleased at the response he had elicited. “You know, that big dance high school kids go to at the end of the school year.”
“I know what prom is,” she said, finding that Thad’s sarcasm and lighthearted personality put her at ease.
“Great. Then you’ll go with me?”
An intense heat flowed from Jerusa’s scalp down into her feet, and she wondered if her toes were blushed as red as her face surely was. She had had this dream more times than she could count. Each time, she had answered by rushing into the young man’s arms, kissing him and whispering, “Yes.” But now, faced with reality, Jerusa felt a spasm of nausea roll through her as she answered: “No. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“No?” His brows furrowed, his lower lip fixed in a tiny pout. His eyes held a hint of hurt with a dash of hope, as if he suspected he was the butt of a joke he did not understand. “Why not?”
“I can’t go to prom with you.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
Alicia appeared behind Thad still dressed for her own prom.
“I can’t,” Jerusa said, trying her best not to stammer. “You saw how my mom was. And that was just a short ride home. You can image how she’d be about something like the prom. She’d lock me in my room.”
Thad cocked his mouth to the side, clearly unimpressed by her excuse. “You know she can’t do that, right? You’re a legal adult, even if you are living under her roof. You’re going to have to stand up to her someday. Why not now?”
She didn’t have time to explain the sensitivity of her relationship with her mother, so she moved on to her next excuse.
“Do you know how close prom is? I don’t have a dress.” She tried her best to seem indignant. “There’s no way I can find a dress in time.”
“I’ll give you that, this is short notice,” Thad said, relinquishing none of his charming smirk. “But you’re smart and resourceful. I’m sure you can find a dress.”
Jerusa laughed at his persistence. He wasn’t going to let this go.
“I’m not going to prom with you,” she said, but the broad smile on her face weakened the resolve of her words.
“Give me one good reason.”
“You just broke up with Kristen. And you and I have never really even spoken to each other until yesterday. Do you not see how weird this is?”
Thad stepped closer to her so that Jerusa had to crane her neck back to look in his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be a date,” he said. “Let’s just go as friends. It’s never too late to start a friendship, is it? I’ve already paid for my tux and the tickets. I’ve already made the dinner reservations. Don’t make me go alone. Besides, we can piss off Kristen and your mom, all in one shot. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Jerusa nodded her head.
“Is that a ‘yes’ that it would be fun, or a ‘yes’ you’ll go to the prom with me?”
Her borrowed heart raced and a thick liquid heat coursed through her veins. “Yes to both.”
Alicia danced and spun around Jerusa and Thad, clapping and laughing in silence. A liberating exhilaration washed over Jerusa, and she longed to join her
dead friend’s celebration.
They exchanged phone numbers. He offered to drive her home again, but this time, she turned him down. She was going to have to do copious amounts of brown-nosing to prepare her mother for the bombshell announcement of a prom date.
They said an awkward goodbye, then parted ways; Thad to his Jeep, Jerusa to the familiar path leading home.
She walked past the Tardy Lot feeling much like gravity had lost some of its authority. Had Thad really asked her to prom? She was sure he had, but it still didn’t seem possible. Somewhere between yesterday and today, the fabric of reality had ripped and she had stepped through to a parallel dimension.
“What was I thinking?” Jerusa asked Alicia as they turned from the sidewalk onto a gravel path dissecting the forest. “I’ve never been on a date before. I don’t know how to dance. Why didn’t I just tell him no?”
Alicia rolled her eyes and swatted at Jerusa’s shoulder. Her hand passed through Jerusa with no more effect than a cold chill and some goose-bumps, but the ghost’s message was clear: Stop worrying so much.
That was an easy stance for Alicia to take. She didn’t have to face Debra Phoenix’s wrath. Jerusa had already pushed the boundaries of her mother’s law. Wanting to get her driver’s license, wanting to apply to college, the ride home in Thad’s Jeep, even walking on this isolated path was taboo in her mother’s eyes.
Alicia stopped suddenly, looking about like a startled cat.
Jerusa kept walking, distracted but not overly alarmed by the ghost’s demeanor. Alicia was often given to fits of exaggerated emotions which Jerusa chalked up to being a perpetual fifteen year old trapped in a world she couldn’t touch.
Alicia vanished, reappearing a few seconds later, twenty feet up the path. Jerusa wondered if perhaps another spirit had sensed her presence and was approaching.
“What is it, Alicia?”
The ghost didn’t respond, but remained still.
Jerusa scanned the woods on either side of the path, but could see nothing. The ghost had only ever reacted this way with Foster Reynolds. Foster, in his pursuit for physical perfection, was famous for his marathon hikes through the limestone hollows.
“Foster,” Jerusa called out. Alicia turned, a look of disbelief curdling upon her face, and gestured for Jerusa to go.
But it wasn’t Foster that stepped out from behind a large maple tree, startling Alicia bad enough that she jumped back. Jerusa remained fixed to her spot, unsure what shocked her most — the sudden appearance of the young man, the fact that he had somehow surprised Alicia, or that he stood as naked as the day he was born.
CHAPTER SIX
Jerusa turned her head, looking toward the ground, but the young man seemed not at all abashed at his nakedness. He stood next to the large maple tree, hands on hips, watching Jerusa with the most curious look upon his face. She guessed his age at late teens, early twenties, but something about his eyes made her think of a young child trying to sort out a simple puzzle.
“Are you all right?” he asked. His English was flawless, though the cadence with which he spoke made it seem as if it were a new language to him.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Jerusa brought her hand up to shield the view her peripherals captured.
“Why do you cover your face?”
Jerusa made a nervous little laugh. “You’re not wearing any clothes.”
“And that makes you uncomfortable?” he asked without a hint of derision.
“Just a little bit.”
“My apologies,” he said. Jerusa heard the dead leaves crinkle under his feet, and then he said, “Is this better?”
Jerusa slowly dropped her hand and looked at the man. He was once again behind the maple tree, but now leaned over, looking around the trunk like a child playing peek-a-boo.
“Yes, better.”
“Whom were you speaking to?” the man asked. “As you walked up, I heard you speaking to someone.”
Jerusa’s eyes drifted to Alicia. The young girl’s eyes were wide and wild, her mouth hung loose, and she panted as though out of breath. A chill rolled down Jerusa’s body.
“I was just talking to myself,” Jerusa said. The young man’s strange green eyes seemed to pierce her thoughts and she could see that he did not believe her.
Jerusa tried to pull her gaze from his, but found it impossible to completely look away. His hair was dark, curly, and unkempt. His skin was the bronzed color of someone from the Mediterranean. He had a face that was ruddy and handsome, without the shadowing of a man’s stubble. His jaw and chin were masculine and defined, perfectly proportioned to his face. And, of course, his otherworldly eyes, two glassy orbs topped in a shade of green that had no name, shone like ghost lights in the midst of a blinding fog. His body was smooth, hairless like a boy, but as firmly muscled as an Olympian.
“Who are you?” Jerusa asked. “I’m mean, what’s your name?” It was all she could do not to trip on her clumsy tongue.
The man seemed to consider the question for a moment. “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know your own name?”
The man shrugged. “If I have one, I cannot remember what it is.”
Jerusa wasn’t quite sure how to reply. “Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Jerusa Phoenix.”
A small, knowing smile fluttered on the man’s lips. He gave a slight bow with his head. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Jerusa Phoenix.”
An uncontainable smile broke on Jerusa’s face. Alicia, however, scowled. She walked slowly to Jerusa’s side, as if the man might spot her and pounce, and though Jerusa couldn’t be sure, she thought she did see his eyes dart toward Alicia for the briefest of moments. Alicia motioned to Jerusa that it was time to move on, but she wasn’t ready to go.
“Where are your clothes?”
He looked down at his naked body. “I don’t think I have any. There weren’t any when I woke up, and I left in such a hurry that I didn’t think to search for any.”
“Where did you wake up? A hospital?” She wondered if he might have escaped from a mental ward or possibly even prison. Alicia didn’t think much of the man and that should have been enough to send Jerusa running, but for some reason, she didn’t feel at all threatened by him.
The man considered her question. “I don’t think so. There was medical equipment there, but I don’t think that it was a hospital.”
“It wasn’t a prison, was it?”
“Maybe,” the man said. “They didn’t want me to leave.”
“Who didn’t want you to leave?”
“The men with the guns,” he said with such frankness that a dark laugh slipped out of Jerusa’s mouth. “They called themselves Light Bearers.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Yes,” the man said. “But I’m all right now.”
Duel knots of repulsion and sadness slithered in Jerusa’s gut. Someone, a cult from the sound of it, had kidnapped the young man and did terrible things to him. That was why he was naked. That was why he couldn’t remember his own name.
“Are you in danger? Do you need help?”
“I don’t believe so,” he said. “But I think they will come looking for me soon.”
“Then you should come with me,” Jerusa said, scanning the forest.
In an instant, her perceptions had changed. Before the forest was green and lush, full of the fragrance of life, golden beams of sunlight dancing with the trees. But now, all she could see were the creeping shadows. A darkened world shunning the light while giving refuge to all things sinister.
Once again, she regarded the young man, the way Alicia had reacted to him, and she wondered to which perception did he belong: the light or the darkness? It was clear what Alicia thought, but Jerusa was unsure. She had grown up in an overprotective world, constructed by a mother, that measured on the strict side of the scale. In these modern times, children were taught to trust no one, scrutinize every sit
uation, because everyone is out for themselves and one didn’t need to search long to find those who desired to destroy others in one fashion or another. Even so, Jerusa sensed no malice in this man, and she was once again overwhelmed with his almost childlike nature — not in form or thought, but in innocence.
“Go with you?” the man asked, amused by the notion. “Where to?”
“The police. They can help you.”
The man shook his head. “No. I don’t believe that would be a good idea.”
“Why? If you’ve been abducted then they can protect you. Get you back to where you belong.”
A deep sadness welled up in his eyes. “What if I don’t belong anywhere?”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand?”
The man didn’t answer, but instead, offered her a tender smile.
“I have a friend,” Jerusa said. “His name is Foster. He lives close by. Will you follow me to his house?” She felt a panic creeping into her voice, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was Alicia’s agitation transferring to her, though is seemed more than that. She felt as though some cosmic time clock had been set in motion and the seconds were rapidly falling away.
Jerusa couldn’t look away from his intense green eyes and a strange sensation of falling overtook her. The budding trees, the whispering breeze, even the sunlight faded from her sight. All that remained was his resplendent face and Alicia dancing about like a jester in the corner of her eye. Though the man made no movement, Jerusa felt his warm, powerful hands caress the sides of her face, his fingers combing through her hair. A pleasant shiver cascaded down her spine and she gasped as if caught off guard by a kiss.
Then the world of trees and light returned. The young man still took shelter behind the maple tree.
“Thank you, but I must remain here,” he said. “I must stay and watch.”
“Watch what?” Jerusa shuddered at the desperation in her voice.
The man smiled, but offered no other explanation.
“If I go to get you some clothes, will you stay here until I get back?”
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 4