“Just go on in. She’s probably just sleeping,” she yawned.
I was getting this icky feeling in my stomach saying otherwise, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Not yet anyways. Taking a deep breath against the smell, I turned the handle on the door. I half expected it to be locked. It wasn’t.
The sight that met me had me taking a step backwards. The smell that I had noticed was blood. Tangy and metallic, it held an appeal to me that I wasn’t prepared to accept. My stomach revolted, both from a mouthwatering eagerness and also from a deep seated disgust. I gagged.
Hearing me, Hallie's mom jumped up. "What? What's wrong?"
She ran to the bedroom. I was too upset to try to stop her. When she saw what I had seen, she too began to gag. However, mixed in with her gagging were sobs. I couldn't help feeling horrified for her. It was so similar to what I had experienced that day when they found all of the blood outside of my house.
This was worse in a way. It was so personal; so devastating. In the room where she had thought her daughter was sleeping because she didn't feel well, was a gory nightmare. Blood sprayed the walls, the furniture, the bedding. Pools of it laid untouched on the hard wood floors. Smears of it streaked across the window.
Hallie wasn't there.
"I think you need to talk to her boyfriend." I whispered.
"He's dead, damn it!" she cried.
"No," I said, backing away from her, moving toward the front door, "that can't be true. I just saw him the other night at the Willows."
She shook her head, "no. You're wrong. He's been dead for a while now." Her eyes were crazed; glossy. I knew she was in shock. "Hallie wouldn't go out to the Willows. There are bad things out there." I opened my mouth to protest, but she was pulling a cell phone out of her pocket. "The police. I have to call the police."
Yeah, I thought, that's my queue to leave.
I didn't even say goodbye. She was already talking to someone on the other end of the phone and I knew only one thing. I had to get the hell out of there. I'm sure the police would be all too willing to take me in for questioning after my own bloody mess I had left behind.
I pounded down the stairs and through the kitchen. Jane was waiting at the counter drumming her fingers. Her eyes widened when she saw me. "Well? Did you talk to her?"
I shook my head. "We have to get out of here. Now."
The door was opening just as we reached it. Arnie was walking in. He cursed when he saw me. "Are you following me, girl?"
With my new heightened sensations I was able to notice subtleties in his appearance that I hadn't picked up on before. It all began to make sense to me. Well at least parts of it. The reason he was always hanging out at the diner. The reason that he seemed so concerned about Hallie.
"It was your son, wasn't it?" I asked him.
Jane was pulling on my arm, trying to get me through the door, but I brushed her hand away. In the far distance, my ears could just make out a siren.
Arnie narrowed his eyes, "what do you mean exactly?"
"The guy, the one who got Hallie pregnant, it was your son."
He gulped, "what does it matter? He isn't around to see it anyways."
I pointed to one of the missing posters on the wall. "Is this him?" I demanded.
He nodded. "Dan was a good kid, but he made some bad choices. They cost him his life."
There were tears in his eyes and I wanted to be sympathetic, but there was no time for that. The sirens were getting closer.
"He's not dead," I told him. "I've seen him. He was with Hallie just the other night; at the Willows."
He paled. "No." He shook his head vehemently. "I warned you about going out to the Willows. You're going to end up dead just like all the rest of them."
"Are you all crazy? Are you all out of your minds?"
"Evie, come on," Jane interrupted. "We have to get out of here."
I let her pull me further out of the diner, but Arnie followed us. His face was turning red and blotchy. He was shaking. "Don't go back there. You don't know what you are dealing with. Mark my words."
The grip Jane had on my hand tightened and I didn't struggle as she pulled me across the street. An engine roared and it took me a few seconds to realize that it was that same drunk asshole who had almost hit me before. I let Jane pull me faster.
I turned my back on the diner, eager to get into Jane's car and get the hell out of there, but the sound of squealing tires had me turning back. The sound of breaks trying to screech to a halt had me frozen in place.
Arnie hadn't stayed in the diner. Arnie hadn't noticed the drunken asshole barreling down the road. Arnie hadn't looked both ways. Arnie hadn't been as lucky as I had been days before.
In front of my eyes, I saw the car slam into the fragile body of the man who had been trying to warn me. In front of my eyes, I saw him thrown backwards from the impact. With my heightened hearing, I heard the crunch as bones were broken. With my heightened smelling, I smelt the blood as it spilled on the cold asphalt.
"Evie, now!" Jane screamed.
With a severe feeling of self preservation, I obeyed. We turned the corner just as the first of the flashing lights came into view.
Chapter Eleven
"What the hell happened back there?" Jane asked when we were far away from Willow Grove.
It was still early; not even two in the afternoon and we had nowhere to go. I felt horrible that I had gotten Jane involved in something that I didn't even understand. How was I supposed to explain something to her, when I didn't even know what had happened?
I closed my eyes and rubbed my hand over my face. "I don't know." I opened them and looked out of my window, sighing, "there was so much blood."
Jane gasped. "Blood?" She gulped, "is Hallie de... I mean is she okay?"
I knew that she had been going to say dead and closed my eyes again against the onslaught of memories my brain pulled up. Even with my eyes open, the images haunted me. "I don't know, but it wasn't her blood."
The moment I said those words, I knew that I was telling the truth. Subconsciously, my mind had known all along that the blood in her room wasn't human blood. That's why I supposed it smelled a little unfamiliar to me. The knowledge that I knew these things was disturbing and I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.
"I don't know what to do, Jane." I laughed bitterly.
"My mom's out of town until Friday. Let's go to my house and come up with a plan."
I nodded and leaned my head back against the seat. It was awkward in the car. So many things were left unsaid between Jane and I. All of them were hanging in the air making it feel muggy and tense in the car. Part of me wanted to just get them all out into the open, but my mind was still trying to wrap itself around much freakier things. Like the fact that all of the sudden I had super human powers of strength, hearing and vision. It sort of made me wonder what other sorts of things I could do.
After about twenty minutes Jane pulled into her driveway, pushed the button on her garage door opener, and then pulled her car inside before closing the door behind us. Her mother was a doctor. One of the few doctors in Rocky Point, her mother was very successful and owned one of the biggest houses in town. It was sort of secluded, sitting higher up in the mountains than my house. It was perfect for hiding out; at least until the cops realized that Jane was with me.
I followed Jane into the house. It was eerily quiet in there and I couldn't help myself from rubbing at the goose bumps that popped up on my arms. This house had once been as familiar to me as my own, but like so many things in my life, it now felt foreign and alien in a way that was depressing.
My cell rang and I jumped. It was Mason. "I can't answer this." Tears were beginning to pool in my eyes and I bit my lip.
Jane just took the phone from my hands and turned it off. "Why don't you just go and lay down for a little while." I nodded.
The guest bedroom was still in the same place. It sounds crazy, but I had half expected it to be different too. The fact th
at it wasn't was almost comforting. It was a big room with a huge bed dominating the center of the one full wall. Just like the rest of the bedrooms in the house, it had doors that led out to its own balcony and mirrored doors on the closet.
I sunk gratefully into the soft mattress and buried my head in my hands. I was tired; really really tired. Most of all, I was scared. Somewhere along the way I had left grief behind. I had left angry behind when I had walked out of Hallie's house. All that was left was fear. Not fear of what was happening or even what I was getting involved in. It was a horrific fear of the things I had done and the things I knew now I was capable of doing.
Had any of those kids at school been seriously hurt? The tears spilled from my eyes and ran through my fingertips. I scooted back toward the wall and burrowed underneath the blankets letting their warmth lull me into an emotionally drained sleep.
I’m not sure how long I slept or if I even dreamt. If I did, I didn’t remember it. All I knew was when I finally woke up, I was freezing. It was dark in my bedroom and eerily quiet. With my enhanced senses I had started to become accustomed to hearing everything, but now, I couldn’t even hear the wind rustling in the trees outside. It was like everything around me was muffled.
I shook my head trying to clear the last remnants of fog from my brain. Crawling out of the covers, I reached for my cell phone and pushed the button to see what time it was. I had just enough power for that. The display read eleven thirteen just before the battery finally gave out and the phone went dead. Eleven at night? That meant that I had slept for just over eight hours.
Yawning, I stretched and stood up with the intention of going and finding Jane. Like it or not, she was in this with me and we needed to come up with some sort of game plan. It wouldn’t matter to Mason that I was in trouble with the cops, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already have the whole town out looking for me.
Before I even made it two steps, though, something caught my eye. There was a breeze in the room. Icy cold and brutal, it was rustling the bed skirt just enough for me to notice it through the mirror. I wrapped my arms around myself and turned toward the door to the balcony. It was open. A different sort of chill snaked across my body. I knew that I hadn’t opened that door. With dread forming in the pit of my stomach, I began to walk slowly toward it.
When I got there, the way the light from the moon was shining down on the balcony railing compelled me to cross over the threshold and gaze up into its radiance. There was something magical about the way the light spilled across the darkness of the forest, creating the illusion that everything was peaceful. I shivered. Deep down, after everything I’d seen, I knew that it wasn’t.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I felt his breath on the side of my neck before I heard his words in my ear. I spun around to face him. He was just as breathtaking as he had been that first night I saw him. I felt an immediate connection to him just as I had in my dream.
“What are you doing here?”
He smiled sadly, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
It wasn’t an answer to my question, but the sadness in his words caused a pang in my heart. “It’s okay. I was just thinking about you.”
I said that last part softly. I hadn’t even admitted to myself how often he had been on my mind, so to admit it to him was enough to throw me into panic mode. I didn’t care, though. In the light from the moon I could tell that his eyes were a dark deep brown. The sort of eyes that would probably look brilliant in the light of the sun, but in the darkness seemed mysterious and soulful. His inky black hair had traces of reddish highlights and again, I found myself wondering what it would look like when the sun kissed the strands.
“I’ve been thinking about you as well.” He leaned back against the railing and just looked at me. It was slightly unnerving and yet erotic in a way that had my pulse quickening. It was like his eyes could see places inside of me that I didn’t even know existed; like he knew me in ways that no one else could ever comprehend.
A thought popped into my head. Should I tell him what happened? Once there, it was impossible to let go of and I began chewing on my lower lip debating my answer. He smiled at me, amused by my actions and held out his hand toward me.
“Why didn’t you come see me that night? Was it because you didn’t want to? I’ve been trying to keep away from you, but there is something about you that I just can’t let go of.”
His words came too fast. They were too much for me to comprehend. These sorts of things didn’t happen, did they? Was it possible to have feelings for someone, to know someone, without having spent any time together? The words ‘love at first sight’ had to have some merit to them or they would have never been said, but they seemed so shallow, so superficial.
“I’m sorry. I did want to, I just couldn’t.”
I knew that it wasn’t much of an explanation, but I was too much of a coward to admit that Sevren had come to me that same night. As much as the thought of what had happened repulsed me, there was a part of him inside of me; a part of him that had made me stronger, that opened up the floodgates to my emotions and made me really feel again.
“There’s something between us, Evie.” He twined his fingers with mine and pulled me closer to him. “I haven’t felt like this about someone in a really long time.”
I swallowed… hard, “this can’t be really happening. I have to be dreaming.”
He wrapped his arms around me. I let him. “I’m real. You are real.” He kissed me softly on my lips. I let him. “This is real,” he whispered.
I was lost in the moment. I was intoxicated with him. I didn’t want it to end.
Trying to deepen the kiss, I pressed myself closer to him. He chuckled. “I don’t want to rush this, love. I want to savor it, cherish it, protect it.” Instead of kissing me back, he gently eased my head down so that it was resting on his chest. He stroked my hair and pressed tiny kisses onto the top of my head.
We stood like that for a long time. Just holding on to one another and gazing up at the moon. Well mostly gazing up at the moon. I spent part of the time with my eyes closed just savoring the moment; the feel of him, the way he smelt, the way my heart raced and then slowed down comfortably in his arms. It felt like I belonged there. That for the first time in my life, I was right where I was supposed to be at the exact moment I was supposed to be there.
One moment it was heaven, the next it was hell.
The door of the bedroom flew open. I heard it as it crashed into the wall in the bedroom behind us. Jane came hurtling out onto the balcony so quickly that it didn’t seem real. She pointed accusing fingers at Remy, her eyes blazing with a fury I had never before seen in them; a fury that I had no idea she was capable of.
“It’s too soon!” She cried, pushing him away from me.
He flew across to the other side of the balcony with a crunching sound. At first I thought it was his bones breaking, then when I saw the dust fall I realized that the force of his impact had cracked the cement railing of the balcony. I looked at Jane with accusations in my eyes. Why hadn’t she told me that she was going through the same sorts of things I was? Then I looked at Remy expecting him to be hurt or bleeding from the shove, but to my surprise, he was fine.
He straightened up and walked toward Jane, slowly, like he was barely concealing his anger. “Do not tell me what I can and cannot do, infant,” he sneered.
Finally Jane turned to me and threw a set of car keys at me. They hit me in my chest, but I quickly reached up and grabbed hold of them. “Run!” she yelled, “just get away from here, Evie.”
I was going to resist, say something to her along the lines of ‘mind your own business’ but the sound of Remy growling, froze me. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. My palms were sweating and my body was shaking. When Remy’s eyes found me, they softened.
“Evie… I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond. Jane dove at him, breaking my momentary paralysis, and
I ran. Through the bedroom, into the hallway, down the stairs and out to the garage, I ran as fast as my feet would allow me to. I fumbled with the lock to Jane’s car before I remembered that the doors weren’t even locked. I hurriedly climbed inside and shoved the key into the ignition, only barely remembering to open the garage door before I barreled out of it.
From this angle, I couldn’t see what was going on in the house, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out either. Tears were streaming down my face. I wasn’t sure if they were because I was scared, because I was frustrated, or because I was completely confused about what just happened. All I knew was that they were annoying and I swiped them away, trying to keep my vision clear for the road.
The clock on the radio said it was almost three o’clock in the morning. Had Remy and I really been standing there for over three hours? “I must be losing my freaking mind,” I said out loud. Only I knew that I wasn’t. I knew that there were things going on that were way beyond my current comprehension.
In the end, with nowhere else to go, I drove home; but I did it carefully. As soon as I turned onto our street, I turned off the headlights and crept the car slowly up the road. I probably wasn’t even going five miles an hour, but I was trying to be as quiet as I could be.
I was relieved when my house came into view. All of the lights may have been blazing, but there were no cop cars around as far as I could see. I knew that Mason was probably freaking out and from what I had been experiencing the past week, he had a right to be.
The car crept past my house, I didn't figure it would do me any good to announce my arrival. Sneaking through the woods, scary as it sort of sounded, was the better option for me. So I parked up the road just past Mr. Gates house. There was nothing really up there, so unless someone was lost they probably wouldn't see the car there.
The air cut through my coat and took my breath away. It felt like icy knifes raking across my skin and I wished momentarily for the numbness that had once consumed me. With all of these emotions coursing back through me, I felt raw and exposed; vulnerable.
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