Trusting Ethan was the only instinct I was absolutely certain about. “Yes,” I said, gulping back the burning sensation that had started to creep up my throat.
While students poured out of the school, I leaned against the wall, waiting for Ethan. Pulling out my cell phone, I knew I’d be too emotional to say anything, so I sent two text messages. The first one was to my mom.
I love you. I’m glad you’re coming to my game. The last sentence was my way of believing in Ethan, even though my chest ached with worry.
I thought of calling my Gran, but the last thing I wanted to do was worry her. I sent the second text to my aunt.
Just wanted to tell you that I love you.
After I hit send, I stared at the last text message my dad had sent me. I hadn’t opened it, nor had I deleted it. My mind warred with my heart. The look on his face when he’d rushed toward me, full of panic and fear as the bookcase had started to tumble over, flashed in my mind once more. I tried to open the text and the same garbled letters and numbers appeared. Closing the text, I opened it once more.
Please text me, Nari.
“Why did you leave us?” I whispered.
“Hey, Nara.”
Lainey stood in front of me. “Hey.” Turning my cell off, I dropped it in my backpack.
“How’s the skit going?”
If I didn’t make it today, I hoped Lainey stayed safe. She’d made me laugh yesterday. I missed spending “girl time” with her. “Um, it’s a work in progress.”
Ethan stood behind Lainey and I glanced at him, then at Lainey, saying, “Ethan, this is Lainey. Lainey, Ethan.”
Lainey openly stared at his face. “What happened to you?”
He shrugged. “Just helping a friend out.”
The swelling had faded, but Ethan’s comment made me wonder what kind of friend got him popped in the jaw and lip. Then again, he’d taken the brunt of two metal bookcases for me last night.
Shaking her head, a bemused smile curved Lainey’s lips. “You coming to the game tonight, Ethan?”
Ethan moved to lean on the wall beside me. Bending his knee, he flattened his boot against the wall. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ve seen you two in study hall.” Lainey glanced back and forth between us. “You’re totally into Nara, aren’t you?”
“Lainey!” My face raged with heat.
“You could say that.”
The conviction in Ethan’s voice made my heart melt. Too emotional to keep staring at him, I looked away as Jared walked up and hooked his arm around Lainey’s neck. “Come on, Lane. I’ve got practice in a few.”
Lainey laughed and backed away, waving. “See you at the game, Nara.”
While a few people still lingered in the atrium talking among themselves, Ethan reached down to clasp my hand. “You ready?”
I felt giddy when his fingers folded tight around mine, my fear temporarily eclipsed. It was the first time Ethan had purposefully taken my hand in view of everyone since that day in the assembly. Sure he’d touched my face, brushed his fingers against my hair and stuff, but it never lasted very long and I always missed his warmth when he moved away.
I exhaled a steadying breath. “Yeah, let’s go.”
My chest felt like it was caving inward when we walked outside into the cool afternoon air. “What doesn’t make sense is why Fate would try to attack me. It knows I can see my future and avoid getting hurt.” I lifted our locked hands. “Well, at least I can through you.”
Ethan’s hold tightened. “It has tried to scare you before. Now it’s making it personal and deadly.”
A raven sat on one of the school’s tall light posts, cawing away. I shivered. It was like the bird was calling for my death. “What happened in the dream?”
Ethan veered to the left side of the parking lot and stepped up on the sidewalk. Most people ignored the sidewalks, preferring to walk the line of parked cars in the lot to get to their vehicles. Nodding to the right side of the lot, he said, “You were walking along that side of the lot on the sidewalk.
The one day I followed the school rules and used the sidewalk, I bought it. Fate truly hated me. Two guys, hopping the bright orange plastic netting that blocked off the construction area near the sidewalk, drew my attention. One of them climbed into the huge construction vehicle. “Don’t tell me those two cause the accident?”
His fingers tightened around mine. “Okay, I won’t tell you.”
“Ethan!”
“The jerkoffs turn on the tractor and—” Ethan paused, staring at the pyramid of metal piping stacked near the equipment.
The construction vehicle had started up. The guys pumped their fists, whooping and hollering at their success. Idiots. I glanced at the bird, surprised it was still on its perch with all the racket going on down below. I couldn’t hear his gronking over the construction vehicle’s engine, but its black beak was wide open.
Ethan nodded toward the vehicle’s claw. “They pull a lever that makes that claw swing around and knock into the stack of pipes. The pipes tumble outside the netting and roll toward the parking lot. You tried to get out of the way, but one of the pipes slammed into you.”
I gripped his arm. “No one else is hit? The pipes don’t go into the parking lot?”
He shook his head and just like he described, the claw swung swiftly around, ramming into the stack. Four large dark pipes rapidly tumbled over the netting, rolling one after the other. I winced at the reverberating throooong of heavy pipes bouncing off each other. Someone screamed, “Lookout!” and a couple of people dove out of the way. Everyone else gawked as the pipes came to a stacked-up slamming halt against the low cement girder supporting the heavy light post.
Swooping ink-black wings drew my attention and I looked up, then screamed, “The light!”
Ethan yanked my arm and dove, rolling us both. He landed on the cement first, taking the hardest hit before the momentum turned us over a couple times until we came to a painful, jerking halt. A second later, the six-inch wide light post fell across the parking lot, landing with a heavy thud just a few feet away—exactly where I’d been standing.
Ethan’s hand cradled the back of my head and we both panted as we stared at each other in shock. “Are you okay?” he asked.
My right arm ached, but I didn’t think it was broken. “I think so.” No one else appeared to have been hurt, but people were screaming and yelling. They sounded like they were talking through a tunnel from far away.
Moving quickly, Ethan stood and pulled me to my feet. He grabbed my backpack and his books. When someone said, “Shouldn’t the school nurse check you out?” Ethan didn’t stop. Instead, he tugged me straight to his car and unlocked the passenger door.
I was so shaken, I slid into the seat without a word and automatically snapped the seatbelt around me. Closing my eyes, I welcomed the comforting smell of pine and Ethan.
I don’t remember the ride, just the feel of Ethan opening the door, lifting me out of the car and carrying me inside his house. Soft leather surrounded us as he sat down on the sofa with me still in his arms and gathered me close. I shivered, clinging to his tense frame like he was my lifeline. In many ways, he was.
Ethan’s hand trembled as he stroked my hair. Pressing his lips to my temple, his heart pounded against my arm. “You’re safe,” he said in a shaky whisper.
After a while, my shivers finally passed and I started to slide off his lap, but he clasped me close, his voice a husky rasp, “I’d lose it if something happened to you, Nara.”
The wrecked emotion in his voice surprised and worried me. “Ethan—
Sliding his hand along my jean-covered thigh, he flashed an embarrassed half-smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hang that on you.”
His gaze looked vulnerable, making my heart twist. I told myself that adrenaline drove his words, but I loved hearing the emotion behind them. Smiling, I shook my head. “Don’t you dare take it back.”
His hand tightened on my leg. “Not a ch
ance. God, that was too close...”
The angst in his voice reminded me of that day in study hall when he wasn’t ready to let go of my hand. I was glad he seemed to need me as much as I did him. “You saved me. Again,” I said, laying my head on his shoulder and snuggling closer.
“I had help. How did you know about the light post?”
“That part wasn’t in your dream?”
His chin touched my forehead and then moved away as he shook his head.
“I didn’t.” My laugh sounded flat. “The raven flying away from the top of the post caused me to look up.”
Ethan rested his chin on my head. “A raven, huh?”
“When we first walked out of school, he was sitting on that light post cawing. I remember thinking the bird was making all that noise, like he was announcing my impending death. How morbid is that?”
His arms tightened around me and his voice turned hard. “You’re not going to die.”
I glanced at him with a half smile. “Maybe he was cussing you out for making him wait for his afternoon kibble.”
Ethan’s chuckle turned into a pained hiss. “You’re hurt.” I immediately sat up and tried to see where he was wounded.
He shrugged, then gritted out, “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Before he could stop me, I slid off his lap and grasped his shoulder. Pushing it forward, I saw blood starting to ooze through his fleece along his left shoulder blade. “You’re bleeding!” I jumped up. “Where’s your first aid kit?”
“I’ll be okay.” Ethan tried to grasp my hand.
“Where, Ethan?”
He pointed toward the hall. “In the bathroom closet on the top shelf.”
Two seconds later I was back. Opening the small plastic box on the coffee table, I said, “Take off your shirt.”
When he winced as he pulled his shirt and fleece off, I gulped at the nasty, oozing scrape and grabbed a disinfectant wipe. “This is going to hurt.”
“No more than landing on it did,” he grunted.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled as I tore the foil package then dabbed antiseptic on the angry wound the size of a racquetball.
Ethan grabbed my wrist and stopped my movements, his blue gaze sharp and intense. “All that matters is that you’re safe.”
When he turned away and lowered his hand back down to his thigh, I continued dabbing at his wound, even as my gaze strayed to the dragon tattoo that took up half his left forearm. My mom was right, the intricate black outlined design and muted color was striking.
The dragon’s tail whipped around the corded muscles in Ethan’s forearm before swinging back up and around the top of his forearm, where the end of the tail touched the dragon’s chin. Instead of flames flowing from the dragon’s open mouth, a flame-like design fanned out from the dragon’s muscular shoulder and powerful back leg. Several different symbols were embedded in the flames’ tips.
My gaze ate up every inch of Ethan’s broad, sleekly-muscled back, straying to the six-inch long feather tattoo that pointed diagonally down his other shoulder blade. I thought it was interesting that he’d left the feather tattoo a mere black outline, yet he had the dragon tattoo shaded and shadowed with various grays, giving it depth. Either way, the tattoos were hot and intriguing.
As I smeared an antibiotic ointment across his wound, I said, “I like the design of your dragon tattoo. Does the dragon mean something important to you?”
Ethan’s back muscles tensed until I lifted my ointment-coated finger from his wound. “It gives me peace of mind.”
Laying a sterile gauze pad gently over his wound, I applied medical tape to hold it in place. “Peace of mind?”
“Yeah.” He pulled me back into his lap and took my hand, sliding my fingers across the ink on his arm. “You asked me how I dealt with all the negative stuff I see. This is one of the ways I do that. To some, the dragon is a symbol of protection.”
I gripped his arm, my heart thumping. “Protection?”
He gave a crooked smile. “You’ve seen the monsters I’ve drawn and experienced my dreams yourself. I think those creatures are mostly my mind manifesting images to interpret the crap I’m experiencing, but sometimes what I feel and see in my dreams is more than darkness and negativity. It’s pure evil, Nara.”
I shivered, remembering how awful his dreams felt, how sick to my stomach I’d been when I awoke. I could only imagine the different kinds of “negativity” he’d had to face over the years. Now I knew why I’d seen him grip his forearm each time he’d seen the creatures during the day. “Is the feather also a symbol of protection?”
He dropped his gaze to the dragon. “Dragons have scales, not feathers. Those are flames.”
“I know those are flames. I was referring to your feather tattoo.”
His forehead creased. “I don’t have a feather tattoo.”
Laughing, I clamped my hand on his right shoulder and thrummed my fingers on his skin. “The one on your shoulder blade, silly.”
Realization flickered on his face. “The only thing on my shoulder is probably an irritated rash. A while back my shoulder was itching and burning, so I got up and slapped some cortisone on it.” He grimaced. “I guess it didn’t help, and now it looks like a feathery rash.”
I shook my head, feeling my stomach tense. “It’s a feather in black ink.”
Frowning, Ethan clasped my waist, then set me on the couch. When he stood and headed for the bathroom, I followed.
He turned and leaned against the sink, his back to the mirror. As he reached over his shoulder to rub the feather with the tips of his fingers, I snickered. “I know it’s on your back and all, but surely you didn’t forget you had that tattoo.”
His blue gaze snapped to mine in the mirror, his jaw working. “I didn’t get this inked, Nara.”
I smirked and leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded. “You mean you don’t remember getting it. You must’ve really been smashed that night.”
He turned to look at me. “With all the stuff I have to deal with, the last thing I need is to add alcohol or drugs to the mix. I don’t do either.”
Disbelief replaced my amusement as I stared at the feather in the mirror. His biceps flexed as he folded his arms and leaned against the pedestal sink, looking angry and shaken.
“What—what about sleepwalking?” I was grasping at straws, but there had to be a logical explanation.
He looked skeptical. I shrugged. “I’ve read stories about people who sleepwalk, some who’ve even driven and done other crazy things while sleeping and they never remembered doing it…” I trailed off.
“Even if that were possible and I somehow ignored the pain as it healed,” exasperation hardened his tone, “a feather means nothing to me symbolically, Nara. I would never have chosen it for a tattoo. I should’ve turned on the light that night I put on that cortisone. I never even looked.”
Like that would’ve made a difference. He didn’t even know how it got there. I could tell he was confused and growing more agitated by the minute. I didn’t have an answer either, but it wasn’t like he and I were “normal” people anyway. At least the tattoo wasn’t hurting him. Right now he needed someone to talk him down. Stepping close, I leaned against his tense body and slid my fingers down his shoulder, running my hand over the feather. “Wherever it came from, it’s a beautiful tattoo.”
Wrapping his arm around me, he crushed his fingers in my hair and pressed my head to the crook of his neck. “Thanks for trying,” he said as he exhaled a harsh breath.
His chest felt hard and warm. While his pulse beat a rapid pace along my cheekbone, I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a positive spin. “Feathers can have some cool meanings like…I know Free Bird,” I said. He chuckled softly at the old song reference and his stiff frame relaxed a little.
Burying his nose in my hair, he murmured, “Keep shining that light, Sunshine.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Thank God you’re all right. I just hear
d about what happened in the parking lot,” Lainey said as she sat down beside me on the bench.
I adjusted my sock over my shin guard. “Yeah, it was a close call, but I’m fine.”
Nodding to the bleachers, Lainey rolled a soccer ball under her cleat. “Your mom and aunt are here? What gives?”
Mom and Aunt Sage? I glanced up from tying my shoelaces to see Ethan sitting down beside Mom. “I have no idea. It’s like a miracle or something,” I mumbled, wondering why they’d both showed up for this game.
When Ethan spoke to Aunt Sage, who sat next to Mom, I couldn’t get over how mouthwatering he looked in black. Before he’d driven me to my car earlier, he’d pulled on a black fleece jacket over a gray vintage t-shirt.
Lainey snickered, eyeing Mom and Aunt Sage. “Yeah, since they’re both here, maybe you should buy a lottery ticket.”
My luck had been pretty crappy the past couple of days. No thanks to Fate. But seeing my mom and aunt in the crowd made me feel so good that optimism began to surge through me. I wasn’t going to let Fate freak me out. I didn’t believe it was my time to die. “Not old enough for lottery tickets, but I’ll bet you that no balls will get past me tonight.”
A competitive glint sparked in Laniey’s eyes as she held up her hand. “Nothing would make me happier than to shut this team down on their own turf.”
I slapped her hand, sealing the deal. “What’re the terms?”
She looked thoughtful. “If even one ball gets past, then you have to come to Jared’s party next week…and bring Ethan.”
Ugh. The last thing I wanted to do was force Ethan to attend a crowded house full of drunk-assed people. They’d all be bumping and stumbling into him, sending God only knew what kind of negative vibes his way. But I was feeling reckless and daring after everything that had happened. I needed to exert aggressive energy and celebrate being alive, because that was my destiny. I wanted to fight, to prove that I could cause a positive outcome and end today on an upswing. “It’s a deal. But if I win the bet, then you’re gonna help me convince Coach you’re a much better backup goalie than Sophia.”
Brightest Kind of Darkness Page 20