She climbed in the passenger door of her mom’s truck. The air conditioner was on full-blast, filling the huge vehicle with enough cold air to cool the Mohave Desert. “Hey, Mom.”
“We’re on our way home,” her mom said into the phone then pushed end and placed the phone in a cup holder. “Where have you been?” she demanded, her brows drawn into a frown of concern.
“Would you believe Vegas? And you know what they say about Vegas. What happens in Vegas…”
Her mother slapped her hands against the steering wheel. “Jael! This is not a joke. We were worried about you. You’re not ready and we can’t protect you out here.”
“Protect me from what, Mom?” She shook her head, trying to understand. “I thought the danger was in Minnesota. That’s why we live here, thirty miles from a one cop town, in the middle of the desert.”
She dropped her head against the wheel and groaned as though explaining was nearly as painful as the day she gave birth to Jael. “Honey, you’re never safe. They have scouts looking for us.” She straightened and reached out a hand, brushing her fingers along her daughter’s smooth cheek. “Trackers. They can smell The Chosen One from a hundred yards.”
“Smell?” Jael wrinkled her nose. “I do shower daily, you know.”
“They aren’t like regular people. Trackers have a heightened sense of smell. They are part Native American and part…well, I’ll leave the evil history to your father.” She put the truck into gear and pulled out of the school parking lot, headed toward home.
Jael leaned her head against the passenger window. The glass was cool and calming. Her parents expected so much from her now. She’d just found out she was The Chosen One and all of a sudden she was supposed to act differently, think differently, and be constantly on guard against Indians. Really? Because Sunburn was full of Native Americans. She didn’t know if they were Navajo, Shoshone or Paiute but being on guard against half the town might prove to be a bit tiring.
They passed the billboard where Officer Wallace snoozed in his patrol car and moments later had left Sunburn’s town limits behind. Miles and miles of barren desert stretched westward, nothing but sagebrush and an occasional cactus to mar the otherwise bleak landscape. Jael squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun. The blacktop ahead seemed to ripple and writhe like a pool of water. A desert mirage.
Her mother flipped the visor down and slipped sunglasses on. She glanced at Jael and back to the road. “I don’t mean to put a damper on your life, Jael. Your father and I just…” She shook her head. “We’ve been doing this hiding and preparing thing for so long, and now that the time is near…”
Jael twisted in her seat, throwing her arm along the back of her mom’s headrest. “Near what?”
Her mom shot another glance her way and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Your sixteenth birthday.”
“You’re telling me that instead of a sweet sixteen party and a possible first kiss, I get a big sendoff to kill vamps? Wow, that sounds awesome, Mom. Definitely a Kodak moment.”
“No, not awesome. It’s not what I dreamed of for you at all. When I grew up in the Amish community rocking my baby sister and playing with cloth dolls, I never envisioned that my daughter would some day be the Chosen One. That you would be destined for a life of danger and darkness.” Her voice shook and a tear slipped out from under her shades and down her cheek. “If I could do it myself and spare you from this destiny, I would. Believe me.”
Jael bit her lip and turned back to look out the side window. “What if I don’t want to be The Chosen One?” she asked, her voice small and tight in her throat.
They drove on in silence for a mile or two. Then her mom reached out and took her hand. “It’s not about wanting. It never has been. Whether you accept it or not, doesn’t really matter. Eventually they will realize who you are,” she said, squeezing Jael’s fingers tightly, “and your destiny will explode around you. Better to be prepared than caught unaware.”
A semi roared past them, pulling a smooth white tanker filled with some kind of combustible liquid. It picked up speed and was soon just a dot on the road ahead. Her mom slowed to turn down their road. Chunky gravel crunched beneath the tires of the SUV, and a cloud of dust billowed up behind them, hanging in the air long after they passed. A cloud that could be followed.
Jael glanced away from the side mirror. She was beginning to feel as paranoid as her parents acted. Who was going to follow? Other than the semitrailer there hadn’t been another soul on the road all the way from school.
After another mile on the gravel road, they turned into the driveway of their ranch style home. The modest house was set back from the road and penned in on three sides by a corral type fence. A few scraggly pines that someone had planted about ten years earlier gave little shade to the yard. The ground was rocky and cracked, heat making it impossible to grow grass. At least she didn’t have to mow a lawn. Not since moving to Nevada.
The tool shed, about fifty yards south of the house, was open, the door moving eerily in the slight desert breeze. Her mom climbed out of the truck and looked around, one hand digging in her purse. She pulled out a tiny container of pepper spray, dropped her purse back on the truck seat and motioned for Jael to follow.
Jael had no idea what her mom was going to do with pepper spray but knew better than to argue. She moved quickly around the truck, scanning the yard and sagebrush field beyond. Nothing moved; not even one of the black-tailed jackrabbits she’d seen romping around near the house lately. “I don’t see any…” she began, standing just behind her mom’s left shoulder.
“Shh.” She held the pepper spray out in front like a talisman and moved slowly forward toward the shed.
The high-pitched creak of the door’s rusty hinges sent a tingle climbing Jael’s spine. “Where’s Bruno?” she whispered, her body rigid with tension. The dog normally plowed her over each day before she barely stepped foot out of the truck. The only time he’d missed greeting her after school was when he was sick from eating a bag of chocolate hearts she’d left out in her room one Valentine’s day. He threw up all over and then just lay under the deck and whined.
They both stopped a few feet from the open door of the shed, her mom holding the spray can out and Jael moving into a defensive crouch. She registered the excited yip of Bruno locked inside the house in the same instant that a masked man barreled out of the shed, knocked the spray from her mom’s hand and pushed her down, then turned to take on Jael.
“Jael, run!” her mom screamed, scrambling to get up from the ground where she’d fallen.
Jael measured the man with her eyes. Dressed in black from head to toe, a stocking pulled over his face, he was solidly built but not much taller than she. He moved like a pro, stepping past her mom and advancing slowly, carefully, his eyes locked with hers. Obviously, he understood that she was the one to be reckoned with. After pushing her mom around, he very well should expect a good thrashing.
She moved back, leading him further away from her mom, her hands up and ready to strike. He might be stronger but he wouldn’t be faster. She circled, gaining advantage by her position. He moved to grab her and she jabbed him in the eye and whipped around to apply a jump kick to his back. He went down, rolled and was up so fast she barely had time to deflect a sharp jab to her side.
Her mom stood shakily and backed out of the way, leaving them to their dance. The man glanced her way when she bent to pick up the pepper spray again.
Jael took the distraction as an opportunity. She planted a jump kick to the man’s face. He fell back with a loud grunt of pain and lay there for a second unmoving. She moved in to put him completely out of commission with a joint lock, but the man pulled a knife from his boot and swung it at her with lightening speed.
The blade nicked her leg, drawing blood. Her mom screamed and started toward her and then she heard Bruno tearing across the yard, the pads of his feet on the hard ground thumping like a horse at full gallop. The man turned to gauge Bruno’s approac
h and Jael kicked the knife from his fingers, grabbed his hand and forced his wrist and arm into a locked position. Holding his arm behind his back she managed to bring him to his knees.
“All right, I give!” he spat out, pain tingeing his words with breathlessness.
Bruno stopped just short of biting the man’s nose off, planted all four feet and growled deep in his throat, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. Jael was pretty sure the intruder’s neck hairs were doing the same.
She grinned. “Good boy, Bruno.”
Her mother tentatively approached them. She glanced down at the open cut dripping blood into Jael’s boot. “Honey, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Find Dad.” She was worried that something had happened to him.
“I’m right here, kiddo. I saw the whole thing. You did great!” He strode across the yard, following the path that Bruno had just taken. He pushed his hair back with one hand and stopped to sling an arm around his wife. “Better than I expected.”
Was he in the house the whole time? Watching? What was this, a setup? She tightened her grip on the man and he grunted.
“Could you let me up now?” he gasped from beneath her.
“Let him go, Jael,” her father said, laughter in his voice, “it’s just your Uncle Seth.”
She glared at her parents and reluctantly released the man and stepped back. Bruno growled more menacingly than before and looked ready to take over where she’d left off. “It’s okay, Bruno. Good boy.” She patted his head and grabbed his collar to pull him away so the man could get on his feet.
Her father stepped forward, still grinning. “That was amazing. I’m so proud of you, Jael.” He tried to pull her into his arms but she stepped out of reach.
“I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t funny.” She shot her mother a glance. “Did you know about this? Were you just playing along with Dad’s game the whole time?”
Her mom shook her head, lips pressed into a thin line. “I thought we were truly in danger, Jael. I didn’t know it was Seth until he pulled the knife.”
Seth laughed, a froggy croak of a voice. He pulled the mask from his face. Blonde hair spilled out. “How would you recognize my knife?”
“Not the knife. The tattoo on the back of your hand.” Her mother turned and started toward the house. “Come on, Jael. Let’s clean that cut so you don’t get an infection.”
Jael released Bruno’s collar. The big dog gave Seth another warning growl before following her across the yard toward the house. He never did like her uncle and right now she didn’t blame him. She stopped at the bottom of the steps and took his head in her hands, looked him in the eyes. “Guard the house, Bruno,” she whispered. “No admittance.”
Chapter 5
Slayers should be seen and not heard
Chosen Page 4