“You can’t do that. It wouldn’t be a party without you. It sounds like it’ll be quite the bash. Nothing like we throw on the Hill, but it’s sure to be talked about.” There was a long silence. I wiggled out of my jeans and slipped on my pajama bottoms. His voice deepened, became more focused. “I would have thrown you a party.”
“My father wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“He thinks I’m trying to get something for my good deeds?”
I paused, pulling my tee up. When had I mentioned that to him? “He thinks you’re trying to get something from me, yeah.”
“I only want what you want to give,” he assured me.
“Mmm.” I nearly dropped the phone as I pulled off my shirt and undid my bra. “Hold on.” I set the receiver down, looking for my flannel top. Tugging it over my head, I retrieved the phone.
“You’re getting ready for bed,” he said, voice rasping.
I spun to my window, half-expecting to see him clinging to it. “Uh, yeah. Lucky guess.”
“I better let you go, then,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow for the party. Sixish?”
“I was actually going with Amy and Marvin.…”
“Fine. I’ll see you there.” He paused. “Dream of me.”
“Good night.”
* * *
The next morning a shiny Mercedes pulled up outside my house as I was drying the last of the breakfast dishes. It had to belong to Derek’s family. Mercedes were not frequently found in Junction.
Hunter and Maggie went nuts when Derek sprang out of the car with a bouquet of flowers. Hunter even rediscovered his inner alpha and growled.
I pushed them back from the door. “You’re early. By hours.”
“A dozen roses,” he said, opening the screen door and stepping inside as I booted the dogs out. Hunter promptly found the Mercedes and anointed its wheels. He must’ve wanted to keep it. “I thought about things a lot last night,” Derek said, heading to the kitchen. “Vase?”
“Um, yeah.” From under the sink I brought out the only glass one we owned. It was dusty with disuse. I reached over to rinse it out, but he took it from me, moving my hand away from the faucet with a firm touch of his own.
Taking up the kitchen shears, I began trimming stems. “They’re beautiful, by the way.”
He smiled. “I figured, how often do girls get to really celebrate their seventeenth birthday, right? Shouldn’t it be a little bit of a big deal? Yeah, I know that’s like an oxymoron or something.” He shrugged. “So I called your dad this morning. Yes. At the factory. No. He’s not in trouble because I called.”
I closed my mouth.
“I know people, remember?”
It was hard to forget.
“I asked if I could keep you out. All day.”
“Wow.”
“He said yes.”
Double wow.
“Since it’s nearly noon and you’ve done your chores…” He glanced at me for confirmation.
“Yep. Everyone’s fed, water’s checked; supposed to be beautiful out these next few days, so they’re mainly hanging out in the pasture. No mucking to speak of.”
“No mucking,” he snickered. “Let’s start with lunch. And we’ll do a couple things on my list.”
“You have a list?” Derek never struck me as a planner.
“I’m absolutely scheduled out for today, baby,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, pulling back as his lips brushed mine. “I’m not anyone’s baby.”
He shrugged. “Ready?”
“Yeah, let me just go and get my costume. And change…”
“Sure.” He put his hands behind his back, swaying and whistling jokingly as I dashed up the steps.
I grabbed my dress for later. Frikkin’ Buttercup. My Man in Black had probably made new plans since we weren’t together. I wondered what he’d be going as and I tried to not wonder even harder as I peeled out of my work shirt and freshened my deodorant. I was rummaging through my closet for a change of clothes when my door squeaked open.
Derek stepped inside. “Sorry. I thought I’d grab your costume. Not ready yet?”
“Um.” Too aware I stood there in only my bra and jeans, I tugged a random shirt free and nearly blackened my eye as the clothes hanger swung toward my face.
Derek’s hand stopped it in midair, his breath warm on my cheek. “Careful.” He’d crossed the distance remarkably fast. Unnaturally fast. My heart raced.
His eyes rested on the amber pendant I’d slept in, but he said nothing.
“Costume’s on the bed.” I pointed.
He let go of the hanger and turned to get the dress.
I tugged the shirt over my head, watching him. “Step outside. I need to finish changing.”
“Again—sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll wait by the car.”
“Good idea.”
As soon as I was certain he was gone, I squashed down my questions and shimmied out of my dusty jeans and pulled on a clean pair. I pounded back down the stairs and scrawled a note to Annabelle Lee.
AL,
Unexpected Dad-approved date with Derek. Off to celebrate becoming seventeen. Back late tonight after party at Rusakovas’.
I called the dogs in and closed up.
Derek stood waiting by the car as promised. He gallantly opened the door for me and, sliding in beside me, he nodded to the driver. “Princess Buttercup,” he said nonchalantly.
“Uh, pretty much,” I said, puzzled.
“Great minds think alike.” Reaching across to the front passenger seat as I buckled my seat belt, he pulled out a pair of black leather pants and a black satin shirt.
The Man in Black would make an appearance tonight, after all. Seeing my expression, he took my hand.
* * *
Fuzzy-headed, I blinked. I was in a broad room painted in gold, blue, and white, surrounded by walls decorated with Junction High pennants, football trophies, and jerseys. I swallowed hard, realizing I sat in its center. On a bed.
I shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to clear the remaining blur from my vision. A football jersey bearing the number twelve shimmered on the wall. The single word across its top read Jamieson.
My hands gripped the comforter and I realized where here had to be. Derek’s bedroom. My stomach lurched as I tried to make sense of things.
I shook my head to clear it but gasped as pain shot through my temples, blinding me. There was a door off the side of the room, light glowing around its edges, water splashing. A bathroom. Inside, Derek whistled the same cheery tune as earlier.
On the nightstand a phone in the shape of a football rested in its cradle. I grabbed it, punching in the numbers.
“Allo?”
“Max,” I whispered. “I need a ride.”
“Jessie? What number are you calling from? Where are you?”
“Umm … a bedroom. On the Hill.”
Across the miles I heard a door slam. “With him?”
He had to hear me choke on my shame.
“Shit. Address?”
“I don’t…” I’d crushed on Derek for years. But I’d never looked up his address or phone number. I’d never had the guts to try a ride-by.
I heard Max’s car door slam and the convertible snarled to life. “It’s a piss-poor day for tracking,” he grumbled. “Jessie.”
My stomach curled in my gut. “Yeah?”
“Stay clear of him. Don’t let him get his hands on you.”
“Okay.”
“Jessie, you hear me? Don’t let him touch you.”
A smile dimpling his face, Derek took the phone and set it on the nightstand. Not in the cradle.
“Who are you talking to, Jessica?” he asked, loud enough for Max to hear. “Someone coming to pick you up?” He reached for me, and I scooted away. “Shhhh. It’s okay.”
I trembled. “How did I get here, Derek?”
“My driver brought us. Don’t
you remember?” He snagged my wrist, and my head filled with images of us curled in the backseat of the Merecedes, kissing. But it was strange—the view skewed somehow.
“I don’t remember—” I began, but the visions pushed back into my head, stealing my words as he covered my mouth with his.
He dragged his lips across my mouth, assuring me, “You will,” as his hand shifted its grip and he pulled my arm over my head and pushed me down.
For a moment I thought I heard the Rusakovas’ convertible roar to its fastest speed, squealing through the phone’s receiver. And there was cursing. In Russian. Though I didn’t understand the words, the intent was clear, even across the distance.
Then everything faded away and there was only the warmth of Derek’s hands. As if miles away, I heard him coax, “This is all so much easier this way.…” and I felt something flutter through my mind, my brain like the Rolodex that Counselor Maloy kept on his desk. Spinning. “Interesting,” Derek whispered, his lips tracing across mine, their warmth blurring my worry, blunting my fear, washing away my cares.…
I sighed, sinking back, head filling with pleasant images; pictures of Pietr floated to the surface. Kisses scorched along my face and neck. “Pietr…”
There was a growl, and I felt fingers at the waistband of my jeans. The button opened and a hand traced along the top of my underpants.
“No,” I said.
The kissing resumed, harder. “Jessica.” The word rumbled in someone’s throat. Not Pietr’s. To him, I was Jess.
“No,” I insisted, trying to pry my eyes open. Something was wrong … Not Pietr … I pushed at the chest above me, my eyelids stinging as I willed them apart.
“Relax…” a voice said, lips dragging along the corner of my jaw, filling my head with honey, sticky and sweet.…
There was a crash, and my world snapped into screamingly sharp focus. My head quaked like it’d been jackhammered open. My eyes wide, I saw Max reach for me. “Button your jeans,” he growled.
What? Oh, God. I fumbled, buttoning up.
Neanderthal-style, Max slung me over his shoulder. Derek clambered to his feet.
“Don’t you ever touch her again,” Max demanded.
Derek just grinned.
Sensation swirled in my head—kissing, touching, a single word—“No…” I was going to throw up. I was certain.
What had Derek done?
Max headed to a door hanging by a single hinge, and fast as a striking snake, Derek lunged, clutching my wrist. Images ripped through my head, twisting, quivering, fogging and evaporating—stealing my thoughts and wrenching away my memories. Something jolted through me like lightning.…
Muscles cramping, I convulsed.
Max roared, spinning back to Derek.
My world went black.
Silent.
* * *
The ocean crashed in my ears, surf tearing at sand, grinding away the ground beneath my feet.
“Jessie. Jessie. Jess-ie,” someone crooned my name.
I covered my ears. “Shut. Up.” My brain—or what was left of it—was on fire. It danced and jumped in my skull, threatening to burst free.
“Good girl. Wake up.” Fingers snapped. “Snap out of it. Jessie…”
“Max?” I blinked, sunlight stabbing into my eyes. I squeezed them shut with a whimper. “Where the—?”
“Jessie.” He shook my shoulder with his huge, hot hand.
“God, you’re so loud…” My eyes popped open, and I grabbed the steering wheel as a horn shrieked at us. “Stay on our side of the road!”
His attention snapped back to the road. “How do you feel?”
“Like—” My head was folding in on itself like my brain had landed on the lip of a black hole. “Like you better pull over if you want this all-leather interior to stay smelling anything like leather.”
It was the fastest I’d seen a Rusakova pull a car over. I opened my door, Max’s hand undoing my seat belt. I tumbled out.
As did the contents of my stomach.
“Oh. Boy.”
Leather creaked as Max leaned across and the glove compartment squealed open. Napkins were thrust into my shaking hand.
I swabbed off my mouth and slid carefully into the car. I rubbed the back of my hand over my forehead. “How did we get here? Why am I here?”
“What do you remember?”
“Waking up in the car. Vomiting in the grass.”
“Nyet. Before that.”
“Uhhh. Derek was taking me for lunch. He showed me his costume for the party. Ohhh. The party, tonight…”
“Do you remember anything after that?”
I shook my head, instantly regretting it.
He muttered something.
“What?”
But Max was still muttering, “… never thought…”
“Max, what are you talking about?” My head screamed, so I rested it in my hands, trying to keep it from flying to pieces.
He ignored me and flipped open his cell phone. A string of Russian words rolled out of his mouth. All of them too loud. I heard an answering set of words flinging back in kind. Cat’s voice.
“Da, wiped. Can he…? Shit.”
“Cat’ll get on you about your language if you don’t stop,” I warned. Ow.
“Nyet. She smells okay.”
I most certainly did not smell okay. Not after my vomit-fest.
“Nyet, Cat. He didn’t … nyet. I’d rip his ba—”
Cat plowed through more Russian.
“Nyet. I’m bringing her over,” Max barked.
“What?” I asked.
“We need to talk, Cat.” He hung up. “Buckle up,” he commanded, checking his side-view mirror.
“Damn it, Max. I may not remember how I got here, but I’m not stupid. What’s going on?”
He reached across me and tugged the door shut.
My hands fought with the seat belt until it clicked. Images rushed me. Derek and me curled up and kissing in the backseat of the Mercedes. No. Impossible. I struggled to examine the memory more closely. Something was off. The perspective? I was seeing more of me than Derek. Like I was Derek. Like the memory was … I held my head more tightly, hoping I could keep it from tearing down the center.
My stomach rioted as I realized. I never went anywhere without my seat belt buckled.
“Stop,” I said as he readied to pull back into traffic. My head was going to split open like an overripe melon. I slung open the door just in time to throw up again.
“Max,” I whispered, “I need to know what’s going on.”
“Here, drink some of this.” He passed me a Gatorade.
I rinsed and spit with the stuff before taking a tentative drink. I gulped down a few sips and screwed the cap back on.
His voice cool and measured—cautious—he said, “You were out with Derek. You had some food and started feeling really sick and the jackass didn’t know what to do, so he called me to get you since he knows I drive and we hang out.” His gaze darted to me again.
“Eyes on the road,” I reminded.
He obeyed. “Jessie, food poisoning will wipe you out.” His jaw worked silently. “Derek’s selfish. Unreliable.” He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again before saying through a grimace, “Jessie, you need to stay clear of Derek. For me.”
“Max…” The clock in the dash glowed cruelly. “My appointment! How did I forget? I have to get to counseling. If I don’t…”
He nodded sharply, did an absolutely illegal U-turn, and didn’t say another word as he drove me to Dr. Jones’s office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Are you sleeping well?” Dr. Jones asked, her voice skipping around in my hollowed out skull. Loudly.
“No,” I groaned. “I keep having nightmares.”
“Mmhmm.” She scribbled something down on her blasted clipboard. Also loudly.
“Your father is concerned.”
“I know.”
“He’s more concerned since h
e found the gun.”
My head jerked up and I winced. “What are you talking about?” Unease crawled through my stomach, tying bows in my guts.
“The gun he found under your pillow.”
The one time Dad beat me to the laundry and it hadn’t occurred to me that there was no longer a gun under my pillow. I was way too new at all this subterfuge stuff.
“Are you scared of someone?”
This time I moved my head slowly, but I still felt utterly disoriented looking straight at her. “No.”
“Why would you sleep with a gun under your pillow?”
I thought. Hard. “I’m a competition shooter. I was loaned a new piece. An old training technique includes keeping a gun at hand almost all the time to familiarize a shooter with it. Like the way cops wear holsters even when they’re not on duty.” I paused. “Did Dad tell you where the gun came from?”
“He confirmed that a family friend, Wanda, loaned a gun to you. For competition.” She tapped the pen on the clipboard, frowning. “The mind is amazing, explaining away things that deeply bother people in oddly logical ways. Your father may accept your excuse. And I admit I’m not well versed in the subculture of competition shooting. But I’m also not one hundred percent convinced there isn’t more to a gun being under your pillow.” She frowned. “Do you want to hurt yourself?”
“No. I’m trying to get a grip. Have a more normal life.”
Scribble, scribble.
“The number of suicides in the area has recently escalated,” she commented.
“The train track suicides. Yes, I know. And yet, here I am. Thrilled to be in counseling. Weren’t we supposed to be focusing on a healthy expression of my grief?”
Scribble. “You seem disoriented. Have you been drinking?”
“I have too few brain cells naturally to waste any on a temporary buzz.”
Scribble. “Drugs?”
“Just write See Above—the same philosophy applies. Look, I had a really lousy lunch. Food poisoning of epic proportions. It’s messed me up.”
“I’d like to get a urine sample.”
“Give me your coffee cup.”
Scribble, scribble, scribble.
She stood, her heels clip-clopping a rhythm on the floor. Thrusting a plastic cup into my hand she said, “Down the hall and to your right.”
I shuffled away, found the rest room, and peed into the cup. I stayed in the bathroom a moment longer, resting my hands on the cool sink and peering into the mirror at my image—thrown back to me under harsh fluorescent light.
Secrets and Shadows: A 13 to Life Novel Page 18