by C. J. Hill
As far as people who asked too many questions, well, when you’ve been the new girl as many times as I have, questions are the only thing you get. So I usually ignored that as a warning sign.
The only explanations my parents gave me as to why enemies would come after us were vague references that we were descended from a group of ancient protectors. The enemies might want to destroy me simply because of my genetics. My parents said they would give me more details about our background when I was older, but by the time I reached junior high, I stopped asking about it. I figured the whole protector thing had probably been revealed to them by some mystic fortune teller in a country where they still read the entrails of sacrificed animals. I came to view my parents’ obsessive distrust of strangers as a quirk, like OCD.
I headed to the laundry room and grabbed my favorite jeans from the dryer. They were worn to a faded navy blue and as soft as flannel. Most importantly, they fit perfectly, emphasizing that I had a waist and hips – details not evident from all my clothing. When Mom was alive, she used to say I had an “athletic” figure, which is code for not many curves.
I tried not to let my thoughts linger on my mom. I did enough of that at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. The problem with telling yourself not to think about something is that you think about it anyway. I felt the familiar ache that always washed over me when I remembered Mom.
Dad kept telling me that when I thought about Mom, I needed to remember the happy times. That instruction only made me feel worse, though. The loss felt deepest then.
I leaned against the dryer and took several deep breaths. It had been eight months since she died. Sometimes it seemed like forever. More deep breaths. I thought about my goals—how I was going to live life to the fullest. That was the only good thing I could take from this situation. I wouldn’t spend every day being afraid or living in a cocoon, no matter what my father wanted. I was going to do new things. Normal things. Like having a boyfriend, and the boyfriend I wanted was Dane.
Dane had blue eyes that could stop you in your tracks. He was confident, nice to everyone in school, and sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, I caught glimpses of another side to him. A somber expression that reflected something deeper within him, a look in his eyes that said he’d had parts of him carved away too. A guy like that would understand me.
On my way back to my bedroom, I passed Dad, still peering out the window as though he expected Dane to drive up in a UFO.
I put one hand on my hip. “Please tell me you’re not going to be doing that when Dane comes.”
“No,” Dad said letting a blind drop. “I’ll open the door to get a good look at his eyes.”
Roark had left an empty bag of chips and a soda can by the side of the couch. I picked them up, making sure not to spill anything. “Fine, but don’t ask who his parents are, or what his favorite climate is, or how strong he is. And don’t tell him about your job.”
Dad folded his arms. “What’s wrong with my job?”
That was a question with too many answers. I headed back to the kitchen with Roark’s trash. “You don’t sit at a desk like regular people.”
Dad described himself as a historian or sometimes as a relic seeker. Which sounded cool until you realized it involved sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be, like the Great Pyramids, or into various off-limits places in Iran.
“Regular people are completely uninteresting,” Dad called to me. “Why are you so worried about impressing one of them?”
I tossed the chip bag and soda can into the garbage. “Dane isn’t a regular guy.”
There was a pause and then, “What do you mean?”
“He’s better looking.”
If Dad had a comment about that, I didn’t hear it. Dad’s energy drink powder sat on the counter, so I put it away too. He’d modified recipes from several different countries, and the drink tasted like a combination of garlic and cough syrup, but he drank it faithfully every day. He swore it helped with cell rejuvenation.
Roark strolled into the kitchen while I was wiping off the counter. My brother was six foot two, and had been for so long, he’d never had a problem getting on the school’s football team, no matter where we moved. His blond hair swept across one eye, nearly hiding it.
Roark and I were an odd mix of our parents. He’d inherited our mother’s blonde hair and Dad’s brown eyes. I’d inherited Mom’s blue eyes and Dad’s dark brown hair. People at school never pegged us as brother and sister, especially since we were only a grade apart. My parents had started Roark in school a year late, so he was one of the oldest in the senior class. Dad said this was because we were traveling abroad when Roark turned five, but it was probably because my parents were worried about the enemy snatching him out of kindergarten.
Roark leaned against the kitchen counter and regarded me. “Why are you cleaning the kitchen on my day?”
“Because you didn’t do it.” These days, I was the only one who cared about cleaning. If it hadn’t been for my efforts, our house would have looked like it was inhabited by the Seven Dwarves, pre-Snow White.
Roark looked at the jeans looped over my arm. “Are you changing clothes because Dane is coming over?”
I wiped at a particularly dirty spot on the counter and didn’t answer.
Roark tilted his chin down and gave me a serious look. “He’s not the right type for you.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Who’s the right type of guy for me?”
“Someone you could beat up if you needed to.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Dane asks too many questions,” Roark said.
“Speaking of paranoia, can you talk to Dad? He’s staring out the windows in case Dane is bringing over paratroopers or something.”
Roark didn’t leave. “Aislynn . . .” He spoke like I was being unreasonable. “Just stay away from the guy.”
I swept the last of the crumbs into the sink. “If you don’t trust him, how come you’re friends with him?”
“Because he knows physics better than anyone else on the football team.”
I smiled. Maybe a little too dreamily. “He’s good-looking and intelligent.”
“Besides, it’s not just Dane coming over. Matt will be here too.” Matt was quarterback, a star by high-school standards, but not someone I was interested in.
I hung up the dishrag and surveyed the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me Matt was coming.”
“Yes, I did. You just stopped listening after you heard the word ‘Dane.’” Roark stalked off to the living room. I hoped he was talking to Dad about not acting weird in front of his friends, as opposed to joining Dad in his search for enemy commandos converging on our driveway. Since Mom died, Roark had become nearly as overprotective as Dad.
The coroner’s report said it was a car accident. Dad was sure the enemy was to blame. We moved the next day, just like we always did when Dad thought the enemy had found us. Mom was buried without a funeral. That still bothered me. She deserved a service with organ music, stained-glass windows, and flowers draped across the room. She deserved a commemoration where friends measured the world and found it lacking because she wasn’t there anymore. She deserved us. We hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.
I went to my bedroom to change and compose myself. I had let my thoughts dwell on my mother too much, and my live-life-to-the-fullest attitude was quickly dwindling into wisps of unmet resolve. Some days were like that. I considered crawling into bed, turning off the light, and staying in my room for the rest of the night. I told myself Mom wouldn’t want me to do that. It’s ironic that I started caring about what she’d want after she was no longer around to tell me anything.
I put on my favorite blue shirt, the one that brought out the color of my eyes, and touched up my makeup. Perhaps it was stupid to go to the trouble. Roark would probably take Dane to his room, and I’d see him for a total of ten seconds. But it gave me something to concentrate on.
My gaze fell on a pi
cture that sat on the dresser. My mother and I standing triumphant on a peak at Machu Picchu. Everyone said I looked like her, and she’d been beautiful even in her forties. In high school, she was homecoming queen and had a string of boyfriends. I’d never had a real boyfriend—not someone who called every day, who said he loved me, who understood me. By the time I knew a guy well enough that my parents approved of him, it was always time to move again.
I didn’t want that to happen with Dane, which meant I couldn’t wait around, hoping he’d noticed me. I had to make things happen. I just didn’t know how.
Dane had moved to Chandler, Arizona four months ago, just a month before we came. If it bothered him to be the new kid at a huge high school, he never showed it. He transferred into my World History class on the second day of school—the only senior in a room full of junior girls who worshipped him—and, according to my friend Sarina in the last row, he had a habit of staring at me.
On my third day of school, I saw him break up a fight. A group of seniors were pushing this freshman kid around—literally pushing him down the hallway—and Dane strode over, told the bullies to grow up, and walked the kid away from the group. The guys yelled some stuff at Dane, peppery swearwords and hollow challenges, but they left him alone. Dane was tall enough and strong enough to get left alone by that type.
I’d had a crush on Dane ever since.
I checked my watch. Dane and Matt would be here in a few minutes. I sat down on the couch with my world history book. I didn’t need to read it. We were learning about Sparta and Athens, and I’d read up on that era two years ago when my family vacationed in Greece. I propped my book in my lap anyway. It would not only remind Dane that I was in his class; it was also a good conversation starter. He could comment on the assignment, the teacher, or the fact that Mr. Newberry expected us to remember all sorts of pointless dates. Dates would be a good topic, because maybe it would get the word stuck in his subconscious.
Date. Aislynn.
Moments later, the doorbell rang. I didn’t answer it, even though I was closest. Dad had a lot of house rules, and one of them was that he always answered the door.
Dad unlocked the deadbolts and opened the door. Dane’s deep voice drifted in. “Hi, is Roark here?”
Dad called over his shoulder, “Roark! Your friends are here.” He swung the door wide enough to let the guys in. Dane and Matt probably didn’t notice how Dad scanned the street before he shut and relocked the door.
It was odd to see Dane standing in my entryway, a melding of my school and home worlds. I couldn’t keep my gaze off his blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and broad shoulders. His gaze fell on me and a smile curved his lips. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said. The word was too breathy, just a butterfly of sound that fluttered pointlessly in the air.
Dane’s gaze swept across the room and stopped on a shelf where two Egyptian artifacts sat in sealed glass boxes. One held a jade and gold scarab with outstretched wings. The other contained a bust of Princess Ankhesenamun. Either could have been the sort of overpriced souvenirs tourists bought from eager craftsmen. But they weren’t. They were the real things. Eighteenth dynasty.
Matt followed Dane’s eyes. “Egyptian stuff,” Matt said. “Cool.”
Say something witty, I told myself. “Yeah, and what better way to decorate your home than with detached heads and dung beetles?”
I had just mentioned dung beetles around the guy I wanted to impress. I inwardly winced. I really shouldn’t try to be witty when I’m nervous.
Dane’s gaze stayed on the shelf. “Well, not every culture is lucky enough to have access to Elvis posters and celebrity bobble-heads.”
“Those were our second choice.” I was just making this worse.
Dane smiled at my joke but kept looking at the shelf. I realized he wasn’t staring at the artifacts at all. His gaze rested on the framed picture between the boxes—a photo of my mother and me in front of the Temple of Hatshepsut. Mom’s arm was draped around my shoulder as we smiled at the camera.
Dane looked at the picture for so long, I expected him to comment on it. Before he did, Roark walked in. Without a glance in my direction, he took Dane and Matt down the hallway to his room.
Dane had only said one sentence to me, and it had been about Elvis posters and bobble-heads. Still, it was a start.
I started writing an essay on the Peloponnesian War, and Dad parked himself in the kitchen, going through books on ancient Indian cultures of Arizona. I hoped he wasn’t planning on trespassing on a reservation or digging through burial grounds. Dad’s philosophy was that rules existed to keep other people in line. He was exempt from anything that got in the way of his studies, like laws, regulations, and international treaties.
While other fathers played soccer and coached their kids’ Little League teams, my dad taught me how to forge passports, hack computers, and hotwire cars.
After about an hour, Roark’s cell phone rang. He’d left it on the couch. I glanced at the screen and saw Candace’s name on it. She was a cheerleader who was constantly flirting with him.
Answering the phone, I walked to Roark’s bedroom. “Hi, Candace. I’m getting Roark for you.”
“Is this Aislynn?” Jealousy tinged her voice. She must have worried that Roark had a girl over.
“Yep,” I said.
“Oh.” Her voice relaxed, turned sing-songy. “I’m having a get together at my house in half an hour. You know, pizza, junk food. I’d love it if you and Roark could come.”
That was the nice thing about having a hot older brother. His invitations frequently got extended to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you talk to him about it.”
I knocked on Roark’s door, then opened it and leaned inside his room. The guys were sitting on the floor with their books open and papers spread out in front of them.
I held out Roark’s phone. “Candace wants to talk to you about a party.”
“See?” Matt nudged Roark with his elbow. “I told you she’d call you.” To me he whispered, “Candace texted the rest of the football team, but Roark gets a personal invitation.”
Roark was busy writing an equation that Dane had already worked out. I hoped Dane had taught Roark how to do the problem, and that Roark wasn’t just copying.
My brother didn’t look up at me. “Just a second.”
I waited, phone in hand, while Roark finished writing down the answer. My gaze drifted to Dane. He was watching me. Something flashed in his blue eyes, intrigue maybe. Smile, I told myself. Do something flirty. I blushed under the weight of his stare and looked away. My flirting skills so needed work.
Roark got up, stretching, and took the phone from my hand. “Hey, Candace, we’re almost done with physics. As soon as we finish, we’ll come over.” He paused, looking at me. “You want to come too, Aislynn?”
To Roark’s credit, he never minded when I tagged along. “Sure.”
And that’s why it pays to dress up, even if you only think you’re going to see a guy for ten seconds. If I believed in destiny—or perhaps if destiny believed in me—Dane and I would end up getting to know each other tonight.
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