Death, and the Girl He Loves

by Darynda Jones

  When he was finished, Kenya helped him pull Wade off me.

  “This guy attack you?” he asked, helping me up. His dark skin shimmered in the low light and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And he was really tall.

  “Are you an angel, too?” I asked him.

  Kenya glared at me.

  “Not me, ma’am. Let’s get you a seat.”

  “I think little Lorraine here hit her head when he knocked her to the ground,” she said.

  He took Wade’s knife, then led me back to the guardhouse and sat me on the concrete slab that surrounded it. Kenya sat beside me.

  “Are you kidding me?” she whispered when he went to check on Wade. “What the hell was that?”

  “What? He’s really tall.”

  “No, that little stunt. You were like a cyclone with arms.”

  “He was going to kill me. I was going to get my punches in before he managed it.”

  “You looked right at me.”

  “I thought you were going to kill me, too.”

  She slapped a hand over her eyes. “For the love of gravy, McAlister, what did you think I was doing when I put my finger over my mouth to silence you?”

  “I thought you were coming to kill me silently.”

  “I was sneaking up behind Wade,” she said, replaying the incident with her index fingers. It was very helpful. And entertaining. “You know, all stealthy like. Then you go crazy and pull some kind of karate helicopter move. He could’ve killed you!”

  She was shouting now. The guard turned back to us as he zip-tied Wade’s hands behind his back.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, shaking harder than I had been. I was so cold, I was losing the feeling in my lungs.

  “Clearly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And now look at you. Holy cow.”

  She stood and went inside the guardhouse only to return with a blanket and a cup of water. At least I thought it was water. After draping the blanket over me, she handed me the cup, then sat back down. It was coffee. Steaming, scorching coffee, and it tasted like heaven.

  Okay, it tasted like motor oil, but it felt like heaven.

  “I can’t take you anywhere,” she said, utterly annoyed with me.

  Before I could comment, the guard came back to us, cops pulled up with sirens blaring, and another guard was running across the grass toward us.

  So much for sneaking out unnoticed.

  A LOVE–HATE THING

  I sat in the back of an ambulance still wrapped in the blanket Kenya found. She sat beside me, waiting for her parents to show up.

  “I don’t understand,” I said to her as we watched the police interview the headmaster. He looked none too happy. This was very bad publicity for a school, so it was hard to blame him.

  “What don’t you get?” she asked.

  “You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, McAlister.” She started playing with her nails, the black polish shimmering in the glaring light. “I didn’t know how else to protect you.”

  My brows slid together as I watched her. “Protect me? And how do you know my name?”

  One corner of her mouth tipped up to reveal a dimple. “I know who you are. My parents are members of the Order.” The surprised look on my face made her giggle. “I knew who you were the moment you showed up. We’d been expecting you for days.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Me, Wade, and a couple others. We had no idea Wade would be the one I’d be protecting you from. Then again, he always was a douche.”

  Wade sat handcuffed in another ambulance. His anger when he woke up was astounding. I had no idea someone could turn so red. The guy wanted me dead. No doubt about it.

  And then there was Kenya. “So you bully me?” I asked, appalled. “You threaten me every time I turn around?”

  “I marked you as mine.” She lifted a shoulder and let it fall as though what she’d done was everyday. Normal. Ordinary. “No one else would bother you as long as you were my mark. I thought that would be enough to keep the sharks at bay. High school can be brutal, especially in a boarding school. I did not, however, count on Wade being a bigger douche than he already is.” She bit at a cuticle. “His real name is Paul, by the way. He makes everyone call him Wade. It’s not even his middle name.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out after he told me who his parents were. But you knew?” I asked, outraged.

  She nodded, unconcerned with my outrage. I wondered if Paul’s parents even knew he went by Wade. They never mentioned it to me when they told me to look him up.

  I didn’t know what to say to Kenya. Did I thank her? She did save my life. But she’d also threatened it on multiple occasions and caused my eye to twitch uncontrollably every time she was near.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, the dimple appearing again.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I poured as much sincerity into the remark as I possibly could.

  She laughed out loud, then sobered, her brows drawing together in concern. “What did you see?”

  I turned away. “What do you mean?”

  “This morning. When you rushed off to the bathroom and threw up. You had a vision, right?” When I didn’t answer, she continued. “What did you see?”

  Before I could brace for impact, the memory of the visions rushed forth. The memory of her death rushed forth. My eyes stung with the emotions it conjured. “Nothing,” I said, my voice hoarse. I cleared my throat and started again. “I didn’t see anything.”

  She scooted around until she was facing me. “Do you know that I’ve dreamed about you since I was a little girl?”

  I frowned at her, discomfort prickling over my skin. Not another admirer. Not another starstruck member of the Order convinced I was going to save the world.

  “My parents told me about you when I was five. I didn’t really understand at the time, but I knew how special you were, even if you didn’t. Even if you still don’t.”

  Just as I was about to tell her exactly how wrong she was, I heard my name like a siren in the night.

  “Lorraine!”

  Crystal shot inside the ambulance like a laser-guided missile and drew me into a hug. I felt like a rag doll being mauled by a mountain lion, but her hug felt good. I laughed when she held the hug an entire minute too long.

  She pulled back and gave me a once-over.

  “Was that him?” she asked, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Did Wade send you that note?”

  “Yes, he did, Crystal, and my name is actually Lorelei.”

  “Your real name? You’re telling me your real name? What about your witness protection?”

  “Witness protection?” Kenya asked, this time with a tad more sarcasm.

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m not really in the Witness Protection Program.”

  She gasped as reality—her reality—sank in. “You’re undercover?”

  “Well, not really—”

  “Yes,” Kenya said, patting my back. “She’s undercover, and we can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening at Kenya then, as though seeing her there for the first time. “Are you undercover, too?”

  “Yes,” she said again, fighting the comeback of the dimple. “My real name is Katniss Everdeen.”

  She covered her gaping mouth with her hands, let out something that resembled the squeak of a hamster wheel, then said, “This is the coolest day of my life. Oh, except where Wade tried to kill you. That wasn’t cool.”

  “Thanks,” I said, fighting my own grin, but I’d lost Crystal. She was looking past the ambulance door.

  Kenya and I leaned over to see what she was ogling. A figure walked forward. One with a familiar shape. A familiar gait. My heart stopped beating as I watched my oldest friend on earth walk forward.

  He stopped in front of me, his face full of relief and joy. “Do you just start crap wherever you go?”

  “Glitch,” I whispered before jumping down and almost tackling him to the ground as I rush
ed into his arms.

  He wrapped them around me and laughed. I laughed, too. Kind of. I mostly sobbed like a girl dumped at prom.

  Glitch was one of my very best friends from Riley’s Switch.

  After a long while, the EMT brought out the Jaws of Life and peeled me off Glitch. By then, I’d finally calmed down enough to ask, “What are you doing here?”

  “I came for you.”

  I couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if he’d paid me to. “I’m glad. I’m ready to go home.”

  Even though Glitch stood only three inches higher than I did, he seemed to tower over me at that moment. His short black hair and coppery Native American skin glistened under the lamps overhead, as did the green in his hazel eyes, a testament to the fact that his mother was about as Irish as one could get. He was such a beautiful mixture of ethnicities. I’d forgotten how striking he was. Or maybe I’d never known. Never paid attention. But I sure did now. He looked like an angel. A really short angel. One that had lost weight since I saw him last. He looked tired no matter how hard he tried to hide it behind that bright smile of his.

  “McAlister.”

  I turned to where Kenya gestured. The Hamptons were pulling up. They looked like their hearts were broken as they spoke to their son before the police led him to a squad car and put him in the backseat. I could see the venom in his features. He was not going easy on them, his animosity evident in every expression, every sharp movement. That was one conversation I was glad to be excluded from.

  After a moment, they looked over at me, their faces full of sadness and regret. It wasn’t their fault. Kenya was right. Their son was a douche. Sometimes nature overrode nurture like that. They were good parents. I could see it clearly. Kindness radiated out of them.

  I could tell they wanted to apologize, but didn’t know what to say. I stepped to them and hugged them both, not entirely certain they would want me to. But they hugged me back with a fierce regard. I was surprised. After everything that had happened, they still thought highly of me.

  “I can’t believe you came all this way,” I said to Glitch when I walked back over. “How is everyone? How is Grandma and Granddad? Brooklyn? Cameron?” I lowered my head. “Jared?”

  “They didn’t send me, if that’s what you mean. Your grandparents.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Brooke and I … snooped. We went through your grandparents’ mail at the store and found an invoice to this school. Once we figured out where they sent you, I got on a plane. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford for both of us to come. We didn’t tell Cameron or Jared. Cameron would have been here before we could blink. He still takes his role very seriously. And Jared.” He turned away. “I just don’t know what he would have done.”

  “You found an invoice. I thought … I thought they got me a scholarship somehow.”

  “No. They must have hocked the store to send you here. This place is pricey.”

  Wonderful. They’d lied to me, then. And Granddad was a pastor, for heaven’s sake. “So, they didn’t tell you where I was?”

  I could feel him withdraw. He resented the fact that no one told him, and I could hardly blame him. I would’ve felt betrayed as well. I would have felt abandoned.

  “No. No one told us. Jared ordered us to leave it alone, said you’d come home when the time was right. But Cameron…” He bit the side of his mouth before continuing. “Cameron was furious with your grandparents for a long time. He still is, actually. I’m not sure what he would’ve done if his dad hadn’t been there when he found out. I’ve never seen him so mad.”

  Cameron was a part of this whole prophecy thing as well, only from a different standpoint. He’d literally been created. Apparently, when the angels in heaven found out the prophet was going to be born, the one slated to stop the war, they sent an angel down to a human woman, Cameron’s mother, to create a protector. They had relations, as my grandfather would say, and nine months later, out popped a bouncing baby nephilim. Since Cameron was part angel, he was much stronger and faster than your average human. And he took his role as protector very seriously. So when Jared first came to town to take me, Cameron was all over him. They fought, almost destroying downtown Riley’s Switch in the process, and they still felt a niggling of animosity toward each other, though they now had parallel goals.

  “I’ve seen Cameron angry,” I said, remembering the first time they fought. I’d been terrified and awed at the same time.

  “Not this angry,” Glitch said. “Not this enraged. I thought he would tear apart that store looking for you.”

  And here I thought I couldn’t feel any worse than I already did. “So how are they? My grandparents?”

  He released the air from his lungs slowly, letting it slip through his lips at a leisurely pace as though stalling for time. “What have they told you?”

  “That everything is peachy.”

  “Wow. Never took them for liars.”

  I knew they had been sugarcoating the truth, but I didn’t know how much. I almost dreaded finding out. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  Kenya sat back, watching us, summing up Glitch in her special, homicidal way.

  “Things are bad, Lor,” he said, bowing his head. “Things are way worse.”

  I straightened in alarm. “Worse how? I left. Things were supposed to get better.”

  “They didn’t. It seems there are lots of ghosts or spirits or whatever wanting to jump ship before the war, before evil is unleashed upon the earth. Jared’s words.”

  I felt Kenya tense beside me even though she still wore her best poker face.

  “They’re doing what that spirit Noah did, the first kid who came to us. The spirits are searching out Jared. They want off this plane and they can’t get to another one, so by forcing Jared’s hand, they’re basically committing suicide. Jared has his hands full just trying to hold them all back. It’s causing all kinds of unrest. Lots of people have left town, including Ashlee and Sydnee. Their father packed them up and hightailed it outta Dodge.”

  When I left Riley’s Switch, it looked like he and Ashlee would get together. I wanted to ask how that went, but now was certainly not the time. “I’m sorry, Glitch.”

  “People just don’t know what to think. They’re panicking.”

  I squeezed my lids together until the pressure caused stars to appear behind them. “Grandma and Granddad didn’t tell me.”

  “I’m not surprised. They want you as far away from all that as they possibly can get you. Especially now with all the reporters.”

  “Reporters?”

  “Yeah, you know what happens when a haunted town is bombarded with strange occurrences and unexplainable events. They’re having a field day. Fox News and CNN even have a news crew there. They’re calling it the beginning of the end. We’re getting famous, but the town is falling apart. More and more refugees are showing up with possessed family members. The spirits possessing them want off that plane and the only way out is through Jared.”

  “I can’t even imagine it,” I said, perplexed.

  “And that’s not even the worst of it. People from all over the country have come to be taken when the time comes, believing the events point to the Rapture.”

  “But this isn’t the Rapture,” I said. “This is a travesty brought on by one insane man.”

  He grinned at me. “Preaching to the choir, babe. It’s been the hardest on your grandparents, but they are handling it all amazingly well even though the town has been really hard on them.”

  I straightened. “What do you mean? Why?”

  “They sent you away,” he said with a shrug. “Many members of the Order took that hard, like your grandparents betrayed them, sent their only hope away. Your grandparents have been harassed, ostracized, even attacked.”

  My hands flew over my mouth. “Attacked? How? What happened?”

  “Not physically attacked, but verbally. And the store has been vandalized. Their cars have been egged
and keyed. Half the members of the Order have left town, and half of those remaining have taken it upon themselves to punish your grandparents. To let them know just how angry they are.”

  “Oh, my God, that is so unfair, Glitch.”

  He wrapped an arm around me. “I know. But through it all, they never gave up your location.”

  “What is this, World War Two? Are they being interrogated by Nazis?”

  He thought about it, then shrugged. “That’s a pretty fair comparison.”

  A bone-crushing guilt rushed through me. I tried the number again, to no avail. “Why aren’t they answering my calls?” I asked, beginning to panic.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe something happened.”

  “My God, they went through all this because of me?” A sob wrenched out of my throat before I could stop it.

  Glitch pulled me tighter. “Not because of you, Lor. For you. There’s a difference.”

  “I have to go back.”

  “That’s not why I came,” he rushed to assure me. “We aren’t mad. Well, Cameron is, but for his own reasons. Brooke and I just wanted to know you were okay, so we pooled our money and bought me a plane ticket. I won at rock-paper-scissors.”

  I looked at him knowingly. “You always win at rock-paper-scissors.”

  A captivating grin spread across his face. “Yeah, but she doesn’t know that. Or she’s in denial. Not sure which.”

  I hugged him. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “That happens when girls are ripped out of my life. It’s weird.” When I did a half-sob, half-giggle thing, he said, “I missed you, too.”

  “And I have to go back.”

  “Lor, I just don’t think you should. I think your grandparents were right. You need to stay hidden.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” I looked over at Kenya. “You were right. I had a vision. I had dozens of visions.” I squeezed Glitch’s hand. “Coming here was a mistake. We are all going to die. The world is going to end, Glitch. I’ve seen it.”

  “I brought you so much good news, I thought you’d reciprocate.”