Authors: Kelsey Hall
Across Carina
A
CROSS
C
ARINA
K
ELSEY
H
ALL
Copyright © 2016 by Kelsey Hall
Cover Design by James,
GoOnWrite.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotes in a review.
First edition, April 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4993-8483-3
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
—S
OCRATES
ONTENTS
P
ROLOGUE
I spent my childhood traipsing around an old Georgian neighborhood with my twin brother, Garrett, and his best friend, Justin Daft. Our library books and yard sale bicycles propelled us into adventure so thrilling that even getting lost on our way home from the old, graffiti-covered dam didn’t frighten us.
Most of our free time was spent at Justin’s house. It sat at the bottom of a hill, on Vaden Street, at the heart of a T-shaped intersection. It was sandwiched neatly between two other houses—one shaped like a barn, dull red and chipping; the other bright and yellow, with a wraparound porch and a pool in the back.
A young family lived in the yellow house, and whenever they were gone, Garrett, Justin, and I would sneak into their backyard and jump off their roof into the pool. Water would lap up onto the concrete where we had been told not to run, but run is precisely what we did. We ran from the pool to the dam to the soccer field, across streets, and through front doors and out backs, our charmed thoughts keeping pace in a neon cloud—the brilliant dust of our souls. We wanted the whole world to see.
I knew my brother so well then, but as the years churned on, he changed. We found ourselves teetering on the edge of new technology. While I still craved a life that I could touch and taste, many of my friends—and Garrett, too—began to choose electronics over the outside world, over thoughts and dreams. I began to lose faith in people and in myself for loving them, and Garrett slipped away, one day at a time. I was losing sight of who he was, who he would be.
Some days it was like he was already gone.
HAPTER
I
On a Friday night at the end of our junior year of high school, Garrett, Justin, and I sprawled out across a couch and matching loveseat in Justin’s living room. His parents had driven to a wedding a few hours away and were not to return until the morning.
We decided to stream
Troy
from Justin’s laptop to the flat screen on the wall. The boys didn’t want to wait for the DVD release, yet they were too lazy to get up and drive to the movie theater. They wanted it then and there, and I don’t know how, but Garrett had his methods and found us a high-definition copy online.
I was beside Justin on the loveseat, as Garrett had claimed the couch for himself and his array of greasy snacks. Throughout the movie I didn’t know which was louder—his chewing or the battle scenes. I refused the chips when they were eventually passed my way via Justin. I didn’t want to risk him seeing me with chips mashed between my teeth.
I sat through nearly three hours of hulking men with his knee barely touching mine. It made me terribly restless. As soon as the movie ended, I suggested that we all play hide-and-seek in the dark.
“Children’s game,” Garrett scoffed.
“Then everything is a children’s game,” I said. “Wars are fought on two sides of a massive playground.”
I was trying to sound intellectual, but I only wanted to play hide-and-seek so that I could talk to Justin. I’d be less nervous in the dark.
To my delight he said, “I’ll play a round or two. No harm ever came from hide-and-seek.”
I smiled shyly. “Okay, cool.”
“I’ll start,” he said, and he turned off the light. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
Garrett groaned as he stumbled off the couch and up the stairs, his feet clomping.
“Are you even going to try being quiet?” I demanded.
“Sixteen . . . seventeen . . . eighteen . . .”
Garrett groaned again and descended the stairs.
I pressed my hand against the wall and led myself to the foyer, stepping heel to toe. Slowly I climbed the staircase, musing on the nooks to choose from in Justin’s large house. I wanted to hide in the most conspicuous one so that he would find me first and quickly.
His bedroom waited at the top of the stairs. I twisted the doorknob fully before opening the door, feigning a hush that Garrett had not. I left the door open and wandered into Justin’s room, using my hands as eyes.
The window blinds on the back wall were slanted down, and moonlight gleamed through them, illuminating Justin’s bed. I pulled back his comforter and then reached for his sheets. A tall, dark figure flashed in my peripheral vision; I froze. The sheets slipped from my grasp and floated back to the bed.
“Justin?” I whispered.
Several minutes passed, and all I could hear was my own breath, heavy in the eerie calm of the room. I reasoned that the moon had simply cast a shadow on the wall, and I looked at the blinds, but they were slanted up, and no light was coming through them.
I stood a moment longer, questioning my eyes and questioning time, and then in one movement I peeled back the sheets and scurried beneath the covers, wrapping myself like a mummy.
I closed my eyes and began to generate a slew of images—anything that would distract me. I thought of swimming pools, horses, trees, lily pads, apples, and a few dozen other things. They cemented in my mind until, swaddled and warm, I began to tire.
I hoped that Justin would find me soon.
When I opened my eyes, he was standing beside the bed, looking at me with his shiny blue eyes. My pillow had fallen on the floor, and the comforter had wrapped around me. I felt like a pig in a blanket on the center rack, being watched through the oven door.
I lurched upright, smoothing down my hair.
“Did I fall asleep?”
“Yes, and you’re it,” Justin said, tapping me on the shoulder.
I opened my mouth, hoping that some formation of words would come out, but I was interrupted. There was a sudden noise, a faint tumble downstairs. I rolled my eyes, picturing Garrett in a hiding place that wasn’t really a hiding place, just begging to be found.
Justin laughed softly. “By the way, don’t worry—I wasn’t spying on you or anything. I just got here. But I have to say, you did not pick a smart place to hide. I only had to look for ten minutes. Did you just come up here to take a nap?”
“I thought hiding here would be so obvious that you’d never think of it,” I said.
He sat down on the bed. “Sure you did.”
I suddenly felt invasive being in his room. I pushed off the comforter and asked if we should look for Garrett.
Justin slowly shook his head, diffusing silence into the air.
My heart could barely keep up with itself. It palpitated when we locked eyes. I felt inhuman, detached.
The longer he looked at me, the more nervous I felt, and the worse my floating sensation became. I was an alien stuffed into the body of a girl, and somewhere someone controlled my movements, but it was certainly not me.
“I think you wanted me to find you,” Justin said.
I tried to look down, but he pulled my chin up.
“I wanted to find you,” he said.
He leaned toward me, and I studied his face, which was half aglow in the moonlight, half smothered by the shadows. I had often felt like he only gave me half of himself—half to me, and half to Garrett.
But this moment was different. There had been a shift.
Justin paused inches from my face. His eyebrows lifted, ever so slightly, anticipating, and I couldn’t help but smile. He traced my lips with his thumb and then softly kissed my cheek.
Instinctively my eyes closed, but I quickly opened them to gauge my reality. I was still lifting off. I wished that I felt more present. I had been awaiting this for years.
“Jade,” he whispered.
He started to say more, but then he abruptly turned, taking a long sniff.
I reached for his hands. “What is it?”
We touched briefly before he leapt off the bed.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
“I don’t smell anything,” I said.
He ran to the door, and I watched as a mist drifted into the room and enveloped him. He dropped to the floor.
“Call nine-one-one!” he ordered.
I fumbled through the sheets for my phone. I lit up the screen and shined it on him.
Smoke.
“Garrett,” I breathed, climbing unsteadily off the bed.
“I’ll find him! You jump out the window! And call nine-one-one!”
I stared at the window. “Jump?”
Somehow my fingers managed to dial the three numbers as I idled in the middle of the room.
A voice crackled through the speakers. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
I looked from Justin to the window.
“Jade, it’s fine!” he screamed, crawling into the smoke. “I need to find your brother! We’re not that high up—we used to jump into that pool every day!”
But we weren’t talking about a pool. We were talking about hard ground. There had to be another way.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
The smoke had engulfed the room. As my breathing weakened and I began to cough, I fell to my knees. I didn’t want to leave Garrett and Justin, but I needed to find help. I had never felt so divided, and the smoke wasn’t helping me think any clearer. I was dizzy, on the verge of passing out. I thought I might die there in the room, only a staircase away from my brother.
“Hello? This is nine-one-one. Are you all right?”
As Justin disappeared through the doorway, and I realized that that might be the last of him, I finally came to my senses.
“There’s a fire!” I told the operator. “People are trapped in the house! Please hurry! Six-thirteen Vaden Street!”
I crawled to the window and almost tore off the blinds trying to open it. I stretched one leg to the roof, and it waited at an angle for the rest of me. As I pulled my other leg through the window, I lost my footing, and my phone tumbled off the roof.
I grabbed the ledge to keep from falling and then sank to my bottom so that I could slide down the roof. The ground didn’t look too far down, but still I worried that I’d land the wrong way. I hadn’t even put my shoes on.
At the edge of the roof, I dangled my feet over and surveyed the street. It was quiet and still. So far, the fire hadn’t escaped the house.
There was still time. I realized that if the fire had started upstairs, I might still have access to the house through the front door. The sooner I jumped, the sooner I could find Garrett.
I took a deep breath and pushed off the roof, remembering to bend my knees before impact. Landing still hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. I pushed myself up and raced to the front door.
I didn’t make it inside the house. I didn’t even make it to the steps. Out of nowhere, Justin flew through the front door and tackled me.
“No, Jade! It’s too late! Get back!”
I tried to wrestle him off, but he pressed me into the ground.
“Where’s Garrett?” I screamed, trying to untangle my arms. “Let me go!”
“Stop! You don’t understand!” he said.
Something flashed in my peripheral vision, and I jerked toward the front door. The fire had found us. It was whipping wildly in the doorway—bright and orange—in perfect contrast with the night.
Justin stood up, and I saw that his face was covered in soot. I could only think of what Garrett’s face looked like. I tried to run into the house, but Justin threw me over his shoulder and started down the driveway.
“Where is he?” I screamed. “Where was he hiding?”
Flames appeared at Justin’s bedroom window, and I cried even louder for him to let me go.
“We have to find Garrett!”
I pounded on his back, but he was relentless. So I kneed him in the ribs, and he dropped me. He tried to pick me back up, but I dug my heels into the ground. That didn’t stop him. He walked on, dragging me with him.
The fire sizzled behind us as neighbors in bathrobes emerged from their houses, and a deafening siren drew near. I caught a glimpse of Justin’s house over his shoulder. It was already half-consumed. Dumbstruck by how quickly the fire had spread, I yielded, and I collapsed onto him.