Archaic (5 page)

Once the adrenaline started to wear off, I started to shake. It took me twice as long to take my clothes off. I stood under the warm stream of the shower, wincing as the water streamed down over my bloody knees. I stood in the shower for a while before the shaking eased to a slight, constant shiver.

White steaks of energy... Humans just couldn't do that. So my next logical conclusion was that Jared wasn't human.

And if he isn't human, what is he?
I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to that.

CHAPTER FOUR

Once I was out of the shower, I cleaned the scrapes on my knees with some disinfectant and swapped my pajama shorts for long pants to hide them from Anne. I couldn't smother the fear I felt. Had Jared seen me or not? Surely if he'd seen me he would have confronted me already.

Anne arrived home just after I'd finished getting dressed. I put a smile on my face and tried to act as normal as possible, but it was hard when I jumped at every sudden sound.

It was Friday, so we ordered pizza. She telephoned our order to the local pizza restaurant. Thirty minutes later we were curled up on the couch in front of the TV watching a really bad reality show while munching on slices of pizza. With the chaotic events of the day, I didn't have much of an appetite. The knots inside of my stomach made it impossible to eat. Anne raised a concerned eyebrow.

"I'm not that hungry," I muttered, looking away from her worried gaze.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked with a frown.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I promise." Then I remembered the party the girls wanted me to go to the following evening.

"Is it okay if I go to a party tomorrow night? Some guy at school is having a party at his house. I'll be going with Stacy and Kennedy. Stacy mentioned something about sleeping over, but I'm not sure if I will," I said, playing with the thread coming undone at the bottom of my top.

I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to go out, but I couldn't just stay in my house indefinitely. Had he seen me? Surely if he had I wouldn't have gotten away. It made no sense that he had seen me and had done nothing. The thought calmed me down.

"Sure," she agreed. "Just let me know what you're going to do. I can pick you up if you need me to," she said, taking another bite of her pizza.

"I will."

My parents never would have let me go to a party without knowing the parents beforehand and giving me a strict curfew to adhere to. This new freedom would take some getting used to.

Unable to keep up the pretense that I was fine, I said good night and headed upstairs to my room. As I entered my room, my eyes were glued to my window. The dark night sent a shiver down my spine. I didn't want to put my bedroom light on. In the darkness of my room, I crept toward my windows. I gently closed my window and closed my curtains. I was petrified.

Too anxious to go to sleep, I climbed into my bed and sat with my back against my headboard and my comforter tucked around my body, keeping my eyes fixed on the curtains hiding my bedroom window. I could hear every little sound, the insects outside in the garden, and the gentle rustle of the leaves from the branches of the trees in the evening breeze. My curtains didn't move, and my window remained closed under my watchful gaze.

Finally, at around four in the morning, utter exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep.

I woke up with a start. I was lying in my bed, tangled in my sheets. Sunshine streamed through a gap in my curtains. The clock next to my bed told me it was close to noon. I'd slept practically half the day away.

Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes as I yawned. When I tried to get out of my bed, I felt the sting on both of my knees. I raised my pants to just above my knees and dreaded what I knew I was going to see. I had scrapes on both of my legs, proving that Jared and what had happened in the clearing had been real.

How was I going to get through today? Today was the party, and I knew Stacy and Kennedy wouldn't let me live it down if I cancelled, so I had to go. The only comforting thought was that I would probably be safer in a room full of people than alone in my bedroom.

The house was quiet when I went downstairs to the kitchen. I found a note on the door of the fridge from Anne telling me she'd gone out to do some shopping. I was alone. It was a good thing I had some time to pull myself together. I was convinced Jared hadn't seen me. And if he hadn't seen me, it meant he didn't know what I had seen and didn't know that I knew he was...different.

There was no way I was going to tell anybody what I'd seen. For a start, I doubted that anybody would actually believe me. So my only course of action was to act like nothing was wrong. I would continue as I had before and would try and act as normal as possible if I did happen to bump into Jared. Deep down, though, I knew it was easier said than done.

After a bowl of my favorite cereal, I went upstairs and got dressed in some jeans and a shirt. Stacy was going to pick Kennedy and me up in a couple of hours before the party so that we could get ready together. My current predicament was what I was going to wear to the party. It was nice to be able to focus my mind on something as trivial as trying to pick out an outfit--it distracted me from other, more worrisome thoughts.

I fished out a pair of black skinny jeans, but after looking through some of my tops, I still couldn't decide. Then I spotted a beautiful blue baby-doll top my mom had bought for me a couple of months ago. I hadn't worn it yet. Happy with the outfit I had chosen, the only thing I needed to settle on was which pair of shoes I was going to wear. Like with my clothes, I didn't have a lot of options. I found a pair of black ballet pumps that would work.

I packed the outfit I had chosen into my duffel bag and then rummaged through the drawer of my dressing table for lip-gloss, which was the sum total of my makeup. I decided to pack my toiletries and pajamas and a change of outfit for tomorrow in case I changed my mind and decided to sleep over at Stacy's house.

Still with a couple of hours to spare, I decided to do some cleaning around the house. I started in the kitchen. I did the dishes and wiped down the counters. Then I moved to the living room, where I tidied up a bit. I fluffed up the pillows and arranged them on the sofa. I spent some time on the laptop I shared, checking out my social media accounts. As usual, there was nothing interesting. With another free hour I thought about doing my puzzle, but I knew my mind was not in the right place so I tried watching some TV. But after flipping through the channels, I couldn't find anything that held my attention.

My phone rang. I looked at the display and saw Stacy's name flashing in tune with the ring.

"Hi," I answered.

"Hi, I'm around the corner from you. Are you ready?" she asked.

I made a noise of agreement as I continued walking around the house, grabbing my things.

"See you in a few," she said before ending the call.

I picked up my duffel bag and reached for a jacket. Although it was pretty warm during the day, it did sometimes get a little chilly at night so I was taking a jacket with me just in case. I stood outside the house on the sidewalk, waiting nervously for Stacy. Unlike the night before, the forest across from the house looked beautiful and welcoming in the light of day. My eyes drifted down the road, wondering which house Jared lived in.

Forget it. Forget about him
, I chanted in my mind. I needed to forget what I'd seen.

In the distance I saw a car and pulled my attention back to the road as I saw Stacy pull up in front of me. She leaned over and unlocked the door and I got in.

"Hey, there," I greeted, putting my seatbelt on and laying my duffel bag by my feet.

"Hi," she greeted back with a grin. "We just need to go and pick up Kennedy."

"Okay," was all I got out before Stacy hit the gas pedal, and I flew back into my seat as the car screamed down my road.

By the time we made it to Kennedy's, my hands ached from gripping my seatbelt, and my heart was still lodged in my throat. Stacy might only be driving a Beetle, but she drove it like a Formula One car.

I struggled to let go of the seatbelt, because my survival instinct was telling my subconscious that it was my only chance of survival. I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to slow my heart rate down. I was pretty sure I had come close to having a heart attack.

Eventually I got out of the car. I decided that maybe it wouldn't be so bad in the back seat, so I took my duffel bag and climbed into the back while Stacy waited patiently outside Kennedy's front door. Before long we were all in the car and on our way to Stacy's house. Sitting in the back seat made no difference. I wasn't sure my heart could withstand another ride in her car.

"Does she always drive like that?" I whispered to Kennedy as we walked into Stacy's house.

Kennedy laughed and told me I'd get used to it. My heart, still lodged in my throat, disagreed with her.

Nobody was home when we entered her house. We walked up the stairs and entered a doorway, two doors down on the left. Stacy skipped in, followed closely by Kennedy and, lastly, myself.

Her room was quite big. What hit you the most when you entered Stacy's room was the color pink. It was everywhere. A dark mahogany bed with bedposts stood in the center of the room and it had pink, netted curtains tied back to the bedposts. A soft-pink comforter matched the soft-pink curtains bordering double windows overlooking the pool. Dark-pink pillows were tossed onto the bed. Most girls grew out of the color pink but apparently that hadn't happened with Stacy. There was so much pink.

I was starting to get a headache. I didn't know if it was the overload of pink or the nerve-wracking ride over. Toward the foot of the bed was a sofa around a massive flat-screen TV with a mahogany cabinet beneath it. Even the sofa was pink.

A couple of painkillers later and I was feeling better and ready for the evening ahead. We painted our nails while we munched on some sandwiches. I kept to light blue. Stacy, as you could have guessed, went for a hot pink and Kennedy went for lilac. Then we started getting our outfits on. Stacy and Kennedy gave me a disapproving look when they saw my outfit.

"What?" I looked down at my skinny jeans. I couldn't see anything wrong with them--they looked perfectly fine.

"You can't wear jeans," Stacy informed me, shaking her head. It was like she was dealing with someone who didn't have a clue. Clearly I didn't.

"Okay, so jeans are out." I picked the jeans up off her bed and stuffed them back into my duffel bag.

I watched Stacy walk to her closet and start sifting through some of her clothes. I was surprised when she pulled out a couple of items out of her closet and they weren't pink. Thank goodness.

"Skirt or dress?" she asked me, holding up what looked like a tube top, but was in actual fact a very short skirt. She was also holding a dark blue dress. I was definitely going with the dress, and only because it was definitely going to cover more than the so-called mini skirt.

"I'll try it on," I said reluctantly.

It was only when I got inside her adjoining bathroom and started to change that I realized the scrapes on my knees would be visible if I wore the dress. The little blue dress clung to my skinny frame. It really did leave little to the imagination. I wasn't sure if I could actually pull it off, but I couldn't wear the dress if the scrapes on my knees were going to be seen.

"What happened to your knees?" Kennedy gasped when I stepped out of the bathroom into the full view of my two friends. Although my knees weren't really sore anymore, they did look terrible.

"I fell when I was out running yesterday." It wasn't a lie. Somehow spending time doing normal teenage things with my friends had actually managed to help me forget all the life-altering things I had seen last night. Stacy stood there, eyeing my outfit again.

"I have the perfect remedy!" she exclaimed and off she went to her closet again.
How could she possibly remedy this?
This time she pulled out black leggings. At least I had my jacket, so I could still cover myself up a bit more. Tonight was going to be a very long night.

Stacy insisted I wear my hair down. She said my hair was beautiful and I should show it off more. There was no arguing with her. I normally wore very little makeup, but with Stacy in charge there was no way I was stepping foot outside this house without full makeup on.