Falling Under (15 page)
His expression, wild and unrestrained, put a cold terror in my heart. I stepped back. He began to move towards me and then stopped himself. He drew in a ragged breath and it sounded like the word “no” escaped his lips before the windows of every vehicle in the parking lot shattered.
The sound of the blast made me lose my footing on the stupid stiletto heels and I fell to the ground. Glass sprayed, raining glittery shards on us—me on my knees and Haden lording over me with the look of the devil in his eyes.
I didn’t understand what was happening. There were more explosions as the bulbs in streetlights and neon signs burst from their casings.
“Haden?” I cried. Lightning gashed open the sky and the wind whipped the dust and glass around me. I covered my face with one hand and tried to reach for him with the other. “Haden, help me up, please.”
I looked up through my fingers, but he’d gone. I covered my head with my arms as the sky rumbled as loudly as if Earth had collided with another planet. Hail the size of peas poured out of the sky.
He’d left me on my knees while begging him for help. Alone.
Donny and Gabe found me a few minutes later, curled into a ball and shivering. Gabe coaxed his coat onto me. I should have said thank you, but I don’t think I did.
They took me home before the authorities arrived, cleaned me up, and made me tea without asking me to talk or answer a single question. One of my shoulders had taken a fair amount of glass, but the cuts were superficial. I caught their worried glances at each other, but pretended not to notice and let numbness shape itself over me like a second skin.
I stared at the violent storm outside the window, drinking my tea and pushing their murmured voices from my mind until I realized Donny was telling Gabe to go, that she’d stay with me through the night.
“No,” I interrupted. “I’m fine. You should both go.”
“Theia, I’m not leaving you like this. Something happened to you out there—”
I shrugged farther into the soft blanket she’d put around my shoulders. “Yes, the weather happened to me out there. It was a frightening storm to be caught in. But I’m fine now.” I needed to be alone. My mind couldn’t process anything while they hovered over me.
“Thei—” she began.
“I need to sleep, Donny. Please, I’ll be fine.”
A few more minutes of arguing convinced her, though she was still reluctant to go. Gabe checked all the doors and windows while Donny and I walked to the door.
“How did I end up with Sir Fucking Galahad, Thei?” She hadn’t lost her panache for language, but already Donny’s face seemed softer to me.
“He seems like a really nice bloke.” Usually her club pickups convinced her to leave her friends behind. Gabe had insisted on seeing me home and checking locks.
She rolled her eyes. “You know, he told me he wouldn’t sleep with me? While we were dancing, for God’s sake. He just announced that there would be no sex until he was satisfied that I wasn’t using him for his body.”
The first smile of the night swept my face. “But you are using him for his body, aren’t you?” I played along.
“Of course. Now it’s just going to take me longer.” Donny grabbed my shoulders gently and looked soulfully into my eyes, searching for cracks in my facade, I was sure. “Are you sure you’re okay? We can stay. The sky is still pissing rain and I don’t think we’ll get the end of the thunder anytime soon. It’s a bad night to be alone in this huge house.” She didn’t mention all the broken windshields at the club. Hers only had a long, jagged crack. Gabe’s car wasn’t as lucky. I already knew the newspaper would blame the storm.
“I’ll sleep through it. Go on, will you? Maybe you can at least get to second base tonight still.”
“Honey, we got to second base on the dance floor.”
My turn to roll my eyes at her, and then good-byes were said. I locked the door behind them, then slid down it slowly as exhaustion, physical and emotional, rolled over me in waves. As tired as I was, I knew I wouldn’t sleep.
The wind howled, vicious and malevolent. Shrubs scratched and rattled against the windows. Odd bumps and creaks rumbled and scraped across the roof. The power flickered twice, then cut out, leaving me in the dark until lightning strobed the room and flashed strange, long shadows on the wall.
Though our Victorian wasn’t old, only built to look that way, it still felt haunted, filled with something …
other
. I felt my way across the room, stumbling and grazing the wall. The house should have been familiar, but the ominous darkness changed even my perception of my home. As I reached into the drawer for the flashlight, the kitchen storm door slammed on its hinges.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I whimpered and then chastised my foolishness.
other
. I felt my way across the room, stumbling and grazing the wall. The house should have been familiar, but the ominous darkness changed even my perception of my home. As I reached into the drawer for the flashlight, the kitchen storm door slammed on its hinges.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I whimpered and then chastised my foolishness.
I had two choices: secure the door or listen to it crash into the frame at random all night. I turned on the flashlight and slowly crept across my own kitchen like a burglar. My hand hesitated on the doorknob, and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves.
It’s just a slamming door in the wind
. But still, I said a little prayer, one from my childhood, the only one I could remember at the moment.
It’s just a slamming door in the wind
. But still, I said a little prayer, one from my childhood, the only one I could remember at the moment.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
I flung the door open and reached for the screen door handle. The wind moaned in agony, but I grasped the handle, heaved it closed, and turned the lock. Working quickly, I did the same with the kitchen door and then sobbed with relief when I had accomplished my goal.
Bolstered by my victory, and the beam from the flashlight, I crossed the kitchen normally and my heart slowed to a standard rhythm. Until I got to the living room and the hair on my nape rose like it had been rubbed the wrong way.
I froze, letting the rest of my senses figure out what was wrong.
It’s all in your head, Thei
. Sure it was. Like everything that had happened all week. I tightened my grip on the flashlight, knowing full well that it would be of little use as a weapon. I suspected that whatever I needed to battle wouldn’t respond to any kind of force I could provide.
It’s all in your head, Thei
. Sure it was. Like everything that had happened all week. I tightened my grip on the flashlight, knowing full well that it would be of little use as a weapon. I suspected that whatever I needed to battle wouldn’t respond to any kind of force I could provide.
I swallowed the fear and resumed moving. I kept going, up the stairs and then, on a whim, past my room to the end of the hall and the staircase that led to the next floor. Varnie had said I would need a talisman. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. I assumed it was some kind of amulet, something personal to me, and instinct lured me to the third floor.
I eyed the staircase, pausing for a moment of trepidation before I climbed the short flight. The attic wasn’t scary like some. It wasn’t dark—well, except now, with no electricity. There were no cobwebs or strange windows. It was just an ordinary bonus room with the same carpeting as my own room. And yet it had always felt soulless and cold to me, perhaps because it was never used, never lived in. If houses had feelings, all of our neglect was stored in this room. The room that held my dead mother’s things.
The howling wind seemed worse on the third floor. The storm, the dark, and my own fears combined like a haunted force field I was pushing myself to go through. Unfortunately, Varnie’s words of something attaching to me and wanting me very badly weren’t going to soothe me. The sensible thing would have been to curl up downstairs and try to sleep through the storm. My sensible gene was on a business trip, though, so instead I chose to brave the attic in the dark to find something I shouldn’t need.
Shaking from too much adrenaline and not enough clothing, I hurried across the room without shining the light into the corners. If something was lurking there, I decided, I’d rather not know about it. I found the box I was after quickly—nobody ever moved anything in the attic—so I sat in front of it and loosened the lid.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a shadow darting across the wall and my heart slammed against my rib cage. I sat very still, unmoving and reluctant to breathe. There—it happened again. Too fast to track, the shadow skittered blithely, though nothing in the room was moving and there was no light by which to create a shadow, much less see one.
My blood chilled with dread, yet my shaky hands finished removing the box lid and I searched for the jewelry box, clutching it to my breast when I found it. I ran across the room to the door. I had to bite my lip not to squeal, because as I closed the door, fingers of cold tried to pull me back in.
I flew down the stairs and into my room, taking great gulps of air. I dropped to the floor and dumped out the contents of the wooden box. I don’t know why I was in such a hurry and so careless with my mother’s jewelry; I just knew I needed to find the pendant I was looking for. It was a simple black stone set in silver on a chain. My fingers shook with the clasp, but I managed to get it closed around my neck finally.
I wondered when she’d worn it last. I didn’t even know what kind of stone it was or if it meant anything special to her. Maybe it was just a cheap necklace she’d gotten at a street fair. It hardly looked like anything my father would have purchased for her. I’d seen her wearing it in a few pictures, but it never appeared to be a favorite.
The weight of the stone on my chest reassured me. For better or worse, I’d found my talisman.
Surrounded by heat, I opened my eyes and was blinded by the bright, hot sun. I squinted and let my eyes adjust to the radiant light.
Beneath my feet, hot sand burned my skin and it became apparent that I was alone in a vast, desolate desert. Not knowing what else to do, I sat.
As the sun baked my body like a roast in an oven, I wondered where Haden was. There was nowhere for me to go—the flat sand stretched for miles on all sides. Nothing broke the view and no prints in the sand hinted at any other life nearby.
Vacant, hot, barren.
Damn it, Haden
.
Damn it, Haden
.
He appeared as if he had always been there, charming in his coattails and top hat. As if we were to take tea in the oppressive heat. The flash of his white teeth, all the better to bite me with, unnerved me.
Not content to let him hover over me while I remained on the ground again, I rolled my knees under me to stand.
“You’re still dressed like a trollop,” he remarked. “And you’re pouting.”
I was certainly not pouting. Why hadn’t I changed clothes? I guess I’d assumed I wouldn’t fall asleep. I remember sitting in the rocking chair in my bedroom to rest a minute before I got ready for bed. And then I woke up in the desert.
I looked at Haden, remembering coolly how he’d left me in the storm after he’d worked me into a jealous fit. And now, to add insult, he called me a trollop. “How old are you, Haden?”
“Seventeen. That’s an odd question, Theia.”
“You’re not seventeen.”
“I’m almost eighteen.”
“You use words like ‘trollop.’ How old are you really?”
“You speak very formally also, little lamb. Should I call your age into question too?”
My father let me read only classic literature. As much as I loved Jane Austen, I knew the constant immersion in the nineteenth century caused another language barrier between my peers and me. I didn’t feel I owed Haden an explanation, though, and I gifted him with a blank gaze.
I wanted answers. I needed them, and Haden owed me that much. “What are you?”
He met my eyes and in them I recognized his loneliness. He wanted to tell me; he wanted to open himself.
Instead he told me to wake up.
CHAPTER TEN
F
ather’s voice on the other end of the phone line was brittle and tired. Apparently, the delay in his business trip was less about the airlines and more about “the bloody idjits who won’t listen to reason” at his meetings. At any rate, Father would not be home anytime on Sunday either. He hoped the Monday-morning conference call would put this to bed, whatever
this
was.
ather’s voice on the other end of the phone line was brittle and tired. Apparently, the delay in his business trip was less about the airlines and more about “the bloody idjits who won’t listen to reason” at his meetings. At any rate, Father would not be home anytime on Sunday either. He hoped the Monday-morning conference call would put this to bed, whatever
this
was.
I hung up and sighed. The power had been restored sometime during the night, and the yard was full of debris and tree branches that must have flown like missiles in the wind. The sky was free of turmoil that morning, though. The sun shone brightly and there was no hint of fog; in fact the air had that balmy poststorm feel. It should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.
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