Fearscape (15 page)

As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Val hopped out of the van and let herself into the house with her own key. She took the steps two at a time, stomping a little as she did. Her thoughts were scrambled, frenetic, but nowhere near as bad in shape as her emotions. She tore off her wet track clothes, throwing them to the side with a vengeance that surprised her. When she pulled on her sweats, the warm fleece felt strange against her cold, clammy skin, and made her shiver all the harder.

Knocking sounded upon her door. “Val, it's your father. Your mother is waiting in the kitchen. She wants to speak with you alone.”

A pause.

“
Now
, Val.”

Crap.

She walked into the brightly lit kitchen filled with apprehension. Her mother had changed into her pajamas and the purple-checked nightgown made her look very thin and frail. Unlike Val, Mrs. Kimble was blonde, and her thin skin had developed the texture and consistency of tissue paper from too much tanning and smoking as a teen.

At the sound of Val's footsteps, her mother looked up. The muscles in her cheeks and under her eyes were strained. She didn't beat around the bush. She said, “What could have possessed you to make you think that was a good idea?”

Val sat on the edge of the kitchen chair farthest from her mother. “The line was busy.”

“
And you couldn't have waited at school?”

“
It was raining — and cold.”

“
So you got into a strange car with a strange man — ”

“
He goes to my school!”

“ —
and went to his house, drinking whatever he gave you — ”

“
Tea,” Val cut in. “It was just tea!”

“
And what if it had been drugged?” Her mother asked. “What then?”

He wouldn't do that. He'd want me awake.

The thought, which had come to her mind unbidden, frightened her.

“
Can you at least see why your father and I were so worried? I didn't know where you were. He didn't know where you were. That boy might have taken you anywhere. He might have — ” Her mouth tightened, and she was unable to finish the thought. Wrapped around her mug of tea, her knuckles whitened, though, and, seeing her daughter's gaze, she set it down gently on the table. “I worry about you,” she said. “You're so young.”

Val allowed herself to be hugged. She sensed a peaceful resolution. “Gavin wouldn't do anything like that,” she said, doubting the words even as they left her mouth. Because she wondered now. She wondered.

“
I'll admit that his manners were nice, at the very least,” her mother said grudgingly. “He's a very polite boy, very formal, but that says nothing about what he's like as a person.”

“
Ms. Wilcox likes him.”

“
Some of the cruelest men in the world were born with silver tongues. They could charm a bird right out of the sky, only to break its wings. And no men, nice or cruel, offer favors lightly — not strangers. Not to young women. Not without expecting something back in return.”

The look in her mother's eyes made Val squirm. “We're just classmates.”

“
Is that his opinion? Or yours?”

“
It's the truth.”

“
You're blushing,” Mrs. Kimble said. “That leads me to suspect otherwise.”

At Val's silence, she sighed.

“
All right. Then go to your room.”

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

The next afternoon he was stretched out in their usual spot, lying in the grass with no regard for his white sweater. There were two coffees beside him. “What's this?” she asked, surprised.

“
It was the least I could do.” He smiled up at her. “I hope they weren't too hard on you.”

“
Not too hard,” Val mumbled, feeling a little like a parrot. She dropped to the grass.

“
Was that your mother?”

“
Yeah,” Val said. She sipped at the coffee he'd given her. Hazelnut. Had she told him that she liked hazelnut? She couldn't remember, but she didn't think so.

“
You look nothing like her.”

“
I look like my great-aunt Agnes,” Val said. “On my father's side. Can I ask you a question?”

“
You just did,” he said lazily.

Val wasn't in the mood for games. “Why do you bother with me?”

Gavin rolled onto his side to regard her. “Because I like being bothered,” he said. “By you.”

“
No, I mean — ” Val fumbled for the words to explain her amorphous doubts. They were many, and vague. “ — why me?” she decided upon at last. “What do you see in me?”

“
Ah. That's different.” He ran his fingers along the necklace at his throat, following the chain to the clasp at the back. With a sigh, he unfastened it and let the metal links coil around his fingers like a serpent. “What brought this on?”

“
I'm just curious.”

“
A very dangerous thing, that.”

“
Why?”

“
Because,” he let the necklace slip from his fingers to swing like a pendulum, “it leads people to answers that they might not necessarily like. Possibility — that's what I see in you. Among other things.”

Her eyes, which had been following the chain's hypnotic arc, came to an abrupt standstill on his face. “Possibility for what?”

“
Me.”

“
I don't understand.”

“
I'm very particular. In all things — but women, especially. There are traits I absolutely require, and you, my dear, possess many of them. Suffice it to say I am very interested. Nobody has ever managed to capture and hold my attention as you have.”

“
Like what?” Val persisted. “What traits?”

Gavin sat up. “Beauty. Innocence.” He drew her closer. “Submissiveness.”

“
What about intelligence?”

“
Oh, yes. That's a necessity.”

“
Kindness? Compassion?”

“
You could do without quite so much of that.” He paused. “Curiosity. That's one I rather like.”

“
You just said curiosity was dangerous.”

“
I enjoy a bit of danger, too,” he whispered, and she felt the cold bite of metal against her skin. She looked down just in time to see him fasten the clasp of the necklace around her wrists.

“
What are you doing?”

“
Don't you trust me, Val?” His voice, soft as death in her ear. She shivered.

No. She didn't. Not at all. That realization thrilled and frightened her as he got to his feet and walked away.
What is he doing? Where is he going?
She heard the grass rustle as he circled around behind her. Val tried to look over her shoulder and his hand covered her eyes. She jerked. “What are you — ”

“
Shh. I'm going to tell you a secret.” His lips brushed against her ear, causing ripples of sensation down that side of her face, and Val found herself shying away from the sheer intimacy of it. “Can you keep a secret?”

Torn, she said, “Yes, but — ”

“
I sometimes think I'm more beast than man.”

Val stiffened. “That's silly.”

“
Is it? We all started out in the wilds. It stands to reason that some of us would retain that more than others. Humanity is a cage, and our puritanical sensibilities comprise the bars. We are confined by our own reason and intellect, and yet most of us don't even know it.”

“
That's a horrible thing to say. Untie me,” she protested. “I don't like this.”

“
No, you wouldn't, would you?” he breathed. “You're like a half-tamed creature, still shy of the bridle. 'Except you enthrall me, never shall be free.' But freedom is an illusion, anyway.”

Those words ….
“Donne,” she choked.

“
Mm-hmm. And — 'Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.'” His lips brushed the hollow beneath her ear. “That's Byron. A libertine, and rather eloquent for one so crude and base. But then, beauty so often can be found in the very depths of degradation.” In a different sort of voice, he said, lowly, “What time did you tell your mother you'd be home?”

“
Now. Let me go right now.”

“
Am I making you uncomfortable?”

Yes.

She felt his finger slide along the space between her skin and the chain. “Or could it be that you're afraid someone might see you like this, with me?”

That possibility hadn't even occurred to her until now. “Oh, god,” she whispered. He let her struggle, with an air of superior indulgence which frightened her. Then, just when she was about to cry, he reached around her body to unfasten the clasp. She wasted no time in backing away from him, her heart pounding, her palms sweating.

“
Don't be angry with me.” She flinched when he reached out to pat her cheek. “I couldn't resist teasing you.”

He sounded contrite, but the look in his eyes — it was all wrong.

“
I have to go,” she said stiffly.

“
You're angry.”

His eyes are empty
.

“
And frightened.”

There's nothing in there. Nothing but shadows.

“
I'm not,” she said, and it sounded as unconvincing aloud as it did in her head.

“
I'll drive you home,” he said.

And since Val couldn't think of a polite way to refuse without being circumspect, she let him. The drive spanned in silence, crackling with a tension that bordered on electric. Though Gavin kept his eyes on the road she had the feeling that none of her movements escaped his notice.

His words curled in her ears like steam, even now, as dark as the fears in her secret heart.

(I sometimes think I'm more beast than man)

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Gavin dropped her off at her home with a lingering kiss that made her lips feel numb. She mumbled an intelligible farewell and ran inside the house, locking the door behind her. Her heart was hammering, and she could still feel the sting of his necklace on her wrists: cold metal warmed by human skin.

Val dumped her backpack on her bed, unzipping it roughly. She grabbed the first notebook she touched, her Health binder, and a green gel-pen with only about a quarter of its ink remaining.

On an empty sheet, she slashed a green line, dividing the paper into two columns. One she labeled
Gavin
, the other labeled
Stalker
. In her tiniest handwriting, she wrote down everything she knew about both individuals and didn't stop until she drew a blank.

The similarities between the two were terrifying.

But what did that mean for her? The man who had sent her those messages scared her on a deep and profound level. Because Val suspected that he didn't consider her a person at all, but an animal — no, worse still: something to be owned, played with, trifled with, and then discarded once broken.

Ever since the first message, Val had started getting nightmares about getting caught alone, in the dark. She wasn't sure what a man like that might do to her, but she knew enough to know she wouldn't like it.

That actually spoke in Gavin's favor, though, because so far he had done nothing to hurt her. Not really. And she was attracted to him, too. When he had kissed her, the ground seemed to have fallen right out from beneath her feet.

On the other hand, Gavin had known her mother was expecting her home by a set time, both times.

What would he have done if she hadn't been expected back for a while longer? Would he still have let her go?

Everything was connecting with far more ease than she would have liked.
I shouldn't even be thinking like this. I'm freaking myself out.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt his breath on her neck, that firm, insistent pressure on her lips — and that vague impression that he was hunting her, like a deer in the woods. A dark huntsman.

Mr. and Mrs. Kimble had gone out for dinner, leaving her to stew like meat in a crock pot. Val had begged them to take her with them, as if she were four instead of fourteen, not wanting to be left alone in their large house with far too many doors and windows.

Her father had rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Val.”

Her mother had seemed to know Val wasn't joking, but she, too, said no. “The reservations are for two, not three,” she explained, “and it's so crowded during dinner hour that they most likely won't be able to scrounge up another chair. And besides, I'm sure you don't want to be stuck with your lovey-dovey parents.”

Anything
would be better than this isolation.