Finding Alice (Alice Clark Series) (2 page)

 This is where I met Camille. She was absolutely stunning to look at. She had brown hair with highlights that looked golden and her skin was pale but flawless. Her legs looked longer than they were due to her overly short shorts and the tower of heels she wore. She definitely didn’t belong in a bar like this but just the same, she loved it here. She went to a community college and came here to get away. She says she works better with a few drinks in her. Somehow she convinced me that I should go back to school, that I was too antisocial and needed to get out of this town every once in a while to mingle with real people, or something like that. I used to just laugh at her, but I began deeply considering it.

We became friends, almost like sisters after this really bad bar fight a few months back. An overly large biker came and challenged one of our regular drunks to a game of pool. I’m assuming it was for a decent chunk of change, because when he lost to Jake, he almost killed him. There I was minding my own business at the bar when this giant ass of a man pulled out a pistol. Camille flew out of her seat, attempting to run toward the door, but this guy shifted his aim at her, stopping her dead in her tracks. Jake just stood there blank, refusing to give in to him, pushing Camille behind him protectively. I heard the click as the biker readied his gun. Next thing I knew, I was standing next to him with his gun in my hand, pressed against his cheek.

 “How about you get your fat ass out of my bar?” I barely recognized my cold voice leaving my lips.

Everyone stood in shock, but it was Camille’s face I noticed. I watched her eyes busily recalculating the last few seconds. I felt all the other patrons watch in terror. He spit on the floor, threw his hands up and left. Jake let out a sigh of relief and hugged me, flashing one of those “Way to make me feel like a pussy” grins. I pushed away from the hug quickly and noticed Camille leaning toward a single black feather on the ground. I snatched it up and stuffed it into my pocket. I watched for her reaction but she didn’t even notice.

 The most amazing thing was Camille never asked me how I got there so quickly, how I grabbed the gun without anyone seeing me actually do it. That is why we are such good friends. Well, that and she is so rational, I don’t have to deal with her emotions overloading my mind. I couldn’t explain it to her even if I wanted to. I couldn’t even explain it to myself.

College. What was I thinking? I pulled my hat down to cover my eyes. I was a good twenty minutes early. I walked to the back of the classroom, pulled my chair closer to the wall in the corner, and sat down. I don’t know how I let Camille convince me this was a good idea. I only signed up for two classes, though I could have handled fourteen credits worth of classes easily. First class, History: Early Religion. I’m not a devout person. To be honest, I don’t think I really believe in anything, but it sounded interesting enough. I sat drawing in my notepad when suddenly, my fingers became extremely hot, like a fire was lit right through them, almost as if I was washing them in boiling water. I dropped my pencil, massaging my fingers and inhaling deeply, trying to imagine the pain leaving with my breath. Then the most bizarre thing happened: I smelled the sweetest smell. It reminded me of the ocean. Salty water and a wisp of sand. It completely distracted me and the pain I was just feeling vanished.

I opened my eyes to find the room in a standstill, as if someone had pressed pause on a movie. There in front of me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen; he was stunning. His hair was as black as the night with slivers of dark brown dancing throughout it. His eyes were intensely amber. Chiseled jaw exactly like the rest of him. I realized I was holding my breath and exhaled. As I did, everything in the room seemed to speed back up to present time. I felt my heart thumping quickly in my chest; I could even hear it in my ears. He sat in the chair in front of the nerd next to me. When he turned and looked at me, it was like he was burning a hole into my soul, almost as if he could hear my heart pounding against my chest.

My concentration broke when Camille bustled in and gave the nerd a nudge to get out of “her seat.” I was almost grateful she snapped me back to reality.

“I am so excited you decided to take this class with me, Alice,” she said with a smile. Her attention turned to what I was apparently staring at. She stared at the back of his head and mouthed, “He’s hot.”

I just rolled my eyes at her and thought to myself,
Yes he is hot
. Glancing at his perfect profile, I watched him smile to himself. There was no way he could have heard that.
Did I say that out loud?
I looked at Camille to check and make sure I hadn’t actually uttered those words. She was going on about something, so no, I hadn’t. I didn’t even notice the teacher, a short man with a terrible comb over, had entered the classroom. My brain was in hyper-overdrive. I attempted to focus on what Camille was saying but was completely distracted by this gorgeous guy and…
how the hell did I do that?

I’ve tried time and time again to pass these weird circumstances off as nothing more than quick reflexes. I have even blamed it all on adrenaline. Neither one has ever been the case. I nodded at Camille with no idea what I was agreeing to. The teacher started introducing himself and what this course would cover over the semester. He wrote his name on the board in a horrible version of what I believe was supposed to represent cursive. Mr. Riley. I turned the page in my notebook to write notes on the main points, like tests and essay due dates. A few lines into the syllabus, I drifted off as I tend to do, writing down every moment I ever, well, stopped time. It was about three or four instances down when I felt a wave of heat hit the side of my face. I looked up in the direction it was coming from to find Amber Eyes burning into me. He said something but it was hard to make out.

“Hello? Do you have an extra pencil?” He looked at me alarmed. He must have thought I was retarded or something. His voice was so mesmerizing, it took me a moment to respond.

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled.

“Pay attention, Alice. The teacher’s staring,” he whispered in my ear, but he was too far to whisper so quietly in my ear. It sounded like he whispered in my head.

“What did you say?” I blurted out. I stared at him and he just looked at me even more confused. He reached for the pencil and I released it.

Mr. Riley cleared his throat while staring directly at me. I smiled a half smile filled with apology.
What the hell was that? I must be going out of my mind
. The smirk that rose on the corner of Mr. Chiseled’s mouth made me consider otherwise. I took a deep breath and began actually taking notes.

“I’m going to let you go early today, class, since it is the first day. Please take a printed syllabus on your way out. You will be reading excerpts from the Book of Enoch. This is one of the many early religious works we will discuss. Remember, you will have to choose a subject from one of our readings for your final essay. Yes, there will be a quiz next week. Now get out.” The pudgy man wiggled back to his desk and put his glasses on.

I shut my notebook and slid it into my sling bag. When I looked up at Camille, she was already on her cell phone; I didn’t even see her dial. She smiled, pointing at her phone, and waved me in her direction as she headed to the exit. I waved her off and mouthed “Later.” She smiled and blew me a kiss, obnoxious. I grabbed the syllabus and shoved it in my bag. I looked to the back of the classroom to find no one was there, just my pencil on the desk that had kept my attention all class. I walked back over and picked it up, sighing almost in relief he wasn’t still there.

I walked aimlessly through the hall, passing hundreds of students. I exited through steel doors and headed toward my car. The parking lot was so packed, it took me awhile to remember where I had parked. At least that is what I told myself. I stopped walking, closing my eyes, and took a deep breath. “Where are you, car?” I turned slowly until I felt this magnetic pull. My eyes shot open and I felt my dimples appear. “There you are.”

She wasn’t much to look at. Like midnight, the way the black faded to gray. She was old and obviously had been through a few bad relationships in her past. I threw my bag inside and climbed in. My notebook fell out of my bag from the whiplash of hitting my passenger seat. I scooped it up and started to toss it back in the bag when I noticed a single black feather stuck in it. I was clutching it when I heard a thump hit my window. I screamed.

“Whoa! My bad, hun.” Camille had her face pressed against my dirty window. I rolled down the window.

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to know if you work tonight.”

I was just about to answer when I noticed the gorgeous guy from class leaning against a shiny, black Challenger talking to some other guy. It seemed a little too new and flashy for him, though I didn’t know him at all, let alone enough to make a judgment about his car. He was facing our direction but was too far away to hear us.

“Hello? Earth to Alice! What is with you today?”

“Sorry, what? Oh, I mean yes. Yes, I work tonight.”

“Awesome. Can I hitch a ride? I’m meeting Jake and apparently he’s already there, and Hell is a long way to walk from here.”

I waved her in and she climbed into my car, going on and on about how sure she was that Jake was already drunk. Of course he was; he was an alcoholic. I just nodded and drove away.

I pulled up a dirty driveway to a small house that looked like it may have been beaten in a previous life. “I need a quick shower,” I announced. Camille waved me off while she talked away on her cell. My house would probably seem eerie to some, but it’s the closest to home I’ve ever felt.

I started the shower and dug through my hamper filled with black beaters and thermals. I grabbed a clean set and launched them into the bathroom. A small black box probably meant for jewelry sat on my desk near my dusty window. I pulled the black feather from my pocket and set it in the box with the others I’d found over the years. The echo of my horn rattled through the house and I hurried into the shower.

The water was like fire melting ice on my skin. I started to drift, thinking about class only to be interrupted by my horn again. I turned the shower off, towel-dried my hair, and threw my clothes on. I added a quick line of black eyeliner and mascara before darting out the door.

Back on the road, we headed to Hell, Michigan’s favorite bar. Well, more like their only bar that was still open, anyway.

“If your hair wasn’t wet, I wouldn’t have known you showered. Do you even know what color is?” Camille said, laughing while tugging at my clothes.

“It’s comfortable,” I said, glaring.

“Oh, come on. I’m just messing with you.”

I let a smirk show, just enough to get her off of my case. We pulled into the parking lot and parked in the furthest spot, partly so customers could park closer and partly so their drunken asses wouldn’t crash into my car when they left.

“Hey Alice, how was school?” Max asked. He had been getting a little more fatherly with me lately. I was sure it was because his kids were all grown up and had moved away and he knew I had never really had a father.

“It was okay. Do you need me to lock up tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am. What would I do without you?”

“Be overworked and underpaid, sort of like me.” We exchanged a chuckle and he headed to the back to finish his paperwork before heading home.

The bar was filled with the usual tenants, like Old Gray, who was exactly as his name described. He reminded me of Sean Connery with shoulder-length, silver hair. He was so old, it seemed as if he had been around for an eternity. He was a sweet guy who always tipped me well. Not sure how he made his money, being he was always there pretending he was a fish. Jake was an early 30-something who behind his rough exterior actually wasn’t all that bad to look at if you liked that grungy farm boy look. He was in the back attempting to teach Camille how to play pool. Lastly, there was Jasmine, pronounced Jazz-mean, a washed-up something in her very late 50s. She was still sporting her fur coat even though the weather had warmed up, just to show how much money she used to have. Clearly I wasn’t a fan. It was a slow night; it seemed like only the regulars were there, but I didn’t really mind that.