Hidden Deep (6 page)

The next morning I got out of the house as early as I could and headed for the natural pool. I probably should have been beating the streets, looking for that job. Instead I spent my Saturday waiting in the woods. Well, not exactly the entire day—after wasting my morning hours waiting at the pool, I borrowed Grandma’s car and went to the library, hoping to spot a tousled golden head bent over a desk in some corner. I left with a stack of books and disappointment.

Now I was back in the woods, sitting on a huge rock near the pool, hoping Lad would appear out of nowhere as he had before. That hope turned into several hours of nothing but squirrel chatter and mosquito bites. I pulled a clump of moss from the rock and threw it at a nearby tree trunk. It connected with a satisfying thunk. I blew away a piece of hair sticking to my face.
What am I doing?
I wasn’t usually this pathetic when it came to guys. But I needed to see Lad again—had to. I would not give up so easily.

Sweaty, aggravated, and bored, I got up and moved to the bank of the pool to dunk my feet in. Just my feet. I wasn’t going to swim out here without a bathing suit again.
Or maybe I should
. M
aybe that would
—

My eyes darted around, searching the bright woods. What had changed? Had I seen a flash of movement in the trees? Heard a noise that was out of place? No, it was actually very quiet. Maybe that’s what it was, the absence of the usual woodsy murmur.

As the silence stretched on, the feeling of being watched, of another presence, grew stronger. I stood and looked up, turning in a circle, searching the branches overhead.

“Lad?”

No answer.

No Lad.

The busy forest noises resumed, and my excitement drained away. It was time to go home and get ready to go out with Emmy and Shay. Maybe Lad had come
here
earlier and was at the library
now.
It was possible we’d just missed each other. It was also possible he didn’t want to see me again.

“The Hidden… what kind of a name is that for a band?” Emmy studied the flyer as we searched an alley off Oxford’s town square for the club entrance.

“Oh, you know, it’s one of those artsy musician things.” Shay skipped a little on the sidewalk, bouncing to a stop. “I like it. It sounds mysterious. I think it fits him.”

“Here it is,” Emmy said. “Now, if we can get in it’ll be a miracle. We don’t even have fake I.D.’s.”

“I bet Nox put our names on some kind of list. Or at least
one
of our names,” Shay teased, bumping shoulders with me. We got to the door, and the guy working it predictably asked to see our driver’s licenses.

“We all forgot them tonight. Can you believe it?" Emmy gave him a big smile and lied with impressive confidence. “I think we’re on the list, though. Emmy, Shay, and Ryann?”

A guilty tremor shook my fingers. My heart pounded, echoing the drumbeat of the music spilling out of the club. I’d never even thought of attempting anything like this before. Was it arrest-worthy? My mom thought we were at the movies. She would K-I-L-L kill me if she ever found out I went to a bar.

“Yeah. I got Ryann here. Yeah, okay, Nox said to let you and your friends in,” the bouncer said, shining a penlight on his clipboard. He looked up at us again, suspiciously checking out our baby faces, then stepped back and waved us in. “All right. But remember your I.D.’s next time,
ladies.
”

The music was reverberating through my internal organs before we’d even fully entered the building. It was a small club with brick walls and a thickly packed college crowd. The smell of beer filled the air. We moved past the entrance, and getting a clear view of the stage, I stopped dead.

Nox was there in the center. Bathed in the gold-colored stage lights, he’d looked like Lad for a second. The lights changed to red, the illusion dissolved, allowing my heart to re-start. But they did share a certain similarity. Their coloring was completely opposite, but something… I don’t know, maybe it was like all those supermodels Emmy could name.

If you really looked at them, no matter what their hair color was, or what race they might have been, they almost all looked like the same person. Maybe it was the symmetry thing, or that gorgeous was gorgeous however you mixed and matched the colors and textures.

Or maybe I was becoming obsessed.

We stood watching the band playing a rock-jazz fusion instrumental with a hypnotic beat, and I involuntarily moved in place to the music. It was dark. I had no idea whether Nox saw me standing there—hopefully not. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing here. He wasn’t my type. In fact, he was exactly the type I was careful to avoid.

Still, it was fascinating to watch his fingers coax silky riffs out of that electric guitar. It was hard to miss how muscular his upper body and arms were, presumably from hours of practicing his aggressive playing technique. Nox’s dark gray skin-tight t-shirt was soaked from his efforts. His inky hair was also drenched, and beads of perspiration glowed in the uplights shining on his face. I’d never appreciated before that performing music could be an athletic event. Or how sexy sweat could be.

When the song ended, the band took a break. To my dismay, Shalena called out to Nox, waving him over.

He jumped off the stage and came to us, smiling widely, towering over us. “Emmy, Shay—glad you could make it.” He turned his forehead into his sleeve, wiping it quickly before facing me. His gaze traveled from my face slowly down my body and up again. “Ryann,” the word came out in a purr. “You look nice tonight.”

In an attempt to look older, I’d upped my usually non-existent fashion game for the evening. My typical shorts-and-t-shirt combo had been replaced by a short black sundress. It wasn’t clingy, but it was strapless and showed my figure more than my usual attire—a fact I regretted as Nox’s attention lingered on my shape.

“Um, thanks,” I mumbled, tearing my gaze away from his too-interested eyes and dropping it to his feet instead. They moved closer, and I got a hint of citrus and cedarwood from his warmed skin.

“I trust you had no trouble getting in?” he asked in a low voice close to my ear.

I fell back a step and flared my eyes at my friends, willing them to enter the conversation. Nothing. My words were rushed and impatient as I finally answered him. “No, it was fine. The bouncer had our names.”

An amused grin sneaked across his face. “That’s interesting, considering I only gave him
yours
… Rye.”

My eyes widened as my heart gave a hard thump. His grin spread. He was
trying
to make me uncomfortable, with the suggestive look, the new nickname, the disturbing closeness.

I hated guys who played mind games. I didn’t get the chance to protest though because Nox was pulled away from us by another group of patrons, all female. Looked like he had a good start on his own little fan pod. For the next few minutes, he held court, laughing, posing for pictures, and playing the rock star. I was suddenly embarrassed to have come. I definitely did
not
want to be counted among his groupies.

Nox darted his eyes over at me, probably to confirm that I saw him surrounded by adoring women, before he jumped back on stage to start the next set.

I was way past ready to go by the time the drums started up. It was so loud I had trouble communicating that to Emmy and Shay. Besides, they were smiling and having a great time, so I decided to go outside alone and wait for them. I was almost to the exit when Nox’s amplified voice echoed through the club.

“Hold on,” he sang, drawing out both words.

Though I didn’t want to, I stopped and turned back around. It seemed I had lost control of my own body.

“I’d like to dedicate this song to the most beautiful girl in the room.”

There were screams as every star-struck girl there reacted, each clearly hoping the song was for her. But Nox stared past the crowd and the lights directly at me. I was pinned in place as he began to sing.

Suddenly, I was willing to cut the drooling groupies some slack. I didn’t know how to describe Nox’s voice, except to say I’d never heard anything like it. It was beyond beautiful. It was like sex for your eardrums. At least how I imagined sex would be. I was immobilized, mesmerized, transported. Tears welled up in my eyes, which was weird because I never cried.

“Pretty awesome, aren’t they?”

The bouncer. I hadn’t realized he was standing right beside me.

“They’ve only been playing here a few weeks,” he continued, “and we’re getting swarmed—even had some record label scouts. It’s great for business. I told my boss I should get a raise because I’m the one who put them on You Tube.”

He was clearly enjoying the music, but he wasn’t affected by it in the same way as all the girls in the bar. Every last one of them, Emmy and Shay included, were focused on the stage as if the Pied Piper had come to life and poured himself into a pair of size thirty-four extra-long boot cut jeans.

I nodded mutely in response to the bouncer. Something deep inside was trying to pull me toward the stage—where I’d do what—scream like those other girls? Worship at the altar of Nox?
No thank you
. I fought the strange allure of the music until the song segued into a spooky guitar solo. Finally managing to gain enough control over my lower limbs, I backed toward the door, even more anxious to get out of there than before. Because Nox was no longer just arrogant.

Now he was terrifying.

The next day after church Mom went to a baby shower, and I headed out to look for Lad again. After being in Nox’s strangely disturbing presence last night, I was craving the inviting warmth of Lad even more.

“Home before dark, remember?” Grandma Neena called out to me as I left the house. Unlike Mom, she never argued with me about hiking. She got it—she was an outdoors girl, too. Of course, she had no idea my enthusiasm for the woods these days had nothing to do with the flora and fauna.

“I will. Don’t worry,” I called back.

This time I took a different approach, trying first to find Lad’s nest hideaway. No luck. I walked the paths calling his name, feeling more than a little foolish. Finally, not knowing what else to do, I went back to the spring-fed pool where I sat in the soft ferns, plucking the fronds apart leaf by leaf, listening, watching, waiting. Same pointless activities as yesterday. It was official—I
was
pathetic.

And I was done. I got up and brushed myself off, picking through the low brush back toward the path.

Maybe his parents had found out about all the reading and grounded him. Maybe he was too busy with home schooling. Maybe he just didn’t care if he ever saw me again. I had no way of knowing why he didn’t show up. It was only after I started hiking home that I got my answer.

Frustrated and uninterested in nature by this point, I took the main footpath toward the house instead of venturing off it and exploring, as I’d done on the way to the pool. It was getting late, the afternoon sun quickly sinking into the treetops. I picked up my pace. Sure, I was confident in the woods—
before
dark.

About halfway home, I spotted something out of place through the pines and dogwoods and sweet gum trunks. I couldn’t tell what it was—large, brown, motionless. Slowing down, I moved cautiously toward the mysterious shape.

The loud buzz of flies made my skin crawl. My brain finally registered what my eyes were seeing right as the smell hit me. A deer carcass—a doe. Oh, my stomach did not feel good. Holding my arm over my face, I pressed my nose deep into my shirtsleeve as I circled her lifeless body.

Seeing the gunshot wound in her neck shocked me. Deer season had ended months ago, and no one was supposed to hunt on our land ever. It looked like she’d been killed no more than a day ago. I hadn’t heard any rifle fire.
Must have happened last night while we were all away from home.

I stood there debating what to do next. Call the Sheriff’s office? Tell Mom?

I immediately decided against both options, knowing either would be the absolute death of any future hikes. Mom would ban me forever from the woods if she ever thought illegal “hunters” had been on our property.