Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (8 page)

The air was still as she
considered this new information, her face a carefully composed mask. 

“What do you mean?”

I didn’t want to add to
my father’s long list of apparent parenting failures, but there was no way I
could get out of this one. 

“He thought it was too
dangerous for me to be alone.  So I couldn’t even walk myself to school, let
alone go outside for a run.”

For a split second I saw beneath
her composed veneer, saw the shock and anger she felt toward my dad.  But just
as quickly, it was gone.  I knew then that I could never tell her about the
Cupid-Gram Dad had sent me – she would seriously lose it.  So I stayed silent
until she stood up, brushed off her slacks and moved quietly to the door.  She
made one parting shot as she left me to brood in my room.

“Well, nothing’s stopping
you now.”

*****

I stretched out on the
front steps, eyeing the little cul de sac with a bit of trepidation.  Of
course, my mother was right.  It was unfortunate that Dad had kept me under
lock and key.  But that was all over now, and I hadn’t even taken advantage of
it.

“No time like the
present,” I muttered to myself, starting up my favorite running mix on my iPod as
I left the steps.

A thousand little things
underscored how different it was to be outside instead of tied to a machine. 
The feel of pavement, unforgiving beneath my feet.  The sharp air that felt
prickled, icy, as I breathed it in.  The drop in temperature when I came under
the shade of a stand of tall pines.  The wind slicing through my fleece.

At first, with every step
I imagined I was squashing Michael’s face with my foot.  But eventually I gave
myself to the music, my footfalls synching to the rhythm.  Slowly, my stress
melted away as I focused on my breathing.  By the time I turned the corner off
the main loop, I was singing along with my iPod at full voice, doing little
hand jive moves when the spirit took me, as if the road was my own private stage.

I had never felt so free.

I suppose I looked funny
to any neighbor who happened to look out their window.  But I didn’t care.  I
was running, really running, without some stupid program on a machine to tell
me how fast or how long to run.

I kept running, past the
familiar streets into others I’d never been on.  They all looked comfortingly
the same.  What was that phrase Mom had used once?  Safe as houses.  Everybody
here is safe as houses.

But no sooner had I
thought it when I began to get a funny feeling that I was not alone.

I slowed down to a trot
to look over my shoulder, but could see nothing.

Unsettled, I started
running again, darting a backwards glance every few yards.  The safe little
neighborhood suddenly felt threatening, the dark windows in the empty houses
glaring at me like angry eyes.  I picked up the pace.

I had made it back to the
main loop and now the sun was hanging low in the February sky. 
Only a
little ways left to go
, I thought to myself, trying to forget that the last
bit went through an unfinished part of the neighborhood that had been left open
as a preserve.

My unease deepened as I
strode forward.  The road was curvy here, swallowed at every bend by spindly
pines that swayed in the stiff wind.  My pace became more cautious.  It was
starting to hurt to breathe in the cold air, and my side was aching.  I didn’t
want to stop. I wanted to get home and out of this cold, but my body was not
cooperating.  I dragged myself over to the curb and bent over, wheezing while I
tried to work the knot out of my side.

Everything around me was
silent.  I couldn’t even hear any approaching cars.  Everyone else seemed
tucked away inside their warm houses.  I was alone, in the woods.

But I still felt that I
wasn’t quite alone.  The feeling grew stronger and stronger, and even as I
regained my breath I could feel my heart thumping faster and faster.

Don’t look up
, the little voice in my head
whispered.

And suddenly there was a
rush of a thousand wings all about me.  I grabbed my head, covering my ears
against the shrieking and cawing that seemed everywhere.  All I could see was a
wall of black – I was spinning and turning and everywhere black shapes darted
in and out until I lost my balance and fell against the curb.

I huddled in a ball,
pulling my hat tighter and squeezing my eyes shut against the confusion.  Then,
just as suddenly, everything went quiet once again.  All I could hear was my
ragged breath until a voice rang out.

“Hope, is that you?”

I opened one eye to
peek.  A flood of relief washed over me, quickly chased by irritation. 
“Michael!” I called out, my voice shaky.  “What are you doing here?”

He was dressed a white
hooded sweatshirt and running tights.  I felt my heart rate slow as he made his
way toward me, a look of concern clouded his face.  My feeling of irritation
grew – I didn’t need anybody’s help.  Couldn’t my own body cooperate instead of
acting like it was glad to see him?

“Did you see that?” he
asked, gesturing behind him toward the horizon.

“What?”

“That murder of crows. 
It just swarmed out of nowhere, like an enormous black cloud,” he continued,
his suspicious eyes scanning the sky as he searched for them.

“Murder? Crows?” I
repeated him, still not sure what had happened.  “Oh.”

He was directly over me. 
I looked up to see him reaching one gloved hand down to me.  I paused before
letting him pull me up, trying not to think too much about the way the tights
highlighted every muscle in his legs.

“I must have scared
them,” I said, dusting off my legs and letting my fingers probe the sensitive
spot where I’d landed on the curb.  I winced.  I was going to get a big bruise,
for sure.

“You were
in
that?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.  In the waning light the blue of them
seemed to fade into a steely gray.

I shrugged.  “I guess. 
No big deal.”  I tried to be nonchalant about it.  I didn’t want him to know
how freaked out I’d been.  I stepped forward, gingerly.  “Though it was kind of
weird.  I didn’t hear anything at all and then, boom, they were everywhere.”

He looked up at the sky,
speculating.

“I’m walking you home,”
he said, his chin set.

“Suit yourself,” I harrumphed,
pretending not to care, but annoyed at him for his unexplained about-face.  We
set out, him slowing his pace to match me as I hobbled along.  We walked in
silence, my resentment hanging around us like heavy air of a Georgia summer.

“What are you even doing
here?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence any longer, my voice accusing. 
“This isn’t even close to your house.  And I thought you had things to do.”

He didn’t rise to the
bait, his eyes steadfastly focused on the road ahead.  “I took care of them for
now.”  There was a long pause.  “And I needed a run to clear my head.  I didn’t
plan to find you.”

“Well, don’t put yourself
out, then.”  His words stung.  The retort flew out of my mouth before I had
time to think.

He sighed as we trudged
up the last hill, the silence resettling uncomfortably around us.  At the top
of my cul de sac, he pulled up short.  The sun had fully set, now, and under
the light shed by the corner street lamp his blonde hair seemed to shine with a
halo.

He took a step, reaching
out as if to touch me, but then dropped his hand as if he thought better of it.

“It must be hard running
with all that hair in your face,” he said softly.  I refused to answer him, but
couldn’t stop my hands from sneaking up to wrap my hair safely round my neck.

He stood there awkwardly,
waiting for me for what seemed like forever.  Finally, he sighed.

 “I guess I’ll see you
around,” he said, turning away.

I stood in the little
puddle of light, watching him run away until he was just a little speck of
white, gliding away in the dark.  As I turned toward my house, I noticed
something under my shoe.

A feather.  It shone dark
as coal under the glow of the street light.

I picked it up, surprised
I hadn’t it noticed it before, stuck to my shoe.  I twirled it around in my
fingers.  It spanned the length of my hand and was stiffer than I imagined a
feather should be.  And the odor it gave off was odd – like sulfur, or the
smell of electricity building up before a storm.

You shouldn’t touch
it. It’s not clean. 

Shrugging at the nagging
voice, I threw the feather into the gutter and went in to nurse my wounds along
with my hurt pride.

Chapter 3 – Peaks and Valleys

Michael didn’t show up
for school on Monday.  Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.  By the time Thursday rolled
around, I was in a seriously bad mood and more than a little hurt.  He’d
disappeared without even telling me.  I had a weird case of road rash around my
wrist – apparently from my fall during the bird swarm -- that wouldn’t seem to
heal.  Everywhere I turned, that boy, Lucas, seemed to be, leering at me with a
crazy look in his eyes.  And meanwhile, my afternoons had turned into sheer
torture as Bus Boy had decided to single me out for special attention, now that
I was forced to ride the bus again.

But none of that was why
I was so upset.  I was lonely.  It was one thing to be the odd girl out in
Alabama, where I’d always been left to my own devices.  It was entirely another
thing here, now that I’d gotten used to Michael being constantly at my side.  I
was painfully aware of the empty desk right next to mine in virtually every
class.  And the girls who’d been so slighted by Michael’s refusal to be smitten
now jeered at me and talked behind my back, which made me feel even more alone.

I slid into my
Contemporary Issues class, thinking of all the ways I was going to blow Michael
off when he finally dared to show his face.

“OK, class, today we are
going to start working on your research papers.  As a reminder this will comprise
fifty percent of your grade.  Remember,” Mr. Bennett paced around our desks,
enjoying one of the few precious moments of rapt attention he would get, “this
will be about a current issue that is challenging our society, your views on it
and your recommendations for addressing it.

And, to introduce some
‘real world’ dynamics, you must work in pairs or small groups.”

The room broke into the
chaos of sliding chairs and people shouting across the room to claim a
partner.  Mr. Bennett struggled to regain his command of the class amid the
squeals of delight and fist bumping.

“Your first task,” he
bellowed over the cacophony as he began walking through the aisles.  “Your
first task is to review this list of suggested topics and choose one.  By the
end of this period you and your partner must submit your choice and outline a
preliminary set of research questions.”

I tuned out the rest of
his instructions as he dealt the worksheets out.  My classmates fell upon the
lists, laughing, happy for the excuse to chat the hour away.  It only made me
feel Michael’s absence more acutely, which made me angry all over again.

Around the room, people
were paired off, heads together.  I looked around, hoping to see a friendly
face – anyone who was also looking for a partner.

Just one other person
remained.  Tabitha.

She skewered me with a
look of wry amusement, one heavily penciled brow arching high in a question as
she swept her long bangs out of her deep mocha face.  “I guess since lover boy
split, it’s you and me, huh?”

I felt my cheeks turning
red.  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested.

“Whatever,” she snorted,
grabbing her notebook up in her shiny black fingertips.  The chains dangling
from her belt rattled as she hopped off her desk toward me.  “What d’ya say,
partner?”

She was intimidating. 
She had all the trappings of a Goth – shockingly spiked hair, kohl-rimmed eyes,
piercings all over her ears and face, and black boots so high she probably
could have looked Michael in the eye. Truth was, she scared me more than a
little.  I’d noticed that while most of the black kids in school kept to
themselves in pretty tight cliques, they all steered clear of her – as did
everyone else.

She cleared her throat
and tapped her thick-soled toes on the floor, reminding me she was waiting for
my answer.

“I guess so.”

“I hope you’ve got more
in you than ‘guess so,’ because this paper has got to kick ass,” she smirked,
stomping over to take the seat next to me.  “I already know what we should
write about,” she asserted, flopping the list of topics down in front of me. 
“Look.”

I followed her pointed
finger to the topic she had circled. 
Child slavery
.

“Atlanta has become a hub
for human trafficking,” she enthused, leaning in to convince me.  “Just like it
is for drugs and illegal immigration.  Kids get kidnapped and end up in all
sorts of bad situations.  Lots of organizations are trying to intervene,
churches and nonprofits and even the FBI, and there are shelters for kids that
get rescued.  We could even interview them.  I heard all about it at church
last Sunday.”