Seventh Mark (Part 1 +2) (6 page)

His jaw dropped
and his eyes grew big. Then he laughed a deep throaty one straight
from deep inside. “Alright. Let's head back to my place. Grace is
already bugging me, wondering where you are. And,” he swallowed,
“it’s time you met Caleb.” He squeezed my hand and turned the car
around.

The way he
spoke made me anxious. I thought about those terrible yellow eyes
again. Thankful now it’d been too dark to see the thing properly.
“What are they?”

Michael sighed.
“Grollics? They’re human but biologically messed up. Something’s
wrong within their natural order. It’s impossible to explain.”

I had no reply.
I didn’t get it nor could I fathom it. If I hadn’t seen those
freakish hollow eyes last night, I wouldn’t believe a word Michael
said.

We drove for a
bit in silence. My mind raced at the thoughts of a possible
relationship, of monsters and of why in the world my hormones were
all jacked up. Why did Michael know so much about grollics? A
sudden thought crossed my mind. “How old are you?”

He glanced at
me out of the corner of his eye. “How old did Grace tell you I
was?”

“She dodged
answering the question, like you are now.”

“You asked her
about me?” He grinned. “I’m…nineteen.”

“I’ll be
eighteen in January. However, I think I’m seventeen going on
thirty. I’ve been grown-up for so long.”

He chuckled. “I
know the feeling.”

Another thought
hit me. “How old’s Grace?”

The question
took him by surprise. He appeared about to say one thing but seemed
to change his mind. “We’re twins.”

Totally weird.
Now how’d I have a hunch on that? “How come you’re done with
school?”

“I work with
Caleb.”

“Did you drop
out? Or skip a grade?”

“No.”

That didn’t
answer anything. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it – yet.
“Why the pretense she’s younger than you?”

“She is
younger, by a bit.”

“You born
first?” Grace had said he was older. Too many weird secrets. “Are
you guys in some kind of trouble?”

“Questions,
questions.” He grinned. “Has anyone ever told you, you talk a
lot?”

“Never.” I
shrugged, feeling giddy. Not once in my entire life. “One more
question, and I promise I’m done.”

Michael raised
an eyebrow.

“Why was one of
those monstery-things after me?”

“Now
there
’s a loaded question. Caleb might know the answer.” He
glanced down at the book sitting between us.

“One more
question.” He opened his mouth, so I quickly added, “Can we stop at
Starbucks and grab a latte? Sorry to say this, but you make lousy
coffee.”

Rocking
slightly side to side, I now hesitated outside the house. Maybe the
reason my body didn’t want to go in had to do with the horrible
memory of the beast. If we went inside and talked about it, I’d be
admitting it was real.

Michael reached
for my hand and squeezed it, giving me the courage to cross the
threshold. Little currents of hot and cold raced across my
skin.

Does Michael
have them too? I blinked, trying focus on the task ahead. This was
serious. I really didn’t want to be some monster’s dinner.

In the middle
of the living room, Michael stopped. Grace and Sarah relaxed on the
couch and a man sat at the desk Sarah had occupied yesterday. My
heart stuttered.

Caleb
.

He was older
than I thought he’d be. Maybe late fifties or sixties. The
tightness in his face and posture made him appear ready to pounce.
Or overreact? The kind of guy who shot first and asked questions
later.

Where everyone
looked tanned, Caleb was pale like me but even more so. Almost
pasty white against the dark, expensive clothes he wore. He had the
same intense blue eyes as the others, but with years of knowledge
behind them, like he’d been through the wars. He was handsome, in a
strange way, with strong facial lines. He sat almost regal.

When he glanced
at me, his eyes darted from my feet to my head to my feet again, a
harrumph escaping his lips.

I wanted to
disappear.

“’Tis a
pleasure to meet you.” He spoke with an English accent – very
proper – and polite. However, his words sounded automatic—years of
being taught what to say.

“Hello, Mr....”
I paused. I didn’t know their last name and it seemed wrong to call
him Caleb without permission.

“Knightly.”

“Hell-Hello.”
Should I curtsey or kneel?

He leaned back
in his chair, fingers clasped tightly together, resting on top of
the desk. “It seems you had an altercation last night with a
grollic.”

Wow.
Straight to the point.
“Michael’s been trying to explain.” I
played with a loose strand of hair which had escaped my ponytail.
“He seems to think there’s a…a grollic after me.”

He tutted.
“Possibly, but not confirmed. That’s the first sighting of one in a
very long time. We assumed they’d become extinct in this area. It
seems they may have just burrowed underground.” He twirled a large
ring on his right hand. “Do you have the slightest inclination why
one would fancy you, of all people?”

I shrugged,
suddenly conscious of the book lying in Michael’s car. I shook my
head. It made no sense the two were related. “I just moved into
town. I haven’t done anything since I got here. Met Michael and
Grace, got a job…normal stuff. Last night, I stepped into the trees
on an off-chance. It wasn’t something planned.”

“Maybe you
caught it off guard. Maybe it was curious about the noise from the
kids,” Sarah said.

Good
point.
Maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Perhaps…”
Caleb rubbed his chin, his eyebrows drawn close together. He stood.
He was a lot taller than I originally thought, at least half a foot
taller than Michael. “We must remain aware of our surroundings and
be cognisant of any possible threats. Grace and Michael will keep
an eye on you, and we shall see if this grollic has any other
intentions. Perhaps it was hungry.”

The way Caleb
looked at me—or through me—I felt like some carnivore’s dinner,
nothing more. I gasped and took a step back. He strode by me,
without a second glance, to his office, the antique door closing
with a cold click from the brass doorknob made me jerk.

“It’s just some
freak of nature, some kind of wild animal. Caleb talks as if the
thing can think and plan an attack. Animals can’t do that.” I spoke
to no one in particular. Who’re you trying to convince? Them or
yourself?

Michael slipped
an arm around my shoulders. “Nothing happened last night and
nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise.”

“It was
definitely a one-off.” I loved it that I believed him. He made me
feel…safe.

Thank goodness
school started without a hitch. No monsters came knocking at my
door. I did joke with Grace, with me practically sleeping at her
place all the time; a grollic could’ve come but bolted when it got
to my neighborhood.

It sucked but I
barely saw Michael. Caleb apparently had him travelling for
work.

Simon made it
his priority to introduce me to everyone at school. While the
weather stayed warm, a group of us sat in the courtyard every lunch
break.

One Friday,
near the end of October, the guys, being their usual rowdy selves,
started a game.

“Rouge,” Simon
said. “Are you going to come with me to the Halloween
Masquerade?”

Before I could
think of an excuse not to go, Damon dragged Simon to a desk chair
he’d set in the middle of the courtyard.

“Help me set
this up. Then let’s jump over it.” Damon pointed at us gals sitting
together. “You ladies keep score.” All the guys scrambled over to
join them, each one easily clearing the chair. Soon two, then three
chairs were lined up. When a few guys knocked out, Damon dragged a
picnic table to replace the chairs. He scraped his foot in the
grass to make a line ten feet away. He declared they had to stand
behind the muddy line. The remaining three cleared the table
sideways. They turned the table long. After Damon and Simon barely
cleared it, they pulled two together.

I leaned toward
Grace. “Maybe they should fill their pants with rolls of toilet
paper.”

“What’s that
Red?” Damon paused in his work and grinned at his nickname for me.
“Chumming up to your little pal?” He glared at Grace. “It’s obvious
Red’s you’re new little Barbie doll. Poor new-gal didn’t stand a
chance once you sunk your claws in her.”

How old was
this guy, nine? “I have a brain, thank-you. I’m a Barbie. Maybe
you’re just jealous she wouldn’t let you be her Ken?”

He stepped
forward and leaned down, his face inches from mine, hot breath
hitting my cheeks. “What’d you just say?”

My courage flew
out the window. I dropped my gaze. His eyes were red, nostrils
flared, lips curled in a nasty smile. I locked on his neck where a
birthmark, which also looked angry, peeked out from the edge of his
polo shirt near the buttons.

Simon pulled
Damon back. “Leave her alone. You’re scaring the poor girl.”

I gasped for
air, not realizing I’d held it. With a shaky hand, I covered my
mouth, not sure what else to do.

Damon blinked
and jerked his arm out of Simon’s grip. “Whatever. Sorry, Red.”

“You’re such a
jerk, Damon.” Grace grabbed my arm and led me inside by the elbow.
“You okay?”

Leaning against
the cool, cement bricked wall, I tried to calm my nerves. “Bit
insecure, isn’t he?”

Grace laughed.
“I usually just try to ignore him.”

“How do you
ignore someone so big?”

“And ugly?”

I grinned,
feeling better. “You so missed your chance when you turned him
down.”

“I guess he
never got over it.” She pretended to clutch her heart. “It started
the first week I was here, but he was just so big—”

“An’ ugly.”

“An’ smelly. It
turned me off.”

“I don’t blame
you.”

The bell rang.
I had chemistry and she had art on the other side of school.

“See you after
classes. Try not to pick anymore fights.” She laughed and
disappeared down the hall.

Afternoon
classes flew by. At the end of the day, I made my way out to the
parking lot to Grace’s car. My heart skipped a beat when a dark
blue Mustang sat parked beside the Smartcar.

Michael stood
waiting between the two cars, leaning against his door.

“Hi.” I hadn’t
seen him for two weeks and he looked awesome. I made tight fists,
warning my fingers not to reach up to his blond hair begging to be
tamed. His blue eyes piercing with their intensity, his lips and
slight stubble – all of it made my blood rush.

He nodded a
hello, but his face remained serious. “Grace told me what happened.
I thought I might have a word with this Damon boy.”

Boy? Damon was
like a year younger than him. I waved my hand. “It’s nothing. Damon
probably took too many steroids and had some reaction.” Bummer. I
had been hoping for:
I missed you.

Michael’s head
shot up and his body tensed. I turned around to where he
looked.

Damon pushed
through the school front doors, strutting across the grass with
Simon in tow. They headed to the other side of the parking lot. He
kept glancing our way with an irritating, cocky smile, but he
continued to his car. He gassed the engine and sped out of the
parking lot.

“Michael!”
Grace’s singsong voice made both of us turn. “What a surprise.” Her
cheeks and most of her face burned slightly red.

“Really? You
contacted –” Michael stopped mid-sentence.

Something
passed between the two of them, but I couldn’t figure out what. It
might take a bit of patience, but I intended to find out. Why would
Grace call Michael and tell him about lunch? It was no big deal.
Then it dawned on me. “It seems your old flame’s still holding a
bit of a nasty grudge.”

Grace shrugged.
“You win some and, in his case, you lose again. The guy’s a
meat-head.”

“Maybe it was
good I wasn’t here.” Michael turned and smiled at me. “Well, if my
knight-in-shiny-armor services aren’t needed; is there anything
else I can help you with?”

“Well…” I said.
“There is this Halloween Masquerade. We are actually required to go
for drama class. I could really use a date.”

Of all the
Halloween themes, we got stuck with famous couples. Grace convinced
Simon to go with her and she took charge of all our outfits. She
bought a Spartacus costume for Michael and a Roman slave one for
me. I’d come to trust her and she made me laugh with her charity
shop and eBay shopping.

The night of
the dance I sat in her bathroom on a stool, letting her curl my
hair and pin it up. “Doesn’t Spartacus’s wife get murdered?”

She dropped the
curling iron.

I swore she
caught the hot part in her bare hand but didn’t even flinch.

Setting the
curling iron on the counter, she grabbed a few bobby pins. “Aren’t
all famous couples tragic?”

Her hand was
obviously not burned. I pointed at her in the mirror. She was
dressed as Fashion Fairy Tale Barbie. “I don’t think Barbie and Ken
have a tragic ending.”

“Touché. But if
Damon see’s the outfits, he might change that.” She giggled at my
shocked looked in the mirror. “I’m just kidding. He’s the one who
gave me the idea.” She pinned the last bobby pin in my hair.
“Stand.”

We stared at my
reflection. The faded grey-blue slave’s dress had tattered sleeves
and hem but I was willing to bet, no slave ever wore a dress this
formfitting. Grace had tied a black scarf around my waist for a
belt. She’d bought the gorgeous pair of strappy sandals from a
second-hand shop.