Sticks and Stones (10 page)

Chapter Ten

“Are
you
sure it was this Trevor Davis?”

Sandra nodded.

“And he’s in your graduating class? Did you see how many went down?”

Sandra shook her head.

Jack’s fingers swept over the back of her neck. His warm thigh was pressed to hers, steady and firm. Lem’s lips stayed tight, had been thin ever since she nauseously described watching his youngest hit the ground with a hole in his heart.

Daniel stood leaning against the wall, face like a stone mask and favoring his side a bit, like he did these days, even though the doctors said he was completely healed.

Not again
, she whispered fervently to herself. They weren’t going to get hurt because of her ever again. Except this was worse than them being hurt. This was Jack dead. Him dead and her almost certainly dead and— She hadn’t wanted to push a vision away this badly in a real long time.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Do we have to go over this again?” Jack moved his fingers to her clenched hand, thumb rubbing gently on her wrist. Sandra wanted to tell him
don’t
, it was only making her feel worse. She didn’t have much control left and he was going to make her break. She couldn’t help feeling as though she was still in the dream, that it was all over and they were dead and this was some in-between, some place where she kept seeing the past on a loop, wishing for a change or for lies and only getting the awful truth.

If she concentrated hard enough, she was sure she could feel the bullet move, deep within the sore and bruised flesh of her stomach.

Sometimes she had to wonder what happened to the world when they changed things.

How long
could you cheat death?

“We can wait.” Lem’s big palm came over top her head, pressing gently down, feeling her shiver and shake. “You’ve said enough. We’ll see to it.” Sandra was afraid of what that meant.

No, Lem
, she wanted to say.
Yes,
please, Lem
.

“Good,” Jack said. He patted her hand. He tugged her up, lifted her right off the couch with his arms. She didn’t think her knees would hold, but they did. And then they were in the hall and Sandra seemed to have missed leaving the room. Maybe she had blinked. Or maybe this really was the dream still. This wasn’t her reality, and she flowed from one story to the next. This wasn’t her. She just lived inside someone else’s skin, inside this trembling, aching girl.

Jack pressed her down onto her bed.

She didn’t want to sleep.

The mattress slumped down at the side, like it was trying to tumble her off, and it only got worse when Jack sat next to her. He didn’t say anything, but she was getting used to this quieter, has-less-to-say Jack – was learning not to speak just to fill up the silences.

“It’s late,” he said, more like a sigh, and pulled her back flat on top of the rumpled comforter. Worn threads pressed rough against her arms, cool from the hour she had been up and out. Sandra felt cold, too, but not from the room. Deep inside. Her thoughts felt stilted and slow, thawing. One of Jack’s hands curled up behind his head, the other pressed to her side, a warm line that did help her this time.

Sandra closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at Jack, kept seeing him fall. Kept seeing him dead. Eyes squeezed tight, nothing could get to her. Nothing could see her and she could see nothing as well.

If the covers were loose, she would’ve pulled them over her head.

She wondered if she’d ever stop feeling like she should run away. She’d run away from home. She’d run from her visions. Now she wanted to run away from them.

Except Lem and his boys would follow her.

Jack shifted sideways, curled his arm around her ribs, twined his warm body to hers, and breathed out noisily, a gusting muffle right into her hair. He mumbled something, already half asleep, and Sandra shifted in response, until her head was under his chin, hands over his and on top of her chest as though it would help keep her heart in.

In her dreams, Jack became blood and bone, a grinning skull with glittering green eyes. His ribcage bled crimson, heart thud-thumping beyond the cage of bones, bullet hole gaping dark and black and dripping something viscous and red. He reached forward with bone fingers, teeth grate-rasping and bones knuckle-cracking.

And then Jack was Jack, but his eyes were white and his mouth was blood-painted and it bubbled out when he opened his lips.

“Wait,” he said, but he was moving away. He was a speck in the distance, a spot on the dusty horizon, land made in shades of gray.

“Don’t tell them,” Demon Lem said, looking out over emptiness and standing at her side. His eyes gleamed like black opals and no matter how hard she tried, he wouldn’t look her way. His hand was stone cold in hers, fingers unresponsive. The wind blew, but his hair didn’t move. His clothes stayed still. He didn’t blink.

When he spoke, his lips remained closed.

“It’s too late,” he said.

Too late for what?
she wanted to ask. Her lips wouldn’t open either. He turned away, her words unheard. She watched him walk across the desolate prairie plain, gray road edging the stubble field. She couldn’t follow and, within one blink and the next, the sky fell down.

She was on the ground. Daniel leaned over her, stark shadow against the gray-lit clouds. His fingers were on her face, the first warm thing in the whole world. He pressed gently, fire-prints on her skin, touches on her eyelids and cheeks and chin. His teeth were bone-white against his dusky, golden skin. A whirl and he was away.

Jack stood there again, in the long shadow of a tree, which wound toward her like a path. The horizon was blood-red, flares of fire-orange leaping like candle light. He wore his favorite pair of jeans, holes in the knees and frayed at the back, and a shirt she had never seen before – blue flannel, thick and new, with sharp crossovers of colors and lines.

The air smelled of death.

“Can you do it?” he asked. There was a gun in his hand.

The fire raced across the fields, lit up the land and burned the image of flaming skies into her mind.

Trevor Davis opened the gymnasium’s heavy metal doors and fired one, two, three,
pop pop pop
. The students fell down, pools of red and silk and chiffon layers, gurgling gasps and frightened screams. The lights flickered down, pools of starlight in red lakes.

Pop pop pop
.

Entire graduating class dead.

Trevor Davis turned the gun on himself and—

Sandra woke up.

“Jack,” she whispered frantically. “Jack?
Jack?!
” She shook his arm, rattling hard and his head snapped up, whole body coiling and ready to spring. A long moment of analyzing the room, of making sure there was no threat, then he pulled her up, fitting her shaking body against his.

Jack Jack Jack
rolled off her lips, an endless, quiet mantra, until he gently rested his fingertips over her lips, forcing them still.

“Can’t even get through half a night,” he said, but it was spoken softly and Jack skimmed his thumb over her mouth, nudged her shoulder with his chin, a warm brush of skin from where her shirt had gaped at her neck. It didn’t matter how much she grew; his shirts still fit her like a bag.

“You were dead, Jack,” she said.

“I’m right here.”

“You—”

“I’m
right
here.” Jack leaned forward. It was better than that time on the couch. Jack didn’t pull away and Sandra had never been kissed so tenderly before. He bent her backward slightly over his long arm, and awkwardly tilted his shoulders and her neck and,
god,
it even hurt a little. It made her feel breakable. Vulnerable. That wasn’t what Sandra wanted. She pulled him closer, harder, both arms clinching tight. She wanted the ugly memories gone. She wanted to pretend that there was just him and her and that the bullets never came and she could forget, not think, melt into his warm skin, feel her swollen lips and his big, scarred, perfect hands and the fire in her veins.

She swayed after him when he moved away, rolling to the side so that he could get out from his half-sprawled position beneath her. Then he was on top, curved above, his hands under her shirt and he wasn’t anything like Jonah Miles.

She didn’t get any memory-flashes with Jack.

She didn’t need them. She already knew him, better even than she knew herself, the way his eyes went dark and he went silent and needy and oh—

Jack’s mouth was on hers again, moving down, latching onto her neck and sucking hard, pure fire, and Sandra didn’t have time to think about much of anything at all for a very, very long time.

~

The days after were quiet.

There was something feline under Sandra’s skin. Had been ever since that night. She was a languid roll of muscles lying in the beam of light that ran across the living room floor. The carpet was rough, old, and matted, but it was also warm. And warm was good. Sandra always felt toasty warm now.

The front door opened; a faint squeal of metal hinges. Then it thumped closed, bringing in a surge of fresh air that smelled of mowed lawns, a slight chill from the early morning breeze. There was no shouted greeting. It had to be Daniel, then.

He’d taken off his work boots in the hall and socked feet shuffled past the doorway, paused, and turned back around to peek inside.

“Hey,” she said, eyes on the back of her eyelids, a golden glow beyond her skin, and so relaxed she was surprised she didn’t melt into the floor.

A soft sound came up from far back in his throat. More shuffling and the couch springs compressed, a gentle whoosh of sagging cushions.

“Not working today?”

A noise of assent.

“Where were you then?”

She’d woken up to an empty house, stuttering silence wrapped around like a cocoon. Danny still didn’t speak, but Sandra could imagine the half-lift of his right shoulder – felt the staticky buzz of his eyes on her skin.

“Were you outside? It’s cold out there.”

“I like it,” he said, soft-voiced, and Sandra smiled, couldn’t help the subtle curl of her lips.

Warm
. She’d always liked the warmth.

“Yeah,” he said, a smile hidden somewhere in there, too, “I know.”

The couch made that sound again, feet coming close and Sandra didn’t open her eyes. Dry heat stretched all around – a desert storm – and Daniel crouched, furnace heat of his skin inches away from hers. She felt him hover over her face, flicker of shadow through the sunshine.
His hand
, she thought.

“What are you doing?” She was too relaxed to be properly suspicious.

His chuckle was a surprise, such a rare sound. Puff of breath and Sandra’s eyes snapped open. It was his face. His face over hers. Not so very close, but leaning over and staring down. Balanced on his toes and his fingertips, the top of his brown head glimmered gold in the light, deep shadows dusting down his cheeks and nose.

He smiled, acting funny and Sandra stared from upside-down, trying to figure it out. He wasn’t nervous, far from it, wasn’t pulling a joke, hands at his sides and waiting, but waiting for what? A shift, sun in her eyes, wincing as Daniel’s one hand rose, fingers feather-light on her cheek.

Her calm disappeared, fluttering down somewhere deep into frantic insides, a mass of butterflies as Daniel’s thumb stroked down, every movement measured and fingers deliberately heavy.

“Danny?” The voice didn’t sound like hers, dry and thick and rough-rasping out over her tongue.

His head moved closer, weird twist to his body, arched back, and he smelled like grass and the wind and his absent canvas jacket.

“Jack—” she protested.

“Jack’s at work.” It made her shudder, go still as his big hands raised her head, press of fingers through her hair, gentle to the back of her skull, leaning too close and brushing his lips to hers.

“Daniel,” she protested, words all jumbled up inside her throat. Her tongue felt wooden, body gone from relaxed and warm to something made of stone, slowly disintegrating all to pieces. “Don’t,” she whispered. “We can’t. Don’t do this to Jack.”

“Thought I was doing it to you.”

“Daniel—”

“
Jack
…” Daniel breathed out hard, long look pinning her in place, dark shadows swirling as Sandra tried to
breathe
. “Jack ain’t getting you all to himself.”

And then Sandra was up off the floor and lifted against the wall. Daniel’s lips crashed against her, tasting of something sweet and wonderful and fresh. He pressed tight to her,
into
her, hard through his jeans and Sandra gasped, legs rising to wrap around his waist, no more sunlight on her, but there was Daniel on her skin and it was just as warm, even better.

It felt wrong, so, so wrong, but everything was fogged inside her head, thoughts half-formed and she couldn’t seem to think of any argument of why they
shouldn’t
. It was Danny. And it had always been Jack and Danny. She was theirs, had been since that first moment she’d seen them, standing shoulder to shoulder by the road.

Danny’s hips rolled against her. Jack had been hard with her, power under his skin, but he’d still held back, no matter how much she pushed him forward. He’d been gentle. Danny wasn’t. Not truly. He gripped her hips hard, was probably leaving bruises behind, had already left bruises deep inside on her heart.

He held her there, up against the wall. And when it was over, she couldn’t help but compare the two boys. Jack had been all of her new findings and fumbling brought to the fore, knowing this was more like what it was supposed to be – fire and gasping breaths, touch of a brand that left her yearning and shaking for more. Daniel left bite marks behind. She had the wall imprinted on her skin. His fingers. His lips and tongue. He was like an animal.

The carpet was still more comfortable than she’d thought it would be. Sandra lay with her fingers curled against his nearest wrist, unashamedly nude, eyes half closed as she sneaked glances sideways.