The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (63 page)

Harper passed a glance over at him, but nothing had changed — his eyes still carried the angry edge of a parent getting ready for a fight that centered on their child. It was hard to imagine him looking fiercer.

Chance pulled the truck to a stop as he parked in front of the beige high school building. The students’ parking lot, which had been unoccupied when Harper had dropped Starling off, was overflowing with empty cars. The main entrance was emblazoned with a bald eagle, but there was nothing to signal there was life behind the predator-covered doors. The emptiness did nothing to comfort her nerves.

“Do you want me to go in with you?” Harper offered, trying to break the tense silence that filled every inch of their space.

Chance squeezed the steering wheel and then glanced, sideways, at her. “Why did you take her to school again?”

Not another fight
.

“She wanted to say goodbye to her friends before you took her to God-knows-where.” She stopped. She hadn’t meant to escalate the situation. No. “I mean, I couldn’t say no. She really seemed like she wanted to go to school.”

“Did you ever stop to think no teenager ever wants to go to school?”

She sat back against the seat. “She wanted to go.”

“Well, I guess we are about to find out why.” His fingers uncurled from the wheel. He pulled the keys from the ignition and stuffed them into his pocket.

“We?”

“You got us into this mess. The least you can do is come help me figure a way out.”

“I’m sorry, Chance.” She reached down and opened up the door. “I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. I just wanted to help her out — I wanted to see her smile at least once.”

“She’s a teenage girl. Trying to see her smile is like trying to find Bigfoot. Some people swear it exists, but I doubt I’ll ever see one.”

Harper smiled as she thought of Chance sitting out in the woods looking for a Sasquatch. For a moment, just before he slammed his door shut, she could have sworn Chance’s lips trembled into a thin smile, but as they made their way past the snatching claws of the eagle there were no traces.

They walked into the school’s front office. In the back of the office, through the glass window of the principal’s office, Harper noticed Starling sitting with her back to them.

The secretary behind the desk stood up. “Can I help you?” the woman asked in a way that made it clear they were more of an annoyance than they were welcome.

“Yes,” Chance said, stepping into the no-fly zone of the battle, which promised to soon rage behind the closed doors of the principal’s office. “I received a call saying my daughter … Starling … needed my help.”

His help
? Harper smiled. There was nothing sexier than a man taking a power position — unless the argument was with her.

The secretary glanced at the door and her face puckered into a tight scowl. “Yes, let me just call Principal Johnson and ask if he’s ready to see you.”

The woman punched the numbers into the phone and waited with her nose up in the air. The principal, who was sitting in the office with Starling, picked up the phone. The principal’s bald head bobbed as he spoke.

“Ms. Jackson’s father and … his friend … are here to see you.” The secretary’s voice was sticky sweet, a far contrast to the harsh edge she had given Chance and Harper.

He looked at them through the windows and waved them in.

Harper pushed past Chance, who was staring at the secretary.

“Yes, he can see you now,” the secretary said, chasing after her.

“Thanks,” Chance offered.

The secretary stepped in front of the door, stopping Harper in her tracks.

“Let me get that for you,” the secretary said, sneering at her as if she took some level of joy out of opening the floodgates.

Chance led the way into the office. Principal Johnson stood up and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. You are Starling’s father, yes?”

“Name’s Chance Landon.” He nodded as he shook the man’s hand.

The principal turned to Harper and stuck out his fat octopus hand. “And you are?”

“I’m Harper Cygnini. I’m a … ” She thought about saying their friend, but she stopped. “They’re staying with me for a bit.”

The principal’s eyebrows rose like two fat gray-speckled caterpillars as he looked at her with a mixture of disdain and confusion. “Well, please sit.” The principal motioned to the two seats on either side of Starling. “I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances. I know Starling has been through a lot in the last week. Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see her return to school so quickly. No funeral plans for Carey?”

She tried to not notice Chance wince as they sat down in the offered chairs. “We have to wait for the autopsy to be complete before we can make plans.”

“Ah. Well of course we all offer our deepest sympathies for your family’s loss,” the principal said in a flat voice. “That being said, I’m still not sure why you would put Starling through the ropes so soon after her mother’s death.”

“I thought it best if Starling got to say goodbye to her friends before she went on the road with me,” Chance said as he leaned back into the chair.

Harper hadn’t intended on sending Chance to slaughter — there was no way the bald principal with the much too tight tie was not going to judge the poker playing drifter.

The principal’s brows crinkled, making the caterpillars scrunch together. What little light had been in his eyes disappeared.

“Actually,” Harper said, trying to lessen the blow, “it was my idea to bring her. I wanted to talk to her — I was trying to get her to be my friend.”

Starling jerked in her chair and for the first time, her eyes left the floor in front of the principal’s desk. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but she stopped and her gaze dropped back down to the ugly blue industrial strength carpet, which seemed to be in every school.

The principal seemed unwavering in his judgments. “It is nice you are trying to connect with Starling, but what she needs right now is a break. If you were accustomed to the needs of a young woman, you would have known she needs time — and a therapist. This is only made more evident by her behavior in the classroom.”

Chance leaned forward. “What exactly happened?”

The principal looked toward Starling. “Do you want to tell them, Starling, or would you rather that I do?”

Starling didn’t look up or answer; instead she merely shook her head.

“Well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you.” The pudgy man gave a weak nod as he glanced over at Chance. “But your daughter made a series of poor choices upon her arrival to the classroom this morning. As you know we, per school policy, have a no-tolerance stance on bullying type behaviors.”

“You expect me to believe Starling bullied another student?” Chance said in disbelief.

“That’s not what I said,” Principal Johnson said in a clipped monotone voice. “If you’d allow me to finish, I was going to say Starling was a victim of a bullying incident which involved the throwing of her composition notebook.”

Chance leaned forward until he had to put his hands on the principal’s desk to keep from falling over. “Then why are we here if she was bullied?”

“Unfortunately, instead of telling a school official about the incident she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

Harper tried not to smile.

“And?” Chance asked.

“She punched a young man in the face. We were forced to send him to the hospital as I believe she broke his nose.”

Harper forced herself to look at the floor to cover her uncontrollable smile. Starling was a nymph — they were never the kind to let another person break them … or push them down. The boy was an idiot.

“Let me get this right,” Chance said. “You are upset because my daughter defended herself when
she
was being bullied?”

“It doesn’t stop there, Mr. Landon.”

“What next? Are you going to expel her for hitting the bully?”

The principal leaned back in his chair. “Mr. Landon, not only did she hit the boy and send him to the hospital, but she also stole his cell phone and used it to make a call.”

Harper finally gained control of her proud smile. It was one thing for Starling to defend herself, but it was another to steal. The girl had to have known she could use any phone she had wanted — there was no reason to take anything. Unless she hadn’t wanted her or Chance to know she was making a call.

“Oh.” Chance deflated. He turned to face the downtrodden Starling. “Who were you calling?”

Starling shrugged.

“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to tell me?”

Starling remained silent.

“So what are you telling us, Principal Johnson?” Harper asked, trying to take the pressure off the young woman.

“As I said, I think Starling should go to counseling to deal with the issues of her mother’s passing and her residual anger issues.”

What was he, some kind of psychologist? Harper tried to keep her anger in check. She was here to help. “I will see what I can do.”

“In the meantime,” the principal continued, “I think it would be best for her to take some time away from school. We are about to go on winter break in another week. Starling, I want you to take this week off. That way you can take two weeks to reflect on your actions and see how you can come back and make a positive change in your attitude and the environment around you.”

Starling finally looked up. “So you’re suspending me?”

The principal gave her a weak smile. “This is a unique set of circumstances, so I don’t see the point in marring your permanent record.” The man’s caterpillar eyebrows scrunched together as he looked over at Harper and then Chance. “You are going to have a tough road to travel for the foreseeable future. You don’t need this type of trouble added to the list.”

“It doesn’t really matter what goes on my record.”

“She doesn’t mean that,” Chance said, stopping Starling from making another mistake.

Chance just couldn’t make sense of all the whys in his life: why Harper had taken Starling to school, why Starling would have gone ape-shit when the kid threw her composition notebook, or why Starling had stolen a phone and made a mystery phone call. Chance had to get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately, he also had to be in Vegas.

How did most parents do it? How did they keep track of their kids and then have a normal life? What did they do when everything seemed to fall down around them?

He’d never felt so torn before. He needed to stay with Starling and help her deal with all the things going on in her life. They needed to connect; after the incident at school it was easy to see that she needed, more than anything, someone she could turn to — someone who would listen and help her get through this. Yet, he’d made a promise to Kodie to help him pay back Three-Eyed Nate — and it was one promise that couldn’t be broken. Kodie’s life was in danger.

He glanced across the front seat of the truck. Though they were all touching each other, but no one spoke almost as if they were afraid of the things that would be said.

“Starling,” he said breaking the silence. “Is there anything you want talk about? I mean about why you did what you did?”

Starling stared out the window, not making eye contact with him.

“You know you can trust me with anything. I won’t be upset.” He sounded just like his own mother and for a passing second he felt guilty for all the trouble he had caused her when he’d been young. Not until now, surrounded by the weighted silence of a teenager, did he understand what his mother must have gone through when dealing with him. He sent a silent thank you up to the heavens.

Starling didn’t budge.

Harper glanced over at him and shook her head, almost like she was begging him to stop. As much as he hated to admit it, Harper was right. He wasn’t getting anywhere with Starling. The girl would have to open up on her own time. All he could do was wait. He could only be there.

Kodie was standing in the kitchen when they arrived back at Jenna’s house. His head was stuck in the fridge as if he was trying to make food appear that wasn’t there. What little groceries Chance had bought were already passing memories. Sitting on the kitchen table was the taped package of drugs they had pulled out of the bathroom wall. Chance rushed toward the package, but Starling reached it first. The girl picked up the block and turned it around in her hands.

She turned to face him. “Where did you get this?” she asked, almost as an accusation for some unknown crime.

“We just found the stuff. What do you know about it?”

Starling stuffed the brick of drugs under her arm. “You don’t have any right going through my things.”

Warning bells sounded in his mind. “Why would you have a brick of drugs?”

Starling glared at him, but said nothing and turned to run up the stairs.

“Stop. Right. There,” he growled. “You aren’t taking those drugs anywhere. You are going to sit here and talk to me until I know what the hell is going on. I can’t handle any more of your silent treatment.” His heartbeat thundered in his ears with his rising blood pressure.

Starling turned back. “You’re an asshole. Anyone ever told you that?”

“You. Sit. Down.” He pointed at the table that would serve as the courtroom.

Harper stared at him like he had just gone rabid. He wasn’t backing down. He wasn’t a great dad, but there was no way he was going to let his teenage daughter walk out of the room carrying illicit drugs. For once, he welcomed being called an asshole. It meant he was doing something right in the game of parenting.

The teenager stomped her feet as she moved to the table and plopped down in the chair.

“Set the drugs on the table and don’t touch them again,” Chance ordered.

Kodie slipped by him. “I’ll be packing my stuff.”

Chance answered with a tight nod.

“Do you know what is in that package?” Harper asked, pointing at the drugs in front of Starling.

“You guys already know, so why are you asking me?”

The hair on the back of his neck bristled. “We don’t know. So why don’t you inform us?” He tried to keep the anger from his voice, but that was one battle he couldn’t win. All he’d done lately was fight — he was steadily moving past the ability for self-control. He shuddered to think of what the next night would bring — even if he was lucky, if he couldn’t control his emotions he would be out of the game as soon as the poker tournament started.