The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (12 page)

“You jerk!” Valie punched Jack hard on the arm as the boy pulled off the same mask that had been on the figure by the front door. “You can’t just leave me alone? You have to scare me half to death?”

“Sorry. I didn’t have a costume. I had to improvise.”

Valie scowled. She expected the boy to be smiling and laughing at her when he took off the frightening mask, but instead he indeed looked sorry that he had scared her. He stared down at the squashed mask in his hands. Slowly, though, his eyes took her in, traveling upward from her legs (now covered in goosebumps), lingering on the black dress, to rest upon her expressionless, masked face.

“You look nice tonight, sweets.”

Valie crossed her arms and looked away, happy that the sparkling white masquerade mask hid the blush of her cheeks.

“Tonight as opposed to every other night?” she quipped, her mind falling quickly into defense-mode.

Jack sighed.

Valie rethought his compliment and decided he hadn’t meant any harm.

“Thanks,” she finally said, only to be polite. “I’m sorry I . . . you know, hit you.”

Jack smiled, though there was sort of a wild urgency that wouldn’t leave his eyes which suggested his thoughts didn’t match his actions. “I would be more worried about those hands of yours getting hurt again. Don’t you think they’ve taken enough of a beating today?”

Valie looked confused. “What? Oh. Well, the door shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”

Jack frowned. “You hit a door?”

Valie glanced up at Jack’s concerned expression. Ah, that was right. Valie hadn’t told him
exactly
what had happened earlier with Alden. 

No, you left too soon, didn’t you?
she thought, but
merely answered, “Yes, I hit a door. Now, I need to go find Luci.”

“She’s not here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I saw her leave a few minutes ago with the boy you two hang out with.”

Valie heaved a very heavy sigh. Her timing seriously sucked.

“I guess I should . . . .”

Just as Valie was about to try to extricate herself from Jack’s company once again, Candace Bingham stumbled up wearing a shiny, low-cut, pink leotard over white tights and . . . well, not much else, unless you counted the bunny ears and tail. She had too much make-up on as usual, but this time it was accentuated by the fact that the whiskers she had painted onto her cheeks didn’t necessarily look out of place with the rest of what she painted on every morning.

This day was getting steadily worse.

Candace awkwardly slid her bangs back from her eyes with one hand while the other kept a shaky grip on her red cup that looked like it had been filled and emptied one too many times.

“Jack! You came!” she squealed. She went to hug Jack and practically fell into his arms. Valie was almost sorry for the guy who was obligated to catch the bouncing bunny and whose hands, to his credit, found appropriate places to do so without too much trouble.

“Oh. It’s
you
,” Candace spat as she recognized Valie. The blonde straightened up. “Nice mask. Quite an improvement.”

“Nice . . . hmm, what
do
you call what you’re wearing? A costume or underwear?”

“I call it sexy, which is more than I can say for you,” Candace snapped while she looked down her nose at Valie. She draped an arm on Jack’s shoulder as if claiming him.

Valie laughed. “Sexy for who? The Easter Bunny?”

Before Candace could reply, Jack chuckled and caught the tipsy blonde’s attention with a flash of his I’m-too-charming-to-resist smile. She was immediately entranced and a dopey-looking grin stretched across her face. Valie rolled her eyes. Was
that
how
she
looked around Jack? If so, she was pretty sure the next time she did it she would ask someone to shoot her. ‘Ditzy and dazzled’ were not the descriptors she wanted applied to herself.

“Could you get me one of those, please?” Jack asked, practically batting his eyelashes at the stunned girl. He flicked her nearly-empty, plastic cup.

“Sure, baby!” Candace eagerly replied. She had apparently forgotten that she had been arguing with Valie just moments before. “Be
right
back!” she called on her way toward the deck. She hiccupped on the word ‘right’ and stumbled a little in her heels on the grass.

Seriously, how was it normal or
comfortable
to wear underwear to a Halloween party, especially with stilettos? If Valie thought she would listen, she would recommend the girl lose the heels—advice that would have been promptly followed up with a recommendation on
dressing
in general.

“Enjoy
yourself, Jack,” Valie said as she turned to leave. If Luci wasn’t at the party anymore, then she would be at Jonathan’s.

“I don’t drink,” Jack replied simply. He turned his troubled eyes to Valie, making the girl uncomfortable with the intensity with which he stared. What did he want from her? There was just something strong and bold about Jack, but there was a deviancy there that sparked such curiosity in Valie she almost wanted to ask him out right what made him so different from any other guy she knew. It couldn’t just be her imagination.

“Glad to see we have something in common,” Valie muttered, mostly to herself. She turned and looked back toward the house, toward escape, but hesitated as she realized that she was walking back toward two lines of fire: Candace, who was waiting in line at the keg, and the house as it pounded with a suffocating mass of life and noise.

Finally, after taking a quick, deep breath, Valie steeled herself to the idea of the crowd, and yes, even to Candace—who Valie really hoped wouldn’t drink the beer she got for Jack if he indeed declined it. The Cougar Cub Captain just couldn’t seem to hold her liquor and the girl was going to get herself into trouble.

Without looking back, Valie set out toward the house.

“Where are you going?” Jack asked when she started up the steps of the deck.

The voice was close behind her. “I’m leaving,” she replied curtly.

“And going where?”

“That is none of your business.”

With some luck, Valie sneaked past Candace without another confrontation and even managed to navigate the boisterous crowd in the house by holding her breath, to finally
came out on the other side of the house fully intact and no worse for wear. Much to her annoyance, Jack had followed her closely through the mass of bodies.

“A girl out walking anywhere this late at night should be the business of any decent guy,” Jack declared loudly as he blocked the front door.

Valie was thankful when the music changed to something quieter.  She could almost hear herself think.

“Well, then, I guess I’m lucky that you’re not a decent guy, aren’t I?”

A momentary flash of anger passed across Jack’s features, before he suddenly relaxed and clutched at his heart dramatically. “You wound me! Now I must go with you, to clear my sullied name.”

He flashed her one of his heart-breaking smiles, but she refused to give in no matter how much her blood burned for him when he was that near to her.

She began rifling through the Wallash’s front closet for her coat. “Tell you what, you stay here and consider your name cleared.” 

Jack wasn’t about to let her walk out that door alone, though, that much he was sure of. In fact, he was not going to leave her alone for one second. Not now that he knew. Not now, when he was certain that she was Isaac’s daughter and that she was going to be
murdered
on
his
watch. Eying those slender shoulders and her pale, bare legs reminded Jack of exactly how delicate this girl was—and how fragile the whole situation was becoming. The world of humans was so easy to get lost in when you were pretending to be one yourself….They were so weak compared to the warrior-like culture of the Lycanthropes, who could withstand whatever hardships befell them. Valie needed his help and if he did not try to help her, she would be lost—to both worlds.

“No chance,” he replied solemnly, though he didn’t think she could hear him over the renewed pounding of the music.
Valie glared at him and he let her pass to slip out through the door. However, just as Jack reached for the handle to follow, Candace caught his arm. He turned to her, annoyed, but he held a stiff smile on his face.

“Hey, I need to step out for a second. I’ll be right back,” he lied.

“But I brought you a drink!” Candace purred at him happily. She shoved a half-filled cup in his direction.

“Thanks,” Jack said unenthusiastically, knowing that Candace was too drunk to notice. He took the cup—he would toss it out later.

“Let’s go back to the party! I want to dance!” she exclaimed, reaching for Jack’s hand.

The girl was becoming tiresome. It had taken a lot of restraint up until that time to put up with her obvious selfishness and horrible treatment of Valie; but, at that moment, Jack only saw Candace as an obstacle in the way of protecting his charge. Every second he wasted with this girl meant that Valie was in increasing danger.

“Candace! I’m not going to dance with you!
Go back
to the party.”

“But, Jack!” she whined, snatching one of his hands with both of hers as he turned toward the door. “Come on, Jack, we can . . .
.“

When he turned back to her this time, all pretense of civility left him and it was all he could do not to snarl at her. His stare, hostile and intimidating, made Candace immediately back off and let go of his hand. He didn’t realize how frightened she looked until he was out the door and running down the street in the direction of Valie’s scent and, by that time, there was nothing he could do.

It should have been a simple task for Jack to follow the girl, except that it suddenly began to rain. He could hear the screams of the guests in Tim Wallash’s backyard as they were unexpectedly drenched. The sound was a perfect echo of his frustration. As the rain descended upon the town, the streets were enveloped in a thick, misty veil and Valie’s scent began to
steadily be washed away.

Jack cursed under his breath, but continued in the direction he thought Valie to have taken. After all, she couldn’t have gotten that far. When he exited that section of the neighborhood and reached a fork in the road, he was forced to rely on his hearing to figure out which path she had taken. The one on the left, he knew, led more directly back toward Luci’s house. The other was a more roundabout route that eventually ran into
Anders Community Park. Jack closed his eyes and concentrated, relying on his superior hearing to sift through the damp air for her footsteps. When he determined which way she had taken, he was anything but surprised.

He took off at a run with the assumption that Valie, too, was hurrying, deliberately trying to evade him. She would never have gotten so far ahead of him if she were simply walking. The cold rain couldn’t be pleasant for the girl. Though, perhaps it had cooled off her temper. 

During the short run to catch up, Jack’s stomach was in apprehensive knots, knowing that what he was about to do would change his—and
her
—life forever.

No more games
, he thought sourly.

When he finally spotted the girl walking almost leisurely under the orange-glowing streetlamps near the edge of
Anders Community Park, he noticed that she wasn’t the least concerned with the rain, though it had ruined her outfit. Her black dress clung wetly to her body—Luci’s lightweight coat having failed to offer much protection—and water droplets ran down her bare legs as she strolled along. Her hair, loosely draped around her shoulders, had quickly soaked through. Inexplicably, she still wore her mask. Jack had to assume that she was freezing. If he’d brought a coat, he would have offered it to her, though he doubted she would have taken it.

“You went out of your way just to lose me,” he said as he came alongside Valie. She jumped six feet in the air when he spoke. It was the second time he had scared her that night, but guilt gripped him, knowing that it wouldn’t be the last.

“Yes. I did. How the heck did you find me?”

“I have good hearing.”

“What? You
heard
me walking?” she asked sardonically.

“Yes.”
             

Valie rolled her eyes. “Congratulations on your big ears.”

Jack grew suddenly pensive. “And big eyes…and big teeth….”

Valie groaned and sped up her pace. “Look, I don’t need you to walk me anywhere. I’ve wandered around this town by myself since I was little.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to . . . .”

His words seem to frustrate her—probably because they were reasonable. She stopped and faced him. The shining, white half-mask she wore glowed orange under the light of the streetlamps and covered much of her face, including the bruise Jack knew was on her cheek from her trials earlier that day.

“What is it you really want, Jack?” she demanded, her voice stern and unyielding.