The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (9 page)

“I . . . I . . . ,” Valie stuttered, suddenly unable to draw a proper breath.
“I can’t.”

Jack took a slow, deep breath, which, to Valie’s surprise, sort of helped her to calm down.

“Is there anything I can do, then?”

Valie looked up into the sincere, azure eyes watching her. Her cheeks burned in shame. She wanted—no. She
needed
those eyes off of her. She was vulnerable and knew it. And the fact that
Jack
could sense her vulnerability was not helping matters.

Self-consciously, she swiped at her own tears only to return her hands quickly to her pockets. He didn’t need to see those either. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Yes. You could. But you didn’t.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I got tired of sitting in class.”

“I don’t think the attendance office recognizes that as an excuse.”

“But they’ll recognize your caffeine deprivation?”

Valie smiled, but not as spontaneously as Jack wished she would.

“I don’t really care what they think. If I need to, I’ll just call in to say I was sick. What’s Shane going to think if you’re not at school?” Valie asked. She didn’t really want an answer, but she never understood where Jack stood with the beauty.

He shrugged. “She’ll be angry. Oh well.”

Valie scowled at him. “That’s not a very nice way for a boyfriend to act. Imagine if you were the one stood up in a new—“

Jack cut her off abruptly, “Boyfriend? Sweets, Shane and I are not involved . . . .” Valie was speechless. She couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. “She and I are . . . well . . . best friends. I guess you could say that we’re like brother and sister. Did you think we were a couple?”

“Yes!” Valie wailed. “When I asked how long you two had been together, you said ‘four years’!”

“I thought you meant how long we had known each other.”

She threw her head into her hands. All that brooding for
nothing
? She was so stunned, she couldn’t even voice the question of why the two would move together if the were just friends.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Valie muttered.

“What?”

“Apparently, nothing. Nothing at all.”

Jack looked frustrated and was on the verge of demanding to know what Valie had been thinking, but he recalled the present circumstances and thought better of it. Instead, he glanced around the green park and then up at the dripping sky as if to collect his thoughts. “So do you ditch often?”

“Every once in awhile.”

“Do you not like school?”

“No. Not really.”

“What do you plan on doing once you graduate?” he asked, looking down at his hands. There was a deep earnestness in his question, but Valie couldn’t figure out why.

“I honestly don’t know. I want to move out,
now
more than ever.” Valie wiped again at her wet, red face. “But job-wise, education-wise . . . I don’t know. I’ve always felt like I was waiting for something, something that would help me know what the future holds, but I still don’t know what that something is. Insane, I know, but that’s how I’ve felt since I was little. And it’s not just a hopeful feeling I have because my life sucks. I just . . .  I don’t know.”

“Can’t find the right fit?”

“Ha. Yeah. I guess that’s a good way of putting it.”

“Is your life really that horrible?”

“Not compared to some, but it’s bad enough for me.”

Something in the bushes around them piqued Jack’s interest and drew his gaze away. Valie glanced around, but saw nothing. She sniffled quietly, unintentionally bringing Jack’s attention back to her.

Abruptly, he stood and extended his hand. “Come on.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, I’m taking you to lunch.”

“No. No, I’m not hungry. Thank you, though.” Valie couldn’t imagine casually eating lunch with Jack, especially on such a horrid day.

Jack shrugged and smiled. “Then you can watch me eat.”

“Gee, that sounds fun,” she deadpanned.

With a charming wink, Jack grabbed Valie’s hand and pulled her up. The girl winced and hoped that he wouldn’t look at the hand the boy was holding.

“Doesn’t it?”

Jack didn’t speak as he and Valie walked to Pete’s, a pizza place a block away. The short distance almost gave Valie enough time to compose herself. She was with Jack—a girlfriend-free Jack. As this fact sank in, the girl became determined to enjoy this afternoon with Jack and try to forget about her grandfather. After all, where was she going to go? Her friends were in school. Come to think of it, they were probably worried about her. She would go to Luci’s later, when school was out. Only then, would Valie worry about Alden. But what was there to think about? She couldn’t make herself go back. She’d suffered him long enough.

The teen glanced over at Jack.

Later.
I’ll
worry about that
later
, she told herself again.

When she and Jack reached Pete’s, Jack motioned for Valie to take a seat.

“Pepperoni okay?”

“Sure, sounds great.”

Gracefully, he strode to the counter and a few minutes later returned with a medium pepperoni pizza. While she waited, though, Valie couldn’t tear her eyes away from him and that long, muscular build that made all of his clothes seem a perfect fit. The light, sun-tan of his face just made those blue eyes seem darker beneath his heavy brows—the fathomless azure orbs that glanced her way just often enough to keep her uncomfortable.

How had
this
happened? She, Valentine McRae, was with (and most of the girls at school would agree)
the
most attractive boy in Anders, on what felt like a date, but wasn’t a date—or so she had to convince herself, otherwise hyperventilation was
guaranteed—
and she felt almost happy despite the mess of that morning. After fleeing the apartment one of her first thoughts had been that she never should have ditched school, but she had been wrong. She just should have ditched with Jack.

Once the young man sat down across from Valie, he smiled and took a large bite out of his pizza. When he’d swallowed, he piped up, “So how long have you lived in Anders?”

Valie covered her mouth while she hurriedly chewed a bite of her own pizza. “My whole life,” she replied awkwardly, trying to swallow. “I’ve never been much of a traveler. I’ve only been out of state a handful of times.”

“You don’t like traveling then?”

Valie shrugged. “It depends on who I’m with. If I’m by myself, then no, not really.”

“Who have you traveled with before?”

It was beginning to feel like an interrogation, but Valie answered his question. He was just making small talk and she wanted him to know her, so she could have the chance to know him. 

“When I was younger, my grandfather used to take me to visit his sister in
Louisiana, but she died a few years back. I’m not sure I have any family other than Alden, now.” Valie’s voice hardened at the mention of her oppressive guardian, the man she had lived with her entire life, the man who had hit her and demeaned her only an hour or so before.

“What about your parents?” Jack asked gently, noticing Valie’s rigid posture. “You said you never knew them—why not?”

Valie shrugged stiffly. “My mother died giving birth to me,” Valie lowered her gaze away from Jack’s kind eyes, “And my father . . . well, I don’t know hardly anything about him.” She took a deep breathe. “Apparently, I look more like my mother. All but the eyes; they’re exactly like my father’s, or so my great-aunt told me.”

“Dark amber,” Jack murmured in a tone that disturbed her.

Sharply, Valie looked up to find him staring broodingly at her wrist.

“This is beautiful,” he said, fingering the charm on her mother’s silver bracelet, which had slipped out of the sleeve of her jacket. Not stopping there, though, Jack’s warm fingers continued to trail downward to Valie’s swollen knuckles.

“What happened?”

“Oh, I . . . I fell.”

“On the
back
of your hands?” Jack asked, his eyes and voice equally stern. Valie had to admit that it was a ridiculous lie.

Slowly, Jack eyed Valie suspiciously and started putting the pieces together—Valie’s tears and ditching school, the obvious bruises forming on her knuckles and her reluctance to talk about her grandfather.

“What did he do?” Jack growled, gripping her arm with one hand and hastily pulling up Valie’s sleeve looking for any other sign of struggle or attack.

“Jack!”

Valie stared at Jack in fear, not for her safety, but for her privacy. Unfortunately, the boy was too quick for her and before she could pull away, he deftly—but more gently than Valie was comfortable with—swept Valie’s hair away from her face.

Instantly Jack’s jaw was tense and his eyes became wild and cold. In that moment, Valie believed her space in his thoughts was very inhospitable.

“Is it that bad?” she asked quietly.

“Not compared to some, but
it’s bad enough for me,” Jack said in a low, rough voice.

Valie looked away from the intense scrutiny of his gaze, and said nothing.

“What happened, sweets? Tell me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jack.”

“But . . . .”

Valie glared at him. “No.”

Frustrated, it was his turn to stare broodingly out of the window.

Valie impatiently waited for Jack to compose himself and toyed with her bracelet as she watched him. She didn’t want their time together to end like this.

After several tense minutes, Jack finally turned back to her. His eyes were drawn to her cheek, making Valie look down and away in embarrassment. Hesitantly, she shifted her hair back to cover up what was apparently a noticeable bruise. When Jack leveled his gaze to Valie’s eyes, though, she almost
wished
he would stare at her cheek. His eyes were wild, as if he’d just thought of something that was spinning his mind in circles.

“What were your parents’ names?” he demanded suddenly.

“What?”

Quickly, Jack touched the charm of Valie’s bracelet.
“E.M. and I.Q.  I’m assuming they were your parents?”

Valie nodded, not understanding his interest.

“What were their names? Do you know their names?”

Somewhat affronted by his challenge, Valie recited the names stiffly, “Elizabeth McRae and Isaac Quinn.”

“How can you be so sure?” he demanded.

Valie’s mouth fell open a bit at Jack’s aggressiveness. “Excuse me?”

Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but this is important. How do you know about your parents?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Jack closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, physically drawing away from the girl across the table. When Jack opened his eyes there was nothing but sorrow encased in the cold pools of blue. “I think I should go.”

Valie didn’t know what to say. She sat there silent as stone and watched as the beautiful boy rose and put on his jacket. It would have hurt less if he had struck her in the face.

She had just spilled her entire life onto the table in front of them—her entire
soul
—and Jack wanted nothing to do with it. She should have guessed. The thought of sharing herself with someone, with
Jack
, had appealed so much to her that she had lost herself in the fantasy.

Numbly, she nodded in acknowledgement of his words, knowing her face had become vacant of all emotion, knowing that the door to her heart had closed completely—and, she hoped, never to be opened again. 

Without another word or glance behind him, Jack left, leaving Valie to feel more alone than she had ever imagined possible. She could no longer wait for Luci and Jonathan to get out of school. There were so many emotions that she wanted to feel all at once that she didn’t think she could feel them all alone. However, one emotion burned bright and clearly within her, giving her strength to rise and exit the pizza place and start the long walk to Luci’s house alone. That emotion was absolute
loathing
for Jack Haden. 

When Jack reached the northern end of the city, he stopped and changed into his wolf form to run faster. He knew Shane was following—he had picked up her scent outside of the pizza place—but it wasn’t until he was miles outside of the city that he thought to stop. He stood in his wolf form, eyes wide, legs braced, chest heaving—more from anxiety than exhaustion—until Shane came running up behind him, a honey-colored she-wolf with those ice-blue eyes, awkwardly carrying her small backpack overflowing with her clothes, as well as Jack’s, in her teeth. With an indignant
hmph
she tossed the bag into the bushes nearby. Jack went to the bush, morphed and put on the clothes. Shane, afterward, followed suit.