Unleashed (2 page)

“Get under the doorjamb!” her mom yelled.

Katelyn was so disoriented that she couldn’t remember the layout of the living room. For a moment she froze, foggy and confused. Her knees buckled and her mother clung to her, keeping her from collapsing completely.

The room was exploding around them. Katelyn fought hard to make herself move, to wake up. Her lungs were burning.

The lights went out. Then her mother moaned and let go of Katelyn’s hand.

“Mom?”

Katelyn swayed, reaching out into the darkness for her mother and stumbling forward. Her toes collided with something soft. Her mother’s face. Then something hard: a huge chunk of plaster, on top of her mother’s head.

Katelyn dropped to the floor and threw herself over her mother’s still form.

“Mom!”

Her mother groaned. “My darling, run,” she managed to say.

Then the floor opened up.

And Giselle Chevalier was gone.

Two weeks later Katelyn was on a very small jet and swathed in black. Black leotard top, black wrap sweater, jeans, and riding boots that were a little too snug around the calves. She wasn’t wearing makeup and the black washed her out. She looked how she felt—drained and half dead. It was better than shrieking with grief—or having another nightmare. She counted off the last three: a repeat of falling to her death in the Cirque du Soleil; dancing the Black Swan in
Swan Lake
as the roof of the theater crashed down on top of her; and bursting into flames as she carried the Olympic torch for the USA gymnastics team. Her best friend, Kimi Brandao, told her it was survivor’s guilt and to get over it—Giselle Chevalier would have been glad her daughter survived … even if she herself had not.

Blinking back tears, Katelyn hunched her aching shoulders. She was trapped up against the window. Unfortunately, the purple overnight bag containing her iPhone, which Kimi had helped her load with music for the journey, was stuffed into the overhead compartment three rows away.

She had figured she could get it once they were airborne, but then the guy on the aisle had made the woman next to her straddle him in an effort to escape the row and use the restroom. Katelyn had decided to stay put. She wasn’t about to straddle anyone. So she sat and tried very hard to ignore the man and woman sitting next to her.

“Jack Bronson is a genius,” the man was saying to the woman, who grimaced politely at him as she clutched her e-reader with her French-manicured nails. Everything about her body language screamed that she wanted him to shut up. “I’m going to his seminar. Actually, it’s more like a retreat. For executives.”

The man puffed up a little. He had thin, mousy brown hair and he was a bit on the jowly side. He didn’t look like he was from Los Angeles. In L.A. executives worked out. A lot of them even got plastic surgery. Image was more than half the battle.

“You need to embrace the wolf side of your nature.” He flushed slightly, as if he just realized he’d said something risqué. “I mean, to achieve your goals.”

A pause. “What is the wolf side?” the woman asked with a slight Southern accent, and Katelyn couldn’t tell if she was curious or just trying to humor a stranger.

“It’s the side that knows no fear, that sees what it wants and goes after it.” He leaned toward her with a lecherous smile. Blech. “Committing completely to the goal.”

Blech to the nth degree.

Maybe that was why Katelyn was stuck on the airplane. She hadn’t fully committed to the goal of emancipation. Ultimately her grandfather had refused to let her stay in Los Angeles—to try to live her life on her own. She had just started her senior year and would be seventeen in one day shy of six weeks, but that hadn’t mattered to him. He said sixteen was too young. Blindsided with grief, she had caved without protest, even though Kimi had begged her to stay. Kimi’s mom, an attorney, had offered to help her petition the court for emancipation—or at the very least, let her spend senior year living with them.

Her grandfather had refused to consider it and Kimi had been supremely frustrated when Katelyn had “gone robot.” Hadn’t fought, hadn’t argued, had simply surrendered. Mordecai McBride had ordered her to pack and arranged a one-way ticket from Los Angeles International Airport to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a teeny tiny airstrip located in the bustling burb of Bentonville, home to maybe twenty-five thousand people. He lived about ninety minutes away from the airport, alone, in the woods. The closest town was Wolf Springs, and at Wolf Springs High, there were 549 students. Soon there would be 550, even.

“You’ll shrivel up there, you will,” Kimi had moaned. “You
have
to speak up! Tell him you are
not not not
coming.”

But how could Katelyn speak up for herself when she spontaneously broke into tears over the smallest things?

In fourteen months she would be eighteen. Then her grandfather couldn’t say anything if she moved back to Los Angeles to resume her life, her
real
life. And if she got accepted to a California college? He wouldn’t dare stop her from going. So maybe she’d have to stay only eleven months. Some colleges started in August.

But if I have to go a year without serious training, I’ll never do anything great. And I want to have a big, amazing life
.

The thought flooded her with anger and even deeper grief. It wasn’t enough that both her parents were dead. Her dreams—the good ones—were dying, too.

Reflexively, she gripped the stuffed bear Kimi had shoved into her hands at the security checkpoint at LAX. Soft and white, the bear was dressed like a gymnast in a sparkly aqua leotard and matching leg warmers. When she pressed the embroidered heart on its chest, it said, “Kimi misses Katie,” in her friend’s voice. She’d tried plugging her earbuds into it so she could listen on the plane without embarrassing herself, but no luck.

“And so all y’all are going into the forest, to show y’all’s wolf side,” the woman was saying to the man. For a few blessed seconds, Katelyn had managed to tune them out.

“Just outside Wolf Springs, at the old hot springs resort? That’s where it’s happening,” the man affirmed. “It starts tomorrow. Tonight … I’m free.”

Katelyn rolled her eyes and leaned her head against the Plexiglas window. She didn’t want to watch the
so
-not-a-wolf making goo-goo eyes at an uninterested woman. Then she remembered that she’d been dreaming that her dad was alive on the night of the earthquake. He used to flutter his lashes at her mom to tease-flirt with her. Her mother had always laughed hard. Now they were both gone.

And if I hadn’t taken that pill, none of this would be happening
.

The tears welled up and flowed and she bit her lower lip to keep herself from sobbing. She pushed the bear under her chin and thought of Kimi.

“Oh, the black gums are startin’ to change,” someone said in the row behind her. “Look at all the red leaves.”

“How pretty,” another voice replied. “Fall’s comin’ early.”

Katelyn shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see anything pretty, least of all in Arkansas. Kimi had started calling it Banjo Land.

“Football tomorrow night. Tigers have already got it sewed up.”

“That’s right.”

She wondered if the Tigers were playing the Timberwolves. Despite being small, Wolf Springs managed to field a football team. She’d lived her entire life in Santa Monica. High school football wasn’t on most people’s radar there. Certainly not hers.

Actually, there wasn’t much about high school that held her interest. Her mind had been on other things—gymnastics, dance. The last thing she and her mother had done together was attend a Cirque du Soleil performance—
Alegría
. Katelyn had been enchanted, telling her mom that she could combine her dance and gymnastics skills if she joined a troupe like Cirque du Soleil—or even Cirque itself.

“Maybe,” her mom had replied before changing the subject.

Katelyn had never had a chance to ask her if “maybe” meant she thought it was a bad idea. Or if she thought Katelyn wouldn’t make it. Or if, as Kimi insisted, her mom couldn’t bear the idea of Katelyn leaving home to do anything at all.

During her career as a reigning prima ballerina, Giselle Chevalier had been called the Iron Butterfly, because both her will and her stamina were unmatched. But after Sean, Katelyn’s dad, had been murdered, her mother had become fragile and frightened. Katelyn had tried to make her mom’s life as easy as possible, teaching the little kids’ classes at the studio, making dinner … and trying to convince herself she was okay with becoming a classical ballet dancer, too. Katelyn thought the ballet world was old-fashioned and confining, but she’d never told Giselle that. It had been hard enough to get her mom to let her take gymnastics classes.

“What if you hurt yourself?” Giselle had asked her over and over. “What would happen to your dance career?”

Katelyn didn’t know how to respond. She only knew gymnastics did something for her that ballet didn’t. She’d been dreading the day she would have to “declare a major,” as Kimi used to put it. Just
say
what she wanted to do with her life. Giselle had told Katelyn professional dancers had no time for college. But Katelyn and Kimi had spent hours poring over course catalogs. Lots of colleges and universities had dance departments.

“Those are not for
real
dancers,” her mother had retorted. “Don’t you care about your career?”

Katelyn didn’t know. She did know that she cared about her mom. And she cared about being friends with Kimi, who had her own dreams. And yes, maybe Alec, who had agreed to help her learn the flying trapeze at their gym. To be her catcher as she let go and flew.
No Alec for you
, she thought. So there was no point in rehearsing inviting him to prom anymore, though it was hard to stop. It had become a habit.

Hey, so, Tarzan, how’d you like to catch me on the dance floor?

A week and a half before the earthquake, Katelyn had started senior year at “Samohi”—Santa Monica High School. Tons of stars and film people had gone there; Zac Efron had filmed a movie there. Kids there dreamed big, and “big” could really happen. Kimi had no doubt that they would catch the wave of magical lives. “ ’Cuz we’ve got the mojo,” Kimi would crow as they strolled down the street in their sparkly flip-flops and shades.

On the plane, sighing, Katelyn tried to smile at the memories, but her heart filled with fresh sorrow. Kimi would need someone new to hang out with, go shopping for her prom dress with, all that. Katelyn wanted that for her, even though the thought of being replaced made her free-fall inside. Kimi was her last link to home, and family.

Turbulence made the plane stutter and she sucked in her breath. Clinging to the armrests, she struggled not to see the ground thousands of feet below her. Fall here, and no net on earth could save her. The pilot announced their descent; she was so afraid she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She wanted to scream. Her heart thundered.

When the tires finally bumped on the tarmac, she opened her eyes and stared out at … very little. A tiny airport. Minuscule. Beyond, an open field. Banjo Land.

There had been an equipment failure of their aircraft, and their departure from LAX had been delayed by three hours. Instead of arriving in Arkansas around two-thirty, the plane got there at five-thirty, and shadows were beginning to lengthen. Back home, the sun would still be blazing against the brilliant blue Pacific Ocean for hours and hours.

Everyone got up. The Wolf Man was still going on about his retreat and the ebook lady was nodding. Inching along, Katelyn reached up toward the compartment where she’d stowed her bag. Since she was only five three, it was a stretch. A tall guy wearing a University of Arkansas T-shirt hoisted it down to her and she thanked him. He gave her a look—her face was probably swollen from crying—and she ducked her head.

She dug into the bag and found her iPhone. She turned it on. A text had come in from Kimi:
CM WHEN U LAND. CM
meant “call me.” She flipped over to her phone function. No service. She tried to text anyway. It wouldn’t go through.

“Are you kidding me?” she murmured.

Then she walked down a metal gangway pushed up to the airplane door. The air was boiling hot and muggy, and her ponytail drooped like a wet paintbrush. She followed the other passengers across the tarmac, eventually making her way into the terminal, and looked around for her grandfather. But no familiar face greeted her.

He knew she was coming that day, right? Did he realize that her flight hadn’t been canceled, only delayed?

She went with the others to the baggage claim. There was one carousel. Just one. A dozen black bags circled like crows, decorated with bows and colorful pieces of duct tape so their owners could tell them apart. A woman in a Tinker Bell T-shirt grabbed a suitcase tagged with a smiling Mickey Mouse. Most of these people had likely gone to California on vacation. They’d gone to see the ocean, Hollywood, and the theme parks.

Still no grandfather.

So where was he? Had he given up and gone back to the mountains?