And now the situation with Jared. Whatever they’d said to him brought a screeching halt to our involvement, and I resented them for it, plain and simple. It all added up to one massive wedge in our relationship. And now I avoided them whenever I could. It was just easier that way.
I crept inside and heard muffled voices coming from the living room off the kitchen. The pocket door was pulled almost completely shut, but I could just make out a heated exchange resonating from within.
“You can’t do this, Bill,” someone said, his voice angry, desperate. “Not after everything we’ve been through.”
“I can and I will,” my grandfather said. “I’ve already made the plans.”
Then a woman spoke, and I recognized the voice as Mrs. Strom, one of the members of the Order of Sanctity. “After all you’ve taught us, after all you’ve preached, and now you’re going to pull the rug out from under us. You’re going to send our only hope away.”
“She’s my granddaughter, damn it,” Granddad said, and a jolt of electricity shot down my spine when I realized they were arguing about me.
“She’s also the prophet, Bill,” someone else said. Another woman. I didn’t know who. “She’s the only one who can stop what’s to come.”
“We’ll find another way,” my grandmother said, her voice fragile, unsure. It was very unlike her. “We can’t risk her. Not like this. Not anymore.”
I heard something fall, like a table toppling over, then a low voice so full of anger and resentment, it shocked me to the core. “You’re going to send her away when all the signs point to Armageddon? When she’s our only hope?”
Send me away? Did I hear that right?
“You need to calm down, Jeff,” another male voice said. It was Sheriff Villanueva, one of the many members of the Order. “This isn’t our decision. It’s Bill and Vera’s.”
Jeff’s voice broke through again. “I hope to God you rethink this, Bill, or we’ll all pay for your idiocy. You’re gambling with our lives.”
The pocket door slid open with a loud crash and Jeff stomped out through the kitchen to the front of the store. The bell chimed when he left. Four others followed him, and I jumped back behind our refrigerator.
“Please rethink this, Vera,” Mrs. Strom said. “For all our sakes.”
She sniffled into a tissue as my grandmother showed them out. They were scared and angry. Energy sparked and pulsated around them like someone had put it in a blender and set it to puree.
Granddad was still in the living room. I didn’t know if he was alone or not. I should have checked. I should have tried to talk to him. Instead, I sneaked around to the stairs and hurried up to my room.
Stunned.
Speechless.
They were sending me away? To where? While I didn’t want the visions or the prophecy or, most definitely, the monster inside me, I also didn’t want to leave Riley’s Switch. And sending meant alone. They would not be going with me. No one would be going with me. What would I do without Brooke and Glitch? Without Cameron? Without Jared?
My heart contracted as though I were a cornered animal, wounded and scared.
* * *
I pulled out the pink slip of paper from my pocket and studied the map. The party was in the forest about two miles from the store. Maybe a party was just what I needed. I could walk the two miles. I could walk a lot farther if I had to. Running away would be better than being sent away like a criminal, but getting back at someone was not a good reason to run away.
A floorboard creaked on the landing by my door.
“I made dinner, pix,” Grandma said.
But she knew the drill. “I’m not hungry,” I said, hardening my voice and my heart.
They could have made me go downstairs and eat with them anytime they wanted, and at first I wondered why they didn’t. Then I figured it out: guilt. They felt guilty for keeping all that information from me growing up. For my near-death experience. For not telling me about the monster inside. So I was getting away with way more than I normally could have.
“I’ll keep a plate for you in the oven,” she said. My grandmother was the feistiest, cleverest, most direct person I’d ever known. She never let me get away with even the slightest white lie. The fact that I was getting away with treating them like lepers astonished me. And made me feel almost as guilty as they did. They had given up everything to raise me. When my parents had disappeared, they were nearing retirement. They had plans to travel the world, and then I was dropped into their laps like living anvil—a constant burden, a constant reminder of what they’d lost.
And there I sat, treating them like the enemy. But I was beginning to wonder if they weren’t.
THE CLEARING
I waited until after ten. My grandparents had gone to bed an hour earlier, but I had to make sure they were asleep before descending the stairs. I didn’t dare take the stairs outside my bedroom window. Since this whole building used to be a store and my grandparents transformed the back part into living quarters for us, there was a fire escape right outside my room. I took those stairs often, but the metal clanged with every step. No way would my grandparents not hear me.
Worse, I had two bodyguards by the names of Jared and Cameron just outside somewhere. Surely they didn’t actually stay up all night every night. They had to sleep sometime. But I couldn’t risk going out the back door. Jared’s house, a small apartment my grandparents had used as storage and remodeled for him to live in, sat right behind the store. If he didn’t see me, Cameron—who camped out behind the store in his truck while on sentry duty—surely would. So I decided to sneak out the front door.
I crept down the stairs, through the store, and out the front door. Thankfully, when the lights were turned off, so was the door chime, but I did have to turn off the alarm, which beeped every time I pushed a number. I cringed and waited to make sure no one heard, then headed out into the frigid night toward a waiting car.
“I’m glad you called,” Tabitha said when I shut the door to her Honda. Her car was warm and smelled like Tommy Girl.
“Thanks.” I strapped on my seat belt and settled in. I felt like I’d wandered into the cave of the enemy, but my curiosity had gotten the better of me. Why would Tabitha Sind invite little ol’ me to a party? And where was her entourage? She never went anywhere without Amber, her second-in-command. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe Amber was waiting for us in some remote part of the forest and they were going to beat me to death with rocks and sticks. That would suck.
Tabitha drove down the winding canyon and took the cutoff to the Clearing, which was pretty much party central for high school kids. I’d been there once, but only during the day, never at an actual party. I waited for Tabitha to make a point in her ramblings, hoping she’d fill me in on why she’d invited me, but she went on and on about her hair and her chem test and about who all was going to be at the party. Riley’s Switch had taken state this year and we were apparently still celebrating three weeks later, no matter how cold it was.
“Help me with the bags?” she asked.
We got out and she handed me a paper bag with glass bottles in it.
“My dad will kill me if he finds out I raided his liquor cabinet,” she said, offering me a conspiratorial wink. But all I could think about was how she was going to navigate the uneven ground in those heels.
The party was everything I’d expected it to be: Couples sitting around a campfire, others standing, chatting and drinking. A few yelling powerful fight metaphors into the night, after which everyone had to raise whatever he or she was drinking into the air. Someone had a car stereo on in the background, the music fairly low. Lots of jocks. Lots of hair-sprayed girls. Lots of popular kids who actually got invited to parties fairly often. I straddled a weird kind of fence at school. I wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, but I was friends with most of the kids. And almost everyone I wasn’t friends with was at this party. This was going to be loads of fun.
I strolled to a shadowy
area and marveled at how it seemed warmer there, though I still shivered underneath my jacket. In what seemed like seconds later, Tabitha found me. She walked up with a cup in each hand and a clear bottle wedged under her arm.
“Here, try this.”
She handed me a yellow Solo cup, and I examined the colorless contents inside. “What is it?”
A pleased smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. “Strawberry vodka. You’ll love it.” She tipped it toward my mouth, and a warning signal went off in my head, much like the blaring alarm preceding an imminent nuclear disaster, but I did what any normal sixteen-year-old would do. I ignored it. And I drank.
The searing liquid trailed like molten lava down my throat. I gasped and struggled for air, and after a small fit of coughs and a sneeze, I said, “Now I know why they call it firewater.”
She laughed, pretending to be amused, and I gave her a second to come to her point. We weren’t friends. She didn’t invite me here to make small talk. And my curiosity was getting the better of me, no matter how hard I pretended otherwise. So I took another searing drink and held my cup out for more.
I could be cool. I could hang with kids who wouldn’t give me the time of day. Who quite possibly didn’t know my name. I could be normal.
Tabitha refilled my cup, pouring from a tall bottle before Joss Duffy grabbed it from her. She lunged to snatch it back, but he held it at arm’s length, just out of her reach.
“Didn’t you learn to share?” he asked, clearly having had too much already. He lost his footing, caught himself, then raised the bottle in salute.
“That’s from my dad’s liquor cabinet,” she said. “Don’t drink it all. I’ll have to dilute it enough as it is.”
Joss nodded, then winked at me. “Hey, McAlister. Long time no see.” His Riley High letter jacket looked freshly cleaned, the red and black combination striking.
I offered a quick smile. “Actually, we saw each other in sixth today.”
“Oh.” He snickered. “I don’t really pay attention in that class.”
He tried to step closer and stumbled into me instead. I braced myself for both a fall and a vision, but nothing happened besides almost getting knocked unconscious. I pushed him off me, spilling half my strawberry vodka in the process.
“My bad,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You look nice tonight.”
“So,” Tabitha said, angling her shoulders to block Joss, completely dismissing him. He shrugged and staggered back to the fire, the bottle tipped at his mouth.
“So?” I asked, taking another drink. It seemed the more I drank, the easier it became to swallow the hot liquid.
“You and Jared?” she asked, and I realized she had been biding her time, waiting for the opportunity to ply me with alcohol—a learned behavior—before asking the personal questions. “Are you guys a thing?” she continued. “I mean, it seemed like you might be a thing there for about five minutes, but now you hardly look at each other. And yet he’s always near you. So, what gives?” She took a drink from her own cup, eyeing me in question from over the rim.
The world slid to the left a bit as I watched her, the alcohol affecting my equilibrium already. That was really fast. But as much fun as I was having, I just didn’t think I could bring myself to have a heart-to-heart with Tabitha Sind.
“We’re not a thing,” I said, taking another drink so I could hide behind my cup.
She brightened. “Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, I thought maybe—”
“Nope,” I said, cutting her off. “We’re just friends.”
“Jared!” Her tone took on a sharp pitch that cut through the frigid air.
I frowned at her. “Right. Jared. We’re not—”
“You came.”
She stepped closer, and I realized Jared was behind me. I closed my eyes and let out a long, exaggerated huff of air. How on earth did he find me?
“I didn’t think you’d come.” She was lying. Was that why she’d invited me? As a way to get Jared to come to her stupid party? I felt so used. And nauseated. Though one had nothing to do with the other.
Before I could even look at him, the world tilted just a little too far to the left. I doubled over and heaved, an act that could not possibly be appealing.
“Uh-oh,” Tab said, smiling at Jared, utterly love struck. “Looks like someone isn’t feeling well.” She reached over and took the sleeve of Jared’s jacket. That much I could see through my hair, though the image was upside down. “Why don’t we leave her alone for a bit?”
When my gaze finally made its way up strong legs, fit hips, masculine hands, long arms … up, up, up to wide shoulders, a beautiful mouth, a perfect nose, and eyes so dark, they glittered—I realized he was looking not at Tabitha but at me. And his expression was not a happy one.
“Who gave her alcohol?” he asked.
“What?” Tabitha asked, placing a hand over her chest. “She’s been drinking?”
He shot her a glare so hard, dynamite couldn’t have penetrated it. Then he bent down, pulling out of her grip with the movement, and scooped me up. The world spun and my stomach heaved again—thankfully, to no avail—as he carried me a short distance from the fire.
He plopped me onto my feet, then steadied me when I almost crumpled. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What? I got invited to a party.”
He grabbed hold of my upper arm. “With everything that’s going on, you decide to go to a party?”
With feelings shredded, I jerked out of his grip. “Why are you even here? Why did you come?”
“What do you mean?”
I wondered what I meant as well. Was I talking about the party or just in general? “I can go to a stupid party if I want to, Jared. I can be just as normal as the next girl.”
“You’re not normal, and you know it.”
His words cut for some bizarre reason, no matter how accurate they were. When he tried to take hold of me again, I jerked away again.
His expression hardened. “We need to get you home.”
“Why? So I can be a prisoner for the rest of my life? Is this what it’s going to be like forever?”
“Until we figure out who wants to harm you, yes. You’ll just have to deal with that.”
“What are you talking about? You killed that reporter guy who tried to kidnap me.”
“And he was sent by someone else. Someone smart enough to make your death look like an accident.”
“What do you mean? What accident?”
“Think about it, Lorelei. You’re the prophet. The one who’s supposed to save the world, literally, yet you’re hit by a truck and suddenly slated to die? Does that sound wrong to you?”
I stepped back, growing wary. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that your near-death experience was planned. It had to be. Someone wanted to stop the prophecy from coming true. Why else would you have been scheduled to die before you could fulfill it? A centuries-old prophecy?”
I pulled my bottom lip through my teeth. “Someone tried to kill me? On purpose?”
“I believe so. And maybe that’s why I couldn’t take you when I was supposed to. Maybe I knew. Somewhere deep inside, I knew it was wrong.”
“I thought— I thought you couldn’t take me, because—” I stopped before I embarrassed myself even further. Admitting that I thought he couldn’t take me because he had feelings for me, because he’d fallen madly in love with me. would probably have him in stitches.
I tried to walk past him, but he blocked me and stepped closer. He didn’t try to grab me again. With arms at his sides, he watched me through his glittering gaze. His dark irises didn’t reflect the light from the campfire so much as absorb it, turn it into something magical, something mesmerizing.
As though fighting with himself, he bit down, locked gazes with mine, then stepped even closer. He lifted a finger and ran it over my mouth, along my jaw. “Your grandparents were right, Lorelei.”
The word “grandparents??
? brought me skyrocketing back to reality. I nodded and swallowed down the bitter taste in my mouth, the same one I got every time he mentioned them. “Right. When they told you to stay away from me.”
“They didn’t say that. Not really. They just— They reminded me of the truth.”
“Of course. And what truth would that be?”
His gaze didn’t waver as he said, “That I am not worthy of you.”
If the world had fallen out from under me, I would have been less surprised.
“That I have no right to pursue you. I have nothing to offer,” he continued. “No future here on Earth.”
I was fairly certain my jaw was hanging open at that point.
“That you are destined to do great things. That you were prophesied about over four centuries ago.” He closed his eyes. “And I am nothing more than an errand boy.”
Maybe it was just the alcohol, but everything faded away except Jared. His startlingly beautiful face. His wide, solid build.
Then his gaze narrowed and darted past me. He scanned the area, suspicion furrowing his brows. “Who invited you to this party?”
I glanced down, embarrassed, and tried not to fall sideways with the movement. “Tabitha.”
He wrapped a hand around my upper arm, still examining the black beyond. “And where is Tabitha now?”
“Over there with the in crowd, I suppose.” I frowned at him. “Why?”
Jared eased me away from him. “Get her home.”
“What?” I asked, but my question was answered when Cameron stepped from the shadows, his footsteps as quiet as Jared’s. How was that even possible? I totally wanted that superpower.
“Really?” Cameron asked as he looked me up and down, his expression full of mirth. “You thought you could sneak away from us by using the front door?”
“Shut up.”
“Stealthy. You’re like a ninja.” He chuckled.