Stained

  HERE - Chapter Two

  He lay just beside the water, curled over on his side with his arms around himself and his knees drawn to his chest. From my perch up on the bridge, I could see he had hair the color of burnt rust and looked about my age.

  When I thought about it a little later, I figured I must have been seriously freaking out, because as I stared down at him, the world seemed to stretch and rip—a kaleidoscope twisting in furious fingers. The air crackled like a huge branch snapping, and the pressure squeezed my eardrums, announcing the End of both our lives and the Beginning of something unimaginably new.

  The really awful thing is: all I could think about was Twilight.

  I’d become book critic enough to know the story’s flaws, but when I’d gotten the series for Christmas in the seventh grade, I’d liked the vampire-werewolf fantasy better than I had ever admitted to my friends (even S.K., who was herself a fanatic). Which meant animals that occasionally turned human seemed real enough to me.

  Staring down at the felled boy, my mind spun like a Ferris wheel. Had I accidentally hit Aiden instead of Ashlyn? Were my mule deer really mule guys and mule girls?

  A violent breeze swept through the woods, shaking the bridge, and reality returned in a burst of sickening fright.

  “Holy freaking baktag! Holy shit!”

  I’d shot a person!

  My legs jolted into motion before I was ready; I bumped into the bridge’s rope handrails and shrieked, then shot off toward the stairs, practically fell down them.

  “Hey!” I sprinted to him, dropping to the damp sand. “HEY! Are you okay?!”

  I shook his shoulder. His head lolled back, bright copper curls pressed into the sand. His eyes were shut, his chiseled lips parted.

  “Oh, God. Can you hear me? Please talk to me!”

  I rocked back, cradling my head. Could a dart calibrated for a small fawn kill a guy my age? I didn’t know. I didn’t know much about the dart gun. I wasn’t even supposed to be using it!

  My breath came in frantic tugs, like I was breathing for him and me. I looked down at him again and felt the ground below me tilt.

  The boy’s curls looked afire against the dull wool of his tux. I followed the crisp lines of fabric down to his abs, where—oh, God—the dart’s tail stuck out of a swatch of inky fabric.

  My hand hovered over it.

  “Oh, God. Oh God.”

  What if he never woke up? Should I be calling 9-1-1? I fumbled in my pants pocket for my phone— But wait! I didn’t have service here!

  Jerky like a wind-up doll, I leaned over his body and splayed my palm across his cheek. It was creamy—not pale or flushed—and to me it looked unnaturally perfect. He didn’t have a single blemish. Not even a freckle. I wiggled my fingers, tap-tapping on his cheek below his eye. “Hey… c’mon. Talk to me!”

  My hands were shaking too much to check his pulse at the wrist, but I was able to press my fingers against his jugular, digging in to find the heartbeat at his throat.

  Slow but steady.

  “Okay.” I huffed. “Okay.” I sucked air through my nose, let it out slowly through my mouth. A shrink had taught me this. Dr. Sam, the guy my mom sent me to after Dad died and I had my— well, my issues. “Okay.”

  I needed to practice what Dr. Sam had called positive projection.

  This guy will wake up soon. This guy will wake up soon. And when he does he will be fine. When he does he will be fine.

  His neck was warm and firm, with a muscular quality that reminded me a little of an animal. The dart was only supposed to put a mule deer out for a few minutes, so it couldn’t take much longer for a human. Could it?

  No, Milo. Of course it can’t.

  The mental tricks did their job. I was able to calm down enough to think, and the first thing I thought was that I needed to examine him more closely. I stared down at him, noticing minute things, like the poet-or-surfer curliness of his brilliant, bronzy hair. How thick and soft it looked, like a thousand loosely curving ocean waves. His shoulders seemed unusually wide, but maybe that was the tux.

  Wait—

  Why the heck was he wearing a tuxedo? I glanced around, half expecting Bond-like reinforcements, but all I saw were leaves and branches. Our land was isolated. Fenced. So where on Earth had he come from?

  I looked back at his face: his parted lips, the sharp line of his jaw, the gentle plane of his nose, the way his lashes fanned against his cheek.

  A pristine white hanky poked out of his breast pocket, folded so harshly it looked fake. My gaze swept down his long legs before I realized I was—oh, no—gawking, and forced my attention back up to his face.

  Coloring: good. Eyelids: unmoving. Mouth: not frothing or bleeding or bruised. In the last three years, I’d become an expert on vital signs, and my throat flattened a sob as I realized how familiar this routine felt.

  I grabbed his hand and squeezed my eyes shut. He’s not dead, Milo. I’d felt his pulse. Now I simply had to wake him up.

  Pressing his warm hand between both of mine, I leaned down and spoke loudly near his ear. “Okay, now. It’s time to GET UP.”

  I held my breath, gritted my teeth, and willed his eyes to open.

  And they did. No fluttering lashes or painful squints or groans. He simply opened his eyes and blinked, just like an owl.

  His eyes were deep brown. Wide and slightly glazed, they held mine like a magnet. Then he rolled onto his back, kicked out one long leg, and grimaced as he pulled the dart from his chest. He held it up into the sunlight.

  Words gushed out of my mouth. “I’m sorry! Are you okay? I’m sooo sorry. I was trying to shoot a deer and you just—” what? He’d just appeared.

  Except—okay—that clearly wasn’t what actually happened.

  The boy’s rust-smudge brows clenched.

  “I shot you!” I blurted. “That’s a dart!”

  He turned the tiny pink dart over in his hand. His mouth tightened, and I felt sure he was going to say something along the lines of, My father the Congressman will be sure you’re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  Instead, the corners of his mouth curved slowly. He sat up fully, leaning back on one arm, and in a rich, black-coffee kind of voice, he said, “You shot me?”

  He was grinning and, a second later, laughing. His shoulders shook, his head lolled back. The sound of it was uproarious. Wonderful. As was his dark gaze, affixed to mine. “You shot me?” The words puffed out on hoots of laughter. “And you were aiming for a deer?”

  He laughed so long I felt my cheeks color.

  “You might consider wearing orange in the woods,” I advised, wiping my hair back. “Anything with some color. Your hair’s not that red, and black and white don’t really say ‘I’m human.’”

  “What do they say?” His grinning face was lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “I don’t know…” Against my will, I felt my own lips twitch. I glanced over his tux. “Nick Carraway?”

  He considered that for a second. “The Great Gatsby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s human. Or would be if he was real.” Still smiling that brilliant smile, he raked a hand back through his hair, trailing down over his face and over his jacket. Slowly, the smile faded. He looked down at himself for so long I forgot to breathe.

  “Um… Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  He looked at me like he’d forgotten I was there. His mouth was pinched tight now, his brown eyes flat.

  “Do you feel bad?” I asked; my voice quivered.

  My victim shook his head. “No.” His mouth moved slowly, as if testing out the word. “I don’t feel…bad.”

  “Are you sure?” I was leaning forward now, hands clenched in my lap.

  “I don’t know.” The words were mumbled, like he’d just woken up…which he kind of had.

  The guy stared blankly at his legs, and I felt the chilly air condense. “Do you feel confused?” I tried. “Like, dizzy?”

  His e
yes lifted. They were darker and more guarded than before.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’m pretty good at medical stuff and—”

  He shook his head. Like I was a fly buzzing in his ear. Then, without warning, he lumbered up.

  He’d seemed tall all sprawled out, but at his full height, he looked even taller: easily above six feet. There was something about him that brought to mind James Dean—all swarthy and mussed, like he’d just rolled out of bed and was spoiling for a fight.

  I jumped up, too. One minute, I was racking my brain for what to do. The next, he was walking—well, weaving—along the creek.

  “Hey, wait! Hold on a second!”

  But he wasn’t holding on for anybody. He jabbed his hands into his pants pockets and shouldered through the firs, moving with surprising coordination for someone who’d just been sedated.

  It felt like forever that I chased him, his big, dark form the center of my world. If I couldn’t catch him, what would I do? What had I done?

  A few strides later it didn’t matter. He sighted the pancake rock and froze mid-step. Then he turned a slow circle, his face a mask of baffled disbelief. He raised his arms, turning his palms out, toward me.

  “Where am I,” he asked flatly, “and what the hell am I doing here?”

  HERE - Chapter Three

  I wanted to believe his question was rhetorical. Philosophical. Where am I metaphorically and what am I doing with my life.

  But his brown eyes flashed with barely restrained panic.

  “What are you doing here,” I repeated, to his frozen face. “You mean… like… how did you get here?”

  I prayed he’d beam me one of those thousand-watt smiles. Then he would turn another circle in the field, fix his eyes on the Simpsons’ house, a small white dot in the distance, and say, “Okay! I remember now. I was leaving my aunt and uncle’s house—you know them, right? The Simpsons— And I’m on my way to the Saturday Morning Prom. I had to walk to that road out there—” which would be Mitchell Road— “to meet my friend Paul. He’s picking me up, and then we’re going to get our dates for brunch.”

  Instead he whirled around, his back to me, and I watched his shoulders rise and fall; I could hear his fast and shallow breaths.

  Oh, no.

  I had stun-gunned some impeccably dressed guy and now his brain was scrambled. What was I going to tell my mom? What would I tell the Golden Police?

  The thought of the cops made me cold with fear. I’d been in fourth period last November when our school had been the target of a drug bust, and I could still remember the police whistles, the snarling German Shepherds that looked like they wanted to chew off my fingers.

  If the police found out what I had done…

  If the people at my school found out…

  Oh, no. No one was finding out. I could handle this. I’d handled lots of other things, hadn’t I? Many of them were things I didn’t want to think about, but still, I’d handled them. You’re too old for your age, my dear. Isn’t that what my Grandma Lisa had said just a few months ago?

  My brain switched to fast-forward mode. I stared at my victim, feeling an awful swell of regret that I quashed with my resolve. I could fix this. I could fix him.

  My arm swung up, my hand closed over his thick, woolen shoulder.

  There was a moment of quiet where he looked pale and unsteady, and my fingers itched to brush those half-curls off his forehead.

  Despite my pounding heart, I forced my voice to come out strong. “We’re outside Golden, Colorado. This is my family’s land. See those?” I turned and pointed to the turbines: enormous things like malevolent pin-wheels with three knife arms, perched on the edge of the Front Range. Strangely, they didn’t seem to be spinning and I couldn’t hear their usual faint hum.

  “Those are our turbines,” I told him calmly. “This—well, that is Mitchell Windfarms.”

  I watched his stark face. His eyes slid to the turbines, back to me.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. I don’t know how I did.” The state of things was fairly clear, but in my shock I needed clarification. “You’re saying you don’t remember…anything?”

  His gaze cut left, then right. I waited half a breath, and when he didn’t move I shifted forward, standing close enough to see the throbbing of his heart beat at his throat. “So... Come with me to my house. We’ll figure it out. I can get you something to eat. I can look at the gun’s manual, and we can figure out what to do to help you—” Help him what? “To help you remember what’s the what,” I finished lamely.

  We had friendship cake at home. Friendship cake and hot chocolate. My mom’s friendship cake could bring anyone to their senses. It had to.

  “Come on.” I held my hand out and nodded down the flat field that stood between us and my house.

  He nodded, slow and small, and stuffed his hands back into his pockets. He hunched his shoulders and blew out a thick, cloudy breath.

  “Are you cold? You want my coat?”

  He shook his head. His throat worked silently, and I wondered if he was going to be sick.

  “Are you okay?” Stupid Milo. My eyes flew up and down his body; his curved shoulders, tucked chin, pinched lips made him look lost. Which he was. “I’m so sorry. I’ve never done anything like that before. I took a hunting class—you know, the one you need to get a license—and I’m usually so careful.” I realized how self-centered I was being and my cheeks flushed, warm in the cool air. “You’ll remember everything soon, I’m sure you will. The stuff in the gun was a sedative, for deer. It was only enough for a small fawn, but still… I’m sure that’s what’s making you feel weird.”

  I started walking, eager to be home, where I could do something. He followed half a step behind.

  “You’ll probably like what you remember,” I continued. “That’s a nice suit you’ve got on and— Hey, your suit. Take off your jacket!” I flung my arm around, like that would help him understand. “Check your pocket! There might be a wallet in there.”

  He blinked once—he still looked a little dazed—and shrugged out of his coat, revealing a starched white dress shirt and a soft-looking cummerbund, which he removed and tossed over one of those lineman’s shoulders. He fished into both side pockets, frowned, then checked the breast pocket, and came up with… a whistle?

  Yep. My victim held up a small, red whistle. It looked almost like a child’s party favor, except metal. I rubbed my head. “Maybe the coat tag will have a name…”

  He was still staring at the whistle.

  Staring, like… staring.

  “Do you remember something?”

  He shook his head, but this time he tucked the thing into the coat’s interior pocket. I watched in silence as he checked the tag of his coat. Brioni. That was all.

  “Maybe you’re the next James Bond. He wears Brioni suits, you know.”

  A second passed, a second where his face was deadpan flat and I felt like an idiot for being so flippant. Then he gave me a small, crooked smile; it was almost smug. “You think I’m a secret agent.”

  I laughed, an awkward giggle. “Umm. It’s always possible. I hope not, though. ’Cause if you are, that would probably get me in big trouble.”

  As soon as the words were out, I realized my faux pas. “I guess I’m already in big trouble…”

  He looked down at his shoes—leather dress shoes that must have been shined that morning—and shifted his shoulders so he could massage one of them. I tried desperately to lengthen my strides. He followed, moving at a pace that seemed leisurely for him.

  “How did it happen?” He sounded clinical, like he was asking me how turbines worked.

  How did it happen?

  “Well, I was up there—” I was going to point, but realized we weren’t anywhere near where we’d started. “I was in the tree house with a dart gun because I’m trying to tag deer. It’s for a project.” I skipped the part about how I’d lied to state o
fficials. “The herd showed up, and I saw Ashlyn…” I shook my head. “I saw the little deer that I was aiming for, and I shot at her. I’ve never had a problem before, but this time I—” I swallowed. “I have no idea. I shot Ashlyn. I know I did! But there was this light…” And what had that light been? I wanted to think it over, but he was looking at me expectantly. “Anyway, uh, when I looked down…you were there.”

  His lips twisted. “Maybe I’m Deer Boy.”

  “I know. I totally already thought about that, but here’s the problem: I had my gun aimed at Ashlyn—a girl deer.”

  He cocked a brow, which could have meant anything, but likely meant he thought I was insane for having already thought through the Deer Boy angle. For a few minutes there was only the wind stinging my ears and the whoosh of our footsteps in the grass. When his began to lag, my stomach clenched.

  “You getting tired?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Not tired?”

  His brown eyes slid my way—unreadable under drawn brows. “Yeah, I’m kind of tired. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “You must really hate me.”

  “I can’t,” he said dryly. “You’re the only person I know.”

  I opened my mouth to blurt something, but he held up a hand. “I don’t. Hate you.”

  I looked down at my boots. “That’s generous.”

  Lame-o. Man, I was super lame. How could I have made it to eleventh grade and still be this lame?

  “You might change your mind.” If you don’t remember anything soon… “But you probably won’t— won’t change your mind, and decide to, you know, hate me— because I’m sure any minute now you’ll remember… everything.”

  I fumbled with my gloves, head down. “When you’re back to normal and you know why you’re wearing a tailored suit, you can probably do anything you want to me. With me, I mean.” My cheeks flamed. “What I’m saying is… Maybe I can compensate you somehow.” My face got so hot, my eyes actually watered. “By compensate you, I mean I don’t have much—” my eyes flew, against my will, down to my chest— “but I can give you food and… rocks. I collect rare rocks. Mountain rocks!”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, mortified.

  Again, there was a stretch of silence, during which I really thought I might die. During which Deer Boy actually smiled. He looked almost silly with abandon, like it was the first time he’d ever smiled. His brown eyes crinkled, and his wide grin flashed like a commercial for Crest Whitestrips. “Mountain rocks, huh?”