Kindred

  Now I get to sit here anxiously, though I don’t do much sitting. I pace my room, looking for something else to do, anything I may have missed and just end up taking my mini suitcase and duffle bag downstairs and set it near the front door next to Beverlee’s bag of roadside emergency groceries.

  Harry and Daisy pull into the drive first and I go outside to meet them.

  “Right on time,” I say as Daisy shuts her car door and walks toward me.

  Harry climbs out after fumbling the seatbelt back inside the car, pulling it a few times trying to get it to tighten. A worn-out seatbelt isn’t the only thing wrong with Harry’s ancient 1970 Monte Carlo. There’s been some kind of issue with it since I met him, but he loves that car and I don’t see him getting anything new anytime soon.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here,” Daisy says in her addictive English accent. She moves up the porch steps and I move down them to meet her halfway. The first thing she does when she’s in touching distance is reach out a hand toward my neck.

  “So pretty,” she says, gently thumbing the moonstone pendant. “Let me guess—Isaac?” She grins looking up at me as she stands one step lower.

  She glances back to see how close Harry is and then whispers to me, “Don’t repeat this because Isaac will kill me, but I’ve never seen him like this before, the way he is with you—I think you have him whipped!”

  I’m totally blushing.

  “Shhh!” I say, smiling hugely. “That’s not the word I would’ve chosen.”

  “Then how would you describe it?” she says and Harry is almost too close. But I use this to my advantage and pause a few long seconds to give Harry enough time to save me from having to answer the question.

  “Where’s everybody at?” Harry says. He looks down at his phone as if to check the time.

  I hear motors in the distance now, just past the trees at the end of the road. Seconds later and two vehicles are pulling into the drive: Isaac’s Jeep Rubicon and Nathan’s FJ Cruiser with his new girlfriend, Hannah, in the front seat and Zia and Sebastian in the back.

  I don’t know what it is with werewolves and off-road vehicles.

  As cars begin to pile up in the driveway, Aunt Bev joins us all on the front porch, dangling the roadside emergency sack in her hand.

  “Hi Babe,” Isaac says and pecks me once on the lips. “Where’s your stuff?”

  I open the front door just as Beverlee steps the rest of the way out and I go to get my bags from the floor. But Isaac gently pushes me aside and gets them for me, shouldering the duffle bag on one side and holding the mini suitcase in the opposite hand. “Sure you got everything?”

  I mull it over for a minute. Toothbrush? Check. Extra panties and socks? Check. Make-up bag? Check. Three sets of clothes? Check. My new anxiety medication? Check. The purse on my shoulder? I pat it once as if I didn’t already feel the weight of it. Check. I check off a few more things and shrug, satisfied that I packed everything I needed.

  “Well, you did say I wouldn’t be needing a bathing suit.”

  “Nope,” Isaac says, “still too cold for swimming.”

  “Have you had your car checked out lately?” Beverlee says to Isaac from the side. She holds out the sack for him and he takes that too. “Oil change. Tune up. Tires. Things like that.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Isaac says, “it’s all good to go. Perfectly safe. I give you my word.”

  I just look away and pretend to be listening to Harry and Daisy talk. I always look away when a conversation is openly about me, yet some try so hard not to make it so obvious. Isaac’s Jeep isn’t even a year old and probably doesn’t need any of that stuff. It’s Harry’s car that needs it. Or, better yet, that shouldn’t be traveling distances too far out of town.

  Beverlee nods, accepting Isaac’s not-so-secret promise to make sure nothing happens to me on the way there, or back. Then he heads down the porch steps and glides toward the Jeep where he slings my bags into the backseat with ease. Thankfully we won’t be riding with the top off the Jeep, as I don’t want my hair slapping me in the face for the next hour.

  ~~~

  We pull out of the driveway one behind the other like a small fleet of 4-wheel-drive and 1970’s metal. Harry and Daisy are in the lead since he’s the one who knows exactly where we’re going. It’s easy to pick up Harry’s speakers playing Incubus or something, I can’t really tell; the guitar funnels from the car and carries behind it into our opened windows.

  It feels unexpectedly strange, leaving Hallowell. I guess because I haven’t been much outside of Augusta on an actual trip since I left Georgia back in September. Kind of liberating. I think this trip might be the kind of thing I’ve needed all along. A chance to get away from everything; or at least a chance to breathe outside of a place where a lot of devastating things have happened. Because it’s not like things are bad now, or that I’m miserable, hate school and my job and just want to get away. Exactly the opposite. Everything is awesome. I guess sometimes a trip away from awesome can still be therapeutic.

  We head east, destination Scarborough, and as we drive farther away and I can smell the salt and fishy ocean on the air, I can’t help but think of my sister, Alexandra, and where she is right now, what she’s doing, if she’s thinking about me.

  I doubt she ever thinks about me anymore.

  Life in Hallowell has been quiet and I’ve not seen or heard anything of the Vargas family. William Vargas, brother to Alexandra’s boyfriend, Ashe, I know is dead. The one I punched in the mouth at the skate park the first time I met them. Isaac killed William seven months ago. In the chaos I saw his human body lying lifeless and twisted on the floor of the Vargas house that night. I remember briefly seeing his cold, empty eyes, glazed over by a thin layer of moisture that only made his eyes look like glass to me. But Ashe, as far as I know, is still alive.

  And Viktor Vargas…well, I’m probably the only one among us who knows that Viktor is still alive. Well, Harry knows now, too.

  I glance over at Isaac sitting next to me in the driver’s seat and for a moment all I can see is someone who believes so strongly in a lie. The lie of the century. And every day that passes, by not saying anything, I’m the one telling that lie.

  God, Isaac looks so much like his father, Trajan. I see Sibyl in him too, though I would never tell him that because he would take it as an insult, even though Sibyl is beautiful. Malevolent and murderous beyond imagining, but still beautiful. Isaac has her bright blue eyes and dark hair, but he looks more like Trajan with his defined cheekbones and round face. But most of all that dangerous look in his eyes when he’s deep in thought, or when something doesn’t feel right. It’s uncanny how much they resemble each other.

  We stay on I-295 for what seems like forever, but having Isaac as my company makes any long drive bearable.

  He’s been talking about the trip he took to the Grand Canyon three years ago and the two weeks he spent in Corpus Christi, Texas, tracking a werewolf Turned by yet another rogue clan—as if the Vargas bloodline isn’t enough.

  “He Turned two days before the moon was full,” Isaac says watching the road out ahead, “and killed a sixteen-year-old boy. Some of the locals said it was a Chupacabra, but there’s no such thing.” He tilts his head to see me from the corner of his eye and grins widely.

  “Oh, as opposed to werewolves?” I joke. “Yeah, believing in a Chupacabra is just insane.” I roll my eyes and laugh quietly to myself.

  Isaac puts his eyes on the road again. A white van speeds by in the other lane, followed by a red SUV. A guy hangs his head out the window of the SUV and yells about something exciting, pumping his fist in the air. I mean who does that on the freeway? Probably a drunk college student heading to Portland too. I hope this Higgins Beach isn’t full of crazy like that. Though, Harry did say that his sister’s house was on a private section of Higgins Beach, so hopefully it’s private enough to keep out the uninvited. And thankfully it’s not hot enough for this beach to be packed like the beach
es I’m used to in Georgia during the summertime.

  “Uh oh,” Isaac says and I look up through the windshield to see what he’s staring at.

  The Jeep begins to slow down as Isaac veers slowly toward the shoulder and finally we come to a stop behind Harry’s smoking car. Cars buzz by us on the freeway so fast and so close that the wind moves the Jeep side to side.

  “I knew this was going to happen,” I say, shaking my head. I watch Harry get out, carefully opening the driver’s side door enough to make room, but not so much the door will get knocked off by a passing vehicle. He kicks the back tire out of frustration and I hang out the Jeep window and yell at him, “Hey! It’s not her fault you’re driving her far past her expiration date!” He flips me off and I laugh loudly.

  “Wait here,” Isaac says, smiling at our playful exchange and he opens the door and climbs out.

  Nathan and the others are stopped behind us.

  When I notice that all of the guys are getting out and me, Zia, Daisy and Hannah are still sitting in our seats like good little girls, I decide to get out too. Isaac notices me walking toward them and I see how quickly his eyes move between me and the oncoming freeway traffic. A diesel zooms by, practically blowing my hair right off my scalp. I decide to move even farther away from the road and take my chances in the sloped grass instead.

  “No telling what’s wrong with it,” Sebastian says over the freeway noise as I walk up. “And can’t really work on it out here.”

  Isaac immediately takes a hold of me. I can tell how nervous he is that I’m standing out here with rude drivers not getting in the far lane when they pass us.

  “I’ll have to call a tow truck,” Harry says, whipping out his phone. “We’re only about twenty minutes away from my sister’s anyway.”

  “You and Daisy can ride the rest of the way with us,” Isaac says.

  We camp out for thirty minutes on the side of the freeway until the tow truck arrives and hoists Harry’s car onto the bed. Harry looks kind of sad as he watches the guy secure chains on the wheels, but I don’t mess with him about it anymore. He really does love that car. Calls her Darla, but I swore an oath never to tell anyone that secret, including Daisy.

  “I’m sure Isaac won’t mind if we borrow his Jeep in Portland,” Daisy says from the back seat behind Isaac. She softly hits the back of Isaac’s seat and says, “Will you, my favorite and most charitable brother?”

  Isaac sighs, giving in. “No, I don’t care,” he says, putting the Jeep into gear as we pull away, “as long as Adria and I don’t need it.”

  “Of course,” Daisy agrees. She scoots across the back seat and gets in Harry’s lap. He kisses her on the nose.

  I hear shouting from behind the Jeep and notice Zia’s white-blond head poking out the back window, pumping her fist in the air as we speed away. I just shake my head and laugh quietly to myself.

  15

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER AND we’re pulling into the private drive of a little blue house perched on a grassy landscape just feet from sand and ocean water. We pile out of the vehicles, but before anyone bothers to grab any bags, we run to check out the scenery. The wind is brisk coming off the ocean. The white sand beach stretches far out in a horseshoe shape, dotted by other private beach houses, all of them spaced fifty yards or so apart. I see a long winding sand-covered trail flanked by tall wind-brushed grass leading toward the ocean. Big sweeping trees sit on both sides of the house, one with a hanging three-seated swing swaying from its massive branches

  Seagulls circle and dive overhead with high-pitched calls. The water lapping the shore sounds calm despite the brisk wind that keeps pushing stray hair that escaped from my ponytail into my mouth.

  The sun is high in the sky and as I step up and away from the cover of one tree, I put my hand above my eyes to shield them as I peer out at the ocean.

  “Crap—I forgot my sunglasses,” I say as Isaac comes up behind me. “I knew I’d forget something.”

  Catching me off-guard, Isaac lifts me into the air and slings me over his shoulder. I scream, beating him against his back with my fists, but I know there’s no way I’m hitting him hard enough to hurt him. I can’t hit him hard enough to hurt him. He holds me there, his iron-grip hands fastened to my upper thighs.

  “Put me down, or—”

  “You’ll what?” Isaac laughs. “You’ll continue to pat me on the back with your flimsy little hands?” He spins me around once and I stop hitting him so that I can hold onto his sides instead.

  “Isaac!” I try to kick my way free, but I can barely move my legs a centimeter his grip is so tight. “I’ve got to pee!” I scream, and in two seconds flat I feel his grip loosen and my body slides down the front of his easily.

  My smirk widens and I maneuver myself behind him and jump onto his back, wrapping my legs around his waist, my hands draped over his shoulders. I move my mouth real close to his ear and say, “Or I’ll use my wicked intellectual skills to trick you into putting me down since my flimsy little hands won’t work.” I press my lips against the side of his face. His grip tightens.

  “I’d rather be tricked than peed on,” he says, grinning.

  “Tow truck’s here!” Harry says from the driveway.

  Still straddling Isaac from behind, he walks with me back to the cars where the tow truck is backing its way in. Harry stands behind it, guiding it to the far side of the driveway so that it’s out of the way of the other cars. Seconds later, another car pulls in and a slim, brown-haired girl gets out holding four large pizza boxes. Harry hugs his sister and takes the pizza boxes from her and passes them to Sebastian before going back to deal with the tow truck that’s now letting his precious Darla out of her chains.

  Megan, Harry’s sister, can’t be older than twenty-five. And I can definitely see the resemblance as we all hang out on the large deck outside overlooking the ocean. Like Harry, Megan is tall, with dark, dark eyebrows and when she smiles I notice that one corner of her mouth lifts a little higher than the other, exactly like Harry’s does.

  All of the guys are literally stuffing their faces with pizza. Daisy, Zia and I eat with a little less savagery, and Hannah (she doesn’t talk much) declines food altogether.

  “If you’re going to be working on that car here,” Megan says to Harry, “make sure you put an oil pan and a blanket or something under it this time. I don’t want that stuff leaving black stains all over the sand.”

  “Fine, Meg,” Harry says with his mouth full. “Where’s that guy you were dating—Phillip, I think? The one with the killer pinup tat?” Harry swallows his food and takes another bite bigger than the last; the corners of his mouth are red with pizza sauce. He looks at all of us sitting around the wrought-iron patio table and adds, “My sister said she’d never date a guy with tattoos. Never.” He smiles triumphantly.

  “Harry’s trying to get rid of me,” Megan says to us, taking a little bite of pizza herself. “Hasn’t seen me in a month and is already tired of my company.”

  We’re all smiling, listening to their innocent banter.

  “Hey!” Harry says to Megan and then looks back at all of us. “She’s just trying to make you feel bad for her. Don’t fall for it. She’s not as innocent as she looks.”

  “I’m on her side already,” says Zia on Harry’s right.

  “Me too,” I say. “Harry can be shady sometimes, especially when he wants something.”

  “Uh huh,” Daisy says with her mouth full too. She points a finger and adds, “He thinks that charming smile and sad eyes of his are failsafe, but he has got it all wrong.”

  Harry’s eyes get bigger and bigger as everyone gangs up on him. He turns to Sebastian, the one person at the table other than his sister who’s known him longer than anyone.

  “Come on, man,” he says, palms up, “back me up here!”

  The table gets quiet and all eyes are on Sebastian.

  “It’s her house,” Sebastian finally says, shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his pizza.
>
  The table erupts with laughter, even from poor, abandoned Harry.

  “I’ll be gone before any of you get back tonight,” Megan says, wiping her mouth with a paper towel. She takes a sip of soda and sets the can back on the table. “And Harry, you know my rules. Break them and I’ll tell Mom and I’ll never trust you alone in my house again. Got it?”

  Harry winks and makes a clicking noise with his tongue. “Got it.”

  I’m wondering what the rules are, but I’m pretty sure it’s basic obvious stuff like no wild parties, no drugs or alcohol and no sex in the house. Stuff like that. Wild parties are iffy, because if we did have any sort of party, it would just be amongst ourselves, so it wouldn’t really be ‘wild’. Drugs and alcohol are no issue because as far as I know, no one here has any bad habits like that. Not sure about Nathan’s girlfriend, Hannah, but somehow I doubt she does either. She’s afraid of peperoni.

  Sex in the house? Well, that’s another story.

  I’m the only virgin here (again, I’m not sure about Hannah, but being Nathan’s girlfriend, I highly doubt it), and put a house full of couples like us alone in a beach house away from chaperones and there’s a 99.9% chance that someone’s going to be having sex.

  I look over at Isaac sitting next to me and just imagine it for a brief moment. Oh my god. Maybe I shouldn’t do that….

  Isaac smiles at me and I feel his hand move across my inner thigh. It’s nothing sexual. He does that all the time when we sit next to each other, but with the imagery still hanging on the edges of my mind, the touch only intensifies the details. I cross my legs instinctively as chills attack me all over and his hand has no choice but to pull away. I feel Isaac smiling at me from the side, maybe wondering what caused me to do that, but my face is burning so hot I can’t turn around fully to look back at him. I feel his lips touch my jawline just below my ear and my already raised temperature goes up another two degrees.