Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1)

  “Eel, wait!” Kannon called after me.

  I ignored him. Nothing was as important as getting to Devon.

  The song ended and a faster, more upbeat one took its place. More of my classmates began filtering onto the dance floor, obstructing my view of Devon and making it harder for me to fight through the crowd.

  Kannon caught up to me, grabbing my upper arms to stop me in my tracks. I struggled to free myself, but Kannon’s grip was firm.

  “Stop, Endora.”

  I didn’t heed his command. The crowd around us had parted, and I could see Devon again. She was starting down a hallway off of the main ballroom, still holding hands with the boy.

  “Who is he?” I demanded without turning to face Kannon.

  Kannon said nothing.

  “Who is he?” I repeated through gritted teeth.

  Kannon said nothing.

  Irritation and anxiety spiking, I screamed my question a third time. “WHO IS HE?”

  ****

  “Eel, wake up!” someone demanded.

  Blindly, I tried to reach out towards the sound of the voice. My arms were pinned. Coarse hair tickled my nose as it swept across my face. Someone was leaning over me. I kicked my legs, finding them untethered.

  “Jesus, Eel,” the voice said as something sharp and pointy slammed into my gut.

  “Owww,” I moaned, finally opening my eyes. Devon’s face was inches above me, huge eyes watery with unshed tears. “What’s wrong?” I asked, afraid something had happened to her.

  “You kicked me,” she said, sitting back on her haunches and releasing my arms.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, just now. You were screaming in your sleep and when I tried to wake you up, you freaked.”

  I scrambled to sit up. Devon had turned on her bedside lamp, and in the dull light I could just make out red blotches on my upper arms where she’d held me down. I brought my knees to my chest and hugged myself, suddenly freezing.

  “Nightmare,” I mumbled, rocking back and forth slightly. I repeated the word, reassuring myself as much as Devon. My heart was racing and my side ached, and I was still disoriented from being forcefully pulled from sleep.

  “Nightmare,” I repeated a third time, finally meeting Devon’s concerned gaze.

  A fist seemed to squeeze my lungs, cutting off my air supply. A sudden rush of panic jolted my brain fully awake, but the panic wasn’t for me. It was for my best friend. The glazed expression in her eyes, the way her curls were piled on top of her head, the thin straps of her pajama top, triggered something in my mind. Wisps of gray-and-white smoke swirled around me at dizzying speed. Incorporeal hands reached for me, their nails clawing at my arms and legs. Blistering heat engulfed my entire body. I blinked rapidly, too stunned to react.

  “Definitely a nightmare,” Devon agreed.

  Her voice pulled me from the vision, anchoring me to reality. I blinked several more times before I was convinced that Devon and I were alone in her bedroom. I nearly wept with relief when the ghost-like appendages didn’t reappear.

  “You started screaming bloody murder, I thought you’d wake my parents,” Devon continued. The concern in her eyes deepened. “Eel? Are you okay?” She placed the back of her hand against my forehead, like my mother used to do when she thought I might have a fever.

  “You’re roasting,” she proclaimed.

  Devon leapt to her feet, disappearing into the hallway and returning moments later with a cold washcloth. The wet towel felt amazing against my flushed skin, cooling the feverish flesh on contact like aloe on a bad sunburn.

  “You’ve been having a lot of nightmares lately, Eel,” Devon said quietly. “Want to talk about it?”

  I patted my chest, searching for the dream catcher for comfort. It wasn’t there. Right, because despite promising Kannon I wouldn’t take it off ever again, I hadn’t wanted to see my mother and therefore failed to retrieve it from my bedroom.

  “Are they all the same?” Devon pressed when I didn’t respond.

  “I-I-I don’t know,” I stammered. “I don’t usually remember them after I wake up.”

  I hugged my knees tighter against my chest. I’d told Devon the truth. The dreams were gone from my mind nearly the instant I woke up. Tonight was the first time images had bled through.

  “Usually?” Devon’s attention to detail was impressive. Even minute facts and figures were never overlooked by my best friend. “So sometimes you do remember them.”

  It wasn’t a question. I nodded anyway.

  “Talk to me, Eel.”

  While the images from the dream were gone, the ominous sensation remained. Kannon had said that in time I would recall the dreams from the moment I awoke. As I watched the lines between my best friend’s brows deepen, I had the awful feeling that time might not be a luxury that I had.

  “Something bad is going to happen,” I whispered softly. I couldn’t bring myself to add that the something bad involved her.

  “When?” Devon asked.

  I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. The nightmares that had been plaguing my sleep were important, of that I was certain. And I couldn’t shake the increasing worry that Devon’s life might hinge on my ability to recall the dreams before it was too late.

  “How many of your dreams have come true?” Devon’s voice was kind but intense. The urge to cry out of frustration became harder to fight.

  “Four or five,” I mumbled, “so far.”

  “And you think that the one you just had will, too?”

  “I don’t think it will. I know it will.”

  ****

  Both Mr. Wentworth’s Escalade and Kannon’s Jeep were already in the Moonlight parking lot when we arrived the next morning. Mr. Wentworth was standing between the two vehicles talking to Kannon through the Jeep’s open window.

  Devon parked on the other side of Kannon’s Jeep and turned off the Chevy’s engine. I made no move to get out of the car, regretting that I’d declined Devon’s offer to swing by McDonald’s drive-thru for coffee. My brain wasn’t all systems go quite yet, and coffee would have been the pick-me-up I desperately needed. My lackluster attitude was also due to my conflicted emotions about the day’s mission. On the one hand, I was excited to see Dad’s house. On the other, I was terrified of what we might find.

  “Come on let’s get this over with,” Devon said and threw open her door.

  Hesitantly, I followed her lead.

  “Good morning, Endora,” Mr. Wentworth said warmly. He turned to Devon. “And you must be the infamous Devon Holloway. Nice to put a face with a name.”

  Infamous? Great, I could only imagine what Jamieson had told him about Devon.

  She could bad-mouth me all she wanted; after five years I was used to it. Devon, though ― I wouldn’t stand for that. Before I could open my mouth and dispel the awful rumors he’d likely heard about my best friend, Mr. Wentworth said, “Why don’t you kids all ride with me? Mark’s place isn’t far.”

  “Great. Thanks, sir,” Kannon said. He rolled up the window and got out of the Jeep.

  Devon climbed into the front passenger seat of Mr. Wentworth’s SUV, and Kannon opened the back door, allowing me to slide into the back seat.

  “Where’s your necklace?” Kannon whispered as Mr. Wentworth turned left out of the parking lot.

  “At my house,” I whispered back. “I’ll explain later.” Even though Mr. Wentworth had been the one to give me the necklace, I felt uncomfortable talking about it in front of him.

  Kannon ran his palm up and down my thigh and gave my leg a light squeeze, letting me know he understood. I smiled up at him, grateful for his company.

  No one spoke on the ten-minute ride from the Moonlight to my dad’s place, which, as it turned out, was located several miles down a winding back road. The house was ranch style, wedged between two identical structures. A red pickup truck sat in the driveway with Dad’s “Historians Have Been Doing It For Centuries” bumper st
icker on the back window. My chest tightened; Mom hated that bumper sticker.

  “Has the truck been here this whole time?” Devon asked the question my mouth couldn’t formulate.

  “Yes. As far as we can tell, Mark left the house of his own accord in someone else’s car. There is no forced entry and no evidence of a struggle. Well, at least I don’t think there was a struggle. It’s hard to tell.”

  “What do you mean?” Kannon asked.

  “Dad is not a great housekeeper,” I said numbly. My father liked clutter. His office in our old house had stacks of old student papers and more books than the public library. Every spring he promised Mom he would clean out the space. When we moved, I finally sifted through all of the junk, finding term papers dating back to the year I was born. Over my mother’s protests, I saved many of his treasured books from the dump pile.

  Mr. Wentworth led our group to the front door and selected a key from his key ring. The front door swung open, revealing a hoarder’s dream. In an ordinary home, I imagined that the main area would be a living room, but my father had turned it into a humongous office space. World maps with pushpins sticking out of them papered the walls. Legal pads and binders covered almost every inch of the wooden floor boards, save the pathways Dad had left himself. A large whiteboard stood in the center of the room, my father’s tiny handwriting scrawled in red, blue, and green markers. The only normal living room accessory was the brown leather sofa pushed against one wall, and even that was covered in books.

  “Shit,” Devon said, so eloquently summing up what everyone was probably thinking.

  “I see what you mean,” Kannon muttered to Mr. Wentworth. “I don’t know how you would tell if there had been a struggle.”

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Devon said. “Eel, use the camera on your phone to take pictures of all the maps, particularly the places he stuck those pins. Kannon, take the whiteboard. And I will start on the couch, I guess.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mr. Wentworth asked.

  “Why don’t you start with that pile?” Devon said, pointing to a waist-high mound of legal pads staked against the wall.

  “I am looking for any mention of the Egrgoroi?” Mr. Wentworth asked.

  “Yeah,” I said uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected Jamieson’s father to do while the rest of us searched my father’s belongings, but I hadn’t imagined he’d help. “We’re just trying to learn everything we can from Dad’s research.”

  The four of us set off on our assigned tasks.

  Upon closer inspection, I realized that they were all world maps, though each was from a different point in history. One dated back to 1100 B.C. The most recent was dated 2005. Each map had nine pins in roughly the same geographical locations; it was hard to tell for sure since the earlier maps designated empires instead of countries or cities.

  After I finished examining the maps without actually learning anything, I started on a stack of books on the couch. Dad had marked various pages with neon Post-its, many of which had indecipherable notations made in his tiny handwriting. I poured over Dad’s work, setting aside the more heavily tabbed books to take with me.

  Hours passed in silence. My neck and back began to ache from sitting bent over in the same position. My stomach frequently reminded me that I had not yet eaten today and I felt like my eyes were crossing after too much time reading faded text. I found several references to the Egrgoroi, but learned nothing new.

  Devon had given up on the books and legal pads and was now dissecting Dad’s digital files. I joined her at the computer desk, every joint in my body cracking as I stretched.

  “Find anything?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Devon mumbled around the pencil stuck between her teeth. “Your father has a file on here named ‘Endora,’ but it’s password-protected.”

  “Did you try my birthday?” I asked.

  Devon rolled her eyes at me over her shoulder. “No, Eel that never occurred to me,” she said sardonically.

  “Just trying to help,” I mumbled.

  “I know. And yes I did. I also tried your name, your initials, and Eel. No luck. What’s your parents’ anniversary?”

  I rattled off my parents’ anniversary, followed by each of their birthdays when the anniversary failed. Feeling like a failure and wondering whether I really knew my father at all, I shrugged my shoulders and told her I was out of ideas.

  “Why don’t we take the laptop with us?” Mr. Wentworth suggested. “I can have one of my techs work on it. It’s nearly noon and you guys should get back before Evelyn realizes you’re gone, Endora.”

  He had a point. My cell was still in Devon’s car and I wasn’t looking forward to the texts and voice-mail messages that awaited my return.

  Devon packed up Dad’s laptop while the rest of us loaded boxes of books into the back of Mr. Wentworth’s Escalade. On the ride back to the Moonlight, Devon, Kannon, and I agreed to split up the books and continue combing through them separately that afternoon. Mr. Wentworth promised to call the minute his tech guys were able to crack Dad’s password.

  “Think your mom will let you out tonight?” Kannon asked me while we were saying goodbye in the diner’s parking lot.

  Mr. Wentworth had already left and Devon was sitting in her car playing with her phone.

  “She probably won’t even be home,” I told him. “So, yeah I can probably get away.”

  “If she isn’t home, maybe I could come over?” Kannon smiled almost shyly and my heart melted.

  “That would be great,” I said.

  “I’ll see you later then.” Without giving me a chance to answer, Kannon wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me to him. He was leaning with his back against the side of the Jeep, so when he pulled me forward I fell on top of him, hands splayed across his chest. His mouth was on mine, gentle at first until we both grew accustomed to the sensation.

  “Get a room,” Devon hollered from the Chevy.

  I made a one-fingered shooing gesture in response.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Devon had the keys in the ignition, but had yet to turn on the Chevy’s engine when I opened the passenger door. She was aimlessly tapping the steering wheel with her index finger, a faraway look in her big blue eyes.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked, as I fastened my seat belt.

  Devon turned to face me. “Let’s go talk to the old man.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Haverty?”

  Devon shrugged. “We’re here. Might as well.”

  The Moonlight was as busy as I’d ever seen it. A bluegrass song played over the speakers, the artist’s crooning with a pronounced twang accompanied by a depressing melody. Mr. Haverty was standing in front of the griddle, frying ham steak unless my nose deceived me. A middle-aged woman with teased bangs and too much blue eye shadow greeted us at the front door.

  “Two?” she asked while smacking her gum.

  “We were hoping to have a word with Mr. Haverty, if he has a minute?” I replied.

  The woman’s cement gray eyes scrutinized first me, then Devon. Curiosity mingled with suspicion as she slowly nodded. “I’ll check his schedule.”

  She turned on the heel of an orthopedic sneaker and headed towards the back of the diner. Her broad hips swung as she moved between the tables. Devon and I exchanged a glance, both of us trying not to snicker.

  The waitress conferred with Mr. Haverty, who glanced over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of his visitors. He smiled and waved one wrinkled hand in our direction. Pointing to two empty stools at the counter, he gestured for us to sit.

  “Be with you in just a second, Endora,” Mr. Haverty called once we were seated.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied.

  The waitress set plastic cups of water on the placemats in front of Devon and me. “Menus, ladies?”

  “Just coffee for me, please,” I replied.

  “Same,” Devon echoed.

  Between the restless
sleep the night before and the mentally taxing morning, I was exhausted, and the pot of dark roast brewing behind the counter smelled amazing. By the time the waitress returned with two steaming white mugs, Mr. Haverty was finished with the order he was working on. He leaned against the counter in front of us.

  “Nice to see you again, Endora,” he told me.

  “You too, sir.” I gestured to Devon. “This is my friend, Devon Holloway.”

  “Hello, dear.” He glanced back and forth between the two of us. “Why do I get the impression this isn’t a social call?”

  “Mr. Haverty, we were hoping to ask you some questions about Endora’s father,” Devon responded.

  I was glad she was taking control of the situation since I didn’t even know where to begin.

  “Of course. What would you girls like to know?”

  Devon hesitated a moment, shooting me a sideways glance before launching into a round of twenty questions. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Been about two weeks now,” Mr. Haverty said. “Mark told me he was going out of town for a couple of days. Research trip, if I recall correctly.”

  “Did he say where he was going?” Devon pressed.

  Mr. Haverty drummed gnarled fingers against the countertop while he considered the question. After a long pause, he shook his head regretfully. “Don’t reckon that he did.”

  “Did my father talk to you about his work?” I interjected before Devon moved on to a third question.

  “A little,” Mr. Haverty said slowly. For the first time in our brief acquaintance, the older man appeared uncomfortable. He began twisting a gold signet ring that encircled his middle finger.

  “That folder you gave me had a list of people and their contact information. Do you know anything about them? Were they helping Dad with his research? Are they professors, too?” The Moonlight’s owner became visibly agitated, straightening packets of sugar and artificial sweeteners. His hands shook slightly, causing the band of his ring to knock against the small dish of creamers that sat next to the sugar container.

  “Oh, I don’t know much about that.” Mr. Haverty’s chuckle sounded forced.