Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1)

  Kannon returned and handed me a Shirley Temple complete with two cherries and a cocktail straw.

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting the drink.

  Kannon took the seat on my other side and sipped his own faux cocktail. My friends continued to talk around me, but my attention was on the door. I wanted to see Devon the moment she walked in. Maybe I’d seen too many Lifetime movies, but images of Devon being dragged into a car kicking and screaming kept playing in my mind.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Principal Beam has just informed me that we will be announcing your Westwood High king and queen in the next hour. Polls will close shortly, though, so make sure to cast your votes,” the DJ announced over the microphone. “For now, let’s get this dance floor filled back up!”

  A Bruno Mars song started to play. Elizabeth clapped her hands and declared, “I love this song,” before dragging Cooper back to the dance floor.

  “Time to make good on that promise,” Kannon leaned close and whispered in my ear.

  I smiled and took his hand, and together we joined my classmates. Next to us, Cooper and Elizabeth were doing a poor impression of ballroom dancing. When Cooper dipped Elizabeth backward, her long hair swept the ground. There was something oddly familiar about the scene. A feeling of déjà vu swept over me, making my stomach queasy and my head spin.

  “Have I told you how amazing you look tonight?” Kannon murmured, pressing his cheek to my forehead.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. He’d told me several times already, and each time the words had thrilled me. But now, the effect was different. Instead of heat rushing to my cheeks, the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

  “Thanks,” I replied in a hollow voice.

  While we moved in time to the music, I continued to watch the entrance like a hawk. The ominous, foreboding sensation intensified. I knew any moment Devon would walk through the front door and she wouldn’t be alone. Bryson Daniels would be with her, with frosted blonde hair that made him look like a boy band member from the 90s and all. Whether Bryson actually was friends with Abby and Kilbi, I had no idea. But I had met him before; he’d been at my birthday party. The dreams were coming back to me, one detail at a time.

  A much faster song replaced the Bruno Mars love ballad and Kannon released me, quickly picking up the new rhythm. I remained where I was, gold heels rooted to the ground. Just as I’d known they would be, Devon and Bryson were holding hands as they entered the ballroom.

  “Endora, what’s wrong?” Kannon asked, grabbing my hand and attempting to get me to dance with him. When I failed to respond, Kannon followed my gaze. The grip on my fingers became painful almost instantly.

  I turned, and looked up at him. His jaw was clenched tightly, causing small lines to appear around his mouth. His eyes were narrowed, and the small tingles running up my arm from his touch became jolts. My arm shook and my teeth chattered as if I’d been tasered.

  “Kannon.” I whimpered his name.

  He released my hand quickly like I’d been the one to shock him and not the other way around. I cradled my arm over my chest, and waited for the aftershocks to die down.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  Kannon shook his head but didn’t meet my gaze. He was lying.

  “Who is he, Kannon?”

  No answer.

  “Kannon, please. Devon is my best friend. If she’s in danger, you need to tell me.”

  He finally turned and met my gaze, green eyes giving away nothing. His face was now relaxed, expression neutral. The slight trembling of his fingers when he tucked a stray curl behind my ear was all that betrayed his true feelings. He was scared.

  “She’s not in danger. Not exactly. That kid is a real jackass, though. I don’t know him, know him. But I’ve seen him around and I’ve heard the rumors. He has a reputation for sleeping with a girl and then never calling her again.”

  I studied Kannon, searching for some indication that he was lying. His face was a mask - a beautiful, unreadable mask.

  “I see…” I said slowly. “I should warn her.” Not that Devon was going to take my advice, not with the way she became all googly-eyed when someone mentioned Bryson.

  I weaved through my classmates, careful not to get the hem of my dress caught under anyone’s heels. Kannon called my name, but I didn’t turn around. There was more to the story than he was telling me. I had no doubt that Bryson Daniels, if that was even his real name, had a playboy reputation. But that alone didn’t explain the anger or the fear Kannon was hiding.

  “Endora, wait.” His fingers stung as they closed around my wrist.

  I spun to face him. The mask was still in place, but cracks were starting to appear.

  “Who is he?” I demanded.

  “Let me take care of this, please.” His green eyes were pleading now. “Go outside and wait for me. No matter what happens, do not come back inside and do not go anywhere with someone besides me.”

  “Kannon, what is going on?”

  “I won’t let anything happen to her.” With that Kannon was gone, leaving me staring after him.

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I go after him? Should I trust him? I barely knew him. He’d said that some Egrgoroi were bad. Evil. Was Bryson one of the evil Egrgoroi? I tried to recall the one time we’d been in close physical proximity, the night of my birthday when he’d suggested that I jump off the cliff at Caswell Lake. The conflicting emotions that I felt around Kannon and the two Egrgoroi boys in the mall weren’t present that night. What did that mean?

  “Where’s Dev? They are going to announce king and queen soon.” Elizabeth was panting and her cheeks were flushed from dancing.

  “Kannon just went to find her,” I mumbled.

  A shrill noise drowned out the music and my classmates’ voices. The lights blinked off, replaced by pulsing white emergency lights.

  “If everyone could move to the nearest exit. Do not panic. Walk, do not run.” Principal Beam was barely audible over the continued blaring of the alarm.

  Devon. Kannon. Where were they? Between the darkness and my panicked classmates, I had no hope of finding either of them in the chaos. People swarmed around me, bumping me in their haste to run, not walk, to the exit. I stood frozen, unsure what to do.

  Before he went after Devon, Kannon had told me to go outside. Had he known this was going to happen? Did Bryson Daniels have something to do with this?

  “Eel, come on,” Elizabeth shouted to be heard. Her hand was on my elbow, urging me forward. Cooper was on her other side, his bow tie wrapped around his forehead like Tarzan. Seeing him like that sparked a memory: fire.

  “Fire,” I said aloud.

  “Exactly. This place is on fire. That’s why we have to go outside,” Elizabeth said, exasperated by my refusal to move.

  I closed my eyes, trying to hold on to the memory. This was important. I saw myself walking down a smoke-filled corridor, calling Devon’s name. She was trapped. She was going to die if I didn’t find her.

  “Go. I have to find Devon,” I told Elizabeth, gently pushing her away.

  “You have to come.”

  The ballroom was quickly emptying of people, only to be replaced by smoke wafting in from a hallway to the right.

  “Cooper,” I tried appealing to him instead. “Take her outside. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “No,” Elizabeth protested. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Cooper,” I begged. There wasn’t time for this; I needed to get to Devon.

  Cooper hesitated, waging some internal debate that I wasn’t privy to. He stared into my eyes. Whatever he saw – determination, resolve, desperation – made his decision for him. “Come on, Liz. Let’s go.”

  Elizabeth’s protests faded as I ran towards the smoky corridor. My heels were slowing me down, so I took several seconds to kick them aside. I glanced over my shoulder and caught Cooper dragging Elizabeth through the entranceway. They were the last people to leave the ballroom.

  The
smoke was dense and stung my eyes. I used the skirt of my dress to cover my mouth and nose. Heat surged all around me, growing stronger and more uncomfortable the deeper I plunged into the corridor. The exposed skin of my arms felt like it was blistering, but the pain made me move faster.

  “Devon!” I shouted, worried that the wailing fire alarms would prevent her from hearing my cries.

  The gray-black cloud was so thick that I couldn’t see where I was going. A brief moment of panic made me falter. Was I going the right way? Sure, the smoke was coming from this direction. And as the saying goes, where there’s smoke there’s fire. But was I sure that Devon was trapped near the flashpoint?

  In my dream she had been. Except in my dream, Kannon, not Devon, was waiting for me at the end of this hallway. But he’d gone searching for her, so she had to be there too, right?

  With newfound determination, I dropped to my hands and knees. The air close to the floor wasn’t as smoky, and I sucked in the relatively fresh air. My lungs burned from inhaling so much smoke - the dress had been a poor filter. But my own health seemed unimportant. This was Devon we were talking about. She was my best friend. My partner in crime. Had the roles been reversed, she wouldn’t have let a little smoke stand between us.

  “Devon!” I shouted again.

  A coughing fit overtook me, temporarily stalling my progress. But my efforts were rewarded when I began to hear banging coming from the direction I was moving. The sound was faint and only audible between the intermittent wails of the fire alarm. Still, it gave me hope – she was still alive.

  Deciding that crawling was too slow, I got to my feet, crouching low, and continued towards the banging. The heat was almost unbearable. My face felt like it was melting. But finally, I reached a door. I knew it was there, not because I saw it, but because I ran into it. Headfirst. The collision caused me to fall backwards. Disoriented and not thinking straight, I blindly grabbed for the door handle, remembering too late that it would be hot. The metal seared my palm and I cried out, inhaling a great deal of smoke in the process.

  I swore at my stupidity, then wrapped my uninjured hand in the skirt of my dress and tried the handle a second time. The damned door was locked. Of course. Oddly, this development wasn’t a surprise. In my dream the door had been locked as well. I knew what was coming next: an explosion. I took several steps backwards and curled into a ball, hands over my head, and waited. I wasn’t disappointed.

  The wooden floor shook beneath me and I moaned Devon’s name, fearing the worst. The door is going to open now, I thought. And it did. Just like in my dream, Kannon was framed in the doorway. His hair was a mess, blood ran down one side of his face, and the buttons of his shirt were ripped open.

  This isn’t right, I thought. This wasn’t how the dream went. He shouldn’t have been hurt.

  “Jesus, Endora. I told you to go outside!” He coughed, a deep raspy noise that made him groan, and hurried to my side. “Are you okay?”

  Our faces were inches apart. Both his right eye and his lower lip were swollen. I touched his cheek with my fingers to make sure he was real. This definitely hadn’t happened in my dream. Where were the fire creatures?

  “Can you walk? Are you hurt? We need to go.”

  Kannon’s grip was gentle but firm on my waist. He pulled me to my feet.

  “Devon?” I said weakly.

  “She’s fine. But we won’t be if we don’t go now.”

  I refused to move. Could I trust him? I’d never actually seen her in my dream. I had no idea where she was supposed to be.

  “Endora, please. I promise she is safe.”

  “I hope she’s worth it,” a cold voice spoke from behind us.

  Despite the blistering heat, my blood froze. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Bryson. Kannon didn’t give me a choice now. He picked me up, threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and started running. Laughter followed us, louder than the fire alarm. I wondered whether the noise was actually inside of my head.

  Instead of the ballroom being at the end of the hallway where I thought it was, there was another door. Kannon used his hip to depress the bar and it opened. Cold air chilled my back and when Kannon set me back on my feet, I greedily gulped it in. Kannon fell to his knees, coughing and wheezing.

  “Are you okay?” he asked between wheezes.

  “Me?” I laughed dryly. “Are you okay?”

  Tentatively, I touched his swollen eye. He winced but didn’t pull away.

  “What happened in there?” I asked quietly.

  Kannon shook his head. “I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

  With a great deal of effort, Kannon stood, clutching his ribs. Since his shirt was ripped, scratches on his chest were visible. I wanted to press him for details about what happened, but he was already on the move.

  The grass was cold and damp beneath my feet. It felt so good, soothing my hot skin. I followed Kannon around the back of the building. Apparently, we’d left through a back exit. My classmates were congregated in the parking lot. Fire engines lined the circular drive, looking out of place among the white and black limos. Firemen in yellow jumpsuits were hauling thick white hoses off of the trucks. Several police cruisers had also responded to the alarms, and uniformed officers were standing with Principal Beam off to one side.

  “We can’t go up there,” Kannon said. “The cops will want to question us.”

  One look at Kannon’s bruised and bloodied face told me he was right.

  “I need to let my friends know I’m okay, though,” I said.

  “You can call them later.”

  “How are we going to get home?”

  The country club was a twenty-minute drive from my house; we couldn’t walk. Kannon was in no shape to walk anywhere. He needed medical attention.

  “Cab,” Kannon said. He reached in his pants pocket for his cell. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “It’s broken.” He held up the phone so I could see the blank display.

  I’d left my evening bag at the table, which meant we had no phone.

  “There’s a gas station not far from here,” I suggested. “They probably have a pay phone.”

  Despite my doubts about whether Kannon could walk that far, he did so without complaint. Miraculously, the gas station did still have a working pay phone, and we used that and the Yellow Pages to call a cab. Next, I dialed Devon’s cell number.

  It rang three times before her muffled voice answered. “Hello?” Sirens wailed in the background, making it hard to hear her. But the relief I felt at hearing her say that one word was indescribable.

  “Devon.” My voice broke on her name.

  “Eel?!” she shouted. “Is that you? Where are you?”

  “I’m with Kannon,” I said. “We’re safe.”

  “He saved my life, Eel,” she sobbed. “Bryson is a monster. One minute we were making out, and the next he had me tied up. Fire shot from his hands. He was going to kill me.”

  I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the cold glass of the phone booth. How could I have let this happen? I’d known she was in danger. I should have trusted my gut, should have listened to the voices in my head telling me not to go to prom.

  “He said that if I hadn’t meddled in things that weren’t my business then none of this would have happened.” Devon was still crying in my ear. “The fire was my fault. I’m so sorry.”

  “No, no, sweetie. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.” The fire was my fault. Bryson had only gone after Devon because of me. Even if the gods didn’t want her messing with Egrgoroi affairs, she’d only done it to help me.

  A mechanical voice broke into our conversation, directing me to “Please deposit fifty cents to continue the phone call.”

  “Dev, I have to go,” I said hurriedly. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ll call you—” A dial tone filled my ear. I replaced the receiver, fighting back my own tears.

&nbsp
; After several deep, calming breaths, I regained a modicum of composure, took Kannon’s wallet and went inside the convenience store to purchase first-aid supplies. The selection was subpar at best, but it would have to do.

  Armed with bottled water, gauze, Neosporin, and peroxide, I sat on the curb beside Kannon and silently began cleaning the cuts on his face.

  “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said quietly, keeping his gaze straight forward.

  I said nothing, but my hands shook as I dabbed peroxide on his temple. Kannon winced but otherwise showed no sign that he was in pain.

  “The lake was a coincidence. That much was true. And the first dream I had about you was about us meeting at Elizabeth’s party. But I wasn’t joking when I told you we were supposed to come here tonight together.”

  My fingers stilled. I didn’t like where this was going. All the dreams about Kannon flooded my mind at once. My heart started hammering against my ribs. He was the enemy. My original impression of him, the fear I’d felt at the lake, was correct. Kannon was dangerous.

  I took a shaky breath that hurt my lungs. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “Please don’t make me spell it out, Endora.”

  But I wanted him to spell it out because there were still a number of issues I was unclear on.

  “If it counts for anything, I’d already made the decision not to go through with it when you invited me. My attraction to you is real. At first, I really thought I might be able to do it. But after the night at the lake, after I’d met you in person, there was no way.” He paused in his rambling and laughed humorlessly. “Guess I should have read the fine print on that Egrgoroi contract.”

  “You were supposed to kill me,” I said. Surprisingly, my voice was calm. I even managed to continue administering to his wounds, using a little more peroxide than was necessary to disinfect the cuts, and more pressure than was necessary to apply the gauze.

  The realization wasn’t as earth-shattering as it should have been. Then again, part of me had known since we met that he was dangerous. I’d chosen to ignore all the warning signs.