Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (24 page)

The full moon overhead lit up the riverbed below causing glimmers of light to dance like sparks of fire on the black waters. A summer wind rushed through the trees and their hair as they kissed breathing in each other’s essences for the last time.

Violet pulled away just enough to look into Radley’s scorching green eyes. She inhaled a long jagged breath. His expression was unreadable which confused her. His thoughts seemed turbulent like the waterfalls that rushed off the side of an adjacent mountain. If only she could figure out what he was thinking.

He stroked her long black hair and then held the back of her head in his hand. She wanted to memorize his perfect tan face like a clear picture in her mind that would last forever. His fingers brushed across her cheek lightly, but then his jaw clenched. The tension in his demeanor caused Violet to wonder if he was angry.

At once, he pulled out his switch blade and looked behind them away from the cliff’s edge, past the grassy park and toward the woods. His eyes were wide, his glare intense.

“What is it?” Violet asked looking around and not seeing anything suspicious just darkness, trees, and flashes of light from the lodge in the distance.

He didn’t answer for a minute, but just kept still like a deer frozen in shock before the headlights of a car right before it gets hit. It appeared now as if he was listening for something, his eyes violent, his nostrils flared.

Violet’s heart pounded fast in her chest. “Come here,” she said taking his hand.

At first he ignored her, but when she took off her shirt, he relaxed and pulled her up against him, putting the switch blade back into his pocket, and smiling wryly. “I sense an impending doom coming my way,” he whispered.

To her surprise, he took the shirt from her hand and pulled it back over her head, dressing her. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” he murmured into the night, looking out at the dark forest again. He turned back, his mind in some other place. But then their eyes met. He blinked. His irises looked glassy, deadpan as he leaned in and kissed along the line of her ear.

She could feel the warmth of his breath. Tingles rushed through her body, but she couldn’t help but sense by the way his hand pressed powerfully against her lower back that he was subduing some sort of inner rage unrelated to the skittishness toward the forest beyond.

Maybe it was over his mother who had abandoned him on the side of a desert road as a young kid. She never came back for him. Or possibly it was over his foster parents who he had run away from. Maybe he was having second thoughts about returning to them as they had discussed. It bothered her that he wasn’t open enough.

“This has been the best summer vacation of my life.” She tried to keep her voice soft and steady. It would be embarrassing to reveal the emotions she was feeling inside.

He grinned. “You better believe it has.” His voice was teasing. “You were with me.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asked mockingly. “As good as it was for me, it was better for you.” The inflection in her tone was facetious.

His expression shifted and the way his eyes bored into her now caused her stomach to flutter. Why was he looking at her like that? Her mind spun. She tried to hold his gaze. She was afraid she would never see it again.

He was good looking in a rugged sort of way. She loved his thick dark lashes and his mop of disheveled black hair. His voice was almost lyrical like a rock star. When he spoke, she often felt like he was strumming her soul, each sound lifting her up to a higher realm. How would she ever find another boy like Radley Aston? He was a drug to her—her own personal ecstasy.

In Arizona all the boys weren’t interested in her. Most of them made fun of her and her out of fashion clothing. And anyway, they were boring. Life was dull there. Maybe the guys were uninteresting in California too, but Radley sure wasn’t and he lived in Los Angeles and she lived in Phoenix. And it seemed like he really liked her for some unfathomable reason.

“Okay, love birds,” Violet’s younger sister, Ariel, called from the rock bed set off to the side and below the plateau of the cliff.  She and her new boyfriend for the night who they met at the tavern restaurant, Clark something or other, climbed back up the rocky hill laughing and teasing each other.

“It’s almost 10:00,” her sister hollered out to Violet again.

“Dude, this is steep,” Clark exclaimed as he looked up at Ariel climbing above him. “I could pull you off the side by your hair,” he chuckled hoarsely as he wedged his foot into the dark crevice of a sizable stone. His hands held tightly to the branches of a small tree before him. “Just yank that brown hair and throw you down under me.”

Ariel flinched at that thought and quickened her step up the side, now not as carefully. She didn’t really know Clark. Was he joking? Not sure what to do, she tried to ignore him and called out again to her big sister. “Violet, stop making out and help me up.”

“Come on.” Radley released Violet and motioned quickly with his chin toward the far side of the cliff where Ariel and Clark were ascending. “I’ll get her.”

“Did that guy say he was going to yank her off the rocks?” Violet asked in a panic. The blood rushed to her cheeks.

“Sounded like it.” Radley hurried over as Violet followed.

Her pulse raced as she watched Radley edge his way down the rocks.

Clark was laughing and reaching for Ariel’s hair from below her. “I’m going to get you,” he snorted. His face was pale and ashen colored in the moonlight.

Radley looked at him fiercely in the eyes and just as Clark caught a thin lock of her long hair in his hand, Radley grabbed Ariel by the arm and kicked Clark on his chest. He fell backwards and hit the rocks at the edge of the creek, landing right on his back.

Clark let out a loud cry. “Dude, what the hell?” As he rolled over to his side, he coughed something up and spit it to the ground. “What? Are you trying to kill me?” He moaned and wrapped his arms around himself.

Radley ignored him and helped Ariel up to the narrow plateau where Violet stood with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide in shock.

“Let’s get out of here.” Violet pulled her sister to her clutching her in her arms.

But Ariel broke away and leaned over the edge. “You freak,” she screamed out to Clark who was grasping his head in his hands as he lay on his back still grousing. Furious, she coughed up some phlegm and spit it at him.

If the wad landed on him, he didn’t show any recognition of it.

“Let’s go,” Radley said to the girls.

“Gladly.” Ariel’s tone was incensed.

“Are you okay?” Violet took her sister by the hand as Radley led them along the narrow plateau that led away from the craggy rocks and to a grassy park.

“I’m fine,” Ariel responded in a huff. “That guy was weird.”

“You shouldn’t hang around with boys like that,” Violet reprimanded her sister.

Her eyes widened in indignation. “Like, I was supposed to know he was a creep.” Her voice was condescending.

“I thought he was strange from the beginning,” Violet retorted. “He had all those glass animals in his backpack. Why would he carry stuff like that around?”

Ariel rolled her blue eyes in annoyance. “He was damn cute and he said he won those figurines from the games at the amusement park.”

“Oh, please.” Violet put her hands on her hips. “They don’t give away glass animals for prizes at Red Lake Pier.”

Ariel pulled out a tiny glass fawn from her jean’s pocket, examined it for a second, and then stomped it on the ground with her shoe. “Idiot,” she breathed, tossing her hair over her thin shoulder.

“You or him?” Radley lifted a dark eyebrow.

“Very funny, prick.” She tried to swat him with her hand, but he jumped back sort of dancing around in his cocky way.

“We better call the police,” Violet interrupted their play. Her face had paled and she looked nervous.

Right then the girls’ dad pulled up along the dirt road by the closed ranger’s station where they were supposed to meet him at ten. He honked the horn to signal them to his car. For a minute, Violet just stood there staring at Radley. A million thoughts twisted in her mind. But Ariel ran over without hesitation and got into the backseat.

“We should call the police,” Violet whispered to Radley as she bit at the edge of her finger.

He shook his head. “I’ll take care of him. Don’t worry about it.” He took her hand away from her mouth and kissed it lightly.

But she tried to ignore how tempting his lips felt on her skin; she looked over at her father. “My dad is going to be angry.”

He nodded. “Who cares.” His eyes gleamed with mischief.

Her body sort of shuddered involuntarily as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her like he had never kissed her before. She dug her fingernails into his neck.

“Ouch,” he murmured, his lips still pressed to hers.

At that, her father got out of his vehicle in a rush. Before the kiss could end, his massive body was across the street and pulling them apart. “Get in the car, young lady,” he commanded in a self-contained rage.

Violet hurried over to the car, glancing over her shoulder to look at the boy she loved for the last time.

“You stay away from my daughter.” He put his hand on Radley’s shoulder. His eyes locked with his in a threatening stare.

“For now.” Radley backed away from her father with his hands in the air and ran away across the grass and through the trees. He howled into the wind like a wild animal as he leaped agilely over a fallen oak.

He hid in the forest for a while listening to the night sounds as he leaned up against the outer rocks of a cave.  With his switch blade, he brushed away some fallen leaves and dug into the damp earth carving a heart into the ground. Somehow he would find a way to take Violet away from her horrible father. They would steal away to some place absent from all this.

As he was fantasizing about their futures, playing guitar under the stars, rock concerts, endless nights of revelry, he was startled out of his thoughts. Something was moving inside the cave. In the darkness, he heard a rustling within. Were there wild animals in there?

He jumped up, holding the switch blade tightly.

Now it sounded like wings were flapping inside and there was a clawing against the rocks. He backed away and hid inside a bush. Did he hear a voice? There were angry whispers. He held perfectly still and listened, his heart thumping madly against his chest, ready to kill.

At once, a group of teenage boys in black leather jackets rushed out of the cave tossing red wilted roses to the air as they moved in odd form. Their knees seemed to bend backwards rather than forward. Their faces were pale like bone, their eyes black as coal. A faint high pitched squeaking sound seemed to be emitting from their bodies. One boy grabbed up a frog from the muddy earth as he ran and bit off its head.

As still as a stone, Radley held his breath until they were gone. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. His eyes were wide with shock. What the hell had he just seen? It was unfathomable.

As much as he didn’t want to move, he couldn’t sit there all night. Those things might return. He made his way back to the cliff. He still had to take care of Clark. But once he neared, he heard the sounds of voices coming from below at the tide pools where he had kicked Clark down. Who could be down there?

Clouds covered the full moon. It was even darker now. He could not see who was talking below. It sounded like several boys speaking at once. The voices were muffled with the wind.

Someone shined a flashlight up at him. He ducked, trying to get out of the light. His adrenaline was rushing. Something was not right.

“It’s him!” One of the boys yelled.

“Get him,” another voice said.

Radley started to run. He slipped on some rocks and fell. The boys were climbing up the side of the cliff. Radley hardly had any time to get away, but he struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain from his fall. He felt around in his pocket for the switch blade as he ran, but it was gone. It must have slid out when he fell.

The boys were right behind him. It was the same guys from the cave, but they looked perfectly human now. Had he imagined their black eyes and disjointed legs? He heard the patter of feet coming in on him. He ran through the forest, the branches scratching at his skin as he rushed by.

But when he got to the dirt alley behind the lodge and the tackle shop, one of the boys grabbed him and threw him down forcefully. He saw there were four guys about his age, almost eighteen. At once, he scrambled to his feet.”

“What’s your problem?” Radley demanded, backing away from the angry teens.

“You think you’re so tough?” a guy with a spider web tattoo on his face asked.

Radley looked around trying to see if there was a way out. He was trapped. Two of the other boys had circled around behind him. There were log walls on either of his sides and the spider guy and his side kick were in his face.

“What do you want?” Radley asked sharply looking into the spider guy’s bloodshot green eyes. It almost looked like the boy had been crying.

The spider guy’s nostrils flared. “You wanna kill my brother?” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.