Broken (2 page)

She laughs. “True.”

There’s a path right near the ninth hole, and I pull in, following it all the way down to the end, where we can’t be seen from the main street. The path reminds me of the path in Maine, the path at the witch’s compound. I remember stopping on that path with Hadley. Jesus. Hadley. She was alive, in my car with me just like Kaci is now.

I have a flash of Hadley lying there, on the ground, with her neck snapped. The look in her eyes, the death on her face. The sound of Natalia’s screaming sobs, Raine’s bizarre laughter.

“Hey! Hey, Cam!”

“Huh?” I snap out of it and Kaci’s watching me intently.

“You went somewhere,” she says. “Your eyes got all funny.”

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. Just thinking about football. Next week’s a big game for us.”

“Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes. She puts her feet up on the dashboard.

“You don’t have to lie to me. I know you weren’t thinking about football.”

“Oh, you do, huh? You become a mind reader all of a sudden?”

“Maybe.” She smiles and something about it makes me relax.

I smile back at her. “Good,” I say, “It will spare me from having to make small talk. Come on.” I get out of the car and she follows me. I grab the beer out of the back and carry it under one arm as we head through the patch of woods and onto the ninth hole of the course. The air is cool, but not too bad, and the sky is clear, the moon shining down on us.

“It’s dark out here,” Kaci says.

“You scared?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Kaci,” I say, using her line back on her. “I know you’re scared.”

She rolls her eyes and gives me a playful hip check, and I actually lose my footing a little, slipping on the wet grass. “Shit!”

“You okay?” she asks anxiously, reaching out and grabbing my arm.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Jesus, you’re pretty damn strong for a girl.”

“I’m not as girly as everyone thinks,” she says. “I grew up playing all the same sports as Brody and I was better than him at pretty much everything.”

I notice she hasn’t let go of my arm yet. Her hand feels nice. Of course, then she had to go and ruin it by mentioning her asshole brother. I pull away slowly, and we both fall silent again as we walk.

Finally we get to the green, and I can see the outline of the flag for the ninth hole.

“Okay,” I say, stopping and putting the bag of booze on the ground. The air smells like dirt and grass and night. “This is good.”

Kaci’s still standing very close to me, and she shivers.

“Cold?”

“I’m fine.”

“Have a beer, it’ll warm you up.” I bend down and rip open the case, grab two drinks. She takes one and I quickly pop the top on mine.

“Cheers,” Kaci says, and we clink cans.

The beer kind of burns going down, and then the warmth spreads out from my stomach up through my throat. My eyes are adjusting to the dark and the moonlight is streaming down to the green. I can see Kaci’s eyes watching me, and I can make out her lips, which always seem have a little smile on them.

“So what were you really thinking about back in the car when we first got here?”

she asks.

“Honestly?” I sigh and sit down on the green. “I was thinking about Natalia.”

“Oh.” She drinks a little more and shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“What about her?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know if I should really get into it.”

She sits down beside me. “You don’t have to. I just…I can be a pretty good listener, Cam. You don’t really know that about me. I mean, you’ve only known me as Brody’s little sister.”

“Yeah,” I say, and take another swig from my can. “I remember you when you were running around playing with Barbies.”

“I don’t play with Barbies anymore. Not for a long time.” She looks at me and her chin tilts up, kind of like Natalia’s does when she really thinks she’s right.

“I get it. You’re not little anymore.”

“No. I’m not.”

“But that’s not really the reason I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff.”

“Then what is it?”

I sigh. “Your brother isn’t exactly my favorite person right now.”

“Why?” she asks. “What happened between you two?”

I’m suddenly filled with nervous energy, so I stand up and start to pace around the green. “Well…I don’t want to sound like a complete dick, but let’s just put it this way: Your brother is a giant douche bag and he’s been trying to steal Natalia away from me since pretty much day one.”

She grins. “That sounds like Brody. But what does it have to do with me?”

“Nothing, I guess. But you guys are pretty close, no?”

“No.”

“Okay, well that’s news to me. I mean, I thought that ever since you got sick…”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize that maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up. I don’t even know much about it. There were rumors of course – rumors that Kaci stopped eating and her parents put her in some sort of special clinic for it. Brody substantiated them, telling me she was in a rehab facility and getting better. She hasn’t been in school for well over a month. But she’s here now, and she certainly looks fine.

Better than fine, actually.

“I’m not sick.”

“You’re not? Didn’t you have to go to a special hospital or something?” I say. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Either way it’s fine with me.

But you should know I don’t care about that stuff. No judgments.”

She laughs. “Well, maybe if I tell you a secret than you’ll trust me a little.”

“I like secrets,” I say. “I keep plenty of them myself.”

“This is a good one,” she says. She stands up and walks slowly over to me, moving close. “Here, let me whisper it.” She leans in and puts her lips next to my face.

I can feel her breath, warm and soft against my cheek. “I never went to any hospital.”

“Really?” I pull back a little and look at her. “I don’t know if I believe you. Why would Brody have lied to me about that?”

“Cam,” she says, cocking her head and raising her eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“Seriously what?”

“You know as well as I do why he might have lied about it. Because everyone’s lying about everything right now. About what’s really going on in Santa Anna. About the witches.”

A chill runs through me. “You know about it too?”

“My brother isn’t the only smart one in my family,” she says, her eyes darkening.

“Of course, he likes to pretend he is. Brody thinks he knows what’s best for everyone else.”

“So if you weren’t in the hospital, then where were you this whole time?”

“I’ve been trying to help you, Cam. For as long as I can remember.” Something about the way that she says it takes me by surprise. As if she’s had this secret life for years and years. She’s been thinking about me, trying to do things for me and I was just clueless, off in my own world of football and girls and grades.

“But why, Kaci? Why would you be trying to help me?”

“Because…” She doesn’t continue. I have a suspicion of what she wanted to say.

But she caught herself. Instead she turns away and takes a long sip of beer.

“I appreciate that you want to help me,” I say, so that she won’t think I’m ungrateful. “I really do. Although, these days I can’t really tell who to trust.”

“Well, you’ll see that you can trust me. In fact,” she laughs, doing a little spin with her arms outstretched, “Brody is really pissed off at me for ‘going rogue’ as he calls it. He wants to do everything by the book. But I’m the one who’s getting shit done.”

“Everything by the book? Why, what are you two doing?”

“We’re peacekeepers, Cam. At least, that’s what we’re supposed to be. We haven’t been doing a very good job of it lately.”

“No. You haven’t. In fact, I’m pretty certain we’re at war.”

“What happened to you, Cam?” she asks. “Tell me. What were you thinking about just now in the truck?”

I don’t say anything.

“How can I convince you to trust me?” she says, and moves toward me again.

She puts her hand back on my arm, and heat flies through my body. “Won’t you let me help you? After all, Brody’s helping Natalia.”

The way she says this, with such certainty, makes my blood boil. “What does that mean?” I say. “Do you know something about Brody and Nat?”

“Just that he really likes her. And that he’d do almost anything for her.”

I laugh. “Good for him,” I say. “Let him try. Natalia doesn’t want him.”

She bites her lip, thinking about it. And then she says, “He’s not the only one who’d do anything to help the person…the person they’ve been destined to look after.”

I stare at her. She’s looking at me with a kind of hunger, a passion that shocks me. It makes me nervous and excited all at once. Suddenly she leans forward and pulls me down for a kiss. It’s unexpected, but I can’t pretend it’s unwanted. Her lips are cold but her tongue is warm. I find myself pulling her against me, and then I catch myself and break it off.

“Shit,” I say, moving away from her, my heart pounding. “Kaci, I’m sorry, I can’t – ”

I get caught off guard by a loud voice yelling at us from nearby. “Hey! Hey!

What the hell is going on over there?”

“Shit, it’s a cop!” Kaci yells. “Come on!”

I grab the beer and we start running. Our eyes have adjusted to the darkness by now, and it’s easier to maneuver through the trees. We get to the car without incident, and I start it up and pump the gas, speeding down the dirt road and out onto the street. I keep checking the rearview mirror for a police car, but there’s no one behind me. The cop must have given up.

My adrenaline slowly subsides as we get farther away. I glance at Kaci, wondering if we’re going to have to have an awkward conversation about the kiss we just had on the golf course. But to my surprise, she starts to laugh.

“Did you see how fast that cop was running?” she says. “He was super old, too, like I thought he was going to fall on his ass.”

I start to laugh, too. And then we’re both cracking up. Her eyes are shining and she’s looking at me with something close to adoration. I realize that nobody’s ever quite looked at me the way she is right now.

It scares me to admit it, but I like it. I like it a lot.

Chapter Three

Natalia

I wake up with a pounding headache that radiates out through my temples and down to my shoulders. I groan and roll over, looking at the clock on my nightstand.

7:07. Which means I have an hour before I have to be at school. Surprisingly, despite the headache and the fact that I was tossing and turning until four in the morning, I don’t feel tired. I feel wide awake, ready to face the day, to get back to my normal life, and most of all, ready to see Cam.

I pad my way to the bathroom, peeking into my mom’s room on the way She’s still asleep, which means she probably took the day off from work. Which means she probably thinks there’s a chance I’m not going to school today.

I turn the shower on full blast, turning the faucet all the way over to hot. I down a couple of Advil, leaving the bottle on the sink so I can take it to school with me. I strip off my pajamas, then step into the shower. The water beads against my skin, relaxing my muscles, and I stay in there until it starts to turn cold. I wrap myself in a towel, grab the bottle of Advil, and step into the hall.

“Good morning,” my mom says. She’s standing in the doorway of her room, looking sleepy.

“Morning.”

“I take it since you’re up you think you’re going to school.”

“I am going to school, Mom. I feel fine.”

She glances at the bottle of Advil in my hand. “What’s that for?”

“Nothing,” I say, and shrug. “I just have a little headache.” I think about lying, but since she’s already caught me with the body, it seems pointless.

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but I push past her toward my room. “I have to get dressed,” I say, “or else I’m going to be late.”

“I’ll drive you,” she says. “Do you want coffee?”

I don’t, but I don’t want to give her any more ammunition for thinking that things are out of sorts, so I nod. “Yes, please.”

Again, she looks like she wants to say something. Probably about Cam, and how she meant what she said about me having nothing to do with him. But she must change her mind again, because a second later, she’s moving down the stairs.

***

My mom has to drive me to school in our neighbor Jerry’s car. When I ask her how long she’s allowed to keep it, her cheeks turn red and she mumbles something about how she’s not sure. My mom hasn’t dated anyone in as far as I can remember, but from her reaction I wonder if maybe there’s something going on between the two of them.

We make small talk on the way to school, and I’m grateful for the travel mug of coffee in my hand, because sipping at it gives me something to do. The caffeine combined with the Advil is helping my headache, and by the time we pull up in front of school, my head feels fine.

“Thanks for driving me,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt. “I know it was a big pain in the ass.”

“It’s not a pain in the ass.” She reaches over and turns the radio down. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“And if you start feeling dizzy, or your headache gets worse, or anything, you’ll call me right?”

“I don’t have a cell phone, remember?”

She reaches in her purse and then hands me hers. “I’ll be at the house, so call me there if anything comes up. Or go to the nurse.”

“I will. I promise.”

“And Brody’s going to be at school today?”

“Yes.” My stomach flips at the mention of his name. I’ve been trying not to think about Brody all morning. Trying not to think about last night on my couch, the way he was holding me, the way I was crying into his shoulder. He stroked my hair and kept his arms around me. It felt good. Soothing. Safe. And the more I liked it, the more it felt like a betrayal of Cam. I push those thoughts out of my head, and open the car door.

“I’ll pick you up after school,” my mom calls after me.

She waits for me in the traffic circle, not moving until I’m safely inside.