Death and the Girl Next Door (9 page)

As I waited for a response, some kind of explanation, I heard Jared moan again. Before I could ease back into the bed, Cameron reached over with lightning-quick speed and grabbed my arm.

“Gotcha,” he said as he tried to drag me into the cab.

But Jared had grabbed me also. He had hold of my leg and clearly had no intention of letting go. As they played tug-of-war with my body, the thin metal strip along the ledge of the sliding glass window cut into my ribs. A searing pain slashed through me.

I screamed and used my free hand to try to push myself up off the ledge. “Cameron, let go!”

He hesitated, worked his jaw, then finally let go and scanned the area for a place to pull over. In the meantime, Jared jerked me through the small portal. I landed on top of him and gasped as he clutched a fistful of hair at the back of my head. He wrapped a steel-like arm around my waist to lock me to him then eyed me with something disturbingly similar to hatred.

“What did you do to me?” His voice was harsh, raspy. He looked scared, like a little boy lost and alone—and pissed as Hell because of it.

His arm was like a metal vise, making it almost impossible to breathe. I pushed against him, gasped for air. But the more I struggled, the tighter the vise’s crushing hold became.

I cried out in pain for a second time. Lack of oxygen sent the world spinning around me.

I heard Cameron call to me. “Lorelei, hold on!”

Jared wound his fist deeper into my hair and pulled me closer. “What did you do to me?”

“I … I don’t understand,” I managed between gasps.

In a smooth unhampered move, he rolled on top of me, pinning me down with the weight of his solid body. He held me there for a long time.

Though no fires burned in his eyes as before, there was enough heat from his piercing gaze to sear me to the spot. He jerked my head back and wrapped his long fingers around my throat, slitting his eyes as if daring me to defy him again.

“I could break your neck,” he said in a husky whisper as he moved so close, I thought his lips would touch mine, “before you even felt the twitch of my hands.” His breath, sweet and warm against my mouth, felt so at odds with the cold, cruel sincerity of his words. “I could boil the blood in your veins and fuse your bones together.” His eyes were knives, stabbing me with hot anger. “And I could make sure you lived long enough to feel every surge of pain, every nuance of agony.”

Fear engulfed me as it never had before. After what I’d seen today, I didn’t doubt a single word he was saying. “I’m sure that you could,” I said with a nervous swallow, then added, “Please don’t.”

He was shaking violently, or perhaps it was me. I wondered if he had stopped time again, because everything seemed to stand still as he stared down at me, a contemptuous rage glittering in his eyes.

“What did you do to me?” he asked again.

I raised a hand—praying he wouldn’t take it as a threat and carry out the aforementioned atrocities—and placed it on the side of his face.

He tried to back away, but I held my ground, kept my palm on his warm face.

“Jared,” I said, my voice quivering uncontrollably, “I would never hurt you.” He peered curiously at a tear as it pushed past my lashes. “I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to.”

He watched me warily as though struggling with some inner demon before saying, “You’re the only one who can.”

A sound above caught our attention. Cameron was trying to aim his rifle and drive at the same time. Jared grabbed the barrel just as the gun went off, startling me to the core. It blew a jagged hole in the top of the camper.

In one fluid movement, he jerked the gun from Cameron’s hand, chambered a round as he rose to his knees, and pointed it at Cameron’s head.

“No!” I scrambled up and lunged at him, trying to push the rifle aside. I shouldered myself between him and the pickup—between him and Cameron. Clutching at Jared’s T-shirt, I coaxed his sight down to mine. “No more.” I spoke softly but firmly. “This has to stop.” I turned to Cameron. “Both of you. This has to stop.”

Cameron grinned. He had no intention whatsoever of listening to me. “Not in this lifetime, love.”

He reached below the seat and took out a nasty-looking pistol, the kind that held six fat rounds.

The instant the gun went off, I found myself on the bed of the pickup, facedown. Jared was over me, but only for a split second. Before Cameron could get off another shot, he kicked down the tailgate and slid out the back of the pickup.

After a brutal fall to the pavement and a few rolls, he sprang up to land solidly on his feet. My breath caught as the eighteen-wheeler behind us tried to brake, sliding and skidding in helplessness. My hands flew to my mouth, sure Jared would be crushed.

He stood eyeing me, unconcerned. Just as the truck bore down upon him, he sidestepped calmly out of its way.

The relief that flooded my senses sent an unwelcome darkness washing over me. I shook my head to keep it at bay, forced myself not to pass out.

When Cameron screeched to a halt on a narrow pull-off, I flew forward and hit the cab. Pain exploded in my head. For the second time I almost lost consciousness, but I fought it with every ounce of determination I had.

I glanced back at Jared. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, eyeing me, his powerful stance testifying to his strength, to the might he held in his grasp.

Cameron jumped out of the cab and retrieved the rifle from the bed. He turned and pointed it.

Jared stood his ground.

But again I lunged and knocked Cameron off balance. The shot fired harmlessly into the air.

Jared bared his teeth.

As Cameron chambered another round, Jared turned and sprinted toward the caves in the red canyon wall, disappearing behind a hill.

With a curse, Cameron threw the rifle onto the ground. “Why did you do that?” he yelled, engulfed by anger and frustration. “Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

I shook my head in disgust. “You’re crazy. You’re both crazy.”

He stepped toward me and I tensed. He must have seen me flinch, because he stopped himself. Tension dug furrows into his forehead as he glared at me. “Better crazy than dead,” he said at last. He turned and latched the abused tailgate. “Get in the cabin.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re absolutely nuts. Here you’ve been stalking me for days, and now—”

“Him!” he said harshly. “It! I’ve been stalking that thing for the last three days.”

His confession stunned me. I stared at him with mouth agape. Why would he have been stalking Jared?

Growing impatient, Cameron tried to take hold of me again, to drag me back into his pickup. I fought him with a wicked kick to his shin.

Success at last. Finally something got his attention. He let go with a string of curses any rapper would be proud of and fell back against the tailgate, rubbing his shin vigorously. After a moment, he slid to the bumper and cast a malevolent look at me, breathing hard, his patience clearly dissipating.

“Whose blood do you think you’re covered in?” he asked, raw emotion ragging his voice.

I glanced down at myself for the first time and gasped. He was right. I was practically drenched in blood. My apricot shirt had become dark crimson. My capris had huge ugly spots and hung in ragged tatters over my knees. I swiped at the blood, tried to get it off as a latent state of shock consumed me.

“That thing’s?” he continued. “Mine? It’s yours, Lorelei.” He leaned forward. “You don’t know what it is, why it was sent here.”

“Sent here?” I asked as I peeled my shirt away from my skin. Nothing. Not a single scratch, and yet at some point I’d been drenched in blood.

“For you. It was sent here for you,” he said with fury.

“Of course,” I said as realization dawned. How else could I have survived without a scratch? “To save me.”

Cameron scoffed aloud and shoved away from the truck. “Man, I wish I lived in your world.” He picked up the rifle and threw it in the bed. “I’ll tell you what, shortstop, when you’re ready to return to Earth, you let me know. Until then, get your ass in the cab. I’m not leaving you out here.”

“He saved my life, Cameron.”

In an instant he turned on me, whirled around and stabbed me with a glare that made the blue in his eyes ignite with anger. “It doesn’t do that!” he yelled, waving a hand toward the spot where Jared had been standing. “It doesn’t save lives, Lorelei. That’s not what it does.”

“Then what?” I asked, growing more irritated by the second. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s it.” He raised his face toward the heavens as though asking God for patience. After sucking in a deep breath, he acknowledged me again. “I’m not doing this here. We have to go. Now, you will either get into this truck voluntarily, or you will get in by force. I’m up for either. But let me assure you, one way or another, you will get into this truck.”

He was serious. Arguing with him had come to an end. With a sigh of resignation, I lifted my chin and strolled to the passenger’s side, pretending it had been my idea all along. I needed to sit down anyway, before I collapsed.

Cameron climbed in and slammed his door shut to emphasize his sour mood. The sound sent a shock wave jolting through me. It sounded like the rifle as it fired into Jared’s chest. I flinched and molded myself into the corner like the Cowardly Lion.

When Cameron started the truck, a wave of nausea washed over me. Everything that had happened that day hit me in one massive assault. From waking to find Cameron crouched by the tree outside my window—still there from the night before—to crashing into Jared in the hall; from being shoved into the street by skateboarders to being given a second chance at life by an angel; from witnessing the most savage acts of violence I had ever imagined possible to enduring the raw hatred and anger in Jared’s eyes; from all of that to this. To not knowing why any of it was happening, to not knowing who Jared was, or how he did what he did.

“Wait,” I said in a whisper as I felt my stomach lurch. “Wait, pull over.”

“No way.”

“No, I’m going to be sick. Pull over.”

When I covered my mouth with both hands, Cameron reluctantly pulled over. Bile burned the back of my throat before I could open the door. Stumbling out of the pickup, I heaved onto the side of the road. I threw up the cappuccino I’d had at the coffee shop and a few other contents I dared not identify.

Cameron came around to stand beside me and tried to sympathize, but I held up a hand. “Don’t,” I said as I started to cry. “Just don’t.”

For reasons unknown even to myself, a sadness welled up inside me. I couldn’t hold it back. Tears glided past my lashes and trailed down my blistered cheeks. I fell raggedly to my knees and cried on the side of the road like a two-year-old.

I shook with trauma, with shock, with fear and doubt. And I longed for my parents, mourned their deaths. There were so many questions left unanswered. In the years since their disappearance, I hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to be in their arms. It was like being embraced by love, enveloped by warmth and safety. I wanted them back so much, now more than ever.

I could feel Cameron at my side, but he didn’t try to touch me again. Instead, he handed me an oily rag, probably one he used to work on his engine. But it was better than nothing. I wiped my face and mouth and after several embarrassing moments, I pulled cool air into my lungs and forced myself to calm.

A thought had emerged. A thought that, however disturbing, would explain a lot.

I looked up at Cameron, swallowed back the lump in my throat, and asked with more curiosity than fear, “Am I dead?”

He crouched beside me with a grim smile and, in the most understanding voice, said, “Not even close.”

THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR

As Cameron cut through the dirt parking lot of Wild ’n Wonderful, my grandparents’ health food store, I hunkered down in the passenger’s seat.

“It’s your grandmother,” he said, letting me know who was in front running the store. It should have been me. I was scheduled to work at four. Guilt washed over me, adding to the turmoil churning in my already upset stomach.

“Was Grandpa with her?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Darn. He may be in the house.” My mind raced as Cameron pulled around to the back of the store where I’d lived since I was six. The store had an attached apartment. After my parents’ disappearance, I moved in with my grandparents. I’d practically lived there anyway. My mom ran the store most of the time while I was being spoiled rotten by Grandma and Grandpa. Mom always said it should have been criminal to be so pampered. My chest cinched tightly with the memory. Shaking it off, I turned back to Cameron. “I’ll just have to chance it. He could be at the church.” Grandpa was the pastor of the Sanctuary, the only nondenominational church Riley’s Switch had to offer, and it kept him pretty busy. “I need to get upstairs and change my clothes before they see me.”

After he stopped and killed the engine, I crawled up into the seat and glanced around for Grandpa.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Cameron asked.

I looked at him, surprised. “Oh, sure,” I said lightly. “Who doesn’t enjoy a good violent brawl while drenched in the warmth of her own blood?”

He bowed his head in what appeared to be genuine regret. “I’m sorry about everything, Lorelei. I wish none of this had happened to you.”

I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t his fault. At least, I didn’t think it was his fault.

He reached through the sliding glass window and grabbed my backpack for me.

“Thanks. What are you going to do now?” I asked, changing the subject.

He shrugged. “Take a shower.”

“Me too,” I said, crinkling my nose at my appearance. “And brush my teeth.” Even though I had a million questions, the two of us were making a shaky truce. It was enough for now. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” I asked.

“I’m pretty much the poster boy for stupidity, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I haven’t.”

My statement caught him off guard. I could see it in his expression. That and appreciation.