Howl (Howl #1) (3 page)

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Samara replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I told you there isn’t very good reception at Emma’s house, so you shouldn’t expect me to answer while I
’m
there. Besides, if you really wanted to get in contact with me, why didn’t you just drive over there?”

Her mom sat down on the love seat and crossed one thin leg over the other. “Well, I would have if your father hadn’t been in the hospital last night.”

“What? Dad was in the hospital? Is he okay?” Samara asked,
feeling panicked.

Mrs. McKinley
nodded,
her cheeks a shade of rosy red
.
“They discharged him this morning. He’s doing alright, just shaken up, mostly. Your brother and he got into another argument last night. We’re lucky that his nose was the
only thing that was broken.”

“Oh, no,” Samara whisper
ed. Her brother, Seth, had become a totally different person
this year. One day, he was her normally goofy brother, cracking brotherly jokes and teasing her like usual. The next day, something seemed to snap. Her brother suddenly seemed so hateful towards everyone. Samara wasn’t really sure what had changed in him, but she hoped that whatever it was would change back soon because his recent outbursts were beginning to tear
their family apart. Samara was starting
to hate being home because s
he didn’t want to be around it.

“Your father’s upstairs resting right now. Seth left last night, and he hasn’t come back since.”

“That’s just like Seth,” Samara muttered, remembering that her brother had taken off the last three times that he had gotten into a fight with one of their parents. It seemed like it was becoming a monthly occurrence. He had disappeared for a few days each time before finally coming back and apologizing.
Her parents had forgiven him, but despite their best efforts to talk things out, things were never fully resolved.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Oh, honey, don’t apologize,” Mrs. McKinley said, waving a
hand in the air.
“There’s nothing that you could have done to stop it even if you had been here.”

While Samara knew that her mom was right, she still felt a pang of guilt. She had spent the night before playing karaoke and beer pong at
Emma’s
house. She had told her mom that Emma’s mom and step dad were going to b
e home, even though she knew that they were spending the weekend visiting Emma’s grandma in Rhode Island
.
Emma had played hooky so that they would let her stay home instead of going to her grandma’s 80th birthday party.

“So, how was your night at Emma’s anyway?” Mrs. McKinley asked, as thoug
h she had read Samara’s mind.

Sa
mara shrugged. “It was alright.”

“What did you girls do?”

“We just hung out. Ate pizza and had a Reese Witherspoon movie marathon,” Samara lied. Even though she felt bad about lying to her mom again, she didn’t want her to know that she had been
dishonest in the first place
–
and
she wasn’t about to tell her mom what they had really done the night before. Mrs. McKinley would probably have a heart attack if she found out that there were boys over, that they had all been drinking, and that Samara had gotten her first kiss. She would have been even angrier if she knew that Samara’s best guy friend, Declan, had slept over. Mrs. McKinley was probably even more against coed sleepovers than she
w
as against Samara
dating
–
which
didn’t say much because she didn’t want that to happen until Samara turned eighteen. Sadly, she wouldn’t be eighteen for
a couple of years
, so she was
just
going to have
to sneak around until then.

“Well, that sounds like fun,” M
rs. McKinley chirped
. “Do you have any plans for tomorrow? It’s Sunday, so I thought that maybe we c
ould spend the day together.”

“I’m going ov
er to Emma’s again,” Samara chirped
apologetically. Technically, she was telling her mom the truth this time. What she didn’t mention was that the only reason she was going there was so that Emma could do Samara’s hair and makeup for her date with Luke Davenport, the guy who
she had gotten her fi
rst kiss from the night before.

“Oh, alright,” Mrs. McKinley replied, a saddened look crossing he
r
face. Samara noticed tiny wrinkle lines that she hadn’t seen yesterday underneath her mom’s eyes. Although her mom’s hair was dyed jet black, there appeared to be more gray highlights peeking out where her roots were growing in than there had been before. All of the constant fighting in their household must really be
taking a toll on her mom.

“Maybe we can do something next weekend,” Samara suggest
ed, trying to make up for it.

“It’s a plan,” Mrs. McKinley replied, but the tone in her voice told Samara that she wasn’t re
ally expecting it to happen.

*

That night, Samara
lay
in her twin-sized bed flicking through the television channels when she came across the evening news. It only caught her attention because the yearbook picture of the missing girl that the detective had shown Edda earlier that day was staring back at her. Samara left the station on to watch the news feature.
             
“Lilly Phillips was last seen by her paren
ts at their home in Grandview
around four o’clock
Thursday afternoon
,
” the newscaster said, a solemn
tone in her voice. “Edda Williams, the owner of Williams General, saw the girl in her store on Thursday evening. Lilly’s boyfriend, Josh
Masterson
, is allegedly the last person who saw her before she went missing. He claims that he drove her home Thursday night around nine o’clock and that he has not
seen or heard from her since.”

Samara
felt a weird feeling
grow in the pit of her stomach
.
The pieces didn’t seem to fit together.
Josh really had been the one who was with
Lilly the day she went missing
…
or was he the only one?
The newscaster had said that he was the last one to see her, but she also hadn’t said for sure that he was the one w
ith her in the general store.

Samara gulped. What if Lilly had been cheating on Josh? Though she’d never known Josh to be a bad person, everyone had their moments of rage. If he had
caught her with someone else…

No
, Samara thought, shaking the idea away. Josh wouldn’t do that to anyone.
Besides, she was just jumping to conclusions. He probably was the one
who was with her in the store.

“If you have any details about Lilly Phillip’s whereabouts, please contact local
authorities immediately,” the newscaster read before going on to talk
about high school basketball.

Samara wondered where Lilly was. Even though Edda thought that she had probably run away, Samara had a gut feelin
g that it wasn’t that simple.

Something wasn’t right. Samara wasn’t sure what
it was, but she could feel it.

Chapter 3

****

“So, has he told you where you guys are going yet?” Emma asked as she applied Samara’s eyeliner. Emma was an expert at doing makeup and, even though she normally recommended Samara to wear an earthy brown eyeliner to bring out the gold flecks in her eyes, she was applying a sultry shade of
black for her date with Luke.

“No, he says it’s a surprise,” Samara groaned. “Hopefull
y it’s a good one, at least.”

“Yeah, hopefully it’s not just some restaurant or something,” Emma replied, dabbing on s
ome bronzer with a makeup brush
. “That woul
d be a really lame surprise.”

“Yeah,” Samara agreed. “Especially if there’s not even a vegetarian menu. I don’t want to look like a ‘picky ea
ter’ on the very first date.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t. Plenty of other girls are vegetarians. I’m sure he’s even dated one before. So, I think you should wear the red sweater. The pink one’s cute and the white one’s okay, but all of the research shows that men go crazy over red,” Emma said,
turning to the three short-sleeved
sweaters, which all happened to be Valentine’s Day colors even though it was the middle of
October,
that
they had laid out as possible options for Samara to wear tonight. “It has an effect on thei
r testosterone or something.”

“Okay, Doctor Love
,” Samara joked. “Red it is.”

“You laugh now, but you’ll totally thank me for it later when Luke is all over you.
Then again, what do I know? It sure didn’t work for me.
”

Samara
looked down at the floor. Emma had been complaining for the past two days that it wasn’t fair that Luke had asked Samara to go out on a date with him. Emma had been trying to get him to ask her out all summer, but it just hadn’t happened. Samara felt bad; even though she’d liked Luke first, Emma didn’
t believe it.
She thought that Samara just wanted her
leftovers
, as she’d called it, even though Luke had
never showed any interest in Emma
.
Samara didn’t understand why; all of the
other
guys
at school wanted to date Emma.

Samara glanced at the two of them in the mirror. They were polar opposites in terms of looks. Emma had pale blonde hair, ocean blue eyes, and her cheeks had freckles scattered on them - a huge contrast to Samara’s own dark chocolate brown hair, amber eyes, and skin that tanned nicely when she spent most of her time laying out by the lake
behind her house during
the
summer.

Maybe Emma just wasn’t Luke’s type and Samara was.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel like going on a date with him was like
rubbing salt in Emma’s wounds.

Just as Emma finished brushing
the mascara on Samara’s eyelashes,
the doorbell rang. “I’ll go get it and tell him that you’re not ready yet,” Emma said, darting out of her bedroom and leaving Samara to stare at the olive green walls as the butterflies began flut
tering around in her stomach.

She quickly pulled the red sweater over her lacy black camisole and examined herself in the mirror. Emma had done her hair in waves of curls that fell over her shoulders. Even though Samara was feeling all sorts of nervous about her date with Luke, sh
e admitted that she looked good . . .
really good. If he didn’t like her after tonight, at least she knew it wouldn’t be because she looked like a Plain Jane. Emma had done an awesome
job with her hair and makeup.

Once Samara was sure that she was going to puke if she didn’t go into the living room and see Luke soon, she strolled out of the bedroom and down the sta
irs that led to the entryway.

Luke was standing in the doorway. He hovered high over Emma’s short body, but Samara thought that Luke was the perfect height for her. He wasn’t so tall that they would have a hard time kissing each other unless Samara was standing on a sidewalk, and he also wasn’t shorter than her or so close in height that she was going to have to swear off heels if they ended up havi
ng a long-term relationship.

“Hey, Samara,” Luke said, smiling at her, his light green eye
s sparkling in the dim light.

“Hi,” Samara replied, unsure of what else to say. She was afraid of looking awkward in front of him, but it probably didn’t help that Emma was gawking at them. Emma’s mom was also just a room away in the kitchen, and Samara always felt weird talking to boys in front of parents
–
which was probably because her own paren
ts were so against her dating.

“Well, should we get going?” Luke as
ked, opening the front door.

“Yes, we should,” Samara replied, grabbing her fleece jacket and hurrying out the door in front of him. She gave Emma a small wave over her shoulder. Emma held up crossed fingers to let Samara know that she was hoping that their da
te was going to be a success.

After they had both climbed into Luke’s smoky blue Honda Civic, Samara turned and looked at him. “So, what’s the s
urprise? Where are we going?”

It was nighttime, but she could see his smile through the dar
kness. “You’ll find out soon.”

“Okay,” Samara replied, trying not to think about the worst possible options. If he was planning to take her to Chuck E. Cheese’s or something really lame, she wasn’t sure how she was going to react. Fishing for something to talk about to lessen the tension between them, she asked, “So, ho
w was your day?”