Marked (The Pack) (6 page)

“Time to get ready, Alexis.”

I made a snoring sound into the pillow.

“I know you’re awake, stop pretending.”

Flipping onto my back, I stared at the ceiling. “I might still be sick. I could have the flu.”

“You’re not sick. And don’t leave the window open all night again. It’s too hot for it and you let all the air conditioning go right out.

I hadn’t touched the window and I sat up to say so, but my heart sank. The window was wide open. “I must have done it while I was sleepwalking.”

Louise snorted. “Do that a lot do you?”

“You said my mom told you I had problems with sleepwalking.”

“I meant do you go around opening the windows in your sleep.”

How much had my mom told her about my sleepwalking problem? I was hoping it would miraculously disappear while I was here. If opening a window was all I had done, Louise should be grateful, but I didn’t tell her so.

She banged the window closed and rotated the lock. “Let’s get going. We leave in thirty minutes.”

“But what if I’m sick?”

Louise stopped and crossed her arms. “Are you sick?”

I considered. If I acted sick I might miss working, but today I was supposed to go to Channing’s house and I sure wouldn’t get to do that if I said felt bad.

“Nah, I’m feeling better.”

Aunt Louise nodded. When she passed through the door she grabbed an ancient key from the lock.

“Wait, you locked me in my room?”

“You do have that sleep walking problem. I didn’t want you wandering around and falling down the steps, or maybe even getting outside.”

I opened my mouth to argue but I could see by the look on her face it wouldn’t matter. Scuffing to the bathroom I took a quick shower. After drying off, I opened the top of the wicker hamper to toss in my towel. A pink rag with little flowers on it lay on top. For a brief moment I could see myself in front of the mirror last night wiping sweat and dirt from my body with that same little rag. But, that had been a dream, hadn’t it? I glanced at the sink, shaking my head. Sleepwalking. I’d been having a nightmare and came in here while I was asleep. With the window open, the room had gotten hot. That’s what had led me to sleepwalk into the bathroom and wipe with the rag.

I left the bathroom and rubbed my finger over the lock on the bedroom door, then smiled. The stupid thing didn’t even work. I’d been able to get to the bathroom last night with no problem, even though Louise thought I was firmly imprisoned. I’d keep that bit of information to myself. Then I stopped short and glanced back to the bathroom. What if I’d really been outside? What if I’d been out the other night? The night the woman was killed. Was it possible? My chest tightened and my breath came in short gasps. After the past few months I had to admit it was possible, anything was possible.

***

That afternoon I rocked the ATV across a huge bump and bounced off the ground. I laughed and revved the engine. Thank goodness my flu symptoms had completed left so I didn’t have to miss out on Channing’s party. Just ahead, someone was walking on the path. The hot afternoon sun glinted on red hair. It was Brynna Sanford. I slowed, then finally stopped and killed the engine.

“Hi.” Brynna said.

“Hi, what are you doing here?”

“I live down there.” She pointed in the direction I was heading.

“Oh.”

“My house is next to Channing’s, which I guess is where you’re going.”

She guessed right, but she didn’t have to be psychic to know that.

“Yeah, she invited me over for awhile. What’s in the bag?” I pointed to a clear plastic bag in Brynna’s hand.

The other girl shook the collection of green leaves. “It’s some wild herbs I’m collecting. We cook with them sometimes.”

“Really, I thought it might be marijuana.”

Brynna’s eyes darkened and that perfect clear skin went deep red. Her lips tightened and she stared at me, not answering.

I snorted. “Don’t get all mad, I was only kidding.”

“I don’t joke about some things.”

“So, how do you know what’s wild herbs and what’s poison or just grass and weeds.”

“Well, you see,” she tilted her head slightly to one side. “We have these things called books in our house and I read them. You could probably use the herb one because it’s mostly pictures.”

I ground my teeth but couldn’t come up with an adequate response. “I think I’ll go now.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

I started the four-wheeler and took off, leaving Brynna smiling in a puff of dust. So, unpopular girls could be mean too. Who knew? I wouldn’t admit it to Brynna, but I’d like to know herbs and other things, wild things, that grew in the woods and were edible. Nobody at home grew stuff that they ate. The idea of it was interesting. If you ever had to live in the wild you’d be able to eat. Not that I had any intention of living in the wild, but you never knew what might happen, like an apocalypse. I frowned. I doubted if I’d ever have a discussion of world ending events with Channing and her friends. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I couldn’t have gone more than two hundred yards when I saw it. Just to the right, in the edge of the woods, a huge hybrid wolf dog that was probably part German Shepherd. It was the biggest dog or dog like animal I’d ever seen, even bigger than the one from the cemetery. I slowed the four-wheeler ready to take off at the first sign of attack. But the animal only stood there, watching.

My hands tightened on the rubber hand grips. Brynna. I might not like her so much, but I couldn’t leave her out here on foot with this animal lurking around. Twisting my head to keep my eye on the wolf dog, I made a wide turn and went back the way I’d just come, looking for Brynna. Well past where I’d run into her, I stopped. She was gone. I shouted for her over the rumbling of the engine. I was too afraid to turn it off in case the animal came running up and I couldn’t get it restarted. She wasn’t here.

Worried, but unsure where to look, I turned and gassed the engine heading toward Channing’s house. I didn’t know the area well enough and there was likely another trail off of the one I was on that Brynna had taken. When I passed the place the wolf dog had been, it was gone.

***

Channing guzzled her third appletini while I sloshed the green liquid on the sides of my glass.

“If you’ll hurry up and finish that first one you can have another.”

“I’m fine. I don’t want to miss my turn on the jet ski.”

“Damn right. They are taking a long time.”

I leaned back in the padded lounge chair as the other girl poured drink number four from a plastic container that she had iced down in a cooler. The air was hot, and my swimsuit was still damp from the dip I’d taken in the lake to cool off. I’d become adept at not drinking while still appearing to be drinking. It hadn’t taken long for me to learn that even moderate quantities of alcohol made my nightmares worse, unbearably worse. I preferred to fake going along with the crowd rather than dealing with the other. For a second I thought of just refusing the drink, but I doubted Channing would understand that. My friends in Chicago hadn’t so I’d pretended to go along.

Previously, I had virtually no friends. Oh, all right. Scratch virtually. I simply had no friends, period. Pretending to drink was a small price to pay to have a few people to be with, to be somebody instead of invisible.

From behind a point of land to the right, the jet skis appeared, and Channing whooped as Jana and Celina came to a spraying stop in front of us. Water washed onto the wooden decking where we were sunning.

“Finally, you guys were gone forever.” Channing took the life jacket from Celina and straddled the machine.

“Guess who’s riding on the other side of the point with Myles?” Celina didn’t wait for her friend to answer. “Eric!”

“Channing’s been interested in him for awhile.” Jana whispered to me as she handed over the life vest.

“I’m not interested in him. If I really wanted to date him I would.” Channing, who could obviously hear a pin drop at fifty feet, glared at Jana.

The other girl wasn’t bothered by the wicked stare. “She says he’s playing hard to get.” Jana continued in a low voice.

Channing downed the last of her drink and set the glass on the deck. “It’s just him and Myles, huh?

Celina, who had pulled her blue-black hair into a ponytail, smiled, but Alexis thought it more closely resembled a grimace.

“You know where Myles is, carrot top won’t be long behind. She was waving at them from the bank when we left.”

“I saw her on the path on my way over, picking weeds or something.” I added. I had decided to leave out the whole incident with seeing the wolf dog. It seemed a little weird and I wasn’t sure anyone would actually believe me.

“Yeah, she lives in that house on the point.”

I followed Jana’s pointing finger to the huge structure rising from the edge of the lake. Several levels of decks led from the house to the water. “Wow. Her folks must make a lot of money for teachers. That place is fantastic.”

Celina snorted. “They don’t own it. They’re friends with the owners and they’re staying there for free.”

“Where are the real owners?”

“Never here.” Channing interrupted. “They just pay to keep the place up and their friends come and stay sometimes.”

I had ridden a jet ski before, back in Chicago with my friends, but these two were newer and more powerful models because when I pressed the gas the thing leapt half out of the water, almost tossing me in the lake. I could hear Celina and Jana laughing as I hauled my butt back on the seat and raced after Channing.

The wind and the spray of the water was the most fun I’d had since I’d gotten here, and I hated it when I saw that Channing had stopped. Then I saw why. Myles and Eric were each on a jet ski and Brynna sat behind Eric. I pulled alongside Channing. She appeared less than happy when I spoke to the others.

“How do you two know each other?”

I glanced at Eric then back at Channing. “Uh, Eric came with Myles to eat breakfast at my aunt’s house my first day here.”

She turned away from me and smiled at Eric. In the evening sun I decided he wasn’t good looking or handsome. He was on an entirely different scale than any I’d ever used to measure a guy. I couldn’t stop admiring how his sandy blonde hair waved in the breeze and how his eyes were the exact color of the sky right before a storm, when the pale blue gets all dark and mysterious. Somehow the combination made it nearly impossible for me to tear my gaze away from him.

“Eric, we’re having a little get together right now at my house. Why don’t you come over? I have drinks and I can warm up pizza or something.” Channing tried to pose appealingly astride the ski, but I wanted to tell her it was pointless. Even the blonde queen couldn’t appear tempting in that life vest.

Worse than the girl’s wiggling on the seat was the awful uncomfortable silence that followed the invitation. It was crystal clear that Eric was the only one she wanted to come.

Eric didn’t say anything, but his hard stare seemed to have a bit of influence on Channing, because she laughed and waved her hand in the air. “Oh, you two are invited, of course.”

“Okay.” Eric said. “We’ll come.”

Behind him, Brynna looked severely disappointed. I’m sure she wasn’t looking forward to spending time with me or Channing. Even Myles looked briefly surprised, but then he grinned his usual goofy grin.

“Umm, if it’s okay, I’m going to ride a little more on the jet ski before I go back.”

Channing only nodded as she started her ski and turned back the way we had just come with the others following behind her. I took off in the opposite direction. I wanted to ride more and at the moment, I didn’t want to be around Eric and Channing together. I wasn’t completely sure why, but I thought it might have something to do with those strikingly blue eyes and the way they seemed to suck you right into them.

I cruised around the huge lake, looking at the houses and sometimes gunning the engine to go flying across to another area. From the corner of my eye I could see a ski approaching and I slowed, then waited idling, wondering if someone was coming to get me to bring my ski back. Admittedly, I had been hogging it for some time now.

Eric killed the engine of his ski and floated next to me. I had been idling, waiting to see who was coming, so I turned my ski off too.

“I guess they sent you to tell me to bring the jet-ski back.”

“No, they’re busy chugging whatever green stuff that is Channing has mixed. Except Myles and Brynna, of course, they’re waiting for the frozen pizza Channing’s cooking.”

I nodded and stared across the lake to keep myself from staring at him. “You live around here?”

“I live in Lebeaux but not on the lake. I’m way on the other side of town.”

For a moment, water lapping on the sides of the jet ski was the only sound between us. I liked the peace and quiet and the momentary feeling that I didn’t really have to talk to Eric, that sitting here together without a word was perfectly fine. It didn’t last long. In the distance I saw another jet-ski approaching.