Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (16 page)

Kannon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“How old were you when you died?”

I gaped at him. If my mother had been
there, she would have insisted I close my mouth before the flies
got in. “Died?” I repeated weakly.

“You have died, right? I mean that’s
the way it works.” Kannon started fidgeting in his chair, running
one hand through his hair and sliding the other up and down his
water glass, smearing the condensation.

“Died,” I said again, because I didn’t
know what else to say. Then I pinched myself on the thigh, hard. It
hurt. I wasn’t dreaming. But it felt like a dream, because I’d had
this conversation before, for real. With Jamieson.

When I was little I had nightmares
about being strangled. Sometimes it was a rope that would cut off
my air supply. Sometimes hands would close around my neck.
Sometimes there was just a crushing force on my windpipe. No matter
how the nightmare unfolded, I always woke up screaming and clawing
at my throat. I threw a fit whenever my mother tried to dress me in
a turtleneck, and even in the dead of winter I refused to wear a
scarf.

The nightmares became so frequent my
parents finally told me the truth about my birth. The umbilical
cord had been wrapped around my neck, and the doctors couldn’t cut
it away fast enough. I was dead for two minutes on the same day I
joined the world. Eventually the nightmares stopped, but I still
felt like I was suffocating if I wore anything too close to my
throat.

Since the Wentworths were longtime
friends of my parents and Jamieson was my best friend for so long,
she knew the truth. It was one of my only secrets she hadn’t shared
with the cyber world after I moved to Westwood. I wasn’t ashamed of
it. I just didn’t like to talk about it. Not even Devon
knew.

My hand flew to cup my throat. Kannon
was saying something, but I cut him off. “Get out,” I
growled.

Kannon’s eyes widened, startled by the
venom in my voice. “Endora–” he began.

I didn’t give him a chance to finish
the sentence. “I don’t know what sick game you and Jamieson are
playing, but I don’t want to be a part of it. Get out before I call
the cops.”

Kannon stayed seated.
Instead of looking embarrassed at being caught or amused that I’d
temporarily fallen for his charade, his expression
indicated hurt.
“Endora,
listen to me. Please. This isn’t a game.”

I was on my feet. The chair toppled
over, hitting the linoleum with a bang. “I can’t believe she told
you about that,” I shouted, still holding my neck. Tears prickled
behind my eyes and I dug my nails into my throat to keep them at
bay. Long ago I had promised myself that I would never let Jamieson
Wentworth make me cry.

Kannon was on his feet now too. He
rounded the table and started coming towards me. I grabbed another
chair and thrust it between us.

“Stay away from me,” I
demanded.

Kannon held up his hands, palms out.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Endora,” he said softly. “I thought we
were alike, but I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Leave,” I demanded, hating the quiver
in my voice.

Kannon backed up slowly. “You have my
number. If you change your mind and want to talk, call me.
Okay?”

I said nothing. I just pointed over
his shoulder at the front door. Kannon sighed and turned to leave.
I waited until the roar of an engine coming to life in my driveway
signaled his departure; then I collapsed on the kitchen floor,
curled into a ball, and let the tears fall.

Eventually I pulled myself together
and made my way to the bedroom. I joined my calculus book on the
bed and tried to distract myself with integration and derivation.
When it became obvious that homework was not in my immediate
future, I picked up the house phone to call Devon. She answered on
the third ring.

“Eel, not a good time,” she panted by
way of greeting.

“What are you doing?” I asked, fearing
she and Rick had decided to make up and ‘watch a movie.”

“Treadmill,” she choked, her labored
breathing becoming heavier.

“Oh. Well, okay. Call me
later?”

“As soon as I finish sweating out the
mint chocolate chip,” she wheezed.

I replaced the handset in
the receiver and stared at the phone for several long moments,
debating. I needed to talk to someone, anyone. Admitting
that
I’d fallen prey to Jamieson and her
mind games was mortifying. The more I thought about what they’d
done, the angrier I became. I found my new cell and punched in
Jamieson’s number with so much force I jammed my finger. Then, I
typed “low, even for you” and hit send. Seconds later the phone
came to life in my hand, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin.
When I looked down, I saw Devon’s number across the
screen.

“Hey,” I said into the
phone.

“It’s me,” Devon answered, no longer
sounding like she was sucking wind.

“How was the treadmill?” I
asked.

“Awful, but if I don’t get
my ass in shape, I’ll drop dead running up and down that field all
season,” Devon complained. Bedsprings whined through the phone and
a click signaled the television turning on in Devon’s bedroom,
followed by a
Real Housewives
catfight.

“No doubt,” I agreed. “What are you
doing tonight?”

“Hanging out with you. What’s up? You
sound funny.”

I hesitated. Telling Devon about the
meeting with Kannon over the phone wasn’t something I was prepared
to do. If I was going to tell her that I’d been played, I preferred
to do it in person.

“Still haven’t heard from my dad,” I
said. This was, of course, true; and it was easy to channel my
anger and disappointment over what had happened with Kannon into my
feelings about my missing father.

“Where do we start looking for
him?”

I could tell I had Devon’s full
attention now, the Atlanta housewives forgotten.

“No clue,” I replied, blowing out a
long, exasperated breath. “I know nothing about his current
life.”

“Come over,” Devon said
decisively. “Let’s have a brainstorming session. Bring that folder
the guy at the Moonlight gave you. Mom made
lasagna and garlic bread for dinner
.”

“On my way,” I said before
disconnecting.

Brainstorming my father’s whereabouts
with Devon was unlikely to yield results. But it was better than
sitting around my house dwelling on the incident with Kannon or
listing all of the horrible tragedies that could have befallen my
father on his way to meet me. At least Devon would force me to be
objective and optimistic about why Dad stood me up.

Ten minutes later, I
rounded the cul-de-sac and parked next to the Holloways’ mailbox.
Italian
herbs met my nose the
moment
Devon’s mother opened the front
door.

“Hello, dear. Come in, come in.” Sarah
Holloway gave me a long, motherly hug before taking my overnight
bag and leading me to the kitchen.

Devon sat at the counter, a huge piece
of lasagna and a glass of milk in front of her. She waved one hand
in greeting. Mr. Holloway lounged near the sink with his customary
tumbler of bourbon. Heavy lids sagged over his bloodshot eyes. The
big gray mustache over his upper lip twitched when he saw
me.

“Endora, good to see you. It’s been a
while,” Mr. Holloway said.

A week wasn’t really that long; I had
been at their house for dinner the night before my birthday. But I
usually did hang out at the Holloways’ house after school when I
wasn’t busy with lacrosse or homework.

“School’s been nuts this week,” I told
him, taking the chair next to Devon.

Mrs. Holloway placed a plate piled
high with layers of cheese and thick noodles on my
placemat.

“Eat up, dear. You’re too thin,” she
said.

I laughed. Mrs. Holloway always
thought we looked too thin. It amazed me that her daughter managed
to remain a size zero with all the home cooking. Devon rolled her
eyes and gave her mother a look that said, “You’re
ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” I said to Mrs.
Holloway.

Devon’s parents asked about
lacrosse and how my studying for the AP tests was
coming along. They had been at all of our games
so they knew our season was going well, but I liked that they asked
anyway. Mr. Holloway congratulated me on my goal, something my
mother still didn’t know about since she’d failed to inquire. I
told them I was spending all my spare time studying for the
world history and calculus
exams, even though I had yet to crack a book. The
conversation was so normal and easy. Both Holloways were actually
interested in my answers and showed the appropriate amount of
concern when I admitted that I was nervous that I
wouldn’t earn high enough scores on the
APs.

“Sorry about the third degree. My
parents are so nosey,” Devon commented once we’d retreated to her
bedroom.

“You know I don’t mind,” I
replied.

In truth, I liked how invested they
were in my life. My mother often asked about my life, but she never
seemed to hear the answers. It all went in one ear and out the
other.

“So, did you meet him?” Devon asked,
plopping down on the bed next to me.

I debated for
several
seconds. After
the encounter with Kannon I’d been desperate to tell her what had
happened. Now, though, I didn’t feel like rehashing the incident.
Devon wasn’t fooled. She jumped on my silence, taking it as an
admission.

“What happened? Did he say you were
soul mates? That your future together was written in the stars?”
Devon teased.

I stared at the plaid-papered walls.
For Devon’s fourteenth birthday, her parents allowed her to
redecorate her bedroom. After spending hours wandering around Home
Depot, she’d decided on green-and-blue plaid wallpaper, of all
things. What her parents hadn’t explained was that Devon had to be
her own interior designer. The two of us spent the next three
weekends learning to hang wall paper while Elizabeth observed,
since she said that the paste would ruin her manicure. The walls
didn’t look bad. But more than a handful of bubbles still remained,
looking like giant mosquito bites underneath the paper.

“Nothing like that,” I mumbled
uncomfortably. “I think Jamieson set me up. Kannon knew things
about me that he shouldn’t have unless she told him,” I continued,
when Devon didn’t comment.

“Like what?” Devon asked.

I played with the hem of my tee,
pulling at a loose thread until it unraveled several inches. Devon
didn’t press; she just waited until I was ready.

She’s your best friend.
Just tell her
, I lectured myself. It
wasn’t even that big of a deal. I surely wasn’t the only person we
knew who had died at birth. According to my parents, it wasn’t
exactly uncommon.

“You know how I have that
weird phobia about wearing turtlenecks?” I asked, not waiting for
her confirmation nod. “Well, when I was born, the cord was wrapped
around my neck and I died, briefly. I used to have nightmares about
it. I know it’s stupid, but I don’t like to talk about it. Besides
my family, only
Jamieson and her dad
know.”
I spoke without taking a breath.
Now that the words were out, I felt a million times better. The
whole ordeal really wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t know why I
hadn’t just told Devon in the first place.

I thought she might be hurt that I
hadn’t confided in her before now. If she were, she didn’t let
on.

“And Kannon knew about it?” Devon
asked.

“Yeah. I mean, who starts a
conversation with a question like, ‘So when did you die? I was
sixteen,’” I replied.

Devon laughed. “Just when I thought
the kid couldn’t get any weirder.”

“You and me both.”

Devon turned pensive, all traces of
humor gone from her features. “Wait. He told you he died when he
was sixteen?”

I thought back on the
exchange in my kitchen. Kannon
had
said that. Until just then I hadn’t processed the
weight of his words. At the time all I could think about was the
fact that he knew I’d died.

“I guess he did,” I said
slowly.

Devon was off the bed and booting up
her laptop. 

“What are you doing?” I
asked.

Devon shushed me. I wasn’t
offended, though. When Devon got on a tangent, there was no
distracting her. I crawled to the end of the mattress and watched
as she
Googled
near-death experiences. I wanted to point out that mine
wasn’t a near-death experience, that I’d actually died. But it felt
like a small distinction.

Devon’s nimble fingers flew
across the keyboard, breaking stride only to move the wireless
mouse and click on pertinent links. When she didn’t find whatever
it was she was looking for on the web, she selected the Word
icon
from her task bar. She scrolled
through a file folder labeled, “Junior Year Reports.” When she
found a second folder named, “Independent Study,” she opened it.
The title of the report was: The People Who Can’t Wear
Watches.