Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

“You suck,” I shot over my shoulder
at the blazing ball in the sky.

The yoga studio was pleasingly
cool.  They had the good sense to turn the air conditioning on, even
though it wasn’t quite hot enough to justify its use.  There was a girl
with a plain, kind face behind the counter.

“Hi,” I said shyly.

“Hi there.”  She smiled in a
friendly way that I seemed to need today.  “Was there something I could
help you with?”

“Umm, I wanted to get a pass for my
mom.  But I’ve never done this before…do I have to buy her a certain
amount of lessons or something?”  I was suddenly uncertain.  Even
though Caelyn had been saying forever that she wanted to give this place a try,
I didn’t want her to commit to something she didn’t know she even liked yet.

“Has she ever been here before?”

This answer I knew for
certain.  “Nope.”

“Well, actually the first visit is
free.”

Hmmm, that wasn’t much of a
present.  And it begged no sort of binding commitment from Caelyn to
actually show up.  I looked around the entranceway to the studio and my
eyes fell upon the answer.  “How much are those yoga mats?”

“$39.99.”

Perfect!  That was about what
I’d been hoping to spend on an introductory lesson and this had tangible
value.  I’d have actually spent money, which meant less of a chance that
Caelyn would say no, despite her own lack of social skills...beyond those put
to work schmoozing clients. 

“I’ll take one.”  I chose a light
green.  One other possible problem crossed my mind, “Oh, and is there a
beginner’s class some time Saturday?”  If so, I prayed it wouldn’t be too
early or Caelyn definitely wouldn’t show.  We both loved sleeping in on
Saturdays.

“Sure is!” she answered
cheerily.  “How’s one o’clock?”

“Oh that‘s perfect!”  I smiled
in earnest now, my plan coming together beautifully.

The girl rang up the mat and I
handed over an infinitesimal amount of my generous allowance Caelyn gave me, in
return for all my work around the house, which I rarely ever had opportunity to
spend.  My mother still insisted on buying all my clothes.

The girl held up two free passes,
“Will you be coming with her?”

I felt the guilt at my attempt to
make Caelyn’s Saturday bearable while I left her all alone.  “No,” I
answered, as nonchalantly as I could. 

The girl quickly put one of the
passes under the counter, as if she’d read what I was feeling in my
expression.  I took the remaining one she handed over, along with a
schedule of the daily classes, thanked her for her help and left quickly.

I had a sudden concern that I’d
kept Ron waiting too long.  I raced back up the hill, through the mall
doors and down the short hallways…ours was a pitiful excuse for a mall. 

I collided with him as I came
around a corner.  In my defense it wasn’t the corner where he was supposed
to be waiting for me.  I didn’t realize it was him until I’d caught my
breath.  His arm was wrapped snug around the small of my back. 
Embarrassingly, it had been the only thing that had kept me from falling flat
on my bottom. 

“Oh!” I exclaimed a bit in shock, a
bit from the impact.  The breath had been knocked from my lungs, and the
heat of his skin burned across the bare spot right above the top of my jeans…I
knew the heat in my own face meant I was blushing…again.

He seemed amused at this and
grinned down at me.  “You seem intent on killing me today don’t you?”

I pursed my lips together in
annoyance at his reminder of today’s earlier embarrassment.  I pushed
against his chest with my free hand.  “I’m fine, you can let go of me
now.”

He didn’t release me.  “Only
if you promise not to crash into me anymore—at least for the rest of the day.”

“I promise,” I said through gritted
teeth.

He stepped back, moving his hand to
my upper arm to steady me.  “Oh come on, Maura!  I’m only teasing
you!  Lighten up.” 

I made an attempt at being more normal,
especially since I’d stomped off so irrationally earlier.  “Ok, ok, you’re
right.”  I conceded and even made a feeble attempt to laugh at my
uncharacteristic clumsiness. 

“I didn’t mean to make you
mad.”  I knew he was probably referring to more than just this moment.

I brushed the whole thing off, not
wanting to get into my irrational reasons for being so silly earlier.  “Oh
you didn’t!  I’m just angry with myself for being such a klutz, and twice
in one day even…it’s really embarrassing. And you know, the whole stress of the
move…”  I looked away from his too-soft, too-attractive eyes then, not
wanting to get pulled into anything I would regret later.

Thankfully, he changed the
subject.  “So, did you get what you came for?” 

I held up my bag, the mat’s spongy
end sticking out in a tell-tale way.  “Sure did!  You?”  Did I
really want to know?

“Yep!”  He held up a much
smaller bag.  I was sure whoever she was, she would love whatever he had
picked out.  I sighed despite myself.

“You okay?” he asked, those eyes
crinkled at the corners with concern.

“Oh yea,” I pulled myself away from
the unreasonable thought I’d been having about the boy who wasn’t even in any
way close to being mine.  “I just have to get home soon.”

“Do you?”  There was
disappointment in his voice.  Was he trying to make my life harder?

“Yea, unfortunately, I’m kind of in
charge of dinner.  And if Mom gets home and I’m not there she’ll kind of
freak out.”

“Overprotective parents?”

“Parent.  And something like
that, yea.”  I grinned sheepishly up at him.  “It’s sorta
complicated…”

“Gotcha,” he wasn’t going to
pry.  “Ok let’s get you home then.”  Why did he have to be this
perfect?  Why couldn’t I have met him
after
we’d moved.

When we pulled into my driveway, I
turned to thank him.  “I owe you big time,” I confessed. 

“Hey, friends don’t let friends
ride with Neanderthals!”

I knew he was referring to Trent,
and with what I’d observed of the football player’s personality, I couldn’t
help laughing.  I looked at him after, with apology in my eyes.  “I
would invite you in, but to be honest, if Mom comes home and finds me alone in
the house with you…Well, let’s just say I couldn’t guarantee your safety.”

He laughed but added, “That must be
hard to deal with.”

“It’s not like either of us ever
had to deal with it before.”  I realized this was something I really
hadn’t wanted to admit to.  I mentally kicked myself for revealing how
unattractive I was to the opposite sex to the one boy I might have had a chance
at being interested in—if we hadn’t been moving to the other side of the
continent.  I recovered quickly, “Caelyn, my mom, she had me when she was
really young, so she just doesn’t want me to make any mistakes.  That’s
all.” 

He smiled his sunshine smile. 
“Sounds like you two really take care of each other.”

“We do.”  I was staring in an
idiotic fashion, once again, into his chocolate-colored eyes.

“Good luck with the yoga class on
Saturday?”

“Oh…” he’d caught me off
guard.  I pulled my gaze away from his face and looked down at my mother’s
gift.  “That’s for Mom.  I wanted her to have something to do while
I’m gone.”  Why did I end up saying more than I ever wanted to reveal to
him?

“Oh? What are you doing this
weekend?”

I was suddenly ashamed of admitting
I was spending my Saturday with the Neanderthal, the cheerleader he couldn’t
stand and the rest of their little clique.  “I’m going swimming on
Saturday.”

He pressed, aggressively, this
time.  “With who?”  His tone was flooded with suspicion.

I answered despite my revulsion at
the truth.  “Trent and Katie…and some of their friends.”  My voice
was diminished from its usual volume, as if this might hide the meaning of the
words I spoke.

“Oh.” He rolled his eyes at
that.  “Have fun.”

I tried to side-step the
subject.  “So, what are you going to be doing?”  In a way I was
challenging him to come up with something better, though pretty much anything
he might have planned would have to be more interesting than my idealistic
attempt at fitting in with the popular kids at school.

“Shane and I are going
camping.”  Yep, that sounded better.  I’d seen Shane around school
and he didn’t look like the type who’d laugh critically when one of his friends
said the wrong thing. 

“That does sound like waaaay more
fun,” I admitted. 

He was serious then, eyeing me
quizzically.  “Really, Maura, why do you hang out with
them
? 
I don’t understand it.  You aren’t like them at all.”

That stung.  It was yet
another reminder that I was utterly different and didn’t fit in. 

My face must have had that look
like he’d slapped me, because he added, “I mean that in a good way.  I
mean you aren’t a snob like the rest of them.”

“Oh,” I said meekly,
“thanks.”  He looked like he was going to say something more, but I got a
look at the dashboard clock out of the corner of my eye and jumped in panic.
“Ack! I have to go!”  I’d have to really hurry to make everything seem
normal and in its place in time for Caelyn’s arrival home.

“I had fun today,” he said
simply.  He reached over to briefly squeeze my hand.

“Me too.”  I smiled at him
genuinely.  “Maybe I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”

“Definitely!”

Even though I was rushed, I stood
outside, waving to him as his car disappeared down the street.

It turned out that I saw Ron much
sooner than I’d even thought.  As I stood across from Trent and Katie’s
house the next morning, waiting for them to emerge from the garage in the
Mustang, Ron’s car rolled to a stop in front of me.  He leaned over toward
the open passenger’s side window, a big, friendly grin on his face.

“Want to ride with a member of the
lower class today?” he joked.

I stuck my tongue out at him, not
realizing I could be that playful.  “Hold on a sec,” I answered.

In another minute Trent and Katie
were easing out of their garage and backing toward us.  I called to them,
“Hey guys!  I’m going to ride with Ron today, okay?”

“Don’t ask their permission!” Ron
seethed from the window.

“Shhhh,” I shot back.  Katie
must not have been able to hear me.  She looked confused, but I
exaggeratedly pointed to the passenger’s seat of Ron’s car, opened his door and
settled into the black interior.  As Ron drove away, I couldn’t help
noting Katie’s injured expression.  I hoped the damage was reparable.

“Thanks,” Ron grinned enormously at
me.

“Umm, you’re welcome…but for what?”

“For ditching on the Ne…on Trent
and Katie to ride with me.  There’s hope for you yet!”

I looked at him with as much
irritation as I could muster, before the exhilaration I felt at seeing him
bubbled up into my face and took over.  “Well, you
are
a senior,
you know.  I think you carry a higher status than them, anyway.”

“You do know that means I have dibs
on hanging out with you, then.”

He would find a way to turn my
being nice into his own personal advantage.  I laughed and said, “I guess
you do!”  I wondered if that meant he was going to try to stop me from
going with them on Saturday, but he never said another word about it, so his
camping plans must have been firmly set.

He switched topics.  “So, how
did your mom like your surprise?”

I thought about that before
answering.  Unable to keep my secret, I’d decided to spill the
beans.  Caelyn had agreed to go to the lesson tomorrow, but not without
much reluctance.  I still wasn’t sure if she’d chicken out or not. 
“She liked it,” was all the answer I gave.  “How about yours?”

“Oh the birthday’s not until next
month.”

I didn’t want to show any petty,
imagined jealousy today, so I joked, “Wow, you’re absurdly well-prepared for a
guy!”

He shrugged and turned on the radio
again.  We spent the rest of the drive to school listening to the
music.  I found myself wishing he would sing along again, and he didn’t
disappoint me.

“
Now then, tell me, Baby, do you
need my love?
” He looked over at me as he sang that line.

I blushed, but didn’t miss the
small voice inside my head that answered, completely of its own accord and only
to myself, *Yes, I do.*

“Oh, come on, Maura!”  Katie
called from the water, “Everyone else is already swimming!”

I looked around at the boys,
starting a splashing war with some of the girls, already.  Everyone seemed
to be oblivious to the fact that none of us had on swimsuits.  Knowing we
were going swimming, I’d brought mine…burying it the bottom of my backpack so
that it would escape any hope of discovery by Caelyn.  But once we’d
gotten here, Katie had informed me that everyone just stripped down to their
undergarments.  She said it was a kind of tradition.  She’d added
that even if I did go into the woods to change, one—if not all—of the boys
would be sure to follow and peek.  That was enough to keep me from that
course of action.

Still, the thought of stripping
down to my underwear, even in the rapidly fading light, and revealing garments
not usually seen against my pale skin made me a bit queasy.  It was still
early enough in the year that the sun was fading in the late afternoon.

“It’s not even dark yet,” I offered
in a weak, whiny voice.  The way it came out made me feel even worse….if
that was even possible. 

Even from where I was standing on
the bridge, I could see Katie roll her eyes.  “It’s nearly twilight, close
enough!”

My hands were shaking, as I slid my
jeans down, my face feverish with embarrassment. I decided to get into the
water ASAP, so I ripped my t-shirt over my head and jumped into the water,
deeply desiring its blue-green cover.

Even though the air was unseasonably
warm today, the water was icily cold…it was only May, after all.  I
surfaced, gasping as my body fought to adjust to the temperature.  My
breaths ached up through my lungs.  Katie giggled as she swam toward
me. 

“It’s a total rush isn’t it?” she
squealed.

I couldn’t find my voice to answer
her.  I gasped several times, unattractively, trying to adjust to the cold
around me.  “S-s-soooo c-cold,”  I finally managed.

Something flashed across her face
for only a moment, too fast for me to read.  Then she shrugged and said,
“You’ll get used to it”.  She swam back toward the others, turning her
back on me.  My former embarrassment was now a distinct feeling of unease.
I watched as Katie swam up to Wendy, who she’d been protecting me from,
ironically enough, all week.  They whispered something schemingly between
themselves.  I didn’t like the way Wendy’s eyes flashed at me before she
laughed maniacally. 

I, quite suddenly, didn’t want to
be in the water with any of them anymore.  I turned back to the bridge,
dogpaddling numbly.  My limbs were so frozen, my arm ached when I reached
up to grasp the edge of the rail, beyond ready to pull myself from the chill of
the water.   

“Maura!”  Katie was calling to
me.  “Where are you going?  You just got into the water; you can’t
get out now.”

“The h-h-hell I can’t,” I mumbled
under my breath, shivering violently.  But when I turned toward the sound
of her voice, I saw that everyone, all our male company included, had their
eyes on me.  I cursed softly and dropped back down into the water. 

Too bad I wasn’t off camping with
Ron instead.  He was so much more fun…and genuine.

Katie came back toward me again,
“Awww, are you cold, Maura?”  Her tone was mocking.

My eyes narrowed.  Up until
this point, since she’d started talking to me in the first place, Katie’d been
nothing but polite, kind even.  She’d even defended me against Wendy’s
maliciousness on several occasions.  She was a completely different Katie
now.

“What’s with you, Katie?” I asked
suspiciously. 

“What’s with you, freak?” she
sneered at me.  Both of us stammered out our words between chattering
teeth.  Hers struck
me
with the force of a blow.

I couldn’t say anything else. 
I looked at her with an expression twisted somewhere between shock and
horror. 

“Did you
really
think we
wanted to be your friend?”  It was Wendy who spoke now, moving through the
darkening water to Katie’s side.  This was turning into something out of
my nightmares.  I thrashed away from them toward the water’s edge,
desperate to escape their words.  I was so confused, what was the point to
all this?  Why had they dragged me out here like this?  I tried to
think of some wrong I’d done to any of them, but nothing came to mind. I edged
closer to the bank, not caring who saw my pale entirety, covered only by my
scant undergarments. 

Katie looked up toward the bridge
we’d all plummeted from.  “Got em, Trent?”

I followed her evil gaze to find
her brother leaning over the railing, holding my shirt and shorts in one hand,
my runners in the other. 

“Yep,” Trent quipped back, eloquent
as always.  I was closer to the water’s edge, but not close enough to do
anything about Trent’s sudden possession of my clothing.  The water now
came to my waist instead of my shoulders.  The cold air assaulted me,
making me shudder, or was it my worsening situation causing me to shake so hard? 

I looked up at Trent, my eyes
pleading for all I was worth, “Please, Trent!”  I implored him, “Please
give them back…”

“Please Trent,” Wendy and Maura
were imitating my pleading tones.  I ignored them.

Trent was looking at me then, his
eyes locked on mine, “Maura…” he said in a strange, faraway kind of voice, like
he was down in a deep hole or something.  The whole world seemed to fall
away from us, like we were the only two people in it.

“Please give me my clothes.” 
I didn’t break my gaze, my eyes seeming to hold his.  I ignored the
splashing noises around me, focusing on weakening the resolve of the most
important player in their sick game.  To my great shock, he held my things
out to me.  Maybe Trent wasn’t as cruel as the others.

“Trent! What the hell are you
doing?”  Katie’s voice shrieked up at him.  It was closer and I
realized she’d emerged from the water.  Her lacy black underwear made her
seem all the more malevolent.  When she’d yelled at him, Trent shook his
head, like he’d been asleep and someone had shaken him awake.  He looked
over at his twin, blinking, a confused air about his face.  He must have
been fantasizing about tackling someone or something.  

She closed the gap between them,
while I watched horrified, ripping my clothes out of his hands.  I knew I
was seeing the real Katie now and that there would be no swaying her.  She
didn’t appear to have any mercy I could appeal to.   They must have
been planning all of this the whole time.  The realization clicked in my
head that they’d befriended me—elaborately—only to be cruel to me.  I
couldn’t exactly wrap my head around it, how any human being could be so mean
to another one.  It wasn’t even like I’d tried to steal her boyfriend or
started a rumor about her; Katie was doing this to me because, and
only
because, I was different.  My eyes filled with tears and I was frozen in
place, even though I knew I should be doing something, anything, besides just
standing here half-naked and crying. 

Most of them had piled back into
their cars, and Katie was turning to leave, wrenching Trent along by his
elbow.  He staggered clumsily, when she pulled at him. 

It was pretty dark now.  The
last edge of the sun, sinking and leaving behind a weak, rosy half-light. 

“How am I supposed to get
home?”  I called up to them in a hoarse voice, not that I thought Katie
would care about that.

“I guess you’ll have to hitchhike,”
she said in a voice full of nonchalance, “I’m sure your outfit, or lack
thereof, will attract someone interesting.”

Her words played out a dangerous
scenario in my head.  I was more terrified than I’d been in my life. 
“How can you do this?” I screamed at her through my tears.  The fear was
laced around the edges with rage.  I didn’t want to add to her twisted
amusement but couldn’t stop myself from crying out, “Please don’t leave me
here!”

“Have fun getting home, Maura,”
Katie remained unaffected by my desperation, the anguish in my voice. 
“I’m so glad we didn’t miss this opportunity before you moved so far
away.”  How long had they been plotting some cruel way to torture me?

I watched her disappear around the
back end of the Mustang, and that put my body into motion.  I knew
logically, that it was too late to catch her, to somehow rip my clothes out of
her harpy talons and at least be able to cover my pale, frigid skin.  But
I still had to try, it was better than doing nothing.  I fought against
the cold water, scrambling across the rough rocks under my feet, trying to
break away from its numbing grasp.  I heard the Mustang start, then the
spray of gravel as Trent made their escape. 

“NOOOOOOO!” I screamed out, too
late to do anything to help myself.  I lurched forward, slipping on the
ever shifting rocks under the water.  I fell awkwardly to the side, my
head connecting with something hard.  The water was pulling me back
then.  I felt it slide cold and smooth over my face, like the night that
was advancing too fast, stealing my sight. 

 I was dreaming, of that I was
certain.  My cheek was against something warm, a different kind of heat
was radiating against the other side of my face.  I thought it’d been very
cold, and there was something else—a very terrible something—gnawing at the
edges of my memory.  What was it that had happened?

I thought I heard someone’s voice
and it surprised me that it belonged to a male.  Shouldn’t it be Caelyn’s
voice if I were just waking up?

My mind crawled farther up toward
consciousness, and I realized my cheek was against someone’s bare skin.  I
forced my eyes to open, and could see it was resting against someone’s chest…a
boy’s bare chest!  What was the horrible thing that I could almost
remember happening to me?  Didn’t it involve my being in my bra and
panties?  I shot up, trying to struggle into a sitting position, looking
down at my body.  My muscles didn’t want to obey the commands my mind was
giving them, but I could at least see that I was more covered than my memory
was telling me I had been.  Although my bare legs still extended out the
bottom of the red, flannel shirt that partially covered me. 

My mind was all muddled and I
couldn’t make sense of the shirt, my state of partial undress, or the flames I
was catching out of the corner of my half-opened eyes.

“I think she’s coming around,” the
unfamiliar, male voice again.

I looked up this time, and found
eyes that I did know. 

“Ron?” I breathed.  I noticed
my head was throbbing. 

He looked relived.  “Yea,
Maura, it’s me,” but that emotion was all mixed up with something else. 
His eyes relaxed a bit when I’d spoken, but his mouth was all wrong.  He
looked furious.  I noticed more and more as the seconds went by.  Ron
was cradling me against him, and it must have been his shirt I had on. 
But the other boy, standing over his shoulder with an anxious expression on his
face, was bare-chested too.  Had I done something very bad?  My mind
was so cloudy….No!  The bad thing had been…Trent, Katie!  The memory
of their deviousness came flooding back.  But how was Ron here?  And
the other boy, wasn’t his name Shane?

That’s right.  Ron was going
camping with Shane this weekend.  I tried again, without success, to sit
upright, but this time made out the shape of the tent over Ron’s other
shoulder.  I couldn’t figure out why I was here with them.

“Why…am I camping with you
guys?”  My confused mind couldn’t put together the part that led from the
awful scene at the bridge to this peaceful little campsite in the woods.

Ron rolled his eyes; he was holding
onto that air of being extremely agitated.  “You’re not camping with us,
Maura.  You were with your other ‘friends,’ remember?”  His voice had
an edge that made me cringe away from the comfort of his warm, bare skin. 

“They…aren’t my friends,” my voice
cracked when I said it.  “I’m sorry…I just don’t understand how I ended up
here.”  I could hear the inevitable crying creeping into my words.

That softened Ron right up, “You
hit your head.”  He subconsciously moved the hand that wasn’t cradling my
back, to dab at my temple with a huge wad of white cotton.  That must have
been Shane’s shirt. 

Now that he mentioned it, I could
sort of remember that.  I started to put everything together, but still
didn’t understand how Ron could have been there when he was away camping.

I peered up at him, “But how did you
get…how were you at the bridge?”  Had I somehow missed that he’d been in
the group swimming with us?

“I didn’t trust that Katie Parker,
or her idiot brother…or any of the rest of that group of…”  His voice
seethed with anger.  I would never have imagined that the easygoing boy
from the other day could be
so
enraged, as he was now.  “I know
you’ll probably be mad, but when you told me you were going swimming with them,
Shane and I decided we should camp here.  I mean in the woods near the
bridge.”

“How did you know we would go
swimming at the bridge?”  I knew enough to be sure I hadn’t told him that
part.

“Maura,” he rolled his eyes once
more, they glowed red in the firelight, “
everyone
goes swimming at the
bridge when the pools aren’t open yet.”

Yea like
I
would ever know
something like that.

“But why would you think I’d be
mad?”  My eyes were wide in awe.  He’d come to make sure I would be
ok.

“Well, I mean you guys were all in
your underwear and everything,” Shane admitted.

Ron scowled at him, “Thanks, Shane!”

“It’s okay,” I piped in
weakly.  How could I be angry?  They were the ones who’d attempted to
cover me up.  I was more aware of my bare legs now, though.  They
were so pale they glowed orange, seeming to absorb the light from the campfire.