The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1) (24 page)

I found myself clinging to the rope with aching arms and legs as Dylan’s image tried to resurface. My head pounded with waves like static. I glanced up, desperate to escape the blizzard in my head. I was only a couple of feet from the platform. When I focused on the edge above me, the image dimmed, and I slowly inched my way to the top. When my spent body collapsed on the platform, the excruciating pounding disappeared.

There were claps below. I looked down and saw a faint smile on Lucas’s
face.

“Excellent,” Dylan called up. “Let’s call it a
day.”

Tita joined the others while I climbed
down.

“Who’s got night watch tonight?” she
asked.

“Andrés,” Lucas said, with a startling harshness that made Tita look curiously at him before glancing over to
me.

“See you tomorrow, Zara,” she said. Surely she noticed the awkwardness as Lucas escorted me upstairs. I mustered a smile over his shoulder, and her face said a thousand times,
I’m sorry
. Tita understood.

By the time I changed into my school clothes and slid into Lucas’s car, the sky was already darkening. I couldn’t resist looking at the prince through the red glow of the dash. I wanted to study him and his past, but he kept his proud face turned to the road. He pulled up to my house right at five thirty. Though the sky was a light indigo, every light was on, including the second-floor floodlights, which were only turned on when we were expecting
guests.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I have no idea what my parents will say,” I warned
him.

He looked toward the house, determined, and reached for a cardigan in the backseat. “Not a chance I’d miss
this.”

I braced for parental embarrassment, but Lucas was already opening my door. He slipped the black cardigan over his shirt, and we trekked up to the house and wiped the snow off our shoes on the porch. The house smelled like a roast had been simmering all day. It made my stomach grumble.

Mom emerged first from the kitchen. Her strawberry-blonde hair was curled, and she wore the gold necklace Dad gave her for their ten-year anniversary. It looked like it came from a different planet entirely than Valentina and Gabriella’s gaudy jewelry. The fragile, thin chain blended with the color of her
flesh.

“Mitch, she’s here!” she yelled upstairs. “Thanks for bringing her home on time, Lucas. I hope you guys are
hungry.”

“Thank you for inviting me over for dinner tonight, Mrs. Moss,” Lucas replied.

“Not a problem. We love to have company.”

“Want some help, Mom?”

“No thanks, honey. Everything is ready. Will you just get Lucas something to drink? I’m going upstairs to fetch your
dad.”

I had started toward the kitchen when I noticed Lucas in the living room, staring at the black-and-white portraits hanging on the
wall.

“Is this you?” He pointed to a picture of me when I was six. My two front teeth were both missing, my hair was in pigtails, and I was wearing a swimsuit.

“Yes.” I blushed.

He snickered quietly. “You were . . . cute.”

“You don’t have to be
nice.”

He faced me with a sincerity that filled the room, leaving no trace of annoyance. “I meant
it.”

While I was caught off guard, he looked at the next and the next. His smiled changed a level at each picture. It made me anxious, and my humiliation crystallized the moment he laughed out
loud.

“So this is the Lucas Castillo I have been hearing so much about,” Dad said as he walked down the stairs, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. “It’s nice to finally put a face to the
name.”

He extended a hand, which Lucas shook
firmly.

“Nice to meet you too,” Lucas said. He pointed to the pictures on the wall. “Did you take all these pictures?”

“Lori and I did. We’re a bit obsessive with the camera, if you couldn’t tell. Didn’t Zara tell you we have a photography business along the
lake?”

Mom nudged Dad’s shoulder and looked at Lucas. “You don’t have to answer that. Come in, come in. The food is getting
cold.”

We followed them to the kitchen, where Mom tried not to smile as Lucas held my chair
out.

“So, Lucas, how did you and Zara meet?” she asked, passing the roasted carrots.

The task of scooping baby carrots onto a plate was simple, but Lucas did it bewitchingly, so graceful and handsome were his smooth hands, and for a moment I wished I was those baby carrots. He knew exactly what he was doing and turned to me innocently. “Carrots?”

I yanked the glass bowl away from him. He was doing that thing again that made me stare for no reason. How come I didn’t have
that
kind of voodoo? If only he gawked at me like I did at
him.

“Actually, Zara and I met at Lucky Pin,” he said, smiling as I looked away in annoyance.

“Oh? Do you go there
often?”

He chuckled quirkily. “I don’t really see a need to anymore.”

Mom’s eyes lit up, but I was worried about Dad. He took his time chewing, and after he swallowed, his mouth worked silently, like he had something stuck in his
teeth.

“I must say, I’ve noticed a nice change in Zara’s behavior since she’s been hanging around you,” Mom said. “After the crash, she was so moody and
angry.”

“Mom!”

Dad coughed. “Where do you live, Lucas?”

“I live just off the Eighty-Nine on Fallen Leaf
Lake.”

“Isn’t that government property?”

“Our land? No. It’s been in our family for
years.”

“Sounds beautiful,” Mom interjected as she sliced her salad. She looked kind of manic.
Who slices salad?
“So, your mother tells me you also have a sister, and she is married?” Her pitch rose, fishing.

“Yes. Dylan and Gabriella grew up together. He proposed to her as soon as he heard that we were leaving the country. I guess he couldn’t stand to live without her,” he said. His eyes flicked to my plate, making the food in my mouth catch in my
throat.

“What are you studying, Lucas?” Dad
asked.

Lucas chugged a large gulp of water before answering, “Public affairs.”

Mom shifted in her seat. “Oh, that sounds nice. Political
maybe?”

“Pardon me for asking, but why did you guys have to leave?” Dad interrupted.

“Dad!”

“What? It’s a perfectly normal question.”

“It sounds like you’re accusing him of being exiled or something,” I
said.

Dad looked to Lucas. “Were
you?”

“No, I wasn’t.” He chuckled, his dimple showing in his uneven smile. “We moved because my dad wanted a change. He’s been retired for a few years, so there was no job holding him
back.”

“What did your dad do for work?” Mom
asked.

I used my finger to scrape salad and stroganoff into one bite, hoping it would make the contents on my plate disappear faster.
This dinner must end, the sooner the
better.

“He was in trade and exports,” Lucas responded.

“Exporting what?” Dad wondered.

“Stone.”

“Stone?”

Lucas set his fork down and wiped his mouth clean. “Yes.”

“Natural
stone?”

“He traded both, natural and faux stone, sir,” Lucas said, resting his arms on the
table.

“Anything in particular?”

“Well, any kind of
stone.”

“Stone from
where?”

Oh, Dad, are you serious?
At this rate, dinner would last all night. I laughed with unbelief.
Come on, Dad, stone. Stone means stone. Who cares where it comes from?
Lucas seemed unmoved by the nosiness, as if he expected it—or enjoyed
it.

“Well, mainly limestone from Mexico.” Lucas was suppressing a
smile.

“Huh. I would never have guessed. Interesting.” Dad finally put a bite into his mouth. “Well, if your parents ever get bored of being retired, you tell them to stop by our shop anytime. We’d love to show them
Tahoe.”

“That’s very nice of you. I’m sure they would love
that.”

I looked at Lucas’s plate. It was untouched.

“Lucas, try the rolls, they’re my favorite,” I urged dramatically.

He managed to take a few bites as Mom and Dad ate. His bites were larger, which cleared his plate
faster.

“So I bet you two are just the cutest at school. Young freshmen. I remember . . .” Mom said unexpectedly.

“Mom!” I mouthed
stop
to her, but she just shushed me. “We’re just friends,” I insisted.

Lucas sipped his water with a grin visible through the clear glass and then glanced at his watch. “I should probably get
home.”

I shot up quickly. “I will walk you to the
door.”

“Thank you for your hospitality. Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Moss. It was very
good.”

“What was that?” I whispered, once we were at the front
door.

“That was great,” Lucas whispered back. I couldn’t tell if his meek expression was sarcastic or just plain
naïve.

Snow gusted in when he opened the door. I crossed my arms to block the bitterness.

“I’ll be here at nine to pick you up,” Lucas said. He lingered a second, his eyes wavering, then unexpectedly leaned down and kissed me on the
cheek.

“Good night,” he said before disappearing through the
door.

Once he’d driven away, I stood on that doorstep for a solid minute. The warmth of his lips lingered on my cheek even as I helped wash the dishes and later as I got ready for bed. I peeked outside, secretly hoping it was Lucas’s car across the street, and felt disappointed when it was a black Mercedes-Benz. Lucas had told me one day which series Andrés’s car was; I vaguely remembered S, but I wasn’t sure. There were numbers, and although Lucas didn’t tell me the exact total, I distinctly remembered that his car was worth more than my
house.

The kiss that probably meant nothing still excited me enough the next morning that I raced to get dressed.

“Be home later, Mom. I’m going to Lucas’s after school,” I
said.

“Again?” I could hear the
human suspicion
in her tone as she peeled a
banana.

“Still just friends, Mom.”

A thin fog greeted me outside, but its sheerness promised it would leave by early afternoon. Lucas was leaning against a white Range Rover in a black T-shirt. He had a wide
grin.

“Is this yours?” I asked, sliding onto the stiff leather as he held the door
open.

“Yes.”

Inside was a futuristic red dashboard and custom gray leather, just like his Lexus, except that this car was unused. The new-car smell was nice, but I missed the tropical scent of his other
car.

All the way to school, Lucas’s cheeks were locked into a permanent grin. He maintained this peculiar expression all day. I worried that something was
stuck.

“All right, what is it?” I asked as we left
school.

“We need to go shopping for some meat,” he finally
said.

“Meat?”

“Niya and Malik are hungry. We need to stop at a supermarket so we can feed
them.”

“Again, there is no
we
in this equation,” I said, lighter this time. He seemed kinder
today.

“
You’ll
be the one feeding Niya and Malik,” he fired back. I felt
sick.

Still, I laughed. “Seriously?”

He chuckled as he shifted gears. We rolled through the glorious white mountains, but the calm and beautiful creatures kept popping into my mind—the meat-hungry wild animals that were for sure going to kill me. I was surprised when Lucas pulled into the ordinary local supermarket, bypassed the parking lot, and parked in the alley in the back by the empty pallets. He left me inside the running car and knocked on the dilapidated back door. A fat butcher with a bloody white apron answered. The man watched as Lucas spoke, then nodded. Lucas pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and passed it into the butcher’s
hands.

The butcher disappeared inside and reappeared dragging a brown bag the size of a cow. By the way he struggled, I could tell it was heavy. With no attempt at disguising his strength, Lucas picked up the heavy bundle and threw it with ease to the top of the car, where it landed with a thud. The butcher said nothing. He nodded once and retreated back inside the building.

Lucas opened his door and stepped up to tie down the meat before getting back into the
car.

“What was that?” I asked, disgusted by the large carcass above. The more I thought about it, the more I felt the urge to gag. Lucas noticed and grinned.

“A zebra. I ordered it a month
ago.”

When we reached the gates to his house, I noticed two dark, spotted figures against the stark white snow, charging through the trees. They followed us all the way through the woods to the side of the house, where Lucas parked just outside the garage. In the passenger mirror, I could see them jumping furiously to get the
meat.

“You ready?” Lucas sounded too enthusiastic.

“Are you crazy? I’m going to die out
there!”

“No, you’ll be
fine.”

Lucas jumped out and practically skipped to my door. The jaguars didn’t even glance at him, too focused on the fresh, bloody meat above my head. They jumped fiercely for it as Lucas opened my door and held out his hand. I leaned away—these were not the animals I
knew.

“I’m not going out there!” I yelled. “They’re hungry! They’ll bite
me!”

“Come on, don’t you trust
me?”

“Not right
now.”

“Look, I’ll show you.” He turned to face his pets. “Niya, Malik,
sientanse
!”

To my amazement, the spotted jags sat. Still, their lips pulled back to show jagged teeth and release hungry growls. Lucas ignored them as he pulled the bag off the car and set it in front of my open door. A patch of black-and-white fur peeped through as he unwrapped the burlap. The zebra’s head was missing, and the rest of the body had been dismembered. It was a heap of bones, juicy red meat, and sparse patches of
fur.

“Watch.” Lucas slid his cardigan sleeve up to his elbow and bent down. He picked up a leg and threw it into the woods, out of
view.

Niya ran after the meat, and Malik stayed, waiting. Lucas waved me out of the car, but I couldn’t
move.