The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (8 page)

She sat down on the grass beneath the birch trees to wait for Luci. Jack sat down next to her.

At some point, Valie didn’t care that Jack was decent. He had a girlfriend and his attentiveness was like dangling a carrot in front of a starving rabbit only to pull it away to give it to another rabbit--Valie being the starved one and Shane being the lucky as hell one.

Immediately, Valie got up and walked away with the nearby girls dressed as a clown and a ballerina staring after her in disbelief. They surely wouldn’t walk away from the gorgeous Jack Haden no matter what the circumstances were.

“You are horrible.”

Valie almost jumped, surprised by how close behind her he was.

“What’s horrible is you stalking me.
Please
leave me alone?” She was cringing inside as she begged. The plea didn’t sit well with her; she was too conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted him to stay for her own selfish reasons and on the other, he was the cause behind her insomnia and she couldn’t see how more time with him was healthy physically or emotionally.
And
—silly her—she just couldn’t get over the fact that he had a serious girlfriend. 

He stopped behind Valie, probably expecting her to stop as well, but she didn’t. She kept walking until she was outside of the front gates of the school. She was done for the day; she couldn’t handle anything more.

“Where are you going?”

This time Valie really did jump--and squeaked a little, which only embarrassed her more.
Either Jack was amazingly fast or he was amazingly quiet.

When she turned to face him, she expected him to be laughing at her frightened utterances, but instead Valie found him looking at her cautiously, his blue eyes showing a different emotion—was it worry?

“Are you okay?”

All Valie could do was nod. She needed to get away from him before she said something she’d regret. With those gorgeous eyes watching her, she felt like her guts were his to examine.

“Yes. I just need coffee. I’ll see you later, Jack,” she murmured. And with that, she sped away, jogging all the way back to Palmetto Manor. 

When Valie entered the apartment, she was breathless not from hurrying, but from the fact that Jack Haden totally
unbalanced
her and the physical state of the apartment didn’t help to right her mental equilibrium, either—Alden was obviously in one of his worse moods. The lamp beside the living room couch was knocked over and the books from the small bookshelf were tossed about the room as if he’d thrown them. She hadn’t seen him this angry in a long time.

Cautiously Valie stepped into the danger zone.

“Alden?”

She walked slowly to the old man’s bedroom down the left hall. The room was empty except for the scant pieces of his shabby furniture—and a recently broken picture frame lying face
down on the floor. She retreated back to the hallway and looked toward the opposite end of the hall, where her own room was located.

“Alden?” she called again. She heard a violent sob coming from her bedroom. “Alden?” She strode quickly to the other side of the apartment. When she pushed open the half-closed door she found her grandfather slouched on the edge of the bed, steady tears flowing down his cheeks. Those tears would have ignited pity in Valie’s heart if their owner hadn’t been holding in his shaking hands an old photograph set afire. Her grandfather was burning one of the only pictures of her mother that Valie possessed. 

“Stop!” Valie screamed. She ran at him and tore the photograph out of his crumpled hand. The anguish in Alden’s eyes vanished immediately only to be replaced by a cold fury. He raised himself off of the bed and, with the back of his now-empty hand, struck Valie sharply across the cheek, hitting hard against the bone, sending her crashing to the floor.

But Alden’s rage was not yet spent. Screaming at the top of his voice, the old man leaned over her and shook a threatening fist in her face, while ranting, “
You
! You and your devil of a father! You ruin everything, you monster! He stole her from me and you killed her! You killed your own mother! You killed
my Lizzy
!” He sobbed unconsolably and headed for the door. “You’re a freak! You’re a freak, just like your father! You should never have been born!” The old man stormed unsteadily down the hall and slammed the door to his room behind him leaving the girl alone amidst the turmoil.

Valie had turned to stone. For what seemed like an eternity, she sat on the floor, stunned and crying, biting her lip hard so as not to allow even one whimper to escape. The charred picture lay on the ground next to her. Luckily it was face-down, otherwise she never would have been able to stop the tears. She couldn’t bear to turn over that picture and see her mother’s half-burned features.

Her mind became aware of the clock in the hall ticking away seconds and minutes. Before the gonging of the next hour, the immediate fear and sadness of the moment were gone, only to be replaced by an anger that burned deep in Valie’s heart. She couldn’t put into words how much Alden’s mutilation of her keepsake, his destruction of her memory, hurt worse than his blow or his words. She’d known how he felt about her for years.

Suddenly, in a burst of rage and adrenaline, Valie bounded up from the floor and was down the hall in an instant, wrenching the doorknob only to discover it was locked. She threw herself against the door, but nothing happened. She proceeded to kick and pound the door until her feet and fists were numbed with pain, and her knuckles were bloody and swollen.

Valie could feel the last shred of compassion for Alden shrivel up in the flame of her pain, as she wordlessly pounded the door. She wanted to scream, but a sob escaped her lips instead. With one last brutal kick to the door—which shook the whole apartment and left her leg throbbing, she grabbed her sweatshirt and ran out of the door, down the three flights of stairs and back onto the cold streets of Anders.

Meanwhile, outside, Jack walked up to Terrence as he watched Valie’s nonexistent movements. Jack hadn’t planned on wasting his time on the Mark any more than necessary, but she had piqued his interest when she skipped out on school. He couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He needed to get closer, understand her draw.

“How goes it?” he inquired of Terrence.

Terrence growled and shot Jack a frustrated glance. He was bored; stalking a simple, human girl was a waste of his talents.

“Right,” Jack chuckled under his breath. Terrence could be so touchy. Terrence and Eliza had never truly accepted Jack’s presence in their pack. If the older Lycan wasn’t toying with Jack, he was snapping at him. “Would you care for a break? Noah still needs some practice.”

The brute studied Jack for a moment, considering the offer. Terrence had interesting features, even for a werewolf. He was tall, around six-foot, muscularly built. His long, black-brown hair was in wild disarray around his sharp facial features. He had multiple piercings along one of his ears and a small stud above his right eyebrow. His eyes, though, were like shining, black pools. If he hadn’t had the white surrounding the inky color, he would have looked almost demonic.

“Alright,” he growled. “Eliza says she’s getting fed up in this town anyway. It’s Halloween, a good night to have a little fun.” The man smirked, putting Jack on edge. The boy didn’t really want to know what
fun
the man intended to have. “The Mark went inside about five minutes ago. Apparently, school wasn’t very interesting today—speaking of which, don’t
you
have class, Jackie?”

Jack scoffed, “They let me out for good behavior.”

Amused and laughing roughly, Terrence strode away, too silent for his size. Seconds later Noah and Shane arrived to meet Jack in the abandoned lot across the street from Valie’s apartment.

“So what’s your plan, Jack? I couldn’t understand you on the phone,” Noah asked quietly. Shane, meanwhile, looked like she was itching to be less polite about the situation.

“You’ll see,” Jack replied with a devilish smile. “You just have to stay here and keep an eye out. Signal me if any of our pack or anyone else suspicious comes along.”

“Anyone
else
?” Shane demanded. “Why are we suspicious of our own pack?”

But before she could extract an explanation, Valie came running out of the apartment building with tears streaming down her face. The three werewolves ducked out of sight and watched in surprise as the crying girl ran down the street. Without answering Shane’s questions, Jack took off after Valie.

“I’m going to hurt him one of these days,” Shane threatened to Noah. “I’m really going to hurt him.”

“We should follow him.”

“He’s going to get us caught and
I
don’t want to be around when that happens. What will Isaac say? Does he even think about Isaac anymore? You know, our
pack leader.
” Shane crossed her arms and stubbornly stared in the direction in which the two had run.

“I think something’s happened, Shane. Valie looked upset.”

“I don’t care. And it’s not like
Jack
is going to make things better.”

Noah shook his head impatiently.

“Fine. Go, if you’re so worried.” And before Shane had a chance to continue, the boy took off down the street heading south.

Shane stared after the younger werewolf as he swiftly disappeared. She couldn’t believe Jack was being such an idiot. Wasn’t he the one who preached to them all about not getting too close to the Mark? About the unsuspecting not being allowed to
suspect
? About protocol? About the Council? He was a hypocrite, a downright hypocrite and Shane would never let him preach to her again about obeying the rules of the pack as laid down by Isaac. She didn’t want to hear Jack’s excuses anymore. Besides, he’d gone off and joined the Guard before, he could just as easily go back.

But the blonde frowned.

Shane
needed
those rules. She needed to have something to believe in and now . . . now Jack was tearing that away and she couldn’t understand why.

She loved Jack—and Noah, too—like brothers. As part of her pack, she was obligated to stand by them no matter what. 

The blonde she-wolf sighed with her hands on her hips. They were more to her than just her pack brothers.  They were all she had.

Shane took off down the street, but more slowly—their scents were easy to follow. Besides, she knew there was only going to be trouble down the road.

DISCOVERED

When Valie finally stopped running, she was in Anders’
Community Park. It was almost noon, but since a steady drizzle had set in, no one was there. She took a seat on a decaying bench and continued to cry, hugging herself tightly and allowing the sobs to rock her body.

She would never go back to Alden’s! She never wanted to see him again, or have anything to do with him! She didn’t know where she would go or what would happen to her without a guardian—if only a legal one—but she didn’t care.  She couldn’t go back.

“Valie?”

Valie dragged her gaze upwards to find Jack looking at her soberly from about ten feet away. He stood modestly in his gray t-shirt, jeans and a black, hoodless jacket—a jacket that looked awfully warm right about then.

“Are you still okay?” he asked, offering a cautious smile as he reminded her of their last exchange.

Valie laughed once as she looked at the wet ground. Slowly she shook her head and pulled at her hair to cover the far side of her face, the side Alden had hit. She was sure it must be swollen. She also jammed her hands into the pockets of her own thin jacket to hide them—and immediately winced at the pain. Even the pressure of the pocket hurt her bruised knuckles, so she held them lightly in place with practically no weight at all upon them.

“May I sit?”

Valie didn’t reply. Jack, who took her silence as wordless consent, chose the closest place beside her on the cold bench.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” Valie mumbled.

“Something . . . ,” Jack said. Carefully, he reached toward the girl and cupped Valie’s chin his hand, then turned her head until she faced him, but Valie cautiously held her opposite cheek away from his view. He wiped away a tear with his thumb in one gentle movement. “Tells me that’s not true.”

The boy’s kindness felt more like another blow rather than the comfort which he intended, as a new batch of warm tears fell down Valie’s cheeks. She pulled away. Why did he have to choose now of all times to be nice—now, when all she wanted was to curl up inside herself and answer to no one.

“Please tell me what’s wrong?”