Valkyrie Rising (13 page)

W
hen we got to the restaurant that night, Kjell was the first person I saw—mostly because he flagged me down like a taxi. He was sitting on the far side of a long, crowded table.

“Ellie, here,” he called out, motioning to one of his friends to shift down. “There’s room for you right here.”

“Such a stalker,” Tuck muttered under his breath.

I nudged him with my elbow, and he nudged me right back. Graham frowned the way he did when he was about to play dad, so I slipped away from Graham before he could say something that would put me in an even worse mood.

The space between the table and the wall was narrow, and I used hand gestures to let Kjell know it was too hard for me to make my way over there. Instead I pulled up a seat at the end of the table, right next to Tuck. I knew if I needed him to, he’d help me keep Kjell at bay, but unlike Graham, he’d do it without treating me like a toddler.

A boy at the end of the table raised a beer as Graham found a seat farther down, away from us.

“
Skål
—that’s cheers, for the Americans—to Graham, who saved some of us from a long swim home.” The words sent a shiver down my spine as it brought back all the memories of the fishing boat mishap. But that wasn’t the only thought that made the trembling spread until my fingers shook. My grandmother’s warning echoed through my mind: it wasn’t wise to say such things out loud. Deeds like Graham’s had a power, an allure all their own—I could feel it—and it was better not to draw so much attention to it. You never knew who or what it would attract.

The glimpse of Astrid at the docks flashed through my mind, and I shuddered.

“Only a true hero could save a boat and a goal on the same day,” someone said, his voice drifting above the chatter at the table.

My chest tightened as the shadows in the room expanded, boxing us in, threatening to swallow us whole. The air was close and stuffy, like the inside of a parked car in the height of an LA summer.

The table erupted in laughter as another round of pint glasses slid into waiting hands, beer sloshing over the edges and onto the chipped Formica table. The ominous feeling deepened as the jokes continued, all focused on the multitalented Graham. I looked at my brother and fought the urge to drag him from the room and hide him away, someplace secret, someplace safe.

Unlike the other times I’d felt sick hearing Graham lavishly praised, this time my agitation wasn’t tainted by resentment. I wanted to protect him, and my anxiety only got worse because I was still struggling to understand exactly what from.

And as the panic mounted, I turned frantic eyes toward the door, contemplating bolting. I would grab Graham and Tuck and flee back to Grandmother’s house. But a man stood just inside the door, leaning against the window. He caught my eye and his hand slid inside his jacket. Exactly where you’d expect to find a gun. Maybe he was one of them, a member of the crazy group who’d been watching me. Or maybe I was being paranoid.

Given how weird my life had become, sanity was a distant memory.

I glanced back at the man, only to find him still staring at me.

Tuck’s head tipped closer to mine. Inches away. “Maybe next they’ll elect him mayor. Do we even need a vote?” He flashed a grin that in any other circumstances would have captured my undivided attention but in this case just served to return my focus to the table, where they’d started toasting Graham all over again. My brain moved sluggishly, grappling with Tucker’s joke. Trying to act like everything was fine, even though it was the exact opposite.

“You okay?” Tuck’s forehead creased. He turned and looked out the window, where I’d been staring. “You look like you just had a stroke. Want me to walk you home?”

“I’m fine.” I shook my head.

Tuck frowned and opened his mouth to say something but then snapped it shut. His jaw twitched as he glared over my shoulder.

“Do you want anything?” Kjell appeared from behind me, pulling up a chair. “A drink? Or are you hungry?” Before I could even formulate my answer, he’d flagged down a waitress.

“Maybe just some water,” I said, shifting in my seat as his arm draped around the back of my chair. I tried to keep my eyes on Graham, but Kjell leaned forward until his head was directly in my line of sight.

I glanced back toward the door, to see if that man was still staring at me. He was, and he was no longer alone. Five men now sat at the table by the window, making no effort to conceal their objective. They were watching me. It couldn’t be a good thing that they were no longer trying to keep their surveillance covert.

Kjell followed my gaze. “Don’t worry about them,” he told me. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” The way he was looking at me made me slide my chair a full six inches away. I should have been blown away to have a boy look at me like that—especially a boy like Kjell. But there was no way I deserved the unswerving, puppy-dog devotion in those baby blues.

My grandmother’s advice from that morning floated back to me, and I decided that as ridiculously old-fashioned as she’d sounded, maybe she was right about the power of a certain type of look or glance. Maybe I needed to watch my step around Kjell. Even though I spent the rest of the evening doing just that, Kjell stuck to me like a tick that hadn’t fed in years. I wasn’t sure who it irritated most—Graham, Tuck, or me.

B
Y THE TIME
we left the restaurant, it was well past midnight. Everyone emptied onto the sidewalk and stood under the streetlamps, saying good night and gradually dispersing.

There was a tug at my sleeve as I was joking around with Tuck, and I turned.

“Ride home?” Kjell asked. He glanced over his shoulder toward two men who had followed us outside and were trying to look casual, smoking cigarettes. But they were staring straight at me.

Walking home might not be the safest idea.

Graham answered for all three of us. “That’d be great,” he said. At first I was surprised. I thought I’d have to force the issue with Graham, after Kjell had been all over me at the restaurant. But the way Graham was frowning as he sized up Kjell made it all too apparent that he was prowling for the opportunity for a tête-à-tête. While that irritated me more than Kjell’s stifling attention, it wasn’t enough to overpower my sense of self-preservation. We needed a ride home.

When we came to a stop in Grandmother’s driveway, Kjell turned to face me. “When can I see you tomorrow?”

I was mortified this was happening at all, but it was even worse to have it happen in front of Graham and Tuck. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. I was already anxious without having to let Kjell down gently in front of an audience.

“There’s this new restaurant, serves really fresh fish. We send our best catch to them,” he said. “Tomorrow night? I—I need to see you again.”

That caught Graham’s full attention. He’d opened the car door, but now he froze. Waiting. Listening.

“Just us. I won’t bring my friends this time,” Kjell added.

While I had no intention of hanging out again with Sven or Margit, this was also sounding too much like a very serious date.

In the rearview mirror, Tuck’s eyes found mine, and I knew it wouldn’t be fair to say yes when I was engaged elsewhere. Or at least wanted to be. Graham was watching me, too. His disapproval filled the car like floodwater, pressing the air from my lungs, suffocating me.

Which is why I said, “Okay.”

Even though it wasn’t an optimal way to assert my independence, it was the only route open to me—without causing a scene.

“She hates fish, just FYI, Ahab.” Tuck slid out and slammed the door so hard the whole car shook. To make my misery complete, Graham didn’t get out until he’d caught my eye and given his head a shake. I hadn’t heard the last of this.

If Kjell noticed, he didn’t care. He smiled like the conquering hero, which made me realize exactly how big a misstep I’d just taken. Who knew that acting out of spite could be every bit as limiting as having an overprotective brother boss you around?

“Great,” Kjell said. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“I’ve gotta go,” I said, already wracking my brain for the out that I would deliver in the morning. “Good night.” My eyes were glued to Tuck’s retreating back. His posture was ruler straight, his shoulders tense, and when he didn’t even turn around at the sound of my footsteps, I knew he was mad. But not as mad as I was at myself.

Everything that had happened during the last week was tearing at me from the inside. Just two short weeks ago, my relationship with Graham was the biggest worry on my mind—how to go from little sister to actual grown-up person who could manage her own life. Now it was the tiniest item on my pile of problems, from the lingering mystery of Astrid and her bobsled girl sidekick to Kjell’s creepy behavior. Together, all these things fueled my inexplicable premonition that something dangerous was circling, moving closer to both Graham and me. And overriding it all was my certainty that I didn’t have much time to piece it all together—to figure out what was happening and to fix it before something terrible happened.

A
S SOON AS
Graham’s bedroom door clicked shut down the hallway, I opened my window and climbed up onto the roof. I made enough noise that Tuck would be sure to hear me. Then I sat back, hoping he’d accept my olive branch. I knew he was mad at me for agreeing to go out with Kjell, even if his reasons were muddy. He could hardly expect me turn up my nose at every other boy just because he kept flirting with me. I’d seen Tuck in action enough times to know it was a fair bet he wasn’t serious. And he probably expected me to be able to tell the difference. Still, it was hard to keep my feelings out of it, especially when Tuck and I were walking so very close to the edge.

After five minutes, I started to get angry that Tuck wasn’t coming. It stung that he would just blow me off—like he didn’t even need to acknowledge that things were weird between us lately. He was taking Graham’s overprotective act to a whole new award-worthy level.

My temper was just getting warmed up when I heard a noise coming from the direction of Tuck’s window. Then the warmth applied itself to a different feeling altogether.

Tuck’s hands appeared on the edge of the roof, followed by his head and shoulders as he pulled himself over the edge.

He walked softly across the roof and sat down at my side, close enough that his arm pressed against mine. I knew I’d been forgiven. I leaned back on my elbows, his proximity soaking into every pore like a soothing balm.

We were quiet for a long time, for what seemed like ages.

“I don’t like him,” Tuck said. “Graham doesn’t either.”

It took a second for me to figure out what he was talking about, but when I did, I couldn’t hold back an impatient sigh. “Do you really think that’s going to win your argument?”

“Is it an argument?” he asked after a tense pause. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re trying to keep him at arm’s length. Or is little Ellie playing hard to get?”

“Unlike some people, I don’t play games with people’s feelings.”

“That’s right,” Tuck murmured. “You just go out to dinner with them even when you’re not interested.”

“Of all the people in the world, you’re the last person who has the right to criticize anyone on this subject. How many girls are you dangling along right now?”

He looked at me in the darkness, and suddenly I wasn’t sure if I had the courage to do it—to put words and a name on what had been happening between us. The flirting and the strange, private smiles. The way even now his hand was resting too close to mine.

“None.” The word slammed into me, knocking every last breath from my lungs. Apparently it wasn’t even worth mentioning—the weird games we’d been playing. “But we’re not talking about me. Do you like him?”

I glanced at his profile in the darkness, but the expression on his face as he stared out over the fjord could have meant anything. Tuck could teach the Mona Lisa and the Sphinx a thing or two about mystery.

“Not like that,” I said. “And honestly, I’ve got bigger things on my mind than boys.”

He turned all the way toward me, shoulders too, until his face was so close that even in the darkness I could see the way his pupils expanded, devouring the gray from the inside out. Now they were watching me, unreadable as ever. One eyebrow arched. Waiting for me to elaborate.

“I only agreed to go out with Kjell to make Graham angry,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t had time to decide exactly how far I was willing to open up to Tuck. To tell him the full and complete truth about everything that was on my mind. “He doesn’t get to run my life. He treats me like I’m too stupid to tie my own shoes. Or decide who I’ll date or what classes I’ll take.”

“Graham doesn’t think you’re stupid,” Tuck said softly. “Believe me. And if you’re upset, just talk to him—he’s a pretty smart guy, you know. The direct approach is bound to work better than revenge dating your stalker.” He settled back against the roof, his shoulder pressed against mine, and on reflex I found myself leaning against it. “Graham’s stubborn when it comes to you, but that can change. Just remember, to him, you’re still the little girl who sniffled on his shoulder when Tommy Wallen pushed you off your bicycle.”

“Well, I’m not that eight-year-old anymore.” My voice cracked. I hated him for being right. And myself for being such a coward when it came to standing up to Graham.