Vanished (4 page)

              I silently wondered if electrocution would have any effect on the indestructible Madison Delaney.  “Do you worry
this much
all the time?”

              Before she can answer, Madison comes into the house, belting out “Pizza,” in perfect soprano and prances into the kitchen with her suit dripping wet, nipples erect. She presses her body into me and glances sweetly up at Trin who looks away, uncomfortably, pretending to be deeply engrossed in peeling the label off her beer.

              “I’ll call it in,” I raise my hands up as if surrendering and take a step backward.

              “Good,” she kisses my cheek and sashays away, wrapping the towel around her.  I look down and notice - at the same time as Trin - that the front of my shirt has Maddie’s breast marks imprinted on it.

              “That’s a nice look for you,” she comments and I go to change my shirt.

Chapter Three

Trin

              My house is burning.  I stand on the sidewalk watching, paralyzed and helpless, as the flames vaporize the garden leaving behind nothing but charred black sticks.  The fire climbs to my little bay window, and moves quickly upwards, devouring the roof next. 

              I’m standing in the street watching, my feet locked to the ground, unable to move.

When there’s no house remaining - for the fire to feed on - it conjoins in the air above my home in one massive fiery fist, waving back and forth in the wind.  Slowly, the flaming fist uncurls revealing glowing red, orange and white claw shaped tendrils that grasp upward, ascending into the starry sky. 

Thick gray smoke, with tiny sparkling yellow flakes of tinder, dancing like drunken fireflies, drifts in great billows upward then suddenly settles back down around me. 

My throat constricts, my eyes sting and my nose starts burning.  Viscous ash rains down in giant, grey snowflakes and I suddenly realize that my skin is caked in it.  I look up again and see everything is burning now, everything; the homes, the trees, even the ground is one big orange blaze, a burning ash-covered landscape, like purgatory.  I blink and feel ash clinging to my eyelids; I lick my lips and taste it…oh God…

“Trin,” a voice says, and the vibrations of the word causes the ash to jump off my skin like in slow motion, as if some invisible force is bringing it to life, “Trin, wake up,” the voice insists.

              I blinked and a bluish glow dilates my pupils.  I stick my hand in front of my face, half expecting to see a coating of ash on it.  “What?” I ask, disoriented and trying to see who is holding the light.

              “You were having a nightmare,” the voice announces.

I rub my eyes, visions of fire flashing in my mind, and realize – with sudden horror - that I’m not home in my bed and that, even worse, I am in Madison Delaney’s lake house and much, much worse, the voice behind the annoying blue light sounds, distinctly, like Logan Darby’s.    

              “Um,” I say, pulling the covers up to my chin, “why do you have a flashlight?”

              “Powers out,” he replies, and proceeds to plop down on the chair beside my bed.

              I sit up, pulling the covers up to my neck, “What are you doing?”

              “Protecting you” My body instinctually stiffens.  What does Logan know? Is Logan my guardian angel? Could he be YF, the anonymous person at St. Raphael’s that tried to help me?

              “That’s crazy” I blurt out because Logan can’t be YF, he’s too pushy and aggressive. If he knew about Judge, something tells me he wouldn’t bother to ask me if I wanted help. 

              “Is it?” he asks, propping his boots up on the edge of my bed.

              “Get those off here,” I order him indignantly and when he doesn’t move I push them off with my feet, still tucked under the covers.

              My eyes are adjusting to the light and I see him smirk, his blond hair pulled back in a pony tail, and his piercing ocean-blue eyes hold an expression of tired amusement. 

              “
Seriously
you need to go before…”

              “Quiet. Do you
want
to wake up the whole house again?”

              “I didn’t,” I put a hand to my mouth.               He flashes a smile that says are-you-really-that-gullible at me.

              I groan, “
Why
are you doing this?”

              “Truly?” He asks and puts his boots up on the bed again. 

I sigh and lay back down, rolling over on my side to face him. “Truly.”

              “Because I think you’re really freaked out about being here and because I think you might have good reason to be.”

              “Are you saying I’m in danger?”

              “No, but I’m saying it’s not a bad idea to watch your back.”

              “Madison?”

              I see him nod. “She’s up to something.”

              “Nice,” I said, “I should have known.”

              “Yeah, what’s with that? You seem pretty sharp but you walked right into this.”

              I sigh, not sure that Madison’s boyfriend is the right person to be baring my soul to, “Why are you not with
her
right now?”             

              “She snores.”

              “That’s…” I wave my hand in front of me, “I didn’t need to know that.”

              “You asked.”

              “Yeah, I’m regretting that now.”

              He laughs, “You’re avoiding my question, aren’t you, Trin?”

              I sense him watching me behind those vivid blue eyes, glinting in the darkness. “You know what I think?” He says, “I think you’re running away from something.”

              My heart starts to race. He saw the bruise, I know he saw the bruise. How could he have missed it? I don’t answer because I don’t know what to say. 

I swallow hard.  I need to change the subject. “How long has the power been out?” I am suddenly aware of the intense darkness around us, of the fact that I snuck out of my house and I’m now sitting, alone with a boy, in the dark in the middle of the night.  

              “Only for a few hours; the storm must have knocked out a transformer or something, I’m sure it’ll be back on soon. Can you spare a pillow?” He asks and something about the way he says it sends me into a fit of nervous giggles. I stuff my face in the pillow to stifle the giggle until I’m gasping for breath.  

              After my fit, there is a long silence and I wonder if he fell asleep, “What was your dream about?” He asks suddenly making me jump.

              For some reason I tell him and he listens, shaking his head as I describe how the ashes rained down on me. 

              When I finish telling him he doesn’t speak for a minute. “What exactly is it that you’re so afraid of, Trin?”

              I pull my knees up to my chest, “Nothing.”

              “Liar, there’s something.” 

“Logan?”A soft voice, heavy with sleep, calls from down the hall and we both freeze. 

Through the darkness I see him hold his index finger to his lips.  

The rain patters softly against the window and seconds later we hear footsteps shuffling back down the hallway in the opposite direction and a door shutting.  “Goodnight, new girl” I hear him say after a full minute of silence has gone by.

I grab a pillow and toss it to him.  Then I turn over on my side, and let the sound of his breathing and the soft drumming rain carry me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

___#___

              The next morning the sun is shining through my curtains. 

              Suddenly remembering what happened during the night I sit straight up and look to my left.  A mass of black leather and blond hair is sticking out from under a quilt in the chair next to me, with dark jeans and motorcycle boots, coming out the other end, propped on the edge of my bed. “Hey,” I whisper, straining to hear if there are any sounds of activity coming from the rest of the house.  

He doesn’t move.

“Hey,” I push his boots off the bed and quickly move my feet away again. He sits up and looks around.  He must realize nothing really urgent is happening because he stretches, turns my way, flashes me a bleary eyed smile, hugs his chest with his arms, tucks his hands underneath them and closes his eyes, snuggling back down into the chair.  “
What are you doing
?” I demand, in a frantic whisper. 

              He doesn’t open his eyes when he replies, “Getting some sleep because
someone
kept me up all night.”

              “Shhhh… you have to get out of here before they wake up.”

              He pushes back the quilt and his face transforms into a teasing grin.  I want to smile back but my heart is racing because I keep expecting someone to come strolling around the corner at any moment, and find him here with me. “Coffee?” He asks, standing, stretching again and laying the quilt at the foot of my bed. 

              “Um, sure,” I touch my cheek and flinch, “that would be awesome actually.”

              He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, stretches again, and I see his belly button, and a line of downy blond hair snaking down the middle of his…“Eye contact, Snow” He says, grinning widely at the mortified expression on my face then he turns and strolls out of the room, whistling a low tune. 

              I get out of bed and go to the door, lock it and lean back against it.

I shower and when I’m stepping out I hear a knock at the door. “Trin, can I come in?” It’s Madison. 
Oh God
, what if she knows he slept in my room last night? Is she coming to kick me out?

She’s standing outside the door in a bathrobe. One of her bags of luggage is sitting beside her.  She gives me a sweet – fake – smile and steps into the room, pulling the luggage behind her.  “Wow,” she says, reaching up like she’s going to touch my face.  I step back, “What happened?”

I shrug, “ran into a wall.”

She rolls her eyes, “So you’re as clumsy as you are dorky?”

“Um…”

“Don’t answer that. Come on.” She leads the way back into the bathroom.

I don’t move. Instead I cross my arms over my chest and glare, “What are we doing?”

“Your make-up, of course.”

My eyes narrow even further but she’s already opening the luggage and I sense resistance is futile.  She sits me on the stool in front of the mirror and goes to work.  “I think we can cover this up,” she says and gently applies a thick layer of foundation to my face. 

“Thanks,” I mutter.

Our eyes meet in the mirror, “You’re probably wondering why I’m doing this.”

“A little.”

She flashes me a smile. “Because where others see a lump of coal, I see a diamond.”

Did she just compare me to coal? “Oh.”

“I want to fix you.”

Am I broken?
Yes
, a voice says in my mind. 
Twenty six emergency room visits, eleven broken bones, some twelve hundred stitches
.  Yes, I’m broken.  “OTrin,” is all I say but I want to wish her good luck.  

I watch myself transform.  The ugly scar twisting from beneath my left ear to the middle of my neck disappears replaced by supple, glowing skin.  The purple bruise on my cheek is barely visible.  My eyes, which have never been remarkable are wide, almond shaped and have long, curly lashes.  The white line that clips through the top right half of my lip vanishes along with the freckles that dust my nose.

She turns me around so that I’m facing the wall.  She doesn’t mention the scars and that’s a relief.  She hums while she works and occasionally gives me curt directions but otherwise we don’t speak.  I’m tensed up like a rubber band and my shoulders are sore by the time she’s done, “There,” she says, and turns me to face the mirror. 

I am gone.  The things I hate about myself are gone, at least, and suddenly I see new things I’ve never noticed before.  There’s a dark brown line circling the edge of my forest green irises, giving them a cat-like appearance.  My nose, which I always thought was too fat, is slim and button-shaped.  My hair, parted differently than I usual part it down the middle, is glossy and straightened, making it look longer than shoulder length.  Shades of blue jump out when the light hits it just right.  “It’s…it’s…” I struggle to find the word, and instead I touch my cheek too hard almost believing it won’t hurt because I don’t see the bruise anymore.  Tears sting my eyes. 

“Hey,” Madison says, “quit poking the bruise.  If you cry, I swear to God I’ll scream.”