CHAPTER FOUR
The electric guitar riffs coming from my alarm clock were loud enough to wake the dead. I fumbled for the snooze button, muttering curses under my breath.
When the room was silent, I collapsed back against my pillow, pulling the blanket over my head. I groaned, my stomach rolling with the nausea that comes from lack of sleep.
In the last forty-eight hours, I had spent every spare minute searching the Internet for anything that might explain my encounter with the blood-covered woman. I’d also been canvasing my house for clues as to why the necklace in the picture of my mom and the one the woman wore were the same. Yet, the only thing I’d found in my searches was way too many disturbing websites and a hella ton of dust mites.
I’d almost asked Gareth about the photograph, but every time I mentioned my parents, especially my mom, he always looked so sad. I hated seeing the grief—still fresh after all these years—in his eyes, so I usually didn’t bring them up. Besides, I was still convinced there was some kind of logical explanation for it all. I just had to find it.
But what about the handprint on your arm? What does it mean? How is it possible that the woman you saw was wearing the same necklace as your mother?
The voice in my head repeated the same three questions that’d kept me tossing and turning all night long. “I just want to sleep,” I grumbled. “I just want it all to go away.”
Thankfully, the alarm wailed again, pushing away everything except my annoyance. The opening strains of an AC/DC song blasted through the speakers, and I slapped at the clock like I’d been doing for the past half hour. Why the hell is my alarm on anyway? It’s Saturday. I closed my eyes and snuggled deeper under the covers—and immediately jolted upright.
“Shit!” I shouted when the realization dawned on me. There was a reason I had set my alarm for bright and early on a Saturday, why I had set it to the local classic rock station—something I couldn’t possibly sleep through. Today was the day of the SAT.
The clock beside me read 7:45. The test was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes! Throwing the covers back, I leapt out of bed, shucked off my pajamas, and grabbed the first pieces of clothing my fingers touched. After throwing my hair into a messy bun, I grabbed my backpack and flew out the front door, slamming it behind me.
I drove as fast as I dared, trying to ignore the roar of anxiety screaming inside my head. The clock on my dashboard read 7:51.
The high school was only few miles away, but there was no way I was going to make it in time. The red light in front of me seemed to be taking its sweet time, and I slammed my fist against the steering wheel. “Turn green already!” The light changed colors, almost as if in response to my demand, and I let out a tiny smile of satisfaction before stomping on the gas pedal.
I managed to make it a few hundred yards before being stopped by another light. I groaned and gripped the steering wheel to keep from beating the crap out of it.
The clock now read 7:55.
“Green!” I yelled through the windshield. The light obligingly changed. I sped down the street, praying I wouldn’t catch any more lights or run into a cop.
I was less than two minutes away from the school when flashing red lights and lowering metal arms indicated an oncoming train. I came to a complete stop, exactly one intersection away from my turn, and burst into tears. The morning freighters were famous for being incredibly slow and miles long.
The clock read 7:58.
I dropped my head to the steering wheel and tried not to choke on my tears. All that studying, all the stress and worry, the months of preparation—all for nothing.
I pounded my fist against the dash. This was entirely my fault. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I wouldn’t be missing the most important test of my life.
The ever-reliable voice of reason inside my head began whispering condolences, but I shook my head to silence the sound. It didn’t matter that the test would be offered again next month. Early acceptance depended on this round of scores. I wanted to punch myself in the face.
Just ten minutes, I agonized. If I had just gotten up ten minutes sooner.
Warmth flooded through my body—probably some rush of endorphins in response to my panic. I sucked in a few ragged breaths. There wasn’t anything else I could do. It might be possible to sweet-talk the officials into letting me enter the testing room late, but I doubted it.
The train was still moving in front of me, but I could see the final car getting closer. This train was much shorter than the ones that usually backed up traffic for miles. Some kind of small miracle. Not that it mattered. Especially since—
I froze, staring at the clock on my dash. The bright green numbers now read 7:48.
What the hell?
I pulled my cell phone from where I had tossed it into the cup holder and tapped the screen. 7:48.
My stomach flip-flopped. Maybe I just read the clock wrong? I thought of that sign hanging in the counselor’s office about stress and its effect on the teenage mind. I imagined my poor little overworked brain collapsing on the sofa with a cold compress pressed against it. “Even brains make mistakes, okay!” it yelled before bursting into tears.
I let out a small chuckle, ignoring the chill inching its way down my spine.
The train was past me now, and the metal arm barricades were beginning to lift. I pressed down on my gas pedal, driving on autopilot as my thoughts whirled around like a tornado. I parked in the student parking lot and sat musing as people walked toward the door. My mind was definitely just playing tricks on me. Yes, that’s it. Just some weird twist of brain matter.
I shook my head and straightened my shoulders. “Focus, Styles,” I said, double-checking my backpack for my calculator and No. 2 pencils.
I began to recite vocabulary in my head like a mantra. Implausible. Adjective. Meaning not realistic or believable. Indiscernible. Adjective. Defined as impossible to see, hear, or know clearly. Consequential. Adjective. Important or significant.
I just needed to focus on one thing at a time. Something inside me wailed in protest, but I ignored it. I had to get through the test. Everything else had to wait.
I crossed the parking lot still murmuring vocabulary words under my breath and walked purposefully through the doors.
When they released us from the testing room, I was relieved. I felt good about the test, but the constant battle between the ability to think critically and the distractions floating around my brain had given me a wicked headache.
I wanted nothing more than to go home, curl up in my bed, and stay there until further notice. The handprint on my arm had been stinging all morning, and if I didn’t already have plans to meet Maggie at the library, I would’ve done just that.
I parked my car at the end of already busy Main Street and headed down the crowded sidewalk toward the town library. Lothbrook wasn’t a big town, but it was well known for its antiques and local cuisine. The quaint row of buildings was colorful and bright, each one with its own unique character and charm. The large window displays were all decorated in the cheerful oranges and yellows of fall, and pockets of tourists meandered down the walkway, window shopping and enjoying the smell of cinnamon and banana that wafted through the open door of Gertrude’s Bakery—one of Lothbrook’s most iconic locations. Main Street hadn’t changed much in the last few decades, and the classic “Leave it to Beaver” feel of the place drew folks from all over Georgia. Weekends on Main Street were always busy affairs.
I dodged around an older couple feeding a parking meter and pulled my phone out of my backpack so I could text Maggie and let her know I was almost there. As the screen lit up, a weird sensation floated over me. All of the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I swallowed and looked up from the screen.
The blood-covered woman from the comic book shop was standing on the opposite sidewalk, her long, dark hair blowing in the breeze. Her sad face locked on mine, and the amulet around her neck pulsed like a heartbeat.
Lainey.
The whispered echo of my name boomed in my ears as black splotches appeared in front of my eyes. I blinked, trying to clear them away, but it didn’t help. In seconds, my entire field of vision was nothing but darkness. Before I could so much as whimper, the darkness shifted, giving way to a cyclone of colors that swirled in front of my eyes and spun into life. The swirl took shape, and small bursts of recognizable matter exploded into the darkness.
A cluster of tall trees. A red-tinted moon. A strange symbol. The acrid tang of smoke stung my nose.
I gasped, but as soon as they had come, the flashes were gone, replaced again by the familiar sights of Main Street. The woman was closer now, standing in the middle of the street with her dark green eyes trained on my face. The look in her eyes made my stomach twist, and I staggered backward, accidentally plowing into the couple at the meter.
“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” I said, trying to find my balance. “So sorry.” The man and his wife were both giving me disapproving looks, but they seemed pacified enough with my apology not to scold me. As they pushed past me, I heard the woman mutter something about teenage drug use. Under different circumstances, I would’ve laughed, but my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I glanced back to the street, expecting to see those intense green eyes staring back at me, but it was empty.
I let out the breath I was holding. You’re just stressed. An aftereffect from the test this morning. A figment of your imagination.
The voice of reason was back, soothing me with exactly what I wanted to hear, but the feeling coiling in my gut was hard to ignore. Just seeing things, the voice whispered.
“Am I?” I grumbled, shaking my head.
Trying to ignore the uneasiness that wrapped around me, I turned my attention back to my phone. I had barely swiped my finger across the screen when loud shouting and the clanging of trash bins startled me so much I dropped my phone with a smack on the concrete sidewalk.
Hissing under my breath, I scooped the phone off the pavement, praying to the Goddess of Expensive Cellular Products that the screen wasn’t busted. Thankfully, it wasn’t. The noise was coming from the tiny alleyway in between one of the antique shops and Auntie Marmalade’s House of Fritters.
I turned to see what all the commotion was about and caught a flash of white as a body went flying up against one of the brick walls. I gasped and rushed over for a closer look. I glanced around, but no one else seemed to notice what was happening.
At the end of the alley, there was a group of guys shuffling around, throwing punches and cursing loudly. I watched the majority form a lose circle around a single fighter wearing a leather jacket and dark gray t-shirt. Three against one. They were circling around the boy in gray, taunting and jeering. It reminded me of how a house cat toys with its prey before consuming it.
The boy in gray took off his jacket and tossed it behind him. He stood with his back to me, his body rigid and tense. What’s he doing? Why doesn’t he run?
Before I had time to question it further, the boy launched himself into the fray with a battle-like cry that reverberated off the brick walls. In less than a second, he punched his nearest opponent in the chin, sending him flying backward into the chain-link fence that blocked off the back entrance of the alley. Then he turned and jabbed a second boy in the stomach before delivering a quick blow to the boy’s face. The boy shrieked as blood poured from his nose.
I couldn’t move from my spot on the sidewalk. I was glued to the fight, watching as the boy in gray whirled around, his movements lithe and graceful. He was outnumbered, but far from outmatched. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the fight. His laughter contrasted jarringly with the shouts of the other boys.
The fight continued, the other boys refusing to back down, though it seemed they were no match for the boy in gray—despite their advantage in number. Suddenly, two of the larger boys grabbed the boy in gray from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. He struggled but was unable to pull free. The last boy, tall with stringy blond hair, the apparent leader of the group, grabbed something off the ground: a piece of silver that glinted slightly in the dim light. It looked like a sharp piece of metal, a fragment from a broken pipe.
My stomach did a somersault, and my feet were already moving by the time my brain decided to catch up. “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey!”
The boys at the end of the alley all turned to look at me, their faces a mixture of shock and confusion. “Shit,” I said. Now what, Styles?
It was just enough of a diversion, though, and the boy in gray took advantage of it, throwing his body weight backward and slamming his captors into the brick wall behind them. The blond boy lunged forward, swiping the piece of metal through the air, but his arm was easily deflected by the boy in gray. The two began to grapple, the silver of the pipe slicing through the air.
“Shit!” I said again. I took a step forward, though I had no idea what I planned to do.
Half my mind was already supplying me with visions of the murder I was surely about to witness, and the other half was screaming at me to stop staring like an idiot and call the cops.
I had one foot poised to take another step when the back door to Auntie Marmalade’s opened and Auntie Marmalade herself came pouring out yelling like a banshee and swinging her rolling pin as if it were a baseball bat.
The three boys, the leader with the pipe and his two minions, scattered like ants, running in all directions. Two of the male servers who worked for Auntie Marmalade—they looked more like bouncers, really—took off after them.
The boy in gray, however, was standing still amid the chaos staring right at me. He took a step forward and when his face hit a patch of sunlight, I let out small gasp. I recognized him.
The boy in gray was Ty, the guy I had met two nights ago at the comic book shop.
I stood there staring at him, not knowing whether I should wave like we were old pals or pretend I didn’t have a clue who he was. He was taller than I remembered, and I couldn’t help but admire his broad shoulders and the way his tangled, almost too-long black hair was sticking to his forehead and curling around his ears and the nape of his neck.
He didn’t break my gaze, but one corner of his mouth quirked up into a grin. The smile lasted only a second and was replaced with a furrowed brow, but it still made my heart do a little jig.
With a small inclination of his head, the boy walked right past Auntie Marmalade, still brandishing her rolling pin, and stalked over to the fence at the end of the alley. Without a single look back, he hopped over the chain link and headed toward the opposite road.
I blinked
What just happened? Why did Auntie Marmalade let him pass? Did she know him?
“Are you all right, ma’am?” One of the servers was standing at my elbow looking concerned.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He nodded at me and walked over to Auntie Marmalade. “They were too fast; we couldn’t catch them. One ran down Main, the other two hopped in a car a few blocks away.”
Auntie Marmalade grunted and murmured something along the lines of “stupid punks” under her breath.
“What about the other guy?” I piped up.
The server looked confused. “The other one?”
“Yeah, the one in the gray shirt.” The server gave me a long, blank stare. “You know,” I continued. “Gray t-shirt? Black hair? Tall with broad shoulders, a crooked yet mildly seductive smile that kinda makes you feel like a popsicle on the fourth of July?” I stopped myself. Geez, Styles. Word vomit, much? “Ignore that last part.” I indicated the server. “He walked right past you.”
The server was staring at me like I had sprouted a second head. Auntie Marmalade, who was cradling her rolling pin to her chest like a baby, offered me a sympathetic smile. “You poor dear. You must be in shock. Come inside and I’ll make you up a plate of nice, hot fritters.”
“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am. I’m fine, really.” I thought about how Ty had walked so casually past Auntie Marmalade, as if she couldn’t even see him at all, and hopped the fence.
“As if she couldn’t even see him,” I muttered, under my breath.
“What was that, dear?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
The servers followed Auntie Marmalade back into the restaurant, and I was left alone in the alley feeling very much like I had entered the Twilight Zone.
On the ground by the wall, a lump of material was lying in the dirt. It was Ty’s leather jacket. “Okay,” I said, picking it up. “So I’m not completely crazy. He was here.” I wiped the dirt off the jacket and, feeling slightly ridiculous, folded it over my arm and continued toward the library.
The sidewalk was more tightly packed with people now. I weaved in and out of the foot traffic, trying to make sense of all the mayhem that whirled around inside my head. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts, I didn’t notice when the man in front of me came to a complete stop.
Like an idiot, I slammed into his back and fell backward onto the pavement. The man whirled around and gave me a dirty look.
“Sorry!” I squeaked, trying to appear demure.
He harrumphed at me and kept walking. The palms of my hands were slightly skinned from where I had landed on them, and my elbow was throbbing. “Ow,” I groaned, rubbing the spot gently. I stood up, assessing myself for more damage, and wiped the dirt off my jeans.
When I straightened, Ty was standing in front of me, an amused expression in his eyes. The bruise on his cheek, the one I had noticed at the comic book shop, had faded to a greenish-yellow color, but a new one was forming around his left eye.
I started a little. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see you wipe out on your ass.”
“I didn’t wipe out,” I said, matter-of-factly. “I was testing the sidewalk for durability. You’ll be happy to know that this particular patch of concrete is in fact safe for pedestrians.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re welcome.”
He let out a deep chuckle, and my cheeks warmed at the sound of it. I wasn’t sure if he recognized me from the comic book store or not, and despite my initial emboldened response I had absolutely no idea what to say next. Should I ask him about the fight?
“Well, now that I know the sidewalks are passable, I better get going. See you around.”
He waved, then turned and starting walking toward the street.
I stared at his retreating back.
“Wait!” I called out. “Wait! So that’s it?”
He turned around to face me, walking backward. His face was lit with a grin. “Were you expecting something else?”
“Well, you could at least give me a high five or something. I saved your life, after all.” And I wouldn’t mind knowing how you managed to go all Harry Potter with an invisibility cloak back there.
Ty stopped, his features suddenly highlighted by a patch of fading sunlight. “You saved my life?”
“That guy had a weapon,” I replied matter-of-factly, pushing back my shoulders. “He could’ve killed you.” At this point, I wasn’t sure the other boys actually had a real chance of killing this mysterious boy in front of me, but the fact remained that without my brilliant—okay, slightly stupid—interference, the fight could’ve ended differently.
Ty walked toward me, each step slow and methodical, his face bright with amusement. “Trust me, he couldn’t have killed me.”
I rolled my eyes, though I had to admit I was the tiniest bit impressed by how certain he seemed of his abilities in the fight. “You’re kinda cocky, aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” he said, without a single ounce of arrogance in his voice, as if he were stating a fact. “And why don’t we just call it even. Had any more troubles with Thor lately?”
“So you do recognize me!”
“Of course . . . babe.”
I had no control over the stupid smile that crossed my face. “We’re even.”
“All the same, thank you, Lainey. It’s not every day such a pretty girl saves my life.” He winked at me.
He remembers my name! My stupid smile got even bigger.
“Oh!” I turned around and walked back the few paces to where I’d fallen and scooped up his leather jacket from where I had dropped it. When I turned back to face Ty, though, he was already rounding the next corner out of sight.
“Wait!” I called after him. “I have your jacket!” But he was already gone.
“Geez, Styles! Where have you been? I’ve been blowing up your phone for the last fifteen minutes. I was getting ready to send a search party.”
I held my hand up and tried to catch my breath. After Ty had disappeared, I ran the rest of the way to the library.
“I’m so sorry, Mags. I got . . . distracted.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Distracted?”
“Yeah, on the way over here there was this fight and that guy from—”
“A guy, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. How very like Maggie to completely skip over all the other details and go straight to the “guy.”
“It wasn’t like that, okay. It was . . . interesting.”
“Oh-kay.” Maggie stared at me, but decided to move on. “Any news on the ghost front?”
My face fell. The fight had been a welcome distraction.
“Actually, yeah.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the photograph of my mom. “See the necklace in the picture?”
Maggie nodded.
“The woman I’ve been seeing is wearing the exact same one. I saw it when she appeared the first time and then again today.”
“You saw her again?”
I hesitated. The voice in my head urged me to deny it, but instead I nodded my head. “On the sidewalk. I was heading here. And I saw . . . something else too. Flashes. Tidbits of . . . memory or something. I could smell smoke.”
“Weird,” Maggie said, staring at me with wide eyes. She took the picture from my hand and stared at it. “Any idea what this means?”
I bit down hard on my lower lip. I had an idea, but I didn’t want to say it out loud, and the words were like peanut butter sitting on my tongue. “I think she and my mom are connected somehow.”
“Holy crapkittens, Styles. That’s . . . that’s just crazy.”
“Tell me about it.”
I must have look panicked or wounded in some way because Maggie leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “Look, no matter what, I’ve got your back. We’ll figure all this out together, okay? I promise.”
“No offense, Mags, but I don’t think that’s a promise you can keep.”
“Well, I’m gonna try.”
I’d always admired Maggie’s determination—even if it was fueled by mule-headed stubbornness. In this case, I was grateful for it. I took a deep breath. “So what now?”
Maggie looped her arm through mine and steered me toward the double doors of the library. “We’ll just have to April O’Neal this thing until we find the answers.”
“Just like that, huh?”
She grinned. “Yup. Just like that.”
“You’re something else, Mags.”
“Is that a nice way of saying I’m totally crazy?”
“Well . . .” I smiled.
Maggie shook her head at me. “Oh, Styles. If I ask you to hop on a Nozgul and fly into the fiery depths of Mordor with me, then you can call me crazy. But for now, let’s just go with cheerfully optimistic.”
I let out a loud laugh. “Fair enough.”