TAYLOR COOK
MAR A VISTA—CALIFORNIA
TAYLOR GOT AN UNEASY FEELING IN THE PIT OF her stomach as soon as the taillights came into view.
They were on a back road headed south from the Academy. Probably gorgeous in daylight, but empty and ominous at night. Taylor couldn’t understand where her anxiety was coming from. She’d grown up in big, empty expanses like this. She’d never been unnerved by stretches of lonely country.
That was before the attack on her farm. Before the nightmares.
Isabela had the radio on. Bright pop music that seemed at odds with the night. Nigel agreed.
“Turn that rubbish off,” he complained again and again.
“I am the driver,” Isabela replied. “This means I choose the music.”
“Bloody hell, let me drive then.”
“No. You would kill us all. Drive on the wrong side of the road or something. Or poison our characters with your terrible punk rock.”
“Aw, your character’s already poisoned enough, darling.”
“You should broaden your horizons, Isabela,” Kopano said. “Nigel’s music is awesome.” Isabela shot him a withering look and he held up his hands. “What you’re playing is fine, too.”
Taylor looked over her shoulder. Ran sat cross-legged in the back, the bumpy riding not at all disturbing her meditation. Caleb sat next to her, his hand holding one of the cargo straps so he didn’t slide across the van whenever Isabela took a turn too fast. He was watching her. Taylor still didn’t know what to make of him. He had a crush on her? He was mentally disturbed? He was a sort of dorky boy from the Midwest? She caught his eye and immediately worried such a look would be misinterpreted.
“Everything okay?” Caleb asked her. He must have read the unease on her face.
“Yeah,” she replied, and forced a smile.
“America is much bigger than I thought,” Kopano observed cheerily. He’d wedged himself in between Isabela and Taylor, his butt on Isabela’s armrest, his arm across the back of Taylor’s chair. “Do you know I used to think one could drive from New York to California in a day?”
Taylor chuckled as she glanced up at him, relaxing a little. “Maybe if you drove like Isabela.”
Isabela nodded firmly. “Yes. I could do that.”
“Are we there yet?” Kopano asked.
“God, you are like a child,” Isabela snapped. “It was an hour when you asked five minutes ago. Do the math, big boy.”
“Don’t make her turn the car around,” Taylor said with a smirk.
“Look!” Kopano said, pointing through the windshield. “An accident?”
The taillights.
Kopano was the first one to spot them. Up ahead, a beat-up station wagon was parked across the center lane. The hood was popped, the headlights on, two silhouettes visible as they peered down at the engine. A curl of steam or smoke emanated from the open hood.
Immediately, Isabela stepped on the brakes. As the van slowed to a crawl, Isabela turned down the music.
“Looks like a breakdown,” Caleb said.
“We should help,” Kopano put in.
“I actually know a few things about cars,” Caleb added. “Used to hang around with the base mechanics—”
“Should we really be stopping?” Taylor asked, embarrassed by the quaking unease in her voice. “We don’t know these people.”
Kopano gave her a surprised look. “Seriously? We just drive by them?”
“Need I remind you, we aren’t supposed to be away from the Academy?” Isabela said sharply. “In San Francisco, we will blend into the crowd. But out here? What if that is someone from the school?”
Caleb squinted into the headlights as the van creaked closer to the breakdown. “If they’re from the Academy, they’ll probably recognize us anyway.”
Nigel glanced at Ran. She peered through the windshield with an arched eyebrow, her lips pursed. He turned to the others. “If they aren’t from the Academy, then what are they doing out here?”
“Driving,” Kopano said with a laugh. “Going to the beach? Hiking? You guys are being paranoid.”
“I would think it best if we avoid being seen this close to the Academy,” Ran said.
That settled matters for Isabela. She leaned over the wheel. “Everyone duck down and I will drive us on the shoulder.”
Before Isabela could do that, one of the people standing by the station wagon jogged into their headlights and waved. Taylor relaxed a bit when she saw it was just a girl, no more than a few years older than herself. The girl’s pretty face was framed by a hijab, the dark fabric gaudily bedazzled. She wore a dress that covered her from neck to ankle, obviously expensive and fashionable. Completely normal, thought Taylor.
“Hey! Can you help us?” the girl yelled, standing right in their way.
Kopano laughed. “A stranded girl! And you cruel people wanted to flee the scene.”
Isabela put the van in park and rolled down her window. The girl hustled over, smiling sweetly as she got on her tiptoes and looked into the van.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said breathlessly. “My dad and I have been stuck out here for like an hour. We just need a jump.”
“I do not know what that is,” Isabela said.
While they talked, Taylor found herself not looking at the girl but at the burly shape of her father. She couldn’t see much of him besides that he had a tangled mane of curly hair. As he fiddled with the engine, his arms briefly came into the light. Taylor spotted a strange smudge of grease on his forearm. She leaned forward, trying to get a better look . . .
“Do you have cables?” Caleb asked. He got up and opened the back of the van. “Hang on. Let me come take a look.”
As Caleb brushed by him, Nigel pressed up against the window. His head tilted. Something moved out there. He was sure of it. He cupped his hands around his eyes, trying to see through the glass into the dark.
“Oi, Ran . . . ,” he said quietly.
The Japanese girl perked up and came to his side.
“Someone’s out there,” Nigel whispered.
Meanwhile, as Caleb climbed out of the back of the van, the girl waved to her father. “These are the ones, Dad! They’re going to help us out!”
These are the ones. What a strange way to say that. The girl’s words set off Isabela’s finely tuned bullshit detector. She shot a glance in Taylor’s direction, but Taylor was too busy staring wide-eyed at the girl’s “father” to notice.
The man had straightened up from his hunched position over the station wagon. He waved to his daughter and his arm came fully into the light. Taylor immediately recognized the symbol tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
Circle. Snake. Scythe.
“Isabela! We have to go!” Taylor screamed.
But it was too late.
As Taylor turned to Isabela, panicked, the other girl smoothly pulled a pistol from within the folds of her dress and shot Isabela in the neck.