Death and the Girl Next Door (8 page)

Cameron lifted Jared and threw him onto the windshield of a silver Buick. The car dipped then bounced up and froze, distorted in time as though someone had taken a picture when least expected. The windshield splintered into a thousand shards of sparkling glass, yet held in place, creating a glittering mosaic.

Still on the car, Jared kicked when Cameron charged forward, sending him backwards through the store window, the same window mother and daughter stood peering into. He missed the women by inches.

Again, the glass cracked as if aging before my eyes, fissures webbing throughout the pane. A small crunching sound could be heard; jagged edges surrounded the hole his body created, and yet time held it in place.

Jared slid off the car and eyed the opening Cameron’s figure had carved into the window, waiting for his adversary to reappear.

I held my breath, hoping Cameron had been knocked unconscious so the fight would end.

Please, please let it end.

As I watched the window expectantly, I heard a groan from Jared. I looked over at him. He suddenly seemed dizzy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he clutched his stomach and fell to his knees. My heart jumped in alarm. He struggled unsuccessfully to stand, as I ran to him.

I fell to my hands and knees beside him. “Jared, are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

Of course he wasn’t okay. He’d just been thrown into a windshield. Yet he didn’t have a scratch on him. Cameron bled. A lot. Jared obviously did not. Though his skin remained flawless, his face contorted in agony. He grimaced and doubled over again.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Please, Jared. Please let it stop. This is insane.”

But he seemed lost, confused. “What’s happening to me?”

Just then Cameron kicked through the splintered glass, carrying a ragged piece of wreckage he had pulled from inside the store. He stood over us, bloodied, panting hard with each breath.

I looked up at him. “Cameron, stop.”

“Get out of the way, Lorelei,” he said, a hard warning in his tone.

“He’s hurt.”

“Yeah, but it’s still breathing.” He took the makeshift weapon in both hands like a baseball bat.

“What’s happening to me?” Jared put a palm to his head and gritted his teeth. He held his stomach and doubled over for a third time, as if seized by a wave of excruciating pain. “What’s happening?”

“What’s happening?” Cameron asked with a bright smile. “You’re getting your ass kicked, that’s what’s happening. Now, get out of the way, Lorelei.”

“What are you doing to me?” Jared asked, his voice a caustic whisper.

“I just told you, tough guy. I’m kicking your ass. You have a super short attention span.” He leveled a warning glare on me. “I won’t say it again.”

I realized I was crying. Tears blurred the determined face and ice blue eyes staring down at me.

“Put that down, Cameron,” I said between pathetic sobs. “I mean it.”

Frowning in frustration, Cameron grabbed my arm and jerked me back. I fought his hold with every ounce of energy I had, but he was simply too strong. I felt like a gnat fighting a diesel truck. He tossed me aside as easily as tossing paper into a breeze.

Before I could get my footing, Cameron took the board into both hands and swung. It struck Jared on the side of his head, knocking him onto his hands for balance. Jared looked toward the heavens, as if questioning God Himself, then collapsed onto the sidewalk.

When Cameron brought the board to the ready again, I ran at him. I charged with all my might and rammed a shoulder into his side. It surprised him and was enough to knock him off balance. He stumbled just as the world restarted. And it restarted with a vengeance. The force of time bouncing back knocked the breath out of me.

I gasped for air and glanced around. The skateboarder landed perfectly as his friends applauded his feat. The storefront window shifted with the power surge, showering small shards of glass around mother and daughter. They screamed and jumped back. The everyday noises of town replaced the thick void of silence: cars whirring, birds chirping, people talking—the sounds one becomes immune to until they are no longer there. The Buick’s car alarm began blaring too as it bounced back into position.

Behind me, a delivery truck screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection, its tires smoking in protest. The driver jumped out and ran over to where I was lying before. He scanned the area, confused.

“Wow, what happened to you, dude?”

One of the skaters spotted Cameron. He glanced at Jared, then back again. “Hey, man,” he said, showing his palms, “we don’t want any trouble.”

Without another word, the skaters took off while the mother grabbed her daughter and backed away, her eyes wide and wary. I could hardly blame them. Cameron, spattered with blood and debris, held a board as though methodically planning the deaths of anyone within reach.

I started toward Jared, but Cameron grabbed me again.

“Get to my truck,” he ordered, then shoved me in the direction of his pickup parked down the street.

As I stumbled for the kazillionth time that day, fury took hold. A searing heat laced up my spine. My cheeks grew hot with anger. I straightened to my full height—which, admittedly, wasn’t much—and strode back to Cameron, purpose apparent in my every move. I had been shoved once too often that day. Enough was enough.

Though he was much too tall to stand eye-to-eye with, my pissed-off attitude seemed enough to get his attention. I stood in front of him, feet apart, fists on hips, and glared as ferociously as I could.

He pointed a finger at me in warning. “Lorelei—”

“If I get hit,” I said, interrupting whatever dire threat he had in mind, “shoved,” I continued, stepping closer for effect, “or run over one more time today, I swear by all that is holy, I will make it my personal goal in life to have the person responsible sent to prison on charges of kiddie porn.”

Cameron stared at me, annoyance working his jaw. “Please, go to my truck,” he said at last. “It’s … not safe.”

“You’re not safe.” Though I rolled onto my tiptoes, I still missed eye-level contact by over a foot. “And I’m not leaving him.”

“I have no intention of leaving it. Please, just get to my truck.”

A small crowd had gathered and people were beginning to ask questions, but none dared go near Cameron. I could hardly blame them.

“Fine,” I said through my tightened jaw. I leaned in and poked his chest with an index finger. “But don’t shove me again.”

He dropped his make-shift weapon and surrendered with palms up. “You had me at kiddie porn.”

Satisfied, I scooped up my backpack and waited for Cameron. He took hold of Jared’s ankles and dragged him through the glass on the sidewalk and across the graveled street toward his truck. Their progress made a disturbing crunching sound.

I followed beside them, wanting to help Jared but unsure of what to do. For the first time, blood covered one side of his face, the side Cameron had hit with the store wreckage.

He was bleeding. Why now?

Cameron continued to drag him over the rough, graveled pavement until we arrived at his aging pickup. Rust and splotches of peeling tan and cream-colored paint held it together. A lopsided camper shell sat perched over the bed. The vehicle as a whole looked like it had recently survived a nuclear explosion.

Cameron dropped Jared’s ankles to open the tailgate and camper lid. Inside, crumpled blankets and pillows covered the bed floor. Dirty clothes formed a pile in one corner along with a few empty water bottles, soda cans, and a box of crackers. I glanced at Cameron, wondered how many times he had slept in his pickup. And why.

As he bent to grab Jared, I tossed my backpack in the bed and crawled inside. Cameron straightened.

“Get out of the bed. You can’t stay back here with it.”

“We have to get him to a hospital.” Despite my best efforts, desperation tinged my voice. “And stop calling him an it. He’s a person, Cameron.”

I thought he was going to laugh at me. Then he heard the sirens.

“It’s no more a person than your backpack is. And I was thinking more along the lines of the morgue.” He lifted Jared with little effort and shoved him beside me in the truck.

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. Now, get out.” When I refused, he reached in, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me roughly until I stumbled onto the pavement. “Get in the front seat,” he ordered.

My anger ignited again. As he turned to close the tailgate, I swung a fist and hit him on the arm. Though it hardly fazed him, he did gift me with a quick glance.

“I told you not to shove me again.”

“I didn’t shove you,” he said, reaching for the lid of the camper shell. “I dragged you.”

The lid’s hinge stuck on one side. When he reached to release it, I scrambled over the tailgate and back into the bed.

“Damn it, Lorelei.” He glared at me, but I scooted to the farthest corner from him. If he wanted me, he was going to have to work for it.

“What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

He eyed me for a long time before finally answering. “Whatever it takes.”

Just then Jared moaned. Cameron stilled, watched him as though he were a cobra about to strike. He held out a hand without taking his wary gaze off Jared.

“Take my hand.”

“No,” I said defiantly. “What are you going to do?”

The sirens were getting closer.

“Lorelei, you don’t know what it is, what it’s capable of.”

“What are you going to do?”

He closed his eyes in frustration and sucked in a lungful of air. Without looking at me, he asked one more time.

“Lorelei, please.”

“No.” My voice was soft, more unsure than I’d wanted. But I refused to move. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wouldn’t leave him.”

Without warning, Cameron slammed his fist into the tailgate. The pickup lunged forward as the tailgate crunched inward, yielding to his strength, reminding me of his potential.

He reached up and slammed the camper lid shut with the same angry force. I was surprised the glass didn’t shatter.

I heard him retrieve the rifle from across the street before climbing into the driver’s seat. He started the pickup then backed onto a side street to avoid the approaching police cars. With tires squealing, he turned and headed toward the highway.

PARADOX

Jared lay unconscious on his back, his face turned toward me, his thick lashes forming half circles across his cheeks. He swayed with the motion of the truck, like a child sleeping, oblivious of the world around him. His breathing, deep and steady, helped me relax, even if just barely. Blood streaked over his jaw and mouth. I took a dirty T-shirt from the corner to wipe it off, but only managed to smear it. He looked darker. His skin wasn’t as light as it had been, like something had changed.

He was a paradox, I thought, a self-contradiction. He looked so young, so new to the world, but when he touched me, he seemed centuries old. I saw knowledge in his eyes of things no one could know. And my vision. Had it been real? Had that really happened? Maybe he was from another dimension, another time.

The glass between the camper and cab slid open. I looked up. Cameron was trying to keep an eye on the road and me at the same time.

“Climb up here,” he said.

Eyeing the minuscule opening, I gave him my best look of incredulity.

“If it wakes up,” he continued, “we’ll both be in a world of trouble.”

“I can’t fit through there.”

“Give me a break. You weigh, like, two pounds.”

I rolled onto my knees and glanced through the window at the road. We were headed down into Abo Canyon. “We have to get him to a hospital,” I said, panic threading through my words. “Where are we going?”

“Lorelei, please. If you’ll just get up here, I’ll explain what I can.”

“No. Where are we going first?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said with an irritated sigh. His hands, stained with the dark reds of human blood, tightened on the wheel.

“Cameron, just turn around. He could die.”

He frowned into the rearview mirror at me. “It’ll take a lot more than that to kill it.” He looked back at the road, his brows kneading in thought. “I may have to use a chain saw.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “That wasn’t funny.”

“Good thing I wasn’t kidding, then.” He checked his side-view mirror. “Damn it.”

“What?” I looked out the back glass as an eighteen-wheeler bore down on us, so close that all I could see was its chrome grille. The steep grade of the canyon made it difficult for trucks to maneuver through its twists and turns.

“Nothing like a rectal exam by an eighteen-wheeler.”

“Cameron, turn around,” I said, searching the area for a place to pull over. There just wasn’t one, and wouldn’t be for a few miles.

“Look, as soon as we get out of the canyon, I’ll explain, okay? I have to get you to a safe place.”

“Me?” I asked, stunned. “Why me? What’s this all about?”

I glanced over my shoulder. The eighteen-wheeler was struggling with its speed, but it did manage to back off a few feet.

“Would you just quit arguing and get up here?”

I looked down at Jared. Blood had pooled on the blanket beneath his chin. “He’s bleeding really bad.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the idea when I hit him with that board.”

Exasperated, I leaned in through the window to look at him point-blank. He concentrated on the road, but slanted his eyes toward me as I came into his peripheral vision.

He was an absolute mess. His blond hair hung in clumps caked with blood. Scratches and cuts and some rather impressive bruises covered his swollen face. His mouth bled from a deep gash in the corner, as did his right eye.

I had to reason with him. I needed answers, and Jared needed a hospital. “Cameron,” I said, my voice pleading, “why is this happening? Why are you and Jared so strong? Why are you trying to kill each other? And what does any of this have to do with me?”

He squeezed the steering wheel as though uncomfortable with my proximity. After wiping his face across a shoulder, he turned away to look down the side of the mountain. We were coming off the grade. The ground leveled and the truck backed off even more.