Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (23 page)

Were the Egrgoroi
responsible for pivotal decisions throughout history? Did an
Egrgoroi put the idea of shooting JFK in Lee Harvey Oswald’s mind?
Were the gods bored one day and decided to have an Egrgoroi suggest
the marriage between Marie Antoinette and the man who would become
Louis XVI because they knew the French people didn’t want to eat
cake and would, therefore, revolt? In a fair and just world, would
Kelly Clarkson really have won the first season of
American Idol
? Or was
her victory
the result of Egrgoroi
interference?

While I wanted to make a
worthwhile contribution to
humanity,
I had no desire to spend
the rest of my life coaching team Elysian or team Tartarus, calling
plays from the underworld playbook. I’d been thinking more along
the lines of
Teach for America
or Doctors Without Borders. Hell, I’d settle for
graduating from high school at this point.

“It’s not the only reason I asked to
see you. You aren’t exactly hard to look at. You’re a great
athlete. Contrary to what some people think, I wouldn’t use any
adjective to describe you that rhymes with witch. And Terrence
tells me you’re easy.”

“What?” I demanded incredulously,
startled out of my internal musings. “Terrence said
what?”

Kannon laughed. “Just wanted to see if
you were paying attention. Your eyes were sort of glazed over, and
you looked like you were tuned in to a different
channel.”

“Very funny,” I scoffed, throwing a
handful of the paper confetti I’d made from my napkin in his
direction.

“Why don’t you tell me about your
friends? Or the classes you are taking? Where you’re going to
college?” Kannon suggested.

So I did. I told him about
Elizabeth and her dysfunctional family, Devon and Rick and their
soap opera relationship, and Mandy and her upcoming date
with Matthew Horcowitz. Kannon said he didn’t
personally know Matthew, but would do a background check for me. We
were taking a number of the same AP classes, so we discussed the
upcoming exams and how each of us was preparing. Or not preparing,
in my case. I told him that the space next to my name on the
Guidance Office wall of seniors still said undecided for the
college I’d be attending. The acceptance deadlines were fast
approaching, and my mother and I were still arguing over whether I
could go out of state. Kannon told me he planned on attending Johns
Hopkins to play lacrosse.

We discussed our families.
The normalcy of his life with a mother, father, and two younger
sisters made my
overprotective-mother-who-accused-my-father-of-kidnapping story
that much more ridiculous. Kannon was sympathetic and
nonjudgmental, if not a little more interested in my parents’
fights than I thought prudent. But I guess when you come from a
perfect
family, maybe the drama was
interesting.

Kannon’s phone rang, from what sounded
like his pocket, while he was telling me how his family had moved
to Maryland from Connecticut because of his father’s job with a
company that engineered jet parts.

“Sorry. I thought I turned the ringer
off,” he said, reaching to silence his phone. When he saw the name
on the display, he paused. “Hmm, don’t know who that is,” he
commented as he sent the caller to voice mail. “So, yeah. I started
at St. Paul’s in the fall of this year –” The phone was now
vibrating on the table top. Kannon picked it up, clearly annoyed.
“It’s that number again,” he said, then rattled off ten digits I
knew well.

My cheeks felt like they were on fire.
How embarrassing. My mother was actually calling his
phone.

“I am soooooo sorry,” I said. “It’s my
mother. When I told her I was meeting you tonight, she asked for
your number in case she needed to get in touch with me and I wasn’t
answering my phone. I turned it on silent and – what time is
it?”

Kannon smirked. “It’s fine, Endora.
Why don’t you answer, though? I don’t want her sticking the cops on
my tail.”

I couldn’t decide if I found that
funny as I snatched the phone from his hand and said a very annoyed
greeting to my mother.

“Endora? I thought you said nine? It
is now 9:15, and I am home and you are not,” Mom
replied.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so
late. We’ll get the check, and then I will head home. Is that okay?
I’ll be there by ten at the latest,” I promised.

“Please don’t dawdle, and drive
carefully,” Mom told me and hung up.

I handed the phone back to Kannon,
apologizing profusely for my mother.

“I’ll go find the old man and pay the
check,” Kannon offered. “Don’t go until I get back.”

“You don’t have to pay. It’s not like
this is a date,” I mumbled, now feeling embarrassed for a whole
different reason.

Kannon’s green eyes widened. “It’s
not?” he asked. “We had dinner.” He seemed to reconsider. “Well, I
had dinner and you played with your food.” He pointed to my plate
of nibbled fries and untouched sandwich.

Impossibly, I blushed
deeper. I wasn’t the type of girl who ordered salads without
dressing on dates, only to go home and gorge on
Twinkies afterwards
. Our earlier
conversation had left me with little desire to eat, and the latter
one hadn’t left me time to squeeze in bites.

“We shared our innermost secrets,”
Kannon continued. “I know you have an irrational fear of revolving
doors, and you know that when I was six I ate the last piece of my
dad’s birthday cake and blamed it on the dog.” Kannon paused for
dramatic effect. “And in the parking lot, standing next to your
car, I am going to at least try to kiss you.”

I was speechless. Not that a large
part of me hadn’t been secretly hoping he would kiss me. I just
couldn’t believe he actually said it. Kannon left me staring,
dumbstruck, as he went in search of Mr. Haverty.

Ten minutes later, we were indeed
standing next to the Bug saying our goodbyes. Kannon held up his
palm midway between us. Tentatively, I mirrored the gesture.
Electricity pulsed between our hands. The bluish white current lit
up the space between our palms, audibly crackling as it traveled
the short distance. The sight was mesmerizing, magnetically drawing
my gaze and making it impossible to turn away.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I
asked, my voice sounding unnaturally high-pitched.

“No. But you only live twice, right?”
Kannon teased, although it sounded a little forced.

His hand jerked forward,
fingers intertwining with mine. The jolt reverberated through my
entire body, causing my toes to tingle and my knees to go weak.
Energy coursed in my veins, throwing my heartbeat into an irregular
rhythm. Even if I’d wanted to break the connection, I doubted it
would have been possible. I had no desire to pull away, however.
Gone were the conflicted sensations that I’d come to associate with
Kannon.
Only the craving to be closer to
him, the thrill of being near him, the excitement over his touch,
remained.

Kannon felt it, too. And when I didn’t
fall to the pavement convulsing, like I’d read some people do when
electrocuted, Kannon leaned closer until our lips were millimeters
apart. Every hair stood on end, and I decided no first kiss would
live up to the one I was about to have.

When our mouths finally
met, the hum of electricity intensified, filling my ears with an
insistent buzzing. The current was all around me, inside of me. I
felt more alive than ever. Kannon looped our joined hands behind
his back, and I wrapped
my free arm around
his neck
. The fine hairs on the back of
his neck danced against my palm, each one sending a new charge up
my arm. Kannon’s free hand was on my waist, gently guiding me
backwards until my back rested against the driver’s side door of
the Bug.

Somewhere in that kiss, he
made me a believer. Not in soul mates or kismet or any other
fantastic notion of romantic love
that Elizabeth constantly spouted, but in
everything that he shared with me at dinner. There was something so
honest and pure about him that I knew he was telling the truth. Now
I just needed to figure out what it all meant.

“Maybe you could think about
everything I said earlier, and when you’re ready, we could figure
out how you came to be an Egrgoroi,” Kannon said, when we finally
broke apart.

“If I’m an Egrgoroi,” I corrected. One
of my hands was still playing with his hair, absorbing the current
that passed between us. The longer I sustained contact, the more
pleasant the feeling became.

“You are one of us,” Kannon said in a
tone that left no room for debate. “It’s just not clear how it
happened.”

“How are we going to figure that out?”
I wanted to know.

“I will try and track down some of the
others I’ve met. They’re older, been around longer. They might know
more than I do,” Kannon promised.

Before I could ask any more questions,
his mouth found mine again. His lips were soft as they caressed
mine. When the kiss became deeper, I was grateful to be leaning
against the car because my legs were jelly. Both of Kannon’s hands
rested on my hips, helping keep me upright. Nothing existed outside
our two bodies and I liked it that way.

Chapter
Fourteen

On the drive home, I
learned my mother wasn’t the only one who’d tried to reach me while
I’d been at the Moonlight Diner. Devon had sent no less than
twenty-five texts with a variety of colorful messages that all
boiled down to two words: Call me. Elizabeth also wanted me to
“call with all the details, ASAP.” And despite
not talking
to me since her outburst
in the lobby, Mandy wanted a ride to school the following
morning.

I dutifully replied to all
my friends. Assuring Mandy that I would pick her up so she wouldn’t
be forced to ride the bus came first. To Elizabeth I simply
responded with “Typical 1
^st
date.” A text message
wouldn’t satisfy Devon, however. In truth, I did want to share my
evening with her. That was what best friends were for. I just
didn’t know how much I wanted to divulge. It had been Devon who’d
first realized the connection between my electrical problems and
the near-death experience. Taking it a step further, though, and
throwing in the possibility that I’d been given a second chance at
life in exchange for being some sort of afterlife minion didn’t
sound like the type of
nonsense
she’d swallow.

I set my cell to speaker and dialed
Devon’s number. She answered on the first ring, no doubt having
spent all evening watching her own cell like a pot of water about
to boil.

“Don’t leave out a single detail,”
Devon demanded.

“Hello to you, too,” I
said.

“Don’t play coy or try and be cute. I
want a blow-by-blow. The popcorn is in my lap.”

I took a deep breath and decided to go
for it, tell her everything. If anyone could get to the bottom of
how I came to be an Egrgoroi without meaning to, Devon could. Even
if she had to travel to the underworld and demand an audience with
the Panel of Three, Devon wouldn’t rest until the mysteries of the
universe were mysteries no more.

Surprisingly, she barely interrupted
as I replayed my conversation with Kannon. She didn’t freak out
when I told her that I’d been experiencing the dreams for the past
week, or when I described the half-remembered meeting with a
mythological ferryman. True to form, Devon promised to scour the
ends of the internet and even the physical library to aid in the
quest to find out more about the Egrgoroi and how I’d become
one.

“Do you really believe all of this?” I
asked her after she’d finished rambling off a list of books she was
currently ordering from the local library.

“The question is, do you? History is
full of people that could see the future or heal the sick with one
touch. Wars have been won because of some twist of fate. Disasters
have been averted and lives have been saved because one person
changed her routine. How do you explain that if you don’t believe
in people chosen to help maintain balance on earth?”

“Luck?” I suggested, playing devil’s
advocate.

“No,” Devon said flatly. “The
occurrences are too frequent to be random.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.
Again, the absence of free will bothered me. It meant that my life
wasn’t my own. No decision I made really mattered. Whatever was
meant to be would be. Why study and get good grades and go to a
good college and get a good job if none of it mattered? Why carry
out a to-do list for your life that someone else had
written?

In addition to not
believing in birthdays, my mother also never encouraged a belief in
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny,
or
organized religion
. So I’d never had my
sense of the world shaken quite like it had been after Kannon
dropped his bombshell. Retelling the details to Devon only deepened
my despondency.

“One more question,” Devon was saying.
“Is he a good kisser?”