Second Skin (Skinned) (25 page)

They both collapsed to the stage floor.

My body slipped to the floor, but my thoughts raced wildly. This was all wrong. Rodale had just sent the entire population of the Harvest Moon Dance to bed with the night mare stalking our dreams. It could feed on all our fears, desires, and memories. We could be lost in the dream realm forever.

The wall came tumbling down.
WADE!
I screamed, but he didn’t answer.

Then it all went black.

Oh, No You Don't

Salt water rushed into my mouth. I gagged on the brine. I pumped my legs harder, propelling my torso a few more inches clear of the sea. Lungs bursting, I sucked in a gulp of air. Another wave struck, and the world was reduced to a dull roar as I went under. I clawed for the surface, but the weight of my skirts dragged me into the cold gloomy depths.

“Man overboard!”

Bells clamored. Rough hands pulled me from the sea’s possessive embrace. My hair had become dripping, lifeless ropes tangled with slimy weeds, clinging to my neck and shoulders. Gusts of frigid wind swept across the wooden deck. I shivered and trembled, muscles in my legs and arms cramping in stabs of agony. I’d never be warm again.

“By God, it’s a woman.”

I opened my eyes and observed the men towering over me as I lay on my back. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, threatening to slice into my bottom lip or cut off my tongue. The force of my inner tremors knocked my head against the wooden planks. I contracted my muscles and assessed my surroundings. At my side were men clad in ragged white shirts and brown leather vests, with scarves wrapped around their substantial girths, trailing to their swashbuckler boots. The sailors swayed with the sea. The motion brought on a bout of nausea. As salt water gurgled from my mouth, I stared beyond their sly faces at the clouds trapped against impossibly tall stalks of wood. Billowing with the wind.

Sails.

A black flag with white skull and crossbones waved on the mast.

An honest-to-God, poke-a-needle-in-my-eye, crazy-freaking- real pirate ship.

Low voices reached my ears—words spoken with a thick British accent. One voice pleading, the other authoritative. Compelling. Familiar.

“But why can’t we keep her? It’s not like she’d be an extra mouth to feed.”

“The boys will fight over this one. Best to throw her back in.” “Aww, captain, let them have some sport. We ain’t had a show since Mad Micky had the scurvy.” A pause. Then hopeful, “We could make her walk the plank at the very least. Always cheers the lads up a mite.”

The plank?
Yeah, right. That was probably pirate code for something really nasty.

I groaned and sat up, clutching my aching ribs. I looked down at a ruby blouse and skirt, my waist caged in a black bustier that had actually produced cleavage from my meager offerings. No wonder I couldn’t breathe. Might as well have been wearing a boa constrictor. I struggled to my feet and scanned the horizon just above the sides of the ship. Not a hint of land in sight. I stumbled, tripping over the damp, unwieldy length of my skirt.

My movements had the men circling me like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

“She’s a bonnie thing.”

“I heaved her out of the water. Finders keepers, I say.”

The pirates unsheathed their weapons in a series of swooshes and clangs. Dread pooled in my stomach. I held up my hands, standing in the center of a deadly circle as twenty sword tips pointed at me from all directions. Sharpened metal gleamed under the scorching sun. I stared down the blades at weathered, gap- toothed, cunning faces. The swashbucklers looked pleased with themselves for making such a fine catch. Each had a glint of lust in his eye.

Each wanted first dibs. On me.

I swallowed hard, my throat still burning from the salt water

I’d gulped.

“I suppose there’s amusement to be had before we toss the lass over.” The captain’s bored tones reached my ears. “Give her a go, lads.”

Give her a…what? Where was the plank when you needed it?

I scanned the deck and zeroed in on the captain’s location as he turned from the men. His long charcoal coat swirled at his feet, the black silk scarf at his neck snapped in the wind as he climbed a wide wooden staircase to the bridge. His familiar, smooth movements caused yearning to strike me low and hard. He’d change his mind. He’d come back and call off his men.

Or he’d simply glide away and disappear from view, leaving me to my fate. Like he’d done before.

I took in a shuddering breath. It was up to me now.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the foul stench of unkempt bodies. I held a hand over my nose, glaring at my captors, assessing their rounded shoulders and lust-filled eyes for the weakest link. The one who’d never expect a woman to fight back. Hard. One particularly ugly specimen licked his lips and stepped forward, making my decision easy. He boldly slid the point of his blade along my neck, resting it on the exposed flesh and flimsy ties of my corset.

Oh, no you don’t.
I reached for my athame, clutched at my ribs but found only the bones of the garment binding me. Stupid, rotten, highly impractical, though admittedly gorgeous dress. How was a girl supposed to stow a weapon in this getup?

I swore, loud and long. The men tittered. “We’ve got a live one, mates.”

Did they ever. A popping. An ache along my jaw. “What’s she doing?”

I wasn’t a damsel in distress, vulnerable. Helpless. The wobble of teeth and a feeling of release as canines extended and filled my mouth.

“Run lads, it’s a she-devil!”

They should have thrown this catch back into the sea. A growl rumbled in my chest. I lifted my head and howled.

The scent of brine faded, only to be replaced by gunpowder and death. My throat burned, raw as if I’d been screaming for my life.

The ship was gone, and I’d returned to human form, crouching low in a six-foot-high earthen trench. I shivered as a brutal night wind whirled at my back. My feet were cramped within heavy boots and seizing up in the cold. How had I gotten here? What happened to the ship? I could barely recall the sails, the splintered wood at my back. I crawled along the earth, searching.

“Where’s my dagger?” I muttered under my breath, desperate to feel its familiar weight in my hands. I came to my knees, dug deep into the blood-soaked soil like a dog uncovering a bone.

“Quit your bitching, recruit,” a guttural voice hollered.

In the moonlight a shape came out of the mist that hovered and snaked through the trench. A captain in a mud-encrusted uniform stalked forward, shoulders hunched, knees bent in a crouch like he’d been traveling this pit for years. I had no idea how anyone could survive here that long. Tracer rounds flew by his helmet, thudded into the ground, burying themselves deep.

“We’ve got a mission to complete.” He tipped his helmet back with his rifle. “Here’s your first lesson, soldier. You drop your weapon, you pick one up from the dead.” He nudged my shoulder with his boot. Unbalanced, I fell backward onto a pile of sandbags.

The hairs on my neck trembled, and my body stilled. Not sandbags. I’d landed on a body stiff with rigor mortis.

“Take Cooper’s. Not like he’s using it.” With that the captain continued on, barking orders at other men huddled in shell holes.

I turned my head and met the cloudy gaze of the dead soldier beneath me. He was a mountain of a man. No, a boy, with high cheekbones, tanned skin, and black hair.

The name wasn’t right. Not Cooper, but who?

I scrambled off him, bile collecting at the back of my throat. Just a boy, now dead. His body draped over a crumbling half- empty ammunition crate, his raw, muddied fingers contracted around the barrel of a gun.

He’d given his all, done everything man and country had asked of him—sacrificed it all, and for what? Guts and glory? A wrenching sob built inside of me that, once released, would never stop. I gritted my teeth and refused to give it a voice.

Why did I feel like I’d let him down? Caused his death?

I hesitated. A whistle from high above descended hard and fast. I ducked my head against the fallen soldier. An artillery round exploded to my right. I heaved Cooper onto his side, using his girth as a shield. Shrapnel embedded into the frozen flesh of his back. His body pressed down on me with the impact of each hit. I watched for a change of expression in those dead eyes, but he slept on, oblivious to the nightmare around us.

My throat clenched and my vision blurred as I grabbed his weapon and tugged. I yanked again, but it cleaved tight to its owner. Do instruments of death ever have a master? I planted my knees in the mud, floundering for an instant, and coming all too close to sprawling once more over that cold, rigid body. I pried the dead boy’s fingers one by one from the barrel, feeling the bones give way under the pressure. Finally, I held the rifle in my shaking hands. I took the ammo as well. Like the commander said, Cooper no longer had use for it. Battle always had its casualties. The living had to ensure their deaths had meaning.

Over distant, crackling gunfire, a happy pinging rang in my ears. Then a calm voice said,
Rifle acquired. Ammunition acquired. You’ve earned 50 bonus life points
.

What the hell?

“Who said that?” I called up into the night, shifting my weight, pivoting in a slow circle. “Where are you?”

“Where’s who?”

I whirled to face Janie. Blonde curls bounced around my head, sliding across my face, getting stuck in my lip-gloss. I spat out a lock or two. “Who, what?” I glared at Janie, keeping her in my sights. You never knew when she’d stab you in the back. “Forget it,” she drawled. Her manicured nails slid over the fine cotton tank tops hanging on a rack. “Did you see what Lili wore to school today? I swear, it’s like that girl doesn’t have eyes in her head.”

Razor slicing deep. Blood, so much blood.

I blinked, grabbed Janie before I collapsed in the middle of Redgrave Mall.
This was wrong.
I stared down at my short skirt and go-go boots.
I
was all wrong. I had to look up into Janie’s face. I was about six inches shorter than she was, despite the boots. I shook my head. Impossible. Blonde curls bobbed in my peripheral vision. I scrunched my hands through the voluminous hair on my head. Ringlets linked and knotted around my fingers. I shoved Janie aside, staring into the full-length mirror mounted to a support beam. Blue eyes blinked back at me.

Sweet Jesus, I was
Paige
.

Janie’s lips twisted into a sneer. “What’s your problem?” She made quote marks with her fingers. “
Fasting
again?”

Was Janie implying Paige was anorexic? I turned sideways. Paige’s—
my?
—reflection cut a lean line, and I did feel…weightless. But that could just be because I appeared to be inside my cousin’s body.

What a nightmare.

I winced. That was it. I
was
in a nightmare. I’d been slipping in and out of them for a while. The pirates, the soldier. A flash of the costumed kids at the Harvest Moon Dance and how they’d dropped to the gym floor. Dreaming. Having nightmares.

And now I was in one of Paige’s.