Shadowlands (Shadowlands (Hyperion)) (10 page)

“I think Joaquin is the hottest guy I’ve ever met,” Darcy said as we stepped onto the boardwalk outside the Thirsty Swan. “Way hotter than Christopher, don’t you think?”

I shot her a quick glance, but she was too busy tipping her head back to gaze at the stars. Christopher. I hadn’t thought about him all day. I guess between Aaron and Tristan and Olive and Joaquin, plus all the potentially-losing-my-mind fun, I’d been kind of distracted.

“Sure. I guess,” I said carefully, listening to the sound of the bay water gently lapping against the pylons as we walked. It was a relief to be out of the bar and away from the noise. Away from that crowd and the jukebox with its oddly disconcerting selections.

Every time I thought about that song coming on, about that whisper, about the humming I’d heard the other day, the laughter in the fog, and the scrap of fabric in the park, my heart seized up painfully and I felt like I wanted to scream. If I didn’t talk it out with someone, I was going to go crazy.

“Darcy, I have something to tell you, but please don’t freak out,” I said.

She stopped walking and eyed me with interest. “What?”

“I thought I heard Steven Nell in the bar tonight,” I said.

My sister’s jaw dropped. It was almost like she’d expected me to say one thing, and I’d done a one-eighty on her.
“What?”

“Someone whispered my name. And not Rory Thayer, Rory Miller,” I said. “Didn’t you hear ‘The Long and Winding Road’ on the jukebox?”

Darcy blinked. “Yeah, but the Beatles are the most popular band ever,” she pointed out.

“And I heard someone humming it outside our house the other morning, too,” I persisted. “Then this morning, I found this scrap of fabric in the park that looked just like that tan jacket he always wore.”

For a long moment, she just stared at me, like she was waiting for more. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it?” I squeaked. “That’s not enough?”

“Rory,” she said, clucking her tongue impatiently. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re just hearing things?”

“Hearing things?” I repeated.

She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like your flashes—a symptom of post-traumatic stress. It totally makes sense that it’s happening again, right? I mean, you were almost killed.”

I gritted my teeth. “This wasn’t like the flashes, Darcy,” I told her. “I can tell the difference between the flashes and reality. I know what I saw! I know what I heard!”

Darcy rolled her eyes and groaned. “Can we please just go? It’s getting cold out here.”

I should have known she’d never take me seriously. In Darcy’s world, nothing bad ever happened. And if it did, she just ignored it or never talked about it. Like after my mom died. All Darcy did was make more friends, buy more clothes at the mall, go to more parties. She never got depressed or nostalgic; she never wanted to reminisce. She was too busy having fun. Too busy moving forward.

“Fine,” I said tightly. “Let’s go.”

We were just about to turn off the boardwalk and head toward town when I saw something shift out on the water. The air seemed to be moving. I grabbed Darcy’s arm, my throat going dry. It was the fog again, and it was rolling in quickly.

“Darcy, look!” I whispered.

“What? Is Steven Nell hanging out on one of the boats?”

By the time she turned her head, the mist was already swirling around us. The odd hissing sound started my pulse pounding in my ears. Darcy was so tense I could practically feel it coming off of her in bursts.

“Come on. It’s getting late.” Darcy started up the hill and completely disappeared. The fog swallowed her whole. Heart in my throat, I lunged forward and sprinted a few steps until I caught sight of her calves—two white stripes flashing in the grayness as she speed-walked ahead of me.

“Darcy!” I whispered. “Slow down.”

“Why don’t
you
keep up, track star?” she shot back.

I tried, but the fog was too disorienting. At the top of the hill, my foot hit an uneven crack in the sidewalk, and my ankle twisted. By the time I’d righted myself, my sister had vanished again entirely.

“Darcy!” I hissed, turning around in the mist. “Darcy! Where are you?”

No answer. Nothing but the hiss of the undulating mist.

“Darcy?” I whimpered.

“I’m right here!” Her voice was practically in my ear.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I whispered, flinging my arm out. My hand hit her shoulder. I’d had no clue she was standing that close.

“Ow!” she said.

I reached to take her hand so we wouldn’t get separated again. “Is that really necessary?” she griped, trying to pull away.

“Yes. Yes, it is,” I replied, crushing her fingers.

“God! Fine! Just loosen it up, would you?”

I did. But only slightly.

Matching our steps, we cut diagonally across the wet grass of the park and headed down the hill toward our house. I could hear the surf rolling into the shore up ahead and started to relax. We were almost there. Almost safe.

Then, somewhere deep inside the fog, someone laughed.

Darcy and I both froze. She squeezed my hand so hard I felt a pop.

“Did you hear that?” she said.

“Yes,” I breathed.

It came again. Another laugh. A low, menacing sort of chuckle. “Darcy?” I whispered hoarsely.

“Run,” she ordered.

We turned and tore off down the street, tripping off the unseen edge of the sidewalk and stumbling across the wide road. The fog tugged at my hair as I ran, pulling it from my cheeks and leaving its warm, moist trail along my skin. My toe hit the opposite curb, and I flew forward, going weightless, but Darcy stopped my fall with a stiff yank on my arm.

“The gate is up here!” she whispered.

We whirled around and screamed as we ran headfirst into someone’s chest. A strong hand clamped around my upper arm. I was about to start begging for our lives when I recognized the evergreen scent of my dad’s shower gel.

“Girls! Get inside! Now!” my father demanded.

I felt like my heart was going to burst. Darcy clung to my side, and we staggered through the open gate, up the steps, and into our house. The bright lights stung my eyes after the darkness of the street, and it took me a second to focus. My father slammed the door behind us, and I lunged to double lock it.

“What were you thinking?” my father fumed, whirling on us. “You leave the house without telling me? Stay out past midnight? What do you think this is, some kind of vacation?”

Darcy crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you expect us to do? Stay locked up in here all the time?”

“Yes!” he screamed, shaking as his face turned fuchsia. “That’s exactly what I expect you to do! We don’t know anyone in this town. You two could have been hurt! Or killed!”

“But we weren’t!” Darcy pointed out angrily. “We’re fine!”

But my dad didn’t seem to hear her. “From now on, you two are grounded. No leaving the house at night. And during the day you’re to tell me exactly where you’re going and who you’re going with. No discussions.”

He turned and started to stomp up the stairs.

“But, Dad,” Darcy whined.

“Don’t talk back to me!” he roared. “It’s for your own safety.”

Darcy’s eyes flashed. “When was the last time you asked me where I was going at night? When I was coming home after school? Who my friends were? Who my boyfriend was?” she ranted, tears spilling over onto her dark red cheeks. “You never ask me anything! You never listen to anything I say! And now all of a sudden you want to tell me what to do, who I can see, where I can go? No! No way! You can’t just suddenly decide to be a father again after five years of complete silence!”

She shoved past him and barreled up the stairs.

“Darcy!” he shouted after her.

“No!” she screamed back. And then her door slammed.

I stood against the wall, staring at our family photo on the table with blurry eyes, trying to catch my breath. Darcy had talked back to my father before, but never like that. She’d never screamed at him. Never laid out all his faults. And now here we were, the two of us, standing amid the destruction of her nuclear bomb.

After a long moment, I heard my dad sigh. I looked up, one tear spilling free, and he gazed back at me. His eyes were heavy and sad. His posture curled. For the first time in a long time, he looked sorry.

“I’m just gonna go to bed,” I said quietly.

He sank down on the stairs, as if the air had been let out of him. By the time I slipped past him, he had his face buried in his hands. I thought of what I’d heard last night, him sobbing alone in his room, and my heart went out to him.

“G’night, Dad,” I said, realizing I hadn’t said it in an impossibly long time.

He didn’t reply at first, but when I got to the top of the stairs, he turned and looked up at me, tears shining in his eyes.

“Good night, Rory.”

This island was not stingy with its gifts. The fog. The fantastic fog. Its blinding quality was so complete. So utterly encompassing. It was like nothing he’d ever seen or heard of or read about, but it was lovely. It was empowering.

He’d been so close to her tonight. So very, very close. He’d tasted her fear again, so sweet and salty. It was all he could do to keep from reaching out and plucking a strand of that hair for himself. To taste it again. To own it. The possibility was almost too much to bear.

But now was not the time. He had already set his plot in motion and could not risk it now. This time, everything was going to happen as planned. This time, nothing and no one would stop him. This time, she would be his.

My thigh muscles were on fire, and my calves were cramping. There was a blister forming on the side of my big toe, and sweat soaked the back of my gray T-shirt. My lungs burned, my eyes watered, and my neck itched whenever my hair brushed against it.

I was in heaven. Why had I waited so long to do this?

As I came around a bend in the trail, the top of the bluff loomed into view. For the first mile, Olive had kept pace with me, panting at my side. After that, she’d dropped back, and now there was nothing but the crashing surf and whipping wind. I hoped she was okay, because I was
not
about to stop. This was way too much fun. Imagining the finish line up ahead, I turned on the heat and pushed myself into a sprint for the last incline. As soon as I reached the top, I let out a triumphant, euphoric laugh. I slowed my steps to a walk and held my fingers to my neck to check my pulse.

Perfect. Everything, at this moment, was perfect. I decided to relish it. Relish the sun on my face, the clean air whooshing in and out of my lungs, that lovely floral scent all around me. I wasn’t going to think about the weird gray house or the scrap of fabric or the whispers, the laughing, or the humming. I wasn’t even going to ponder the fact that Darcy had refused to take me seriously last night, or that my dad hadn’t come out of his room this morning. I was just going to stand here and breathe.

Just beneath me on the hill was a small outcropping with a pretty white gazebo at its center, and farther below I could see the roof of our house on Magnolia Street. Beyond that, the ocean went on forever. I reached my arms over my head and stretched.

My mother would have loved this place. She lived for the beach, for quaint little shopping towns. The gardens here would have had her falling over with envy, and I could just imagine her peppering the locals with questions about how they got their tulips to bloom so late in the season and whether her roses needed more or less pruning. I felt a pang of sadness, wishing she were here in this place that seemed tailor-made for her, and did my best to brush it aside. Those pangs were part of my life now—they would be forever—and while I sometimes let myself wallow in them, this was not one of those times. Not when I was trying to appreciate the perfect.

To my left, a thin, paved walkway cut into the grass, which eventually broke off in two directions. One led right to the big blue house Darcy had noticed yesterday, the other toward the street where it turned into a wide sidewalk. I walked over to a bench situated right at the fork in the path and set myself up behind it for a calf stretch while I waited for Olive. As soon as I turned my back to the house, I felt a chill as if someone was watching me and glanced over my shoulder. The hanging plants swung in the breeze, and the weathervane atop the roof held a position of due south. Otherwise, the place was still.

“God, you weren’t kidding when you said you were a runner!” Olive said between gasps when she finally joined me a good five minutes later. She dropped down onto the bench and put her head between her knees. Her long-sleeved gray-and-black striped T-shirt was saturated with sweat. “You’re wicked fast.”

“Eh, I’m a solid third-placer,” I said, lifting one shoulder.

Her eyes went wide. “Third place? Do the people who come in first have wings on their feet?”

I laughed and reached back to grab my ankle to stretch my quads. “So I guess you’ve decided running’s not your thing?”

“Not even a little bit,” Olive said, holding her hand to her heart as she tried to regulate her breathing.

I gave her a wry smile. “Well, thanks, anyway, for getting me to come out with you. This was exactly what I needed. For the last half hour, I didn’t have one serious thought.”

“No problem,” Olive replied. She tugged her headband out of her hair. “Do you usually have a lot of serious thoughts?”

My heart thumped at all the thoughts darkening my mind—thoughts that I couldn’t share. I walked around and sat next to her, resting my forearms across my knees.

“Things have just been really…tough for my family lately,” I hedged.

Olive pursed her lips. “I hear you.” She stuffed her headband into the pocket of her shorts, bulky cargo things that were not made for running, and leaned back, crooking her arms behind her head. “Of course, I’m the one who made things tough, so…”

She trailed off, pulling her feet up onto the bench and looking past my shoulder to the west. In that direction were the docks of the boatyard and about half a dozen boats bobbing peacefully on the bay. Looming in the distance to the north was the bridge, surrounded, as always, by thick fog. There was something mesmerizing about all that slowly swirling gray mist. From a distance, it wasn’t as terrifying.

“How so?” I asked.

She looked me in the eye, and the depth of the sadness and regret I saw there made something flip inside me.

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I backtracked.

“Nah, it’s just…for the last few years I wasn’t exactly the best daughter. And then one day I up and left,” Olive said, lifting her shoulders. “I’m better now…I mean, I got myself better, but I know I really hurt my mom. I did things…” She sighed ruefully and shook her head. “Well, anyway, I have to apologize to her, to find a way to make it up to her, I just…don’t know how.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, not knowing what else to say.

I was no good at this kind of thing. I’d never really had any close friendships, unless Darcy counted, and even that felt like a million years ago. Olive looked around and up at the sky, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. I swallowed hard, hating how stupid and useless I felt.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you want to talk about what’s going on with your family?”

I felt breathless and hot, wishing I could tell her, wishing I could just blurt out the whole insane story. I had a feeling it would make us both feel better, her knowing she wasn’t the only one with a depressing past, me because venting it all would be so freeing. But I couldn’t. I had to keep it all bottled up inside. Maybe that was why I was having nightmares. Because I had no one to talk to about things. No release.

That was just one more thing Steven Nell had taken from me.

“I can’t,” I said finally. “It’s too…complicated.”

“I get it,” Olive said. “No one knows all the gory details of my life, either. Well, except Tristan.” She blushed and looked down at her feet. So Olive liked Tristan. Of course she did. I thought back to that first night on the beach when they’d been so wrapped up in conversation. The familiar way they’d talked with each other at the bar and how she’d kept glancing up at him when he wasn’t looking. I felt a flash of jealousy before I remembered that I didn’t want Tristan. I wanted Christopher. I just wished he wasn’t hundreds of miles away. And my sister’s ex.

“But if you ever do want to talk, I’m a fantastic listener,” Olive added, nudging me with her shoulder.

I nudged her back. “I believe that.” I stood up. “Want to head back to town?”

“Sure. But we’re walking, FYI, because I think my legs might revolt if I try for anything faster.”

“No problem,” I replied with a laugh.

Before we headed toward the street, I turned around to look at the blue house once more. There was something almost foreboding about it, even in its cheerful beauty. It sat up there like some kind of fortress or castle, lording its immense presence over the rest of the quaint town.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Olive said, glancing over her shoulder as we strolled downhill. “You should see the inside.”

“You’ve been inside?” I said. “Who lives there?”

Her eyebrows came together, and she looked at me as if I’d just asked her how to spell
the
. “That’s Tristan and Krista’s house. Their mom’s the mayor.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at her, feeling like someone had just yanked the asphalt out from under me.

“Wait. Tristan lives
there
? I thought he lived in the house across the street from me,” I said.

“Um, no,” she said. “The prince of Juniper Landing lives up here in the castle with the princess and the queen, just as it should be,” she said, lifting her nose in the air comically. “Not that they act like a prince and princess. They’re just sort of treated that way.”

“I would have thought that Joaquin was the prince of this place,” I said vaguely.

“Really? I see him as more of a rogue knight,” Olive replied.

I supposed everything was perception, and if she liked Tristan, maybe she perceived him as the leader of the pack. But I had yet to see him order anyone around like Joaquin had with Fisher. Tristan seemed more refined. More modest. More comfortable in the shadows.

More like me.

“Interesting,” I said, mostly to say something.

I turned and narrowed my eyes at the house, and my heart caught in my throat. Someone was standing on the porch, shaded by the wide overhang, staring down at me.

“Oh my god,” I said, angling myself away from the lurker and talking through clenched teeth. I grabbed Olive’s arm. “Someone up there is watching us.”

Olive followed my gaze. “Where?” she said, her brows furrowing in confusion.

“Right there.” Emboldened by her blatant move, I turned back around as well, but then froze. The porch was deserted. Whoever had been there, watching us, had vanished.