Spiral (Spiral Series) (3 page)

Both Jill and Maxie spun around to stare at me. The little girl had my name.

“We couldn’t wait to add another sister to the mix. For years Natalie and I had been doing everything together. We especially loved to cause trouble. My good friend Jar was usually the recipient of our mischief. At lunch, he and his sister Gretchen once got the same drink, the same sort of soda in the same bottle. Well, when they each got up to get more food, Natalie and I knew without even talking to each other that we had to take one of the bottles.

“When Jar and Gretchen came back to the table they didn’t notice that one of their drinks was missing, so throughout the whole meal they were drinking out of the same bottle. They only realized it at the end when they reached to take a drink at the same time. Jar laughed his ass off and Gretchen threw a fit. It was one of the proudest moments in our young lives.”

Pierce was smiling at the memory and most of the people in the bar were smiling along with him, but there was a tension in the room. I knew something bad was going to happen and I simultaneously wanted to hear it and wanted to cover my ears.

“I was head over heels in love with Natalie, had been from the second I first saw her. Obviously I loved my sister too, but Natalie was my sun and my moon. When I was ten and she was six I asked her to marry me. My mother was mortified.”

There were sighs and laughter from the audience and Pierce nodded politely.

“Natalie of course said yes. Neil was thrilled. She said all she wanted was for the two of us to get married. Her daughter and her best friend’s son. Nothing could be better. Natalie - don’t forget, she was only six - explained to me that if we were to get married I had to get her a horse and a teddy bear. I told her I would get her anything she wanted.”

Pierce was smiling again at the memory. “She also said she wanted every color of nail polish in the rainbow. Of course, her mom, Neil, tried to explain to her that that wasn’t really what relationships were about, but she didn’t care. She was six, after all. She said she liked me okay and would marry me if she wanted to. Provided I gave her nail polish.

“I was too young to think anything could ever go wrong, but I knew my mother was getting more and more worried about Neil. Stuff was going on, and there were whispers around the family house, meetings where adults closed the door. Natalie had no idea anything was wrong. She was too young and too sweet.”

His voice caught every time he mentioned Natalie, and I found myself terrified to hear what had happened to the little girl with my name, the girl he had loved.

“It happened when I was twelve. At that point I had gotten to spend eight wonderful years with Natalie. Not only that, but my mother was happy, taking care of my little sister and my dad. We had our ups and downs, but it was my family.” Sadness was being replaced by anger on Pierce’s face.

“Neil had been getting more and more frantic, more erratic, for months, and it was starting to affect Natalie. So, now that I was old enough, one day my mom was extra upset and she asked me to take Natalie out on a hike. We loved being outside, in the hills and among the trees. It was our happy place. Our family business . . . it made sense that we loved to be outside. Anyway, I offered to take my little sister, but she was only two at the time and there was no way she could keep up with Natalie and me, so we left without her. I left her behind. My dad was away on family business.”

Pierce said it like it was an accusation against himself, and even though his bright silver eyes made it hard to tell, I thought there might be tears in them.

“We packed a picnic. Natalie loved picnics.”

Again, Jill’s head spun around to glare at me. I loved picnics, but I just shrugged. Doesn’t everyone?

“Neil gave her a kiss on the head and made her promise to be careful. She told us we could stay out until dark and she promised not to worry about us. She told me to take care of Natalie, that besides Aren I was the only person she thought Natalie was safe with.” Pierce’s voice hitched.

“I thought it was the nicest thing she could ever say to me. Natalie was the most important thing in the world to me, outside of my mom and sister, and I knew I could take care of her.

A cloud had fallen over the bar. Obviously Pierce was not still with his childhood best friend.

“So, we set out. It was a gorgeous day, one of the clear summer days we loved. Natalie was in the best mood. She was happiest when we were outside, and she thought everything was beautiful and exciting. My mom had said that would fade as she got older, but it hadn’t. She was kind and honest. . . .”

Pierce paused again, as if collecting himself, then continued. “So, we stayed out all day. I made her a ring of grass, our wedding ring.” There were chuckles from the audience. “Yeah, no I hadn’t let that go. I was stubborn. Of course she didn’t put it on, she put it in our empty cookie jar.” More laughter. “She said she had to get the horse first.”

More laughter.

“We came back at dark. I didn’t want to. I would have stayed out there forever with her, running around the hills, but we couldn’t. We didn’t want our parents to worry. We had been far off that day, away from the house, so we hadn’t smelled the smoke.”

And just like that I felt a mallet come down on my heart at the sound of Pierce’s dark words.

“The house was still burning when it came into view, and Natalie and I started running. At first we had thought it was a bonfire, that our family was having a party without us, but of course they weren’t.

“I remembered what Neil had said about protecting Natalie and I made her stay back. She was screaming so loudly.

“I ran forward, desperate to find my family. I was sure they hadn’t been in the house, but I didn’t see them. I was only twelve and I didn’t know what to do. Natalie ran to Jar’s house. He lived next door and by next door I mean half a mile away. I didn’t want her to go alone, it didn’t feel safe, but she insisted I look for our families.

“Jar and his dad showed up and everything was a blur after that. More of our family started to come, and Natalie was taken away. She had started screaming again. She didn’t want us to be separate, but my aunt thought it was for the best. We were so young, and my aunt was worried that we were injured. I told Natalie it was okay for her to go. I promised I would look after her and I promised I’d find her mom.

“That was the last time I ever talked to Natalie.”

Pierce was rocking back and forth slightly at the painful memory, and his jaw was clenched. It still hurt him.

There were gasps and outcries from the other people in the bar. It woke me up and reminded me that I wasn’t alone in a room with Pierce, that he wasn’t standing there telling this story just to me, even though it felt like he was. It felt like we were the only two people left in the world.

“They wouldn’t tell me what they had done with her. For years they refused to tell me. She was eight at the time, the last time I got to talk to her. I screamed and yelled, but I was just a kid. There was nothing I could do. Once the fire died down they found three bodies inside the house, burned beyond recognition. One was that of a little girl.”

Next to me, Maxie let out a soft sob.

“My world shattered that day. I have been trying ever since to find the pieces and put them back together, but it’s almost impossible. I wanted an explanation, I wanted to be angry, I wanted lots of things, but eventually I realized that most of what I wanted I wasn’t going to get. Most of that was beyond what I could have, and eventually I accepted that. But I never stopped wanting Natalie.”

“But what happened to Natalie?” someone called out. I wanted to know the same thing.

Pierce gave a thin smile. “I had told her mom I would take care of her, and I had promised to marry her if she wanted me to. I am going to keep both of those promises if that’s what she wants.”

“So you found her?”

“I know where she is,” said Pierce.

“And what happened to your house? What started the fire?”

“The nerve of some people,” said Maxie indignantly, “asking such an insensitive question.”

 “He has to answer it,” Jill whispered back. “He can’t start a story like that and not finish it.”

“The fire,” said Pierce, plunging on, “was set intentionally.”

Horrified gasps came from the watching crowd as Pierce spoke. He fought to control the anger in his voice. “I don’t know why.”

“What about your dad?” someone else called out.

Pierce glanced sharply at the speaker. The whole time he had talked he had barely fidgeted. Now he stood stock still.

“My dad loved my mom,” he said glumly, as if he had accepted a sad fact a long time ago. “He loved her more than anything. And then there was my sister.”

A sharp intake of breath from Maxie told me just how much pain she thought Pierce’s dad must be in.

“He was never the same afterwards,” Pierce continued. “Yeah, after a while he went back to work. And yeah, after a while he started eating again, started talking again. But he’s a shell. Jar and I live with him. We take care of the place. He can’t manage on his own, so I stay there. It looks like I still live with my surviving parent, but really Dad lives with me. For a while he tried to find out what had happened, but there was no point. No one would tell us anything, and we couldn’t find out.”

Maxie wiped tears from her eyes as Jill sat soberly next to me. My gut wrenched for the pain of the little boy whose world had been burned to the ground. I had expected to come to a romance slam and hear all about chocolates and roses, but that wasn’t what love was about in real life.

“But you’re still trying to find Natalie?” a woman slurring her words yelled from my left.

Pierce smiled again. It wasn’t a big smile, but just enough. It warmed his face and brought a heat to his eyes. I wasn’t sure he could help it when he heard her name. “Yeah,” he said. “Always.”

And with that he bounded off the stage.

“That’s going to be a hard act to follow,” Jill muttered. “Good thing I’m allergic to romance.”

I wasn’t listening to her. I found myself following Pierce with my eyes as he made his way over to Mrs. Tiger. She grinned and nodded as if she knew him, but I was pretty sure she had just met him tonight. He stood next to her, staring out at the crowd with his arms across his chest and his face inscrutable.

I told myself he was just looking over the crowd, but when I looked at him he looked back. When our eyes met I blushed and looked away. It had been hard to listen to a story about a girl with the same name as mine. But I was sure it was just a weird coincidence.

“That was a crazy story,” Maxie breathed. It might have been my imagination, but I thought she looked worried.

“Yeah, crazy,” Jill drawled. “I’d like to know where guys like that hide. Why don’t any go to our high school?”

“You mean the romantic types or the hot types?” Maxie asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

“I mean the knock your socks off I’m-not-a-hand-holder-but-I would-do-anything-for-you types,” Jill said.

Maxie grinned. “Pity he showed up right before graduation.”

We were on spring break and we had only about a month of school left before graduation. I couldn’t wait to be done and out of there, and my friends felt the same way. There were some cute guys at Blueberry, but none who looked like Pierce, none who took your breath away and none who were fine with getting up in front of a bunch of drunk strangers and talking about losing the love of your life.

I glanced over at the other table of kids from my high school, curious to see what they thought of Pierce. I was surprised to see Evil Haley giving Pierce a look that could only have been described as hatred. When she caught my eyes on her I quickly looked away.

There were more stories, but I didn’t listen to them. My mind was caught by Pierce, and it wouldn’t let go. My eyes kept darting to where he stood, so casual and relaxed. The tattoo on his arm was peeking through again, giving him a dangerous vibe. For rest of the night women would get up from tables, some obviously on a dare, others stumbling, to go chat him up. He ignored all of them. He might smile politely, or crack a joke - lots of women laughed really hard when he said something - but he never moved. He never seemed to care. I thought it was romantic. He had gotten up there to talk about Natalie, and that’s all he was going to do tonight.