Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (15 page)

Tuesday morning manage
d
to be fairly drama free, thank goodness. Mae had left at the hellish hour of 5am to get to Christian’s Boston office, which was a request he had made not long after we had left Torrent Road. I suspected he took one look at my face last night and decided having Mae work out of his Cape Cod house was not a good idea.

The day was also
one-thousand times better thanks to Raef’s presence in the halls with me. Jesse steered clear of us and a homicide was avoided since he kept Teddy far from me as well. Raef seemed more on edge however, and I didn’t understand why until he asked about the football game and Jesse’s gift during lunch. I told him what had happened and how blindsided I had been by the whole thing.

He understood, but then he asked if anything else had happened, and I knew he was thinking of Teddy or Nikki. I however, could only think of
Rillin, and I nearly told him, but then something deep inside me convinced me to keep it buried.

Plus, that mark on his chest had been driving me
friggin’ insane. I wish I had seen the whole thing, but the small sliver I saw nagged relentlessly at my mind, taunting me to recognize where I had seen it before. I was starting to think it was just a logo from some obscure album that Ana had forced me to listen to. The guy did look like he could have been a former metal-band drummer.

I doodled a rough approximation of the gear’s symbol over my notebook as I zoned at the lunch table with Raef, Ana, and MJ. We had come to the smaller café for the seniors and Jesse had been right – the food was better and the atmosphere a lot less toxic.

Jesse sat on the opposite end of the room with a few other athletes. He glanced to me briefly and I gave him a weak smile. He had been thoughtful and nice during Ecology and I knew he was trying to make up for our blowout in the parking lot. He kept silent in English however, no doubt because Raef also was in our class and watched him the entire time.

A few minutes into our lunch, and Nikki walked in, her entourage of adoring mannequins tailing her. I noticed Raef following her with his eyes, tracking where she was going
, and she stared him down, venom in her glare.

Word was that Nikki had approached Raef before I arrived at 408 in September. She had used all her powers of flirtatious persuasion to try and garner a date . . . but Raef politely declined. No one declined Nikki and apparently she had not forgot
ten. She probably also didn’t forget my anti-accident of tossing a milkshake in her face, though she did even the score by smashing my face into a goal post during gym.

Needless to say, we weren’t exactly pals.

Which was why it sucked so entirely that her family had Elizabeth’s necklace. Supposedly Christian had given Elizabeth a beautiful, cut diamond pendant for her birthday. Elizabeth had it altered by a friend to act as a key to her diary. When the necklace was fit into the ornate cover, the blank pages inside the book would finally reveal the words that were entirely hidden from view.

No necklace = no words.

No words = no answers.

I pressed the tip of my pencil harder into the lines of my drawing and nearly snapped the tip off, my frustration aimed at the cheerleader across the café and the design, which I couldn’t seem to get right. The stupid symbol was all over my paper-clad textbooks, and notebooks.

“Are you thinking of getting a tattoo?” asked MJ, watching me retrace the lines of my drawing. I glanced up at him, noting the curious curve to his brow.

I gave an absurd snort, “No. Why
, weirdo?”

MJ touched my drawing as he took a bite of sandwich, garbling his words through the turkey and cheese. “Umm, because you
haf dwawn dis atom ting all over you notebook.” He mercifully swallowed, “Are you a massive fan of chemistry or what?”

Damn, he was right. My drawing did look like an atom, and I was flipping sure the gear didn’t fall out of a nuclear plant. I just shrugged, not really knowing quite
what I was trying to replicate. Yeah, it looked like an atom, but at the same time something was wrong with it. Most likely I just sucked at drawing.

Ana reached out and pulled my notebook from me, swiveling it around to look at all the various versions of the same stupid symbol. “You’re trying to draw the mark on the gear aren’t you? I think it had more lines or something. This looks more like a round cage or a rubber-band ball,” she replied, tracing the marks with the tip of her finger. The carbon left a smudge of black on her fair fingertip and she rubbed it along the table, making it fade from her skin.

A round cage? I pulled the notebook back in front of me and stared at all my drawings, realizing it did look a bit like a cage. Raef had shifted his gaze to me and finally noticed the scribblings, all looking vaguely the same.

“W
hen did you start drawing these?” he asked, stilling the pencil that I rolled neurotically through my fingers. The warmth of his palm eased my tension – a tension I couldn’t quite understand, but always rose to the surface when I started drawing. It was like I had to get the sketch right, but couldn’t. I HAD to, not because I was a perfectionist, but because I just . . . HAD TO.

Freaking weird.

“Eila – did you hear me?” asked Raef.

I finally looked at him, “What? Oh yeah – no I just
started drawing it after I saw Agent Howe, but Ana’s right – it doesn’t look much like the symbol on the gear. Art is not my strong suit.” I gave him a shrug, apologetic that I was such a defect, but he seemed unfazed.

He eased the pencil from my hand and started drawing the same shape, but as he did so, tension coiled tightly inside me. With every sweep of his hand, and every drag of the pencil, the stress got worse. I peeled my eyes away from the drawing, and looked around the café, trying to keep my eyes off my notebook and relax . .
.  but then I looked at Nikki.

She was watching me carefully, but the look on her face was tough to read. Loathing, but laced with something else . . . something more like suspicion. She had always looked at me like a bug that needed to be squashed, but the way she eyed me now was entirely different, causing my nerves to flare deep inside my body. We locked eyes and it was only then that I noticed she had a thin, silver chain around her neck, the end disappearing between her well-endowed
chest.

Ever so slowly a small smile played over he
r perfectly bowed mouth and one delicate finger looped under the chain, as if she was adjusting the thread of silver. She rolled the delicate strand through the crook of her finger and slowly a diamond cut pendant emerged from her cleavage. She let the chain fall from her hand and Elizabeth’s necklace landed softly over her tightly fit Hollister top, sparkling in the sun that tumbled easily through the wide picture windows.

“Nikki’s got the necklace. She’s got the necklace RIGHT NOW,” I whispered.

Ana’s eyes widened and she glanced over her shoulder at the same time Nikki decided to toss her long, brown hair to the side, smiling elegantly at a few of the football players who had joined her table.

Then she glanced to us, and that perfect smile slipped into a knowing, superior grin that played on her lips. Damn it . . . somehow she
knew
the necklace belonged to my family! I could see it in her cocky smile.

“There’s got to be a way to get Elizabeth’s necklace from her,” MJ mumbled. Raef watched Nikki with the same interest as the rest of us, no doubt thinking of a way to relieve the diary’s key from its bitchy gatekeeper’s claws.

Ana, always practical, offered up a solution. “The theater department has a working guillotine. Think we can lure her to the auditorium stage?”

“She is a drama queen . . .” replied MJ, as if chopping her head off was a real option.

On the other hand, crazier things have happened.

After missing five weeks of school, I had been shuffled out of graphic design and into mixed media arts. While my guidance counselor had been sympathetic to my injuries that had forced my long absence, the graphics teacher said she would never be able to get me caught up to the rest of the class. So . . . mixed media arts it was.

By the end of class, I was pretty darn excited that I got my butt tossed out of graphic arts. The sculpting we had started was awesome and I loved how the clay felt through my hands. While I was washing up, Raef texted me. He wrote that he was skipping last period to go meet Kian. He said that they had some errands to run for Christian that couldn’t wait, but he would call me later.

I replied “K” with a goofy smile and a blessing to be safe.

As Ana and I walked out to my Jeep after final bell, she was talking about every conceivable way to get the necklace from Nikki. Unfortunately most of her ideas required us becoming criminals or facing murder charges.

“We will figure out something,” I said to her as we finally got to my Jeep. MJ had parked a few rows over and waved to us from his beat-up Bronco.

“You two headed home?” he yelled from his spot next to his car.

“YUP,” I called back, but then was a bit curious why he asked in the first place. “How come?” I yelled.

MJ just shrugged,
then called back to us, “I have to make up some ice cream cakes at the shop and I was going to swing by and hang afterward. Unless you don’t WANT ME!” He made a faux sad face, pretending to sob into his jacket. I glanced at Ana, who just rolled her eyes.

“FINE. Come by later,” I called back and MJ smiled huge and gave a thumbs up.

I turned back to my car and started to unlock the door. “I thought the Milk Way was closed for the season,” I said to Ana.

She was fishing for something in her bac
kpack and finally pulled out a Chapstick as she replied. “It is, but they make specialty cakes during the off season. I usually help him when it gets closer to the holidays. Want to come sometime?” She slicked on a layer of cherry lipbalm and rolled her lips, spreading it evenly.

Just the three of us in MJ’s family’s decadent ice cream shop?
I could totally get down with that idea.

“Sounds awesome. I’d love to come,” I said, swinging
open the door to the Wrangler. As I stepped forward to climb in, my foot bumped into a hard object under my car. I looked down and saw something round and reddish-brown peeking out from under the Jeep, near the front tire.

I leaned down and picked up the small, heavy ball that fit in the palm of my hand. I rotated the ball and the opposite side was emblazoned with a white circle with a number 7 stamped inside it.

Who the heck had tossed a billiard ball under my car?

“Hello? Are you going to let me in or what?” asked
Ana. I lifted the ball up to show her. “Is that a pool ball?” she asked, confused.

“Yeah – it was under my car.” Ana just shook her head as I finally climbed in and reached across the seat to open her door.

She got in next to me and gestured for the ball. I handed it to her and she examined it carefully. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff roll under my Trans Am when I park here, but mostly it’s trash or a baseball. A seven-ball is a new one.”

“Do you know anyone with a pool table?” I asked, admiring the color of the ball as she handed it back to me.

“Except for Christian? No, but then again I don’t go to many parties. Well – I don’t go to ANY parties, and since there’s like 2000 students here, my guess is that one of them must have a pool table. It probably rolled out of another person’s car – or it’s a joke.”

I just shook my head and dropped the ball to the floor behind my seat with a
thunk. I turned to her and smiled. “It can be my new good luck charm,” I said, cranking the Jeep to life.

The radio immediately blasted the local station and Ana turned the heat up as she looked at me, “You mean OUR good luck charm. Seven is my favorite number
ya know?”

“Works for me,” I replied and pulled out of the high school, heading for home, our new talisman rolling around in the back of the Jeep.

The next two weeks rolled b
y
without incident, save for one snow day we managed to squeeze in thanks to an overnight storm. I hadn’t seen Mr. Blackwood again, Jesse and I were back to normal, and Teddy continued to steer clear of me.

Nikki
occasionally wore the necklace, but I managed to ignore it, figuring that her inability to visibly rile me would be the best revenge. Plus, the guillotine had been made of foam.

My refusal to be baited by her behavior and the necklace seemed to work, and she had a stern expression on her face whenever she saw me. Eventually she stopped wearing Elizabeth’s fine jewelry and returned to ignoring me, though occasionally I would smile huge and wave to her as if we had been BFFs since the womb. Her look when I did that could melt a hole through an armored truck.

It was completely worth it, though my friends knew I was beyond frustrated that we couldn’t get our hands on the necklace, especially since that damn symbol I kept drawing continued to nag at me. Out of sheer desperation, Kian suggested hitting on Nikki, maybe even taking her out on a few dates as a way to get into her home and steal the thing. Ana shot that idea down instantaneously, which I knew made Kian pleased beyond words. She had placed Kian firmly in the “friends” category, though I knew he hoped for more. He hoped they could make it back to what they were the summer they met, which, according to Ana, involved a lot of “bases.”

Yes, it was true - the necklace was the bane of our lives, especially since we were all hoping it would give me the details as to how to command my power. MJ tried to spin our situation in a brighter light by pointing out that Elizabeth’s diary may just be filled with
ooey-gooey love letters to Christian.

Unfortunately
that
idea did NOT brighten my mood.

As far as Mr. Blackwood went, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the man who seemed to have disappeared.
At night I would rerun our two brief encounters, over and over in my mind, hoping for a clue as to who he was, and why in the world he said that I
wasn’t the type to run from what scares me
. Was he just guessing at the type of person I was, ‘cause for all he knew I could’ve only been able to handle G-rated movies.

He was worried about me in the woods.

He shooed away Teddy at the game.

He was like . . . a protector. Well, at least until he up and evaporated.

The lack of Rillin Blackwood was in some ways a good thing, because Mae had begun traveling for Christian, and I didn’t really want to deal with a tattooed semi-stalker when it was just Ana and me in 408. Plus, Mae loved her job, which led to a permanent smile on her face, though she was traveling more and more. I was happy for her and, in some small way, grateful that Christian gave her such an opportunity.

Life had begun to follow a familiar pattern, though hanging with Raef became more limited because of Mae and the fact that he and Kian had been doing god-knows-what for Christian. I would ask what was keeping them so busy, but they skirted the exact details, claiming what they were doing was just boring go
fer stuff in Boston. I also knew that they had been hunting more often, and they needed to move their hunting areas around, so as not to draw unwanted attention.

Christian had been busy with his own company and he was rarely at Torrent Road anymore, though he let Raef and Kian use the house as their own. With Mae often traveling and Christian rarely at home, Torrent Road slowly became our
hang-out, not unlike Cerberus had. I had even put our lucky seven-ball in one of the pockets of Christian’s elaborate pool table, believing it deserved a taste of the good life, rather than the nastiness stuck to the Wrangler’s floor.

 
As promised, the guys had begun giving us basic self-defense training, having set up an area of Christian’s home as a gym, complete with padded floor mats. I had to admit, having Raef pin me into submission and then show me how to weasel out of his hold, had begun to blur that line of mine. Teaching me how to fight him off made me grow to appreciate my body, rather than pick apart the things I saw as flaws. Soon my reflection in the mirror revealed a body I was proud to call my own, curves and all, and I owed it all to Raef.

He had no idea what he had done for me.

Between training, studying, and school, however, my days were pretty darn busy. On Fridays, Ana and I got to hang with MJ at The Milk Way and attempt to “help” him make ice cream goodies. Helping, from me anyway, was more of a train wreck, but MJ insisted I continue to try.

He watched me now, a crooked smile on his face.

“What in the heck is that? It looks like seagull poop,” he finally asked, laughing as he leaned against the stainless steel counter in the back of his family’s delicious shop. The apron he wore was the same one he had on the day I met him in September – still stained and ridiculous looking on his tall, lean frame.

My mouth dropped open, horrified. “EXCUSE me – it’s supposed to be the beginning of a rose,” I protested, holding up the silver nail-like device on which I was piping a sugary flower. Well, trying to at least. I looked at it carefully and it did resemble some sort of white blob. “Okay fine – it does look like crap.”

“Literally,” snickered Ana, who was cranking out perfectly formed chocolate seashells. She had been making the tasty treats with MJ since she was a kid and her effortless technique was honed on years of practice. My only practice with the sweets and ice cream came from eating them.

MJ shook his head, his smile still huge, and reached out as he took my hands in his. He reset the angle of the nail I was holding, and began turning it in gentle little arcs as he forced the frosting through the bag, squeezing my hand softly as he formed a perfect rose.

“Ta da!” he announced, releasing my hands.

I admired the delicate sugary flower in my hand, which no longer looked like a turd. “Obviously I need more than ‘ta-da’ to get this right. I think I should just stick to tasting them.”

Ana got up from her stool at another counter, a full assortment of edible sea shells on a tray in her hands. She slid them next to a three-tier ice cream cake that MJ had been working on. “Just let her dust them with sugar and color, MJ. That way your cake won’t be covered in bird poop.”

“Hey now!” I laughed, placing the flower carefully on a tray with others just as the back door slammed open.
 I jumped and swiveled to see MJ’s mom strolling in, her round face and almond shaped eyes taking in the scene of the three of us laughing.

I choked back the remainder of my laugh as I
met her unflinching eyes. “Uh, hi, Mrs. Williams,” I mumbled, shifting on my feet. MJ’s mom thought I was the devil, leading her son down a wayward path of total destruction. Before I arrived, he never missed work, never took off to another state, and damn well never ended up inside an exploding mansion during a million-dollar fundraiser.

Actually . . . I did sort of sound like a one-way ticket to a life of back
alleys and prison bars.

Mrs. Williams didn’t even answer me, her attention turned to her son, whose humor had fled him altogether. He worked dutifully on the cake, adding Ana’s seashells to the tiers with artistic precision.

“That cake should have been done by now Marshall James,” accused his mom, using his formal name to reinforce her pissed-off attitude. “I think having visitors here while you work is no longer such a great idea.”

“I’m just about finished, Mom, and they’ve been helping,” replied MJ shortly, placing a starfish on the edge of the second tier. He picked up an airbrush
and began dusting a blue hue on parts of the cake. MJ had a bright future in the pastry industry if he ever decided that turning into a guard dog was getting on his nerves.

Ana cleared her throat and glance
d to me. She placed a hand on MJ’s back, “Hey – Eila and I are going to head out, okay?”

MJ stopped what he was doing and looked at us. “I’m almost done. I can come with
ya,” he said with a bit of urgency. His mother glared at me with even more venom in her eyes, and I swallowed.

I thought MJ’s desire to come with us was because of his mom, but I couldn’t help notice that for the last two weeks, Ana and I were almost always with one of the guys. Raef and I had a deal about toning down the whole buddy system thing, and I was sure he wouldn’t go back on his word. Still, Ana and I had rarely been alone. Of course, we had all been busy doing stuff together as well. I wrinkled my face in thought, but when I looked back at MJ, he widened his eyes and flicked them to his petite mother.

I never knew a little Chinese woman like MJ’s mom could look like she could turn my body into a jigsaw puzzle. Man, she was scary. I found it fascinating that MJ didn’t look anything like her, but his shifter ability definitely came from his Chinese ancestors.

I finally managed to answer my pleading pal. “Sure. We can wait for you out front,” I said thumbing my way toward the small restaurant section of the ice cream shop that was closed.

MJ nodded and Ana and I slipped out of the back room and sat down on the 1950’s chrome bar stools out in the front. A light snow fell past the huge picture windows that encased The Milk Way, the street lamps illuminating the flakes’ drifting descent. Christmas was only three weeks away, and I had yet to find a gift for Raef. Ana and MJ, however, I had covered with gift cards to the local Indie Rock store.  They would be in heaven.

Ana leaned back against the counter, kicking her boot-clad feet out in front of her as she watched the snow fall. Her ultra soft boots had been a gift from Kian when she had finally gotten her walking cast off. It was a gift between friends she insisted, but I wasn’t sure it was entirely the truth – I didn’t think Ana could say for certain either.

“So, did you get Kian anything for Christmas?” I asked, sliding my finger along the speckled counter. Ana flopped her head in my direction.

“Are you serious?” she asked, her eyes wide. I gave her a shrug. “Well . . . no. I don’t even know what I would get him. The man has everything.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Kian and Raef had plenty of money, which left me confused as to what I could possibly get them. Especially Raef.

“I’m not even sure we are getting each other gifts,” said Ana, turning her attention back to the snow. I watched how the light from the street lamp played over her cheeks and the tiny shadows of the snowflakes streamed across her face.

This holiday season had been great for Ana, but also tough. She had stopped celebrating everything after her dad died, so the fact that she was even partaking in the holidays was huge. Add in that she was talking with Kian and spending time with him, and I felt that we all might just enjoy a Christmas miracle after all. Well – except for MJ’s mom, who would loathe my butt until the day I died.

Ana sat up and turned to me, “Have you gotten anything for Raef?”

“No, and I have no clue what to get him,” I moaned.

“How about you – wrapped up in just a bow?” she asked, a devious smile on her lips. I shoved her, but she grabbed the seat to keep from falling off.

“Listen perv – I bet that Kian put the same request on his letter to Santa in regards to YOU.”

“Of course he did. I mean – can you blame him?” she asked, but contorted her face to look like some deformed witch and I laughed.

I heard footsteps behind me and MJ appeared, pulling on his jacket. “I’m done – let’s get outta here before she finds something else for me to do,” he whispered urgently.

MJ didn’t have to tell me twice and we all dashed out of the store and into the flurries.
Ana climbed in the Jeep with me, while MJ headed to his Bronco. “Wanna follow me over to Christian’s?” he asked, knowing that Mae was once again off on an assignment for North Star.

“Sure,” I replied and slammed my door shut, cranking the Jeep to life. The interior of the car was cold, and I willed the heat to come through the vents faster.

“You know – there are a bunch of cool shops on Commercial Street in P-Town. They sell some funky stuff. We could go there and look for Raef,” said Ana as she shoved her hands into her jacket, curling the leather tighter around her.

“And Kian too? I mean – come on. He deserves something,” I said, watching her.

She sighed and turned to me, giving me the faintest smile laced with hope, “Yeah . . . Kian too, I guess.”