The Calling (35 page)

He picked up a flat clamshell and threw it into the surf, a frothy wave gobbling it up. As he watched the seagulls trample across the shore, picking at fish in the receding tide, he thought of his father. The more he watched his dad, saw the sadness in his eyes, the difficulties he had in even the smallest gestures of affection, the more Justin wanted to avoid his father’s fate. But if Mandy had truly left him, and he had every reason to believe she had, then he wasn’t sure he could separate his path from his father’s.

Justin stood and, without heeding the call of his god, he started back home.

Chapter 27

Justin opened the door to his house and was met by the acrid scent of burning meat. He glanced toward the ceiling where a hazy layer of smoke accumulated. “Dad?”

“In here.”

Since the day was sunny and warming up, he left the door open to air the place out and walked into the kitchen. Mitch glided around the stove to the sink with a spatula in one hand and a dishtowel in the other. On the stove, bacon sizzled and smoked, burning to a crisp.

“Are you trying to catch my place on fire?” Justin asked.

“Cheap bacon. That’s the last time I buy the house brand.”

Justin fanned the air with his hands, trying to disperse the smoke. “You’d make a terrible housewife, Pops.”

Mitch chuckled and motioned for Justin to take a seat. Instead, Justin buried his nose in the collar of his T-shirt and made his way to the oven fan. He flipped the switch, the whir of the motor drowning out the sound of his dad’s cooking.

“Hope you’re hungry,” Mitch said.

Justin sat at the kitchen table, resting his chin on his hand. “I’m not.”

His dad ignored him, setting two over-easy eggs with blackened bacon in front of him. Mitch seemed to sniff the air, tilting his head back and twitching his nose. “I was told by your great grandfather that if you wait until the end of the Calling to be counted, you can dive into the water, open your eyes under the surface to reveal your soul, and Triton will take your spirit back to his kingdom, where you’ll become immortal.” Practically floating, he glided to the stove. “It’s his way of thanking his descendants for protecting him from Atë.”

“It’s true,” Justin said.

His dad raised a questioning eyebrow as he scooped the rest of the bacon out of the pan and onto his plate.

“The night Cecelia died, an old woman entered the ocean off the pier,” Justin said. “She went under, but never came back up.”

“Hmm, interesting. I’m gonna be an old codger by the next Calling. Maybe I’ll try it then.”

“Good to know.” If he didn’t see Pops after the next roll call, he’d have an inkling as to what had happened.

His dad flipped two eggs onto his plate, strolled to the table, and sat, some of the spring in his step gone. “Is that what you’re gonna do, son? Wait until the end and let Triton take you to his home?”

Justin pushed the eggs around his plate. “You think I’m giving up?”

“I can smell the beach on you, but the energy comin’ off you is as thick as mud. You didn’t go in.” Mitch slid his cell phone across the table. “Call her.”

“She doesn’t want me to.”

Mitch nudged the phone closer. “Do it anyway.”

* * *

Justin paced a rut in his room, his stomach flittering like a butterfly.
It’s only a phone call. She won’t mind if you check to see how she’s doing
. No matter how many times he said those words, they never stuck. What was he scared of?
Rejection
. That was stupid. She’d already left him.

Things can’t get any worse
. He took one final look at her number on his cell screen and pushed send. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Hello.”

At the sound of her voice, his breath hitched. Damn, he missed her. He swallowed hard, willing words through his tight throat. “I need to talk to you.”

He heard the sound of the phone crashing to the floor, then a guttural moan followed by a retching noise. What the hell was going on?

A few seconds later, the phone jostled, and Mandy’s heavy breathing carried down the line. “I’m sick.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been throwing up since four this morning.” Her shuddered breaths turned into sobs, and she whimpered as if in pain.

Justin closed his eyes, imagining he could reach through the cell and hold her to his chest, but he was helpless to ease her hurting, except with words. It’d have to do. He lowered his voice to a soothing pitch. “Everything’s going to be okay. Just tell me what’s happening.”

She tried to speak between gasps for breaths, but her shaky breathing swallowed the words.

Frustrated at the distance between them, he began to pace again. “If you don’t calm down in the next five minutes, I’m buying the first plane ticket to Denver.”

She stifled a sob. “I’m sick and tired and, every time I fall asleep, these stupid pulses wake me up.”

He straightened and stopped pacing mid-step. “Pulses?”

“Yeah.” A battered sob echoed down the line as if she were desperately trying to control her crying jag. “Like I’ve swallowed a cell phone, and the thing’s on vibrate.”

“You’re throwing up?” His head swam from all the clues she was throwing at him.

“I just said that.”

“And you feel vibrations?” A pulse traveled down his body, tingling his skin as it passed his legs on the way down to his toes. Then, the vibration reversed, traveling toward his head. “Did you just feel a pulse?”

“Yeah.”

Oh, holy hell!
He strangled the phone. “Are you really, really thirsty like you can’t get enough to drink?”

“Yes.”

He knocked his knuckles against his forehead. “This isn’t good.”

“It’ll pass.” Her shaky breathing calmed. “My stomach’s already settling.”

“It’s not going to pass.”

“No, seriously.” Her voice sounded more alert, less panicked. “I’m already feeling much—”

“You’re pregnant.”

She snorted. “You sound like Lori.”

“Lori’s a smart girl. You should listen to her.”

“I have an IUD.”

“Can they fail?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, guess what, Mandy? Yours failed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, yes, I do. The Calling started this morning and, unless we’re related, you’re pregnant.”

She gasped, then went silent. He couldn’t even hear her breathe and, for a second, he wondered if she’d hung up. “Mandy?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“And the Calling started this morning.”

“This is what it feels like?”

“Exactly what it feels like.”

“Oh, my God! We’re having a baby!” Her voice sang, lilting toward a melody of happiness he hadn’t expected.

His baby
. She was pregnant with his baby, and she was happy. Maybe they weren’t over after all.

For a moment, he let his mind wander to an image of Mandy, her belly round with his child. She was beautiful, all rosy cheeks and glowing complexion. His body hummed with joy. “You want this baby?”

“Of course, I want it. It’s ours.”

“But what about us? Do you want that, too?”

The silence lasted too long, and his heart stopped beating, his body becoming numb. As he clung to the phone, waiting for her to speak, a vibration pulsed through his body. They didn’t have time to talk about their relationship, not with their child’s life in danger.

“We can talk about us later.” His voice came out smooth and emotionless, the way it always did when he hid a storm inside. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. “We’ve got less than a day to get you to the ocean.”

“I can get a plane ticket,” she said, suddenly regaining her voice. “To Miami. Or California. Or wherever the closest ocean is.”

Justin darted to the laptop sitting on his desk. He fumbled with the latch, opened it, and fired up the computer. “Head toward the airport. I’ll get the ticket.”

* * *

Mandy lifted her fleece pajama top and stared at her stomach. “I’m pregnant.” The words slipped off her tongue like an unfamiliar language. Since the chemo, she hadn’t known if she was fertile or not. She’d refused testing to find out, too scared to discover if her dream of having children would never be.

“Pregnant.” She rubbed her palm over her belly button. Something close to joy, but mixed with apprehension and fear, bubbled in her chest. Inside of her was a baby. Not just hers, but Justin’s, too. She wanted to sit on the couch and ponder the life growing inside of her for hours, even days, but time wasn’t on their child’s side.

With her emotions in a jumble, Mandy grabbed a few belongings, left a note for Lori, and threw on a heavy coat. She hurried to her car. Tufts of snow meandered down before finally adding to the foot of snow already covering the ground. She scanned the street leading to the main Fairway. Though the snow continued to fall, the roads were as clear as the Bonneville Salt Flats, with about as much salt on them to boot.

Her poor car, however, was invisible beneath a cloud of white. For five minutes, she scraped snow off her windshield, side windows, and mirrors. By the time she sat in her car and turned on the engine, her fingers were numb.

As she headed, shivering, toward the interstate, she barely heard her ringing cell over the whirring of her defroster and swishing of her wipers. “Hello?”

“I’ve got a plane ticket for you to San Diego, and a rental car, unless you want to take a cab.”

“Cab’s fine.”

“I’ll meet you in San Diego. You’re flying United. Plane leaves at twenty past noon.”

Mandy glanced at her dashboard clock. Ten o’clock. She’d need thirty minutes to get to the airport, and that’d leave her with plenty of time to check in.

“My flight gets in an hour before yours,” he added. “Make sure your phone’s charged and call me when you arrive.”

“I will.” She said goodbye and hung up as a surge of energy coursed through her body.
So this is what the Calling feels like
. Her mind flashed to Justin as a boy holding his little sister. The horror in the scene he’d lived through finally hit home. Cecelia had turned to water while he’d watched helplessly. No wonder Justin’s mom had gone mad. She was surprised Justin hadn’t, too.

“Not gonna happen to you,” she said, while white-knuckling the steering wheel with one hand and rubbing circles around her belly button with the other. No way was she letting the treasure in her womb disappear.

* * *

Justin rushed to grab his duffel off the bed and throw a change of clothes inside. The jewelry box holding Mandy’s engagement ring sat on the nightstand, opened as he’d left it the night before when he’d nearly fallen asleep with it clutched in his hand. He reached out to flip the box shut and throw it in his bag, just in case, but stopped before his fingers touched the soft velvet.

What could he possibly say to change her mind about him? Christ, he’d killed her ex while she watched. The baby didn’t change that, didn’t change the fact that their relationship was nothing short of psychotic, or the fact that she deserved so much better. But what if bringing a new life into the world gave them a new beginning, a reason and a way to start over again, wipe the slate clean and build something stronger, something lasting?

He swept the ring into his palm and pushed it deep into his bag. Convincing her to wear it wasn’t going to be easy, but he had never been one to back down from a challenge.

With his plan in place, he hurried outside, jumped into his SUV, and headed toward San Antonio to catch his flight. He’d answer the Calling in San Diego with Mandy by his side. With a little luck and a lot of persuasion, she’d be wearing his ring when Triton returned his soul.

* * *

The snow fell relentlessly as Mandy drove but, with Denver’s road crews busy clearing the streets, she never even skidded on an icy patch. That didn’t stop her sigh of relief when she finally reached the airport. In all her life, she’d never driven in icy conditions, and it took her a good minute to pry her hands off the steering wheel once she parked.

After a quick shuttle ride to the terminal, she checked the time.
An hour to kill
. She strolled toward the United check-in desk, making a quick stop at a departure screen,

United 4745 to San Diego—Delayed
.

Mandy moaned and glared through the terminal window at the falling snow. She headed to the ticket counter and, five minutes later, she was on the train to Concourse B. When the doors opened, her heart sank. The gates were overflowing with passengers. Some sat reading books or talking on cells in the terminal seating. Others huddled in small groups watching the onslaught of snow through the windows. But all had impatient sets to their jaws and tension curling their shoulders forward.