The Haunting of Secrets (6 page)

“Hey, don’t laugh,” he says, rubbing his head
to ward off the pain. “You think that was easy?” he asked me with a
hint of embarrassment in his voice. I guess the fall bruised more
than his head.

“Nope, not at all. I’m surprised you even
made the jump. That was pretty impressive. Now you see why I never
sneak out through the window,” I say, hoping my words had the
intended effect.

Logan stands up and faces me, apparently
appeased by my words. His hair is a bit out of sorts from the climb
and his face is flushed from the exertion. I can’t imagine a sexier
look on him. While I’m in my white tank top and old pajama pants,
probably looking like a homeless person. I wish I had advanced
warning; I would at least have brushed my hair. I hold my uncovered
hands behind my back so I don’t accidentally touch Logan. He’s
still standing there staring at me like he’s forgotten why he’s
come. I clear my throat in the hopes that he’ll snap out of it.

“Not that I don’t mind a good scare at two
a.m., but why are you here, Logan?”

“I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by, I
just wanted to check on you. And give you this,” he says pulling
out a single white rose from around his back and holds it out for
me.

My breath catches in my throat and I feel
like my heart is melting in my chest. No one has ever given me a
flower before. No boy has ever looked my way and I was fine with
that, until now.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him, yet
do not attempt to take the flower since my hands and arms are so
exposed. Thankfully, he doesn’t venture closer to me.

“If you don’t mind, could you please put the
flower on the night stand for me?” I ask just before I move out of
his path and make my way around so that the bed is between us. For
the first time, there is a boy in my room. Better yet, he brought
me a flower. I want it to mean something special, but with my lack
of experience, I’m not sure what to think.

“So are you going to tell me why you’re here?
And in the middle of the night no less,” I ask curiously.

Logan shifts back and forth on his feet for a
few moments, his adorable face sheepish as his brown hair makes
moving shadows on the wall. He’s here for a reason, but I can’t
fathom what it is. Logan is one of the most popular boys in school.
He has scores of girls following him around, whispering and
giggling while they talk to him yet for some reason, he’s in my
room. He looks up and fixes his brown eyes on me, an intensity
burning in them that I’ve never seen before. My heart flutters in
my chest as I wait for him to make the first move. Luckily, it
isn’t long in coming.

“I really just wanted to make sure you were
okay. When I went to the hospital, the nurse told me you were in a
coma. But the doctors wouldn’t let me see you. They wouldn’t tell
me if you were okay or not. And since Mary hardly ever left your
side... well, my mind has been working overtime thinking of all
kinds of horrible injuries you sustained that they were hiding from
me. I wish I had never left you that day in the parking lot. Maybe
I could’ve helped you before you fell unconscious. Anyway, when I
heard tonight that there was a girl lost in the hospital, I ran
straight here thinking it was you. Looks like I was right.”

Logan moves forward to the edge of the bed
and sits down across from me. He smiles and pats the other side of
the bed, a clear invitation for me to sit down. I am so nervous I
can barely move my legs, so I just kind of fall into a sitting
position a few feet away from him. It’s still a bit too close for
comfort, but I trust Logan not to touch me. The image of him
lunging for me across the bed, arms open, and his lush lips ready
for a kiss assaults my mind and I jump up from the bed all of the
sudden, nearly falling in the process.

“What did I do?” asks Logan, his expression
clearly confused.

I can’t tell him that it was what he didn’t
do that was bothering me, but it’s obviously a bad idea to tell the
guy you really like that you are thinking of him kissing you, so I
scramble for an appropriate response. “Nothing,” I stammer. “I’ve
just never had a guy in my room before. I guess I’m not sure
exactly what to do with you.”

“You can do anything you want with me,” he
says as he leans back on the end of my bed frame, comfortable and
confident like he’s been in my room a hundred times already.

I cross my arms over my stomach, willing my
hands to stay where they are. I never realized until now, how
desperate I am to feel the sensation of someone touching me. How
thirsty I am for a real touch; one that is dripping with want and
need to embrace me. The kind of touch that sends licks of fire
through your veins, boiling your blood and driving you forward for
more. It takes all of my strength to stand in front of him yet not
touch him. I almost give in to my need, almost.

“How about I throw you back out the window
ass first? You see now that I’m fine, so why are you still here?” I
ask, hoping to take my mind off the dangerous path it was
heading.

As if a switch was thrown, Logan’s face
changes and sadness overtakes him. He puts his head in his hands in
an attempt to control his emotions, but not before I see the tears
glistening in the soft light. It’s then that I understand the
anguish threatening to take him over.

“How many died?” I ask in a whisper, not
certain I want to know the answer.

Logan takes in a deep breath and responds,
his voice shaky, “Thirty-seven. Three of them were baseball
players. Two were footballs players. Five of them were in the band.
Many more were people I would call my friends. And in seconds, they
were all gone.”

I want more than anything to go to him. Hold
him and tell him that everything is going to be all right. But I
can’t. I stand here numbly, full of wishes that can never come
true.

“I am so sorry,” is all I can think of to
say. I had no idea the loss of life was of that magnitude. The coma
may have kept me sane, but it did not save me from the impact; the
devastation that comes with a tragedy that hits you when you least
expect it.

Logan stands, turns his back to me, and walks
to the window. The grief he held under such control is now evident
in his posture. He looks at the floor, as if the ground can save
him from a world that’s just too harsh to face head on. His anger
at the injustice of lives lost so young kept in check by balling
his hands in and out of fists. He turns and I see on his face the
overwhelming pain he’s unable to hide. Yet his eyes show another
emotion. One I can’t quite put my finger on. For his sake, I hope
that it is faith. The kind of faith that is universal, that binds
us and tells us that we can get through anything. He positions
himself to jump out the window then turns, apparently wanting to
address me once more before leaving.

“You’re a survivor. I wanted you to know. You
should know how many lost their lives that day. I also wanted to
see you, so I could be sure that you were all right. But I never
expected this. Never expected this overwhelming pain in my chest to
come up and choke me the minute I see you. I won’t make you share
that. I won’t do that to you,” he says, emotion evident in his
voice. “But mainly, I came here to tell you one important thing,”
he says, his face grim yet determined as his brown eyes bore into
my blue ones.

“What Logan?” I prod knowing I couldn’t take
anymore, but willing to endure the immense grief that has come
forth in waves, threatening to overtake me. “Tell me what you came
here to say.”

“I’m just so glad that you weren’t number
thirty-eight,” he says before he leaps off the windowsill,
disappearing into the dark night.

Chapter
Nine

~ The Devil is Red For a Reason
~

He sees nothing past the blinding red of his
fury. Some idiot decides to set off a bomb in
his
school and
messes up the most intricate plans he worked so hard to organize
and lay down for his next two victims; one of whom is now dead.
They both were carefully chosen, two beautiful specimens of nature,
ripe for the taking. And they were stolen from him.
Stolen
!
Now school was out indefinitely until they could find a place for
all the misplaced students and see if the structure could be
rebuilt. Yet the urge is already creeping up on him. He caresses
his knife in his pocket, lets the feel of cold steel calm him. He
decides not to wallow in this temporary setback. There’s still one
other girl he has handpicked for the list and there will be
opportunities to find more at school when it resumes. He simply
needs to rework what he has done and adjust his timeline. He can
only hope his urges hold out. He is determined not to let them
control him. He can control it; he
will
control it.

That settled, he now turns his attention to
the other problem created by the bomb; the fact that the strange
girl knows he is a killer. He felt the jolt when he touched her. He
saw her eyes cloud over and could feel her roaming around in his
head. He just couldn’t figure out how she had done it. Exactly how
much she knows, he can only wonder. But if there is a chance at all
that she might have gotten anything from his memories, she would be
a threat to him and the life he has worked so hard to build. He
can’t be positive she knows his secret, but it doesn’t matter. Even
the slightest chance deems that she be dealt with swiftly. Even if
she had an inkling of his desires, any knowledge at all of his need
to feel their blood pool over his hands as he slides the knife
inside his prey, would mean she has to go. No matter how careful he
is from now on, she could be the one to cause his downfall. And
that he just can’t have. No, that won’t do at all.

Chapter
Ten

~ The Best Laid Plans ~

The next few days pass in a blur as the town
grieves and buries the students lost in the bombing. Since I have
no friends, save Dejana, I don’t have any funerals to attend. On
the plus side, I now have more time to devote to protecting the
students that survived. Protect them from a monster they don’t even
know exists in their realm. As my mind heals, I do my best to
remember as many details as I can from the few nightmares that have
resurfaced. I write them in a journal and compare each, trying my
best to find some connections, some small detail that would help us
find the place where he takes these girls.

The day after Dejana and I formed the plan to
get as much information as we can on the killer, she decides to
bring Leah to my house. Luckily, the meeting will be private since
Mary is at work and due to the bombing we are out of school until
the district can find a safe place to send 3500 kids to learn. I am
exceedingly nervous about meeting her. I’ve spent so much of my
life pushing people away that I honestly have no idea how to deal
with others.

Leah walks into my house flamboyantly and
with the unwavering confidence of a girl who knows she’s the whole
package: beautiful and smart. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a long
sleeved, hot pink top. The only thing on her that doesn’t scream
out supermodel are the glasses she wears. She has short blonde hair
that compliments her light blue eyes, a bouncy personality for a
tech geek and is rather curvaceous. I hate her already.

Leah, an outgoing southerner who never meets
a stranger, saunters straight up to me, grabs my hand and
introduces herself. Luckily, I’m prepared for this and manage to
thrust out my gloved hand to her before she gets too close. She’s
surprised, but otherwise not offset by my lack of enthusiasm for
our meeting. Dejana and I quickly fill her in on what we need her
to do in regards to compiling a list of every tall girl with long
blonde hair and blue eyes at our school. We are careful not to give
away any key information as to the exact nature of the situation.
Leah would find out soon enough that there is a killer in our
midst; better she finds out on her own. If we told her the whole of
it at the start, she would most likely tuck tail and run. Dejana
and I hope we aren’t overestimating her as it is. As expected, Leah
is skeptical.

“So you want me to research all of these
girls for you, but you won’t tell me why? Are you aware that what
you’re asking me to do is illegal?”

Dejana and I share a look, each of us
deciding how much information we should tell Leah. I can see on
Leah’s face that she’s trying to decide if it’s a good idea to
trust us or not. Beside me, I hear Dejana sigh in defeat. I guess
it just registered with her that we have to give Leah something if
she’s going to elect to help us.

“It isn’t illegal to just look for these
girls, Leah, but something bad might have been done to them. That’s
what Aimee and I are trying to find out and why we’re so desperate
for your help. If we don’t act quickly, something could happen to
them and neither of us wants that on our conscience,” Dejana
pleads.

Leah pushes her glasses back up into place on
her face in a telling gesture of determination. I can see that
Dejana’s words have the desired effect. Leah returns to the front
door of my house to retrieve her computer bag and takes it to the
kitchen table. She opens it, gets out her computer, and makes
herself at home. “If something bad is going to happen to these
girls, then I’m in. I’m not going to stand by idly if someone may
be in danger. Now you two get out of my hair for a bit, I’ve got
work to do.”

Dejana and I look at each other smiling,
elated to finally see some forward progress in our quest to find
the killer, even if Leah has no idea that’s what she’s doing.

Leah jumps right in and gleefully begins
researching. She stays at my house for hours, asking us questions
to gather as much as she can from us to use. She decides around
dusk that she would keep at it and hopefully, have something for us
in a few days. Until then, Dejana and I do our best to look through
missing persons on the internet to see if we could find the girls
Dejana drew from the killer’s memories.