Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (19 page)

I looked around for the face that went
with the laugh. It took me a minute to identify who it belonged to,
but eventually I saw Dr. Phillips, the Science Department head as
well as the Forensic Science Case Studies class professor. She was
talking and laughing with a couple of students.

I’d only seen her a couple of times and
had probably overheard her talking to students on those occasions
as well. That’s undoubtedly why her laugh sounded
familiar.

She had reddish brown hair that was cut
in a severely short style that reminded me of Anna from the
television show V. She was young for someone in her position,
probably in her early thirties. She was always well dressed and put
together and she was apparently a student favorite. I’m sure that
had nothing to do with the fact that she was very attractive and
mildly flirtatious.

She moved off from the girls she’d been
talking to and stopped to speak to two guys that were seated at a
table she had to pass on her way out. Her smile was friendly and
open and it made me think of Billie for some reason.

That brought on a poignant pang of
homesickness for my friend. I could’ve used some of her good cheer
and enthusiasm, not to mention maybe some advice.

There for a second, I’d forgotten that
I couldn’t really talk to her about my problems. But then I
remembered that if I talked to her, my issues would seem empty and
weird without all the details, details I couldn’t divulge without
incriminating myself. With a sigh, I pushed that thought aside. It
was my turn to order and the barista was looking at me
impatiently.

I smiled and hurried through my order.
I was always hesitant to make people who handled my food or drink
mad. They could spit in it or worse and I’d probably never
know.

********

That night, I really didn’t have much
of an appetite, but I didn’t want to be by myself with nothing but
time and thoughts on my hands either. That’s the only reason I was
participating in supper.

“
Mom,” I asked as I cut bell
peppers for our quesadillas. “Do you think you can make someone
love you?”

I saw her look at me from the corner of
her eye, but I kept my gaze trained on the task at hand. Finally, I
saw her eyes shift back down to the chicken she was
cutting.

“
No. I think love is
something that’s either there or it’s not. You can’t force it, no
matter how much you try.”

I nodded. And I believed
that too…in most cases. But with me, I could influence people and
that muddied the water. It muddied the water
a lot
.

“
Why do you ask?”

She said it so carefully, so casually
like I was a frightened doe she was trying not to spook. It made me
want to smile.

I shrugged. “No reason. Just
curious.”

I could almost feel her inner struggle,
like it hung in the air between us. It didn’t last long, though.
Mom wasn’t that patient.

“
Is this about the guy at
school?”

I did smile at that. She was way behind
in the dramatic soap opera my life had become. “No. I was just
thinking about love in general, about how fickle it seems, and
whether it’s worth it or not.”

“
If it seems fickle, if
it
is
fickle, then
it’s not real.
Real love
doesn’t go away and it doesn’t change all that
much. It might mature a little and grow stronger over time, but it
is what it is. Once it hits—when it’s real—there’s no going
back.”

Looking up from my vegetables, I met
her eyes and smiled. “I hope I find it. The real kind. And that it
goes both ways.”

Her hands were dirty and she couldn’t
touch me like she so often did. Instead, she leaned over until her
forehead touched mine and whispered, “I do, too.”

By the time we’d prepared and eaten
dinner then cleaned up the dishes, I was glad that I’d spent the
time with my parents. It’s not that they weren’t as aggravating as
any other parents or that they were especially cool or anything,
they were just mine and that seemed to make all the difference in
the world. Maybe it was because of the way they’d always loved me
unconditionally. I don’t know, but our bond was fairly unique and
magical I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I cut the kitchen lights off and
settled in on the couch to watch the news with Dad. After an
overview from a variety of channels confirmed that I hadn’t been
involuntarily outed, I excused myself to go to bed.

Once I’d finished my night time ritual
and was ready to actually go to sleep, I couldn’t. I lay there in
the bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling as heartsick as ever
over Grayson.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d fallen
for him until that moment. It kind of snuck up on me and I was
quickly learning that I didn’t like those kinds of surprises. When
I finally went to sleep, it seemed that I slipped right off into a
dream about him.

I was chasing him in and around swings
that were anchored in the middle of a deserted parking lot. I would
reach for him and he would nod his head yes, but at the same time
his arms would push me away. I would concentrate hard on him and he
would come closer to me, but then I’d turn away once I realized
what I’d done. We repeated this over and over and over until that
eerie flickering ripped me from the parking lot and dumped me into
a motel room.

I stood, as always, in front of a
picture window with curtains drawn over it. The blue material had
wide white stripes on it that reminded me of a nautical theme. I
looked down and the carpet was blue as well.

To my left was the door and to my right
was a small glass-top dinette table with two white wicker chairs. A
light that looked like a lantern hung over it, burning brightly in
the otherwise dimly lit room.

I turned toward the bed. At the head
was an enormous wheel, the kind that you steer a boat with. It was
halved and presumably nailed to the wall as the headboard, looking
something like a sunset hovering over the bed.

As had been the case in all the others
so far, the body of a girl lay atop the soiled sheets. She, too,
was bound at wrists and ankles and her head was covered with a
black hood. I saw no hair peeking out from beneath it. I could only
assume she either wore it up or it was cut short.

She had on black shorts so tiny they
revealed a small cluster of four little stars high on the inside of
her right thigh. She also wore a tiny black t-shirt that had a
neckline that was indecent in its plunge. Red lettering across her
ample chest proclaimed Reno’s Rib House and Saloon had the best
rack in all of Maryland. I guessed she was kind of like a Hooter’s
girl, only called a Reno’s girl. Judging from the outfit and the
way she filled it out, I knew that the distinction was strictly
semantic.

Veins stood out in her neck as if she
was straining against something or trying to scream. I heard
nothing so it was hard to tell.

My empty left hand reached toward her
and gently lifted the hood. I watched breathless as inch by inch of
her face was revealed. When the material was pushed far back over
her forehead, coppery curls began to spring forth around her
face.

She was a pretty girl with creamy skin
and bright red lips. Ruby lipstick stained the white material of
the gag that cut deep into the flesh of her cheeks. Her light brown
eyes were wide with terror and glassy with tears.

My hand reached out to take one curl
and pull it out straight then let it go. It sprang back just like
my own curls do. She began to struggle and shake her head as I
pulled the hood back down over her face.

I backed away from her and stretched
out my hand. Within seconds, the girl’s feet and head rose from the
bed, drawing her into the fetal position as if someone had punched
her in the stomach. When she relaxed back down onto the mattress,
she reached her hands up toward the face that was once again hidden
from view. I saw the veins in her neck engorge with her strain
again and then she relaxed again. I watched in mute horror as her
body twitched a few times before becoming eerily still. I wondered
if, like the last girl, whatever I’d done to her had killed
her.

Though nausea churned in my stomach, I
felt the flutter of an anticipation that was not my own. I tried to
block it out, but it was flooding me and I was helpless to resist
it. I knew what was coming next.

I counted her ribs from just beneath
the collarbone and I stopped, as always, at the fifth. I rubbed my
finger along the dip below it then slowly, with a relish that I
could feel but I abhorred, I brought my right hand up and poised
the curved blade of the knife at just the right spot. Then, with
one violent jab, I slid it into her chest.

A gush of pure pleasure poured through
my body. It was so quick and so violent, unlike the times before, I
was unprepared for and totally overcome by the sheer euphoria of
it. It was much more intense than the others, though I didn’t know
why.

For a moment, the room got a little
blurry, like I was high on the effects of that one simple action,
but then it cleared and I reached for her hand.

When I’d severed the finger,
I penned letters onto the sheets. When I stood back to study my
handiwork,
my own
breath back in
my own
body caught in my chest. This one was different
and I thought I might know why. The message read TO COME HOME,
MH.

Stifling a scream with my hand, I sat
straight up in bed, the dream still shimmering behind my open
eyelids like a haze across my vision.

MH. My initials. Could I be MH? Was the
killer talking to me?

I nearly fell off the bed in my rush to
get to my cell phone. Flipping open the lid, I found Grayson’s
number and punched the send button. My heart was racing as I
listened to the ringing on the other end.

Suddenly, I began to have misgivings
about calling Grayson. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I
pressed the button to cancel the call.

Turning my phone over and over in my
hand, I sat down on the end of the bed to consider my options. The
girl was obviously already dead. She was beyond help. She wasn’t
like Lisa. It wouldn’t make any difference if I called Grayson
tonight or waited.

Professionally, my involvement was
putting Grayson in a shaky position. Not calling would certainly
lessen the suspicion of the masses. It wasn’t doing me any favors
either, especially if DeCarlo ever went public with my
name.

And then, of course, there was the
personal element to consider. My relationship with Grayson was…well
uncertain and confusing. I knew he needed space from me, from my
influence, to figure out what he wanted, what he felt, and calling
him again so soon would not provide him with that space.

With two such good reasons not to call,
that pretty much made up my mind for me. And though I felt like I
was shirking my civic duty by not reporting the crime I’d
(virtually) witnessed, I laid the phone back down on my dresser and
crawled back between the sheets. I knew sleep wouldn’t come, but
what choice did I have?

********

On the way to school, I was dragging my
feet through the thick fog that covered the ground. Though fog
itself has virtually no consistency, it felt like I had to work
really hard to pull my legs forward, like I was walking through
tar. Each foot felt like it weighed fifty pounds.

I was incredibly out of sorts. I was
anxious in a way that I’d never been anxious before. It felt as if
just staying inside my own skin was almost too much to bear.
Something inside me was gnawing away at my guts, wanting out. It
was like having an itch that I couldn’t scratch.

I’d turned the “MH” thing over and over
and over in my mind until I felt like I’d beat my head against a
brick wall. I had all questions and no answers. And there were two
in particular that were driving me mad. Am I MH? And, if so, what
did the killer want with me?

All through the day I felt emo-ish. I
was angry, but I didn’t know why or who I was mad at. And I was
hurting, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Then there was this darkness, like I
was full of it. It was like a black haze encroaching on my entire
being and it was overflowing with angst and rage and a growing
sense of power. It was totally out of character for me. And, though
I was concerned, I didn’t know how to fix it. Again, I was totally
alone and that just made everything worse.

When classes were finally over, I
managed to push my feet to carry me home. I had just crossed the
bridge and was stepping out onto the street when a horn blared and
I jumped back. It was Grayson.

He came to a screeching halt beside me
and leaned over to open the passenger side door. “Get in,” he
demanded in his short, customary way.

Pleased to feel a glimmer of light in
the overall midnight of my life, I slid into the seat and pulled
the door shut. Without a word, Grayson drove straight to the park
and came to a tire-squealing halt in the parking lot, slammed the
car into park and pulled me into his arms.