Comes the Night (7 page)

Brooke

B
ROOKE CRACKED THE
seal on her third—and unfortunately last—sample-sized vodka of the night, and tossed it back. It burned all the way down, but it didn’t burn hard enough. Not hot enough.

She tossed the empty mini-bottle at the trash barrel—maybe a twelve-foot shot from the swing where she sat—but it hit the rim and bounced away. Hell with it. Let it lie there.

That weirdness last night. It had scared the crap out of her, but at the same time, she wanted to do it. Wanted to try it herself. To ‘cast out’ as Connie Harvell evidently called it in her diary. Or so Alex said. It’s not like anyone was getting their hands on that diary any time soon. But whatever it was called, Brooke wanted to do it.

What would it feel like to be out of your body? To fly free? To become one with the night, the darkness...

A masculine laugh followed by a chorus of feminine giggles broke into her thoughts. Great. Just what she didn’t want—company. She pushed off the swing and headed for the deep shadows beyond the pool of light cast by the sentinel lights illuminating the elementary school playground.

She’d barely made the shadows when a group of teenagers burst into the circle of light. But their destination was a picnic table behind the backstop of the child-sized baseball diamond. Brooke was already headed for the street when the guy spoke, freezing her in her tracks.

Seth Walker.

With the vodka still burning in her belly, she turned back. Seth climbed up to sit on top of the picnic table, and oh, God, he looked good. Then a petite, black-haired girl whom Brooke didn’t know clambered up to sit beside him. To remove any doubt that they were together, he slung an arm carelessly around her. The other kids—and they weren’t all girls as she’d originally thought—took seats on the bench. She recognized the tall guy as Seth’s brother, Bryce. And the girl with Bryce was Emalee Sorenson, though they didn’t really look like a couple. The other skanks she didn’t know.

Brooke’s instant reaction was to go over there and tear Seth’s arm off at the shoulder socket, then use the bloody limb to beat the crap out of the girl he was with. She had to take six or seven deep breaths before she breathed away the last of the red haze of fury fogging her vision.

Then, just as she had herself under control, laughter rippled through the group again. The sound hooked her right in the gut. Last year,
she’d
been the one beside Seth, holding court with these losers, or other ones like them. The Walkers were an important family in Mansbridge. They had money and old-town ties. Anger boiled inside. That was
her
place by Seth’s side. Now more than ever, and especially after that first weekend back.

No, forget about that weekend. Seth obviously had.

Fists squeezed at her sides, she made her decision.

No one saw her approach. Briefly, she thought about drifting quietly into the light until someone noticed her. As much as it would please her to hear Seth shriek like a girl in front of his friends, there was no way she was coming off as a stalker. He meant nothing to her.
Nothing
.

Well, eventually he’d mean nothing.

Besides, she had a better idea.

“Seth?” she said, injecting her voice with surprise. “Omigod, Seth, is that you?”

Seth froze at the sound of her voice, and she strode into the circle of light.

“Uhhhh... Brooke. Haven’t seen you around for a while.”

Yeah, for about five weeks, you piece of crap
. “Yeah, funny thing about that, especially since I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Um... yeah... well... I been kinda busy.”

“So I can see,” she said, letting her gaze drift ominously over the petite girl at his side. “I have something I really need to tell you, but I didn’t want to leave a message on your parents’ machine. I mean, the last thing you want your parents to hear about is that HPV infection. I know I’m certainly not planning on telling
my
mother.”

“What?” He squawked. “HP what?”

“HPV. Human Papillomavirus. Did you know that condoms don’t necessarily prevent transmission? I mean, if condoms worked, I wouldn’t have it, right?” She spread her hands and gave a what’s-a-girl-gonna-do shrug.

“You lying bitch!” Seth roared. “I don’t have HP... whatever you said.”

The girl beside him shrank away. She didn’t exactly shrug out from under his arm, but close enough.

He snatched his arm away and fisted his hands. “Melissa, I swear she’s lying. I don’t have anything.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t necessarily know,” Brooke said, the soul of understanding. “It doesn’t always manifest with nasty warts or anything. I mean, you could be a carrier and not even know it. I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for that pap test the other day. You should get checked, too.”

He leapt off the picnic table. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“Okay. Suit yourself. But I think you should know that certain strains of HPV can cause cancer.”

A pause. “Cancer?”

“Yeah. You know,” she said in a stage whisper as she pointed south, “down
there
. Cervical cancer in women, penile cancer in men.”

Seth made a strangled sound.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Chances are your immune system will clear it in a few months. Or years. Of course, if it
is
the cancer-causing kind, I wouldn’t recommend the wait-and-see approach.” She turned to the others apologetically. “Sorry you had to witness this.” She turned back to Seth. “See you around.”

With that, she walked away.

Anger and betrayal still churned in her gut, but at least she had the satisfaction of hearing a tearful Melissa going off on Seth about trying to get her in bed while he had an HPV infection. With the sweet music of hysterical accusations and gruff denials echoing in her ears, Brooke was practically smiling when she hit the sidewalk.

Well, her teeth were bared, anyway.

She had a sudden vision—a half bottle of Tanqueray tucked down one of her high leather boots in the wardrobe back at Harvell. She’d stolen it from her mother’s bar, though Lord knew why. She hated gin. It tasted like a freaking pine tree. But it would do. She picked up the pace.

She was practically jogging when she heard the disturbance. She was tempted to ignore it and keep going, except it occurred to her it might be Seth coming after her. She didn’t imagine he’d have anything good to say, but she’d be damned if she’d run from him. But when she stopped and wheeled, she knew instantly the sounds were coming from the wrong direction. She also recognized one of the voices—Maryanne Hemlock’s. And Maryanne wasn’t in a good way. From the sounds of things, she was about to take a roughing up from some of the locals.

Brooke stood there, weighing her choices. Stay or go?

Back at Harvell, a half quart of gin waited. Though she didn’t have anything suitable to mix it with... And on the other side of those bushes, stood the chance to vent some of this fury that was eating at her insides.

Of course, if she did that, Maryanne would read more into it. Like, for instance, that Brooke gave a crap about her. Not that she
dis
liked Maryanne. But she didn’t especially like her, either. Hell, she barely knew her. Of course, she didn’t like very many people she
did
know, and trusted even fewer.

“Oww! Stop it! That hurt!” That from Maryanne.

Hoots of laughter. “It was meant to hurt, loser.”

“Yeah, loser,” another female voice chimed in. “Outcast. Freak!
Reject
!”

“Even your own family doesn’t want you,” the first voice said. “That’s why they sent you here.”

“Shut up about my family!”

Brooke had heard enough. With those words resonating in her head—
outcast, freak, reject
—she rounded the tall hedge that separated the sidewalk from the convenience store parking lot. Maryanne stood there surrounded by three girls. She clutched her earth-friendly cloth shopping bag containing her purchases protectively to her chest. But her hair, which she wore perpetually in a ponytail, hung wildly about her face. That must have been the “ouch” she’d heard, the elastic being yanked from her hair.

“What’d you buy for us?” one of the girls asked.

Maryanne clutched the bag tighter. “Nothing.”

“That’s not very nice.” The largest girl advanced, and Maryanne shrank back.

“Hey, Shovel Face,” Brooke called. “Leave her alone.”

The three girls whirled toward Brooke.

“Look, this is none of your business,” the big girl said. “And if you get your skinny ass out of here fast enough, I won’t even kick it,” she offered graciously

Brooke laughed.

“Come on, Brooke,” Maryanne called. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“I don’t think they’re inclined to let us walk away. Are you girls?”

Actually, with Brooke’s arrival evening the odds a little, they might have done just that, but Brooke’s words and tone were calculated to make retreat difficult.

The big girl turned to face Brooke squarely. “You
are
looking for an ass-kicking, aren’t you?”

Brooke shrugged and smiled. “I keep looking. Haven’t found one yet.”

Shovel Face lunged. Brooke blocked her with a raised elbow, then lifted her leg and brought the pointy heel of her suede ankle boot down onto the other girl’s foot in a vicious stomp. Her attacker crumpled immediately, screaming and clutching her foot, which probably had a number of small bones broken.

With a roar, the other two girls rushed Brooke simultaneously. She caught one with a stiff arm to the solar plexus, taking her out of the fight and leaving her gasping for air on the ground beside her friend. The other managed to hook an arm around Brooke’s neck, but Brooke went with the momentum, twisting with the girl’s lunge, pulling her attacker with her. As a result, when the two girls hit the ground, Brooke landed on top. In a flash, she had her forearm pressed to one girl’s throat, cutting off her airway.

“Stop!” Maryanne cried. “For God’s sake, Brooke, don’t hurt her!”

Brooke pressed harder. “She tried to take my head off!”

“But she didn’t. They can’t really fight. Well, not like you anyway. Let her go!” Maryanne’s voice grew more panicked. “The other girls are leaving, Brooke. There’s no need to worry about this one.”

Brooke eased up on the pressure enough to let the girl beneath her gasp for breath.

“Guess this is your lucky night,” she said. “I’m going to let you go. But tell your friends not to mess with me. Or my friend, either. And don’t think you can gang up on me some day if you catch me alone. It won’t go well for you. They didn’t call me Miss Gun-to-a-Knife-Fight back home in the Bronx for nothing.” She released the other girl and let her roll away.

The girl got up and lurched after her limping friends.

“Holy shit!” Maryanne said. “Is that true? Your nickname?”

“Lord, no.” Brooke sat up. “But reputation is everything. And I do know a few moves.”

“A few moves? One stomp and that big chick was out of the game.” Maryanne helped Brooke to her feet. “I suppose you’ve taken lots of self-defense classes, living in New York and all.”

Brooke laughed. “I did take Taekwondo classes after school for about five years, but that’s not where I learned those moves.” She dusted her butt off. “That stuff I learned from a guy I met who said he was former Israeli Special Forces.” Specifically, he’d taught her a few moves over this past nomadic summer when she’d been avoiding going home. “Krav Maga, he called it, Yiddish for hand-to-hand combat. Basically, dirty, no-holds-barred, him-or-me street fighting.”

“Wow.” Maryanne’s eyes looked like saucers. “Was he like... your boyfriend or something?”

“Nah, just someone I met.” He might have become her boyfriend, but even as messed up as she’d been, reason had finally asserted itself. That guy was way too dangerous to be hanging with.

“Whatever that was, thank you! You saved me,” Maryanne said.

“Yeah, from a hair pulling.” Brooke brushed more dust off her jeans.

“They’d already progressed beyond that,” she said, shuddering. “They were going to
hit
me. Thank you for the intervention. I’ve never been in a fight.”

Wow. Big news flash there.

Brooke shrugged. “No biggie. And don’t say thank you again. I was looking for a little stress release therapy and you just happened to provide it.”

Maryanne’s forehead puckered in a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just ran into a jerk I used to know.”

A pause. “Want to go find him and dish out some of that Kraft Mega stuff?”

Brooke laughed, genuinely amused. “Krav Maga. And no, that’s all right. I already got him where it hurts.”

“In the... um... jewels?”

Brooke snorted. “Almost as good. I pretty much claimed that he gave me HPV in front of his new girlfriend and all their friends.”

Maryanne clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a laugh. “You didn’t!”

“I’m afraid I did. And it was so worth it. Of course, I’m not going to get laid in this town any time soon.”

“Come on.” Maryanne indicated the direction of Harvell House with a tilt of her head. “Let’s go back and tell Alex about our adventures.”

“Why not?” she agreed. “I need a change of... boots anyway.”

Feeling considerably less crazy, Brooke fell in beside Maryanne as they headed back to the dorm.

Maryanne

“
A
ND SIDE
A, Ms. Hemlock?”

The question caught Maryanne off guard. She dragged her attention back from gazing out the window to the illuminated diagram on the Smart Board. After a brief pause, she answered. “Side A equals 6.78 centimeters.”

Phew! Thank goodness this was math. It had always been her strong suit. Had it been anything else, she likely couldn’t have produced an answer so quickly.

“Very good,” the teacher said, but he wore a tight look on his face as he turned back to the board. Disappointed, probably, that he’d failed to embarrass her even though he clearly knew she’d been daydreaming.

In truth, Maryanne’s mind had been drifting through most of this first-period class, far away from the parallels and bisecting angles and congruent triangles in front of her. Now, she sat up a bit straighter, adjusted herself in the seat, and tried to pay attention to what he was saying. Tried to focus on Mr. McKenzie’s geometry lesson. He didn’t make it easy, though. The guy had no enthusiasm for teaching, and it showed as he stood in front of the class. She’d had teachers like him before, men and women who’d found themselves in the wrong profession too late to do anything about it. When you got stuck with one of them, it sure made for a long academic term.