Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

Did I like it here? I guessed so; I
couldn't honestly answer that question after only three days.

What was California like?
 
Fast-paced and much more temperate, with
fewer palm trees than people gave Californians credit for.

Where did I live?
 
On the west side of town; I hadn't learned
the name of the neighborhood yet.

Why had I moved?
 
Alexis had asked this question.
 
I didn't want to outright lie to her, but I
also didn't feel like unraveling the tragic family story for people I barely
knew.
 
So, instead, I told her that
"the family needed a change."
 
When Alexis weaseled for specifics, I diverted her attention by asking
her where she had bought her lovely blouse.

The rest of the day dragged on
monotonously, with people asking me the same questions and me giving them the
same well-rehearsed answers.
 
When the
final dismissal bell rang, I bolted out the doors in my anticipation to get home.
 
After a day of drowning in unfamiliar people
and questions, I just needed some time alone.

When I reached the house, swollen
clouds were just beginning to darken the sky, and a chill clung to the air.
Eager to burrow into my cozy bed, I tugged on the gate before I realized that
it was locked.
 
I cursed under my
breath.
 
I had forgotten to ask Matt for
a copy of the key before I left for school.
 
Plan B was calling Matt and asking him to open the gate for me.
 
Which wouldn't have been a problem had Matt
made a habit of charging his phone.
 
Plan
C would have been using my necklace to open the gate just as I had unlocked the
door, but I hadn’t worn it to school (I learned at my old school that jewelry
had a bad habit of suspiciously “disappearing” in the locker rooms).
 
The universe must have been working against
me.

With my sister still in school, all
that was left for me to do was climb over.
 
I sighed and braced myself for the inevitable Plan D.
 
I threw my backpack over the gate, which landed
on the other side with a satisfying crunch – probably the sound of my massive
U.S. history textbook splitting in half.
 
I then proceeded to fit my hands and feet into the decorative iron bars
and climb toward the top.

But before I got three feet off the
ground, I had already lost my balance.
 
All it took was thirty seconds of physical activity for me to
gracelessly fall on my butt with an unattractive grunt.

I had all the physical strength of
a potato chip.
 
I stayed on the ground
for a few seconds to catch my breath and wallow in self-defeat, until I heard
the muffled laughter.
 
Damn, someone must
have seen me.
 
I abruptly pulled myself
off the cement in a rush to recollect my senses...

And I found a boy staring at me.

"You don't seem to be very
good at that," the boy laughed as he approached me from the tree he had
been leaning against.
 
I gasped lightly
in surprise.
 
He seemed fairly tall for
his age, but, instead of being awkward, he walked fluidly and soundlessly.
 
I knew it was shallow, but it was impossible
not to notice that he was shockingly good-looking.
 
Maybe he was a model.
 
Although he probably wouldn’t have needed to
be so muscular to be a model.
 
His pale
skin contrasted sharply with his ebony hair, which danced along his brow as he
made his way toward me.

"Not good at what?" I
said without thinking.

"Climbing." He gestured
to the gate.
 
Obviously.

"And you think you could do
better?" I replied defensively.
 
I
didn't even know this kid.
 
Why did he
get to judge my physical abilities?

"I'm sure I could..." he
murmured under his breath, smiling to himself at some sort of private
joke.
 
Ugh.
 
Who was I kidding?
 
He looked like the kind of guy who jogged
religiously every morning while I helped myself to extra syrup and pancakes.

"Are you hurt?" he
inquired, probably just to be polite.

"A few scrapes won't kill me,
so no.”

"Let me see." He held out
his hand in an offer to inspect mine, the suddenness of the action making my
pulse quicken.

"Absolutely not," I
blurted with the air of a third grader who staunchly believed in cooties.
 
I kept my hands firmly balled at my
sides.
 
"No offense, but my parents
told me never to talk to strangers, much less hold hands with them."

The boy scowled, frustration
marring his lovely face.
 
"What do
you think I'm going to do?"
 
He
smirked and added in a low, smoky voice, "I can assure you my intentions
are strictly honorable."

"Said every boy to every girl
in the history of forever." I rolled my eyes.
 
"And that line is especially odd coming
from a stranger," I pointed out.

"Well, my name is Adrian.
 
And yours?"

"Amber."

"Amber…” he said, as if
tasting the name.
 
“And now we are no
longer strangers." In a quick flash of movement, Adrian grabbed one of my
arms and began to look it over for damage.
 
The fact that I didn't feel awkward letting a stranger examine my appendages
for injuries just made me feel uncomfortable with myself.

"Interesting," he
remarked with furrowed brows as he scrutinized my completely uninteresting
hand.
 
"You're completely
fine."
 
Then what was so
interesting?

I yanked my hand back with a snap.
 
It had begun to grow grossly clammy, and if
anyone were tallying attractiveness points, I would already be losing by a
dozen.

"I
told
you.
 
Now please, I
don't mean to be blunt, but you can go back to doing whatever it was you came
out here to do.
 
I need to get over this
godforsaken gate, and I'd prefer to do so without an audience."

"What if I told you I came out
here to meet you?" Adrian looked at me seriously.
 
Dazed by the sudden intensity of his piercing
blue eyes, I stumbled for words.

Luckily, I was able to mentally
slap my brain back into function in time to respond, "Well, then that
would just be… bizarre.”

"How is wanting to finally
meet my new neighbor bizarre?"
 
Oh
. If he just wanted to meet me because
I was his neighbor... I had to admit I was slightly disappointed.

"Shouldn't we go to the same
school?" I realized, conveniently squirming out of answering his
question.
 
He couldn't have been that
much older than me.

"Haven't enrolled yet.
 
Maybe I'll do it later," he
shrugged.
 
"Maybe not."

"Isn't that, like, illegal?”

"Well, who's going to
tell?" he smirked devilishly.

I guess he had a point, because I
certainly wasn't.

“Are you a model?” I blurted.
 
Why had
I said that?
 
It was as if the filter
between my brain and my mouth had completely disappeared.
 
I felt myself blushing profusely and began
damage control.
 
“I mean, I just figured
since that would make sense, what with you not in school, since I’ve known kids
who were models who basically just stopped attending class.”
 
I wanted to disappear in the ground.

Adrian just seemed nonplussed.
 
“A model?
 
How so?”

“What do you mean?
 
By advertising products, you know, on TV or
on the Internet or in a magazine…?” My voice trailed off at the end.
 
He sounded as if he didn’t even know what modeling
was.

“No…?” Adrian replied
uncertainly.
 
“I don’t think I’m a
model.”

"Oh.”
 
Why would he have to think about that?
 
“Wait, then if you don’t go to school,
wouldn't your paren-"

"We’ve been out here for a
while.
 
You should get home," he
announced abruptly, looking up toward the sky.
 
"Let me help."

He walked up to the lock, and I
heard something fall into place then click.
 
The gate was unlocked.
 
What the
hell...

"How did you just do
that?"

He shrugged.
 
"These gates are fairly easy to open, if
you know what you're doing."

That hadn’t been the case for our
professional locksmith!

"Should I be concerned that
you can break and enter into our property?" I asked, gaping at him.

"You could be, but if I were
going to rob your house, I probably wouldn't have just shown you that I could
open this lock, would I?"

"I... guess... not?"
 
I shook my head. Whatever, the gate was
open.
 
If I were going to flee his
disconcerting presence, now would be the most ideal time.
 
"Well, I've, uh, got to go.
 
Thanks for opening the gate."
 
I spun around and fled into the property,
leaving him behind.
 
He wished me a good
evening to my back.

God, I had terrible people skills.

Chapter
Seven

That night I discovered that I was
deathly afraid of thunderstorms, thanks to the wrath-of-God, blow-your-house-to-pieces
monsoon that rolled in.
 
Or, at least
that's what it seemed like compared to the quiet, nonthreatening showers I had
been used to.
 
And as if that weren't bad
enough, the house produced eerie, creaking noises under the strain of the wind.

I drew my sheets up to my chin and
watched the lightning illuminate my ceiling.
 
I couldn't sleep at all.

The storm was getting worse.
 
When I deemed myself sweaty enough to have to
evacuate the security of my blankets, I walked to my window to see what trouble
Mother Nature was brewing.
 
Debris had
been strewn all over the yard and pool, as the rain pelted a slick layer of
water that had formed over the concrete.
 
The muddy sidewalks would no doubt make going to school all the more fun
tomorrow.

My gaze wandered to the neighbors'
house - Adrian's house.
 
I realized that
if it had been taken care of, Adrian's house actually would have looked a lot
like ours.
 
Which of the rooms was his, I
wondered.
 
I mused over the idea as I
perused the windows.

There was a flash of lightning, and
almost instantaneously a deafening boom.
 
But in that blinding burst of light, I could have sworn I saw a tall,
slender feminine figure angled toward me in one of the windows.
 
I shut the curtain with shaky hands and slipped
under my covers.

Who in the world was that?

I tried to calm myself down.
 
It had to have been Adrian's mother, just
looking out the window to see the storm, like me.
 
But I was too wound up to sleep, and
desperate for someone to talk to, so out of habit I used my phone to Skype
Dylan.

"Mh-Amberr, wha-aht?"
Dylan mumbled sleepily as he clicked on his lamp and struggled into the sitting
position on his bed.
 
Sleep lines
crisscrossed his face, and his hair had been flattened on one side.
 
He must have fallen asleep watching a sports
game, because he was wearing his favorite San Francisco Giants jersey.

"Oh geez, sorry for waking you
up."
 
But standard calling hours had
never really existed for Dylan and me.
 
We had disturbed each other in the dead of the night before with
whimsical phone calls and no regard for acceptable calling times.

"No, 's fine...Wait, why is it
all dark over there?
 
I can hardly see
anything." Dylan squinted at me through the screen.

"Well, it's nighttime.
 
And I don't feel like turning on the
light."
 
Yeah, because I didn't want
my glowing window to attract the attention of whoever... or whatever... was in
the opposite house.

"Ohkay then." Dylan
yawned.
 
"What's cracking?"

"Thunder,
specifically."
 
A loud boom sounded
off behind me, enhancing the effect.
 
I
couldn't keep myself from shuddering.

"Huh, that storm sounds pretty
bad."
 
Dylan looked at me with
concern.
 
Like me, he had never had to
deal with severe weather before.
 
"And you look really, really pale."

"Probably just the poor lighting.
 
Which is pretty much nonexistent, by the
way."
 
But the next bright flash
that illuminated my room undoubtedly provided him with enough light to see the
color drain from my face.

"You don't look very
good.
 
Should I call your brother to
check on you?"

"No!
 
He might still be asleep."
 
I frowned at him.
 
Why did he have Matt's number? "Anyway,
the reason I called – and I know I'm going to sound crazy -- is that I’ve still
been seeing weird stuff in the house next door," I blurted in a quick
flurry of words.
 
"—even though I
met the kid who lives there, and he seems okay, although slightly off in a way
I can't just put my finger on."

Dylan ran his hand through his hair
and sighed.
 
His expression turned
pensive.
 
"You should just move back
here with me -- with us."

"Be serious Dylan."

"I am being serious.
 
That house seems really weird, and I don't
know how you expect to live for another two years in constant fear of your
neighbors."
 
Dylan sat up straighter.
 
"Anyway, we all miss you.
 
Nathan isn’t the same without Heather, and my
parents would love to have you again.
 
We
miss you.
 
I
miss you."

I felt a guilty little lump rising
in my throat.
 
Whenever my parents had
gone on business trips, which were often, Heather, Matt, and I would always
stay with Dylan’s family, whose house had become like our second home. Our
parents had been best friends, and until a few months ago, Nathan (Dylan’s
little brother) and Heather had become almost as inseparable as Dylan and
I.
 
While Dylan and I would spend our afternoons
playing videogames or reading, Nathan and Heather would harass frogs and birds
at the lake.
 
We were odd little pairs,
but we were close.

But, of course, after our parents
died, nothing was the same.
 
Nothing is
ever the same after a loved one dies.
 
Dylan's parents were fraught with the task of delivering the awful news.
Heather and I slipped into secluded mourning, and Dylan's family found
themselves in the difficult position of reviving us from our corpse-like
despondency.
 
Despite how hard they
tried, Heather and I only showed any signs of improvement after Matt’s
arrival.
 
But even then, we couldn't bear
to carry on our lives in our childhood house, or even the city that constantly
haunted us with memories of our parents.
 
So we left.
 
And, as much as I
wanted to, I was by no means ready to go back.

"You know we can't do
that," I said softly.
 
"You
don’t understand how much it hurts – never being able to forget them;
remembering something about them, something you did with them everywhere you look."

"Well, I have an idea!"
Frustration crept into Dylan’s voice.
 
"I was there when you were crying on the ground that night, and
listened to you scream in your sleep every night after that, so don't pretend I
don't understand anything."
 
Dylan's
gaze softened.
 
"I'm sorry."

My eyes stung.
 
He was right.
 
He had been there.

"Just, please... think about
it."

"Sure, sure..." I replied
noncommittally without looking him in his eyes.
 
"I guess I should try to go to sleep.
 
Big day tomorrow.
 
What with my second day of school and
all."

"Make sure to watch out for
puddles on your way to school.
 
I
wouldn’t want you falling into the mud again,” Dylan cautioned playfully in an
attempt to lighten the mood.

"For the last time, Dylan,
that only happened once, and I was six."

"Never hurts to be too
careful.”
 
Dylan leaned back against his
pillow. His eyelids alternated between drooping shut and flickering open.
 
He must have been fighting to stay
awake.
 
“Well… are we good?"

I rolled my eyes.
 
"Of course we're good."
 
We could never hate each other even when we
wanted to.
 
And then we hung up.

After that I was up for another two
exasperating hours, during which I jumped at every creak, and I squeaked at
every shadow.
 
Eventually I managed to
conk out after the storm passed, leaving me with a hearty four hours of sleep
in total.
 
Nothing was more fashionable
in high school than dark eye rings that screamed either drug addiction or sleep
deprivation.
 
I secretly hoped that
everyone (mainly Cecelia) would be too preoccupied, or at least self-absorbed,
to say anything.