Authors: Annalisa Gulbrandsen
Taylor shushed her.
“Ooh, Sky is really angry.”
Ellie peeked around the trunk again.
She couldn’t hear Sky but his face was screwed up into a scowl.
He retracted a closed fist and punched the tree he was standing under.
She cringed on his behalf.
Manny gestured behind his back.
She and Taylor squinted.
He did it again, this time with increased violence and frequency.
The boys were parting.
Sky was coming their way.
“There’s no time,” Taylor said.
“He’ll see you.”
With the mad pageant skills she possessed, Taylor walked out from behind the tree and headed straight for Manny as if walking down a runway, not over the uneven, patchy grass.
She put her ear to her cell phone.
Ellie’s phone started playing the techno dance beat.
Retrieving it from the pocket of her dad’s flannel jacket, she looked at the screen like it read “Death is calling” instead of Taylor’s name.
How was it charged?
She knew, knew,
knew
it’d been dead.
“Did you put techno as my ringtone?”
Taylor’s voice was incredulous.
“Never mind.
My keys are still in the ignition.
Ignore the urge to lecture me.
I’ll stall him, you take off.
Manny can give me a ride back. Go!”
A crackling from the limbs above Ellie made her hesitate just a split second too long.
If it hadn’t been for his eyes she never would have seen him.
His arms and legs and muted brown clothing blended in with the tree branches more like a walking stick insect than a human being.
But the gold-yellow eyes couldn’t be hidden among the stripped branches.
He flashed her a pointy smile and then leaped on top of her.
Stars burst in front of her and she didn’t even have a chance to inhale before he slapped a hand over her mouth and muffled her scream.
Sandpaper palms cut across her cheek and lips.
She cried out and he covered her nose with his other hand.
She gasped but there was no air.
A slow hot burn spread through her chest.
Ellie clawed at her face.
Her nails tore into the skin around her hands and mouth but his fingers wouldn’t break their seal.
She was drowning without water.
She blinked back big fat tears and clung to Miss Conrad’s jean skirt.
“What is wrong Eliza?”
Ellie pushed her witch hat off of her head and let it fall to the floor in the hallway.
“There’s a monster in there.”
She hid her face.
Miss Conrad kneeled down to Ellie’s level.
“There are no monsters, just your friends dressed up in their costumes.
Are you really a witch?”
Ellie shook her head no.
“No?
Well I bet whoever frightened you isn’t really a monster either.
Come on, let’s go back in together.
Are you ready?”
Ellie wasn’t sure but she nodded anyway.
She let Miss Conrad pick up her pointed, black hat and place it back on her head.
She slipped her hand into her teacher’s and followed her back into the classroom.
She froze and tightened her grip on Miss Conrad’s hand when she saw him.
Her daddy had read her enough fairytales that Ellie knew him on the spot.
She tugged on her teacher’s hand and pointed toward the little boy with the mop of black hair.
“Goblin.”
“Oh no, Eliza.
Skyler
is a cowboy.
Don’t you see the fringe on his vest and his little straw hat?
He’s even wearing little red cowboy boots.”
Cowboy.
The burn in her chest ebbed away as the pressure on her mouth increased.
Air.
She could breathe.
The weight let up and she opened her eyes.
A disheveled, perspiring Manny knelt over her.
He blew out his lips and said, “She’s breathing.
She’s opened her eyes.”
He held a sleek black phone to his ear.
It suddenly occurred to her what the pressure on her mouth had been.
Her eyes involuntarily traveled to Manny’s perfectly sculpted lips.
Hang it all.
Why did she have to be unconscious for the absolute best moments of her life?
“To think we thought you were half-decent,” Taylor said to her captive.
Ellie fought dizziness and sat up.
To her left Taylor sat straddling another body.
“Why are you on top of Sky?”
Cowboy.
Not goblin.
Cowboy.
The word rung in her ears.
“Oh Ellie, you’re alive.”
Fresh tears started down Taylor’s already streaky cheeks.
“We thought you were dead.
What would I have told your parents?
My parents?”
Her voice rose until it squeaked.
“You weren’t breathing when we got here and Sky had you, and you should have seen Manny, he went completely crazy.”
She took a deep breath.
“It was horrible.”
Ellie picked herself up and crawled over to Taylor and Sky.
One side of his face was already red and puffy.
It would probably be purple in just a few hours.
She gently pulled Taylor off of Sky.
“It wasn’t him.”
She didn’t know what was going on but Sky seemed to have a vested interest in keeping her alive.
And she sort of trusted him.
“He saved me.
Again.”
Taylor relaxed her she-bear ferocity and unpinned Sky.
Then she turned and practically flew into Manny’s arms.
Her tears started all over again and she hiccupped and gasped and blubbered into Manny’s shirt.
Now that he was off the phone, he wrapped Taylor up with both his arms and stroked her hair and her back.
Ellie thought she was stronger than this, but the jealousy slapped her raw in the face again.
Looking away, she focused on finding a distraction.
“How did you know I was in trouble?”
It wasn’t the question she meant to ask.
She wanted to know who was attacking her and why.
She wanted to know how Sky was mixed up in all of it.
She wanted to know why he was so protective of her.
She wanted to know where her bird was and if he was safe.
Sky pulled himself up from the ground and gingerly touched the area around his eye.
“What right does he have to be so protective of you?
As far as I can see, he’s spoken for.
The way he was acting, it was like you were the girlfriend and Taylor the sidekick.”
Ellie’s jaw felt like it dropped all the way to the dirt she was sitting on.
“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?
You left with the boy who tried to kill me last night.
Twice, in case you forgot!
You think I was just going to stay home and watch reruns on
tv
?
You owe me an explanation.
You are either the hero or the accomplice and I want to know which.
And, just for the record, you were a cowboy for Halloween, not a goblin.”
He smiled tentatively, checking to see how much it would hurt to move that side of his face.
“But?”
How could he read her so well?
It was like talking to Taylor, or her dad.
“
But
every time I look at you, I see goblin.
Call it post-traumatic stress from being an over-imaginative five year old.
Call it anything you want.”
“And yet you still trust me?”
“Absolutely not.”
He slid closer to her until his leg brushed up against hers.
He leaned into her until their faces were just a few inches apart.
Her heart thudded irregularly, warring with her abrupt change in breathing.
He was so close she could smell pine needles.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” he whispered.
***
The phone call came just a few seconds later.
It was Ellie’s Aunt Laura.
Ellie’s parents had been in a car accident on their way to the grocery store, and were now en route to St. Louis via life-flight.
Aunt Laura was driving up from Little Rock and would be there in five hours.
5
She didn’t remember how she got home, just that Sky was there.
He and Manny had some sort of testosterone contest over who would stay with her until her Aunt Laura arrived, and eventually it was determined by the fact that no one could agree, that they all would.
Someone, she didn’t remember who, lit a fire in the fireplace.
It’d been a mild fall, but as they headed into mid-November, the temperature had dropped dramatically.
Ellie showered and changed into jeans and a t-shirt and now sat in front of the blaze with her arms wrapped around her knees.
The small clock on the mantle ticked, ticked, ticked but time didn’t seem to pass.
She feared they would be stuck in this agonizing time warp forever, just waiting.
She hadn’t been able to reach her aunt since the original phone call.
Manny draped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him.
Sky’s jaw tightened and he looked away.
Taylor appeared with a tray of steaming mugs and packets of hot chocolate.
She placed them on the coffee table and plopped down on the other side of Manny and snuggled up to him.
Sky stirred in the peppermint chocolate packet and then offered the mug to Ellie.
She wished she could smile at him.
Out of all the flavors, from peanut butter cup to caramel mocha, peppermint would have been her first choice.
But her face felt heavy, just like her shoulders and head and heart.
When she took the cup their fingers touched, and he brushed his thumb over her fingertips.
She breathed in and let her hand linger just a few moments longer than necessary before pulling away.
At least someone wanted her.
The arm on her shoulders suddenly became overly oppressive.
She wriggled free of Manny’s arm under the pretext of needing to try her aunt’s cell again.
Her knee bumped Sky’s as she scooted to the edge of the couch.
His eyes looked ahead at the fire, but he smiled.
“Let’s play a game,” Taylor said.
The firelight danced in her eyes.
Ellie’s fingers fidgeted with her phone, scrolling through the applications, then returning to her contacts and dialing her Aunt Laura over and over again.
It’d been two hours since she’d received the phone call, and since then she hadn’t been able to reach her aunt at all.
She needed her to pick up, if only to have an excuse to get out of playing Taylor’s game.
The combination of two cute boys, Ellie, Taylor, and a completely empty house with zero adult supervision spelled disaster.
Manny’s smile mimicked Taylor’s.
“That’s exactly what we need, something to distract Ellie.
But ye all should be warned, I rarely play fair.”
Taylor slugged him in the arm.
“Cheaters never prosper.”
“You’re wrong.
We always get what we want and then some.”
Ellie looked up to find Manny’s eyes on her.
His dark looks, including nearly black eyes, were enough to instigate instant light-headedness.
If he didn’t cut it out, she would swoon like a heroine from a steamy romance novel, but it wouldn’t nearly be so graceful.
“Truth or Dare,” Taylor said.
Manny stretched his long legs out and intertwined his fingers behind his head.
“Sounds perilous.”
Taylor wiggled her eyebrows up and down.
“Perilous good or perilous bad?”
“I’m not playing.”
Ellie stood up and shoved her phone back into her pocket.
“I’ve had enough peril today.”
Taylor’s lips pursed together in an instant pout.
She folded her legs underneath her on the couch and then looked at Manny appealingly.
“We understand, don’t we babe?”
Manny smiled his perfectly, straight white teeth at Taylor.
“But you could definitely use some light entertainment, Elle-belle.
What if we played and you just laughed at us?
Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Ellie twisted the bottom of her t-shirt between her thumb and forefinger.
When he put it like that, she couldn’t think of a good reason not to agree.
She looked at Sky.
He shrugged as if to indicate it didn’t matter to him either way.
Ellie slowly nodded.
The four sat in a circle on the floor.
Ellie held her mug in her hands although it’d long been empty.
“All right here are the rules.
Taking into consideration all that has happened today, all dares have to take place here in the family room.
No going outside or splitting up or anything really dumb like that.”
Taylor took a breath.
“Rule number two, you may swap one truth for a dare or vice versa if you don’t like the question or challenge.”
She tugged on one of her curls which had come undone from the makeshift bun she’d pulled her hair into.
“I can’t think of anything else.
Who wants to start?”
No one said anything.
The only noise was the crackle of the logs as the fire licked them into charcoal.
“Well then, Sky, truth or dare?”
His response was immediate.
“Dare.”
Taylor frowned slightly.
It was as if she expected, or maybe hoped, that he would pick truth.
Ellie perked up a little and leaned forward.
Maybe she hadn’t given Taylor enough credit.
Taylor reached behind her, next to the couch and produced yet another purse.
This one was black patent.
She popped open the snap, thrust her hand inside, and rummaged around until finally extracting a red slender tube.
“I dare you to apply this lipstick and then kiss Manny.”
The uproar from the two boys was simultaneous.
“I know I am ruggedly handsome and hard to resist…” started Manny.
“There’s no way on this green earth,” Sky continued.”
“This is really his dare, not mine.
There should be a rule that you have to have another person’s consent…”
Taylor winked at Ellie.
You are a genius
, Ellie mouthed to her.
“Well I suppose you could kiss someone else.”
On second thought, not genius.
Ellie’s nerves went into instant overdrive.
Her heart picked up its pace and her palms became damp.
Would he choose her?
And if so, would she allow him to do it?
What kind of kiss would it be—a peck on the cheek or something else?
How would she react if he chose Taylor?
Sky didn’t look at her at all.
His eyes stayed on Taylor’s flawless cream colored face.
Ellie felt a sharp stab in her stomach, and she dug her fingers into her palm to keep from letting it show.
They always chose Taylor.
Ellie’s chest hurt.
Actually, everything hurt.
Stupid, crappy day
.
She wrapped her fingers around her empty mug again and stared into the bottom of it.
“All right, if that’s the way you feel.”
Taylor dropped the lipstick back into her purse.
“It’s truth then.
How do you know the boy from the park?”
Sky leaned way back on his hands and tossed his hair out of his face.
“He’s my brother.”
The way Taylor’s face lost all color and her eyes narrowed into sharp slits showed just how much she thought of that answer.
Taylor slapped her hands onto her thighs.
“Are you joking?
So you are after Ellie.
Manny, call the police right now.”
Manny sat up from where he’d been lounging on his elbows.
“Hey wait, I think I missed a memo.
What’s his brother have to do with Ellie’s attack?
He was already back in the SUV before Ellie’s ambush today.”
Manny’s hand was on Taylor’s arm.
It appeared as if it was the only thing holding her back from tearing Sky into pieces.
Whoops.
Manny wasn’t filled in about the second attack.
Taylor raised her eyebrows at Ellie.
Ellie shook her head at Taylor.
Nope, Ellie still trusted Sky, for whatever crazy reason.
Quickly, she said, “Don’t call the police, Manny.
It was bad enough you had to tell your dad I choked on a piece of gum and talk him out of sending an ambulance to the park.
It’s all right.
Sky is trustworthy.”
His brother had attacked her at the park last night and he didn’t tell her.
Warn her.
If anyone felt unnecessarily protective, it was her.
She didn’t look over at him to see how he reacted.
“Besides, rule number three is you can ask only one question.”
A few objections and grumbles later, to which Ellie stood firm, and Taylor and Manny were quiet.
Well, Manny was.
Sky was up next.
He sat up a little straighter and glared directly at Manny, as if challenging him in some silent battle.
“What is going on between you and Ellie?”
At that moment, Ellie expected the house to come crumbling down, killing her on the spot.
Or maybe she just wished it would.
Manny laughed in response.
Taylor’s face was unreadable.
“Elle-belle and I?
We’re just friends.”
He undid Taylor’s bun and let it fall down her back.
He knotted his fingers in her curls.
“Seventh grade.
My first day at
Colverville
Middle School and I was the little speck of curry in a sea of vanilla pudding.
A little perky brunette found me sitting at an empty lunch table working out the details to world domination, and she asked if she could sit with me.
We’ve been friends ever since.”
Ellie actually smiled, remembering it almost exactly as he described it.
“Let me ask you,” said Manny.
He lowered his eyebrows and straightened his face until he looked like a supreme court judge.
“Who do you think the better kisser is, Taylor or Ellie?”
Ellie choked at the same time Taylor squeaked.