From a Dream: Darkly Dreaming Part I (8 page)

Will took a step toward me. Standing only inches from him and staring into his eyes, I tried desperately to remember something that I had forgotten. But whatever it was evaporated as Will’s hand moved to the back of my neck. The smell of his aftershave made me shiver, and we just stood there, completely still, Will’s eyes scorching mine.

It took several seconds to comprehend that his expression had become one of absolute … rage. The careful mask of calm was completely gone, and something in his eyes looked wild, almost deranged. My breathing hitched in my chest, and my heart raced. I inhaled a ragged breath, afraid I really was going to faint. Will released me abruptly, and I stumbled backwards, catching my balance just before I fell.

Will shook his head, his expression almost as startled as I felt. A second later, his eyes became cold and his jaw clenched. I could still feel a buzz of electricity coursing through my veins even as rejection stung me. A moment ago, I had thought maybe he was going to kiss me. I looked down, embarrassed for even thinking it.

This wasn’t some fairy tale. Will wasn’t riding a white horse, and I definitely wasn’t a princess. Then I shivered, recalling the look on his face from a few seconds ago. It actually had looked more like he wanted to kill me than kiss me.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said. His voice sounded unsteady, regretful, but I barely noticed since I was still close to hyperventilating. “I’ll take you home now.”

I nodded, still unable to form a coherent thought, much less a sentence. He helped me with the helmet again and then held out his hand—which was still gloved—to help me onto the back of the bike. As Will’s motorcycle raced back through the hills toward the real world, my mind spun in half a million directions. Each time he looked at me, it felt like he could see somewhere deep inside me to a place that I hadn’t known existed before tonight—and I desperately wanted to hold onto that feeling.

As the scenery sped by in reverse, it felt like we were going back through time. What would happen when I woke up in the morning? I wondered. Would I find the entire night had been a surreal dream like Alice’s? The thought left me uneasy. Then, sooner than possible, we crossed the city limits again. Will adjusted his speed—only slightly—and moments later the motorcycle slid into a space a few blocks short of my house. He held out his hand for me to climb down.

“What would your father say if he saw you riding home on a motorcycle?” Will asked, his tone playful again.

I gave him a crooked smile, relieved for the lightness in his tone.

“The good thing is he’ll never find out,” I said, my voice full of warning.

I began to unzip Will’s jacket, but he shook his head before I could take it off.

“Keep it.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

He shook his head again. I studied him. He wore only a light sweater. I frowned, but kept the jacket wrapped tightly around me. It was freezing. I wondered how Will could stand it, but he seemed unaware of the cold, or at least unbothered by it.

“My dad, though. He’ll wonder where I got it.”

“I’m willing to wager your father has already gone to bed for the evening.”

My eyes narrowed as we began walking toward my house.

“Can you tell the future, too?” I smirked.

“I wish,” he said darkly. “It would make things so much easier.”

We stopped at my front door, and he looked at me with a strange, searching expression. As we stood in front of my house, I felt a wave of disappointment, like the night was being cut short. Ha! Like I hadn’t had enough danger and excitement for an entire lifetime.

“Do you think you can stay out of trouble until Monday?” Will asked.

His tone remained humorous, but I detected a note of doubt, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means no more wandering off alone with strangers.”

“I didn’t
wander
off—I was dragged by Scott Adams. And I was alone with you, wasn’t I?”

He nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it. I sighed, wishing I could read his mind. I looked up at the window to my dad’s room. It was dark, just as Will had predicted. I paused and then turned back to Will. If I had been silly enough to expect something more, I would have been disappointed. He waited silently until I turned and climbed the stairs, and when I glanced back, he was gone.

I
opened my eyes and found a pair of chocolate eyes staring back at me.

Darcy was sitting at the side of my bed and had obviously been awake for a while, no doubt expecting another early morning run. Before I could pat him on the head, I heard a buzzing noise and jumped.
Sean
! I had forgotten all about him. I pulled the phone from my nightstand and read his text:
What happened 2 u?

I sent back a hasty note:
Told you. Got another ride.
If I got really lucky, Sean would feel guilty for ditching me and wouldn’t ask for details about last night. I could hope, anyway. I dreaded the idea of explaining the incident with Scott Adams—it just wasn’t going to happen. Besides, anything I told Sean would only lead to more questions that I couldn’t answer. Then, with a sudden jolt, I wondered what
had
happened to Scott and the other two guys from last night. I tried to make sense of the vision of the three crumpled figures I had seen on the floor … seconds before Will Kincaid and I
flew
out the window.

Maybe I had dreamed up the entire thing. That was more realistic than my memories of the night before. The sound of a door opening and my dad’s footsteps coming down the hall made me jump. I looked at the clock and groaned. It was nearly ten.

“Aven, are you up yet?”

“Yeah … sort of,” I mumbled.

He tapped at the door.

“You decent?”

“Sure, Dad.”

The door opened, and he poked his head in.

“I must have fallen asleep before you came in last night.” He smiled sheepishly. “Some overprotective dad I turned out to be, huh? How’d the party go?”

I should have expected his curiosity since this was the first time I had shared the company of people my age—not counting Sean—since we had moved.

“It was …
fine
,” I said, feeling instantly exasperated with my lack of a more descriptive, if not accurate, summary of the party.

“Meet any new friends?”

I swallowed. I wasn’t prepared for whether or not I was going to tell my dad about Will. How would I describe him? Unnervingly gorgeous stranger who had saved me from a potential rapist? Um, nope. Not happening.

“Not really,” I hedged.

Besides, I didn’t think Will could be classified as a
friend
.

“But you had a good time with Sean?”

I frowned at the hint of urgency in his tone. Every once in a while he got it into his head to interrogate me about my social life, obviously afraid I was turning into a shut-in.

“We kind of got separated, but it was fine.”

Realizing my mistake, I bit my lip, hoping he wouldn’t become curious about how I had gotten home.

“All right, sweetie. I just wanted to see how your night went. I’m going to head over to school to catch up on some paperwork, unless you want me to stick around.”

I shook my head.

“Sean and I are getting together to study.”

I was also planning on cleaning, which would be easier with my dad gone. Lately, cleaning the house fell exclusively to me, and as much as I hated it, it wasn’t going to get done by itself. Most Sundays, I tried to get through the bathroom and kitchen before I did schoolwork. Sitting back in bed, I listened as my dad gathered his things to go into the office. My thoughts immediately drifted to Will Kincaid, and it occurred to me that he had talked like he lived alone. It made me wonder if he had lost someone too as I remembered the look in his eyes the first day he came to class—steely and etched in ancient regret. But there had been something else in his eyes the night before—a feverish urgency that made my stomach pitch just thinking of it.

In desperate need of a distraction, I got up and changed into a pair of sweats, spending the remainder of the morning doing laundry and then scrubbing the bathroom. With the music turned up, it was easy enough to keep my mind occupied. Darcy lay with his head resting between his paws at the edge of the bathroom and watched. As I contemplated bleaching the toilet and scorching my olfactory nerves, my phone rang, forcing me to strip off the plastic gloves I was wearing and dash into my room, my sweats wet and gross.

“This had better be good, Sean,” I snapped into the phone, my tone a little harsher than I had intended.

“Ouch. Hello to you, too.”

“Sorry. Cleaning makes me a little homicidal.”

“Homicidal when you’re cleaning, homicidal when you’re not eating … Maybe you
are
homicidal, Casey. Ever thought about that? Keep reminding me every so often to keep sharp objects away from you. Are we still getting together to study?”

“Yeah. I’ll be ready in a half hour.”

“All right, just eat something before I get there so I don’t have a mass murderer on my hands,” Sean snickered.

“Whatever.”

I had snapped at Sean
once
when I had been really hungry, and he was never going to let me forget it. As soon as I hung up, I started yanking off my sweats and headed back to the newly cleaned bathroom to take a shower. After letting Darcy into the back yard, I filled up his water, gave him some more food, and went outside to wait for Sean. We were going to go to the coffee shop by the bookstore where Sean worked. It was quiet, and Sean went there all the time during his breaks. Sitting on the porch, I watched as a light rain fell noiselessly onto the concrete sidewalk. Sean pulled up a minute later, and I made a dash for the passenger seat. He didn’t mention the night before, and I relaxed, relieved not to have to mention Scott Adams or Will Kincaid.

When we got to the coffee shop, Sean found a table while I ordered drinks. After setting his in front of him, I slid onto the bench. It took a second before I noticed he was staring at me expectantly.

“Well? What happened to you last night?” he demanded. “Were you there when the cops showed up?”

My pulse spiked. This so wasn’t good.

“I must have been gone by then,” I said carefully.

“I had to make a run for it,” Sean continued in an eager rush before I could answer. “It was total freaking chaos. People running everywhere. Wild, huh?”

I swallowed.

“Yeah, wild. Did you talk to Allison?” I asked, trying to distract him.

“Nope. I chickened out.” Sean’s face fell for a second before his expression brightened. “But she looked hot, that’s for sure.”

“I saw her,” I said stoically.

I was sure everyone else at the party had seen her, too, and I wondered curiously if my savior had seen Allison Monroe’s perfection yet. She would have been a good match for Will Kincaid, but even Ms. Spray-on Tan looked human compared to him. Besides, what was she going to do—hook up with Jason Everett
and
Will Kincaid? While I was sure she wouldn’t mind, the thought made me nauseous and surprisingly jealous. I shook my head. I wasn’t even in the same realm as these people.

“So, who’d you get the ride from?” Sean asked suspiciously.

As far as Sean knew, he was my only friend with a driver’s license and a car—or more accurately, my only friend in Winters.

“Someone from History,” I said, stalling for time.

“Yeah? Who?”

Sean was frowning and obviously trying to identify the likely candidates—all of them female, I was sure.

“You have to promise not to freak out, all right? It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Aven, come on. You’re driving me nuts.”

“I thought it was just girls who are supposed to be pushy and nosy,” I muttered.

“Low blow.
Come
on. Just tell me. I promise I won’t care.”

“Will Kincaid,” I said, cringing as the name rolled across my tongue.

He stared at me blankly for a second before erupting into laughter.

“
Wha—what
? The new guy? The one who started school like two days ago? The same guy all the girls are talking about? Are you sure you didn’t knock your head on something?”

“Nice, Sean. Thanks for the vote of confidence. You promised not to freak out,” I said, my tone acerbic.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. But, come on. You’ve never met the guy, and you got a ride home from him? He could be an axe murderer for all you know.”

The concern in Sean’s voice made me smile.

“I just really wanted to get out of there, and I couldn’t find you. Plus, he offered.” It was the truth. Part of it anyway. “Besides, it’s not like he’s a total stranger. We have a class together.”

I winced at my own faulty logic. I had that same class with Scott Adams, who was obviously not harmless. My stomach dropped as I recalled the look on Scott’s face just before Will had appeared—predatory. A wannabe date rapist. Or party rapist, in last night’s case. I never in a million years would agree to a date with someone like that jock asshole.

Still, before last night I had never thought about the possibility that someone I went to school with was a
monster
. I curled my legs up on the bench seat, not wanting to think of what might have happened if Will hadn’t arrived when he did last night. I shivered. I had read stories online about girls having their accounts hacked and being blamed and humiliated because someone had raped them. It made me angry, sad, and sick to my stomach just to think about it.

“Well, you missed the real action anyway,” Sean said, providing a welcome distraction.

His eyes gleamed as he waited for me to take the bait.

“What?” I rolled my eyes as he drew out the suspense. “Sean, come on.”

“You won’t believe it. I found out afterward that the cops went upstairs and found Scott Adams and two other gorillas in one of the back bedrooms, all of them totally wrecked from a fight. They’re
big
dudes, too,” he said in a low voice. “Adams had a concussion, broken arm, and two cracked ribs.
At least
. They had to call the paramedics when they busted up the party, according to this kid whose mom works the night shift at the hospital. Unreal, huh?”

I gripped the bench, unable to speak. That couldn’t have been from Will.
Could it
? I had never actually seen Will move. One second Scott was ready to push Will off the balcony; the next all three were crumpled on the other side of the room.

“Hey, are you all right?” Sean asked when I continued to stare into nothing.

“Sure, yeah. That’s crazy.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you took off when you did,” Sean said.

Nodding, I pulled out my History textbook and started to review the study questions. My thoughts were spinning out of control. I tried to make sense of the events from the night before, but I couldn’t. Any memories I could recall were insane. Impossible.

But things could have been a lot worse. Will Kincaid could have
not
shown up last night.

When I got to school Monday morning,
everyone
was talking about the party—and Scott’s absence from school. Knowing that I was the last person to see my would-be attacker upright Saturday night made me edgy, and I had to wonder if people had seen me with him. Not that anyone in their right mind would ever think I had anything to do with flattening three huge guys. In Health Sciences, I heard that Scott was going to miss football season—a tragedy, as far as most of the school was concerned.

I couldn’t have cared less. I was more interested in seeing Will again. But to my increasing frustration, he seemed to have vanished from school as mysteriously as he had arrived. I scanned the parking lot in the morning without success. No startling black motorcycles. When I passed by Sean in fourth period, he leaned over and nudged me meaningfully. Noticeably absent was Scott.
And
Will. My heart sank. Who missed class their first week in a new school? If it hadn’t been for Scott’s conspicuous absence, I might have gone back to wondering if Will had been some kind of strange, beautiful hallucination.

History passed by slowly, but I didn’t want it to end. I continued to hope—stupidly—that Will would show up and say something that would make me feel less insane. During the last five minutes of class, Mr. Anderson announced that we would be partnering for the term papers. Group work. I despised group work—one big headache. I sank lower in my seat, watching as he paired students according to where they sat. I glanced behind me at the empty seat. When he reached my empty row, Mr. Anderson consulted his roll sheet and frowned. Putting
Kincaid
behind
Casey
had clearly messed up his obsession with alphabetical seating.

“Aven, you’re with the new guy. You can let him know tomorrow, if he shows up,” Mr. Anderson mumbled, as he moved down the row.

My cheeks started to burn as I heard a chorus of female voices behind me grumbling.
Well, that’s great
, I thought. One more reason for Allison Monroe and her minions to hate me. After History, I avoided Sean and went straight to my locker. It was too much to hope for that he wouldn’t make a comment about my pairing with Will. If he knew the whole story, I was fairly certain Sean’s head would explode, right before he ran off to tell the rest of the school. I contemplated where I could escape to on foot for lunch.