Haven (2 page)

Even I hit the power button, choosing serenity over headless fatalities. I picked up my backpack, checked the clock on the wall, and headed out, locking the door behind me. My dad’s blue Ford Mustang, which now could be legally considered mine even if my heart wouldn’t accept it, was parked on the other side of the driveway.

“Good morning, Old Boy. You’re looking shiny today.”

As an ode to my dad’s immaculate ways, I kept him waxed to a pristine sheen, so my image reflected back impeccably as I opened the door and slid inside. When I turned the key, he rumbled without hesitation, telling me that he was ready, and I took him down the driveway and out into the neighborhood.

I drove across the main part of town and stopped at the border to the poverty-stricken area beyond it. Here, businesses were marked in neon with bars mounted over their store windows. New graffiti had been added since I’d visited last, which I passed while noting the artist had misspelled the word ‘kunt.’

To be less visible, I parked in the back, next to the heavily dented and rusting dumpster and the homeless man who was sleeping next to it. He didn’t move, but the wrinkled cardboard sign he had propped against his hip shifted slightly. I read it as I put Old Boy into park.

The end is near. Redeam yourself. Give to the needee.

I scrounged some change from Old Boy’s console and dropped it in the empty paper cup next to the sign just as the squeak of a screen door made me turn around. There, Mr. Chow stood in the shadows, his short frame in competition for notoriety with the white moustache that stretched clear down to his hips. His weathered hand held the door open for me as I entered.

“You have good sleep?” he asked, and I knew he’d noticed the bags under my eyes.

“Not really,” I admitted.

“Today…not a good one,” he muttered, stopping beside me, his eyes downcast, contemplating something.

He remembers what today is, I thought, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. My dad had been Mr. Chow’s regular customer for years. His vanishing wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, and neither would the fact that I now come in alone. Then, of course, there were the news reports that pretty much anyone in our small town over the age of five and with a pulse had heard.

He took my hands and lifted his eyes to me. His skin was tough, warm, and dry, like the surface of a crumpled paper bag, but there was something dire in his expression that made me forget about his touch. No, he wasn’t thinking about my father. He wouldn’t have that fear in his eyes if he were.

“Today no good,” he said, and then shook my hands roughly, almost in a spasm. “You take refuge. You understand? You take refuge.”

I nodded slowly, certain my face was telling him what I was thinking:
What in the hell…?

Obviously, I didn’t verbalize that thought. Instead, I placated him. “I’ll take it wherever I can find it, Mr. Chow.”

“You good girl, Kennedy,” he said, more as an opinion than a compliment. “You take refuge.”

“I will.”

He waited until he was certain I was being truthful and released my hand. He then scuffled down the hallway as if our conversation hadn’t taken place, his body angling to skirt the boxes stacked unsteadily to the ceiling. I followed him, doing the same, until I’d cleared the obstacle course and made it to the front of the store.

Mr. Chow runs an army surplus, where you can find the usual fatigues, duffel bags, camouflaged bivouac equipment, and other genuine military items. But for those few customers who knew that he offered more than what was visible, he sourced other deliveries. Mine was waiting for me at the counter, unboxed, lined side by side. The flat, steel stars had been sharpened until their edges glinted back at us. They were beautiful, perfect. My dad would have loved them.

“Thank you,” I said, unable to pull my eyes away until Mr. Chow delicately placed them into their box.

“This…,” he said, sliding the box across the counter toward me, “you no pay for.” He tapped the lid softly in a way that meant he’d made up his mind.

“Thank you,” I replied, unable to get my words above a whisper.

He nodded, once, and said, “You know how to use?”

“Yes, my….” I paused, the name unable to come out for a second, “dad taught me, but-” I began to shake my head in rejection. I was preparing to mention that I wouldn’t ever use them, that they weren’t for me, they were for a man six feet under, when Mr. Chow cut me off.

“No!” he snapped. “No ‘but’! You use if need to.”

Again, with the dire warning. Mr. Chow was ordinarily a reserved guy and I wasn’t sure what was with him today, but I didn’t ask…which is something that I’ll always regret. It might have shed some light on what he foresaw, might have told us our future, how civilization ends up. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking about life or death, or the future, at least not beyond dusk when I’d leave the throwing stars at my father’s grave in place of the traditional flowers. No, I had what I came for. Besides I was going to be late for school.

“Yes, I’ll use them if I need to,” I agreed, never considering it would ever happen.

Only then did he remove his hands from the box and I was able to take it.

Silence settled over the store as I left, which told me that he was watching me go. I wish I had turned around and said goodbye, thanked him, said something to show how much I appreciated knowing him. And if I knew what was about to happen, I would have. In fact, I wouldn’t have left, because I knew something few others didn’t…that a cache of weapons was kept behind the wall in his back office.

Hindsight is never an easy thing to swallow.

I drove to school, and parked Old Boy in his usual spot – in the back corner of the lot – where he’d be protected from dings and scratches. Mr. Chow’s warning was lingering in the back of my mind the entire time, but it began to fade as I noticed the thin but steady flow of students funneling through the security gates and up the steps to our school’s main entrance. It was early, so only a handful of the students had arrived. Most of them wouldn’t be coming through the gates until five minutes before homeroom started.

I was at the beginning of my senior year, just one week into the semester. My pace should have been quicker and my eyes should have been sweeping the crowd for familiar faces to talk about college acceptances and where everyone would be meeting up on Friday night. But a lot had changed over the last year, and the faces staring back were more distant and indifferent. They said…there’s the girl who went from Homecoming Queen and track star to the school’s most dejected outcast in under twelve months. I didn’t think they gave me due credit. That’s a feat, unsurpassed by any other high school student. Guaranteed.

The few who did actually give me credit were my true friends. They had tried to help, organizing sleepovers, working to bring me into their conversations. But when you face death, subjects like who is dating who and the latest fashion don’t seem all that appealing. I wanted something real, true, honest. I craved an awakening. And because they couldn’t deliver it, or didn’t even know I needed it, they slowly faded away. I didn’t blame them. Anyone who went from talkative and sweet to sullen and serious must have a few screws loose, right?

It was just before 7:15am as I reached my assigned locker, located in the main hallway, midway down. Number 143B.

Someone had written a not-so-nice word at the end of the B, which maintenance had tried to wash off. Still, I could make out the faded remnants of it staring me in the face. A year ago this might have bothered me. I might have made a bee-line for the janitor’s office or found one of my friends in the halls to work on figuring out who the offender might be. Regardless, at the moment I wasn’t insulted.

What a fun game
, I thought.
I’d like to play, too.
There were definitely better words out there to describe me.

Brazen…

Brilliant…

Breathtaking…

Bitchin’…

Okay, that last one was a derivative of the root word, but who says I had to play by any rules? Especially when the game only existed in my head.

I was so preoccupied with my little game that I made the mistake of allowing the edge of my book bag to slip from my fingers, and the contents flew out across the tiled floor, where several items were clipped by passing shoes and were sent spiraling down the hallway. I lost a pen, a Tootsie Roll, a few pennies, some dimes. But I was most concerned about the box that Mr. Chow had given me and another word popped into my mind, running through it sarcastically.

Beautiful
…

I began frantically searching for it, my eyes darting back and forth across the ground. It would mean a haranguing from Mr. Packard, definitely detention, and possibly suspension if I were caught with these kinds of weapons on school grounds, but it would be completely devastating if I lost them altogether. Still, as I searched, all I found was a lipstick tube tucked beneath the lockers, gum wrappers, and wads of dust. There were no steel stars.

Then my eyes swept to the right, stopping as a pair of boots came into view, and my lungs ceased up as yet another word raced through my mind. This one didn’t start with B, wasn’t part of the game, and made me feel alive, actually part of the living, for the first time in months.

It came screaming through my consciousness, freezing me in place for a few very long seconds.

Harrison…

Before I could decide if I truly wanted to look at him, my eyes made the decision for me. Slowly, I took in the sight of him as my gaze ran the entire length of his body. He stood on the opposite side of the hallway, leaning leisurely against the lockers, his jeans resting snugly around his well-built thighs, his boots crossed at the ankles, his blue eyes locked on me. He didn’t move, evaluating me with curious, sincere interest, as was always the case when we crossed paths.

He had been in the sun and was tanner now, which deeply contrasted with the white t-shirt draped over the contours of his chest muscles. His shaggy, dark blonde hair was tousled, which made him hardy and more striking. As always, he looked like he’d just walked off the field and into the city.

We’d been exchanging glances for over a year after he transferred from a high school in Texas, both of us keeping our distance while always seeming to sense when the other was around. Since the first time our eyes met, I’d snuck glances of him and caught him staring back in the cafeteria, the library, in the hallways. It was divine fate that we didn’t share any classes or I wouldn’t have heard a single word the teacher said…and I have fairly strong willpower when it comes to that kind of thing.

My focus right now, however, was on the steel stars he held inconspicuously in his hands, as if he knew I didn’t want anyone to see them. But
he
had, and it instantly put me on edge.

His inquisitive expression firmly in place, staring intently, he crossed the hall. When he stopped a foot from me I realized that with the exception of our first encounter, the two of us had never been so close. Since that first meeting, we’d kept a wary, intrigued space between us, which he had now breached.

I struggled to remember to breath, and when the inhale finally came, it carried his scent… an inviting mixture of earth and fresh air, completely out of place in the sprawling landscape of suburban Chicago, and so incredibly intoxicating. I was acutely aware of it, equally as much as his hands, which held the stars, and hadn’t shifted from his sides.

“What kind of a girl,” he said in a deep, resonating voice that sent a flutter through my stomach, “owns Japanese throwing stars?”

These were the first words he’d said to me. Ever. And they were as daunting as if he’d just peered directly into my soul.

I stiffened, feeling completely exposed, vulnerable. I had to remind myself it was just a question, a legitimate one considering he held the stars and it was justifiably odd to see them spilling from a girl’s bag and sliding across the school hallway.

His eyebrows dipped just enough to indicate that he realized he’d hit a nerve, and then he made the wise decision not to pursue his questioning. Extending his hands, he presented me with the stars. It seemed almost like a peace offering. I reached up and took the edges of both, my fingers unintentionally running along the inside of his palms in order to get under the thin pieces of metal. Our touch sent a current of excitement surging through me, and I wasn’t the only one rattled by it. His fingers, which were curled up to enclose the stars, contracted. It was an almost insignificant twitch, but I’d caught it. He’d felt the jolt too.

My excitement flared, and had I thought about it beforehand, had it not been for my automatic reaction, I might not have done it. But I did. I looked up, directly into his blue eyes, the same ones that had been staring at me from a distance for so many months. My heartbeat sputtered and then began to accelerate.

“You’re welcome,” he stated before I could conjure a thanks. It was arrogant…and charming, and it made my heart leap against my rib cage.

“Thanks,” I replied, and then clarified, “for not saying anything about them.”

“What makes you think I won’t?” he asked, without any hint of challenge. It was an honest question.

I shrugged, having come to that conclusion about him involuntarily and without much thought. “You don’t strike me as someone who cares much for following the rules.”