Shattered (24 page)

I took the pan to my room and
settled in front of another ridiculous movie. How many
Bring it On
remakes could there be? A million, apparently. I didn’t
find anything terribly different about this one. Just before the underdog squad
was about to bring it, I assumed, my phone rang.

Paul. I declined it and
opened the voicemail when it appeared. The first thing I heard was Emma yelling
in the background. Then Paul cut in, panting like he was running.

Sparky, climb your ass out of whatever hole you’re living in and
call me now. Kamon has Christine.

I was running. The halls smelled like
pee, the air tasted like death. I was there, in Kamon's prison, again.

“No!” I said, gripping the railing of my
balcony. I opened my eyes to escape the vision. “I can’t go that far. I won’t
go that far.” Then, as if my powers were showing me what would happen if I
stayed out of it, the deafening screams of tortured people blasted in my head. Then
came the worst feeling–chaos. I sensed exposure of magical kind. I sensed
another clash. I sensed another war.

I had the potion ready for this very
reason. I ran into my room and drank until the world was quiet and peaceful. I
refused to believe that the world was doomed if I continued to ignore my
visions and behaved. There would be another way to fix things that didn’t
include me and my explosive temperament. At least I hoped there would be.

With only two days left until Mom’s plan,
hope was all I had. The temptation was getting harder to ignore, so
tonight, to keep my mind off of war, I was going to let myself be consumed with
Nathan.

That wasn’t hard to do at all. Actually,
I was very good at stalking him. I patted the bed, looking for my phone that
had apparently drowned in my sheets, and then I called him. The phone beeped
and signaled me to leave yet another message on his voicemail.

“It’s me again. You remember me, don’t
you? Your girlfriend. Anyway, I’m just sitting in my room. Paul and Emma are
coming over for pizza. My dad is going out. Sophia will be here, but I’m sure
Paul and Em could hide you. So … how about I save you some pizza? Just call if
you’re interested. Or at least call and tell me if detained really means …
detained. You know? Like if you’re in some cell, with random phone privileges.”

I paused like I expected him to answer me
over his voicemail. An explanation would be amazing. Detained or not, he had
his phone. He’d changed his voicemail and sometimes it rang, maybe once or
twice, before getting there. He was clearly declining the calls.

“I hope you call,” I continued. “I’d love
to see you tonight. If not, I hope you have something awesome for dinner like pizza.
If it’s dinnertime where you are. Wherever you are. If it’s not, then have a
good lunch or a hardy breakfast.” I chuckled. “Who says hardy? Okay, now I’m
rambling. I love you. Call me. Bye.”

I deleted the attempt out of my call log.
Dad liked to check it every hour or so.

I tucked my phone in my pocket and peeked
out of my door. All clear. My father had eased off of the direct hovering, but
he
was
always just a few steps
away,
usually in his room across the hall. If I yelled loud enough, I didn’t have to
leave my room to talk to him.

“Dad! Are you dressed?” He didn’t answer,
and I hoped it was because he’d already left for Chicago to hang out with his
friends and explain, with a lie, why he’d been missing for over two weeks.

I’d checked his future earlier today to
make sure this outing was safe for him. With Kamon still around, for two more
days at least, I didn’t want him putting himself in harms way. The forecast was
blurry, but I was one hundred percent sure that he wouldn’t be captured or
killed. My brain had only given me a moment to focus on him before the horns
and the crying grew too loud to handle.

Dad’s door was open, and
a pair of nice jeans–ironed like an old guy would iron
them–and a black t-shirt were
draped across the foot of his bed.
He wasn’t dressed yet. I sighed. I needed him out of the house now. I’d just
invited Nate over, thinking he would be gone in a matter of minutes. This night
would turn into a disaster very quickly with them under the same roof.

I walked downstairs to find him and rush
him out. As I opened my mouth to yell for him, I saw Sophia sleeping peacefully
on the sofa. On the floor in front of her, towels were folding themselves.

I chuckled at her cute snore and covered
her with the blanket she couldn’t have seen on the arm of the sofa. Or maybe
she hadn’t intended to fall asleep. The poor thing looked exhausted. I folded
the remaining towels, hoping to save her some energy if her spell worked that
way. If it didn’t, the towels would still be folded, and if it did, one of my
favorite people would sleep a little easier.

I called my dad’s phone and it rang next
to the television. Sophia was watching a home makeover show with the volume
turned up high. She’d managed to fall asleep with it blasting. I couldn’t find
the remote, so I left it that way and went outside to search for Dad.

It was another annoyingly perfect night
in San Juan. It was the kind of place that could turn any day around if you let
it. Otherwise, the perfect breezes and the perfect water and the perfect sand
would just remind you of your perfect boyfriend who hadn’t answered his phone.

I slowed my steps when I heard Dad faintly
strumming on his guitar. It sounded like the end of a song, the last chords
before a round of applause. It was coming from the empty room on the first floor
with the hammock. It squeaked as the wind rocked it back and forth. The patio was
deserted, and my father was nowhere in sight. The moment had everything it
needed to turn into a slasher movie … or worse–a movie with little ghost
kids.

“Dad?” A door slammed just as I passed
the hammock. The patio door was cracked just enough for me to step through. I
closed it and locked it behind me, wondering for a brief moment if we were as
safe in this house as I thought we were. “It’s just Dad,” I told myself.

I glanced around the dark room. It was
still covered in plastic. More than his room or mine or the one we used for my
artwork, this room had the feel of a master bedroom. I frowned at the swinging
hammock. This had to be the room he’d shared with Mom.

What was he doing in here all alone?

I poked my head into the other empty room
on the first floor, looking for him. It was the size of a small office or … a
nursery. There was no furniture in there, no plans to fill this room before or
after she’d left him.

The television had been muted by the time
I made it back to the living room, and his phone was no longer next to it. We were
missing each other. “Please be getting dressed,” I said, while checking my
phone again. Still nothing from Nate.

The mouthwatering scent of Sophia’s
homemade pizza wafted into my nose, and I went into the kitchen to steal a bite.
Two freshly baked supreme pizzas were waiting on the counter for us. If Nate
called, by some miracle, he’d have to pick the toppings off. He didn’t like his
pizza to have too many colors. I missed his weirdness.

“Kiddo?” Dad said. I walked into the
living room as he ran down the stairs in a panic. “There you are. Don’t do that
to me.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“You weren’t in your room or anywhere.”

“I was looking for you. You were
downstairs in the empty room just as I walked in.” His eyebrows yanked together,
and my heart stammered. Did I hear someone else? Were we not alone in the
house?

“You were in there?” he asked. “Um …
without my stutter, my buddies put me on the spot to sing all the time. I was
just getting my voice ready. Don’t take that song the wrong way.”

“What song? I didn’t hear you singing.”
He looked away nervously. “Was it about me? You’re acting like a high school
girl. You’re a dead ringer for Whitney after overhearing her talk crap about
me.”

“Not Whitney!” he said. “She’s the worst
one. Oh … wait. Was it Sarah?”

“Sienna.”

“Yeah. That’s the one.” He was clearly
avoiding talking about the song, but I shrugged it off. As long as it was actually
him in that room and not an intruder, he could sing about whatever he wanted
to.

 
“Why are you still in sweats?” I asked. That
was code for: GET OUT!

“The plane they think I’m flying in on
gets there in an hour or so.” He started walking in the wrong direction, towards
the kitchen, and I sighed. I wanted to strangle him as he hopped up on the
counter and grabbed a slice of pizza. Then, just to torture me I was sure, he
gave me a list of rules to follow on his first night away. Don’t touch his
beer, don’t think about touching his beer,
don’t
let
my friends touch or think about touching his beer. Then: Don’t call Nathan,
don’t think about calling Nathan,
don’t
let my friends
call or think about calling Nathan.

“Are we clear?” he asked.

“Not really. The beer part is clear, we
wouldn’t drink because of Paul anyway, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call
Nate or not. That part was foggy.” He tossed a piece of sausage at my head and laughed.

“Party’s here,” Emma said. She popped in
wearing pink zebra patterned pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Paul appeared next to
her in gray skinny jeans and a navy blazer. It was so like him to be
overdressed to lounge around.

 
“Christine, tell them the rules,” Dad
said. “I need to get dressed. I’ll say goodbye before I leave.”

I stopped myself from releasing a loud
sigh that would’ve meant: FINALLY!

Since Sophia was sleeping like a baby in
the living room, we took the pizza up to my room. After killing all but three
slices (the ones I’d saved for Nate), I showered and threw on colorful pajamas to
match Emma.

I checked my phone and squeezed in next
to Paul on my bed. “Still no answer?” Emma asked.

“Nope.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Paul said. He
wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “I’ll try calling again. When is he
leaving?” He meant my father who hadn’t come in to say goodbye yet. I shrugged
my shoulders.

“Hopefully soon,” I said.

While we waited, Paul flipped
through the channels, past some awesome movies, and stopped on a channel that
only played music. He lay on his stomach behind Emma as she painted her
toenails. I curled up on my own side of the bed with my phone under my butt,
trying not to check it once again.

Before today, I didn’t
understand Paul’s taste in music, but somehow rap fit in this moment perfectly.
The harsh beats spoke to my soul in a way pop music couldn’t. In my life, it
wasn’t time to dance. My boyfriend was being detained, I still didn’t know what
the hell that meant,
and
he was
completely ignoring me. Katy Perry wouldn’t do. I needed to nod my head slowly
to complicated lyrics while melodic background vocals twisted through my
stomach and made me miss him even more.

I had the sudden urge to sing
along even though I didn’t know the words. I kept my mouth closed and the tears
in my eyes as I gave in and checked my phone yet again.

I didn’t even have a new email.
You always have an email, from online shopping at least. Not today. The silence
of my phone mocked me.

It was time to be honest with
myself. He wasn’t going to call. I knew him. It was why I didn’t tell him about
my wrist in the first place. Nate liked things to be perfect, and he cared
about every little detail of every situation. He’d notice something as small as
his toothbrush being moved an inch from where he’d left it the day before. With
Nate, very few things were insignificant, and no matter how much I wanted to
make this a little thing, it wasn’t. So what was a big deal for the rest of us
would be colossal to him.

My father knocked and poked his head through the door. “Kiddo,
I’m-” My phone rang at the worst possible moment and cut him off. All three of
us froze. A few moments ago, I’d wanted nothing more than for my phone to make
a sound, any sound, but now I was close to throwing it out of my window. “Who’s
that?” Dad asked.

My slow movements were giving me away as I inched my phone towards
my face to see the caller. I sighed, half elated and half disappointed. It
wasn’t Nate.

“It’s Mom,” I said. “That’s weird. She’s video chatting me. She
never does that.”

I accepted the video call, and my phone took a minute to load. I
held it out to my dad before he asked. I knew he’d want to inspect it, making
sure Nate and I weren’t “back together”.

“Okay,” Dad said. “See you in a few hours.” He patted his pockets
and sighed. “Oh, crap. My wallet. Love you, honey.”

He blew me a kiss and scrambled across the hall to get his wallet,
I assumed.

“Hi,” Mom said. “Can you see me?”

It took another second for her face to appear on my screen. She was
sitting in a chair in front of the horrid painting in her office I’d forgotten
to replace. She was in New York tonight, still working.

“Yeah,” I said. “Hi. Is everything okay?”

“I need to talk to you. Are you busy?”

“Not really.”

“Could you … come here? To my office?”

 
I spent a few moments
being unnecessarily confused, and then I groaned. My psychic mother had done it
again. She must’ve known about the antidote. I didn’t know why I’d thought she
wouldn’t know. I couldn’t hide anything from her. “How did you know?” I asked,
a nervous smile spreading across my face.

“I
am
me, right?”

I laughed and looked around for a pair of shoes. Emma’s fuzzy pink
slippers were the first to catch my eye. I slid my feet into them. I vowed
right then to never give them back. They felt like tiny foot pillows.