Spiral (Spiral Series) (27 page)

Shadows swayed and pushed at either side of my vision
,
and I
kept
turning my head from side to side, afraid of what was behind the shadows. My heart was leaping in my chest and pulsing in my ears
,
and panic was starting to break over me in waves. In another minute I was going to
break into a panicked
run.

“Hey,” said a warm voice at my side.

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Pierce’s greeting.

Staring at him wide-eyed
,
all I could do was blink. He laughed softly.

“Why are you walking home alone?” He was the total picture of calm, but something in his body language told me that he was tense
and
alert. His arms, hanging loosely at his sides, rippled with sinewy muscle
,
flexed and ready.
For what, I had no idea. An image of his arms wrapping tightly around my waist in an embrace flashed through my mind, but I quickly pushed it away, relieved that it was too dark for him to see me blush.

“I was at Mrs. Tiger’s,” I said.

“How’s Mrs. Tiger?” Pierce asked. He was looking
directly
at me, but I could tell he was aware of everything that happened around us. “Excited for her next round of weeding?”

“She’s good,” I said, not sure how much to reveal. “I had never been inside her house before.”

“She probably doesn’t invite a lot of people inside. Does she need it dusted?” He joked.

“Have you been before?” I asked. The instant he had appeared I had felt safe, and the shadows that lined the road no longer looked like the Snake Man come to life.

“No.” He paused, then said, “I don’t think your friend Jackson likes me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He said so.”

Hard evidence to argue with, I thought to myself.

“I’m sure he was just tired or something. He’s been busy lately.”

“You’re really trying to argue your way out of that one?”

“I am nothing if not persistent.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?”

“No idea.”

“What has he said about me?” Pierce wanted to know.

“What are you, President and Chief Executive Officer of Question Police Are Us?”

I started to say, “He hasn’t said anything about you,” but that wasn’t true. I don’t know why I told him the truth, but I finally admitted, “He thinks you’re trouble.”

Far from being offended, Pierce broke into a broad grin. “Sometimes a little bit of trouble isn’t so bad.”

If Maxie had been there she would have said something like, “If trouble looked like you I would follow it anywhere.” I couldn’t say lines like that, so I just clamped my mouth shut.

For a few minutes we walked in a pleasant silence. It wasn’t awkward and I knew we could talk if we wanted, but I was just enjoying being near Pierce.

“What are you doing here now?” I finally asked.

Pierce smiled. “I was just out walking. I saw you and caught up. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

I shrugged. Pierce should have scared me; I didn’t know him, and foreigners were rare around Blueberry, especially foreigners with “trouble” in their pasts. But somehow Pierce didn’t. I felt more at ease when I was around him than I had felt at any other time recently. I felt safe.

“It’s a nice night for a walk,” I commented, looking up at a clear sky filled with so many white stars that it seemed as if someone had taken glitter and sprinkled it over black paper.

“It’s a nice night. What brought you to Mrs. Tiger’s?”

Of course he wouldn’t let that go. “I, um, just had some questions. What are you, a dog with a bone?”

“Is everything alright?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“Of course,” I said. “Almost graduation.”

Pierce must have heard the apprehension in my voice, because he said, “I wouldn’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.” There was a heat in his voice that made me shiver, but I wasn’t cold anymore. It wasn’t just words to him. He wanted it to be true. It was almost like he knew something.

I glanced sideways at him. He wasn’t looking at me, but I had a clear view of his profile, that straight nose over a strong chin. Maxie was right. I had never seen anyone that good-looking before, and that included Jackson and my new stepbrother.

 The bristle of jealously that curled around my heart surprised me. Pierce wasn’t mine. I didn’t even know that I wanted him to be, so maybe it was just that he was incredibly handsome. Unintentionally, my mind flitted to Haley, and my jealously blossomed into full-on dislike. She had better stay away from Pierce, I thought fiercely, but a moment later I was amused that I could get so mad about it. He didn’t even act like he liked Haley.

“What are you thinking about?” Pierce asked.

I blinked in surprise, then laughed. “Just stuff. Nonsense really. Why?”

I saw his hand twitch at his side and was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire for him to hold my hand in his. I locked my hands behind my back in a death grip to keep them from accidentally bumping him.

“Your face got all cloudy,” said Pierce, grinning. “You looked fighting mad.”

I grinned back. “I was,” I said, “but don’t worry. It’ll all work out.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized it, and Pierce’s smile got bigger.

“For the first time in a long time I believe that too,” he said. A wind started to pick up and I noticed that Pierce subtly angled his body to block a bit of it from slamming into my face.

“Really?” I asked, ducking my head to hide my smile. “You think it’s true?”

“I think tonight it is,” he said.

“It’s just been such a long few days,” I said. I knew I sounded forlorn, but I couldn’t help it.

Pierce moved even closer to me, so that our arms were almost touching. I was grateful that my hands were interlaced behind me. “What’s happened?”

Alarmed that I had given something away, I said, “Oh, nothing. Just stress.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” he prodded. Most guys would have ignored my being stressed and just continued to talk about themselves. Obviously, Pierce wasn’t most guys.

I thought about that, but no matter how comfortable I felt with Pierce, and even though he had saved my life, I still didn’t know much about him. He was a total mystery, and true, that made him even more attractive, but it also meant I had to be careful.

“No,” I said, waving off the question. We were almost to my house and I could see the lights through the trees.

I started to turn and tell Pierce that I could take it from there and he could head back home, but he stopped me first. “If you ever need anything,” he said, his voice low and intense, “just let me know.”

I looked up into his eyes. I was getting used to the feeling of shock at seeing my own eyes reflected in his, but still, all I could do was nod.

“I know you’re worrying,” he said, “but it will be okay. It will be better than okay. It will be wonderful.”

Carefully, like he was afraid I might try to stop him, he reached up with his right hand and rubbed his thumb softly, so softly, across my cheek. My breath caught and I realized that if I so much as breathed, he would stop, disappear, and not be setting every inch of my skin on fire.

The next second he was gone, walking away. It took several minutes before my breath returned to normal, and all he had done was touch my cheek.

I wondered if I should have told him something about the dreams or the horn. Jackson was no help. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about the spike that had been sticking out of my head when I woke up this morning. Just thinking about it felt gory!

And I wanted to believe Pierce. I wanted desperately to believe him, but Mrs. Tiger had said trouble was coming. Maybe Pierce knew? And what sort of trouble?

I glanced around. Pierce had disappeared into the darkness, but I didn’t feel like I was entirely alone.

Shivering, I hurried inside, feeling more prepared than ever to fight against the nightmares of the Snake Man.

At school, history class was still the most boring, but since I had it with Pierce I looked forward to it. Mr. Collins, apparently deciding that I didn’t need to get any more work done for the rest of the year, had assigned Pierce the seat smack dab in front of me. If someone had asked me what one thing in the room I could describe best, I would have said that it was the fascinating blackboard of Mr. Collins. But I would have been lying.

The true answer would have been: the back of Pierce’s neck. It was pale, with a few fine black hairs leading into his hair line. There was one freckle on the right side, so far down that sometimes his shirt collars covered it. When he turned his head his skin stayed perfectly smooth.

One day I was listening to Mr. Collins rattle on about some battle in Europe that had changed the course of history - seriously, I thought, didn’t everything change the course of history? - when I saw Pierce’s broad shoulders start to turn. In my imagination, I transformed at that moment into a beautiful supermodel who would catch anyone’s eye and was just his type, and the second he saw me his dimples would appear and we would walk off into the sunset. Together. Hand in hand. As we crested a beautiful ridge I would step on Haley’s face and giggle.

“Is that okay?” Pierce was looking at me. His mouth was moving. His eyebrows were raised like he expected something. Uh oh. He had said something. To me. And I was too busy with my fantasy Pierce to notice.

“Huh?”

“Saturday, for Mrs. Tiger’s. You up for it again? She could use the help. I promise to be charming and witty.”

“Yeah, Saturday. What else would I have to do on a Saturday?” I flinched.

“You don’t have a hot date?”

“Oh, Saturday? Yeah, there’s Larry, then later Curly, and of course I can’t forget Moe. I am very busy.”

“Any interest in fitting in some weeding? With me? I know it can’t compete with Curly, but maybe Larry is expendable?”

I made a show of thinking and tapping my pencil.

“I guess maybe between Curly and Moe I could make some time, but you will have to be both charming and witty.”

“I only make promises I can keep.” He flashed his dimples. Sometimes I was positive it was intentional.

The night before our weeding appointment, Casey had a party. I was only given a token invite to it because I was the sister of the baseball pitcher, football quarterback, and basketball point guard, extraordinaire. I dragged Maxie and Jill with me.

 In reality, I didn’t have to drag Maxie. Once she heard we had a way in she did an excellent impression of a yellow bulldozer to get there.

Andrew drove us to the party, but once we got there he disappeared to talk to his friends, which left the three of us standing awkwardly alone.

“More people would probably talk to you if you weren’t in a triangle,” Emma Johnson whispered as she passed us with a plate of food. I was at least grateful that she hadn’t said it loudly enough for everyone else to hear; that she was being nice to us was yet another perk of Andrew stepsisterhood.