Authors: M. Leighton
Derek leaned back on one elbow and patted the blanket beside him. Obligingly, I leaned back, too. His face was relaxed, giving him a rakish, devil-may-care look that made my stomach contract.
Reaching out, he wound a piece of my hair around his finger, rubbing the smooth strands with his thumb. “One wish, huh?”
He was still grinning when he tugged my hair, urging me toward him. When my face was a couple inches from his, he leaned forward and nipped at my lower lip with his teeth.
“Can you guess what it is that I want?”
Warmth spread through my body and I was instantly alive with desire. Then I was on my back, the cool sand beneath me, with Derek stretched out on top of me. His chest hovered over mine, his weight supported on his forearms. I could feel the heat rolling off him in waves.
I wiggled beneath him, stimulating all the nerves in my skin with the feel of his body against mine. He growled, a sound that had me digging my fingers into his hair, pulling his face toward mine. Then our lips met and the rest of the world melted away.
Derek leaned to one side so that one hand was free to roam. From my shoulder to my waist and on down to my hip, I tingled everywhere he touched. I felt his hand slide down the back of my thigh and grip behind my knee, pulling my leg up and around his waist. Heat flooded my lower body.
His lips left mine to kiss a trail to my ear then down my neck. I turned my head to the side to allow him better access. I was lost in a sea of sensation when a familiar and disturbing smell teased my nose. It took several seconds for it to penetrate the haze of passion that had settled over me. But finally it did.
My eyes flew open and met the dull black eyes of a tall blonde man that stood in the shadows at the edge of the trees. I couldn’t stop the startled squeal that bubbled up out of my throat.
Before I could blink, Derek was on his feet, crouched beside me, alert and battle-ready. He scanned the tree line, looking for the threat, but it was already gone. In the half second that Derek had interrupted my line of sight to roll off me, the man had disappeared.
“What is it? What did you see?” Evidently he hadn’t seen what I had. Derek rose to a standing position, his posture a little less tense.
“There was a man standing in the shadows.”
“Where?”
“Over there,” I said, pointing to where I’d seen him.
“What did he look like?”
I described the man as a huge, handsome man with long blonde hair and coal black eyes. He was wearing a creamy button-up shirt, untucked, over faded blue jeans and cowboy boots.
“That’s a lot of detail for a couple of seconds,” Derek said curtly.
I just shrugged, a little shaken and a little creeped out. He’d been watching us and, for some reason, I got the feeling he was enjoying it, like he was mentally licking his lips and waiting for us to start peeling each other’s clothes off.
But the most bothersome part was the smell. “Derek, I- he- there was a smell.”
I saw the understanding in Derek’s eyes even though he still asked, “What kind of smell?”
“The same kind that I smelled that night in the clearing.”
“Fahl,” he spat.
“But it looked nothing like—”
“He rarely ever looks the same, Carson. You just have to trust your gut. Even if you can’t smell him, you can feel him. Trust that.”
“I just- I didn’t…”
“I know. I should’ve felt him, but I was…well…” Derek grinned. At least it hadn’t
totally
ruined his favorable mood. It was a good sign that he could joke about missing something that important.
Needless to say, that curtailed our romantic tryst so we shook out and packed up the blanket and set out across the water in the boat.
When we were about half way to the dock, I realized that all the tiki torches still burned. “Derek, the torches,” I said, pointing to the island.
Though Derek didn’t even glance back at the island, the words had only just left my lips when I heard the pitter patter of a hard rain as it hit the lake’s surface. After about a minute, the torch flames were extinguished and the rain had ceased.
I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re pretty handy to have around,” I said.
Derek turned his head to throw me a provocative look. “You have no idea,” he said. His wicked grin conjured up all sorts of seductive images that had me warming up inside again. I smiled back at him and let my mind wander off to places I hadn’t yet been, but that I’d imagined in fairly great detail. Our trip home was extremely stimulating.
********
The next day, Leah and I enjoyed an unseasonably warm walk home from school. I’d already begun my daily goodbye followed by my newest excuse why I couldn’t stay for dinner.
As we neared her mailbox, we saw a young girl standing on Leah’s front steps.
“Isn’t it a little early for cookies?” Leah asked, no doubt referring to the girl’s beige and green wilderness uniform.
I thought it a little odd, too, but didn’t become really wary until we took a few more steps and I saw the woman standing beside the girl, leaning against the house beside Leah’s front door. The way she smiled at me started a thread of apprehension weaving its way down my spine.
“It sure is,” I agreed absently. “Come on,” I said, urging Leah up her driveway. “I wouldn’t mind having some cookies for the holidays.”
As we approached, the young girl turned toward us, smiling in the overly cheerful way that salespersons usually do.
“Would you like to buy some cookies?” The child directed her question to Leah.
She looked to be about twelve years old. Her rusty red hair sprang from under her cap in a frizzy tangle. Her features were nondescript other than the smattering of particularly large freckles across her pert nose. She was cute and looked absolutely nothing like the woman who accompanied her.
About fifty or so, the woman’s sable hair was cut in a chic chin-length bob that was longer in the front and shorter in the back. Her long, oval face was sheathed in skin so pale it appeared translucent. Her dark eyes held the shrewd look of a business woman and she was dressed for the part, her curvaceous body wrapped in a tight black skirt and matching blouse.
“Yum, I’d love some,” Leah said lightly. “Give me just a minute.”
Leah moved past the girl to her front door. She swung the storm door open wide, nearly hitting the woman behind it. Neither of them flinched.
“Would you like to buy some, too?” The little girl looked toward me, smiling hopefully.
As I looked down on her, the wind blew softly, rustling in the girl’s copper curls. It carried a hint of something unpleasant in its cool blanket, some sickeningly sweet, putrid smell that swirled around my face. I froze.
“Hello, Carson,” the woman said, pushing herself away from where she leaned up against the house. Her ruby-red lips turned up at the corners. “You’re looking particularly fetching today.” Though her voice was distinctly feminine, it had the sultry, husky sound of a smoker. And something about it made my skin crawl in recognition.
“What are you looking at?” The child’s question startled me. When I dropped my eyes to her, she was looking toward the woman blankly. Then she raised her confused blue eyes to me.
She wasn’t the only one that was confused. I stood, rooted to my spot, with no idea what to do, looking back and forth between the woman and the girl.
Just then Leah returned with some money. “All I could find was ten bucks,” she said, stepping out onto the stoop in front of the girl. “Are they still five dollars a box?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said with a sweet grin.
Then the woman spoke, “Such a sweet and pretty girl, isn’t she? Leah, I mean.”
Leah and the child exchanged money and information, the little girl writing it on her order sheet. They both acted as if they hadn’t heard the woman speak.
“It would be a shame for her to fall into harm’s way, wouldn’t it?”
My heart lurched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Huh?” Both Leah and the girl were looking at me in confusion.
“Just that as long as you don’t do anything reckless, Leah will be enjoying her cookies by Christmas,” the woman said, her chilling smile widening to reveal perfectly straight, glaringly white teeth.
Leah was still looking at me strangely. “Carson?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Would you like some cookies, too?”
“I, um,” I said, looking back and forth between Leah and the woman who’d moved to stand right behind Leah. “I, uh, I don’t think so. I- I changed my mind, but thank you.”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Sorry,” I said, shaking my head, trying to ignore the woman as she raised her hand to pinch one of Leah’s dark curls between her scarlet-tipped fingers. “I was just thinking about something else. I’ll just see you tomorrow, k?”
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yep,” I said as lightly as I could manage. That seemed to have helped. Leah’s wrinkled brow smoothed somewhat at my response.
I turned and made my way down the driveway. As I turned onto the sidewalk, I looked back up at Leah. The woman was gone; only Leah and the little girl remained on the stoop.
Hurrying home, I quelled the urge to run, knowing Leah could see me if she stepped out into her yard. When I reached my mailbox, I got the mail and continued up my driveway as was my habit. The garage door was closed, but I silently prayed that Derek’s bike was hiding behind it.
And it must have been because when I turned the front door knob, it was already unlocked and Derek sat in the living room floor cleaning my father’s Glock. Relief flooded me.
I closed the front door and leaned back against it, closing my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” The question was innocuous enough, but I could hear the sharpness of anxiety in his voice.
“Fahl was at Leah’s.”
Derek was on his feet in an instant. “What? What happened?”
I described the encounter to him, leaving nothing out. The furrow in his brow grew deeper and deeper as I spoke.
“What could that possibly mean?”
His only response was a humph.
“Why am I seeing him? And now in the light?”
“He can travel outside the shadows. He’s dead, but he’s also… something else.”
“What do you think it means? Why is he stalking me?”
Derek watched me carefully, his expression unfathomable. “Your time might be coming.”
“What?” My heart sank. “So soon?”
“It’s impossible to know when, but…”
“How long do I have?”
Derek shrugged in that way that I loved. “Hard to say.”
I fought against that claustrophobic feeling that the world was closing in on me. I reminded myself that I was a survivor and that I wasn’t going down without a fight. My confidence was wavering, though, with the idea that my time might be imminent.