Wraiths of Winter (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 3) (39 page)

“Let me guess—you got into both schools and Zach is
trying to convince you to go to Pendleton with him.” Enter
the “dad” tone of voice. Disapproving, slightly preachy, and
with not so subtle undertones.

He seemed so sure of himself that I got a thrill out of
telling him the rest. “No, actually that’s not it at all. I didn’t
get accepted to Pendleton because I didn’t apply early enough.
So instead, I’ve decided to take the fall semester off and
reapply in the spring.”

“You will like hell!” he shouted. “I know what taking a
semester off
really
means! It means that you’ll move in with
him and get a job and forget all about school. You’re going to
Trinity and that’s final!”

Shelly interjected on my behalf. “Jason, maybe we
should talk about this later—give Ruby a chance to explain
what she wants to do.”

And I watched as the last few cars and the caboose
toppled head first over a ravine. “I’m not going to let her
throw away her future over some stupid boy!
If he were a
real
man, he’d refuse to let her do it, too.” And then he
stormed off.

But that was the point—Zach didn’t want me to take
the semester off either. Telling my dad that would have been
useless, though. He only wanted to see the bad in Zach now,
not the
good.
Instead, he
wanted
to ship me off
to
Philadelphia with Lucas, his new best friend. I thought time
would erase his anger but it didn’t seem to be working out
that way.

With rehearsal only an hour away, Lucas announced
that he was going to hit the drive thru for a quick bite and I
invited myself to go along. I needed to get out of that house
before I exploded. Shelly whispered, “I’m sorry” as I put on
my jacket but I just nodded. Dad was being such a jerk about
everything—why couldn’t he just listen to me like Shelly did?
Maybe I wasn’t technically an adult yet but I certainly wasn’t a
child either.
Some decisions were mine to make now—not
his. Why couldn’t he just accept that?

As we pulled out of the drive thru, I asked Lucas for a
favor. “Would you mind swinging by the shelter for a minute?
I want to let Zach know what just happened.”

“Sure. It’s the least I can do since it was all my fault. I
had no idea you didn’t tell them yet!”

“That’s okay. It had to come out at some point, I guess.
He probably would have been even more of a hard ass if you
hadn’t been there to soften the blow.”

Lucas put a handful of fries on a napkin and placed
them in his lap, eating them as he drove. “I don’t want to
sound like I’m taking sides here but your dad is kinda right.
When people take a semester off, they usually don’t go back.
Have you thought about doing your first semester at Trinity
and then transferring?”

No, I hadn’t but it definitely was an option. On the
upside, my dad would have nothing to be pissed about.
I
could say I gave Trinity a shot but didn’t like it there—simple
as that. On the downside, Zach and I would be separated by
hundreds of miles for four solid months. It would get awfully
lonely with me in Philly and him in Ohio.
But I would have
Lucas to rely on so the time would pass quicker, wouldn’t it?
It was an idea worthy of some thought.

“I didn’t think of that option. It’s a good suggestion.
I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as we pulled into the shelter’s
drive. “Wait here—I’ll be back in a minute.”

I found Zach with Andy in the back and motioned for
him to come out and talk to me privately.
Andy looked
surprised to see me so I assumed that he was aware of my
punishment.
Of course!
Dad probably asked him to make
sure I wasn’t hanging out there with Zach. I had to make our
conversation brief.

Quickly, I explained Drake’s mysterious stop at the
mansion and what happened afterward.
Then I told him
about Lucas’s idea of transferring to Pendleton after
one
semester.

“Drake stopped here earlier, too. He was looking for
Andy. When I told him that Andy would only be gone for a
few minutes, Drake said he’d catch him later. The funny thing
was he passed Andy’s car on the way out and didn’t even flag
him down. He just hauled ass out of here.”

Drake knew that Zach would be at the shelter. And
normally, where you found Zach, you found me.
He was
actively stalking me now—there was no other explanation for
it.

I noticed that Zach never responded to the idea of me
spending a semester at Trinity so I coaxed him
into the
conversation. “One semester at Trinity wouldn’t be that bad, I
guess. We really wouldn’t have to wait that much longer to be
together—just a few more months.”

Zach nodded his head. “If it will make your dad happy,
then maybe it’s not a bad idea. I’ll just worry about you being
out there all alone.
You never know what kind of new ghost
activity you might find there.”

“Well, that’s the great part, actually. I wouldn’t
be
alone—Lucas is going to Trinity, too.”

No reaction.
He should be happy that I would have
someone to look after me. Or upset that I would be spending
so much time with Lucas.
Either way, I should have seen
some sort of emotion from him. So why didn’t I?

“Just be careful at the theater tonight, okay?” he said
as he got into his car.

 

“Okay,” I muttered with tears ready to spill from my
eyes. And then he drove away.

I stood there stunned as the snow drifted around my
feet. Both boys had a place in my life—Lucas for his link to
my past, Zach for his link to my future. Or was it the other
way around? Either way, it was becoming quite clear that I
couldn’t hold on to both of them for very much longer.

31. Deconstruction

I endured a stern and lengthy lecture/warning from
Lucas before he would allow me to enter the Bantam.
He
threatened to drag
me
home kicking
and
screaming
if I
disobeyed him.
Although his threat was meant to be taken
seriously, I couldn’t hold back the laughter.

“I’m serious, Ru! If you wander off again tonight, I will
find you and carry you out of there. You shouldn’t be
laughing—you know what could potentially happen.”

“Okay! I won’t.
And I
do
take this seriously—I just
find the idea of you picking me up and carrying me out
hysterical.”

“What? Don’t you think I can do it?” he taunted as we
got out of the car.

“Actually, no,” I replied. Lucas wasn’t made of muscle
like Zach was. I wasn’t exactly calling him a pussy. Okay,
maybe I was—but not in a mean way. He just didn’t have the
same strength and build that Zach had and he never would.
Lucas looked more like an artist or a songwriter—someone
who could lift your soul but never your physical body.

“Think again!” he shouted as he swooped around the
front of the car and grabbed me around the thighs. Before I
knew it, he
had hoisted me over his
shoulder and
was
carrying me down the sidewalk.

“Lucas!” I giggled as I beat my fists against his back.
“You win! Put me down!”

“No, if I’m going to be your bodyguard, I guess I need
to prove my skills to you.” He tightened his grip and kept
walking.

He carried me the whole way to the theater door
before finally putting me down.
As
I fixed my hair and
adjusted my sweater, Rachel approached. She gave me a cool
“hello”, glared at Lucas and proceeded into the theater.
I
knew she was pissed that I was spending more time with
Lucas than I was with her brother but I couldn’t explain the
reason why. I loved Rachel but I didn’t trust her not to share
my suspicions with Boone. So until this whole thing was over,
she was just going to have to be mad at me.

Rehearsal went
off
without a hitch.
The theater,
however, looked worse than ever. A black mold now covered
the ceiling
and
was
peeling
wallpaper.
creeping
downward onto
the badly
The
lights
were
dimmer
and
the

floorboards felt like they were ready to give under my weight.
The entire building seemed to sigh like a dying man exhaling
his
last breath.
There were only
a
few
weeks
left until
opening night—if the theater lasted that long.

On the way home, my phone buzzed with a new text. I
expected it to be Zach making sure that I was still okay.
Imagine my shock and disappointment to find out that it
wasn’t from him, it was from Rita.

“More info bout wraiths—get here early 2morro. Very
important!”

Although I had no idea what she was going to tell me, I
knew it couldn’t be good. With the rapid deterioration in my
perception of the theater, I needed all of the help she could
give me.

When my alarm went off a half an hour too early, I hit
the snooze and rolled back over. I was having a good dream
for once so I closed my eyes and tried to recapture it. I was at
the All American Diner eating the best bacon and eggs I could
imagine.
Everyone I cared about was there—Zach, Rachel,
Boone, my parents, Zach’s parents, even Andy and Rita. For
some odd reason, Drake and Crimson were there, too.
That
still didn’t make it a nightmare, though. Drake was happy and
smiling and Crimson was definitely alive and in good spirits.
The only glaring omission from our little breakfast soirée was
Lucas.

Everyone was laughing and having fun.
Somehow I
was lucid in the dream—I kept waiting for things to get ugly
and for the nightmare to start. But it never happened. When
it was time to leave, I was first in line for the door. A tap on
my shoulder sent a sweet wave of electricity down into my
chest. It was a beautiful sense of déjà vu. And then something
bit my ear. Hard.

I woke up to find Coco with her teeth firmly clamped
around my ear lobe, tugging at it with all her might.
The
alarm was going off again and she was trying to lift my head
off of the pillow.

“You can let go now, Coco. I’m awake.” I flicked the
switch on my alarm clock and propped myself up on my
elbows.
Satisfied that her work was finished, Coco gave me a
quick head butt then nestled beside my pillow and quickly
went back to sleep.

“Must be nice,” I grumbled as I dragged my sorry ass
to the shower. If all I had to worry about was where to take
my next nap, life would be good.
Forgetting that I had to
make it to Something Wick-ed thirty minutes earlier than
normal, I had apparently hit the snooze button at least three
times. There was simply no time to make myself look perfect
today.

With my escort due to arrive in ten minutes, I blow
dried my hair quickly and ran the flat iron down each section
once.
My hair looked awful!
So I grabbed the spray gel
hoping lightning would strike twice.
After two minutes of
scrunching and twisting, my hair looked even better than it
did the day we went to Pittsburgh.
And not a moment too
soon.

The roar of his engine greeted me as I stepped onto
the porch. As I walked to my car, he blew the horn. I’d never
heard his horn before—it was very, well…masculine. It was
nothing at all like the friendly little beep of the Neon.
His
horn said, “I’m a man who’s in control—get out of my way,” as
opposed to “Hey there, you, would you mind stepping aside
for a second so I can get past? Thanks, you’re a total
sweetheart.” Lucas was waving me over and motioning for
me to get in so I did.

“There’s really no use in us taking two cars, is there?
Besides, if I’m going to be guarding your body, I’d like it to be
as close to mine as possible.” Then he flashed that smile, the
one that got me
every
time.

He had such a way with words.
He could turn the
most innocent of phrases into a double entendre. I used to
find it annoying but lately, endearing was the more correct
way to describe it. It was fascinating to interact with him—I
saw him as how Lee would have been if his life hadn’t been
tainted by tragedy.
Would I have been that different if my
mother hadn’t died? If Lee had survived the bridge collapse?
The questions were endless but the answers were something
I would never find.

“You did something different with your hair,” he
stated as we pulled out onto the main road. “I like it.”

“Thanks,” I gushed. He didn’t need to know it was a
last minute fix to a horrible straightening job.
Girls had to
keep
some
things secret. That was half the fun of being a girl.

Lucas walked me to the door of the shop and waited
for Rita to let me in before driving away.
Rita studied him
with
a confused look on
her face but didn’t ask me any
questions.
She seemed too anxious for some ghost talk to
bother asking for details on my love life.

“Thanks for coming in early. I finally had a chance to
talk
with
Gerald
yesterday.
He
had some interesting
information for me.”

I followed Rita to her office and we both sat down.
She pulled a notebook out of the top desk of her drawer and
opened it flat on her desk. She leafed through to a page full of
furiously scribbled notes.
I sat back and listened intently as
she recounted the story.

“I got more details on that wraith.
He encountered
that particular entity at the site of an old brothel, The Red
Horse Saloon.
The place was infamous in the late eighteen
hundreds
for every
manner of illicit activity.
Gambling,
prostitution—you name it.
The building was located just
outside a small town
of religious
zealots
who
petitioned
loudly to have the business shut down. Once all legal means
of removal were exhausted, the townspeople took matters
into their own hands.”