13 to Life (15 page)

I sighed, standing outside my home, hand on the doorknob. I inserted my key and wondered if I was seriously supposed to watch everyone have a great time at a dance now, too.

With a groan I twisted the knob and nudged the door open. I heard music coming from the kitchen.

“Dad?” I called.

“C’est moi,”
Annabelle Lee responded.

I joined her at the breakfast nook. “What are you listening to?” I asked, sliding a CD case across the table to look. She had what Dad called his “boom box.” I had joked with him that the only way it’d boom was if he let me shoot it. He hadn’t been amused. Mom had laughed
so
hard.

“Eighties rock,” Annabelle Lee said, not looking up from a well-worn copy of
Pride and Prejudice.
“Dad’s putting together a mix CD for your Homecoming Dance—”

“What?” I couldn’t hide the alarm in my voice.

“Something about the deejay getting sick or disappearing, or—” She shrugged, unconcerned.

“So why
Dad
?” I felt my nose crinkle as I asked.

“Our father evidently has the largest collection of eighties music in all of Junction.”

“What a thing to be known for.” I tapped the CD case. Queen. I flipped it over. “Who Wants to Live Forever” and “It’s a Kinda Magic” were song names. “They really think people will come to a dance with an eighties theme?”

“It’s not just
any
dance. It’s Homecoming. It’s like the prom—from what I’ve heard. The theme doesn’t matter. It’s the event itself,” Annabelle Lee patiently explained.

Something suddenly occurred to me. “Oh, God . . . Dad’s not actually
going
to go to the dance, is he?”

She closed her book slowly and set it down on the table between us. “Should he?”

I pressed my lips together and narrowed my eyes. “He’s not needed there, Annabelle Lee,” I said, making my voice as blatant a warning as I could muster.

“Middle names are
very
parental,” she warned right back. “You drop the Lee and maybe I won’t tell Dad a boy stopped by for you tonight.”

“What? Annabelle L—” I stopped and switched gears. “Tell me who stopped by, please.” I sat.

She slipped a folded piece of paper from between the pages of her book. “He said his name was Pietr. I had to put Hunter and Maggie in the laundry room while he was here; they were crazy!” She paused. “Anyhow, he brought you an assignment you missed somehow today.” She slid it across the table to me.

Crap.

“So how does
that
happen?” she asked. “I mean, you’re in school and somehow you miss an assignment?”

“What did Pietr say?”

“He wasn’t very forthcoming,” she admitted. “Russian, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Hope he’s not related to the rumors of Russian Mafia the newspapers keep dredging up.”

“The
newspapers
? Since when—?” Reading newspapers was not Annabelle Lee’s style. She was always quick to point out there must be a reason they were the most readily recycled form of literature.

“There are a few decent columns. Anyhow, Pietr’s cute,” she admitted, “in that nearly feral Heathcliff sort of way.”

“Heathcliff—that cat from the old comic strips Dad keeps?”

She rolled her eyes. “You can be so very
daft
sometimes.” She sighed.

“Huh. I’ve heard that about myself recently,” I stated.

“Heathcliff,” she tried to explain, “from
Wuthering Heights.
”

“Is that nearby?” I wasn’t an idiot, but I enjoyed playing one sometimes. Baiting Annabelle Lee was a favorite pastime. And, brilliant as she was, she almost always fell for it.

“Argh!” She picked up
Pride and Prejudice
just to slap it back down on the table. “
Wuthering Heights,
the novel—by Emily
Brontë.” Her hands were in her hair, tugging in frustration. “Don’t they make you
read
in high school?”

“Oooh. It’s a book.” I looked at the paper Pietr’d left. Science. The biology of canines. Surely fascinating stuff. “Maybe I’ll check it out on Blu-ray sometime,” I said, rising from the table and guessing I’d just insulted bibliophiles everywhere.
Bibliophile.
Huh. Thank you, Sarah.

“Aren’t you going to make a request for Dad to put on the CD? A slow dance, maybe,” she teased. “Pietr looks like he’d be a good dancer.”

“I won’t be the one finding out,” I called over my shoulder as I climbed the stairs to my room.

I hadn’t gotten very far when I heard Annabelle Lee yell up the steps.

“Something’s going on outside!”

I bolted down the stairs, trying to listen to any sounds other than the stomping of my feet. Barking. Lots of barking. I slipped my feet into my muck boots.

Annabelle Lee stood by the door, her expression battling between fear and excitement. “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I think Hunter and Maggie are going to get themselves in real trouble.”

I pulled on my jacket and Annabelle Lee handed me the flashlight. Opening the door, I stepped outside, but her hand latched on to my arm, and she tugged me back in.

“You aren’t seriously going out there?” she asked. “Just call the dogs in.”

“Maggie’s too dumb to come in once she’s spotted something—you know that. It can’t be that bad . . .” A shiver raced across my shoulders, proclaiming I lied. I remembered the beast outside the barn. Just a dog, right? God, I hoped so.

The pattering rain blew into a deafening downpour, scattering the powerful flashlight’s beam in streaks of silvery water. Scanning the broad yard ahead, I called, “Hunter! Maggie!”

The barking had stopped.

“It was probably nothing! They probably went after a mouse. A raccoon.” I sighed. “With my luck it’s a skunk. But they aren’t barking now.” Like that was somehow reassuring. “They must be eating whatever it was.”

“Or being
eaten,
” Annabelle Lee whispered.

“You’re quite a pessimist,” I muttered.

“Takes one to know one.”

The rain lessened, merely muting the night noises, not drowning them out entirely.

“Maggie! Hunter!”

Still no response.

“You’re seriously going out there?”

“See me stepping off the porch?” I replied.

“Holy crap.” She dodged back into the house.

Good to have support. On the porch’s lowest step and just below the lip of the roof, I examined the yard again with the flashlight. Nothing. The floodlight between the barns and the house gave no clue about the disappearance of my dogs, either.

In a moment Annabelle Lee returned, leaning out the door, a heavy walking stick in her hand. “At least take this.”

“That’s a good idea.” I could whack something pretty hard with it if I needed to. I pulled up my hood and shuffled away from the porch, searching the area with the flashlight the whole time. “Hunter! Maggie!”

Nothing.

I trudged through the puddles and slick mud, and was nearly at the barn when I heard it: a growl deeper than any noise Hunter had ever dredged up.

My light caught Hunter and Maggie, their bodies low and wet, hair spiked along their shoulders, their faces fixed in the direction of the noise. They didn’t notice my presence.

But
it
did.

I gasped as the white beam of my light intersected with bright red eyes—predator’s eyes—at a height that made my dogs look small. Shaggy and heavy-headed with colors that blended with the brown mud at its feet, I knew it wasn’t the red one from the barn or the brambles. And it most definitely wasn’t a dog. . . .

With a snarl it leaped up, springing over the dogs and straight for me. The flashlight hit the ground, spattering me with mud as I raised my stick and took a swing. Massive paws nailed my shoulders, driving me down as my stick connected underneath its broad body.

It yelped.

If it was male, it’d feel my hit fiercely.

In the dark Maggie and Hunter snapped out of the spell they’d been under and came to my aid, whimpering and licking at my face. Hot wet tongues a sharp contrast to cold raindrops. Great. Because what I needed when going head-to-head with a monster was doggy kisses.

I wiped the rain out of my face with my sleeve and pushed them back. “Dammit,” I muttered, reaching around in the softening ground for the flashlight.

Back in my grasp, it cut a sharp beam of light around the yard, quivering in my shaking hand. The beast was gone.

But not its tracks. They were huge. Larger than my hand
with fingers spread. The rain was already beginning to blur their edges and I jogged forward, playing the hesitant tracker. Definitely canine and . . .

I froze.

The canine tracks ended suddenly. If not for the smudging effect of the rain and the poor quality of light in the soggy darkness I might have said that where the canine tracks suddenly disappeared human footprints took over.

But that was impossible. I shivered and the rain grew heavier again, weighing down my jacket and slipping into my hood as I stared dully at something I simply couldn’t explain. I was tired. Seeing things. My writer’s imagination was just running wild.

“Come on, Maggie. Hunter,” I said, walking quickly toward the house. They did not argue and nearly beat me to the door. Not guard dogs, certainly.

“What was it?” Annabelle Lee asked.

“Big,” I growled, handing her the flashlight and walking stick so I could hang up my dripping jacket. “No more going out after dark until we know what else is out there.”

She nodded gravely.

As I climbed the stairs I realized that as good as my hit had been, if the creature had wanted to it could have made short work of me. So it never meant me harm. The fact was almost reassuring. Almost.

That night the nightmare returned to its full ferocity. There were no alien eyes watching my response to distract me. And, as always, my reactions were just as devastating as when it truly happened. I’d lived the nightmare more than a hundred times now and it never dulled my senses, never blunted the anguish of that first horrible moment.

The only mercy the nightmare granted was that it always jolted me awake just after the cars collided. Before the screaming and flames. It left me wondering each morning if I never saw it repeat those last agonizing minutes because I still remembered them so clearly. Perhaps there was no need for the subconscious mind to devastate me when my conscious mind still did it so readily.

I growled at the slender lines of sunlight slicing through my window’s blinds, a reminder that morning came early on our horse farm. Even if I’d slept well the night before, I wouldn’t have been thrilled about doing all the chores. I stumbled downstairs in my work jeans and an old flannel shirt, rubbing my eyes against the sun that crept through the kitchen curtains.

“Mornin’,” Dad said. I waved, eyes narrow with sleep.

The newspaper was dead center on the table, folded in half, headline announcing, “Mafia Spreads to Lytle, Junction, and Kitezh.”

“Cereal.” I grabbed a bowl and spoon and sat at the small table.

Dad passed me the box. I gave it a healthy shake, following it up with a splash of milk.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinkin’. . . .”

I looked up at him. Glared at Annabelle Lee. She seemed absorbed in studying the ingredients list of the All-Natural Orange Juice carton. What was there to really study? The list read: orange juice. So she knew what was coming next.

“You work really hard doing all the chores, trainin’ and ridin’ and tryin’ to stay focused on school. . . .”

My chewing slowed. In my mouth the Crispy Os disintegrated
into mush as I waited for Dad’s next words. There had been a conversation that started like this at the very beginning of the school year, too. I’d made sure I kept my grades up since then.

“I think it may be too much for one person to handle.”

I jabbed my spoon in Annabelle Lee’s direction.

“Now,” Dad said, “you know Anna’s just a little too frail to help with the stuff you do.”

It wasn’t worth arguing. I’d tried before and all it had done was make Dad sad and Annabelle Lee more unbearable. She had a slight curvature of the spine. Exceedingly slight. Most doctors missed it. But anything that was related even vaguely to anyone’s health now sent Dad into fits. I couldn’t blame him. We were all he had. I put my spoon back into my bowl.

“I’ve decided things need to change round here.”

I pushed my bowl away; I wasn’t hungry anymore. The horses were the last things left of my mother’s dreams. She had been a champion rider and a great judge of horseflesh. While Dad worked at the Aphrodite Chocolates Factory, Mom worked training, riding, stabling, and studding. It was where I envisioned my life going, too, if I stayed in Junction.

Besides, I couldn’t bear seeing Mom’s dreams die, too, even if she wasn’t here to watch them be fulfilled. I swallowed the soggy mash still sitting in my mouth. “I’m not ready to sell any of the horses.”

“Jessie, I don’t—”

Annabelle Lee smiled. Big surprise. She’d always equated the horses with relentless work and none of the joys they brought. She was probably already considering ways to spend the money we’d get selling them.

Someone knocked on our door and startled me; I jumped enough for my little sister to notice.

“He’s here,” Annabelle Lee sang out, grinning at my puzzled expression as she bounded to the mudroom, opening the door with a grand sweep of her arm.

Pietr raised an eyebrow at her antics and stepped in. “Good morning, sir,” he said toward my dad.

I glared at him. He was interrupting an important discussion about the future of the horses. And, hey, it was Saturday. Why was he even . . . My mind only slowly took in what he was wearing. A pair of well-worn jeans, a sweatshirt, and a very sensible denim jacket announced he was dressed for real work. Manual labor. And, I realized angrily, he was even better looking now than he had been last night. When he’d flirted with me. When he’d
kissed
me.

“Pietr,” I said dismissively, trying to keep the questions from my tone, “thank you for stopping by, but I’m about to be very busy. I’m sure I can handle the papers you dropped off just fine without help.”