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The sky was fire reds and pinks as the sun
was about to go down and the clouds looked like popcorn making our
moods brighter, Jett took my hand. I was very relaxed and happier
now that we let Detective Grey know all about Cale. I felt like I
could finally breath and I let a smile slowly come across my
face.

Even though it was dusk and the sun was at
our backs Jett still put his sunglasses on, which I had never seen
before. I asked him about them and he told me ever since Christmas
break his eyes and all his senses had been overly sensitive, the
doctors thought that was normal though.

Jett asked. “The house you went by that you
think is Cale's...”

I didn't even let him finish because I knew
where he was going with it. “I don't know the address but I know
how to get there, it's off of the Brecksville exit. We can try and
go by there now.”

“Awesome. Tell me what you know.”

I rattled off all the information that I knew
about how to get to Cale's supposed house. As Jett pulled down the
street he drove slowly, it felt very ominous. I pointed to the
house and as he passed it I ducked. “What are you doing?” Jett
asked laughing. “I'm hiding, of course.” He handed me a rumpled
envelope and pulled a pen from the ashtray “Here, write down the
address “2620 Shea Ct.” I scooted on the floor, put the paper on
the seat and wrote it down. He turned the car around, in the next
driveway when Jett said “Oh shit!” and floored the car back onto
the street and sped all the way back to the highway.

I got back in my seat, “Did you see him?”

“No, but I saw someone coming out of the
house. I'll get that address to my uncle right away.”

Right before I got out of the car Jett asked
me again how I knew some of the stuff I did. I told him that was a
whole other conversation, and we were both so tired he left it at
that for the moment. Something was still bothering me about Jett
not expecting more of an answer out of me. Maybe he wasn’t telling
me everything either making it acceptable for me not to have to
tell him everything myself. I should have tried to get some more
information out of him about his senses and his illness, not sure I
know how to go about that though.

I got a personal call from Detective Grey the
next day. He told me they raided the house that morning with the
address Jett gave them, and I was right. They found the bracelet
with traces of blood. They are testing it to see if it matches
Jewel's. The house was being rented by a woman named Dr. Cassandra
Westman. The landlord thought she had a couple of guys living with
her too. One was thought to be her boyfriend and he gave them a
similar description to Cale's. The house is locked up and under
further investigation. I asked if they arrested Cale and he said no
arrests were made, no one was there and it looked like they packed
up in a hurry.

A week went by and I hadn't
heard from Jett nor seen him in school, and then, another week; he
wasn’t returning my phone calls either. Finally, I saw him at his
locker, I always took the routes that passed by his locker if I
could. When I saw him my heart leapt, and panicked all at once. I
practically froze, I didn’t know what to do and before I could
decide I found myself walking up to him like some mystical force
forging me forward. I said “Hi” and his senior friend made a smart
remark, something to the effect of “Look your little friend is
back, she’s been looking for you every day like a little lamb.” I
didn’t look his way. I looked right at Jett, who was staring back
at me until he turned to regard his friend and tightened his jaw
“Brett don’t be an ass, if you talk to Addie like that again we’re
going to have issues.”

I couldn’t believe my ears,
all I could do was smile ear to ear. Jett looked back at me and
said “Sorry Addie, I don’t have time to talk I'm late for class,
we’ll talk later.” He got his books out, kissed me on the cheek and
he was gone. I turned around and Brett smiled mutinously at me, he
puckered his lips and made a smooching sound in the air, what a
jerk.

After wrestling was over and
the guys were walking toward the locker rooms I said “Hey Jett” but
he didn't hear me so I said it louder and I added “Can I talk to
you?” Of course all the guys went “eeeww” in unison. I turned a
little blush, not because I was embarrassed for me, but for
Jett.

He turned and started
walking toward me. His bibs were down and his chest was bare and
that's what I was looking at, but then I averted my eyes up to his.
I raised my water bottle up to him; he took two steps back and
casually leaned against the wall next to me using one arm to hold
himself up, crossed one leg and downed some water from my bottle,
not putting his mouth on it, just pouring it in. We both watched as
the other guys filtered out of the gym and then the
coach.

Nic was putting everything
back in the closet. I looked at Jett, “So are you okay? Were you
sick?” He inched a little closer to me leaning forward and giving
me a peck on the cheek. “I was really sick and all I did was sleep
for two weeks. Mom was threatening to take me to the hospital the
whole time. Glad she didn't because I'm fine now, actually, I'm
feeling
really
good now.”

“So then you were sick and
that's why you didn't call me?” I said.

“Yes, that would be why I
didn't call you, but you have a phone too.” he said
smiling.

“I did call once.. Storm
took the message, since you didn't call me back I didn't want to
bother you again. I didn’t want to seem like a stalker.” He just
laughed...

“One or two phone calls are
not too many, after four maybe. I'll have to talk to Storm; I never
got your message.”

“So did you need another
blood transfusion?” I asked. He said nothing back, but looked at me
with concerned eyes. I changed the subject right away, knowing he
was annoyed with my question. “Are you feeling good enough to do
something this weekend? Maybe a movie.... with me?” I bit my lip.
“Or you could come over and we could just hang out.”

Even though he smelled of
sweat he still smelled good to me. He turned placed both hands on
the wall on either side of my face and leaned in and gave me a
sweet full on kiss. His lips were warm and soft, when he pulled
away he replied “Sure let's do something, but I really have to
catch up on all my classes, so we'll talk more about this
later.”

I placed my hand on his
chest, it felt like he had a fever he was so warm, I pressed my
face to his and our lips parted. He grabbed my hand on his chest
lightly and said “None of that here.”

“Excuse me, you started it”
I replied. He gave me a peck on the lips and walked toward the
locker room. I stared at his backside the whole time, Nic walked up
to me, “Nice view.”

“I know, right.”

I didn’t want to screw
things up with Jett, and bug him about this weekend but my parents
were going to be out of town and our babysitter was Peyton for the
first time, so I bet we could get away with doing stuff we normally
wouldn't. And if Jett wouldn't do something with me, then by god I
was going to make plans. Nic was tired of hearing me whine
about it so I asked her what I should do. We decided to make plans
that Jett could be included in; I thought it was
brilliant.

I talked to Tori to see what
she was doing and we decided each of us would invite a couple
friends over and have some pizza and snacks. When Peyton heard our
plans she was fine with it and asked if we cared if she invited a
couple friends. We all pow-wowed and decided as long as we all
invited no more than four friends each and told no one it was a
party, we'd be fine.

Jett had been acting distant
and weird, so after practice on Thursday I told him the plan for
Saturday and he acted like it was a boring idea. I got mad and
snapped “whatever, your welcome to come by if you get really
bored.” I turned on my heel and walked away.

Saturday, Tori and I woke up
and started cleaning the house like we did every Saturday and
Peyton asked us “What the hell are you two doing? You don't clean
before a party, you clean after.”

Tori chimed in with “I
thought we weren't calling it a party.”

“That's right” Peyton
replied “We're just having some friends over.” She winked at us and
grabbed the car keys off the counter “Now, let's go pick up some
snacks.”

By 7:30 all our friends had
arrived, by 8:30 it had turned into a party – I just wished I could
have invited everyone I wanted had I known this was going to
happen. However, just about everyone was here, except for Jett.
Cale even showed up, I turned immediately and looked for Peyton so
she could give him the boot but instead I found myself trapped on
the driveway by the garage. His arms were twitching nervously by
his sides, he was staring me down and demanded “Where's
Jett?”

I replied cautiosly “Not
sure, he's around.” I lied.

“No he's not,” he accused,
his jaw tightening. “Why would you lie to me?” He took a step
closer, I stepped back.

“Cale, what are you doing
here? You’re not welcome.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
He stepped so close to me it was uncomfortable, so I pushed him
gently backward. He grabbed my wrists so fast and pushed me back up
against the brick wall. He scrunched his nose, squinted his eyes
and gritted his teeth.

“My you have big teeth.” My
smart ass mouth said and he shook me and slammed me against the
wall again. I was trying to get my wrists free but he was holding
on really tight. I thought I saw Jett out of the corner of my eye
coming down the driveway. Whomever it was stopped as he saw us, he
just stood motionless. I put my head on Cale's chest like I was
going to surrender, relaxed my arms and I felt Cale ease up, then I
heaved my knee up as hard as I could between his legs and whipped
my head up hitting him in the chin. I twisted and turned my wrists
trying to get them free.

”Let go!” I roared in a
voice that projected so loud and so deep I wasn't sure it was
really me. I shook loose, I shouted “Someone help me!” but that
gave Cale incentive to surge toward me again, his eyes watering and
a look to kill on his face, I kicked my foot in the middle of his
chest, he snagged my foot making me lose my balance but caught
myself on the half wall before falling. Cale stumbled backwards
into Jett; Jett grabbed him from behind and threw Cale to the
middle of the driveway like he was a ragdoll.

“Damn it!” I retorted. Jett
was in front of me in a split second, protecting me. Cale got to
his feet, specifically looked at Jett gave him an approvingly sly
smile and left. Jett turned toward me and I put my face in his
shirt and breathed him in, “thank you.” I put my hands inside his
opened jacket and around him. He put his hand on my head and
caressed my head. “You okay?” he asked, his voice cracked. “You
know for a minute I thought you and Cale were getting back
together, my heart felt like it dropped out of my chest when I saw
the two of you, but then you proved me wrong. Anyway, I'm glad to
see you can defend yourself.” He kept stroking my hair.

“I can't defend myself, I
can't and if I hadn't seen you coming I'm not sure what would have
happened.” I started pacing back and forth a bit. “And I’m not sure
what's wrong with me, I seem to keep attracting freaks and getting
attacked! I need to learn self-defense.”

Jett laughed, “one freak,
and he just won't leave you alone. I should call my
uncle.”

“Well...” I almost told him
about Logan but then I didn't. “I had no idea what to do, I saw you
and a few seconds later I was defending myself. I need to know what
to do all the time.”

He was just looking at me
with a half cracked smile, arms folded in front of him in a wide
spread stance. Yeah, he was a bit of a bad ass.

“I haven't seen Peyton in a
while do mind helping me find her?” I asked.

As we looked around the
house I headed toward my parent’s bedroom, Peyton and her boyfriend
were just coming out, their corduroy pants filled with white fuzz,
the same color as my parent’s bedspread. She acted all cool like
nothing had happened I gave her a look and glanced down at her
pants. She stammered she lost an earring and I just gave her
another look. “So the two of you were looking for an earring...
while rolling on the bed??” pointing to their pants. Obviously we
knew where it came from, they were definitely busted. They both
started to laugh – “Shhh” she said “Don't tell anyone else...” she
stumbled away pulling her boyfriend with. I looked at Jett and we
both said simultaneously “She's drunk.”

“Do you want a drink?” I
asked Jett as we turned into the kitchen. He leaned up against the
counter and crossed his arms and legs almost like he was still
upset. I opened the fridge and looked in “Do you want a beer or a
soda?” I closed the fridge part way and saw his face and said “You
need a beer.” He replied by saying “No, I'll take a
soda.”

I opened two bottles and
handed him one and sat on the desk across from him.

“So were you grouchy before
you got here or after you saw me being assaulted by
Cale?”

There was a moment of
silence “I was just wondering if you wouldn't have backed Cale off
if you didn't see me comin’.”

I rubbed my face and replied
“Probably not...” he stood up and went to walk away. “Seriously,
would you let me finish.” He stopped for a moment and I continued
“As I was saying, he had such a grip on me I didn't know what to
do. He was hurting me bad, but when I saw you, I knew if I fought
back and it didn't work, you would have backed me up.” He leaned
back up against the counter.
“I was way panicked before I
saw you but when I did, I felt the urge to defend myself. I'm not
even sure where I learned those moves but thank goodness I did
them...... If you hadn't come along,
I probably
would have just screamed and if I got loose I would have tried
running. I’m really glad you came though... and not just because
you helped me out of a jam either, because I wanted you to
come.”