Escaping Fate (17 page)

“So, are you excited for the bonfire on
Saturday?”

Tears welled up in my eyes and I just
couldn’t hold it in any longer. I started crying right there on the
bench when all I had wanted to do was forget everything for a
while. Tanner’s face froze in confusion, but his arm instantly came
up around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug I desperately
needed.

“Arra, are you okay? What did I say?”
he asked. “I’m so sorry.”

I wanted to respond, but I couldn’t
stop crying. He was never going to want to speak to me again. But
after tomorrow event that wouldn’t matter. That thought did not
help me stop crying. Gentle fingers reached up and brushed my tears
away. His hands smoothed my hair out of my face and he told me it
was okay over and over again.

Not sure how long I had been crying, I
could only take deep cleansing breaths when the tears finally
stopped. “Tanner, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you must think
about me, now,” I said. I kept my head down, waiting for him to
jump up and run.

“I’m thinking that you’re having a
really hard time right now, that’s all,” he said. “And I don’t know
if I can help, but I’ll do my best if you’ll let me.”

Tanner couldn’t possibly be so nice. I
wanted to reach up and kiss his concerned lips until he forgot the
last few minutes, but I resisted that urge. I asked him here to
talk and he certainly deserved an explanation. I knew that what I
really wanted to say sounded absolutely insane. Oh well, I thought,
chances are I won’t be around for him to laugh at
anyway.

“Tanner, this is going to sound really
crazy,” I began.

“Your brother isn’t really in college,
is he? He’s living in your basement chained to a wall because he
eats little children,” Tanner said with a lopsided grin. I laughed
and his smile widened. “I’m just kidding, Arra. Whatever it is
though, just tell me. I promise I won’t laugh, or run off or
anything.”

“Well, it all started with these weird
dreams I’ve been having ever since we moved,” I said.

“What kind of dreams?” Tanner asked.
“Nightmares?”

“Yeah, you could say that. In the
dreams I see this girl who looks exactly like me being drug up an
Aztec temple to be sacrificed to one of their gods. The first night
I saw her kidnapped from her home, and every night after that I see
more of what she went through,” I said.

“Human sacrifice, huh?” Tanner said. I
could almost hear him thinking how cool that was in his mind. Boys.
“That’s pretty grisly stuff, but…”

“But nothing to cry about, right?” I
finished. He shrugged apologetically. “If it were only the dreams,
I would have just passed them off as nothing, but then I started
finding these pictures in my mom’s albums. There were all these
girls that looked just like me, that all died on their sixteenth
birthdays. I even found out I have a aunt I never knew about that
died at sixteen.”

“Okay, that’s a little creepy,” Tanner
agreed. “You didn’t know you had an aunt?”

“My dad never told me about her because
he was with her the day she died and he blames himself for what
happened,” I said.

“So what happened to her?” Tanner
asked.

Quickly, I doled out the details of
both Katie’s and Maera’s deaths. Tanner listened to every word with
rapt attention. I even pointed out how every girl looked just like
me, even handing over the pictures from my back pocket to prove it.
His expression went back and forth between bewildered and
disbelieving to worried more times than I could keep track
of.

“And if all that doesn’t freak you out
enough,” I said, “when I asked my grandpa about all of this he told
me an old family story about a woman who was supposed to be made a
human sacrifice, but made some kind of deal with the gods to save
herself and curse her daughters to die in her place.”

“Your grandpa believes all of this?”
Tanner asked, back to disbelief. I nodded. “Do you?” he
asked.

Of course I did. Anyone in my place
would, but I felt like an idiot actually saying it. “I’m starting
to,” I said weakly. “I mean, maybe if it was just the story or just
the dead relatives, I could just laugh at it, but, Tanner, the
dreams are so real. I wake up at night crying, too scared to go
back to sleep.”

“Well, I guess I just don’t know what
to say, Arra. It’s pretty hard to wrap my head around curses and
stuff, but I can see that you’re really worried about this,” he
said. “Do you really think this curse, or whatever, is coming after
you?”

“I turn sixteen tomorrow,
Tanner.”

“Oh. I can see why you’re so freaked
out then. I guess I would be too,” he said. “Are you
scared?”

“Terrified.”

“What can I do?”

“Just stay with me. I don’t want to be
alone tonight,” I said. “I feel safe with you. I feel like
everything might actually be okay when I’m with you.”

Tanner stood up from the bench suddenly
and I worried that I had finally pushed him too far. Instead of
running away as fast as he could, he grabbed my hand and pulled me
up beside him. “Come with me,” he said. I followed him past the
swing sets and out of the pale circle of light from the street lamp
to a grassy hill behind the park.

Stopping at the top of the hill, Tanner
down on the grass and motioned for me to lay down next to him. The
cool grass tickled the back of my legs and arms, but Tanner’s arm
behind my head protected my neck. He cradled me against him and
stared up at the sky. Following his gaze I looked up and was filled
with amazement. I had never seen so many stars at once. I couldn’t
even see the stars from our old apartment and even if I was outside
after dark the city lights usually overpowered everything
else.

“It’s beautiful,” I
whispered.

“This is my favorite place to come when
I need a break from everything,” Tanner said.

“Thank you for bringing me
here.”

We lay silent for a while, I wasn’t
sure how long, but I tried to let the peaceful night seep into me
and carry away my fear. It worked for a while. As time passed,
though, I wondered what Tanner was thinking. Figuring that since he
was still here he might be up to answering another question, I
decided to ask.

“Tanner, do you believe any of what I
told you?”

“Yeah, I mean, most of it,” he said.
“It’s kind of hard to argue with the fact that so many girls have
died at sixteen in your family or that they all look just like you.
And your grandpa certainly believes in the story about the
sacrifice.” He paused.

“So what don’t you believe?” I
asked.

“That you’ll die tomorrow.”

“How can that be the one thing you
don’t believe?” I asked. “Everything else leads up to
it.”

Tanner shifted and was suddenly up on
his elbow looking down at me. “I don’t believe it because I don’t
want to.”

I wasn’t sure if he was actually
leaning closer as he spoke or if it just seemed like that to me
because I wanted him to so badly.

“I’ve only had three days with you. I
simply refuse to believe that this will be my last night with you.”
His face was serious and he was definitely moving closer to me.
“Besides, you still have too much work do to on your shooting.” His
attempt to lighten the mood did not work on me any more than it did
on him. He was only inches away from me now.

“Tanner, I’m serious. I’m
scared.”

Any attempt at hiding his true thoughts
faded away. “So am I,” he whispered. Pain and fear edged his
features. His hand reached up to my face as his lips came down to
mine. It was just a light brush at first, but when we met again it
was with more force.

I wanted to lose myself in Tanner’s
touch, but all too soon Tanner pulled away.

“I should get you back home,” he said
quietly.

I wanted to stay under the stars with
him forever, but I let him pull me up. He held me close as we
walked past the busy house that still had a few lights on and the
shut-in’s house with the yellow roses. Instead of heading to my
front door he turned toward the backyard and silently opened the
gate for me. I looked up at him with a question.

“I figured you didn’t tell your parents
you were going out in the middle of the night to hang out alone
with a guy you barely know,” he said. There was no judgment in his
words, but there was an almost guilty edge.

“What did you tell your mom?” I
asked.

“I told her I was staying over at
Evan’s,” he said.

Back at my window by then, Tanner
pulled the window open as soundlessly as he could. We waited for
the creaking to settle before he helped me climb through. Standing
on either side of the window we held onto each other. I didn’t want
to let go. I was scared of letting go. Tonight was a night of
risks.

“Tanner, will Evan say anything if you
don’t show up at his house tonight?” I asked.

Tanner shook his head. It was barely
noticeable, but the way his fingers tightened around mine was
answer enough.

“Will you stay?” I asked. “Not to…” I
really hoped he wasn’t thinking that. “I just don’t want to be
alone.”

“Of course I’ll stay.”

He didn’t let go of me as he climbed
through my window, or when I led him to the bed. And he only
wrapped his arms around me more tightly as we lay side by side.
Safely snuggled up against his body I closed my eyes and focused
every ounce of my mind on the rise and fall of Tanner’s chest. His
breathing slowed eventually and fell into the pattern of deep sleep
long before mine did.

Hope and dread danced around in my
mind. Dread for what I would soon have to face was easily winning.
There was no hope left in me that my grandpa would find the hidden
solution, the way to fool fate. Chilled, but not by the
temperature, I pulled a quilt my mother had made for me when I was
little over our bodies. It should have been too warm for the heavy
blanket, but the mish mash of creamy colors was soothing to my
mind. I barely even registered that someone had assembled my bed
for me. I cried as I laid in Tanner’s arms, knowing what a wasted
effort it would turn out to be.

Tears seeped out of my tightly sealed
lids as reality slipped away and a different, ancient reality
slowly crept in.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Stop your crying,” he hissed, disgust
thick on his lips. “It is an honor to be chosen as a sacrifice.
Your death will bring saving rains this dry season.”

The word death sent her into hysterical
sobs. “I…don’t…want to …die!” she screamed between sobs.

The guards surrounding her hated her
for her cowardice. One was making a great effort not to hit her.
The priest’s face twisted in anger behind his mask, then suddenly
changed, perplexed.

“Then why,” he asked with a restrained
voice, “did you volunteer yourself as a sacrifice to Tlaloc. It is
a great honor and privilege to be chosen, especially this year with
the New Fire Ceremony, but only the willing should submit to the
gods. Only slaves and prisoners are sacrificed against their
will.”

“I am not here by choice,” she snapped.
Burning tears had already streaked the carefully painted makeup.
She wiped the remaining wetness away with the back of her
hand.

“What?” the priest demanded. Fury lined
his face. “What do you mean, it was not your choice? An unwilling
sacrifice will not please Tlaloc as a humble servant would. It may
anger him and cause him to withhold the life giving rain.” His eyes
flitted rapidly around the mesa. “Who has done this?”

“My village leaders hoped to gain
Tlaloc’s favor above other villages. There has been sickness and
drought there for several summers. They knew I was born on the day
of Tlaloc. They seemed to think that it was fitting I should be
given back to him on his blessed day,” Kivera said. Vile anger
filled the last statement. “I was unwilling to go, but I turn
sixteen today. Next year I would be too old to sacrifice to Tlaloc.
My father had kept them from taking me in the past, but with this
year also being the year of the New Fire, the village elders would
wait no longer.”

Kivera took the most defiant stance she
could muster. “They stole me from my bed!” she screamed. “In the
middle of the night they killed my father and tied me up and
carried me away.” Her stance softened. Her anger dissipated,
replaced by fear and grief. “Please help me,” she begged. “I don’t
want to die.”

“Stop sniveling!” He paced a few steps.
“Regardless, you should be proud to be offered to Tlaloc, not
crying on the ground begging for rescue!”

Shame for her actions had no place in
Kivera’s heart or mind. “Please! You must help me.
Please!”

A muscled hand slapped her face,
leaving rising red welts. He shuddered, struggling to restore his
calm. Torn between his duty and desire to please his god, and the
terrified girl before him, a feral growl escaped his throat. “You
do not willingly submit to Tlaloc, but there is no one else! There
must be a sacrifice. There must!” He turned to her glaring. “You
must submit!”