Never Fear (44 page)

“
Would you put that thing
away already?”

I slid my gaze toward my twin, while
continuing to rapid text with my thumb. The dark obscured my view,
but I didn’t need to see Stephen’s face to know his expression was
the same one of somber annoyance he’d been wearing for the last two
weeks. My palm burned with the need to smack him upside the head.
“What’s your problem? Do you want me to drive?”

Say no.

Say no.

Say no.

“
No.”

Thank
God
. I hated this stretch of road. We
hadn’t passed a streetlight, or another car for that matter, in at
least thirty miles. It was as if the rest of the world didn’t
exist. Stephen and I could go out the way we came in. Together. No
one would find us for days. Not if this blizzard kept up. We’d
freeze to death.

Oh my God, what if I had to eat my
brother to stay alive?

I sucked in a deep breath to stop a
full-body shudder, reached over and turned up the heat. Snow had
been falling steadily for the last two hours. The creak of the
windshield wipers was seriously grating on my nerves. I wanted to
crank some music to drown out the piercing whistle of the wind.
Stephen wouldn’t appreciate the jolt to his concentration. Or so
he’d told me the last time I had turned it up.

“
But… ”

Here he goes. Dude had a “but” for
every situation whether you needed one or not.

“
You’re so attached to
that damn phone, it’s like the thing is an extension of your
fingers. I’m driving through this shit-storm. The least you could
do is attempt to be good company?”

I reached over and patted
his arm. “Aww… When did you turn sixty-five? If you wanted me to
pay more attention to you, all you had to do was ask.” Rolling my
eyes, I hit send, switched to vibrate, and stuck my phone under my
leg. “Do I need to remind you that I wanted to wait until morning,
wait the weather out?”
Wait out the
dark.

But
nooooo
, Stephen hadn’t cared about
the snow or the dark. All he cared about was getting the hell away
from Bakersfield, putting some distance between the campus and his
broken heart. I got it. I really did, but dealing with his pissy
attitude was getting harder by the minute.

He sighed and slumped back in his
seat. “I didn’t know the weather would get this bad.”

Yes, he did. Pointing it out would
only cause more tension. “It’s Christmas, Stephen. Let’s try to be
happy. Okay?”

“
What are you talking
about? I am happy.”

I swallowed a groan. “Um,
no. You’re so far from happy you’ve crossed over into
Scroogeville.” And wouldn’t Mom get a kick out of that? She thrived
on drama and loved to throw around
I-told-you-so
like she was an
all-knowing genius and we were the underlings who would never
amount to anything. What Stephen needed was a distraction—something
to remind him that the world and his happiness didn’t revolve
around Miss Allison Peters. It wasn’t that I hated Allison or
anything. But stomping on my brother’s heart made her the enemy in
my book.

“
I know what we should
do.”

“
What?” Stephen asked, the
one word dripping with suspicion.

“
Come on. Why do you say
it like that?”

He grunted. “Because your ideas always
lead to trouble.”

“
Not always.” I’d give him
usually, but not always. For being twins, we couldn’t have been
more different. We might look alike, with matching blond hair and
bright blue eyes, but that’s where the similarities ended. Stephen
had always been the brooder, while I grabbed on to positivity like
a lifeline, for that’s exactly what it was. Except when it came to
the dark and long stretches of road. Then I turned from Queen
Positive to Queen Someone’s-gonna-slice-me-to-pieces. I should
probably stop watching horror movies. If I had one addiction, that
was it. It wasn’t my fault. Most little girls grew up hearing fairy
tales about Snow White and Cinderella, Christmas tales of Frosty
and Rudolph. Not this girl. My bedtime stories consisted of tales
of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, Krampus, Frau Perchta, and Hans
Trapp.

“
Anyway,” I said, trying
not to sound bitter. “Do you remember the Christmas village I used
to work at?”

He tapped the steering wheel in time
with the windshield wipers. “Sleigh Land? Yeah, I remember.
Why?”

“
I was thinking we could
stop there on our way home.” I’d kill for some of their famous
cider.

“
You want to stop and walk
around in a blizzard like this?”

I did. Anything to stretch out the
time before we got home. Ever since Dad had died, Mom had nixed
holiday celebrations. Our mother had never been an exuberant
person, but there had been moments when she’d let down the walls
and truly enjoyed life. Those days were long gone. The walls were
thicker than ever and on the off chance she laughed about
something, the sound came out forced and brittle, like slowly
cracking glass. Stephen held hope she’d snap out of it, but I knew
in my heart that our father’s death had been the catalyst for a
destiny that had always been headed toward disaster. Secretly, I
suspected our mother was slightly, if not wholly, insane. If I had
to hear one more time how Dad was killed by evil, when in fact he’d
died from a heart attack, I’d probably join her on the crazy train.
If I had to guess, I’d say those dark tales she liked to read to me
got to her too.

Was it any wonder I was scared of the
dark?

And things that go bump in the
night?

We were only going home because the
campus was deserted this time of year, and more so, because it was
expected. We’d managed to skip out last year by lying. We’d told
Mom that we both had to work. I still felt guilty about that. But
being around her during Christmas sucked. “Yes. I really do,” I
answered. “It’ll probably be our only chance to see some holiday
lights.”

“
Yeah, I guess you’re
right about that. We’ll see, Stella. If this shit keeps up, they
might be closed before we get there.”

I mussed Stephen’s hair. Always the
doubter. “It’ll be open. I have faith.” All I wanted was a little
festive happiness before the misery set in. Seriously, was that too
much to ask?

We drove in silence for another hour.
The longest hour of my life. The weather didn’t get better. It got
worse. Ice mixed with snow, and the wipers groaned with the effort
of keeping up with the storm. I peeked at the speedometer enough
times to earn a scowl from my driver. At this rate we’d be lucky to
make it home before New Year’s.

“
Man, this
sucks.”

I laughed to ease some of the tension.
“That it does. Do you have any idea where we are?”

“
I don’t even know if
we’re on the road anymore. I can’t see anything. “

I said a silent prayer, thankful that
boys liked trucks. If we weren’t in a four-wheel-drive, we would
have been stuck hours ago. “Okay, that’s a little scary.” A whole
lot scary. “Hey, this blizzard is bad, like too bad for a serial
killer to be out, right?”

“
You really need to lay
off the horror flicks, sis.”

I chewed on the edge of my thumb.
“Yeah, I know. But you didn’t answer my question.”

He snorted. “I don’t even think Santa
would come out in this.”

That made me feel moderately
better.

“
But…”

Oh, no. Not another
but
.

“
We might have to pull
over soon and wait this out. I’ve got a couple of blankets behind
the seat. We’ll be fine.”

No way. I’d rather walk than sit like
a piece of bait, just waiting for something to come along and tear
us to shreds. “Not yet, okay?”

“
Soon.”

I leaned forward, straining to see
something, anything but the snow, and the ice, and the dark. I
counted the sluggish swish of the wipers.

One…

Two…

Three…

Fifty…

I squealed and punched Stephen’s
shoulder.

“
What the
hell?”

“
We made it!” I’d never
been so relieved in my life.

“
Made it where,
Stella?”

I scooted to the edge of my seat and
tapped the windshield. “Sleigh Land is up ahead, on the right. See
it?”

Stephen leaned closer to the
windshield, his chin inching over the top of the steering wheel.
Strings of lights twinkled in the distance, a beacon of
hope.

“
Yeah, I see it. I can’t
believe they’re open.”

“
I can,” I said, bouncing
in my seat. “You can’t really cancel Christmas. Besides…” I glanced
at the clock. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

Chuckling, he said, “I guess you’re
right. You know it will probably take us an hour to get
there.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t
matter.”

“
Why don’t you call Mom
and tell her we’re making progress and it shouldn’t be too much
longer?”

I groaned. “You call her.”

“
Stop being a baby. I’m
driving and I know you’re dying to check your messages.”

He had a point. My leg had practically
gone numb from all the vibrations. “Fine.” I pulled the phone out
and scrolled through my messages before pulling up my contact list.
Blowing out a breath, I hit the call button. Nothing happened. I
tried again. Still nothing.

“
No service.” I shouldn’t
have been relieved, but I was.

“
Maybe we should skip
Sleigh Land.”

I shook my head. “No.” I sighed,
evened out my tone. “I promise we don’t have to stay for long, but
I really need a jolt of ‘Merry Merry.’ Besides, Mom probably took
her pills and crashed already.”

If I knew that for sure, I’d agree to
skip the Christmas village. But like her moods, her sleeping
patterns were unpredictable.

“
Maybe. We’ll
see.”

I flipped on the overhead light and
batted my eyelashes, stuck out my lower lip. Cheap move, but
desperate times and all. “Please? It can be your Christmas present
to me.”

He reached up and turned the light
off. “Really? You, lover of all things sparkly, will accept a trip
to Sleigh Land as your present.”

That right there showed how much I
really didn’t want to go home. I pretended to mull it over. “Yes.
One trip to Sleigh Land and you’re totally off the
hook.”

Smirking, he said, “Done.”

I beamed, and then I swore the angels
must have been singing because the snow stopped falling, completely
stopped, like someone had shut off the faucet. One moment we were
shrouded in darkness, the next we were less than a half-mile from
Sleigh Land. Cue the creepy organ music.

“
Um…”

Stephen clenched the wheel, his
knuckles as white as the snow. “Yeah, I know. I thought we were
much farther away.”

I glanced around, an uncomfortable
feeling settling between my shoulder blades. Definitely time to
switch to Hallmark movies. “The snow must have messed with our
perception.”

“
Probably. You sure you
want to stop?”

I stared at the lights, at the
illuminated candy cane signs that marked the parking lot. Memories
of some of the best times of my life played out like an old movie
in my mind. “Yes. Absolutely.”

We pulled into the parking lot and I
noted only a sprinkling of cars. All covered with inches of snow,
as if they had been there for a while. They probably belonged to
the employees.

Stephen eased into a parking space and
cut the ignition. I heard bells and music, children’s laughter and
buzzing lights. Those sounds, sounds of happiness, enveloped me and
the tightness in my shoulders slid away.

I pulled on my gloves and hat and
jumped out of the truck. My feet hit a patch of ice. I went down
hard, shrieking like a little girl. I heard Stephen laughing as he
rounded the truck to help me up. Then I was the one laughing
because he went down too, landing with an audible snarl.

“
Oh my God. We are a
pair.” I grabbed onto the door and pulled myself up.

“
A pair of stupids.” He
brushed off his coat and hit
lock
on his key fob before shoving his keys in his
front pocket.

“
I hope no one got that on
video. We could go viral.”

“
You wish. I think we’re
good though. I don’t see anyone else out here.”

The village looked as deserted as the
roads. I tried not to dwell on that; I really did. Yet, prickles of
anxiety skated along my spine. “I don’t know if it would be safer
to hang on to each other or not.” I scooted my feet instead of
taking a step.

Stephen nudged me along. “I vote for
not. “

“
Chicken.”

He barked out a laugh and we made our
way toward the entrance. I hadn’t heard him laugh in way too long.
Despite his protest, I linked my arm through his as we passed under
the crisscrossed candy canes held by giant toy soldiers. On our
right sat a small cabin, more the size of an outhouse than
anything. I’d been sixteen the last time I’d sat in that little
gingerbread house, collecting payment and handing out
maps.