Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) (2 page)

And then I couldn’t move.

Two blazing red eyes emerged from behind a
fern. They formed crimson and orange swirls, like the fun-house
décor at my boarding school’s fall carnival. But there was nothing
amusing here. The eyes locked me in place, immobilizing my feet
despite the urgent bulletin running across my brain—
run
. I
fought against their hold, struggling with every ounce of power I
could summon, and lifted one sneaker then the other from their
invisible stronghold. Panic willed me forward. I barely registered
the grey fur covering an enormous head and the ears framing
frightening eyes. I just turned and bolted for the top of the
hill.

The beast bolted right after me.

The creature’s labored breathing grew
louder—it was closing in. My toes pushed against the cushion of my
Nikes as I lengthened my strides, working as hard as I could to
reach the safety of the clearing. But I still had a quarter mile to
go, and the snarling was right at my back.

“Arugh!” I shrieked as the beast’s fangs
snapped around my arm, pulling it behind me and dragging me
backward before releasing its bite. My arm tugged again as the
sleeve of my hoodie tore—the fabric must have been attached to the
animal’s canines. My wrist throbbed as pierced flesh met cold air.
Something hot and wet trickled down my fingers, but I didn’t dare
look; I was afraid of what I’d see.

“Help!” I jerked forward as my sleeve finally
ripped away. The moment I was free, I bolted for the top of the
hill, putting as much distance as I could between that awful animal
and me. My arm was on fire, and I was afraid one more bite would
break it clean off. Bile rose in my throat, but I willed it down.
You can freak out later, Mia. Now you have to
run.

I was so focused on reaching the summit that
I almost didn’t see the man in the shadows. He leapt across my
sight line just as I cleared the top of the hill. His intense blue
eyes forced me to a stop as they held my gaze for the briefest of
moments. The connection was broken as the man’s guttural cry
bounced off the evergreens, and he flew thirty feet to tackle my
attacker. The sound of bodies colliding thundered throughout the
forest. I whirled around just in time to see a mass of claws and
fists, blond hair and grey fur, as the man and the beast catapulted
into the brush. Both were unnaturally large. The creature, whatever
it was, had to be ten feet, with the long tail and sharp ears I’d
seen on foxes back home. And the man… though he wore a hooded
sweatshirt, it was obvious he boasted the kinds of muscles not seen
outside UFC gyms. He wrenched the creature’s head to one side with
ease, although I was sure the beast had a few hundred pounds on
him.

They disappeared into the woods before I
could take a breath. I doubled over as the snap of cracking bones
came from behind the ferns, and when I heard the agonized cry of a
wounded animal, I dropped to my knees.

Then everything went to black.

WHEN I OPENED MY
eyes, a tiny blond
girl knelt at my side.

“Are you okay?” Worry lined her brow as she
gently guided me to a sitting position. She couldn’t have weighed
more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she shifted me with
ease until I was resting with my back against a mossy trunk. My
fingers grazed the back of my head where it throbbed. I glanced at
the dry earth, the cage of trees, and the seemingly incalculable
amount of green coating the forest from top to bottom.
How did I
get here?

Memories bombarded my addled brain like
snowballs in an avalanche, and I scrambled to my feet. I turned my
head so fast the end of my ponytail slapped my face. “Where are
they? Is the animal still here? Oh God, did it…” My chest rose, and
I glanced down, preparing myself for exposed bone and torn flesh.
But when I took in the sight of my chipped manicure peeking out
from beneath the untouched sleeve of my hoodie, my jaw fell open
with an audible pop.

“What in Sam Hill…” I shoved my sleeve up to
my elbow and stared in awe. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on
the smooth peachy surface. No exposed bone. No blood. No evidence
of the life or death battle I’d just endured. Had I imagined the
whole thing?

“You saw an animal?” The blond girl jumped
up, taking a defensive stance. She couldn’t have been more than
five-foot, two-inches, with loose waves that bounced as she shifted
her weight back and forth. She looked better suited to waving
pom-poms than taking on a crazed animal, but I didn’t care—I was
glad I wasn’t alone.

“I was running away, and it tried to bite off
my arm. But then this guy came and—oh my god, the guy. Is he all
right?” My eyes scanned the forest, looking for any signs of the
struggle. The trees, ferns, and lightly swirling mist were still
there, but the animal and my savior were gone.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The girl’s face
softened as she relaxed her stance.

“No!” A lump lodged in my throat and my eyes
pricked with tears as I remembered the terrifying sensation of
teeth piercing flesh.

“Let’s get you out of here.” The girl guided
me by the elbow with the careful movement one might reserve for a
confirmed lunatic. No doubt I seemed crazy, staring at my forearm
with a look that wavered between reverent and horrified.

“I’m Brynn.” The girl spoke conversationally
as she led me back to town. Her voice was lyrical with each
sentence ending on a high note. It made her sound as if she was
singing.

“I’m Mia. Thanks for helping me.”

“Of course.” Brynn spoke lightly. “Mia
Ahlström,
ja
?”

“How’d you know that?” My eyes narrowed.
First a giant beast attacked me, and now a total stranger knew my
name. Either someone was out to get me, or I was going insane.

“I recognize you from the picture you sent.”
Brynn laughed. “I’m your roommate, Brynn… the one from Sweden.”

“Oh,
Brynn
. I’m so sorry.” I flushed.
“I should have realized.”

“You’re pretty out of it,
flicka
.”
Brynn nodded cheerfully.

“What did you call me?” I knew a little
Norwegian from my Grandpa Ahlström, but Swedish was a whole new
linguistic beast.
Beast
. I looked over my shoulder and
shuddered.

“
Flicka.
It means girl. Let’s get you
back to the house. Charlotte and Heather can’t wait to meet
you.”

“They weren’t home when I left,” I told Brynn
as we walked toward town. The sky had dimmed considerably while I
was passed out—now the last rays of daylight filtered through the
thick trees.

“They’re going to meet up with us at the
party later.”

“The party? I’m not sure I’m up for a party…”
I glanced at my arm again. Not so much as a stitch of pain.
How
is that even possible?

“Just a little gathering. You’ll be up for
it!” Brynn giggled. “You’re looking better—the color’s back in your
cheeks. You’ll be fine by the time we have to meet the girls.”

“Did you see what happened back there?”

Brynn shook her head, her big green eyes
brimming with concern. “No. I was jogging, and I saw you lying on
the ground. You must have passed out while you were running. Has
that ever happened to you before?”

“You didn’t see the giant animal? Some kind
of mountain lion-wolf thing? Or the huge blond guy with massive
muscles and a death wish?”

“I must have missed them.” Brynn trilled.
“Wouldn’t have minded seeing massive muscle man, though.”

I scratched the back of my neck. So I
was
losing my mind. My brother Jason would have a field day
with this story.

“Come on,” Brynn bounded ahead, her golden
ponytail bouncing high on her head. “Let’s call for pizza. I’m
starving, and you need to get your blood sugar up.”

She bobbed her head, and I jogged tentatively
after her. Nothing hurt, so I ran faster, matching her pace. Maybe
all the fresh air had got to me. Or maybe I shouldn’t have jumped
right into a workout after five days in a car. Whatever happened,
there most definitely had not been an attack on my arm—it was fit
as a fiddle. And pizza and a party would make a
much
better
first-day-at-college story to tell my brother than dwelling on a
made-up mountain beast. Although standing around with a bunch of
strangers, even if it was only a ‘little gathering’, sounded as
appealing as showing up to a test without studying first.
Baby
steps, Ahlström. You have to start somewhere.

I sucked in a breath and kept running. Looked
like that somewhere started now.

****

“You’re going to do
what?
” My
brother’s all-American face formed a mask of shock. I rested my
iPhone against my mirror so I could FaceTime with Jason at the same
time as I put on my makeup. Multitasking for the win.

“You heard me. I’m going to a party.”

“You hate crowds.” Jason pointed out the
obvious.

“Don’t remind me.” I repressed a shudder. “My
roommate says it’s just some freshmen down the block, so maybe it
won’t be that bad.”

“I don’t even know you anymore. Does the Math
Club know you’re going to a party? I thought Friday nights were
reserved for Fun With Fractions.” Jason’s violet blue eyes crinkled
in a smile. They were the exact same shade as mine.

“Har-dee-har-har. For your information, math
can be fun, too.”

Jason snorted. “You keep telling yourself
that.”

“Aren’t you in a
business
fraternity,
Mr. High And Mighty?”

“Yes ma’am.” Jason nodded. “And Kappa O
throws the best keggers on campus. Though I’m sure the Math Club’s
thrown some real ragers in their day.”

I stuck out my tongue and unscrewed my liquid
eyeliner. “How’s Mama holding up?”

“She’s better now that you’re safe in Arcata.
Letting her seventeen-year-old baby girl drive cross country by
herself wasn’t easy for her, you know.”

“I’ll be eighteen in three months,” I
reminded him. “And she seemed much calmer about my road trip once I
installed that GPS thing on her phone so she could check on me
twenty-four seven.” I drew a line above my lashes, flicking it up
at the corner of my eye.

“Speaking of, Dad just disabled the app for
stalking on our end, so you can live out your college days in
relative peace. He says to tell you
you’re welcome
.”

“Bless him.” I lined my other eye.

Jason adjusted his baseball cap. “So how was
the trip?”

“Mostly okay. I blew a tire about halfway
through Nebraska and nearly ruined my brand new suede riding boots
changing it in the middle of a rainstorm. I was in such a rush to
get out of Buckshire, I forgot to weatherproof them.”

“Oh, no. You forgot to weatherproof your
boots?” Jason put his hands on his cheeks and dropped his jaw.

“Stop it, it’s a big deal!” I loved my
brother, but Jason knew diddly-squat about shoes.

Jason blinked. “You do realize not everything
has to be so serious, right? Some things are just supposed to be
fun.”

I mulled that over while I curled my lashes.
With our chocolate brown hair and athletic builds, Jason and I were
obviously cut from the same DNA, but where my brother was playful
and outgoing, the quarterback of his prep school football team and
consummate life of the party, I preferred a lower profile. My best
subjects were math and science—things with concrete,
black-and-white answers, since grey didn’t sit right with me. My
choices had yielded a life that proceeded in an orderly,
straightforward manner, which was exactly the way I liked it. A
lifetime of meticulous planning meant things rarely ruffled my
feathers… including my all-knowing, charming, loveable brother. He
was the one person I could count on to be honest with me, no matter
what, and I adored him for it.

“Jason?” I asked, swiping my first coat of
mascara.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to like it here, right?”

“Is Mia Ahlström admitting she’s
nervous?”

“Don’t tell anyone.” My cheeks tingled. My
inability to hide emotions lived on the border of absurd and
mortifying.

“You’ll love it.” Jason nodded inside the
screen. “An entire university full of math geeks? You’ll fit right
in.”

I stuck my tongue out as I swiped on my
second coat, then moved to my other eye. “I’m serious. I don’t want
to be the loner in the corner at a school full of…”

“Math geeks,” Jason repeated himself. “You’ll
be their queen.”

“I will not hesitate to disconnect you.” I
pointed one menacing finger at the phone.

“All right!” Jason held up his hands in mock
surrender. I turned my attention back to my makeup bag.
Blush,
blush, blush… ah, there it is.
I snatched up the black compact
and dusted off my brush. “Seriously, you’ll be fine. You keep the
family together, like Meemaw. You won that Junior League award
thing for teambuilding last year.” Jason was on a roll now,
counting on his fingers. “You were head girl at Tottenham Prep, and
kept all those underclassmen from killing each other during pillow
fights. If you can keep the peace at one of the snootiest boarding
schools in the tri-state area, you won’t have any problem making
friends with some California hippies. Though it’d probably be
easier if you lived on campus. Why are you renting a house instead
of living in the dorms?”

“You know why.” I polished a rosy pink powder
on the apples of my cheeks. “I spent forever in a dorm. All those
teenage girls breathing down your neck gets a little cloying.”

“I think it sounds perfect.” Jason wiggled
his eyebrows.

“You would.”

“So you’ve got your roommates all sorted and
everything?” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Yep. The school matched us based on a
personality questionnaire. A sort of
eHarmony
for
housemates.”