Stolen Hearts: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series) (3 page)

She crept down the stairs, an odd feeling of déjà vu almost crippling her as she remembered the scene from her dream. On the surface this was completely different, but beneath the part of her brain that held her conscious thought Jessica remembered it all too clearly.

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to peer around the worn-smooth oak banister and jumped back when she saw Faydra standing with her back to her, the phone receiver of the old wall phone pressed to her ear. When she dared to look again, she saw Faydra’s knuckles were a bloodless white where she gripped the phone tightly.

“And what do you expect me to do about it?” her stepmother hissed into the phone, cupping her hand in front of her mouth. “I’m telling you, she’s strong!” There was a brief pause. “I don’t know, maybe it’s all her stupid running every day! I told you I should have taken her out of school after that coach came by here!”

Jessica stiffened. She’d suspected Faydra was talking about her, but she thought maybe she was just bitching to a friend of hers about her day. This didn’t sound like girlfriends complaining over a glass of wine at the end of the night. This was serious, darker.

“That’s the best you can come up with? And what exactly am I supposed to do with her body?” Faydra shrieked before remembering to be quiet. Jessica froze, her breath trapped in her lungs until she thought she might fall over. When she managed to gulp a chestful of air, she turned and tiptoed back up the stairs, wanting nothing more than to run but knowing it would give her away.

She made it to her room before panicking. Standing for only a minute with her back pressed tightly against her bedroom door—like that would save her if Faydra was determined to “hide the body”—she scanned her room as if the lone stuffed animal and a small pile of clothes would give her some kind of advice. The few posters taped to her walls didn’t offer her a plan of action, either.

Jessica finally came to her senses and took action. She grabbed her backpack from the floor beside her bed and dumped its contents in a small pile before shoving the few clean outfits she owned into the bottom of it. She rifled through her drawers for a few personal items before zipping it shut and contemplating the window. It was a serious drop to the ground below, but it was far better than the alternative.

With one last look around, Jessica opened her bedroom window and stuck her head out, torn between wanting to assess the situation carefully and wanting to live on in ignorance of what she was about to do. One tiny part of her brain reminded that her that Faydra would have a far easier time killing her if she was lying on the ground with two broken legs.

Kill me, she thought. Faydra was talking about killing me. I can’t believe this. This can’t really be happening.

She swung her feet through the open window first, letting them dangle over the edge. Instead of going for it and jumping, she turned over and tried to lower herself more, scraping her stomach painfully on the window ledge until she found herself hanging by her fingertips. She wished she’d thought to find a way to close the window behind her so her escape wouldn’t be so obvious to Faydra; piling up her pillows to look like she was asleep in her bed would have been a good idea, too. Too late now.

Jessica hung by her hands for as long as she could, remembering the feeling of standing on the edge of a swimming pool, wanting to swim but not wanting to experience the cold stabs of the icy water. She wanted to let go and drop to the ground so she could run to safety, but she knew it wasn’t going to feel good.

When she finally forced herself to loosen her grip on the window ledge, it took all of her conscious effort to not let out a yell. The drop was farther than it looked when the good guy tried this in movies. But instead of hitting the solid ground and possibly snapping her neck in two, Jessica hit something far stranger.

It felt like a person.

And if the sound he made was any sign, it was a flattened, surprised person. Jessica tried to roll off him, but her limbs were twisted with his. An unidentified but familiar and pleasant scent put her somewhat at ease, but then she remembered her mission and scrambled away.

“Who are you?” she hissed in an urgent whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“Jessica, wait. It’s me,” he began, fighting to breathe after the crushing attack on his ribcage from a falling girl. She cringed when she heard her name.

“Who? I mean… I don’t understand.” She stayed in a crouch, hoping the oversized hydrangea bush would provide enough of a cover if her stepmother was already on to her.

“I came here for you,” he began, but he stopped when the porch light behind him flicked on. Jessica pulled him by the sleeve of his flannel shirt until he was folded up behind her, both of them peering through the small green leaves to see if they’d been spotted.

Faydra walked the length of the porch and peered out into the darkness before coming down the steps to walk along the perimeter of the yard. Jessica and her unwelcomed guest pressed themselves against the house, trying to wedge themselves between the shrub and the limey bricks. They held their breath as she passed within only a few feet of them, stopping for a second—it didn’t make sense but Jessica was sure Faydra literally sniffed the air—and looking around before cursing again and storming back inside. The porch light went off before either of them could speak.

“Did she just sniff for you? Like, I don’t know… like a bloodhound or something?” the guy asked in Jessica’s ear. She startled at how close he was, having almost forgotten he was still there in her panic.

“More like a snake, I’d say,” she replied, still looking through the branches at the front door. It was minutes before her heartbeat slowed down and she felt safe making a run for it.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re here, but… thanks, I guess… you know, for breaking my fall and all that. But I’ve gotta go.” She gestured for him to go first so she could untangle herself from the hydrangea. He didn’t move.

Instead, he stared at her, watching her eyes with wavering resolve. She played along with his game for a moment before looking away.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “I was thinking maybe there was some psychic connection that would explain what I’m doing here. You know, like a mind meld thing. Only I’m not getting the impression that you summoned me. Or that you actually want me here.”

Jessica weighed her words carefully. It was one thing to piss off her stepmother, but laughing at a crazy person wasn’t in her best interests. And this guy was obviously leaning towards the “not enough silverware for his picnic” end of the special needs spectrum. She watched him warily before he spoke again.

“Wow. That sounded pretty stupid, didn’t it? It’s weird, it sounded completely rational before it flew out of my mouth.” He looked over his shoulder again to see if anyone was still lurking around, tossing his chestnut mop of hair out of his eyes as he did.

“It’s not completely weird,” Jessica began. “I mean, if I had a dollar for every time some guy crept over to my house in the middle of the night and let me squash him while I plotted my escape… by the way, oh yeah! Who are you and why are you here?”

“I’m Conlan. Remember? From school?” He looked at her like that should have meant something. Jessica shook her head slowly. “You totally know me. I’m the guy who takes the tickets in the lunch room, remember? It’s the only way to earn a third slice of pizza from the hairnet mafia.”

“Sorry, I don’t eat in the lunchroom.” She didn’t need to mention the fact that she rarely had lunch, thanks to her stepmother’s ideas about withholding food as an adequate form of punishment.

“Okay, how about you and I had algebra together in ninth grade? Well, most of the time. The rest of the time I was ditching algebra because all those shapes and theorems didn’t make any sense to me.”

“That’s because shapes and theorems are geometry,” she said, unable to resist pointing out the obvious.

“That would explain it,” he mumbled before turning on a 100-watt smile, letting her know he was joking.

“But really, why are you here? I’m grateful for the non-broken ankles and all, but what were you doing underneath my window?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Well, that. Yeah. That’s a long story.”

“No, it’s not. People say ‘that’s a long story’ when they don’t want to answer something. It’s actually a really short story. You were somewhere else, then you were at my house. Somewhere in between those two facts is the short story. Go for it.”

Conlan sighed. “You’re not gonna believe me.”

Chapter 4

“That is both probably and actually true, but try me anyway,” she suggested in a way that let him know it was an order and not an actual suggestion.

“How can it be both? Never mind. Fine, I was sitting at home, minding my own business, when I decided I had to come to your house. Okay?” he demanded, frustrated. A noise behind their heads told them someone was on the other side of the wall they leaned against. They both jumped at the same time and bolted from their hiding spot, streaking towards the road with no more than a rustle in the grass beneath their feet. When Jessica headed left at the end of her driveway, Conlan grabbed her arm and pulled her in the other direction, pointing to his car when she tried to break loose of his hold.

“It’s open,” he called to her over the top of the car, then disappeared into the driver’s seat. She pulled her door handle and threw herself into the passenger seat with enough force that the door slammed shut behind her just on its own momentum. She stayed ducked down but didn’t relish the feeling of his hand pressing against the back of her head. “Stay down.”

The car’s engine turned over and had only engaged for a second before he threw it into gear and sped off, easing up on the brake to keep the tires from squealing and giving them away.

“Okay, you should be good now. We’re past the old park,” Conlan said calmly, looking in the rearview mirror to make sure he was telling her the truth. Jessica sat up and looked through the back glass, seeing only dark road lit up in the red glow of his taillights.

“So, are you at all curious about all the crazy yet?” Jessica asked, turning back around in her seat and instinctively slouching a little lower. She kept her hands folded in her lap and her feet close together, trying hard not to unconsciously grab for the door handle and risk offending her rescuer for his driving habits.

“Oh, this stopped being crazy around the time a voice told me to go to your house. From then on, it was just a typical weeknight for me.” His attempt at nonchalant humor was wasted on her and he knew it. He sighed, preparing himself to tell the truth. “Okay, this is how it really happened. I swear, I was just sitting in my room, playing a game.”

“What kind of game?” she asked, envisioning blood spatters against a desert background in some online realm of military violence.

“Um, that’s not important.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her defiant look. He turned his attention back to the road. “Fine! It was Bubble Pop, are you happy now? I like to pop the little bubbles and see if I can win three games in a row! Sheesh! Why don’t you just give me the third degree?”

“No, really. It’s okay. Bubble Pop is a totally masculine game. I get it.”

“Spoken like a true unbeliever in the power of the bubbles,” Conlan muttered half-jokingly before becoming serious again. “But there I was, popping my bubbles, and I just knew I was supposed to go to your house. I mean, I didn’t hear a voice or see a banner written in the sky or any crap like that, I just knew.”

“How did you know where I live?” Jessica asked, stating the very obvious.

“I didn’t! That’s the weird part! Wait, I mean, the weird part happened way back at the beginning, and it just kept getting weirder, but not knowing where you live and still managing to drive there in the dark was certainly the weird part.”

“And then you stood outside, under my window for… how long, exactly?”

“I swear, it was like a grand total of thirty seconds. I seriously get to your house, park up the street because I’m sure someone’s gonna call the cops on this guy who just showed up, and then BAM! You fall out a window and land on me. It’s like I was destined to save you, or something like that.”

“Yeah, it was certainly something,” Jessica mumbled before looking out the window.

“You know, I don’t remember getting a thank you,” Conlan said, hinting. He looked at the pained expression on Jessica’s face and tried not to laugh, given how serious the situation was.

“Thank you. Really. I’m sorry it wasn’t my top priority, I’m more than a little freaked out right now.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window. The white line on the side of the asphalt seemed to snake back and forth as they moved, punctuated by reflectors that hovered above the guardrail. “Where are we going anyway?”

“I don’t know. I just know I’m driving us there. See? They’re doing it again,” he answered calmly, as though that explained everything. “You wanna tell me why you had to jump out of a window tonight? Nothing good on TV or something? You know, you should totally give Bubble Pop a try.”

Even she had to laugh at Conlan’s attempt at humor and his laidback ability to just go with it, whatever “it” was. She tried to make sense of it enough in her head to attempt giving him an explanation. It was the least she could do. But nothing seemed to line up.

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I’ve always had this really… bad… relationship with my stepmother, pretty much ever since we met, but it’s gotten worse since my dad died.”

“I didn’t know that about your dad, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. But it was a few years ago, we don’t really bring it up. After that, things got even worse between me and Faydra.”

“Why do you live with your stepmom? I don’t mean to sound rude, but I thought you kind of had to go live with family if something happened to your real parent.” Conlan switched hands on the steering wheel and used his free hand to push the button, rolling down the window just enough to let some air in. The roaring sound of rushing air filled the car, forcing Jessica to speak up to be heard.