The Second Sign (14 page)

She remembered that Alexi had told Jake about Kyle’s
death. She didn’t want that to happen to Jake. She couldn’t bear
the thought of losing him forever. She had to figure things out
with this new visit from Naite before she could ever consider
herself normal enough for a boyfriend. She lifted her eyes to Alexi
who seethed with malice pouring out of her like a thick veil.

“Thank you,” Gabby managed through the wedge in her
throat. “We’re even.” It took every effort she had left to break
from Jake’s confused eyes and start up the embankment, afraid that
if she looked back she would lose her courage to save him.

“Gabby, wait,” Jake called.

But she didn’t wait. Passing Jenna, who had enough
sense not to look at Gabby, she reached the road and saw Pat who
smirked at her as if he knew what was going on. She tore her eyes
away from him.

Her legs felt heavy on the hot surface, one boot
thumping hard on the pavement. Leaving Jake behind in Alexi’s arms
made her feel as if her heart was being wrenched out of her throat.
The further she went, the more she regretted it. She should have
fought Alexi for Jake. But she didn’t. And he didn’t follow her.
Maybe it was for the best. Who was she kidding, it
was
for
the best.

“Gabby?”

Gabby recognized Jenna’s voice already out of
breath.

“Listen, let me take you home. It’s a long drive and
I brought my own truck.”

The hot asphalt hurt her bare foot like hell, while
her other foot squished inside her boot. Gabby turned to the truck.
Her leg throbbed. Exhausted, she needed to clear her mind. Without
a word, she walked toward Jenna’s truck, opened the door, and
plopped down in the front seat, her wet clothes cold against her
body.

Jenna didn’t talk during the drive, didn’t ask
anything until she pulled over next to her house.

“Thank you.”

Gabby turned to look at her. “For what?”

“Telling me about my brother’s jump. For caring
about him.”

Gabby snorted. “Yeah, right. Tell him to stay away
from me. He doesn’t seem to get it.” Feeling horrible for being so
mean to Jenna, Gabby tore out of the truck and ran into her house,
slamming the door behind her. She bolted to her room and dropped on
her bed.

“Why didn’t you come for me, Max? Why didn’t you
save me?” she asked to no one, just before the darkness swallowed
her, and she didn’t care.

The Plunge

A chill ran through Jake, an icy feeling that numbed
him to his core. Gabby’s voice reeked with malice, and her eyes
were a deep, black abyss. Alexi shivered beside him as well. Gabby
bolted up the slope and the tension thinned the further away she
got. With Alexi still in his grasp, he couldn’t follow Gabby, who
was more likely to stake him than have a conversation with him.

Jenna knew Jake’s weakness for Gabby. They’ve
learned to navigate through each other’s emotions, and sometimes he
wondered if they weren’t psychic. With a slight nod of his head to
her, she bounded up the slope behind Gabby.

Jake pushed Alexi away as she tried to wrap her arms
around him. “Listen, Alexi, I don't mean to—”

“Bro, that was awesome.” Pat gave him a high five
that Jake met with a blatant smile.

It had been amazing. Up until the point where
they
showed up.

Pat went to the sail. “Shit, this thing is pretty
stuck, huh.” Pat tugged at the sail, but it didn't budge.

Ignoring Pat, Jake returned his attention to Alexi.
“Listen, you need to stop with this. I don’t like you that way. I’m
into Gabby.”

There was something totally off with Alexi. It had
gone way beyond stalking, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Her eyes narrowed on him, her face drawn up in a
feral mask. He felt a hint of evil sift through her and he stepped
away, the dreaded willies again.

“Because of that freak?” her voice shrieked.

Jake had to bite hard to keep from telling her who
the freak actually was. ”Does that really make you feel
better?”

“Yes, it does. She's a freak. You wait and see. Shit
happens around her. You are so going to regret this.” She turned
from him and called to Pat. “Let's go. I'm done here.”

Pat turned, shrugged with a pathetic look on his
face, and followed her. “You need a ride, man?”

“Nah, I'll call my sister to pick me up,” Jake
responded, done with this click. Knowing Gabby, he’d need the whole
summer to beg her forgiveness, and he was prepared to do it.

“She'll get over it. I'll take care of it for you.”
Pat winked.

Jake couldn’t care less and started past him toward
the caught sail, when Pat grabbed his arm.

“She's right, you know,” he said, lifting his chin
where Alexi had gone off to. “There's something not right about
Gabby. She's unlucky as hell. Be careful.”

He gave Jake a nod and trotted up the slope, leaving
Jake with the retort stuck in his throat.

After trying once, Jake gave up and left the sail
alone. He'd have to cut it down if the tree let him. He trekked up
the bank, keeping to the shadows. The jump spot wasn’t too far
ahead, and he reached it easily enough. His bag laid nestled under
a rock. After he peeled out of his wetsuit and changed into shorts
and a tee, he found his cell phone and texted Jenna to come pick
him up. Sitting back on the rock, he ran his fingers through his
hair, feeling deflated.

After careful evaluation of his sanity, he had
decided
not
to make the jump. Jenna, Alexi, and Pat had
concurred that the jump was too risky. But it had been Gabby’s
words that had settled the debate. She couldn’t watch him jump, so
he decided
not
to jump. He had stood on the precipice of the
world looking down at the jagged cliff when something led him to
survey the drop. Then he saw the tiny speck of a boat and he knew,
even without seeing her, that it was Gabby. It was like knowing
that putting your hand to flame would burn. And he jumped. An
instinctual, subliminal reaction, he had to save her. It was what
distinguished him from everyone else. His purpose.

Jake wasn't a believer in the divinity. Shit
happens. Period. His motto. His belief led him to do some crazy
shit. But whether he’d been led by something divine or not was
outside his frame of mind. With Gabby, he could feel something at
the edge of his existence. Something so close he could almost reach
out and touch it, name it, and give it substance, but it floated
further away from him every time he tried. It was too coincidental.
A guardian angel watched over her, and she had been lucky.

Something scurried down the slope and he looked up,
suddenly realizing that the unlucky one was him. A girl with wide,
gray-blue eyes stood close enough to see that her dirty blonde hair
was matted with blood. Her clothes clung to her thin frame in dirty
clumps marked with crimson stains that matched her hair. Her hands,
face, and bare feet were covered in cuts and caked in dirt. Her
flesh held a translucent glow as if she were a ghost.

Resisting the urge to reach out to touch her just to
be sure she was real, he stood up, his eyes wide. “Are you hurt?”
he asked slowly.

Dilated, her eyes sliced through him, holding him
numb. Tear stains lined her face, slashing a clean path down her
cheeks. With trembling hands, she handed him a piece of paper.

“She is the Second Sign,” the girl whispered.

Jake looked down at the crumpled piece of paper just
as the girl leapt over the cliff.

“No!” he lunged for her, catching nothing but air.
Scrambling on all fours, hoping by some miracle the girl would be
holding on to something, he looked over the ridge. There was
nothing. As if the girl were not real, she was gone. The only
evidence that he was not going crazy was the balled piece of paper
in his hand. With his heart wedged in his throat, he heard Jenna
calling him from the road. Unable to call back, he shoved the
balled up paper in his pocket and ran up to meet her, shaking all
over.

“Get in, hurry.” The vision of the girl imprinted in
his mind.
Why? Why would she jump?

“Jake, what happened?”

“She jumped. She jumped.” Those words were all he
could get out.

Jenna’s eyes widened with a look of shock, and tears
glistened in her eyes. “Jake, you’re scaring me.” She cupped his
face in her hands.

“Please, Jenna, let’s just get out of here.” The
words floated out of his mouth before he even thought about it.
Could he leave this place? Would he ever be able to leave Gabby? He
didn’t have time to think. He needed to be away from the cliff.
Jenna hopped in and rammed the truck toward the road.

“Who was she?” Jenna asked after he told her what
happened.

“I don’t know.” He brushed his hair back with his
hand. “I’ve never seen her before.”

Jenna pulled up to the police station.

“What am I going to tell them? I don’t even know who
she was.”

He didn’t want to be here. He needed to see Gabby.
The girl’s words haunted him. She had been waiting for him to give
him the message before she jumped. Something about it all made him
feel it was meant for Gabby. Gabby showing up, needing him to save
her. Gabby sending him into all kinds of crazy since he’d met her.
He couldn’t push her out of his thoughts, out of his very being.
Something was wrong. The feeling stabbed him to the core. The same
feeling he had just before he found his mother...dead.

“Just tell them what you saw. They’ll figure it
out.” Jenna brought him back to reality and squeezed his hand,
offering him her strength. She’d always been stronger than him,
taking his mother’s place without complaint and opting to go to a
community college so she’d be closer to home. He loved her for
it.

The small police station, automated beyond belief,
but cozy and quaint, looked off in the backdrop of the mountain.
Jake half expected monster-size computers with green screens.

Jenna had already called the station so they knew
they were coming.

“Lieutenant Miller will take your statements,” a
burly cop said and led them through a corridor to the largest
cubicle in the maze. “Lieutenant, these are them kids that called
to report...the you know what.”

Miller nodded at the portly cop who scurried back to
his station. “Sit down.” Miller stood up and walked around his
desk. “I’ve been meaning to go over to welcome you. Your father
called me last month to tell me you’d be here this summer.”

Jake and Jenna looked at each other.

“Phil didn’t tell ya, that son-of-a...” Miller bit
his lip. “Ah, never mind. Your dad and I go way back. Anyways, tell
me what you saw.”

Jenna took Jake's hand, something she always did
when she knew he needed her to protect him.

“I was up at the summit near the falls and this
girl... ” He wiped his eyes. “This girl came up to me. She was
dirty and bleeding. She jumped off the cliff. I tried to grab her
but I was too far away.” Jake looked at his hands. They had been
useless. “She just jumped.”

Miller squeezed his shoulder. “Sorry you had to see
that. But I’m going to have to ask you to look at some photos to
identify her.” His voice offered no comfort, no sympathy.

Jake nodded. Miller left them alone for a long while
and returned with a single file. He sat behind his desk filling the
space, his eyes veiled, and his face tight.

“What happened?” Jake asked, wiping his sweaty palms
on his shorts.

“There’s been a murder. A family up on the other
side of the lake. The Garys.” Miller pulled out a photo. “Is this
her?”

Jake stared at the school picture of the girl who’d
jumped. Under the photo read Martina Gary, Cumma Sum Laude. Her
bright, gray-blue eyes stared back at him, blaming him for not
saving her. He nodded.

“Her family was murdered,” Miller said and clenched
his jaw, biting back a comment.

Jenna covered her mouth. “Oh my God,” she
whispered.

All the blood drained from Jake’s body. Sweat
trickled down his back, his stomach tightened and he swallowed
hard. Heat inched up his spine and wrapped itself at the nape of
his neck where it settled like a deep well. The slip of paper she’d
given him weighed on him, but he decided he didn’t trust Officer
Miller. The man knew their dad, and yet Dad hadn’t mentioned it.
That in itself brought all kinds of red flags to Jake’s mind.

“It’s really all I can say right now.” He put the
file back on his desk but didn’t move. “You’re staying at your
dad’s old lake house?”

“Yeah,” Jenna answered.

“That’s close to the Adler home, correct?”

Jake snapped his head up. His body tensed and he
felt as if he was going to have to go toe-to-toe with this cop if
he so much as said anything negative about Gabby. Miller seemed to
notice and stared Jake down.

Miller leaned on his desk, his elbows digging into
the file. “You watch yourselves out there, you hear me?” He cocked
a brow. “If you see anything suspicious, you give me a holler.”

“We will,” Jenna answered and stood up, tapping Jake
into motion.

Jake thought he’d have to spend the whole day
explaining things. Why was he at the jump sight? Who can
collaborate his story? Character witnesses? Anything. The
interrogation lasted ten seconds. Something was definitely off with
Miller.

Jenna tapped him again and his legs complied. He
followed her out, seeking the light and fresh air to fill his
lungs.

“What’s going on?” Jenna asked as she slammed her
door.

“I need to get to Gabby’s house, now,” Jake
snapped.

“Not until you tell me what the hell that was
about.” Jenna glared at him.

He wanted to tell her to leave, to go back home. A
heavy feeling of foreboding snapped at him, but he couldn’t mouth
the words. She wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t understand.