The Watcher (4 page)

The hike back was mostly downhill, and the steep declines challenged my balance and coordination. The less experienced one of the group—half-sliding, half-hiking—I soon lagged behind my friends, who chatted happily, not noticing I’d slowed down.

The trickling sounds of the creek grew louder as we approached. The bridge was closed and cordoned off with yellow tape, but ten feet away spanning the creek was an old moss-covered fallen log, its soft bark crumbled with decay. Fiona and Heather practically skipped across it to the other side. I slowed down.

“Hey, guys. Wait up!” I called as they rounded the corner, but they didn’t look back.

Icy prickles spread along my skin like frost forming on glass.
I can do this
, I thought, until I saw the eight-foot drop to the shallow streambed below. How had Heather and Fiona gotten across so easily? Knowing that thinking about it would only make it worse, I focused on the log, placing one foot carefully in front of the other.

I was halfway across when a crashing of branches rustled the trees in front of me. From behind me came a growl.
That dog again—two of them!
My back tensed and I almost lost my balance. I had just righted myself when a smoky black canine with glowing red eyes came charging out of the bushes right at me.

I turned on my heel to get back to the other side. But the log shifted and sent me flying. With a scream, I plummeted, landing first on my ankle, then on my tailbone.

Icy cold water soaked my clothes as a white, searing pain shot up my leg. Gasping, I scanned the steep wall of rock and dirt for any signs of danger, expecting to be overrun with snarling, horrible dogs. What were they doing
here
?

Grabbing a rock from the riverbed, I waited. Listening.

Nothing.

I was alone. My friends hadn’t even noticed I was gone. How long before they came back for me? My ankle throbbed painfully, even in the cold water. I didn’t want to move it but had to. How else would I get out on my own?

I was bracing myself to get up when a tall dark-haired figure approached. As he descended the embankment with giant, graceful strides, I couldn’t believe who it was.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked.

Part of me wondered what he was doing there, on this obscure hiking trail across town, or why he was helping when he’d ignored me at school. But another part, the part that was probably in shock, considered it perfectly normal, as if I’d seen him here every day.

“Something black…” I muttered, in case he saw whatever came at me. I didn’t want to bring up the dog again. What if I’d imagined it?

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, crouching before me.

Of course he didn’t see it, Mia. Black things don’t just come at you. He thinks you’re delusional.

I blinked and shook my head. He seemed to be talking to me through a long dark tunnel. Everything—even the pain—was dim and distant. “My ankle took most of it.”

He knelt in the water, facing me, and said, “I’m going to check it, okay?”

I nodded blankly at the water soaking his jeans.
He must be cold.
I could no longer feel it myself. I knew on some level that something was wrong in my body, but the messaging was numbed somehow. All I felt was static, like my circuits had overloaded.

Holding my heel, he untied my shoelace and removed my boot. I bit my tongue to avoid crying out. It tasted metallic. When he touched my ankle, pain exploded up my leg.

“Oww!”

“Sorry.” He frowned. “I really do have to check it.”

“I know.”

I braced myself for pain, but his touch was light, gentle, as though he were examining a wounded bird.

“I’m going to check your spine,” he said. The tunnel sensation gone, I could sense how close he was, smell the mint on his breath. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He leaned toward me and reached around my back to gently feel my bones. As he touched me, he searched my face for any sign of pain, and the tenderness in his eyes made me warm all over.

A few moments later he helped me to my feet, offering me his arm for balance. I gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white, and I could feel the cords of muscles beneath his shirt. But I could stand as long as I put no pressure on my foot. The pain was fierce, and my balance so terrible I teetered on the rocks.

“You’ll never make it up to the trail on your own,” he said. “It’s steep.”

Well, that much was obvious. What was he going to do? Leave me there?

He stepped in closer, and I had that feeling again, like I recognized him from somewhere. It wasn’t from that morning in the park either. I wracked my brain, trying to place him. Had we been to the same party? Hung out in the same café? Perhaps I’d seen his picture somewhere.

“Trust me, okay? I won’t hurt you,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, almost musical, a chord rather than a single note.

Before I could reply, he placed one of my arms around his shoulders, scooped an arm under my legs, and picked me up as though I were weightless. As he carried me up the steep hill, he didn’t seem to notice how close we were, his face inches from mine—too close and yet not close enough.

Not knowing where to look, I gazed over his shoulder and noticed a strange light flickering behind him. Tinged with blue, it flashed and rippled in a flowing motion. What the heck was it? Was I in shock?

When I looked back at Michael’s face, it was alight, as though a beam of sunlight bathed both of us, especially him, in a warm golden hue. Like that day I saw him in the mall, only more brilliant. I gasped.

“Pain?” he asked.

I nodded, not wanting to admit I was hallucinating. He’d think I was crazy.
Again.

A warm tingle filled me all the way to my toes. It made me feel open and exposed, as though a million eyes were watching me. Something inside told me to relax, and when I did, it eased not only my fright from earlier but all the pain I didn’t know I had, as if all of my struggles had been seen: the difficulties our family had through the divorce, the strange distance between Dad and me, even my awkwardness around Michael.

My chest tightened and, as I exhaled, the tension released. Everything became warm and floaty and I felt completely accepted and at peace. An image of a lush garden on a hot sunny day flashed in my mind, as vivid as the inside of a dream. It surrounded a primitive house made of mud-brick and plaster. Inside was an open fire pit with a hole in the roof for smoke to escape. The bed, made of straw, was draped in furs. In the corner stood a simple loom, strung with hundreds of cream-colored threads that formed a half-woven cloth. This place, these things, seemed so familiar, as though I was the person who had been working this loom, and I wasn’t alone. Someone else had been there with me.

But as quickly as the images came, they were gone, and I didn’t have a clue what they meant.

Chapter Five

My friends were waiting for me at the crest of the trail, their mouths agape as Michael set me down on a nearby log.

Heather rushed over and threw her arms around my neck. “Oh my God, Mia. Are you okay? We turned around and you were gone.”

Michael stepped back to let her get closer, but his tall frame hovered as though he could lend me his strength by proximity.

She turned to him almost accusingly. “Where did you come from?”

He cleared his throat. “I—”

Gushing, Fiona cut him off. “Michael, that was so awesome! Carrying her up that hill. It was crazy-steep. Your feet barely touched the ground.”

“It was nothing,” he scoffed, and I could feel his attention on me again. “How is it?”

How’s what?
I thought, blinking at him, still marveling at what I’d seen. Had I just remembered a dream? It seemed so familiar, so
real
.

Heather touched my shoulder, but asked Michael, “How’s
what
?”

He focused on me. “Your ankle?”

I checked it. I could point my toe now without cringing. “It’s okay. Much better.”

“What happened?” Heather asked. “Can you walk?”

“Sure.” I stood, but when I took a step, pain burned the length of my leg. I flinched before I could stop myself and nearly fell over.

Michael grabbed my elbow to steady me. “Maybe you shouldn’t walk yet.”

“It’s not nearly as bad as I thought,” I said, sitting back down.

“Uh huh,” he said. “That’s probably shock.”

An indescribable emotion welled inside me, catching in my throat. I felt frail and drawn, like something made out of tissue paper. Fighting a strange urge to cry, I swallowed hard and took deep breaths.

“I’m such a klutz,” I said to Heather and Fiona. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh!” Sitting beside me, Heather put an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t even think that way, Mia.”

Michael spoke to Heather and Fiona this time. “We should get her to the hospital so she can get checked out.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

“We can help you get back,” Heather said, standing. “You can lean on me. We’ll make it back okay.”

I tried another step on my own. It hurt but seemed easier than the last one. Heather, who was closest to my height, encouraged me to lean on her and we took slow, careful steps down the dusty trail together, with Fiona leading the way. It was slow going. We had to stop often so I could rest. Michael took up the rear, but when we stopped he was so preoccupied with the forest that he hardly spoke.

On our third stop, Heather sat beside me on an old stump. “We’re almost halfway,” she said, trying to encourage me. “We’re making good time.”

Finding a patch of sunlight, Fiona lunged into a yoga stretch that showed off her long, elegant limbs. Tossing her hair, she grinned up at Michael and my stomach hitched. She could be such a flirt.

To my relief, he didn’t notice her. His attention was on the golf-ball-sized rock he was rolling beneath his foot.

A chill ran through me again, and I got the feeling that someone, or something, was staring at me. One of the bushes around us seemed darker than normal, shadowy, and I thought I saw a glimmer of red. A jolt of fear seized my chest. If one of those dogs came after me, I’d never be able to outrun it. I could barely walk.

Heather followed my gaze, but obviously didn’t see anything. “You okay? You’ve gone really pale.”

“I thought…” I began, but when Michael glanced at me, I stopped. I didn’t want to bring up the shadowy dog again, not when he and I were starting to get along. “It’s nothing.”

Beside me, he kicked the rock into the bush and it landed with a satisfying crash of branches and leaves. When I looked back at the bushes, the darkness was gone.

I stared at him, amazed, wondering if he’d seen it too. He had been in the woods that morning when I was chased. Maybe he’d seen that dog after all.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, chickening out.

Slouching, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “This isn’t working.”

“What isn’t?”

He tilted his chin to look up at me through his long, dark lashes and there was something so intense, so intimate, about his gaze that my breath froze in my chest. “If you keep walking on that foot, you’ll hurt it more.”

“She’s not walking. She’s hobbling,” said Heather, drawing her arm across her brow. Helping me was making her sweat. “We’re taking it nice and slow.”

Fiona stepped in a little closer. “I can take a shift,” she said.

“It would be better if I carried you,” Michael interjected.

Fiona’s jaw dropped, unable to contain her surprise. Was he serious? He seemed genuine enough—sincere, like he was living some code of chivalry, the kind you read about in medieval history. I remembered the feel of his hand on my back, his arm under my legs, and my heart sped up. When he first carried me, it was so intimate, so peaceful, it awakened a craving in me that I didn’t even know I had. I would have given anything to feel that way again, and that’s what made it seem wrong somehow,
illicit
even.

Heather grinned at me, as though she could sense what I was feeling.

“Thanks, but I think I can handle it,” I said.

Fiona wore a stunned expression. Obviously
she
would have accepted his offer.

Michael rolled another rock beneath his foot. “No need to be stubborn. You’ll only make it harder on yourself.”

I raised my chin defiantly. “Stubborn? I’m not—”

“Yeah, okay.” He laughed under his breath.

So maybe I was a bit stubborn, but what was so wrong with that?

There was a noise in the forest behind us. We both looked. Then he turned back to me. “Why don’t I piggy-back you?” he said. The smile he gave me could have melted gold.

If it were anyone else, I might have said piggy-back rides were for kids, but really it was a good suggestion. It wasn’t nearly as intimate, and it gave me the option to hold on, some semblance of control, instead of the helplessness of being carried. But when he crouched down so I could get on his back, the heat and closeness of his body permeated the dampness of my clothes. I stopped.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.” Biting my lip, I eased onto his back. His hands held my bare legs like they would sear me. The sides of his waist were warm and solid against my thighs, and that
illicit
feeling came back. Trying to focus, I clung to him with my remaining strength.

He shifted, readjusting his grip. “Relax. I got you.”

“I am relaxed,” I squeaked.

“Then why are your knuckles turning white?”

I could hear the smile in his voice. Could he tell how I felt?

“Oh, sorry!” I willed the fists clutching his black T-shirt to loosen until I felt the tautness of his muscles under my fingers and the steady beat of his heart. Which was better, I guess, but also worse.

Being the one with the cargo—meaning me—on his back, Michael set a quick pace that Heather and Fiona could barely match. Fiona talked about an upcoming horror movie she was excited about. Heather was against it. I could hear the exertion in their voices as they climbed up and down hills. In contrast, Michael was silent and his breathing even, as though carrying me was hardly any difficulty at all.