The Xoe Meyers Trilogy (Xoe Meyers Young Adult Fantasy/Horror Series) (13 page)

Jason caught my gaze with his midnight blue eyes. “If Dan shows up, Xoe, you, Lucy, and Allison need to get to Allison’s car, lock yourselves inside and start driving. Don’t stop until I call you on Allison’s cell to let you know it’s safe to come back.”

I felt an instant flush of anger at the fact that he wanted us to run. I managed to keep my cool, and leaned my back against his arm. Rather than voicing that I refused to run, I pointed out the other flaw in the plan. “What about my mom?”

Jason grimaced. “Sorry Xoe, forgot about that.” He paused to think for a moment. “Okay, you can tell your mom that Dan is a burglar, then you can all get out of the house together. We just can’t let your mom call the cops.”

I nodded. “That will probably work. My mom is
so
not good in emergency situations, so she’ll likely do whatever we tell her.” I blew out a sigh. We’d have to worry about her inevitable questions later. Okay, so it was a flawed plan . . . better than nothing.

Jason smiled and removed his arm from my chair. “It’s settled then.”

I’m sure that Jason meant that we should still run, but all he had said was to “get out of the house.” Now that, I could do. I nodded my final assent to the plan.

Shortly after we had settled what we would do, my mom came home, dressed in a navy business suit and heels; must have been an office day. Taking in the group of us, she looked at me with a smile and hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation.

“School project,” I told her.

“Pizza!” she exclaimed, disappearing into the living room to order.

Max looked at me, bewildered. “Your mom is
so
cool.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I’d say she’s a keeper.”

We all headed up to my room, telling my mom we were going to work on our project. Al and Max sat side by side on my bed, while the rest of us settled into a semi-circle on my plush beige carpeting.

Now that we had nothing to do but wait, we got a conversation going about school, of all things. While we talked, Jason got up and walked around my room, looking at pictures and any trinkets I had on my dresser.

I watched him as he picked up a picture my mom had taken of me on a camping trip. I was nine, and even more gangly looking than I am now. I was posing with a marshmallow on a stick, my mouth way more open than it needed to be. He smiled, not noticing my gaze. I quickly turned my attention back to the conversation, but of course, my mind wandered. I couldn’t imagine Jason as a savage killer, but he was, at least at one time. I wasn’t sure how much that bothered me.

After a while my mom knocked on the door. Not waiting for an answer, she came in carrying several pizza boxes. She handed me a stack of paper plates to pass out as Max and Al came to join us on the floor. My mom set the boxes on the carpet in between us all.

Being a mom, and having an obligation to embarrass me, she sat down next to Jason and folded her short, now jean-clad legs underneath her, then she began quizzing Max and Jason. I sat back down on Jason’s other side with a sigh. Jason watched the embarrassment grow on my face, smiling, and answered all of my mom’s inane questions politely. I kept my eyes on my pizza, trying not to frown.

At one point my mom pulled her pale blue tank top straight, going into business mode, and asked to see our school project. We told her we were still in the “brainstorming stage” and she let it go. Forty-five excruciating minutes later, she decided that her embarrassing mom requirement for the week had been achieved. She grabbed the empty pizza boxes and left us to “get back to work.”

When conversation began to run out, the topic came to me and the whole “non-human” thing.

“So what are the possibilities?” Allison asked Jason.

Jason glanced at me, then answered, “There are many supernatural creatures that can produce offspring with humans, some more rare than others. Many people have elven blood without even knowing it. Full blooded elves are extremely rare these days, mainly because their bloodlines have become almost completely entwined with humans.”

“Could that be what I am?” I interrupted hopefully. Elves didn’t sound too bad.

Jason shook his head, dashing my hopes. “You may have some elven blood, but Max and I would not be able to smell the difference. Your non-human blood is something much more rare.”

I sighed, getting crabby. “Spit it out already.”

Jason went on, “One option is Ogres, but I doubt that’s what you are, you would likely be much larger. Another one is Merpeople.”

“Merpeople?” Allison asked incredulously.

Jason regarded her. “Merpeople have two forms. When under water, they are in their natural form, very similar to the common depiction of mermaids. On land, they look much like humans, except for the second eyelids. For some reason, those remain even in human form.”

Okay, Merpeople were slightly more unsettling than elves, but again, not horrible. “What are my chances of that?”

“Pretty good,” Jason replied. “Merpeople are a great deal more common than one would think.”

I nodded, taking it all in. “Any other options?”

Jason hesitated. He ran his hand through his hair. Not a good sign. Finally, he spoke. “The last option that I came up with was . . . demons.”

My heart skipped a beat. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Seriously?”

He nodded and answered, “It’s not as uncommon as you would think. Demons often mate with humans, producing half-demons. Demons can look like humans, as can merpeople and ogres. Your mom probably thought your dad was just a normal guy.”

“What about werewolves?” Lucy chimed in.

Jason shook his head, “We can rule out werewolves, vampires, or any conditions resulting from being cursed. All can produce offspring with humans, but none can pass on their afflictions.”

I held my breath at Jason’s mention of vampires, waiting for Lucy or Allison to question him further on the subject. Surprisingly, they both seemed to take the mention of vampires in stride.

Lucy nodded in response to Jason’s answer. “Well that’s something at least.”

So, I could be an ogre (unlikely), a mermaid (not so bad), or . . . a demon (gulp). That seemingly ever-present feeling of dread had returned to the pit of my stomach ten-fold. Like Lucy said, at least we could rule out werewolf and vampire, which also meant that I had my answer about how Jason became a vampire.Small consolation, that.

As we were finishing that lovely subject, I glanced at the clock. 9:00 pm, time for the boys to “leave.” They were going to leave out the front door and drive Jason’s car to hide it. Then they would walk back to my house, do a perimeter check, and sneak back in through my window. When I asked how they were going to climb in through my second-story window, they both smiled mischievously and walked out of my room. I guess we’d find out.

The boy’s departure was Allison’s queue for girl talk. “So Xoe,” she started, “pray tell, what is going on between you and Jason?” She smiled wickedly at me.

I gave her my best dumbfounded look. “What? Nothing, why do you ask?”

Allison sighed, “Oh, come on. Don’t play dumb, you two are
so
obvious.”

With a sigh of my own, I answered, “Nothing Allison, just friends.”

“And why is that?” she went on. “Is it the whole vampire thing?”

My jaw dropped. How did Allison know?

She smiled. “Max told us.”

That little rat . . . I mean wolf. Well, at least I wasn’t the last to know. “So what if it is the vampire thing?” I replied.

Allison crossed her arms and looked at me as if I were being childish. “Who cares? It’s not like he kills people anymore. He’s one of the good guys now.”

I sighed loudly. “Emphasis on the
now.
The fact still remains that he killed people at one time, and who even said I was interested in him to begin with?”

“Pah-lease, I see the way you watch him,” Allison countered. “And there is definitely no mistaking the way he watches you.”

At that we all turned to a knock at the window. Apparently the boys had finished their perimeter check. Thankfully, the girl talk could end. I stood and opened the window for them to climb in.

“The way who watches who?” Max asked as he pulled himself in. They really
had
climbed all the way up to my two-story window, though I wasn't sure how. The storm drain maybe?

Really, I was more concerned with how much of our conversation they'd heard. The three of us girls crossed our arms and stared Max down with our best stern faces. He shrugged off our glares and plopped down on my bed as Jason climbed in through the window after him.

Turning my attention away from Max, I asked Jason, “Anything to report?”

He shook his head. “Not much, we caught Dan’s scent in a few places around the yard, so he’s been here recently, but nothing looked out of place.”

I nodded. There was a knock at the door. I quickly hustled the boys into the closet, then yelled, “Come in!”

My mom peeked her head in to see that we were all accounted for and told us goodnight. She closed the door softly, oblivious to our nervous smiles and murmured goodnights.

Since most of us were going on little to no sleep, we decided to sleep in shifts. Allison, Lucy, and I all changed into pajamas, while the boys chose to remain in the clothes they had worn during the day. I chose to wear a dark purple cami with matching purple plaid pajama pants, as opposed to my usual t-shirt and boxers. I refused to admit to myself that I did it because Jason was there.

Allison and Jason had first watch. Lucy and I took the bed, snuggling under my fluffy green comforter. Max was left with an orange sleeping bag on the floor. Jason turned on my desk lamp, then turned off the overhead light. I shut my eyes with a silent wish for normal dreams void of fire, and I was out.

I
woke up to loud ringing. My alarm clock. That meant it was 6:00 am. When blindly smacking it didn’t seem to quell the alarm’s desire to annoy me, I ripped the cord out of the wall. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looked blearily around my room. What were all of these people doing in here? My eyes landed on Jason, who had his hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh at me. Oh yeah, Jason, Max, werewolves, vampires . . . I remembered now. Jason managed to cover his smile, but his eyes still shone with humor.

“Glad to be amusing,” I mumbled at him.

I looked around to the other people in my room. Lucy and Allison had managed to ignore my alarm, and were still snuggled in bed with me. Max wasn’t so lucky. He struggled out of his sleeping bag and stumbled into the bathroom, shutting the door noisily. I looked back to Jason.

“I’ll drive you all to school today,” he said.

I nodded sleepily, and got out of bed to find something to wear. Jason watched me as I shuffled through the shirts hanging in my closet, finally settling on a plain, dark gray tee shirt with a faded
Star Wars
logo on the front. I was searching for a clean pair of jeans when Max came back out of the bathroom. He walked toward the window, unlatched it, pushed it open, then hopped, and I mean
hopped
, out of my second-story window. Yeah, I wasn’t getting used to this supernatural stuff anytime soon.

Jason spared me a final smile then followed Max’s lead. I walked to the window and looked out at the ground. Max and Jason were already out of sight. Too weird.

I returned to the bed and shook Allison and Lucy awake, much to their chagrin. We all took speed-showers and got dressed. A cold gust of wind from the still open window reminded me to throw on my forest-green hoodie, then I watched Allison while she was putting on her make-up. She was dressed in a sea foam green blouse that was kind of draped in the front, I’ve never known what those types of blouses are called, and a beige mini-skirt with knee high, dark brown leather boots. I asked her if Jason had been the one to keep watch all night.

“Vampires don’t sleep,” was her reply. Ask a silly question.

We went downstairs into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee maker. My mom had left me half of a pot. I filled my travel mug with as much as it would hold, then went to the pantry to find something for us to eat on the way to school. Looked like it was granola bars for breakfast again. I handed one each to Lucy and Allison and stuffed my own into the front pocket of my hoodie.

We went out the front door to find Jason’s car waiting to take us to school. I snagged the front seat without protest from Lucy and Allison. I could feel them watching and waiting to see how I would interact with Jason. I wanted to stare ga-ga-eyed at him, but wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Girlfriends . . . can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. At the moment I was leaning toward without.   I contented myself with watching him out of the corner of my eye. He was still in his clothes from the day before, but the t-shirt looked so good on him, that I didn’t really mind. I placed my travel mug into one of the cup-holders and slowly began to unwrap my granola bar, refusing to be the first one to make conversation. Jason put the car in drive, and away we went.

The short drive was spent mostly in silence. I fiddled with the radio, just for something to do, scanning through the few radio stations that come in clearly in Shelby. As soon as we pulled up to the school, Allison and Lucy practically leapt from the car, leaving me alone with Jason. It seemed a planned move, and probably was. Sigh.

“What’s the plan for today?” I asked him.

He turned his attention to me. “I am going to wait around the school and make sure Dan doesn't get to Lucy without me or Max there. I'll pick you all up when you get out.”

“You aren’t coming to class?”

Jason smiled and shook his head. “I am not exactly a student.”

That reminded me of another question I had for him. “How did you manage to register and get into my English class anyways?”

“I mustn’t reveal all my secrets,” he answered, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

I gave him a good-natured smirk, then got out of the car with a smile that I simply could not help.

I went to my first class, and the day went by slowly from there. By lunchtime there was still no sign of Dan. I met up with Allison and Lucy and we sat at our usual table.   “Anything to report?” I asked them.