Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella (6 page)

“Better hurry inside before Momzilla comes home and spots you in the car with me,” Calvin said, as if reading my mind.

Momzilla
. I liked it. “Yeah,” I replied. “It’s just…everything seems like a dream right now.”

“It’ll be an even better dream tomorrow, when they send us back to school.”

I looked at him blankly. I didn’t understand.

So he explained. “New girl saves the day, takes down the scary school shooter, and walks away unscathed.” He smiled a little bit sadly. “You’ll be sitting at the cool kid’s table in the lunch room—with the Garrett Hathaways of the world. So…congratulations.”

I recognized the name, even though I’d only been attending Coconut Key Academy for one week. Garrett was the star quarterback—a too-handsome boy with a megawatt smile and an ego as big as Florida.

I made a tiny vomiting sound. “I’ll pass, thanks,” I replied. “I’d rather continue our time-honored tradition and sit out in the quad with you.”

Calvin’s smile got way bigger. “Well, okay, then,” he said.

I opened up the car door and stepped out. Then, I leaned back inside. “Listen,” I said. “I mean it. Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there today.”

My new friend’s expression turned serious. “You were the one who saved the day, Sky.”

He’d called me Sky, instead of New Girl. I was so happy, it almost made me cry. “Well,” I said. “I don’t know about that…”

Calvin, mercifully, picked up on my discomfort and quickly zapped the sappy. “So!” he exclaimed with a single clap. “Tomorrow! If there’s school—which there probably will be,” he added an eye roll, for emphasis, “I’ll meet you around the corner at 7:10. We’ll time it so Momzilla thinks you took the bus. Sound good?”

I did a little happy dance in the driveway.

Calvin shook his head from his seat. “Imma need to teach you some dance moves, among other things.”

I laughed. “See you tomorrow,” I said, and closed the passenger door.

As I watched Calvin drive off, I stood in the driveway of my new house—a house in which absolutely no one had recently died, thank goodness. The humid Florida air had cooled off a little bit, and a breeze tickled the hair around my neck. I caught a whiff of vanilla, and some kind of floral scent from the red shrubs that lined the lawn.

For the first time, I actually didn’t feel too bad about being here.

Maybe it had something to do with the bullets I’d dodged earlier today.

Or maybe making a new friend—a funny, smart friend who could make me laugh—reminded me that there was hope after Connecticut.

Either way, as I dug my house key out of my pocket, a thought crossed my mind. The crap had hit the fan—and the fan was definitely still moving. But I was also still breathing, and I knew one thing for sure.

It was a good day to be alive.

• • •

I
am
not
dead.

I
dreamed
my
death, yet here I am, still alive. At least for now.

I’m in the hospital, where they keep me so sedated, I can’t scream for help. I can’t even speak.

But
I
still
dream. And I see her.

Skylar.

The
redheaded
girl
haunts
my
dreams.

She’s with another girl—an older girl with short blond hair and icicle-colored eyes. She’s one of us. I see brown eyes, too—a tiny girl who’s screaming, screaming, always screaming.

Make
it
stop. Can’t. Make it stop…

Please God
. The little girl says it again and again in this dream that is more than a dream.
Please God
and
Mommy
!

I
want
my
mommy, too, but it’s too late too late too late.

The
dream
shifts
and
changes, and I see that sweet little brown-eyed girl, laughing and dancing with red-haired Skylar in a room filled with dolls and teddy bears—it’s the bedroom of a little girl who is well-loved, and I should be jealous. I never had that, never, but instead of anger and envy, grief now buzzes through my veins. And for the first time in a long time I want to live, if only to use my terrible dreams to warn them—not Skylar and that little brown-eyed girl, because it’s too late too late too late for them.

When
I
close
my
eyes, the cafeteria windows explode again—a crashing sound and spray from the beads of glass…Did I do that?

I
thought
it
was
Skylar, but maybe not. She doesn’t realize who she is—what she is. Not yet.

But
she
will.

And
they
will
come
for
her.

They
want
her. They’ll find her, they’ll hurt her, they’ll try to kill her.

This
I
know
for
sure.

Read on for a
Sneak Peek at Night Sky

October 2014

Chapter One

I had not been under the impression that trophy wives owned guns.

Of course, my impression of a lot of things had been changing lately, so the idea of a homicidal contortionist with a designer handbag and a vanity license plate that read DRSWIFEY was, surprisingly, not very surprising at all.

“What’s up with Little Miss Sunshine?” Calvin mumbled to me, tapping my forearm with his hand as we made our way to the front doors of the Sav’A’Buck supermarket. He motioned with his head for me to look behind him, and I glanced over at the lady. Huge, fake-looking boobs and even larger sunglasses. I doubted she needed them at nine o’clock at night…the sunglasses, that is. It
was
September in Florida, but come on.

“Dunno,” I answered, picking up my pace a little bit. I was eager to get inside the store. Even without the sun, the humidity made the air feel like it was about ninety thousand degrees. I had a bad case of swamp butt, and my jean shorts were sticking to my backside uncomfortably.

Calvin laughed as I fixed my wedgie with an apparently less-than-discreet swipe. “Could you fix mine too? It’s really bad. Horrible,” he said, lifting himself halfway off the seat of his electric wheelchair.

I socked him once in the bicep. “Punk.”

The linoleum floors of the Sav’A’Buck were sticky, and the place smelled like pig grease and stale cigarettes. But that’s what we got for venturing outside our pristine gated community and driving across the proverbial tracks into neighboring Harrisburg to the only place open after nine.

“Man, you really want to buy
food
from here?” Calvin grumbled, while two small kids whisked in front of us, barefoot, their faces coated with melted purple ice pop. The woman working register four turned around, her disastrous mullet matched only by the disapproving frown she offered Calvin and me as we strolled by.

Neither of us accepted it.

“We’re making s’mores,” I insisted, my resolve strong. It had been a hellish week, and I wanted something chocolate. We had driven all the way out here; we weren’t turning back now.

Calvin rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said, steering himself sharply toward the right. “Cookies and crackers. Aisle seven.”

I followed behind him, breaking into a trot to keep up with his chair.

But Calvin pressed his brake and we nearly collided. “There she is again,” he hissed, tapping my hand furiously. “Doesn’t she creep you out, even a little?”

Little Miss Sunshine, as Calvin had called her, was busy inspecting the nutrition information on the backs of two different bags of corn chips. Her long, blond hair was swept up in an elegant French chignon. She hadn’t bothered to take off her sunglasses.

I scooped up a box of graham crackers and left the aisle. Calvin followed me this time.

Once the woman was out of earshot, I told him, “The only weird thing about her is that she looks like she’s rolling in dough, unlike most Sav’A’Buck customers.” I shrugged. “But we probably stick out here too.” I found the aisle for candy and grabbed a humongous bag of chocolate. “So give her a break.”

Calvin acknowledged his two-hundred-dollar polo shirt and shrugged. “Eh, you’re right,” he replied, and popped his collar.

“That’s lame, by the way,” I said, and found an empty basket to dump my purchases into.

“What?” Calvin replied, his expression one of mock offense. “Girl, you are just jealous because you can’t pull off the look.”

“Sooo jealous,” I replied sarcastically. I was perfectly happy in my jean shorts and plain black tank top. Nobody needed to know my mom had spent a fortune for both articles of clothing. If it were up to me, I’d wear clothes from the local consignment shop, thank you very much. People were going hungry these days, and obviously many of them were right here in Harrisburg. That was way creepier, IMO, than Little Miss Sunshine jonesing for cheap, salty grease.

Calvin poked his nose into my basket. “Would you mind telling me exactly how white girls from the north make s’mores? Where I come from, we use marshmallows.”

“Dammit!” I’d forgotten to grab a bag when we were in the candy aisle.

“Come on,” Calvin replied, and reached for my basket. He set it atop his lap and followed me as I sprinted back toward aisle eight.

“Skylar, slow your ass down!” Calvin whined, but when I did, he zoomed past me, laughing.

“Oh, it’s on,” I said, pushing to keep up. “I could totally beat you in a race.”

It was Calvin’s turn to roll his eyes when we both had to slow for oncoming traffic. “Oh, yeah? How much you wanna bet?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” I answered, and that’s when the screaming started.

Calvin grabbed for my arm. “What the…”

I turned to see a little old lady frozen in fear at the end of aisle eight. Then other voices joined the chorus, including a woman reciting the “Our Father” in Spanish.

“Don’t,” Calvin said, holding my elbow to keep me from walking toward them.

It was then that the screaming was replaced by a loud
ccccccrrraaaaaacccck
.

All I could smell was fish. Lots of fish. Enough fish so that I hoped and prayed I would never, ever have to eat sushi again for as long as I lived. My nose burned, and I swallowed hard a couple times to keep from heaving.

And then, Little Miss Sunshine rounded the corner.

“Oh, sheee-it!” Calvin exclaimed.

And I had to agree.

At first, I thought her body was facing me, but after a moment I realized that, somehow, her head had pivoted almost completely around. Her chin rested awkwardly on her shoulder blade, and she was walking backward just to see where she was going. It was like that old
Exorcist
movie my mom watched every year at Halloween, but this lady was real, and she was heading in our direction.

She was also smiling.

“Okay, eff the s’mores, Sky. I’m out,” Calvin said, his voice carefully even. But I wasn’t moving, and neither was he.

Little Miss Sunshine, on the other hand…
she
was getting closer.

I didn’t know where her sunglasses had gone, but I could see her eyes now. They were wild. And she had a terrible smile, like the Cheshire cat had up and lost it.

“Sky?” Calvin said, and I knew for a second what it must feel like to be him—absolutely paralyzed. I couldn’t move my legs. I was stuck in that spot.

And she was smiling
at
me
.

People began to peek out from aisle eight to see what was happening. I spotted the old lady and the woman who had been reciting prayers. Mullet woman at the register was quiet too. In fact, the entire store had become terribly silent. The only sound was the canned music clinking through cheap overhead speakers. It was some terrible electronic version of an old Frank Sinatra song, complete with computerized steel drums. I swallowed hard, the smell of fish absolutely overwhelming me.

“Look what I can do!” the woman said, and snapped her neck back around.

“Ohhh!” the Sav’A’Buck crowd gasped. Little Miss Sunshine giggled. Her perfectly manicured hands held her head in place. She spun around to face me.

I’ve got…youuuuuu…under my skin…

The lyrics echoed eerily through the grocery store, and I looked down at Calvin for a second. He had turned a pale shade of green, which clashed with his chocolate-brown skin.

“Look what I can do!” the woman repeated, her voice horribly clear, her tone singsong, as if she were reciting a nursery rhyme. She clapped her palm onto the side of her face, and I watched her jaw completely dislocate.

“Mommy?” one of the little kids in the register line squealed, while the Hispanic lady said something fast in Spanish and fainted.

“Look what I can do look what I can do look what I can do!” Little Miss Sunshine repeated, and this time it sounded more like “Ooook Uuut Aaah Aan Ooo” because she couldn’t close her mouth. Her eyes were wide, with a disturbing amount of white showing on the top and bottom. I watched her grab the top of her mouth and pull.

I’ve got youuuuuu…deep in the heart of meeee….

Four of her teeth fell out and landed on the linoleum floor, close enough to my feet so that I could see the blood.

“Oh God oh God oh God,” Calvin uttered, and his hand on my arm was clammy.

“On the ground!” The security guard who’d been dozing out front rushed through the sliding doors of the store. He’d drawn a Taser from his belt, and he sprinted toward the insane woman, pointing the weapon at her and blocking both Calvin and me in the process.