Forgotten (20 page)

“Marcus!” Emily screamed verbally and telepathically, before giving out an inhuman cry as she buried her face in Suzanne’s hair.

“I hate this place!” Emily directed toward Marcus as they walked through Sycamore Heights cemetery, trying to find a headstone.

“I know,” Marcus agreed.

Frustrated at tripping over broken headstones and flower vases that had been left by loved ones, Emily stopped and started to look at the names on the graves.

“Emily?”

Emily looked up from the headstone she was reading. “Come here and take a look at this.”

Marcus gave a sigh, “What?”

“This headstone here.”

“What about it?” Marcus asked, disinterested.

Emily pointed at the headstone. “Read it!”

Marcus looked down and read the headstone:

NICHOLAS MAXWELL

1941-1959

RIP

“Well?” Emily asked.

“Well, what?” Marcus replied, confused.

“Don’t you recognize the name?”

“Not really,” Marcus shook his head. “Why? Should I?”

“No, it’s probably my mistake. The name looked familiar, that’s all.” Emily started to walk away, her face contorted in confusion.

“Emily, if coming here is too hard for you then you can wait by the car,” Marcus said as he caught up with her again.

“What do you mean by that?” she said defensively.

“Nothing; I just thought you might find it difficult to be here. It’s only been a couple of days since …” Marcus trailed off and looked up at the sky; the dark gray clouds held the promise of an approaching storm.

“Go on, say it!”

“Say what?”

“Mention her name! Go on!” Emily screamed.

He gripped her by her shoulders. “What do you want me to say, Emily? What?”

“I want you to admit that it’s all your fault, Marcus. You made Suzanne do what she did! If it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have left England and we wouldn’t be in this situation now!” Emily spat, shrugging from Marcus’ grip.

“Okay, it’s my fault!” Marcus raked his fingers through his hair. “There, are you satisfied?”

Emily closed her eyes. She wished that everything over the past few days had been a dream, that when she opened her eyes she would awake – but when she opened them again she was still in Sycamore Heights cemetery.

“Yes, I’m satisfied,” Emily lied.

“Emily, I’m sorry for all of this.”

“All I want to do is do what we came here for and leave.”

“We should be out of here soon,” Marcus began, but stopped when he saw movement up ahead.

Noticing the same movement, Emily froze. “I hope that isn’t Starr. I’m in no mood to deal with her,” she muttered.

Marcus smiled slightly but still focused his attention on the graves ahead of him. Instinct told him that it was a wolf creeping about even though he couldn’t see it because of the headstones.

“It’s a wolf, isn’t it?” Emily whispered, as though reading his thoughts.

Marcus nodded. He and Emily sunk silently behind a headstone, waiting.

As the wolf approached Marcus and Emily, it sniffed the air and, realizing that it wasn’t alone, stopped and sat down on the damp grass.

“What’s it doing?” Emily asked, confused by the wolf’s behavior.

“It knows we’re here.”

“So what are we going to do? Just sit here all night and look like idiots?”

Before Marcus could answer, the wolf stood again and started to walk toward where they were hiding. As the wolf approached, Emily realized there was something strangely familiar about the way it was walking – or, rather, limping.

“Suzanne! What are you doing out of bed?” Emily demanded, coming out from her hiding place.

“Just catching the moonlight,” Suzanne replied guiltily.

Emily gave Suzanne a stern look. “And you’re in your wolf guise too! How are you ever going to get better if you don’t stay in bed and rest?”

“I didn’t think that it would do any harm,” Suzanne said, her head still lowered. “Besides, I felt a little better and Marcus did get a witch to heal the wound.”

“Suzanne!” Marcus stepped out as well. “What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped, his eyes burning with anger.

“I just asked her that,” Emily cut across irately.

“Emily, stay out of this.” Marcus pushed past Emily and stood over Suzanne.

Suzanne felt her stomach tighten and tried to swallow a lump that had formed in her throat. She hated it when Marcus was in a bad mood. He became so unpredictable, so dangerous. The last time Suzanne had seen his darker side was when he had almost broken Starr’s neck with his bare hands, and that had scared her. And though she had heard rumors of his temper over the past two hundred years, she had never been on the receiving end – until now.

Suzanne squeezed her eyes shut and waited for Marcus’ temper to erupt, but nothing came. She opened her eyes to find Marcus was still stood over her, with his arms folded across his chest. His face had softened slightly, and a slight smile touched his lips.

“Are you mad at me?” Suzanne nervously looked at the ground, unsure of Marcus’ reaction.

“No, not mad.” Marcus paused. “I’m just disappointed with you. I thought you had more sense than to jeopardize your recovery by taking moonlit jaunts.”

“Marcus, I was going stir crazy cooped up in that room,” Suzanne answered. “You can only watch the same movies seven times before you need to get some more. Besides, Flopsey needed something to drink so I took him back to his hutch and decided that, while I was outside anyway, I might as well stretch my legs.”

“It was for your own good.” Marcus started to rub his temples. “Does Jonathan know you’re out?”

“It depends!” Suzanne replied evasively.

Marcus raised his eyebrows. “On what?”

“Well, I don’t think he was in. The house was dark and the back door was unlocked.”

“He wasn’t there?” Marcus shouted.

“Erm, yeah. As I said before, the house was dark,” Suzanne repeated.

“And you didn’t think that was important?” Marcus boomed, punching a nearby headstone with his fist.

Suzanne looked away from Marcus. “I’m sorry.”

“Suzanne, you don’t have to apologize to him,” Emily interrupted.

“Stay out of this!” Marcus snapped, swinging around to glare at her.

“No, I won’t stay out of this, Marcus! Blaming Suzanne and giving her a hard time won’t help! I’m sick of being frozen out by you whenever I say something you don’t want to hear, and I’ve had enough of being dragged to places like this without even an explanation when you know that what I really wanted to be doing was taking care of Suzanne!”

Marcus put his hands in his pockets and stalked off in the direction of the cemetery’s parking lot, muttering to himself.

Suzanne looked up at Emily. “This is all my fault and now Marcus hates me. I should have just stayed at home and gone crazy.”

“You’re not responsible for Marcus’ moods,” Emily reassured her, “and it’s not your fault that Marcus is a hyper-serious jerk with no sense of humor.”

“But …”

“Come on. Let’s go home and I’ll make you a hot chocolate.”

*

“Katrina, are you okay? You seem distant,” Jessica inquired, as both she and Katrina walked across the mall’s parking lot toward her Jeep.

Katrina smiled. “I’m sorry, Jess. I was miles away. Did you say something?”

Jessica rolled her sapphire-blue eyes and brushed loose strands of her long blonde hair away from her face. “I asked if you were okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you haven’t really said anything all afternoon. There isn’t anything troubling you?”

Katrina sighed, “I’ve being thinking about that girl from the school’s cafeteria that I bumped into. I hope that she’s okay. There were rumors she had an accident.”

“Do you know her?”

“That’s the odd thing. I have this strange feeling that I
do
.”

“From before you were attacked?”

“Yeah, I think so. And that’s not all; there’s something she said to me that doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s that?” Jessica asked, unlocking the car door.

“I didn’t notice this at the time but thinking about it I remembered she said that she had a pendant like mine. She said it was ‘at home’ – but I could see it right there on her neck! Why would she lie like that?”

“I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“What if she was Suzanne?” Katrina asked, getting into Jessica’s car and fastening her seat belt. “And I didn’t recognize her! Oh my God. I was such a bitch to her!”

Jessica turned to Katrina and studied her foster sister’s face. “Katrina, you’ve got to stop thinking like that. And you weren’t a bitch.”

“But I was so cold toward her.”

Jessica started the car and began to drive out of the mall’s parking lot. “Katrina, if that girl was Suzanne, and this is a big if, then she will understand.”

Katrina looked over at Jessica, who was concentrating on her driving, and noticed that Jessica looked upset. “Jess?”

“Yeah?” Jessica replied, not taking her eyes off the road ahead.

“Thank you.”

“What for?” Jessica asked, honestly surprised.

“For everything you’ve done for me.”

“I feel we’ve had this conversation before.”

Katrina smiled. “I suppose I should change the subject?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you …” Jessica began.

“What?” Katrina interrupted.

“That Mom and Dad are going to be out tonight and I have a date with Billy, so you’re home alone.”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

“Are you sure? Because I can cancel my date.”

“Jess, don’t be stupid!”

“But what if something happens?”

“I’ll keep all the windows and doors locked and if anything weird happens I’ll dial 911 immediately. There’s nothing for any of you to worry about. Besides, Shelby is a superb watchdog.”

“Katrina, you’ve being through such a lot in the past year.”

“I’m not going to disagree with you there.” Katrina paused, watching the world go by for a few seconds before speaking again. “Jess, go out and enjoy yourself with Billy. I’ll get a DVD, order a pizza, and veg out in front of the TV.”

“You’ll call me on my cell if there are any problems?” Jessica asked.

“I promise, Jess.”

At the house, as Katrina stepped out of the car, she felt a couple of drops of rain on her forehead, and shivered at the thought of any approaching storm.

After Katrina had said her goodbyes to Jessica and Billy on the porch she went inside, locked the front door, then made a quick check of all the locks and windows in the house. Once everything had been checked, she breathed a sigh of relief and went into the den. Shelby was waiting for her, relaxed comfortably in one of the leather armchairs. He looked up expectantly at Katrina but, realizing that she didn’t have any treats for him, closed his eyes and curled up again to go back to sleep.

Sitting down on the couch, Katrina called for a pizza to be delivered and then she headed toward the fridge to get a soda. On her way back to the den, she heard the doorbell ring.

Hmmm, the pizza is here quick,
Katrina thought, surprised.

“I’ll be right there!” Katrina called through the door.

Silence.

Katrina turned on the porch light, unchained and unbolted the door to open it, and was surprised to find no one there. With a frown Katrina began to close the door, but stopped when she noticed a small package. It was about the size of a small shoebox, with her name written on it and a pink silk bow on top. Picking it up, she brought it inside, closing and re-locking the front door behind her. She headed for the kitchen, making sure that the door to the den was closed so Shelby couldn’t run around the house.

I wonder who sent me this?
Katrina mused, setting the package down on the table.

Eager to open it, Katrina ripped off the bow, and fumbled for a couple of seconds with the last piece of tape before sliding off the lid and letting it drop on a chair.

Peering into the open box, Katrina pulled out a couple of wads of screwed up tissue paper, but as she reached in to retrieve the last piece she noticed that there was something odd about it. She lifted it and froze.

At the bottom of the box, on some blood stained tissue papers, was what looked like a human heart.

Katrina screamed a short, high-pitched scream, and felt her stomach churn, as her hands began to shake violently. Dropping the box on the floor, she backed away until she felt herself knock into one of the kitchen counters.

Katrina stared at the hideous contents of the box. The heart had spilled out onto the kitchen floor – and beside it was a card. Kneeling on the floor, Katrina swallowed hard and, covering her mouth with one hand, reached out to retrieve it.