Landlocked (A water witch novel) (28 page)

If my heart hadn’t been thumping wildly, reminding me that the situation was in no way funny, I might have smiled at his tone. “On the way back from Clarissa’s party, we were harassed by two creepy guys. I was scared and asked Jaron to stay the night with me. Being a fine southern gentlemen, he obliged.”

“Oh, I bet he did,” Dylan spat.

“Nothing happened. Put down the torch and pitch fork.”

Sylvia seemed to key in on a different part of my speech. “What did these men look like?” she asked quickly.

After a second, I reeled off the one thing that stuck in my mind. Oddly I couldn’t remember much else about them. “They both had a weird tattoo running the length of their left arm.”

“What?” she whispered.

“Are you sure?” Dylan asked, apparently temporarily distracted from glaring darts at Jaron.

I took in their faces as they waited for my answer. Dylan chewed his bottom lip, and Sylvia’s perfect face was creased with worry. They looked terrified.

”Yes, I’m sure…” I trailed off, unsure of what else to say. They were freaking me out. “It’s fine, no harm done.”

Sylvia nodded to Dylan, his face told me he disagreed with me on the harm part. “Maribel, say goodbye to Jaron,” Sylvia said curtly.

“What?” I asked. “Can’t he just take me to school?”

Dylan turned purple. “No, he can’t! Now, say goodbye!”

I wasn’t going to say goodbye, not with the tone they were using, like I’d never see him again. “See you at school,” I muttered, looking into his worried eyes. He must have sensed the same thing I did.

“I’ll wait for you by the doors okay?”

I nodded.

Dylan moved aside and gestured toward the door.

Jaron hesitated for a second and then led the way out of my room, Dylan following behind him.

I knew that I should be calming down, but I wasn’t. My heart still hammered like it had when Dylan discovered us. The front door shut, and I knew Jaron had gone.

Sylvia pulled me to the bed and onto her lap. “Are you okay?” she asked, smoothing my hair down.

Was I okay? Was she joking? I had almost been attacked the previous night, found out I might have a strange ability, couldn’t stop having terrible gory nightmares, and Dylan might just have given the love of my life a concussion.

“No,” was all I could choke out.

She squeezed me tighter. “I’m sorry, baby, but it’s about to get worse…” She paused.

I pulled away from her embrace and looked her in the eye. “What do you mean?”

She took a breath. “Those men that you saw have been after us for a while now. We're leaving tonight.”

“Leaving where, what are you talking about?” I stood up and backed away from her, panic gripping my chest.

Sylvia held my gaze. “We’re moving and we won’t be coming back.”

“No!” I shouted. “You can’t do this to me! If this is about Jaron, nothing happened.” I was verging on hysterics, but I wasn't about to leave Jaron or Clarissa behind without a fight. “I won’t go with you.”

Her eyebrows shot up “Calm down, Mari, we aren’t doing this to hurt you—”

“Well it doesn’t matter if you’re doing it to hurt me or not, it is,” I interrupted. My aunt’s face was so full of pain. After a few calming breaths, I tried again. “I love you so much, but I’m an adult now. You can’t make me leave, and even if you could, I would run away every chance I got to come back here… I don’t want to be angry with you guys, just tell me what this is about.”

My aunt closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead like she had a migraine.

Dylan walked in and Sylvia looked up pleadingly. “Mari, go grab some breakfast downstairs,” he said.

I looked longingly at Sylvia, waiting for her to answer me. When I was sure that she wasn’t going to, I brushed past Dylan and ran downstairs, but not to the kitchen. I grabbed some clothes out of the dryer and threw on a pair of jeans and a tank. Pausing in the entryway, I glanced up the stairs. They would be worried sick, but I couldn’t have them drag me away from people I loved for some dark secret that they didn’t feel the need to share. It was my life too. Spinning on my heel, I sprinted out the front door.

School was only about half a mile away, and thanks to swim team, I had the stamina to sprint the whole way. The trip felt like it took forever, even though I knew I was making good time. Paranoia slowed time down to a crawl, and I looked over my shoulder so often that I almost ran into a telephone pole. Finally I reached the school grounds. At first I was worried Jaron wouldn’t be there yet. The place was deserted. It was too early for even the honor roll students. But, I spotted him leaning against the wall by the double doors.

He was wearing a tight black shirt and jeans, stopping me in my tracks. I took time that I didn’t have to admire him from afar. He would look completely at ease leaning against the building to anyone that would happen by, but I could tell by the way that he held his shoulders that he was on edge.

He glanced up from under the dark hair splashing over his forehead. When our eyes me, he pushed quickly away from the wall and started jogging over to me.

“Maribel, why are you alone? Why didn’t they drive you?” He struggled to keep his voice even, but the heat radiating off of him told me that his temper was raging. “I told you not to go anywhere alone.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice. They were about to up and move me out of town,” I said. “We don’t have much time. They will be peeling around the corner any second.” I wanted to hang my head in defeat, but that would mean missing maybe the last chance I had to study his beautiful face.

“They what?”

“They said we're moving today—”

“Come with me,” he said, dragging me across the school yard to the parking lot. “I told you that I had to take you somewhere, and I still want to. But you’re going to find out some things about me and my past. They aren’t good things. If you would rather go with you family, I’ll drive you home right now.” He pulled open his car door and helped inside. He slipped into the driver’s seat and turned to face me. “So, where to?” he asked urgently.

“I’ll go wherever you want to take me,” I said without even a second’s hesitation.

His answering smile turned my bones to jelly. “Same goes for me, love,” he whispered before throwing the car into drive.

When we tore out of the parking lot I turned to look out of the rearview mirror, somehow we had gotten away before my aunt and uncle showed up. It felt amazing to break away and be free to do my own thing, but I couldn’t completely smother the guilt “So where are we going?”

He took a breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his tendons popping out. “We’re taking a dark and twisted trip down memory lane.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before I say where we’re going, I need to tell you the story of how my parents were murdered. It’s only been five years, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Back in a place where I had no worries, no fears, just happiness. You would have loved my parents, Maribel, they were the most loving people in the world. And they were more in love with each other than any two people I had ever seen.” He stole a glance at me.

“We were living down in Abbeville. This place reminds me of it, nice town, close community. When I think of home, that's where my mind goes. I grew up living the American dream, white picket fence, good friends, and wealth. Although I knew my parents would have been just as blissfully happy with nothing but their family.

“That’s how they raised me, never put anything before family. I can’t even count the number of times one of them told me that. Until recently, I could have said that I did them proud in that regard, now I’ve let them down there too…”

He trailed off and squinted his eyes.

His parents sounded so much like Sylvia and Dylan, the love they had for him and each other rang of my aunt and uncle. And they were also always telling me that family came first. I looked out the window and watched the gray buildings fly by as we merged onto the freeway. Had I let them down?

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, until I laid eyes on you. She had corn silk hair that fell down her back. When I was a small child, I would tell my friends that my mother was Rapunzel.” He sighed. “And she was so kind. I remember once on our way back from the city park, my dad hit a squirrel with his car. She cried over the little dead rodent. She was just so loving and tender, it broke her heart. I was only seven, but I hated seeing her like that… so I jumped out of the car and tried to give the thing CPR.”

I could just imagine an adorable seven-year-old Jaron trying to bring a squirrel back from the dead to stop his mother’s tears.

“I had a happier childhood than anyone has the right to, and maybe that’s why it happened. It threw off the balance of nature for one person to have so much… It all changed so quickly.

“I was walking home from school on a Thursday. I don‘t know why I remember the day.” He shook his head. “Along the way, I noticed a car pulled off to the side of the road at on odd angle. I don’t know if it was that or the fact that it was a 1930’s Model-A Ford—even then I appreciated a classic—that caught my eye, but I went to check it out. When I got closer, I noticed him. My first instinct was to run. I didn’t know why. I even laughed about it at the time. It was just an old man holding a map, looking like he needed help. I shrugged off my irrational fear and jogged over to help him. He had unusually bright red hair for a man of his age. I guessed him to be at least eighty. At first, I thought it was a wig, but it was his natural hair.

“I asked him if he needed help and he smiled, making his many wrinkles even more pronounced. His light blue eyes sparkled as he answered, 'Well, I didn’t know young people cared to help anybody anymore.'

“It was such a normal old person response, I couldn’t understand why his words made me shiver. Anyway, he told me that he ran out of gas and wanted me to walk him to the nearest gas station. I offered to run there and back, but he refused my help, he wanted to do it himself—he just needed me to show him the way.

“We walked down the tree lined sidewalk, crunching the fallen leaves of the autumn kissed trees with every step. As we talked, my wariness wore off. He was a very interesting man. He was a mechanic, had flown fighter planes, and traveled all over the world. I ate up every word that fell from his wrinkled lips,” he said through his teeth.

“After we filled up an old gas can and walked back to his car, he offered me a ride home for my troubles. I told my parents about the encounter at dinner, they praised me for helping an old man in need. Need,” he scoffed. “I just didn’t understand at the time what he was really in need of…”

“The next day I had a swim meet. My parents had never missed one, but they weren’t there. After every race, more and more anxiety built up in my chest, until I ran from the meet, still in my suit, not wearing any shoes. I ran five miles to my house. As soon as I got to the front door, I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones freezing me to the spot.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more. Retelling the story was taking its toll on him. Sweat was beading on his forehead and his breath was shaky. What did he see?

“I opened the door slowly, it wasn’t locked, and peeked my head inside. Nothing looked out of place, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. That’s when I smelled it, the strong scent of blood.”

I shivered.

His thumb started tapping a spastic rhythm against the steering wheel. “I haven’t told anyone about this in years, and there’s more than one reason for that. I don’t want you to have to hear what I’m about to tell you, you are so sweet and sheltered. But I think it’s important for you to hear it… for your own safety. It’s your choice if you want to hear it or not,” he said, glancing over at me.

I couldn’t find my voice, so I nodded.

He continued. “Maybe I should have run to the neighbors and called the police. I don’t know… it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. But all that my thirteen-year-old brain could come up with was to find my parents. I shouted for them as I ran from room to room. Can’t remember if I was crying, but I do remember hyperventilating as I searched for them with that terrible iron smell in the air. My parents’ room was the only one left unsearched and I pushed the double door open quickly, too panicked to worry about stealth.

“On the other side of my parents beautiful master suit, a large man was going through a dresser. He weighed at least two eighty, I’d never seen someone so tall and muscular in my life, and he was glowering at me from under his prominent brow. Still, even beneath his terrifying gaze, I searched for signs of my parents—but they weren’t there. As the behemoth crossed the room in a flash and grabbed me by the collar, all I could feel was relief. My parents weren’t home, they were probably safely at the swim meet, wondering where I was. At least, that was the thought I had running through my mind as the strange burglar pulled me toward the garage door.