On the Fringe (26 page)

When Claire went to bed, I drifted outside to my regular spot beneath the eucalyptus tree and waited for Aden to show up. The black sky pulled me into a daze until the fog began creeping up over the hills, gradually spreading out like a mystical army. I wanted to join the ranks and float away with it, just wandering aimlessly through the sky with no purpose or care in the world—but that wasn’t going to happen.

Aden suddenly materialized in front of me, bringing along with him the usual icy chills running up and down my legs. He was smiling, but I didn’t want to let on how much it bothered me. I tried ignoring him by looking the other way, like I couldn’t care less. But he kept getting in my face.

“I thought you were sick of me,” I finally said.

“Yes, well, I just came by to give you an update.”

“Then give it,” I said, looking past him toward the house.

“You’re too late,” he announced. I couldn’t tell if he was bluffing, and before I could decide, he added, “Felix already has her.”

What?
How could he already have her? I’d been watching the house the entire time. Was this a trick, or did I somehow miss something?

He hovered beside me, watching my reaction. I was afraid to listen to him, afraid not to. “So long,” he said, fading out.

Wait.

No!

I lunged forward, regretting my rash decision a second too late when a magnetic force pulled me to him, like in Felix’s apartment. It was a trap.

“Can’t help yourself, can you?” Aden said, shifting us away from Hidden Lake, dragging me unwillingly with him.

His first stop was the park where it all started twelve years ago. Long shadows stretched across the road beneath the dim street lamps where we lingered in the familiar intersection, the school across the street dark and empty. Even cars were a no-show this late; it was just a quiet neighborhood in the stretch of a new morning, seemingly unaware of its tragic past.

Aden turned to me. I tried pulling a poker face, though I was never that great at cards. “You are so easy to predict,” he said, circling around me, his voice a rollercoaster of soft and loud, fast and slow. “That really is your downfall.”

I kept trying to detach myself, but couldn’t seem to focus. It felt like he was a giant magnet, scrambling my mind so nothing worked.

“You realize this is all your doing? I never even lifted a finger. You should
think
before you act. Now I’ve got you.”

He was right.

The park was gone in a flash, and next we were in Felix’s apartment. This time, only shapes and shadows were hiding in the dark. I tried not to ingest any of the details that had previously disgusted me, but my memory of the place repulsed me as much the second time.

“If you’d thought things through twelve years ago, if you hadn’t blindly jumped into the street like an idiot to save a useless dog, neither of us would be here right now. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

I looked away from him, wishing he would shut up, trying once more to pull my mind away from his grasp, but it was impossible.

“You’d think by now you would’ve learned that your impulsive need to act the hero hasn’t really worked out for you,” he continued.

Shut
up
.

He methodically pulled me from the dark hallway, through the wall into the bedroom, and then out into the hallway again. “Now we wait.” He stopped. “Felix needs a little more time.”

“You have Felix doing everything for you now? Got tired of making the trip yourself?” I tried not to sound as panicked as I felt.

He laughed, which made me more anxious. “Let’s pretend you’re not a total moron just for a second. How about that? Because this is the part I’ve been looking forward to the most.”

“You never make any sense,” I mumbled, already feeling exhausted.

At that, he pulled me with him back to the park, dragging me through the swings, down the hill, to the empty parking lot. At the bottom, he stopped and looked around, like he was waiting for something. “Where are they?” he muttered to himself, his voice verging on irritated.

“Things not working out how you planned?” I taunted, hoping to distract him long enough to escape.

“Where is he going?” Aden growled.

“All you ever do is blame everyone else for your mistakes. You can’t do a single thing by yourself.”

“Shut up!” he hissed, pulling at his hair. I felt a slight change in the force linking us together, like tension relaxing from a rubber band. “I’m the one who calls the shots!”

“My point, exactly,” I said, encouraged at the way he seemed to be losing focus. I kept going, trying to egg him on. “Felix pulled the trigger because you couldn’t do it yourself. Just like everything else you do. You have no real power.”

“That’s right!” he yelled, pushing me backward through a chain-link fence. “Thanks to you!”

Wait a second…
this was not where I was heading.

“I was five years old when it happened! FIVE!” My own anger seemed to be working against me as the magnetic force drew me to him again. But I couldn’t help myself. “What’s wrong with you? You were drunk. Your death was more your fault than mine!”

For a half a second he looked vulnerable, almost sad, like he had an ounce of remorse hidden behind his eyes. Quickly though, the pride/hatred/jealousy or whatever it was that drove him, took over. He threw me across the grass and slammed me through a wall. “
You
took my life away!”

There was no pain, only a dull sensation from the force of the blow, and my mind felt cloudy. Speechless, I nodded at him in silent agreement as he pulled me by the neck, out of the wall. “Let’s go find your girlfriend, Romeo.”

Next thing I knew, we were hovering above the water at Hidden Lake, waiting for something as the dense fog blew right through us.

Claire

A foreign noise called me back from a dream that had gotten all twisted and confusing. I tried opening my eyes at the sound, but the thickness of the dream pulled at me, refusing to let go. My head felt heavy, and I was disoriented until my eyes finally opened to my dark, moonlit bedroom. I scanned the shadows, wondering what had awoken me.

Addie was still sound asleep, sprawled across the bed, snoring.

I rolled out of the covers and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water, my heart pounding with every step. Why was I still scared? Daniel would warn me if anything were wrong. Yet, I still practiced deep yoga breaths while filling my glass at the fridge, nervously watching the ominous shadows that seemed to be climbing up the kitchen walls.

I gulped down the cold water in seconds.

Wait.

I froze, the cup still resting on the edge of my mouth. Why was the red blinking alarm light
not
blinking? Why was it solid green?

“Dad? Matthew?” I squeaked, wondering if one of them had gone outside for some reason.

I expected to hear the sound of breaking glass when the cup slipped from my hand, but someone caught it, instead. I turned my head and tried to scream when I saw Felix standing behind me, but he had already slapped his icy, rough hand over my mouth and shoved me against his torso.

Where were Daniel and Matthew?

I tried to run, but Felix pulled me back. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled.

My heart pounded through my ears as terror engulfed me. Felix’s eyes seemed like fire as he craned his head forward to face me. The porch light cascaded across his head, illuminating his deep-set eyes and cracked, peeling lips.

He twisted my arms behind my back with a free hand. “You need to listen to me carefully, Claaaayre,” he said, his voice deep and raspy. Unable to breathe or see or think, it felt like I was drowning again. “My demon was right—the things he said about you.” He licked his lips, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “You will move very quietly now, do you hear me? Very quietly.”

Obediently I nodded, willing to follow any command as long as it resulted in my release. As soon as he loosened his grip, I started forward.

“Now,” he whispered. “If you scream or run, you’ll regret it, do you understand?” It was then that I felt the sharp point of a knife at my throat, its razor edge slightly piercing my skin. I felt faint, but did as he ordered, despite my wobbly knees.

“We’re going to take a little walk now.”

I had imagined this moment a hundred times, determined never to be taken by force—to scream, kick, bite, whatever it took, in order to keep from being forced away from safety into the unknown. But that was exactly what I was doing now. All my previous intuition failed me. The knife at my throat along with Daniel’s absence had paralyzed me. Not wanting to die, I took the risk of being able to escape between point A and point B, praying Matthew or Daniel would show up any second.

“Slowly…slowly,” Felix whispered, pushing me out of the kitchen.

As we entered the hallway, I tried peering back toward Matthew’s room, but Felix’s rough hand turned my face forward, forcing me to the front door. It was already cracked open, and the alarm somehow disabled.

We silently stepped into the chilly night, the sudden coolness like a breath of fresh air, despite my circumstance. I paused at the top of the steps, but his hand was back at my throat and the knife now against my back. “Move,” he growled, shoving me down the stairs.

The tranquility I usually felt in the fog disappeared as soon as Felix spoke, like his words had broken a magical spell. My bare feet felt raw and vulnerable as the hellish night engulfed me. Fog wafted around in wispy puffs, unintentionally providing an atmosphere of terror as it shrouded nearly every bit of light.

All was eerily quiet as he forced me down the road, away from the house. I stumbled over a pothole, and Felix pushed me forward, almost knocking me down. I took advantage of the break by trying to make a run for it, when his hand caught my sleeve and yanked me back. The
Self Defense 101
class Mom made me take last summer finally kicked into gear, and I kneed him in the groin and took off.

Everything in the distance was fuzzy and dim without my glasses, and I wasn’t sure which way to turn. The only thing I knew for sure was that the dock and lake were to my left. Thanks to my hesitation, Felix caught up almost immediately, shoving me to the ground. I tried to scream out, but he crammed his face into mine, covering my mouth with his hand.

“Nice try,” he said, almost calmly. That was when I started to freak out. Felix didn’t even seem rattled.

He jammed his knee in my stomach, holding it there like he was trying to decide what to do next. The weight of his body on mine was suffocating, and I could feel myself beginning to break down. A sob shook my shoulders and ricocheted through my chest until I reined it in, nearly choking on it. He pulled me up by the hair and forced me further down the hill, to the dock where we waited…for
what,
I didn’t know.

My muscles tightened in anticipation, and I expected him to push me over the edge at any second. I blinked hard, trying to keep my tears from coming, refusing to expose any weakness, even though the thought of drowning again threw me into a panic. I was not ready to die. Not yet. Not like this.

But he didn’t push me. Instead, we just stood there staring out at nothing while his breath obscenely molested my neck.

I started to protest, but he stopped me with a commanding grunt. “Shut up!”

Some kind of movement over the middle of the lake caught my attention. Felix finally loosened his grip on me, and I felt liberated, but then remembered I was trapped at the edge of the dock with nowhere to run. Squinting through the darkness, I wished for my glasses. “What is it?” I whispered, feeling more and more nervous. Whatever it was seemed to be coming toward us across the water.

Any previous thoughts of Daniel swooping in to save the day vanished the instant I recognized the approaching face—Aden. And he wasn’t alone. To my horror, I saw that he somehow held Daniel by the neck. I gasped when they stopped a few feet in front of us, hovering above the water.

“Claire–” Daniel mouthed, but just like any other time before or after our four and a half minutes, I couldn’t hear him.

Aden was talking, too, though I couldn’t hear him any more than I could Daniel. Felix, on the other hand, seemed to be paying close attention, like he was listening to every word. Yet, instead of looking at Aden, his eyes roamed back and forth across the lake. Felix suddenly twisted me around and forced me back up the hill to the road while Aden and Daniel circled around us. Aden closed in abruptly into Felix’s ear, and Felix pushed me to the ground, the cracking sound of my knees smashing into the pebbly concrete.

I cried out in pain. Daniel futilely reached out to help me, but Aden launched him backward across the lake. A screaming, twisting sound trailed after them, and they were gone.

Felix yanked me up to him again, anchoring me stiffly against his torso as we waited in silence until Aden and Daniel returned a few seconds later.

“Let’s try this again.” Felix said, pressing the knife into the base of my ear, running it up and down along the side of my neck, puncturing my skin. I screamed and jerked at the pain, then forced my eyes shut when Felix’s mouth brushed the side of my cheek.

“Where were we?” His lips touched my skin. “My demon says this is where your boyfriend gets to make his choice. What’ll it be? You going to keep up your little connection, or not?”

Aden dragged Daniel upward so his face was right in front of me. His eyes met mine, wide and afraid—so far from the inviting, soothing brown I was used to.

“Last chance,” Felix said, scanning the darkness, like he was waiting for some kind of sign. “Do you want to keep her, or can I have her? She’s real pretty.”

I looked at Daniel. His mouth was still, but now his eyes were fuming.

“Well, okay then,” said Felix as he twisted me around and pushed me down the road…away from Hidden Lake…away from safety.

Daniel

I tried a million times to break free. But I was Aden’s prisoner as we circled around Claire while Felix forced her down the deserted road through the fog.