Runaway Mortal (25 page)
Authors: Komal Kant
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I first came up with the idea for
Runaway Mortal
in early 2011 and was the first story I ever considered publishing. After I wrote it, I decided to put it away and published
Impossible
as my debut novel instead. Despite releasing Contemporary Romance novels since then,
Runaway Mortal
always stuck with me and I’m so excited I finally get to share it with my readers.
I can’t thank Michelle Flick enough! She has been supportive of this book from the beginning—long before she ever got to read a single word of it. She has helped so much with the editing process and making this story what it is. I love you, M!
Lots of thanks to Erica Cope who is always super positive and happy to give me feedback whenever I need it. Erica is like my personal cheerleader; she is always encouraging me and making me feel good about everything that I write. I’m so glad to have you as a friend!
Heather Diemer, thank you for your advice, support, and all the fun conversations. We will always be connected through cheesecake.
Thank you to Eden Crane for designing the perfect cover for this book! This is the first cover she ever designed for me, way back in November, 2012, and it is still one of my favourites!
I am so grateful to the readers, authors, and bloggers who continue to read, share, and promote my work. I wouldn’t be doing what I love today without their support.
A special shout out to one of my readers, Veronica, who takes out her time to make teasers for my books.
Finally, thanks to my fiancé, Chase, for telling me to publish
Runaway Mortal
before I started working on anything else. It’s the best decision I ever made and I’m so excited that I finally get to share Katerina’s adventure with everyone!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Komal Kant is the best-selling author of WRONG SIDE OF TOWN. Her other books include IMPOSSIBLE, FALLING FOR HADIE, RUNAWAY MORTAL, and UNFAMILIAR (co-written with Erica Cope). She currently lives in Sydney, but wishes she lived all over the world.
Komal enjoys super geeky things like Pokémon, Call of Duty, and Final Fantasy. She figures she has too many Huskies, but as a result also has lots of Husky kisses. You can often find her swooning over fictional male characters who smirk a lot, superhero-related movies, Ryan Gosling, and her readers.
You can find out more about Komal on her website:
http://komalkantbooks.com/
OTHER BOOKS BY KOMAL KANT
With
Me Series (Can be read as stand-alone novels)
Stand-alone novels
Walker
I stared out into the great, big backyard my sister now owned. It stretched on for acres and nowhere did I see a house or a road cut across the hills. There were bare trees and gray sky. This was where she brought me – the Middle of Nowhere.
Fergie, my collie, brushed up against my legs and looked up at me, smiling at me. Her tail wagged and beat against the porch railing, causing snow to fall from it. She, at least, was happy about this place.
“Want me to throw the ball?”
She turned twice in a circle almost knocking me off balance with her butt.
“She sure isn’t little,” said The–one–who–had–dragged–me to the Middle of Nowhere.
“Lay off my dog.” I didn’t snap at her, but I wasn’t pleasant either. I just couldn’t believe she dragged me here in the middle of my junior year to a place no one in my school had ever heard of. She wasn’t the boss of me, but according to Mom’s and Dad’s will, she was, at least for another year and a half.
“I was just saying. Want to help me unpack the kitchen?”
“No.”
I could see her out of the corner of my eye. She kept her sigh silent, tucked her hair behind her ears, stared out into the great big back yard of the Middle of Nowhere for a moment and turned to go inside. I could have added to my ‘no’ it was because I was going to play with Fergie out back. I could have told her I would help in a bit. I could have been a bit nicer to her. I just couldn’t.
Fergie ran her nose into my leg and I would have expected to see the ball in her mouth, but she was staring up at me with concerned eyes. She sat down and patiently looked at me, waiting for me to tell her what I needed. I could only stare down at her. She repeated her gesture. I leaned down to her, “I know girl. You’re there for me.” I hugged her tightly and told her to get her ball.
I turned toward the kitchen window and saw Jesse watching us. She didn’t smile or frown or wave. She stared back.
We hadn’t always been this way. I mean, she was eight years older than I was. She was good at talking to me about boys when Mom couldn’t. She was really good about being sympathetic to me when Dad wouldn’t see reason about my first boy–girl party when I was 13.
She had a long time boyfriend named Aiden. In fact, they dated for so long, I thought they would marry and I kind of hoped they would. Aiden was a good fit for our family, but they weren’t together any more. I think their break up had more to do with our move to the Middle of Nowhere than my parents’ deaths. She needed out of where she was and I had to go with her. And I know that was my biggest problem with her. I had enough to deal with and now I was being punished for her inability to keep a boyfriend.
Fergie came back with her ball, dropped it at my feet and waited in the snow for me to throw her ball. I launched it as far as I could and she took off. We would be out here for hours if it were up to her. Unlike her, with her thick tri–color coat, I did not withstand the cold as well. But she loved it and I would stay out here until my nose was red.
We went inside to find Jesse still working on unpacking the boxes in the kitchen. Fergie got a drink and plopped down by the floor heater. I untied my boots and watched my sister. She unpacked things that were our mother’s and things that were hers. Between Mom, Dad, her and me, we had more than enough possessions to fill an old, wooden farmhouse. We didn’t need to take it all; we just didn’t want to get rid of anything of theirs. Not yet.
Jesse had been tiptoeing around me for the last two months. She let me stay at my house when we first found out about Mom and Dad and not her apartment. She didn’t bother me with anything when it came to the funerals. She didn’t fight me when I screamed at her that Mom would never want stuffed shells as a meal after the funeral. She didn’t say anything when I told her she was miserable and Mom and Dad were crazy to have left me with her when she told me we were moving. I had been horrible to her since the day they died. I just couldn’t help it.
“I start my first shift tomorrow night. Tomorrow morning, we are going to pick up your schedule for school. And you’ll start the following day.” Her new job, the reason she picked the Middle of Nowhere, or so she said.
“I’m not ready,” I said flatly.
She gave another silent sigh. “You can’t miss school. You can’t fall behind anymore than you already are.”
“You know I wouldn’t even be behind if we hadn’t come to this place.”
She set down the plates she was removing from a packing box. “I’m only thinking it would be best for you to start meeting people, figure out where you stand with your classes and start settling in. If you want to wait another day or two, fine. I’ll go get your schedule tomorrow though.” She picked the plates back up and took them to a cupboard. She stared out into the vast landscape as I had done only a short time before.
I looked at her brown hair, her green eyes, her tall frame, a profile that mirrored a younger version of our mother and an older version of me. It hurt to look at her.
“Come on, Fergie. Let’s go to our room.”
I trudged up
stairs, leaving Jesse with the mess of boxes containing our old home. This house would not be my home. I walked into my new bedroom, ignoring the boxes labeled “Kate’s” and flopped myself on my bed. It creaked as I got comfortable, all sounds and sensations I was used to. At least this was something familiar to me. I settled in and fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke sometime later; the sun was still up, but considerably lower. I was spending a lot of time sleeping, but sleep was the only time I didn’t think about my parents, about how much I missed them, about the horrible drunk driving accident stealing them from Jesse and me. When I sleep, I’m blank, devoid of anything. I like it.
Fergie stretched out by my feet, her nails digging into my left calf. She hopped off my bed and patiently waited for me to move. I grumbled I wanted to go back to sleep, but she pressed her wet nose into my arm. I rolled my head away from her. She let out a short bark.
“What, Fergie? I want to sleep.”
She pressed her nose one more time into my arm.
“Out?” I ask.
Nothing.
“Food?”
Her ears perked up.
I reached for my cell phone in my pocket. It was 5 o’clock, time for her to eat. “You’re really going to make me get out of bed?” She moved toward the door. I sighed in defeat. “Alright.”
My stomach, as I stood, let me know that it’s hungry too. I wondered if we even have any food in this house.
Jesse was still in the kitchen. She doesn’t acknowledge me as I poured Fergie’s food in her dish. Jesse slid a ham sandwich and a bunch of chips on the now clear kitchen table towards me.
She must have gone shopping while I was sleeping.
Still she doesn’t acknowledge me, but the sandwich was for me, because she has a half–eaten one on the counter. I sat down and took a bite and munch. The house was so silent the only sound I could hear was Fergie chewing her food.
I think about our home in Canton. It wasn’t as big as this house Jess bought, and it probably seemed smaller because Mom had amassed so much stuff. I’m pretty sure in 22 years, maybe more, Mom had not thrown out any of our artwork, poems, pictures, clay ashtrays and anything else we created. Music always played in the house. I would wake up and had no idea if I was going to be listening to Frank Sinatra, Lenny Kravitz, The Who or Reba McEntire. She burned candles constantly.
I looked at the walls in the kitchen. I missed the atmosphere of our old house.
“We’ll fill them up, slowly, but we will fill them.”
“I don’t want to put all that stuff up again.”
“Me either,” Jess replied. “I was thinking about putting up some of Mom’s artwork, some of my photography and some of your sketches.”
“I don’t sketch any
more.”
Our mother had an amazing talent when it came to painting. Her abstract pictures always seemed like crazy dream landscapes. Mom always said she got them from her dreams. She and a friend had opened a small art gallery only featuring local artists. Mom had put several of my sketches and a bunch of Jesse’s pictures up. The store was really beginning to take off, along with Mom’s notoriety, when the accident happened.
“OK, well, if you ever do, I’ll add them to the walls too.”
She turned back around and I could tell she was frustrated by my comment. She cracked her neck and flexed her fingers. There was a time Jesse would not be silent for any reason. She has an opinion about everything and was unafraid to share it, very much like our father. But since their deaths, when I say something like not sketching anymore, when I secretly love it, she just makes some round–about comment about how she patient she is. She’s different.
But then again, so am I.
Fergie was done eating and laid by my feet. Jesse had gone back to unpacking. She found Mom’s kitchen radio, grabbed her iPod and plugged it in. And while I felt relieved to not have a silent house, it’s unnerving when the first sounds are the piano from
Dream Lover
by Bobby Darin.
I stood up, heading over to turn off the music. I couldn’t bear to hear anything Mom loved. I was about to press the power button, when Jesse’s hand grabbed mine and pushed it away.
“Don’t,” is all she said. I couldn’t look at her because I can feel the tears stinging the back of my eyes. Didn’t she understand it hurt to hear it? Her hand remained in front of the radio, waiting to block my hand again. I moved to turn it off again. She blocked me. “I need to hear her. I need to hear Mom.”
I have nothing to say back to her. What she needs hurts me, but I can’t deny her this.
“I’m going back upstairs.”
“Unpack your room, Kid.”
I give her a noncommittal shrug. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
Fergie and I leave Jesse to the downstairs all night and I only come down to let Fergie out before bed. I’m eager to sleep. I’m eager to forget.
When I woke, my clock revealed I’d been asleep for 12 hours, but I felt like I could stay in bed for a few more. Fergie is patiently waited for me to crawl out of bed to let her out.
Without her, I doubt I would get out of my bed.
She walked beside me, but when I let her out, she stood at the door, her head tipped to the side. “Go potty,” I tell her. She waited. “Don’t you have to pee?” I asked her. She tilted her head to the other side. I left her at the door, ran to the bathroom and came back and find her in the same spot, but with a ball in her mouth.
Jesse came in behind me with a coffee mug in her hand. Her hair
was wet and she looked like she was ready for the day. How long has she been up?
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Fergie won’t go to the bathroom.”
“She’s already been out,” she told me. I looked at her confused. Fergie never leaves me. Dad was the only person Fergie ever followed around if I was in the house.
“You were dead to the world, and she was whining for you to get up. You didn’t, so I let her out, and threw the ball for her. She’s still relentless with that thing.” She gave a head nod toward Fergie still waiting for me to throw it. “Go throw the ball for her.”
Jesse walked over to turn up the music on the radio and straighten a picture she had hung up. It was one of Mom’s a crazy swirl of blues, greens, purples and yellows. I hadn’t heard the music or noticed the picture. Mom’s music was background music in the house, just like the family artwork was, and while it hurt to hear
American Woman
by Kravitz and see my mom’s brush strokes, my mind hadn’t really noticed it. Music and art was a normal facet of our lives, thanks to Mom. Suddenly, a little realization happened. Jesse was trying to make things normal. But maybe normal wasn’t the right word for it. Familiar. Jesse was trying to make this house familiar for us.
Fergie let out a bark. “OK, I’m getting my jacket.”
I played with her for a little while, and we came in to Jesse making breakfast. Having meals made for me was a new thing. Mom was awesome at the domestic thing, but if she was busy painting, food became inconsequential to her. Dad didn’t get home until 5, so if I wanted to eat, I made the meal. Jesse had until she moved out, and when she did, I took over making food for the family.
That might be the one good thing about living with Jesse again. She’s a good cook.
I sat down and watched her flit in and out of the kitchen. I used to watch Mom always walking gracefully, slowly, and with a purpose. Jesse, more or less, rushed into a room repeatedly looking for numerous things she had misplaced. I don’t think Dad ever lost things. I would just yell to Mom asking where I last put whatever I was looking for, and she would know. Jesse clearly was not going to be able to do that for me.
“I’m going to your school in an hour. Why don’t you go shower and come with me?” When I continued to eat and not respond, she pressed a bit harder. “It’ll be good for you to get out of the house and have an idea where you are going tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to school tomorrow.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
