*****
Before Jael could even touch on the subject of returning home, her mom was pushing a breakfast sandwich at her, her dad was digging in the cooler for a carton of chocolate milk to go with it, and her uncle was telling how he stayed out until the sun came up so he could witness first-hand her vampire’s incineration. Apparently he’d even taken a short video, which he promised to show them later when he downloaded it onto his laptop.
She yawned. “How long have you guys been up?” she asked.
She unwrapped the sandwich and took a big bite. It wasn’t quite warm anymore but it was tasty. She chewed slowly, looking around at the three of them sitting at the picnic table with her. Bruno rested his head on the table beside her sandwich wrapper, a wistful look in his eyes.
Her dad glanced at his watch. “Hours. But we wanted to let you sleep after the workout you had last night.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She took another bite and pinched off a piece of bread for Bruno. He gulped it down without even tasting it and waited patiently for more, tail slowly wagging.
“It’s not as if we have anywhere to go,” her mom reminded them all. She still looked upset about the whole exodus thing. She glanced over at Seth. “We’ve pretty much burned all our bridges up to this point.”
Seth shrugged. “We did what we had to do.”
“Whatever.”
Jael narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t it about time you let me in on the plan? After all I am…”
“The Chosen One. We know.” Her mom’s caustic reply was very un-mom like.
“Honey,” her dad put his arm around her mom and squeezed, “It’s gonna be all right. Jael needs some answers.”
“So do I,” she mumbled, staring off into the trees up the hill.
Jael put the rest of her sandwich down. “Look, I’m sorry we had to leave last night, Mom. But we can go back.”
Seth was busy reading something on his ever-present laptop. He glanced up. “She may be right. There’s a little news story here about Sunburn. Apparently someone broke into the high school last night.”
“So…?” Her mom crossed her arms and stared hard at the top of Seth’s head as he continued reading. Her irritation with her brother-in-law was blatantly obvious.
“Officer Wallace observed them entering the school through a broken window after midnight. He called his brother who is in charge of turning on the emergency siren in town. With all that noise it must have scared them out of the school before they had a chance to find anything. Then Wallace chased them out of town. He said they were dressed all in black and wore funny farmer hats.”
“Farmer hats?” Jael laughed. She definitely needed to call Shad and get the low down on last night’s episode of Amish Bloodsuckers Take Sunburn High. Officer Wallace must have been beside himself with importance after coming so close to catching real criminals. There wasn’t a whole lot of crime to be had for a wily officer of the law in Sunburn, Nevada.
Seth looked up and grinned. “That’s a direct quote from the Sunburn Gazette.”
Her dad reached out and turned the laptop to read the article for himself. “A gang of Amish hanging around town would certainly make people wonder. So if they were stopped last night before they had time to figure out your identity, it should be safe to go home. I doubt they would risk being seen again.”
“But we can’t be sure,” her mom said in a quiet voice, staring down at an ant crawling across her paper napkin.
It was time to take charge. Jael stood up and reached for the phone in her back pocket. “If you can all try to have an open mind to the possibility that a tracker is on our side and wants to help us, I’ll give Shad a call. He texted me early this morning.”
“You gave your number to a tracker?” Seth’s look of disbelief was priceless. Jael thought if he opened his eyes any wider they might roll out of his sockets.
“No, but it’s not rocket science to get someone’s number in high school. You just ask their friends.” She scrolled through the messages and clicked Shad’s number. Her finger posed to dial; she waited. “Well?”
“Call him,” her father said, quelling Seth’s arguments before they began, “but don’t tell him where we are. Just find out what went down last night.”
She nodded, shot Seth a smirk, and turned away. It was much too uncomfortable talking with everyone listening in, so she started walking up the path toward the trees. In the bright afternoon sun it ought to be free of lurking vampires.
Shad picked up after two rings. “Hold on,” he whispered and then left her hanging.
“Shad?”
After about ten seconds he came back on the line. “Sorry. Had to run outside.”
“Oh, did I wake you up?”
“Naw. What’s up?”
She put out a hand and pulled a twig from a low hanging branch as she passed, absently broke it in two and tossed the pieces to the ground. “Your text was a bit cryptic. Want to elaborate?”
He chuckled softly. “You had to be here. It was awesome!”
“You were at the school when they broke in?”
“Sure. I helped them.”
“What? I thought you were on my side.” She was having a hard time controlling the anger in her voice. Why did this guy set off her temper so easily? Up close he made her queasy and from a distance he made her mad. Maybe there was something other than the trackers association with vampires that kept slayers from hanging out with them.
“Do you want me to keep reassuring you of my loyalty or tell you about last night?” he asked, his words tightly controlled.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. After a couple seconds she said, “Fine. Tell me what happened.”
“The Amish vamps showed up at my grandfather’s house. They insisted we take them to you, but Pops told them he didn’t know where you lived.”
“And they bought that?” She stopped walking when she reached the top of the hill and stared out at the view of the valley below. The little town of Smythe was practically non-existent without the twinkling lights of night to give it some bluster.
“Sure. My grandfather only knows you’re a student at my school. Nothing else.”
“Okay, so you took them to the school. Why?”
She heard a gravelly voice yell something in the background and then the sound of an engine revving. “Hold on,” he said. More yelling, the engine shut off and then something slammed and suddenly it was much quieter. “Jael, you still there?” he asked after a minute or two.
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“My grandfather’s drinking. I took the keys to his truck and got him to go back in the trailer. Where was I? ...Oh yeah.” He cleared his throat. “So I brought the vamps here so they could go through your locker. Of course, I’d already cleaned out all the items with your personal information.”
She frowned. “How did you manage that?”
“I came back to school after everybody was gone for the day – other than the janitor dude. I went through everything, and just put non-identifying items back in. I took the stuff with your name or address and burned it out in a field. Sorry. It was the only way. My grandfather may have been able to lead them to it if I’d hidden it somewhere close by.”
“Thank you… I think,” she said.
“To be on the safe side, I also placed a few of your things in some other kid’s lockers to throw’em off the scent.” He laughed. “By the time my grandfather had them pry open nine lockers with no results, the vamps were getting pretty angry with him. They told him he was senile and had lost his power. That made him mad. He told them to get out of town and not come back, that he was through helping them.”
Jael sat down on a tree stump and stretched out her legs, twisting her foot this way and that to test her ankle. It felt much better today. She turned and looked down the trail toward the picnic table where her family sat eagerly awaiting news. “How did Officer Wallace happen to see the break in?”
>
“He didn’t. I called while they were busy busting into lockers. I stepped into the janitor’s closet, pulled my burn phone out of the mop bucket where I’d left it earlier, and made an anonymous call straight to his home phone. He must have flew out of bed and pulled on his blue pants and badge in record time. It was probably only five minutes before we heard the siren go off.”
“He actually turned his car siren on in the middle of the night?” She grinned thinking about the excitement the whole town must have gone through without actually knowing the true danger they were in.
“I’m talking about the big siren. The one that turns in every direction to warn the whole town of impending doom? That thing was going off. The vamps thought it was the end of the world as they knew it.” He laughed again. “If only they had a reflection. I’d love to have taken a picture of the looks on their ugly faces.”
“How do you know they won’t come back?”
“I don’t,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, “but I’m pretty sure they won’t. They left thinking my grandfather had lost his tracking ability, and they have no reason to believe I can help them. My father’s lack of talent as a tracker was evident years ago, so they never had any great expectations for me. Luckily, Grandfather never told them the truth. He wanted to spare me dealing with the monsters until I absolutely had to.”
She didn’t know what to say. Shad had saved them…saved their home…maybe even the lives of a few folks in Sunburn who escaped being a late night snack when the vampires had to flee town in a hurry. He was a hero and no one but she would ever know.
“Jael?”
“Still here.” She licked her lips. “Thank you,” she said, and really meant it this time. “I don’t know if my parents or uncle will ever want us to be best friends, but I trust you.”
He was quiet for a moment. Jael didn’t know if he was shocked at her admission or simply trying to think up a smart-aleck retort and failing miserably, but she was glad. She needed a moment to adjust to the new normal – Shad as a confidante and friend.
“I better get back in there,” he finally said. “Make sure he’s all right.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “Sure. Thanks, Shad.”
“You really trust me?” he asked, his voice gruffly soft.
“Yes, I do.”
“Cool.”
Chapter 22
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