Aspen smiled then bridged the distance between us. She put a hand on my chest, gripping the edge of my jacket between her fingers. “I’ve always been a sucker for a bad boy.”
I could barely take a breath with my heart hammering so hard in my chest, but I did and leaned down toward her. “Well, I’m as bad as they come then,” I murmured just inches away from her lips.
I cupped a hand behind her neck, rubbing my thumb along her jaw line. The soft curls of her hair caressed my skin. Her lips parted slightly, and I could hear her tiny gasp as I covered her mouth with mine. It was a slow, wet, aching kiss that left me wanting so much more.
I’d kissed girls before. But this was different. Aspen was different. She was the perfect girl for me.
After we parted, she gave me one of her secret sexy grins then opened the front door. Before she went inside, she said, “I’ll see you soon, Caden.”
“When?” I responded eagerly.
She shrugged then stepped inside and shut the door. I wanted to follow her, beg her to see me tomorrow, but instead I turned and headed back to the car. The saying ‘quit while you’re ahead’ played over and over in my mind.
Once inside the vehicle, I started it and stared at her house for a minute longer, hoping to see her framed in the window looking out at me. I just wanted one more look at her. The sudden feeling that she was going to disappear from my life churned in my gut.
“Dude,” Dan drawled from the backseat. “You’re in deep trouble.”
“I know.” Sighing, I pulled away from the curb.
Dina was worried about Aspen dating after dark, about the dangers out there, when she should’ve been concerned about the really dangerous thing that had just happened on the front porch of her house. Sure exorcisms were risky, life-threatening even, so for us falling in love was a natural disaster just waiting to happen.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a prequel to the full Caden Butcher novel Demon Whisperer, now available in ebook and print at Amazon, B&N and other retailers. Stay tuned for another exciting Caden Butcher adventure in America’s Next Top Zombie, to be released July 2012.
***
Tawny Stokes has always been a writer. From an early age, she’d spin tales of serial killers in love, vampires taking over the world, and sometimes about fluffy bunnies turned bunnicidal maniacs. An honour student in high school, with a penchant for math and English, you’d never know it by the foot high blue Mohawk and Doc Martens, which often got her into trouble. No longer a Mohawk wearer, Tawny still enjoys old school punk rock, trance, zombie movies, teen horror films, and fluffy bunnies. She lives in Canada with her fantastical daughter, two cats, and spends most of her time creating new stories for teens. Tawny also writes adult paranormal/urban fantasy fiction under the name Vivi Anna, and is an aspiring screenwriter. For more info, please visit www.tawnystokes.com
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Sometime
By
Alicia Street
“You mean you haven’t told your parents about your job at the museum?”
“It’s only my mom and me. And, no, I haven’t told her. For some stupid reason she doesn’t want me working there.”
“Really? But it’ll look so good on your college applications.”
I shrug. “She just has these weird ideas about what I should or shouldn’t do. But it’s cool because I’ll be able to get home each day before she finishes work.”
Sarah bites her lip. Like she’s never done anything without telling her parents?
Now I’m sorry I opened up to this girl I only met once in study hall. I let the conversation die and stare out the bus window at the Philadelphia streets.
The May afternoon is a bright, sunny one. Or maybe it just looks brighter because something I want so badly is actually happening.
The bus stops at Thirty-fourth Street and I leap off, my stomach churning. Straightening the cuff of my jeans and smoothing out the wrinkles in my layered tees, I walk through a wrought iron gate into a landscaped garden complete with manicured hedges, stone satyr, and oblong lily pond, and into a building that’s housed
University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology since the late 1800s.
The lady at the reception desk calls Ms. Cresley, who hired me. “Go ahead to the gift shop. The young man who’ll be your supervisor is waiting for you.”
I climb the broad marble stairs to the second floor. Yeah, it’s only a job in the gift shop, but it means I’ll be a few steps away from all those mosaics and bas reliefs and terra cotta figurines and silk tapestries and . . .
I stop short when I see who’s standing behind the shop counter. OMG. Is he my supervisor?
It’s Jerrod Pierce. I watch him keying something into the cash register. My knees go wobbly. He’s new in town, and every girl in school is talking about him because he is way gorgeous. His dark, long hair is tied at the nape of his neck today, showing off the painfully perfect angles of his face.
He must sense me staring because he looks up, directly at me. His onyx eyes send an electric jolt through me. I shiver. Then try to hide it by forcing out, “Hello, Jerrod.”
That was dumb. Sounds like I’m pretending I know him. For one thing, he’s a senior and I’m only a sophomore. Plus, in the short time he’s been at Central High the buzz about his outrageous athletic talent has earned him a big rep.
“You’re Terry Conn.”
At first I’m shocked that he knows the name of an unpopular loser like me. But then I remember Ms. Cresley probably told him. “Um, yes. That’s me.”
Jerrod smiles and it nearly takes my breath away. How am I going to do this? It won’t work. I consider making up some bogus reason for quitting. Except, I’ve been trying to get a job here for so long.
“Jerrod Pierce,” he says, as if I wouldn’t know. He leads me around the shop and storeroom, pointing out the different sections. He shows me how to log in items that need to be unpacked, how to shelve them, and how to work the cash register. I listen really hard, but the only “how” that seems to be sinking in is how it feels to have a guy this droolworthy standing so close.
I keep making mistakes and get more and more frustrated. What is wrong with me? I like cute guys as much as anybody, but I’ve never met one who made me act so stupid. But as I wallow in my mortification, imagining Jerrod telling everyone at school what a dork I am, he reaches out and — holds my hand!
I don’t move a hair for fear of obliterating this incredibly magnificent moment. Jerrod Pierce is actually holding my hand and looking at me with those amazing eyes.
“Chill, Terry,” he says. “You don’t have to learn it all today.”
Chill? I’m ready to melt into his arms. So it’s a good thing he leaves me in the storeroom to unpack boxes. Alone.
My IQ, which happens to be pretty high, begins functioning again. Until five thirty when Jerrod walks into the storeroom. I avoid looking at him so I won’t trip over my feet.
The shop always closes a half hour before the rest of the museum, and the main reason I wanted this job was so I could buzz around afterward. So when Jerrod tells me I am finished, I head for the gallery displaying stuff from ancient Sumer. Stuff that my dad studied when he was alive.
I wander past Lady Puabi’s headdress. Steles of the first law codes. A mosaic of abalone and lapis lazuli. Glass cases of beaded jewelry, stone vessels and tools.
“So you like ancient history.”
I jump, turning to see Jerrod walking toward me. “Um, yeah.”
“I’ll be studying all that here next year.”
“You got into Penn?”
He nods.
“Cool.” I’m proud that my dad used to teach here, and I almost tell Jerrod. But then I’d have to explain that he died when I was two years old and I hardly even remember him. Except I sometimes wonder if that’s the reason I’m drawn to this place. But that wouldn’t explain the dreams I have.
Jerrod’s dark eyes study
me. My cheeks go red. I run a nervous hand through my hair. My thick, mahogany curls are the only part of me I really like. He seems to be waiting for more. I force myself to say something. “My fave thing is reading about mythologies from ancient cultures.”
Of course, Mom tells me I should be dating instead. Or going to parties with friends. But since I never get invited anywhere I figure I can at least go to exciting places in my head.
“Mine, too,” Jerrod says. And he starts talking about the Sumerians, the Egyptians the Minoans. I’m impressed with how much he knows, but on these subjects I’ve got plenty to add. All of a sudden we’re deep into a discussion about gods and kings and mythical creatures. And I’m not even stumbling over my words like I usually do.
We stroll the gallery looking into the glass cases filled with clay tablets written in cuneiform. The room is filled with figurines and plaques. Like one that catches my eye. A reproduction of an ancient mosaic. A wingless dragon that looks kind of like a dinosaur dog. “Isn’t that one called a mushrushu?” I say to Jerrod.
But my gaze stays glued to the creature. In fact, I find I can’t look away. And while I think I hear Jerrod saying there are several names for this creature, my ears fill up with sounds of rain and thunder. Everything around me seems to get fuzzy, colors blurring. I wonder if my blood sugar is plummeting because I haven’t eaten since lunch.
Suddenly images flash through her mind. A woman with sea-green hair. And memories of soaring through a piercing blue sky while looking down on a city with winding streets and tightly packed, dun colored buildings.
Did I say memories? No, this is . . .
I sway and grip the glass case.
“Are you all right, Terry?”
“Just dizzy.”
I glance at him and it’s like going from the frying pan into the fire. But what a fire it is. His eyes lock onto mine and I sense this megawatt surge of some of, of . . . I’m not sure what. The word power comes to me. Or euphoria? All I know is I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life.
And I can swear Jerrod is feeling the same thing.
“Oh, there you are, Jerrod. And Terry.” Ms. Cresley walks into the room. “How did it go?”
Jerrod falls into such an easy and lucid conversation with Ms. Cresley that I’m wondering if what just happened between us was wishful thinking on my part.
Whatever. Mudded and confused, I still know one thing. I’ve got to get home before my mom does. I mumble my thanks and move toward the exit.
“See you tomorrow,” Jerrod says as I pass, and he touches my arm. I’m not sure if the warm and tingly buzz it sends through me is because I think he’s hot, or because there’s something strange about him.
I stand at the bus stop and can’t help squeeing the tiniest bit, wishing I had a best friend to tell about my encounter with Jerrod Pierce. His fingers brushing my arm. The way he held my hand. And his eyes. Could he actually like me? Or was it just pity for a dorky sixteen-year-old?
I think about those strange images that flashed through my mind when I looked at the dragon figurine. Was it just my blood sugar?
Which reminded me of a text Mom left me earlier, telling me to take a pack of chicken out of the freezer as soon as I get home from school so it’ll be ready to cook by the time she . . . oh no. I give up waiting for the bus and cross Thirty-fourth Street at a jog.
My mother would have a bird, especially with all the robbery-turned-murder stories around some of the not-so-great neighborhoods I have to pass through. Which is why I don’t use my iPod earbuds. But aside from inhaling auto fumes and garbage smells, it refreshes my head, gets me out of the muddled state that overwhelmed me at the museum. Running is another love of mine, a thing I can do all alone, letting my mind go off into the stratosphere.
The trip home is an easy two-mile sprint across the bridge to Center City and straight down South Street to Eighth and Kater. Aside from the newer high-rises near city hall, Philadelphia isn’t a tall city. And certainly not where I live in Bella Vista, an Italian neighborhood that’s more mixed than it used to be. When I see a white lightbox sign reading: Marini’s Pizza, I slow to a walk. Home turf.
The scent of melted cheese makes my stomach growl. It also gives me a solution to the chicken I never took out of the freezer for dinner.
I pull open the glass door. Cheryl Quigley, Central High’s answer to Rachel McAdams sits at one of the orange plastic tables just inside the entrance with her two-girl posse. And here I am with my hair a frizzed out mess and my tee all sweaty from my run.
Can I make it to the counter without being publicly insulted? Halfway there I get my answer.
“Yo, Terry. Soup kitchen’s at the church up on Seventeenth. You know, same place you get your clothes.”
Her posse laughs like it’s the funniest thing they’ve heard all week. Or maybe it is. Maybe I am that big a joke to them.
I look right at Cheryl, determined to surprise her with a comeback. I think of all the snarky lines I’ve rehearsed over and over in my bedroom, promising myself I’d someday get one out of my idiot mouth. But as usual my voice freezes.
Cheryl looks back at me as if she’s a hair from getting out of her chair should I dare to answer her back. I’m reduced by my fear. I set my palm on the counter and feel a warm hand pat the top of mine. I meet eyes with Leon the owner. His salt and pepper colored beard is neatly trimmed. The lines on his face scrunch together as he smiles. “Don’t pay attention to them,” he says. “Want the usual?”
“Please.”
“Here or to go?”
“Delivered, please?”
“You got it. Twenty-five minutes.”
I pay him and turn to leave. As I pass by Cheryl’s table something gets between my feet. Then comes that awful feeling of sailing face down onto the floor. Hands outstretched, I catch myself an instant before my nose hits the tile. Next, a cold, wet deluge of soda drenches my head. I can taste it in my mouth as it runs down my cheeks. Hoots and hollers cheer on the deed.
Cheryl sneers down at me and walks away.
A pair of hands lifts me up. Leon. “You all right?” he asks. I nod. He points his finger at Cheryl and her two partners in crime. “Get out. And don’t you come back.”
The three of them swagger their way to the door. Cheryl turns and says, “My Dad could buy and sell this dump and not even feel it. And as for you, Terry, you’re marked, girl. You’re on my list. Got that? Till next time, loser.”
“Parents today. Raising brats like that,” Leon says.
He walks me to the door, where I wait until the coast is clear. I thank him and go home to await our pizza, even though I’ve just about lost my appetite.
I unlock the door of a two-story, brick row house on Kater Street. Walter, our aging tabby, assaults me with demanding meows, following me through the dark, cluttered living room to the small kitchen in back.
After feeding Walter and grabbing a swig of milk, I sprint upstairs, tug off my grubby clothes, and under the pounding spray of the shower I belt out my cover of “Defying Gravity.” I go into one of my corny Broadway fantasies, picturing myself onstage in New York, L.A., London — anywhere but here in my loser life.
My voice doesn’t fail me when I sing. I never go mute or stumble over words or stutter. I fly.
Toweling off, I smirk at my mirror image. Too skinny. No boobs. No wonder guys never look at me. Unless they’re staring at the hideous, blue birthmark on my ankle.
But Jerrod looked at me.
Yeah, and if he mentions my name at school tomorrow to any of the other sophomores he’ll find out what a freak loner I am, and that’ll be the end of it.
In my room I march past posters of Dawn Harper, Robert Pattinson and the Treasures of Ur Exhibit and slip into comfy sweat pants and a clean tee. With about fifteen minutes until both pizza and Mom arrive, I decide to make a quick check through Dad’s books for the mushrushu.
I dart into the small room that used to be my father’s study. My m
other keeps business papers there, but seldom uses it. After working all day as a paralegal, she just likes to veg-out in front of the TV.
The study is a sad, but cozy place with my father’s beaten up maple desk and his reading recliner with worn upholstery. He died fourteen years ago, and even though we’ve changed the house around a few times, Mom would never alter anything here. She gets kind of upset when I delve into in my dad’s stuff, so I try to do it before she gets home.
In my rush, I climb a stool and reach for the book I want on a high shelf, creating a tumbling avalanche of books and papers. Even an old rosewood tea box falls to the floor. I hop down and start gathering things. That’s when I see the bundle of papers held together with one of those old skool metal clips.
It’s labeled “Terry.”
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I peruse photocopies of newspaper articles about “The Cuneiform Baby.” And about Richard Conn, the University Of Pennsylvania professor who’d found the infant abandoned in the school’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. How he’d waited weeks and weeks while the state had searched for any sign of a relative. And when none came, he and his wife, Maribeth, had adopted the baby girl.
Just then I hear the front doorbell. Fuming, I spring to my feet and stomp down the stairs. I mean, how much weird crap can a girl take in one day?
Mom arrives on the tails of the pizza delivery guy. I can tell she’s tired, but right now I don’t care. As soon as she steps into the living room, I hand her the stack of papers.
“This is me, isn’t it?”
Mom frowns and shakes her head. “I never hid the fact that you were adopted.”
“No, but you also never told me I was a foundling. A homeless baby dumped in the museum.”
“I didn’t want you to think of yourself—”
“As the daughter of some drug addict who threw me in the trash?”
“Terry . . .”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
Mom sighs and drops onto our ugly green-and-gray sofa.
I continue. “This is why you don’t want me working at the Penn Museum. Because people there know about me.”
“Only some. The older ones who were around when Richard found you.”