We walked the rest of the way in silence. Parkview was a pretty small place. I’d been to a party a few times in this general area. It was nice. Suburban. Mostly cute houses with well-manicured lawns and tacky plastic animals playing sentry.
As we approached Cole Oster’s address, the neighborhood darkened. The homes became dreary and run down. Cole lived in a dilapidated, blue Cape Cod at the end of a cul-de-sac called Last Chance Lane. The name, like the house, didn’t fill me with confidence. We made our way up the rickety steps and knocked on the door. After several moments, a short, balding man somewhere in his late forties popped his head out. “Yes?”
“Are you Cole Oster?”
“Who wants to know?” he snapped.
“Misha Vaugn gave us your name. We’re looking for the Reaper.”
“Go away.” He slammed the door in our faces.
I knocked again, this time harder. When he didn’t answer, I began kicking at the door with my right foot. “The longer we stand on your front step, the better the chance of Denazen finding us here. Do you really want Denazen dropping by for tea, Mr. Oster?”
That changed his mind. No more than a minute later, the locks on the door jiggled, and he pulled it open. “Hurry up and get inside.” As we stepped in, he mumbled something about having a very stern conversation with Misha in the near future. “I’m not inviting you to sit, so make it fast.”
I looked past the hallway and into the living room. Scattered takeout containers, beer cans, and plates—all with various stages of mold growth—greeted me. “Well, then let me thank you.” I waved at a fly. It was one of many buzzing over my head. Maybe I was wrong. There was a very real possibility that the smell emanating from Cole Oster’s home would be enough to keep Denazen at bay. “This place is disgusting.”
“Did you come here to insult me?”
“Where can we find the Reaper?” Kale asked.
“I haven’t seen him in years.” Cole wandered across the hall to the living room. Picking up a questionable-looking piece of cheese, he took a bite. I bit back a gag.
“But you have seen him?” I said, hope swelling inside my chest.
Cole gave me an offhanded wave and wandered back into the hall. “Of course I’ve seen him.” He hesitated. “Well, I’ve spoken to him, anyway.”
“Spoken to him?”
“More like written to him.”
He’d written to him? Like what, Santa Claus? “Let’s go, Kale. This is a waste of time.”
We turned to leave, but Cole called to us. “Wait. What do you want with him?”
“Denazen is holding my mom prisoner. Since he’s supposed to be the only one to get out alive, I need his help to save her.”
“I’ll tell you what I know, but don’t get too excited. It isn’t much.”
“Anything you have will be helpful since we’ve got zilch,” I said, looking for a clean spot on the wall to lean. There wasn’t one. I’d never rib Brandt about being a slob again.
“The last I heard, he—” Cole stopped mid-sentence. He looked from Kale to me, face going from confused to horrified. Eyes wide, he spread his arms to reveal a slowly spreading stain, bright red, in the middle of his chest. He sputtered something I couldn’t quite understand and fell to his knees. I dove to catch him, grabbing his shoulder right before he hit the ground. “Ale…”
“We need to go,” Kale said.
Cole gasped for air. “Alex Mo—”
Kale tried to wrestle me from the ground but I pulled away and gripped Cole’s stained Metallica T-shirt in my fists. “Alex who?”
A tremor shook him, ending in a body-wracking cough. He sucked in a shallow breath. “Alex Mojourn,” he rasped, eyes closing and chest falling still.
“Alex Mojourn?” I stammered, releasing his shirt. Kale yanked me to my feet and dragged me toward the exit, which was a good twelve feet away. “Did he say Alex Mojourn?”
The door exploded inward, sending bits and pieces of wood rocketing in every direction. The Denazen flunkies stomped in, armed with tranq guns.
“Down,” Kale shouted, and everything slowed.
He wrapped his arm around my waist and spun me away from the front door. We took one step, and the room ahead exploded in a barrage of suits and chaos. Something flew at us. Kale’s hand moved up my back and trailed along my spine. His touch was anything but urgent. It skimmed, feather light, stopping between my shoulders. With a single push, he sent me forward, to the floor. I felt the object—another damn dart—disturb the air above my hair, but sail harmlessly by. It smacked against the wall and thumped to the floor with a tiny clink. The duffle slipped from my hand as I reached for the dart. As a last resort, maybe I could use it to help get us out of there.
They were at our front and back now, like at Curd’s house, only their numbers had increased. A lot. There were at least five in front of us, and I didn’t dare look behind. This was the kind of thing you saw in the movies. It didn’t happen in real life.
They held their ground, the ones wearing the protective leotards pushing to the front.
“We’re so screwed,” I whispered. To our right, the small living room opened up to the hallway we were standing in, and had a single closed door at the other end. I didn’t know where it led or if it was locked—or if we’d even make it there before they overtook us. We were trapped.
One of them came forward. Kale’s reaction was instant. His right hand snaked out, arcing with lightning speed and connecting with the man’s chest. With a strangled cough, he gasped for air and collapsed at our feet. Kale slammed his foot down with frightening force, stopping a fraction of an inch from his attacker’s jaw.
Eyes wide, he whispered, “Please…”
Kale made a low noise in the back of his throat. He turned away and snatched the bag from the floor. His hand found mine and, one step at a time, he backed us into the living room. He must have seen the door too, because we were edging our way toward it.
Before I could blink, Kale had the door open and with a sharp tug on my arm, pulled me through. In one quick swoop, he locked the door behind us and we were flying up a dark staircase. It bought us a few precious seconds, but I had no delusions a simple locked door would hamper these men for long.
I lost my footing for a second and reached out to grip the railing. The dart slipped from my grasp. It clattered to the floor and tumbled down the stairs, bouncing when it hit the landing. Crap. I made a move to retrieve it, but Kale pulled my arm and kept us moving forward.
We reached the top of the stairs and had a choice—a room on either side. Kale didn’t hesitate. He made a sharp right turn and swept us in. Without as much as a three-second pause, he went to the window, pried it open, and knocked out the screen.
A loud bang rose from the door downstairs. They’d broken through.
I made a beeline for the open window, but Kale stopped me. He pressed a finger to his lips and dragged me to the closet on the other side of the room. We tucked ourselves in and quietly closed the door as feet pounded up the stairwell, and within seconds, tromped across the floor.
“Get people outside, now!” one of them yelled. More rushing feet, then silence.
I didn’t dare make a move to open the door. My pulse thundered in my ears and a cool wave of panic washed over me. Still. We just needed to stay perfectly still. After a few minutes, I began to relax. Kale leaned forward, shifting my hair to the side, and rubbed his cheek against mine. Not the kind of nuzzle a guy would try when fishing for a kiss—different. Innocent. But that didn’t change my reaction to it. Forget the footsteps downstairs and the yelling outside. I was hyper-aware of Kale standing behind me, breath disturbing the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. I needed to explain personal boundaries to him.
After a few minutes, he slid around me and cracked open the closet door. All clear. We
crept to the window and, one leg at a time, climbed out onto the roof of the attached garage. We dropped to our knees and crawled on all fours to the edge. Peeking over, I saw there were still a few men milling about, but the bulk of them seemed to have dissipated.
“Do you think you can make it to the hood of that van?” Kale asked, pointing to a rusting old white VW van beneath us.
I nodded.
“I’ll go first. I can catch you.”
I didn’t tell him I was in no need of catching.
Lowering himself down, he hit the top of the van with a soft but audible thud. Immediately, he dropped to his stomach and peered over the edge to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. Once satisfied the coast was clear, he waved to me.
I peaked over the edge. The van was doable, but like Kale, I’d make a sound when hitting it. He hadn’t noticed, but two Denazen men had rounded the corner right after he dropped down. Chances were, they weren’t within earshot, but it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
Kale waved again. I pointed to the front of the house where the two men stood, watching the street. His lips twisted into an annoyed frown. When he looked back at me, I motioned for him to stay put and disappeared over the edge. A quick scan through the window and into the room told me there was nothing I could use as a makeshift rope. There were no curtains on the window and the bed had been stripped. I’d have to drop down into the grass and hope for the best.
Back to the edge, I scanned the yard a final time and saw the men were still in the same position. I caught Kale’s attention and pointed to the grass behind the van. He nodded and slid off the van roof.
I gripped the outer edge of the roof and lowered myself down. After a second, I let go. The fall was short, but the landing still jarred a bit. Nothing like the skateboard off the barn, though.
We stepped away from the garage and started around the house, but I was paying more attention to what was going on behind us than in front. I ran right into a pair of garbage cans. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d been the plastic kind—but that would have been too easy. These were the good old-fashioned metal ones, complete with toppling lids that danced and clattered when they hit the concrete.
Shouts from the front of the house told us we’d been caught.
“Hurry,” Kale hissed as he dragged me along. I tried my best to keep up, but his legs were longer.
They were behind us—I didn’t need to look back to know that. We cut through Cole’s yard, hopping the fence and landing in a patch of his neighbor’s flowers. Stumbling forward, we were out and running, jumping over toys left strewn about their yard. Just beyond us, a thick patch of forest waited. If we could make it, we might be able to lose them.
Kale paused, looking to his left, then right. “This way,” he said, breathing barely labored. Me on the other hand, I was gasping for air. Note to self—join a gym.
We made it to the middle of the lawn and skidded to a stop behind an aboveground pool. The smell of chlorine mingling with fresh-cut grass made my nose itch.
“If we head into the woods, we can lose them,” I urged.
Kale peered around the edge of the pool, sighing. “I know what those men are capable of. I know what they’ll do to get me back. If I run, they will follow. It will allow you to escape.”
Anger bubbled in my chest. “We went through this at the bus stop. There’s no way I’m walking away from this. Not if my mom is out there. Plus, someone needs to make my dad pay for what he’s done. You could have bailed to save yourself, but you stayed. No way am I ditching you now. We’re in this together. All the way.”
Kale was quiet for a moment. With one last peek, he nodded. “Let’s go then.”
We began to inch away from the side of the pool when the brush in front of us started to rustle and shake. “Crap!” I flattened myself against the wall of the pool, thinking they had us surrounded again for sure, but what stepped out from the brush wasn’t a man in a suit—or a leotard. In fact, it wasn’t a man at all.
A scream caught in my throat.
Kale regarded the party’s new guest with clinical interest—not fear. “Is that a—”
“Bear!” I squeezed his arm, trying to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Hold. “It’s a frigging bear!”
7
“It looks much bigger than in the Encyclopedia,” Kale said, leaning forward a bit. For a second, I thought he was going to reach out and touch the thing. “Maybe it won’t see us.”
“Won’t see us? It’s staring right at us! Look at its face! It’s thinking about a tasty afternoon snack!” This was the fourth one I’d seen in two weeks. Parkview really had to do something about the growing bear population. Pretty soon they’d be taking over.
The bear ambled forward a few steps, making a loud keening sound. It was about four feet away when the Denazen men rounded the corner of the pool. One of them let out a loud yelp—Denazen must have picked these guys for their bravery—(not)—causing the bear to look from us to them. The man in front, obviously clueless about how to deal with a bear, fired his tranq gun at the large animal. The dart hit the bear in the shoulder. Idiot. One tranq dart was not going to take down a bear. It was only going to piss it off. Letting out a roar, the bear rose onto its back legs, swatting paws tipped with wicked long claws at the men.
That was our chance. With their attention on the bear, I grabbed Kale’s hand and darted into the woods. Shouts behind us told me we were still being followed, but I was hoping we’d gotten enough of a head start to put some distance between us.
We ran. Kale nimbly dodging bushes and low hanging branches—me, not so much. Several times I stumbled, only to have Kale catch me at the last minute. His reflexes were insane. We came to the edge of the woods, stopping for only a fraction of a second before sprinting across the road to Parkview Mall.
“It’s crowded in there. They won’t be able to make a scene.” I started forward, but Kale hesitated. “What’s wrong?”
He looked down at his hands and shook his head. “It’s too risky.”
“Your skin is mostly covered. Unless you plan on rubbing your face on people, we’ll be fine.”
He still didn’t look sure.
“I promise, we’ll be careful.” I took his hand and squeezed. “I’ll make sure you don’t hurt anyone.”
After another moment, he nodded, and we speed-walked through the entrance. A woman at the perfume kiosk spritzed customers as they walked by, trying to sucker them into spending their hard-earned cash. As we approached and she held up the bottle, ready to attack, I said, “If you want to keep your fingers, put down the bottle.”
She mumbled something about mall security and turned to pounce on the next customer.
When we rounded the corner of the main drag, I took a second to check behind us. Two of the suits were just entering the building. School had officially ended last week, so while not as crowded as a weekend, there were still a fair number of bodies.
But they still saw us.
“Move!” I pushed Kale ahead and we took off into the crowd. Surging forward, he pulled his sleeves down over the tips of his fingers for extra protection. We ducked into the first store we came to—Victoria’s Secret. I grabbed a teddy from a rack and pulled Kale into the back by the dressing rooms. After a few seconds, I poked my head around the corner. One of the Denazen guys passed, peeking into the storefront as he went. He walked by without coming in.
“One down,” I said, turning to Kale. He wasn’t paying attention. His gaze was fixed on the red silk baby doll in my hand.
“What is this?” he asked, rubbing the satiny material between his fingers.
“Clothes,” I said. “For women.”
His eyes widened. “Girls wear this?”
“Yeah, but usually not for long,” I chuckled.
Kale turned a
s red as the teddy. “Are you going to wear this now?”
“Umm. No,” I said, blushing.
He seemed a little disappointed and I stifled a laugh.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. Maybe we can double back and hit the exit without being seen.”
Of course, that plan failed miserably. No sooner did we step from the shop than the other suit walked by. We stopped and eyed each other. It was easy to see he didn’t know what to do. Lunge for us and make a scene? Or let us walk away and follow.
“Kid,” he said. “You have no idea what you’re getting involved in. This person is a murderer.”
I adjusted my grip on Brandt’s duffle bag, the straps digging into my palm. Swinging the bag at him was tempting, but it wouldn’t do nearly enough damage. A few feet away there was a toy kiosk. Waddling back and forth on the floor was a radio-controlled robot roughly the same size as the duffle. It was probably heavier—which meant more damage—but I couldn’t use it. Not in this crowd. “He’s a murderer because you people made him that way. Something tells me you’re more dangerous to me than he is.”
He took a step forward, and I smiled.
“One more step and I’ll scream my head off that you grabbed my ass. You might be able to talk your way out of it—after a few minutes. We’ll be long gone by then though.”
The man frowned. “Your father is worried about you.”
Somewhere in the closed-off, dark corner of my soul, I wanted it to be true. I ached for it—to be Dad’s sunshine smile girl again. But I wasn’t. And I never would be. He’d turned me into his big nightmare walking—the bane of his existence. Now all that was left was for him to reap the benefits. “Maybe he should have thought about that when he lied about my mom.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
I shrugged and took a step back. “Wouldn’t be the first, and definitely wouldn’t be the worst. Ask my dad, I’ve had a few doozies.”