TOUCH
A Reaper Novella, Book 1
JENNIFER SNYDER
TOUCH
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Snyder
Cover Design by Once Upon a Time Covers
CHOICE
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Snyder
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Chapter One
Glimmering black feathers and beady little eyes that never seemed to move from me—that was what flashed through my mind seconds before the blue truck clipped my car—images of the watchful crows from my backyard.
The crows, which had stalked the twisted, bare branches behind my house for days, watching me as though they knew something I didn’t and were waiting for me to figure it all out.
I slammed my foot on the brake pedal in a foolish attempt to stop my car, knowing it was beyond too late for that; impact was seconds away, teasing me in the distance.
The three crows fluttered through my mind again. I remembered vividly how the darkness of their feathers stood out drastically against the powder-white snow below and the endless gray sky above. This was the last image to fill my mind before the sound of metal crunching against metal and shattering glass forced all other thoughts away.
My air bag deployed, snapping my head back as my car continued to slide across the icy blacktop in perfect uncontrollable circles. At some point I closed my eyes, giving in to the darkness which feathered my vision, letting it swallow me whole.
I came to, slumped over the steering wheel, dazed and disoriented, with the front of my car neatly tucked into the snowy folds of a ditch. Sirens began to fill the eerie stillness that surrounded me, while an array of flashing lights bounced off the sheet of snow that had replaced my windshield, blinding me.
My driver’s side door opened with a groan and the shadowy figure of a man took its place.
“Miss, are you okay?” he asked.
The word yes formed in my mind, but I couldn’t be sure of whether or not it found its way to my lips.
“You’re lucky you were wearing your seat belt; the kid in the truck wasn’t,” the man said while moving to lean across me. “I’m just going to unbuckle you.”
I felt the release of my seat belt as gravity slumped me forward, crushing my ribs against the steering wheel.
“Can you walk?” the man asked, seeming kind and concerned.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said, my voice sounding strangely far away and not my own.
“Lean on me; I’ll help you.” He was insistent.
“How is she?” Another voice from somewhere in the darkness asked. A female.
“A little disoriented, possible concussion, but no broken bones as far as I can tell,” the man helping me replied.
A tall, slender female stepped to my side. “I’ll take a look.”
I walked with them toward the back of an ambulance, my mind caked in a thick fog. They seated me on a stretcher with wheels and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
“That was some accident you were in back there,” the female paramedic said. “My name’s Claire; what’s yours?”
“Rowan—Rowan Harper,” I answered, sounding far more calm than I felt.
“Rowan; that’s a pretty name.” She smiled.
“Thanks.”
“I’m going to hold a finger up and I want you to follow it for me,” Claire said.
I tracked her finger with my eyes and let her poke and prod at my face.
“Well, I think you’re going to be just fine. Does your neck hurt at all?”
“No, not really,” I admitted while she gently rolled my head from side to side.
“Good.” She smiled. “You’ve got a slight gash above your brow here.” She touched it with an alcohol-drenched piece of gauze, and I winced. “And your nose might end up being a little swollen and tender for the next few days, but I don’t think it’s broken.”
I could already feel a dull, pulsating pain in my nose and wondered how swollen it would be by tonight.
“You sure are one lucky girl; your injuries could have been far worse,” Claire said.
I forced a slight smile and tried to sound grateful. “I know.”
“Is there anyone we could call to come get you, a parent maybe?” she asked.
I heard Claire’s question, but my eyes had traveled past her to the chaotic scene in front of me. I didn’t know how I had missed him before; walking up the bank to the back of the ambulance I had to have walked directly past him. All that mattered now, though, was that I’d noticed him.
A guy with bright red, curly hair lay flat on his back across the iced-over asphalt. His chest heaved while his lungs visibly struggled for every breath he took. I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“Rowan, honey, is there a number you’d like me to call for you?” Claire asked, rephrasing her question.
My dad’s cell number absentmindedly fumbled from my lips while I continued to stare at the guy with red curls whose face I couldn’t turn away from. Bits of glass had lodged themselves at odd angles in his forehead and thin rivers of blood trickled to the asphalt.
A paramedic kneeling beside the red-headed guy yelled, “We’re losing him!”
My throat tightened and my heart pounded against my rib cage. My eyes fixated on the guy, along with every other person standing along the sidelines, watching helplessly as three paramedics struggled to save his life. In the commotion my view became obstructed and I began to frantically search the faces of each person hovering around him for any sign of relief.
And that was when I first noticed him.
A complete stranger, who couldn’t have been much older than myself, standing beside the paramedic who knelt at the dying guy’s head. His expression was one of utter calmness as he gazed down at the mangled, bloody face I’d seen moments before. As strange as I found his expression to be, it was not what caught my attention and held it.
I stared because no one else seemed to notice him at all.
The longer my eyes lingered on him, the more I noticed how incredibly out of place he was, standing there unmoving, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, just staring. I took in his disheveled dark hair which was cut short and his creamy complexion that looked smooth to the touch. He was striking and dressed all in black—a crisp, black, button-up shirt tucked in to black slacks—everything free of wrinkles. Even his scuffed-up Converse sneakers, poking from underneath his pressed slacks, were black.
I stared, captivated, as the dark-haired boy bent down in one fluid motion. I couldn’t see why until a person shifted slightly to their right, which was when I realized he’d moved to touch the tip of his extended middle finger to the dying guy’s forehead
. From where I sat, I could see the boy close his eyes. As he did, the dying guy’s body shuddered and then became still, as though his final breath had been forced out of him by a single touch.
“We’ve lost him!” a paramedic shouted, confirming my thought.
My jaw went slack as I watched a see-through image of the now-dead guy step out of himself. A startled noise escaped my mouth and the dark-haired boy’s eyes shifted directly to mine. Even with the distance between us I still was able to make out how incredibly blue they were—an icy, sapphire-blue that would have frozen me in place had I not already been.
A stunned expression swept across his face, but was gone as quickly as it had formed. He stood and placed a hand on the see-through image’s shoulder, and then they both vanished. I stared into the space the boy had occupied until my vision blurred.
Movement on the snow-covered grass to my right caught my attention—three crows had congregated on the sidelines at some point during all of the commotion, and I’d only now spotted them.
My eyes zeroed in on their glossy black feathers and beady little watchful eyes, knowing that something about them held the key to what I’d just witnessed and why. Questions branched out from this thought, crowding my mind and turning it into a tangled mess I could easily become caught in.
“Rowan?” A familiar voice was calling me, forcing me to recoil from the ever-thickening forest of questions in my mind.
“Dad!” I shouted in an effort to better help him find me.
“Oh good,” Claire said. “I was wondering when he’d manage to get here.”
“You and me both,” I muttered under my breath.
“Rowan.” Dad honestly looked happy to see me for the first time since my mother died. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“Is she?” Dad asked, shifting his gaze to Claire.
Claire smiled. “Yes, I think she’ll be fine. She’s got a little gash above her brow, but not bad enough to need stitches. Her nose is going to be swollen and tender for a few days and her neck, along with other areas, may also become sore. I recommend she take some Ibuprofen every four to six hours or as needed.”
“Okay, I’m pretty sure we have some at home. Thank you,” Dad said.
“No problem. There are some things to watch for, though. If she experiences any dizziness or problems with her vision such as spots or blurriness, you should take her to the ER immediately,” Claire said, informing us of potential complications.
I wondered if seeing a dead person’s ghost step out of its body fell under either of those categories, but thought better of asking. A thought occurred to me then—maybe my mother hadn’t been crazy after all, because if she had been, then so was I.
Chapter Two
Three days passed and I began to question the reality of what I’d seen, doubting the unrealistic truth of it all. More snow had fallen, trapping me between the walls of my house until it melted and school resumed as normal. It was a welcome torment, though, caused by Mother Nature, one which allowed me to heal my various aches and pains away from the curious and incredibly judgmental eyes of my peers. It also enabled me to avoid the string of never-ending questions asked by those who truly couldn’t care less about my answer.
Dad’s questions about how I was feeling, devoid of concern and sympathy, were enough.
Life had returned to normal the very next day in the Harper household. There were no hugs and kisses or specially-made, home-cooked meals to show how glad anyone was I had survived. This was because my mother had ended her life five months ago, and, to be perfectly honest, my dad should have ended his right alongside her. Since then, he’d barely even looked at me. Ever since my mother’s suicide, our house had felt as bitterly cold and gloomy as a moonless night in the dead of winter.
People had often told me I looked just like my mother, Salene Harper, but I’d never believed them until after she was gone, when I realized my dad couldn’t even look at me anymore because I reminded him too much of her. We shared the same ebony-colored hair, bright green eyes, olive complexion, and petite slender frame.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon and I sat perched on the steps off my back porch, attempting to capture the haunting gaze of the crows that had congregated in my backyard. For whatever reason, my charcoals and sketch pad just weren’t doing it. I’d been sitting outside for so long my butt had grown numb and the coldness of the winter storm had begun to seep its way into my bones.
I pulled a fresh Q-tip from my wooden art box and lightly smudged along the bold black lines of charcoal I’d just stroked, adding depth to my picture. I’d spent hours drawing the crows, adding more detail into their feathers and perfecting the sheen of their eyes. I knew they were important in some way, I just couldn’t figure out how. Their presence held a meaning, making them symbolic of something, but what? And what did it have to do with me?
I picked up a dark brown charcoal and began adding long, thick lines into the branches of the trees I’d drawn for a more realistic look. I glanced up to compare the Gothic Edgar Allen Poe scene in front of me to the one I’d mimicked on a textured, cream-colored page, and that’s when I became aware of him. His stare must have gone unnoticed because of the four sets of watchful eyes already on me—but there he was, the same dark-haired boy dressed all in black from the night of the accident.
He stood at the edge of my yard, leaning against an old oak which had been dead for years, watching me in an unabashed way. Even holding my gaze, his cheeks never reddened and he remained eerily still and silent. A flurry of snowflakes began falling and a whistling wind blew across my face as I continued to meet his gaze. My eyes watered, but I refused to blink, afraid that if I did he’d disappear.
“Who are you?” I breathed the words, barely above a whisper.
A smirk formed on his face as though he’d somehow heard my question and found it to be amusing in some way. Another sharp gust of wind stung my face, sending strands of my long, dark hair flying. A shiver ran through me, but still I refused to retreat inside.
The crows let out loud caws, which were promptly swallowed up by the wind, before dispersing themselves high into the gray sky. My eyes followed them and I felt slightly grateful they were finished haunting my backyard for the day. When I shifted my eyes back, I had no trouble meeting the boy’s stare again because his eyes had never moved from my face. The same amused little smirk still lingered on his lips, something that instantly aggravated me. I opened my mouth to repeat my question, this time louder, but he disappeared before I was able to speak.
I remained sitting outside, trying to decide how I felt about my new ghost-stalker or hallucination, whatever the case might be, until another gust of icy wind bit at my cheeks again.
I set my things on the dark granite countertop in the kitchen and went to the pantry for some Easy Mac. While I waited for the microwave to beep, I let the thoughts that clogged my mind take over. When the sixty-second cook time finished, I was still lost in thought, my mind circling around two ideas in particular.
One, I was sure somehow that the dark-haired boy and the seemingly ever-staring crows were connected.
And two, I’d inherited my mother’s crazy gene.
I ate my mac and cheese while the reality of thought number two began to sink in, tightening my chest with panic. I’d never given much thought to my future before, but now, as the certainty of becoming like my mother tainted my mind like poison, my future didn’t look too wonderful. A never-ending supply of monotone shrinks and colorful pills—this was what my mother’s life had consisted of.
When I was little I’d never realized she had a problem. It wasn’t until I was around eight that I noticed she talked to people who weren’t there. She’d tried loads of medications to help with her schizophrenia, but always seemed to stop taking them after about a week, claiming she didn’t like the way they made her feel—all groggy and drugged. Dad never argued with her about it. He preferred his wife coherent over t
he walking zombie she became when on medication.
It was about nine months ago that mom became a recluse, refusing to venture beyond our front door. Dad and I foolishly thought she was happier that way. At least that was how it seemed. We never questioned her motives, just simply accepted her actions at face value and went on with our lives as though her behavior were normal.
The truth of the matter was, we’d been dead wrong to think anyone could truly be happy locked inside their own self-made prison.
In the end, it was almost ironic how all the pills doctors had prescribed over the years in an effort to save her sanity had eventually been what she’d chosen to end her life with. Who knows, maybe in her eyes they’d finally done their job.
I swallowed my last bite of macaroni and wondered if history would repeat itself with me.
Two more days passed. The snow finally came to an end and sunlight peeked out from behind paper-thin clouds to kiss the ground with its warmth again. My bruises were almost completely faded away and the swelling in my nose was now gone.
I stood at the kitchen counter eating a bowl of cereal while staring absentmindedly at the piece of paper covered with chicken scratch and the set of keys that rested beside it. I’d found dad’s note first thing this morning, telling me to take mom’s Honda CRV to school until we could get my car fixed.
After rinsing out my bowl I scooped up the keys, noting instantly how wrong they felt to be in my hands, and started for the door. I crept across the remaining slush of slick, melted snow toward the gray CRV-shaped mound in the driveway. My gloved hands swiped away the heavy clumps of snow which clung to the red cover before I hesitantly began to lift it off. About a minute and a half later I had tossed the cover to the side and stood staring—there was my mother’s vehicle, a silver Honda CRV.
With a shaking hand, I reached out and opened the driver’s side door. I ducked inside and the scent of vanilla bean tickled my nose, triggering images of my mother: her silky, dark hair; her wide smile which had always seemed to be contagious; and her glittering green eyes.