Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(61)

I saw too much.

Cal was smart and Cal saw the things I did, but he reacted differently and saw what I saw in a way unlike mine. My intelligence had me clawing at anything and everything to get us free. Jobs, education, plan after plan. Cal’s intelligence had him seeing the only way out as patience. He was like a wild panther in the zoo, still as a stone, eyes unblinking, never sleeping, waiting for the one day someone got sloppy with that cage door and then it would all be over.

I didn’t know which way was the best, the least painful, but I did know at times I wished I was average, normal . . . even if that meant only I was somewhat less smart. I didn’t like seeing too much, as necessary as it was.

Bending down, I helped a self-conscious, bright red Avery gather up her books, papers, a handful of discarded costume jewelry. “No, I’m not religious. My little brother curses worse than you. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good. Great!” She took everything from my hands and stuffed it, Cal-style, back in her backpack. “The last thing I’d want to do is embarrass myself in front of you. You’re”—her blush intensified and she swallowed—“you know.”

Avery also liked me. I thought it was another reason she spent her study period in the library. I liked her too. I wasn’t the kind of snob that thought I was too smart for certain people. With my life, I appreciated, wanted normal. Average and nice was better than brilliant and beautiful in my mind.

But I also remembered what Cal had said, that we couldn’t have a normal life. That meant we couldn’t have normal people around us . . . any people when it came down to it. He’d been right for now. I hoped I was right when I said the future would be better, that then we could have a normal life—normal for us at least.

Now though . . . now I couldn’t do anything about Avery liking me. When she finished zipping up her bag, I gave her the smile—it was a practiced one. It said you’re a nice person but you’re not for me. Friends? You could read a lot into that smile. He has a girlfriend at another school, he’s gay, he actually is screwing Miss Holcomb. It usually worked and as Avery gave me a wobbly but not a terribly upset smile back, I hoped it had worked again.

When she was gone, I sat down at the computer, the itch now claws digging into my neck, and started searching the online news for New London. I wouldn’t find anything. There was no chance, I told the claws clamping tight. If Junior had taken that hooker and that was very unlikely, it wouldn’t be in the paper yet. Prostitutes disappeared all the time. Often they never make the news, vanished or not.

Unless you happened to be the daughter of a cop. Doctor, lawyer, cop—it didn’t matter how high your parents were, drugs could take you to the lowest of places. Marcia Dawn Liese had known that. It was hard to recognize her with blond hair, a cheerleader uniform, and pom-poms from a two-year-old picture compared to the Goth wig and little else she’d been wearing when Junior had pulled up in his truck, but it was her. I remembered that distinctive mole at the corner of her mouth. Marcia had been missing at least twenty-four hours if not longer and that put her disappearance close enough to her interaction with Junior that I could’ve set my watch. The claws left my neck and now were ripping their way through my stomach.

Our neighbor is a serial killer.

He smells like blood.

Like roadkill.

The basement is full of bodies.

Cal had told me and I hadn’t believed him . . . because I hadn’t wanted to believe him. My life was an abusive mother and a little brother who wasn’t completely human and the monsters who watched him. I didn’t know what to do. Every day I straightened things, I kept schedules, I made rules, and it was all to cover up to Cal and to myself that I didn’t know what to do.

I had known I couldn’t handle anything more. A serial killer? That was insane and I wouldn’t have cared what Cal had said; it absolutely was not an option. I couldn’t believe it, as I couldn’t deal with it.

That was the joke—because now it was dealing with me and that was much worse than anything I could’ve imagined. Junior right next door. Cal’s school getting out a half hour before mine. I was already running for the door. It would be all right. Junior didn’t know. He hadn’t seen us follow him. He hadn’t seen me in the hospital. He was a killer—I tasted vomit in my mouth—but he wasn’t smart. I’d looked into his eyes. He was dull and slow. He didn’t have any idea we suspected him . . . Cal had suspected him.

I’d go home, get Cal, and we’d leave. Like we should’ve done from the start . . . but hadn’t as I was too much of a coward to believe my little brother.

Smells like blood.

Home and then out of this town. It would be all right. Junior wouldn’t even suspect why we left. It would be all right. It would.

I kept running.

And my mind kept telling me no matter how true it was, I would always be stained a coward and a liar from this day on.

By the time I ran the ten miles home I was drenched in sweat, my lungs raw, and my legs cramping from a speed I’d not pushed them to before. I jammed the key with a fatigued shaking hand into the lock and threw open the door.

“Cal?” I slammed the door behind me and locked it. “Start packing. Hurry! We’re going. Now.”

I heard the sound of a comic book being thrown against the wall and fluttering to the floor from our bedroom. “We don’t have time for this! Don’t pretend like you’re upset. You’ve been saying we should go for days.” Cal rarely threw temper tantrums or showed physical anger of any kind. Not since he’d found out he was half-Grendel. He was afraid what might happen if he did, that he’d start and not be able to stop.