Freeks(60)

“You’re making big leaps on what it’s ‘reasonable to assume,’” Luka said dryly.

“They have purple fireflies here,” I said, remembering how magical that date had felt and pushing down all the feelings that went along with it. “Gabe showed them to me.”

“See?” Roxie glared at Luka, vindicated.

“Purple fireflies are a big stretch to supernatural-hunting-coyote,” Luka said.

I started peeling off the label of my beer bottle as something occurred to me. If Roxie was right about the flora and fauna being affected, and the purple fireflies suggested that she was, then Gabe would probably fall under the category of local fauna.

“Do you think Gabe likes me so much because this place is screwing with his head?” I asked quietly, interrupting Roxie’s argument with Luka about what constituted reasonable.

“No, he likes you because you’re likable,” Roxie said, looking at me like I was an idiot. “Is that what your deal is with him? You’re freaking out because a boy actually likes you?”

“I’m not freaking out, but that’s not the problem.” I lowered my eyes. “It’s because he likes me, and I’m leaving, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Not to ruin your touching moment here,” Tim interrupted, and his blue eyes landed softly on me. “I am genuinely sorry for the mess you’re in, Mara.” I waved it off, so he continued. “But if Roxie is right, doesn’t that mean that we should all leave immediately, before someone else gets hurt?”

“No.” Roxie shook her head so hard, her ponytail bobbed wildly behind her. “We’ll just take precautions, like Gideon said.”

“So you’re saying it’s dangerous, but it’s not?” Luka asked.

“No, I’m saying it is dangerous, but it’s not too dangerous that I can afford to leave,” Roxie elaborated. “I don’t know if or when Blossom is coming back, and with Seth out of commission, there’s a chance that Carrie might not want to travel for a while. Which means all the expenses fall back on me. I need the money.”

We sat in silence for a moment, letting the weight of Roxie’s words sink in. We were all basically in the same boat, Luka and Hutch more so because Seth was their roommate. But we’d each made choices in our life that led us to a place where we couldn’t leave a dangerous situation because we couldn’t afford to.

“So…” Hutch said. “Do you guys think that it might be a bear doing the attacks and not a coyote? Because that would explain my bear dream, right?”

“Sometimes a dream is just a dream, Hutch,” Luka told him, and picked his cards back up.





36. hunted

In the blackness, I knew she would be coming for me.

The air felt cold and electric already, and lurking in the darkness, I sensed her before she appeared. As she floated toward me, I didn’t cower or cringe. I wouldn’t back down from her anymore.

This time, she said nothing as she approached, and she drew closer to me than she ever had before. Her skin hung against her skull like gray plaster, flaking and falling off. I realized that her eyes weren’t black—they were missing. Where her eyes should’ve been were two empty sockets somehow staring back at me.

Her lips had pulled back, revealing yellowed and missing teeth. She was nothing more than a smiling skeleton before me, draped in old fabric with tufts of thinning, white hair floating above her.

She reeked of decay—of spoiled fruit and must and something sulfurous that reminded me of Leonid’s apartment.

“What do you want?” I asked, since I didn’t want to stare into the abyss of her eyes any longer than I needed to. I wanted to get this dream over with.

Then she opened her mouth and began to shriek, her song of sounds and syllables sounding like nothing but nonsense to me.

“Id-hab-bee-in-who-nah!” she screamed frantically in my face, repeating the same words over and over again.

I wanted to tell her I didn’t understand, but she began to howl. Her voice took on a manic, agonized quality, growing louder and more high pitched. I covered my ears with my hands, trying to block it out, but it was coming from inside my head and reverberating all the way through me.

I was so focused on trying to block out her voice that I didn’t notice that she’d moved even closer to me. Not until she reached out for me, and then it was too late. Her long fingers tore through my chest and wrapped around my heart, freezing it completely.

Unable to move or breathe, I could only gape at her. With her face mere inches from mine, she softly said, “Mara, id-hab-bee-in-who-nah.”

And then I sat up in my bed, gasping for the breath that my lungs had been deprived of. My whole body felt cold, like I’d been dumped into a bath of ice water, and I shivered.

In the twin bed across from me, Mom was sleeping soundly. Since Caudry was taxing to her, I didn’t want to disturb her, not now, but the second she woke up, I would tell her about this dream. I’d been putting it off, and it was only getting worse.

I pulled the covers up around me, wearing them like a shawl, and I walked out into the kitchen. After that nightmare, sleep would no longer be an option for me.

I grabbed the old quilt off the couch and wrapped it around me over my other blankets. I needed as much warmth as I could get, but I didn’t think anything could drive this cold away. It felt embedded deep inside me, in my bones and coursing through my veins.