Lost Girls(6)

I was trying to escape and someone was chasing me, matching me step for step through the woods. He’d been after me all day, through shadowed thickets and sun-dappled vales, both of us with chests heaving and skin glistening with sweat. My only advantage was the fact that I knew the mountains better than he did. If I could keep up this pace until nightfall, I’d lose him. He wouldn’t be able to see in the dark—

.

A hand reached out and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to a stop.

“Rachel!”

I spun around, temporarily not recognizing the person who stood behind me.

“We should go back,” he said, tugging at my arm.

The image of my brother faded away, turning into someone taller, heavier, stronger, older. The man’s face wasn’t clear, but that didn’t matter.

It was him or me.

With a couple of moves I’d only seen in films, I flipped him over and pinned him to the ground, my knee in his back, his face in the dirt. He chuffed, a long thud of air coming out of his lungs, unable to talk because I’d knocked the wind out of him.

“Hey!” he said, spitting out pine needles and twigs with each syllable. “What the hell, Rachel? Let me go!”

The image of the man faded away, changing back into that of my brother. I gasped and released Kyle, stumbling away, my hands reaching for whatever might be behind me. Finally, I latched onto the bark of a nearby tree.

“Oh my God.” That was all I could say.

Kyle brushed himself off and rubbed his neck as he climbed to his feet. “Son of a bitch!”

I crossed my arms over my chest, so tight it felt like I was wearing a straitjacket.

“Did you think I was gonna hurt you? You know I’d never do anything like that.” Then he paused. “When the hell did you learn to fight?”

I leaned against that tree until the bark pressed into my back, the pain forcing me to stay focused. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “Every time I smell pine or cedar, it triggers something. Then, when you grabbed me, your face disappeared—you turned into somebody else.”

A silence stretched between us, until finally the sounds of the wood swelled, revealing the hiss from a waterfall up the trail and the chatter of birds in a nearby meadow.

“My sister, the assassin,” Kyle said at last, a grin teasing his lips.

“You have to promise not to tell Mom or Dad what happened,” I said. I took a step closer, my feet crunching over pine needles, stirring the scent that made my stomach knot up. “My therapist wanted to keep me in the hospital longer. I was worried I’d never go home again.” My voice was shaking. “Please don’t tell them.”

“It’s okay. But what you don’t know is, I was this close”—he held up his thumb and forefinger, spread an inch apart—“from showing you my Wild Ninja Skills.” He grinned, shaggy brown hair hanging in his eyes. “I’m not gonna tell anyone you tried to kill me. Your secret’s safe.”

I sat awkwardly on a nearby rock, hands on my knees. “What happened to me, Kyle?” I ran my fingers through my short hair. “I dyed my hair, got a tattoo, and the only clothes I own are black.”

He frowned. “So?”

“So, that’s not me. I like pastels and miniskirts, not long dresses and ripped jeans. I was trying to grow my hair long, but then I just chopped it all off?”

Kyle stared at the ground, rubbing one finger over his lip. He always did that when he had something to say that he knew I didn’t want to hear.

“Spill,” I said. “Now.”

He took a deep breath then looked me in the eyes, a hesitant expression on his face. “You have been different this past year, Rach. Kind of a bitch, if you really wanna know. Short-tempered. Sneaking out at night to hang with your friends. Then coming home either high or drunk—”

I frowned, not sure I wanted to hear this.

“The weird part is, you started doing really well in school. It made me a little mad that you could act out so much and then do better in your classes. Like you’ve been getting straight As in everything—”

“That’s not possible,” I interrupted, thinking about how hard I struggled in some subjects. I wasn’t stupid, but I wasn’t an A student, either.

“It’s possible, all right. On top of that, you got the lead role in one of the ballets your class put on, Swan Lake—”

“Seriously?”

He didn’t argue. He just pulled an iPhone from his pocket, scrolled through some screens, punched a button, then held it up for me to see. It was a video of me dancing. There I was in a tutu and slippers, my hair pinned back, my chin raised, and all of my body poised on the toes of my left foot, my right leg extended behind me, my left arm reaching up as if it could pluck clouds from the sky. Then I started to leap across the stage, my body hovering in the air, like I was flying. I stared at the screen, astonished. I’d been taking ballet lessons since I was six, but I’d never gotten a lead role and I’d never been able to dance like this, no matter how hard I practiced.

“I really did that?” It was like watching a movie of someone else. “Can you send me this video?”

“Yeah,” he said, punching a few buttons before he slid his phone back in his pocket.

Apparently I’d gotten some mad skills in the past year.