Some Quiet Place (Some Quiet Place #1)(57)
“Mind if I take a look?” the man asks. I shake my head.
He leaves my side and lifts the truck’s hood. Moments later he calls to me, “It appears those children took out your battery.” He shuts the hood. Slam.
I just sit there. My mind whizzes through all the possibilities. The school is locked, so I can’t reach a phone. I could walk … no, not without pants. Too many questions, and someone would see and probably get back to Tim. But getting home is probably more important than anything Tim will do to me … maybe I should stay … but when morning comes my classmates will see me, and rumors will spread like a wildfire.
I’m at a complete loss as to what to do. Seems to be happening to me often lately. Too often.
“You know, I could give you a lift home,” the man says, his voice suddenly gentle. He knows I have no other options. No phone, no truck, no clothes. Fear hasn’t appeared yet, which is odd in itself. I could wait a little longer—
Thunder rumbles the ground.
I start, glancing at the horizon. When did it turn gray? This strange fear flowing through my veins clouds my logic. It’s nearing sunset already—how did that happen? Staying definitely wouldn’t be safe … would it? Not with something out there that sent even immortal beings running for the hills. No, not safe. Especially not for a half-naked girl in a rusty truck, no matter what abilities she may have.
Clutching the steering wheel, as if the truck will spontaneously start and solve all my problems, I swallow. “You’ll take me right home?”
If possible, the man’s smile grows until it seems like it’ll stretch right out of the confines of his face. Of course everything inside of me is shrieking, Danger, stupid, stay where you are. But I just need to get home. If he tries anything, I’ll probably be able to overpower him.
“ … straight home,” the man at my window is promising. The thin piece of glass protecting me fogs with my breath, and I touch it with my finger, steeling myself.
The man has turned away. He’s walking across the parking lot. When I remain in the cab of my truck, he glances back, lifting a brow. “Coming?” It sounds like a challenge.
Don’t go! my instincts advise one last time. Fear will come. But I don’t feel him anywhere near. I can’t stay here. When once again I put the warning aside, the voice curls away like withering vines. Defeated.
Every sound is an explosion in my head. The lock clicking, the door opening, my feet slapping the pavement. I take my bag with me and drop my keys in the side pocket. Following this man is like letting a shadow lead me through the dark. No relevancy or light to guide me.
Since there isn’t a single car in the lot now, I assume his vehicle is along the road behind the school, where the teachers park. We’re both quiet.
Then he turns, walking backwards. This is strangely disconcerting, like an owl turning its head all the way around. “So, Elizabeth,” he says in that violin voice, “how long have you lived in Edson?”
Around the side of the school we go, to the back as I’d suspected. There’s one car and one truck along the curb of this road. Is there still a janitor here?
“All my life,” I answer, my voice tight and careful. There’s grass underfoot now, damp and freezing on my heated soles.
He nods as if this is so interesting. “I see.” He stops under a large weeping willow, and the light and leaves cast intricate shadows on his face. I watch the patterns move over his skin in the breeze. I don’t know which vehicle is his, so I’m forced to stop as well.
The man is doing that head-cocking thing again, and now there’s an anomalous glint in his black eyes. “Tell me, Elizabeth”—my name is a hiss—“because I’m simply dying to know. Have you finished the mural in your room yet?”
A beat of pregnant hush between us. I’m frozen for a mindless instant.
And then I run.
He’s after me before I’ve even turned around completely. I can hear his footsteps just behind me, a taunting drum surrounding, choking, laughing. There’s something about the sound of his run, I dimly realize in my whirling frenzy. I fly back around the corner of the school, heading for the parking lot and the front doors.
“Oh, Elizabeth!” the man sing-songs. He doesn’t even sound out of breath.
“Help!” I scream, willing someone, anyone, to hear me. Fear, just when I need him most, is far away. I rush through a line of bushes and some twigs scratch the vulnerable skin of my legs. There it is! The lot appears before me, open and empty. My truck in the corner, urging me onward.
The sound of the man somewhere behind vanishes, and then he’s suddenly landing in front of me in the end of a giant leap. He exaggerates the swing in his arms, panting wildly, mocking. The veins in his eyes are huge. “What are you going to do?” he gasps. Then, just as swiftly as he evolved into this wild creature, he straightens, smoothing his hair and pulling at his shirt cuffs. “Shall we proceed?” he asks. “Or will you insist on trying that again?”
It’s as I stand there, helpless—more desperate possibilities and disorienting panic whizzing through me—that I comprehend where I recognize his run from. The night of Sophia’s party, when I was rushing through the woods, trying to get to Joshua … there had been someone behind me. Following me. At the time I’d just assumed it was a kid trying to get to his car. But now I realize the truth. Is he what Rebecca was so worried about on the night of the party? Oh. Oh. She’d been protecting me all along.