The pounding of the creature’s heart hummed in Alexandra’s ears as she held her cheek to his chest, not wanting to let go. Growing louder, it rang in her head.
Her eyes stayed closed until she could no longer bear the sound. When her eyes popped open, she stared at the lit-up, red pulsing digits of her alarm clock.
“Here we go again,” she grunted and threw the blanket off her legs.
Stumbling groggily to the bathroom, she peeled off her clothes. She’d fallen asleep in her tee and jeans. Her clothes were soaked with sweat, and she tossed them into the hamper in the bathroom. Her nose twitched at the faint smell of smoke.
“Nasty cigarettes,” she muttered.
In the steaming shower, the torrents of hot water wrapped themselves like tight tendrils around her body.
Closing her eyes, she held her face to the shower spray and let the water pour over her head. The migraine had eased over the night, and she suddenly remembered her dream. She recalled how it felt when the creature had held her body tight in his grasp.
What was he?
Turning the faucet off, Alexandra stepped from the shower stall, wrapped a towel around her body, and heard her bedroom door creak open.
It was Jack, running from her mother.
“Jack! Come here, boy,” her mom called into the bedroom, shaking the dog’s leash. Alexandra peeked out from behind her bathroom door while her mother rolled Jack off the bed.
With Jack gone for his morning walk, Alexandra left the bathroom door cracked open and wiped the steam from the mirror. Her green eyes peeked reluctantly from behind her drooping eyelids, and patches of brown freckles swallowed the tops of her pale cheeks.
Her thoughts shifted to Benjamin as she brushed a stroke of loose powder across her nose. She remembered how Benjamin had noticed her freckles when they first met. Had he been flirting with me?
With a few flicks of mascara and a swipe of red lip balm, she had finished all the attempts at girlishness for which she had any patience.
At her walk-in closet, Alexandra unhooked a plaid skirt from its hanger. Her bedroom door creaked open again, and Jack strolled back into the room. Climbing on the bed, he snuggled down into the blankets and waited patiently for everyone to leave for the day.
“I’m leaving for work now,” her mother said as she peeked inside the bedroom. “Are you okay, Alexandra?
Did you get enough sleep?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Alexandra called to her mother from the closet.
“Love you, babe! Call me when you get home,” said her mother before she turned from the doorway.
Alexandra listened for her mother’s keys rattling in the front door lock. Once she heard that sound, she debated whether to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers with Jack for the rest of the day. But Benjamin’s face eased
into her thoughts. With her decision made, she slipped on black Mary Janes.
After getting her shirt tucked and blazer buttoned, Alexandra grabbed her book bag from her bedroom floor.
“Once again running late,” she announced, glancing at the clock. Lifting the pillow Jack’s head was underneath, she patted him goodbye. It was then that she noticed her uncle’s journal lying on the bed. “I’ve got to show this to Taylor,” Alexandra told Jack and threw the book inside her bag before she rushed to the front door.
In the parking garage, her hair, still wet, clung to her face. She sprinted to her Jeep. I hope Benjamin thinks that frizzy hair is as cute as freckles, she thought, rolling down her window to let her hair dry in the breeze on the ride to campus.
The morning traffic inched maddeningly through the downtown streets. Slowly Alexandra made her way toward campus. Ahead of her was an SUV large enough for its own zip code. She knew that she was probably following too close to its bumper. She heard her skirt pocket ring and drew out her phone to look at the call screen. She hesitated, but finally answered the unknown number.
“Hello?” she asked, holding the phone to her ear with one hand as she gripped the steering wheel with the other hand.
“Alex?” a male voice inquired.
“Maybe. Who is this?” she asked.
“Ben.”
Sweat suddenly rose under her collar.
“Well hi,” she stuttered back.
“Are you on campus yet? I need to talk to you about something,” Benjamin said as Alexandra’s car sputtered under the hood.
“Um, no,” she said. “How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways,” he laughed.
Alexandra sat speechless, praying that her car would not die in the middle of the road.
“Hello?” Benjamin said. “Are you there?”
“I think something is wrong with my car,” she said.
“It’s making a funny noise.”
“Let me hear,” he said. “Hold your phone out the window.”
Biting her lip, Alexandra complied as she idled at a red light.
“Are you near a gas station?” Benjamin asked her when she pulled the phone back to her ear.
“Yeah,” she said flipping on her turn signal and smiling at the driver behind her in the next lane.
“Sounds like you need some gas,” he suggested.
Alexandra stared at the fuel gauge. Sure enough, the needle pointed to empty.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling up to an empty gas pump.
“That’s quite a talent.”
“No problem,” he said.
She could hear the Drake Hall bell tower ring through the phone.
“You’re going to be late,” he advised her.
“I know,” she said dryly, shoving the gas cap back in place. “Save me a spot in German class, okay? ’Bye.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and flipped the phone shut.
Squealing into the student parking lot, Alexandra searched for Taylor’s silver Mercedes. Guess I’m not the only one who is late today, she thought, luckily finding an empty parking spot.
Panting as she dashed through the halls, Alexandra eased into homeroom. Mr. Johnson was running through roll call.
“Jessica Martin?” he called and checked her name off of his list when her hand raised in the back of the classroom.
“Alexandra Peyton?” he continued, looking down at her over the glasses perched on the end of his nose.
“Here,” she squeaked.
“Mike Rivers?”
“Yo, coach,” the quarterback called from behind Alexandra.
“Taylor Woodward?” Mr. Johnson called. Alexandra looked around the room. “Taylor Woodward?” he repeated and stared at Alexandra. She shrugged her shoulders.
When the bell dismissed homeroom for first period, Alexandra ducked into the restroom and dialed Taylor’s cell. Voice mail answered. “Where are you?” she barked to the recorder.
The bell rang. She shoved the phone back into her book bag. She ran across the quad to Mitchell Hall, hoping Benjamin had heard from Taylor, and scooted into German class. Benjamin was there and picked up his book bag from the desk that he had saved for her next to the window.
“Taylor wasn’t in homeroom,” Alexandra told Benjamin. “She isn’t answering her cell, either.”
He took off his blazer and rolled his sleeves up over his elbows. Alexandra approved of his tanned, brown arms.
“I’m sure she’s fine, Alex,” he told her. “Maybe she just overslept. She was out late. Don’t panic.”
“How do you know Taylor was out late? Were you with her?” Alexandra asked, biting her lip, as Frau Stunkhaus closed the classroom door.
“She came by my house,” he said, leaning closer.
“Oh, I see,” Alexandra said, removing her textbook from her book bag.
“It’s not like that, Alex! She pulled up in the driveway.
We’ve got this huge security gate around the yard, so she had to stop right there until I answered the intercom,” he whispered. “It was almost midnight and my mom was freaking out. So I went outside to talk to her. She was crying and said that her stepmother is crazy.”
Alexandra nodded her head and sucked in a deep breath. “What then?” she asked.
“She tried to kiss me, and I told her I have a girlfriend in California,” he said.
“Oh,” Alexandra said, her heart sinking.
“But I don’t,” he said, shaking his head.
This fact brightened Alexandra’s countenance considerably.
“Her stepmother is psycho,” Alexandra told him. “I wish Taylor would call me.”
At the front of the room, Frau Stunkhaus answered a knock on the door. Dr. Sullivan motioned for her to step outside into the hallway.
“Hey,” Benjamin said to Alexandra as he leaned over the aisle between them. “Guess who I got for homeroom?”
Alexandra shrugged her shoulders.
“Callahan,” he said, and Alexandra cringed. Leaning closer, Benjamin whispered, “You should have seen him this morning. That dude must have gotten wasted last night. He had these really dark circles under his eyes, and I swear he’s wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday.
He didn’t even take roll. He just passed around a piece of paper and told us to write our names on it, while he kicked back at his desk with his feet up and his hands behind his head. I kid you not, he started to snore. Woke up only when the bell rang.”
“Achtung!” Frau Stunkhaus declared, walking back into her classroom while Alexandra tried to concentrate on the first page of vocabulary in her textbook.
When the bell rang forty-five minutes later, Alexandra asked, “Will I see you at lunch?”
“Maybe,” he said, winking at her as he left her in the classroom doorway. “I don’t want to be late for PE!” he called back to her while he hurried down the hallway.
Walking alone to calculus, Alexandra felt her cell phone vibrate inside her book bag. Finally, a text message from Taylor! She read it as she took her seat in the back of the class.
Hey Girl. OMG. What a night. See you at lunch. XOXO.
Relieved for the news, she turned off the phone until the end of psychology class, a few long hours later. Walking to the cafeteria, Alexandra expected Taylor to be already waiting for her; but the tall blonde was still a no-show.
Grabbing an empty plastic lunch tray, Alexandra joined the line for chicken fingers and fries. Panic and hunger rumbled in her gut.
The heaping tray wobbled when she walked outside into the quad with her lunch. Wolfing down the food on her plate, she sat alone at the table, feeling a bit abandoned.
Then she laughed to herself: Taylor and I might not be much alike, but we belong together like French fries and ketchup.
“Hey, Alexandra,” shouted Courtney from the table behind her. “Where’s Taylor? Why don’t you sit with us?”
Michelle held up a magazine in the air and said, “Come on, Alex. We’re taking a quiz about what celebrity we would date if . . .” she said, her voice trailing off.
“Hey, Alex, sorry I’m late.” Alexandra’s ears pricked
up at the sound of Benjamin’s approaching voice. He sat down on the bench beside her.
“No lunch?” she asked casually.
“I forgot my wallet,” Benjamin confessed and glanced around the crowded quad. “Where’s Taylor?”
Alexandra shrugged her shoulders as she wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed the tray of food toward Benjamin. “I’m starting to get worried about her.”
“I guess I was hungrier than I thought.” He finished off the fries and started on what was left of the chicken fingers. “She’s a big girl. Don’t panic yet,” he said.
“She sent me a text that she would be here at lunch.”
Alexandra pulled her cell from her book bag and showed him the message.
“Taylor reminds me of my mom,” he said, shaking his head. “They are both overly dramatic. Except my mom gets paid to act that way.” He put the phone back in her hand.
“So having a famous mom is not all it’s cracked up to be?” Alexandra asked.
“No,” he said, watching her start to chew on her thumbnail. “Hey, don’t do that,” Benjamin admonished her and playfully pushed her thumb from her mouth.
“Sorry,” Alexandra said, blushing, her nervous fingers fiddling with the medallion around her neck.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, staring at her necklace.
“You asked me that yesterday, Ben. It was a gift,” she explained, taking it off to show him the figure carved into the bronze.
“You’re not going to believe this, but this morning in homeroom, Callahan was wearing a ring with a dragon on it that looked almost exactly like yours,” Ben told her.
She began to pull her hair to the side of her neck. “Let me help you with that,” he said, taking the ends of the leather string from her fingers.
Sweat pooled under her collar as Benjamin secured the necklace. “I forgot about that,” he said tracing the outline of her birthmark lightly with the tips of his fingers.
“Thanks,” she stuttered and let her hair fall down her back.
“So what’s next?” Benjamin said, stretching his arms as he yawned wide.
“Honors literature,” said Alexandra, unzipping her book bag. “Oh no,” she said. “I think I must have left my lit book in the car.”
“Don’t panic,” said Benjamin, peeking into her bag.
Alexandra jumped to her feet. “The bell is going to ring any minute, Ben. Would you mind taking my tray back inside while I run to my car?”
“Sure,” he said, grabbing the lunch tray. “See you in history.”
Throwing her book bag over her shoulder, Alexandra scurried toward the student parking lot, a fenced asphalt pit behind the football stadium. She fumbled with the door lock and stuck her head inside the Jeep. Pushing the driver’s seat forward, she tossed aside a Collinsworth sweatshirt that had been on the backseat.
“There you are,” she said, picking up her paperback copy of The Inferno.
A pair of dark eyes watched her from across the parking lot. A low growl escaped the mongrel’s frothing muzzle.
He crept closer.
Alexandra slammed the Jeep’s door shut and tossed the book in her bag. Behind her, a fierce yowl echoed through
the parking lot. “What was that?” she mumbled to herself, scanning the rows of cars.
When she heard a growl at her bumper, her head whipped around, and her book bag fell to the ground.
“Get away from me!” she shrieked, scrambling up onto the Jeep’s tall bumper.
“Go away!” Panic seized her limbs. She flailed and groped her way further up onto the hot metal hood.
The massive brown creature snarled louder.
“Get out of here!” she cried.
The creature had his eyes locked on her throat. He bared his teeth.
Alexandra stood helplessly on the hood. Her books lay scattered on the pavement, the pages of her uncle’s journal flapping in the soft breeze. Sniffing the book, the dog whimpered and barked, then turned again on Alexandra.
He lifted his paws to the hood, ready to lunge upward.
Suddenly a voice shouted across the empty lot.
The beast leaped on the Jeep, and the impact caused Alexandra’s foot to slip against the slick metal. Throwing her arms out to the side, she fought to keep her balance as her body swayed.
“Get away from her!” Benjamin shouted as he ran closer. “Go away,” he yelled, swinging his book bag toward the beast.
Startled, the dog recoiled and backed away from the Jeep.
“Go!” shouted Benjamin emphatically, moving toward the animal and giving chase.
The creature turned and disappeared through the rows of cars, ducking back through the hole in the chain link fence. Once on the other side, the canine panted and raised
his snout in the air. A growl erupted from his throat. The girl’s scent remained stuck in his nostrils. As if satisfied that he could find her again later, he turned and sprinted from the fence.
Benjamin turned back from his pursuit, only to see Alexandra fall from the car’s hood to the asphalt. It was clear she’d hit her head on the way down, and he ran to the Jeep.
“Alexandra?” Benjamin held her head in his arms. “I think you’re hurt. Please look at me.”
Blood was coming down the side of her face. Moaning, she asked, “What happened?”
“Don’t move yet.” Benjamin held her head still.
Her eyes fluttered open. “I’m okay,” she assured him and dabbed her fingers at the warm ooze dripping from her temple past the side of her cheek.
“You’re head is bleeding,” he told her. “And your knee,” he said, looking over her arms and legs. His fingers whisked her hair back from her face and tucked the locks behind her ears. Carefully, he helped her to sit up straight.
“You sure do keep me on my toes, Alexandra Peyton.”
He wiped a tear from her chin with his thumb.
“Sorry. Looks like I ruined your pants,” Alexandra said, staring at tiny red droplets of her blood staining his khaki pants.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, gathering the books that were strewn across the pavement.
Alexandra gripped his hand tightly. Picking herself up, she raked the dirt from her skirt. “Ouch,” she winced when her fingers touched her skinned knee.
“Please, Alexandra, let me help you,” Benjamin said, throwing her book bag over his shoulder. “Maybe we should go to the nurse’s office and let her look at you.”
A scowl spread across his face when Alexandra shook her head no.
“Let’s get out of here before that thing decides to come back,” Alexandra said, gazing over the rows of cars in the parking lot.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight until you walk into your next class,” Benjamin asserted, grabbing her hand.
Alexandra squeezed back tightly as they set off toward Butler Hall, her body leaning into his as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
“I’m fine, Ben,” she told him. “I’ll see you in history.”
But he hesitated to let go of her hand at the entrance of Butler Hall, the final class bell ringing in their ears. He started to follow her as she walked through the door.
“Please don’t let me keep you,” she said, accepting her book bag when he reluctantly handed it to her over the threshold. She retreated to the nearest restroom.
A rusty squeal echoed through the dank, cramped bathroom as she opened the door and checked under the stalls for feet. Turning on the cold water at one of the sink faucets, she stared into the mirror hanging above the sink, her lip quivering at the pale reflection staring back through the glass.
“Yuck,” she moaned, splashing cold water across her face.
Patting a paper towel against her cheek, she wiped the blood away. Fear still pounded loud and heavy inside her heart.
She heard a knock.
“Are you okay in there?” Ben’s voice asked through the bathroom door.
“Yep,” she replied wearily.
When Alexandra pushed the door open and emerged,
she saw Benjamin bent over a nearby water fountain.
Gulping the cold water like a kid, Benjamin let it trickle down his chin before he wiped it away with the sleeve of his blazer.
“Where’s your class?” he asked, taking her hand.
“Forward to 155,” she acquiesced without complaint.
Benjamin pulled Alexandra to Room 155 and held it open for her. “Until we meet again, Miss Peyton,” he whispered to her, a grin spreading across his face.
Alexandra stepped inside the darkened room while a black-and-white documentary on Dante’s Inferno played on a television at the front of the class. Mrs. Simmons noted Alexandra’s tardiness in a spiral notebook as Alexandra found a seat in the back.
She realized that she was sitting too far back to see the visuals and rested her trembling hands in her lap, thankful for the darkness in which she could muster her composure to face Callahan.