Siphon (Siphon Chronicles, Book One) (7 page)

“Yes,” he said nervously.  The inches increased our distance of separation. Two, to be exact.

What was he scared to tell me?  I wanted to know, but I was worried suddenly he might have to lie to me and I didn’t want to be lied to.  I’d already figured out by the short answers that he was skirting around things to keep himself honest.  He had a lot of secrets.  I just hoped it did not involve me.

“It is okay if you need to keep your secrets.  We all have them.”  Why did I feel a little like I was keeping company with the devil?  I just told him it was okay to lie to me.  Or stretch the truth. 

He stiffened at that no doubt wondering what secret I could hold.

It was true, I didn’t know about the headquarters he talked about, but my stepparents knew.  The same stepparents who told me my parents died in a vacation accident and now I wonder if it was even true.  They mentioned my mom once.  Only once.

I was sure this was the same “headquarters” they mentioned.  I’d heard them talk behind closed doors for years about a Dr. Phoenix who wanted to meet me and they refused to take me to him.  I only know now the connection because Daniel just said the very place the doctor was located.  Rhode Island. 
              My stepparents even called it the headquarters.  It all made sense.  Sort of.

“You are giving a little I can tell and I know you are guarding something inside you.  I’ve lived with this life all alone and no one was there to tell my fears to.  I don’t want to depress you with my sordid life, but well, I had to grow up too fast with neglect from my parents.  I have heard of the headquarters, but never heard it named.  My parents don’t know that I know.”

That was all I would tell this boy until I knew more.  He would have to give the next tidbit.

He swallowed deeply as he took a drink of his own soda.  I think he took a long time on purpose. 

I smiled at his painstaking eyes and laughed aloud.  His startled look showed me it worked.

“All this deep talk has me craving ice cream.  I’ll be right back.  When I return, maybe we could not talk about the fact that we both have information that might scare the other away as I have a feeling your secrets are more dangerous than mine.”

Since he was the one who showed up out of nowhere, I would wait and see.  I would stay on my guard though.  Somehow, I still thought he wasn’t the good guy even though I kissed him.  And I will not lie that it felt like I was being stupid for giving him the time of day, but this guy had answers I’ve been seeking for years and this might be my only chance to ever know the truth.  Deep down inside, I knew the events of the week would alter my life forever.  Hence, him being the monkey wrench in my senior year from day one of the second and final semester of high school.  What would tomorrow bring?

I was a mess, but she gave me an out.  She didn’t want to know just yet for the same reasons I didn’t want to tell her. 

I let my eyes watch her lithe body move across the busy room of teenagers eating to their hearts content.  Especially the male population.  One guy was sliding an entire piece of taco pizza into his mouth on a dare by his posse who
still
looked up in time to watch her cross the room.

Several people said hello to Lark as she passed them.  More of them male than female.  The growling beast inside me didn’t like that assessment.  And how did I not see the Foster dude was here?  He stopped with her at the soft serve machine and slid his hand around her waist.  She cowered away and pushed the chocolate button on the right to swirl against her cone.  I watched her face turn sideways and tell the guy to stop.  That was my cue.

Moving with the speed of light, I curled my arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her to me.  I had no claim over this girl, but I didn’t like her feeling trapped by this scumbag.  He was the worst kind of human male.  No, I wasn’t a saint, but he was only out for his own personal gain.  She was a notch on his notepad.

She smoothed out against my hip and looked into my eyes.

“Are you okay, Pigeon?”

“You called her a bird.  That’s classic.  What a brain surgeon.  Don’t you know she’s already a little bird named Lark who flies solo?”

I got her permission with her eyes.  They were tearing up, but she blinked them away.

“Not any more.  She’s with me.”

“You won’t get any out of her.  She’s a prude.”

“Maybe if you’d treat her like the classic she is, you’d see that there is more to this girl than just her beauty.  She deserves better than you.”

Foster rolled up on the front of his shoes at me.  “And you think you’re better?”

I pushed her behind me and stepped closer to him showing my three inches on him, “Not by a long shot.  But she deserves to be treated with respect.  She is not one of your backseat buddies you flaunt to the world.  In fact, no girl deserves scum like you.”

Foster’s fist started to form a white knuckle sandwich and I knew from experience what would happen next.  I couldn’t step between two huge pure muscle boys, but I could stop this before it escalated to that point.

“Foster, let it go.  Daniel is here for now and you will just have to deal with it.  Go back to your table and go on with whatever it is that you do.  You knew we were over long ago and I’m not afraid to make sure all your friends know I never gave it up for you.  Any girl who has should have had more self-respect for themselves before they let a STD infested snake like you take anything from them.”

Foster snorted, “They liked every minute of it little Lark the prude.”

I stepped around Daniel who’d grown quiet for the last back and forth word fight between the snake and me.  I felt, not saw, that Daniel was that much bigger than Foster. His arms alone rivaled that of a concrete block next to Foster’s puny household bricks.  That’s not to say that Foster isn’t strong, because I knew he worked out and ran a mile each morning before school.  Vanity was his calling card.  It is just that Daniel was huge in comparison to Foster’s muscular, lean side.  I screwed my head back on straight and gave Foster the piece of my mind I was holding back, “I could take things from you that would change your life forever you piece of crap for a human.”

A hand curled around my own and squeezed.  I felt it in the recesses of my brain but only registered that it was there, not protecting me.  I’d never had a friend who would stand up for me like that.  Sam was great, but in the heat of battle, she would hide under a rock and disappear.  With him, something made me feel stronger and able to stand up for myself.  I was braver.

“Like you’re some witch that can curse me into a beast or something.  You know we all know you are different Lark.  Is that what you are Lark, a witch?”  His red face looked like a madman. The moment passed like Krueger or Mike Myers might jump out and take us all down.  I was so angry.  I drew in a huge breath and before I knew it I was sucking in something other than the oily air of the pizza place. It was always the same. The air would still, then the hum would move through me like a silent motor.  Something like motion sickness would hit me. I was taking a year from Foster and couldn’t stop it. 

I couldn’t stop. 

Not in my own skin, I didn’t feel my body being jolted in a spin and my mouth being overtaken by another.  Lips. Tongue.

Someone was kissing me.

Euphoria.

Seconds.  Tick.  Tock.

I came down from the high just as his lips released me.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Daniel whispered into my mouth.

Reality hit me all at once.  First, Daniel kissed me in front of a large enough population of the senior students.  And second, I was just about to take another year from Foster.  And it wasn’t through kissing.  Something wasn’t right about it. I never felt the song ring out in my head, but Foster was losing a year either way.

I turned fast in his arms and faced where I’d just stood.  Foster’s paralyzed face was stuck in a twisted reaction of some kind of demented smile and little birdies flying around the top of his head.  Did I fry his brain?

“Foster.  FOSTER.  Are you okay?”  I shook him by the arms feeling Daniel fall back with my leap.

Foster shook his head to rid himself of the dizzying affect before saying, “Whoa.  That was like a good backseat Twister!”

“Whoa man.  What did she do to you?  Chick never touched you, man.” Foster’s best friend Mike did his overboard surfer dude talk and waved a hand in his face. “What’s wrong with him?”  Mike turned to me.

Foster slowly became more alert as his face changed to anger like a snap of the finger.  His voice resonated up an octave, “You.  You did something to me, you witch.  You
are
a witch.  Stay away from me.”

He pushed off the ice cream machine he’d been leaning on and knocked over his friend Mike.  His words were the solid reminder of why I don’t take from the young. “Crap.  I feel like I was stabbed by a knife.  Keep that witch away from me.”

All this happened in the span of maybe three minutes’ time.  Not one worker in the place saw an ounce of it.

“I’m getting you out of here,” I rasped in her ear.  Her body was shaking and felt like jelly in my hold.  I took her hand only to keep her friends from making fun of her though my instinct was to carry her in my arms.  The crowd watched on as I dropped money on the table, and walked us to the front door saying nothing. 

Sly and clever, but inexperienced.  She moved like lightning to save the situation, but it wasn’t fast enough.  She could have saved that incident from unwanted outcomes if done right.  With proper training, her body could move through shadows and not be seen.  My guess is she had always taken from the old, who didn't need a stealthy siphon attempt.

The murmuring began the second the door closed.  Since the place was covered up in high-schoolers, gossip was a given.  We’d deal with it tomorrow.

I took her to the car and fastened her in where she finally woke out of the stupor and told me to stop.  I looked up at her since she was sitting in my Jeep and not her own car.  If she ran, now would be the moment for it.

“Are you okay?”

She huffed at my question and looked forward.  Was she angry at what I did?

I stopped at the gas station by the school and practically jumped out of the car and back in after two minutes flat with sodas and bags of chips.  Her distant eyes focused, zoning in on the bag. 

“Pickle chips?”

I think it might have been a question, but maybe just an observance.  I dropped my gaze to the bags finding that I never even looked at what I snagged.

“Yeah.  Sorry.”

She didn’t smile, nor turn them down.  Hunger took over after a taking.  I heard her snicker and maybe even pucker her lips eating the bag up in seconds.  I knew the feeling well.  I drove her back to her car and pulled into the space beside her Dodge.

Out of the blue, she asked me a question I wouldn’t have guessed coming from the incident that had just happened.

“Why do you call me a pigeon?” She turned her face making her hair go behind to her shoulders. 

I smiled inside.  She would just laugh.  “I’d heard of your kind for years.  The ones who got to live out their lives unaware of the ways we lived by.  You were shielded from that life.  When I found out about you, I was a little weary of what I’d find.”

As with all ciphors—those who sadly remained unaware.

Her face went through three different turns before she said, “I will ask you later how it is possible you already knew me for I don’t believe that is something you meant to slip up on yet.  However, when one has secrets sometimes they leak at our weakest moments.”

She saw my shock.  I’m not weak!
              “I meant me, Daniel.  I keep telling you things I shouldn’t.  I
should
go home right now and never look back at the last three days because something about you showing up scares me to death.  So don’t pretend to go all tough guy on me now.  I am very aware of how tough you are under that shirt.”

Her face turned the color
of
my shirt and the irony was all too great for me to pass up.  I couldn’t resist.

“Your cheeks match,” I pulled my collar down, “Are you asking to see under my shirt, Lark?”

She closed her eyes clearly not happy she’d slipped that one out quite the way she did.  I was.

“The Lark was a plane in the nineteen-twenties that was modeled after another called the Pigeon.  You are like the pigeon to me. You carried your message on the wind calling to me to come here.”  To make a comeback I didn’t deserve.  Redeeming qualities weren’t my forte, but I was not sure I could take her into the council if their intentions weren’t for good.

She liked what I said, I think.  Would she ask more?

When a smile perked up on her lips I felt like nothing could stop this turn of events.

“And that means what since you already knew me?  And how did I call you?  I know enough of you after three days, you speak in metaphors to avoid the truth.  I’m not going to run home screaming since I just told you I wanted to and haven’t yet.  If there is more, and it involves me, I should be told.  My parents too.”

“NO!  You can’t tell them,” I pressed.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and I panicked.

The words were there on my tongue, hanging there.  Two seconds ago I was ready to take on the council to save her, now I was tongue-tied. 

“Then tell me something that will keep me here, Daniel.” 

That triggered a question of my own.

“How did you know my name was Daniel?”

That did it.  The redirection of the conversation was there. 

“Pish!  I’d heard of you for years,” she spoke softly never dropping her eyes from me.

Well, well, well.  Turnabout is fair play.  However, I feared what she might have heard and that smarted something awful on my fear of losing her.

“I’m certainly not the only one with more than one secret.”

She sighed loud.  “I’ve known about
‘The Daniel Crawford’
for a couple of years now
and
his cruelty.  I heard from my parents behind their closed door about you and your missions and how you trick girls into things.  When you showed up, I wanted to go see Jason and ask why you were here and find out when you were leaving.  You were poison and I wanted nothing to do with you.”

Smart, smart girl.

So why did she let me kiss her?  “Who is Jason?”  I had a bad feeling the headquarters didn’t know everything.

She curled her lip up derisively and stared out the window.  “Oops.  That one slipped.  I told you I seem to forget to hide my secrets with you.  It’s not like I’ve ever said them to anyone else.  Jason is like us.  He goes to the other high school in the area but I only get to see him at the football games and other sport events.  We see each other at the hospital or nursing home sometimes.  It’s how we remain anonymous.”

Was he a guy-friend or a boyfriend?

“Do you like this Jason?”

Her face lifted to mine.

Damn.  I let her see my jealousy.  When did I become like this?

“Not in an attraction kind of way.  He and I just have a joint agreement.  Keep tabs on each other.  He doesn’t know any others like us either.  We found each other by accident at the nursing home both doing the same thing...at the same time.  We were so shocked we both hid for weeks before we confronted each other and kept each other’s secret.  It’s been my solace until you arrived.”

Me?  Great.  “Can I meet him?”

She measured her words carefully, “If you tell me what I want to know.”

“Friday.  Over dinner.”  I wanted more time before she left me high and dry.

“Then Jason will have to wait.”

She liked to bargain.  She and I were more alike than I liked to admit.  What if her innocence was a front?  She displayed all the qualities of a vixen on the prowl when she tried to get what she wanted.