Jill Sorenson - Set The Dark On Fire

The driver began to close the baggage compartment. “Bus leaves in two minutes, miss.”

She nodded, hesitating another moment before she approached him. “Please don’t tell my dad,” she begged.

He glanced at the bus again, seeing now that the small sign above the front window said “Las Vegas.”

She twisted her hands together. “I’m going to call him as soon as I get settled, but I don’t want him to worry…”

“Why are you going there?”

“To look for work.”

“What kind of work?”

She tore her gaze from his, her mouth thinning. And then he knew. He knew why she was going and why she’d kept it a secret.

The outrage and confusion he’d felt upon reading her rejection letter came back with a vengeance, flooding his system. “What the hell was that this morning?” he asked, lowering his voice. “Practice?”

Her eyes filled with hurt. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t make it cheap.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “I’ll make it expensive. How much?”

She brushed her tears away angrily. “Fuck you.”

“You already did.”

Turning on one heel, she walked away from him, but he caught up with her easily, wrapping his hand around her upper arm. “Wait.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp and swung at him, surprising him with a glancing slap across the face. It hurt, and he didn’t like it, but he took her in his arms and held her tight, his heart pounding with anxiety. “Please don’t go,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She struggled her way out of his embrace.

“I-I love you,” he blurted, desperate to keep her here.

The anger faded from her eyes. In its wake there was only pity, and he realized that he was making a fool of himself. Nothing he could say would convince her to stay.

When she reached out to touch his face, he flinched. “Good-bye,” she said, pressing her cool lips to his burning cheek.

With that, she was gone, her high-heeled boots making tracks in the gravel-strewn dirt at his feet, leaving dusty marks on the metal steps leading up to the passenger seats.

The grizzly-looking bus driver squinted in his direction, daring him to feel lucky. Dylan just stared back at him, thinking he’d never feel lucky again. The driver made a harrumphing sound and tossed his cigarette aside. Dylan watched, his heart growing cold and hard, while the bus pulled away.

It hadn’t yet cleared the parking lot when he became aware of another car cruising up behind him, a sleek black shadow.

The horn blipped and red lights flashed as the squad car jerked to a halt. Dylan didn’t make a conscious decision to run; he just did it. But he must have been moving in slow motion, still stunned from having his heart torn from his chest, because Garrett caught up with him in seconds, tackled him from behind. They both went down hard on the loose gravel.

It ripped his jeans and cut into his palms.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Garrett panted, already winded. Wrenching Dylan’s arms behind his back, he cuffed his wrists, continuing to recite the Miranda warning as he patted him down.

Dylan lifted his head, straining to see the bus cruising down the main drag. Was Angel watching him? Did she care?

He must have eaten dirt on the way down, because his lips felt numb and there was a tinny, metallic taste in his mouth. Turning his head to the side, he spat out blood and bits of gravel.

“What’s this?” Garrett said, pulling the knife out of his back pocket.

Dylan groaned, knowing he was in deep shit.

“Where’ve you been today?”

“At your mother’s,” he said, running his tongue over his teeth to make sure they were all in the right place.

Garrett put his knee on Dylan’s neck, pressing him facedown in the dirt and giving him an agonizing demonstration of excessive force. Dylan would have protested, but with a noseful of gravel and a crushed windpipe, he couldn’t breathe.

Shay meant to follow the doctor’s orders, and she’d had every intention of keeping her promise to Luke. But with every passing moment, she became more and more convinced that her brother was in danger, and she could no longer stay idle.

She picked up the phone beside the bed and dialed a number she knew by heart.

“Palomar High School, Rose speaking.”

“May I speak with Principal Fischer? This is Shay Phillips.”

“Please hold, Mrs. Phillips.”

Shay ground her teeth together.

“Miss Phillips?” a man’s smooth voice answered. Principal Fischer never forgot her marital status. “What can I do for you?”

“Did Dylan come to school yet?”

“Not according to any of his teachers.”

Damn it. “I saw him get on the bus.”

He sighed heavily. “I’ve heard parents say that before. Despite our best security efforts, students sometimes find a way to leave campus.”

“What about Chad Pinter and Travis Sanchez? Are they present and accounted for?”

“I can’t give out information about other students, Shay. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks anyway,” she muttered, and hung up.

Feeling helpless, and hating it, she stared at the clock on the wall across from her, watching the seconds tick by. The puncture wound on her hand was barely discernible. There was no discoloration or localized swelling. It looked like a kitten bite.

“Screw this,” she said, reaching for the phone again.

Her friend Lori answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

Shay could hear water running and baby Tommy fussing in the background. She didn’t want to put her friend out, but she didn’t know who else to turn to. “I’m at Palomar Hospital. Can you come pick me up?”

“Sure, but…” There was a muffled noise, like she was adjusting the phone and the baby, “… What happened?”

“Nothing big,” she lied. “I’ll be waiting by the tree out front.”

“Okay,” Lori replied, sounding dubious. “Twenty minutes?”

Shay thanked her and hung up. She didn’t think they could keep her here against her will, but she wasn’t sure. Dr. Barnes had already gone over the dangers with her and had been adamant that she stay at least eight hours.

Instead of causing a scene, she started working on the tape around her IV. Getting it put in had been the most uncomfortable part of this “near-death” experience, besides the stress, and it wasn’t easy to take out. Wincing, she pulled the needle from her arm and slapped some tape back on over the tender spot.

Her blood pressure gauge and pulse monitor were simple to remove, but they started beeping the instant she took them off. Panicking, she jumped up from the bed, realizing with chagrin that she didn’t know where her clothes were.

It couldn’t be helped, so she clutched the hospital gown’s gaping back, holding it shut, and fled the room like a thief in the night.

The dramatic exit was probably unnecessary, and it was definitely foolhardy, but once she committed to it, there was no going back. Ten minutes later, Lori Snell found her loitering behind the tree in front of the hospital, barefoot and loose-haired, like a deranged escapee from an insane asylum.

“Are you crazy?” Lori said through the open window.

“Probably,” Shay replied, letting out a shaky laugh as she climbed into the passenger seat of Lori’s SUV. She smiled at Tommy over her shoulder, who gurgled with delight. “He’s getting so big.”

“Um-hmm,” Lori said, pulling out into traffic. “What’d you do?”

Shay gave her an abbreviated version, downplaying the snakebite and emphasizing her concern for Dylan. “Take me to Dark Canyon,” she said as Lori drove back toward Tenaja Falls. “That’s where my car is.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lori muttered, giving her a jaunty salute.