Him_v4

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Author's Note

  For my Mom,

  who taught me to love words.

  I love you mucho.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Click, clunk, click, clunk, click, clunk.

  A familiar sound woke her.

  Click, clunk, click, clunk, click, clunk.

  Another moment passed.

  The turn signal.

  Amelia Adkins inhaled sharply as if taking a breath for the first time. That instinctual reminder of needing to breathe forced her to open her eyes.

  Met with darkness, she searched for another breath to choke down into her body. It wouldn't come. The seatbelt squeezed her chest, suffocating her. Webbing dug through the fabric of her shirt, bruising her chest. She writhed, struggling to adjust herself so her lungs could expand. She found the sweet spot with a sharp gasp, greedily gulping the air.

  She tried to focus, but a heaviness in her skull caused her vision to swim. Instead of her dark hair hanging down the nape of her neck, it fell away from her, over her ears. Her arms hung above her head, her forehead smashed against the inside of her palm. The feeling in Amelia's body returned to her.

  She was upside down.

  The pieces began to come together. A wreck. She'd been in a wreck. The car had overturned as she'd veered off the road. A distinct, sharp smell of burning rubber met her nostrils, and she was certain she could still feel the wheels spinning.

  Blearily, her eyes made out the gear shift, the silent radio, air vents underneath closed. Further still, at the windshield, a spidering crack covered the glass all the way to the edges. It was dark beyond that. Night had settled hours ago.

  She willed herself to turn her head, the pain jarring to her delayed senses, but not as awful as what she saw next. Suspended beside her, head bent away from her at a painful angle, lay her sister Faye. Gravity had called for her sister's limbs, contorting her arms into a broken puzzle. The only thing separating her skull from the crushed car ceiling was her right hand, a small gold chain dangling from her wrist.

  Amelia tried to call out to her, but her voice refused to comply and instead, she let out a low grunt. Panic came next and with her eyes still fixated on her sister, she wondered if Faye was dead.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she pushed the thought from her mind. Remnants of a white light burned behind her eyelids. The cause of the crash. The overwhelming brightness had startled her, rushing through the windows, pouring over her until she was blind. Instinct told her to swerve, though the road had been empty. The loss of vision terrified her. They hadn't hit anything until the hood of her car connected with the guardrail. She'd felt an unsettling lurch as they crashed through, the heaviness of the vehicle dragging them down the side of the road.

  She remembered screaming— a loud, shrill cry that echoed through the car. Painfully, she'd strained her calf as she frantically tried to pump the brake. But the car wouldn't stop. She had lost complete control. Still blinded, she had felt the car's front end slam into something solid and flip. Amelia's head had snapped against her headrest. The pain stung, only for a moment, before the car found its way to the ground below and with a pop, the airbag deployed.

  Opening her eyes again, she tried to shake the memory, her sister's limp arm coming into view. Her next move was clear. She needed to get out of the car so she could help Faye.

  Mustering her courage, she tried to move again, this time to reach down and unbuckle herself. Her body felt foreign, arms numb from being folded in a strange position. They refused to respond. The only part of her body that seemed to work was her heart pounding away wildly.

  "Faye?" she croaked, her throat painfully hoarse.

  Her sister remained unresponsive.

  Tears formed at the edges of Amelia's eyes. She fought them off. Crying wouldn't do them any good now, and she hated her body for betraying her. She tried to conjure up some adrenaline, but it was hopeless. She was absolutely useless.

  From the corner of her eye she saw something move. Her heart jumped. She turned to look out underneath her arm towards the driver's side window. In the darkness, she barely made out the whites of an eye. Desperate relief slammed into her.

  Someone knows we're here.

  Someone's going to help us!

  She squinted, trying to make out the rest of the face, but it disappeared. Gritting her teeth, she slowly wiggled her fingers to life.

  A deafening bang startled her, coming once, twice, and then again. She shifted her head to look forward. The bottom of a foot kicked at the windshield in an attempt to get inside.

  Three more kicks did the trick and it gave, curving inward to pop free from the frame. Hands gripped its open edge, forcing it away with a sharp crack. A man squatted at the entrance, edging in through the open window.

  He had shaggy blond hair, large ears, and a strong jaw. He was covered in sweat and dirt, a shadow of a beard visible at the lower half of his face. His mouth was tense, eyes steady as he studied the two women.

  "Are you hurt?"

  It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. She gave a small shake of her head to show that she felt okay, all things considered. "Help her." Amelia struggled to point her finger at her sister. "Please."

  He'd read her mind, already working on Faye's seatbelt. His composure made her wonder if he was trained for this sort of thing. Amelia heard a snap and watched as the seatbelt fell away from her sister. The man tried to catch Faye, but not before her knees came forward with a loud crack, slamming against the car's ceiling.

  She winced, part of her hoping that Faye would wake up, but she made no signal of protest. The man twisted Faye's body carefully, gaining the leverage he needed to pull her out through the windshield.

  Alone, Amelia hung in the darkness, a cocktail of panic, guilt, and pain bubbling in her chest. She hadn't gotten a good look at her sister's face, but her unresponsiveness was concerning. Tears came, despite her best efforts to push them away, rolling from the creases of her eyes, over her eyebrows to drop off her forehead.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the man reappeared, studying her position. "Can you move your arms?" he asked, reaching up to tug at her seatbelt.

  She squirmed, trying to wrestle them out of their strange position. "I don't think so."

  He nodded. "I'm going to take the seatbelt off now."

  She braced herself. After a slight pressure came sweet release as the seatbelt snapped back. She tensed, her legs catching on the steering wheel. The man slowly helped her right herself to climb through the gaping window of what had once been her faithful Jeep Cherokee.

  Amelia found herself on the ground, facing a hunk of smokin
g metal that barely resembled a car. Her eyes struggled to adjust to take in the world right-side up. Somehow, the car had made its way down a rocky hill, the hole from the guardrail visible from where she sat.

  How are we alive?

  A few feet away, the man tended to the still body of her sister. She ignored her sore muscles and scrambled towards them, stomach sick with worry. Faye laid on her side, mouth open, the man's fingers at her neck. He pulled them away and looked at Amelia.

  "Is she alive?" Her throat felt like it might close from fear.

  With a firm glance, he nodded. "Knocked out," he told her, then looked back at the wreck. "Can you call for help?"

  Instinctively, she reached for her cell phone, but it was gone. She turned, making her way back to the wreck. Her bag of belongings was strewn out across the grass. Phone. Charger. Pills. Loads of them, in little ziplock baggies.

  With shaking hands, she scraped what lay nearby back into her purse. She couldn't leave that here for anyone to find.

  Finally she turned, bringing the cell phone back to the man. She knew she couldn't steadily dial any selection of numbers. He snatched it from her, calling for an ambulance.

  Had she not been so worried about her sister, she might have thought the man who'd rescued them was extremely odd. She might have asked him how he'd seen the crash if he hadn't even been on the road. She might have asked how he'd gotten down the hill to rescue them in the first place. She might have wondered what he was doing in the middle of the forest on the side of the highway, without a vehicle in sight.

  But she didn't ask him any of those things. The only thing she could focus on was getting them some help.

  CHAPTER TWO

  They were lucky to be found when they were, the nurse explained. "Hanging upside down like that puts pressure on the heart and could be deadly."

  None of this made Amelia feel any better as she sat in the emergency room at the hospital. She'd been here for hours. Her injuries were remarkably minor—a chest laceration from the seatbelt and whiplash. Nothing some ice, Neosporin, and Advil couldn't handle.

  "But my sister," Amelia asked, for the third time that hour, "Faye. Is she okay?"

  Her nurse stared blankly at her as if it was the first time she'd heard the question. "Your sister?"

  Amelia frowned. "The girl I came in with. Is she okay? Is she here?"

  "Oh, yes." The nurse nodded at her. "She's here. They admitted her a bit ago. She's with the man who brought you two in."

  "The man who was with us?" Amelia's curiosity spiked. "Who is he?"

  "You don't know him?"

  Amelia shook her head.

  The nurse eyed her suspiciously, fishing a small flashlight out of her pocket. "Are you feeling dizzy?" She lifted Amelia's eyelid with her thumb. "Any headache?"

  "I'm fine," Amelia replied in irritation, swatting her away. "Seriously. I just want to see my sister."

  "Well, you can see her once I release you." The nurse did not look convinced, but she put the flashlight back in her pocket all the same. "How's it that you two are sisters anyway? You don't look anything alike."

  Amelia and Faye had heard this question for years. Despite their physical differences, they were family. While Faye was blonde and fair-skinned, Amelia boasted much darker features. Her paperwork in the system had identified her origins as Hispanic, though she'd never felt close to any particular culture. She'd seen it all and, regardless of race, people everywhere were dishonest and unreliable.

  "We're foster siblings," Amelia explained to the nurse who busied herself with the chart in her hands.

  "Oh." She scribbled a few more things down on the clipboard, then handed it to Amelia. "Sign the last page. Then you're free to go."

  Eagerly, Amelia snatched the clipboard from her hands, skimming the pages quickly. On the last page, she signed her name.

  "Your sister," the nurse offered, taking the clipboard back. "She's a few beds down, at the end of the hall. I believe Doctor Espinosa is looking after her."

  "Thanks." Amelia forced a small smile.

  Once the nurse left her small enclosure, Amelia slipped off the bed, clutching her purse to her side, and set out in search of Faye.

  The pain reliever helped dull her sore body. She did her best to ignore the lingering pain as she wandered the emergency room floor. A strong smell of bleach overwhelmed her as she walked, hurried nurses ignoring her presence. At the end of the hall, fresh sunlight poured through the window. Morning had arrived.

  Finally rounding the last curtain, Amelia met an occupied bed. Faye sat on top of the blankets, reading a magazine. Besides the massive bruise on the right side of her face, her sister looked no worse for wear.

  In a chair beside the bed sat the man who had rescued them. He slouched back with crossed arms, nose in the air, snoring slightly.

  "Hi," Amelia announced herself.

  Faye put her magazine down and grinned at her. "Well, hi." She patted the end of the bed. "Come on over."

  She rushed to her side, sweeping her sister up in a tight hug radiating with overwhelming guilt. Faye hissed in pain. "Oh god. You okay?"

  Pulling back, her sister nodded. "I'm fine. Just sore. What about you?"

  "Barely a scratch."

  Faye smiled at her. "Good."

  "I'm not sure what happened. There was that bright flash of light and then…I don't know. I just lost control of the car. I couldn't see anything."

  Faye nodded. "I couldn't either. It was the strangest thing. Came out of nowhere."

  Amelia sat on the bed, unable to take her eyes off her sister. Last time she'd seen her, she wasn't sure they'd make it out alive. She expected her injuries to be worse. To see Faye sitting up, smiling, was certainly the last thing she'd expected. They were lucky to be alive.

  "The road was pitch black," she told Faye. "Had been for miles. I wonder where it came from."

  Faye shrugged. "Well, we're all right. We're alive. That's what matters. Only thing that didn't make it was your car." She smiled at her. "Thing was a piece of junk anyway."

  Amelia tilted her head, studying Faye's bruised face. "I'm so sorry."

  "No," Faye answered immediately, looking back at her magazine. "You aren't allowed to apologize."

  "I was the one driving."

  Faye let out a low laugh and looked back up at her. "It could have just as easily been me. That light would have caused anyone to swerve off the road."

  "Still..."

  Faye gently closed her magazine. "Well," she said with a smile, "while you've been throwing yourself a big 'ol pity party, I've been trying to figure out what the hell he's still doing here." She motioned towards the body in the chair.

  Amelia looked over her shoulder at him. He appeared to still be sleeping.

  "He saved us," she thought aloud, looking back at her sister. "Pulled us out of the car after taking the windshield off."

  "Who is he?"

  Amelia shrugged. "A good Samaritan?"

  "Well, he sure snores a lot."

  "I'm just glad you're okay. It was a hell of a crash. We could have—"

  "Stop." Faye put her hand up. "Let's just thank the man and our lucky stars. I hope he doesn't want any money. Cause we're broke as hell."

  "Don't want your money." A third voice filled the room, raw with sleep. Amelia looked back at the man who sat upright in the chair, running his hands over his face. "Wanted to make sure you were both okay, is all." Between his fingers, he searched their faces.

  "I'm Amelia," she offered awkwardly through the silence that came next, reaching to shake his hand.

  The man looked at her hand, then back up at her without taking it. "Ebenezer. But you can call me Ben."

  "Well Ben," Faye said from the bed behind her, "I'm Faye. And you can call me Faye." She gave a small chuckle at her own joke. "I think we owe you a thank you."

  "Yes, thank you," Amelia repeated Faye's words sincerely. "Not sure things would have ended well if you hadn't been there."

/>   Ben stared at her, emotionless. "You're…welcome." The words sounded uncertain.

  What a strange man.

  The area quickly filled with silence. An unease settled over Amelia; an apprehension she couldn't shake. What exactly was this man still doing here? Nobody would hang around unless they wanted something in return. She turned to him. "I have to ask you." Questions came like rapid fire. "How did you find us? Were you driving on the road? Did you see the light? That bright light?" Her curiosity was insatiable. The man had appeared out of thin air.

  "Wow." Faye raised her eyebrows at Amelia. "What is this, twenty questions?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to—"

  "A light?" He stood abruptly from his chair, sending it to the floor with a clatter. "You saw a light?" His voice raised, fists tightened at his side, eyes darting wildly between them.

  The sudden change in demeanor startled her. "W-we did," Amelia answered apprehensively. His eyes widened with worry and she struggled against the uncertainty in his face. Something wasn't right. "I thought it might have been another car, or a truck, or something. But the road seemed empty." She paused, waiting for a response from him, but none came. "Did you see it too?"

  She desperately wanted him to break the silence.

  "Did it touch you?" he asked.

  "Did it—?"

  "Did it touch you?" he demanded, his anger sudden and terrifying. "The light. Did it touch you?"

  Amelia defensively shifted closer to Faye. She tried to go back to the moment and remember the light. The blinding presence had soaked through her skin.

  "Yes," she breathed, before she could stop herself. Beside her, Faye nodded.

  "Oh no, oh no," Ben moaned, rubbing the tips of his fingers up over his mouth, then back down again. He squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them again, cursing under his breath.

  "Something wrong?" Faye asked from behind Amelia.

  "You weren't supposed to see it. The light. It's not supposed to touch you."

  "Why not?" Amelia questioned.

  Ben looked up, meeting her eyes. "It's complicated. I'm not sure there's a way to explain it to you in a way that you'd comprehend." He was placating them. His eyes moved back to Faye. "If you saw or felt the light, it means you're susceptible."