“Ummm, what are you looking at?” Zia says behind me and I can feel her shifting to pick my purse up from underneath the table.
I turn away from the window and try to compose myself, letting the shaken stupor drop from my face.
“Nothing,” I say and make a movement toward Zia so she’ll let me out of the booth. “I need to use the restroom.”
Zia stands up to let me slide out and I grab my purse on the way as she hands it out to me.
“I’ll be right back,” I say just as Zia sits back down again. I don’t even look at Daisy or Hannah before leaving, but I know they’re probably looking at me as strangely as Zia is.
I walk at a normal pace initially; just until I can get far enough away from them, but when I make it to the front of the restaurant I take another turn and dash out the door and onto the sidewalk. I run to the end of the building and look in every direction, but at first I don’t see the guy or the group he is with anywhere. I look again, desperately, over the heads of people and past moving cars until finally, as one group of people are shuffling out of the way and in-between two buildings, I see the guy out ahead. I follow fast, my steps picking up pace the farther away he gets, but I don’t run. I don’t want to draw too much attention to myself. I follow him all the way down Commercial Street, past dozens of restaurants and massive parking lots jutting out over the ocean and lined by sailboats until I see the guy cross Commercial and slip out of sight.
This time I run.
I hear my cell phone buzzing around in my purse, but I don’t have time to stop and answer it.
By the time I make it across, weaving my way through oncoming traffic and onto another cobblestone side street, he’s gone. Mexican music funnels from a nearby restaurant, muffled behind its outside greyish-blue walls and oddly-positioned windows. People come and go less frequent from the buildings that surround me than they did on the busier main street. I stop to rest and catch my breath, leaning against a brick building, pushing my purse against my side as it hangs sloppily over one shoulder. I don’t bother to check and see who had called yet because I know it was probably Zia. I’ve not been gone long, but long enough that I should be done in the restroom by now.
And knowing Zia, she probably went into the restroom shortly after to find me.
I’m kicking myself for losing him, but at the same time, for chasing after him in the first place. But that was no coincidence. Okay, maybe it could’ve been a coincidence; that this guy and Genna Bishop would have the same tattoo in the same spot, of a symbol that I’ve never seen before. I guess if Genna were an average girl who everyone else knew, then I might not find the matching tattoo so investigative-worthy.
My chest heaves once, letting out a heavy sigh of defeat and I lean my head back against the cool brick. My phone does a series of light chimes to indicate that there is a new voicemail waiting for me. As I go to reach in my purse, I freeze again, seeing the guy across the street sitting on the steps of an ivy-covered four-story rock building. He’s looking at me, this I am sure of. What I’m not so sure about is going any farther than where I stand. But this is stupid, to just stand here and not finish what I ran halfway here to do.
Even though I’m not exactly sure what that is.
He motions his head back once to indicate that I should walk over and talk to him.
I’m afraid to, but I do it anyway. I need answers.
I take a deep breath and brace myself, fastening my purse tighter against my side and I walk slowly alongside the brick building and toward the Mexican restaurant.
16
HE’S JUST SITTING THERE, looking at me from across the street; his arms hanging over his knees, his feet propped two steps down. He’s of average height and build, with short brown hair. He’s wearing blue jeans and a dark gray t-shirt, but most distinctly he’s wearing a knowing look on such a placid, attractive face and I can’t help but wonder if I really should just go back to the company of my friends.
I start to wonder too, if I’m the only one who can see him.
But that girl had been holding his hand and between thinking about the relief that gives me and about where she is now, I don’t know which holds more urgency.
I stop on the sidewalk and just look across the street at him for a moment, studying him. A blue station wagon drives slowly between us. The door behind me to the Mexican restaurant opens and a customer steps out; the music from inside funnels around me and into the street briefly until the door closes and the man shuffles down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets.
The guy seems really patient as I stand here, undecided. He continues to just look at me as though he’s watching an interesting movie, showing no visible emotion, but too engaged to get up from it at least until a commercial break. But then finally I see the faintest smile play at one corner of his mouth.
“You followed me all the way here,” he says. “Is that as far as you’re gonna’ go? It’d be a disappointment.”
I don’t respond, but I do take that first hesitant step into the street and after a few more, commit to crossing over. I don’t just watch him, but I watch everyone and everything around me, constantly feeling like eyes are at my back. I realize I’ve been clutching my purse so tightly to my side that my fingernails have started to dig into my palm as my hand grips the leather strap. My heart is beating fast and I’ve swallowed so much that my mouth is dry.
When I make it across the cobblestone street and step onto the red brick sidewalk covered by messy shadows of sunlight and tree branches, I decide that this is as close as I’ll get, putting about ten feet between us.
He smiles a fraction more, letting it show in his eyes, which I instantly recognize as another matching trait of Genna Bishop. His eyes are the color of a brilliant aquamarine stone, so bright and unnatural even for contacts that I feel like I can stare at them forever, that they hold the keys to an unimaginable mystery. He feels dangerous and my conscience is screaming inside.
Finally I say, “What are you?”
His brow rises just slightly and his close-lipped smile lengthens. He folds his hands together loosely with his forearms propped on his bent knees. “To the point, huh?” he says, nodding subtly as if to compliment my directness. “I like you already.”
I stand with my free hand relaxed at my side.
“Then match me,” I say, challenging him, “and do the same. Tell me what you are and let’s skip the games and the fifty questions.”
“Well…,” he says, letting out a breath and goes into a stand, “as much as I’d like to, I can’t tell you what I am.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”
He takes a few steps toward me and regardless of that ten foot distance I wanted to keep between us, I don’t move. I stand my ground.
He answers with his eyes, rather than repeating himself.
“I can, however, tell you my name and verify that question eating away at your curiosity.”
My jaw tightens and I cross my arms over my stomach. “Okay then? Who are you and what’s the answer to the question I haven’t even asked yet? And how do you know what the question is?”
“Thought you wanted to skip the fifty questions?” He grins and I sneer back at him, but I don’t entertain him.
“My name is Malachi (Mal-ah-kai),” he says placing one hand behind his back and holding the other out to me, but I refuse to shake it. A nonchalant shrug moves his shoulders and he withdraws. “No formal introductions. Okay. I can handle that, though you should know that it’s incredibly rude.”
“I don’t care that it’s rude,” I snap. “Please, I just need some answers and I don’t have a lot of time. My friends will come looking for me.” This is also my way of warning him that I’m not exactly alone, just in case he’s a psycho.
He smiles crookedly, placing the other hand behind him where they both rest horizontally at his back. “And no, I’m not human, to answer the unasked question that I took from your mind.”
I don’t know which to start with: him not being human, or how he knows what I’m thinking.
I choose quickly. “You can read my mind?” I say it sarcastically.
He nods, smiling the same clever smile I’m already starting to tire of.
“What? Are you a vampire or something?”
Malachi roars with laughter and doesn’t have to answer verbally for me to know that my question was completely asinine, if not even somewhat offensive.
The laughter fades and Malachi shuts his eyes, subtly shaking his head side to side; the tip of his tongue gently grazes his lips to wet them.
“Come here,” he says and I look at him like he’s crazy. “I won’t hurt you. I just need to…check something.”
There’s no way I’m moving closer. I move two steps back instead, my face twisted into a suspicious, refusing scowl. Malachi cocks his head to one side, his features allaying.
“Fine,” he says. “Then we have nothing else to talk about.”
He starts to walk away and I panic inside.
“No, wait….”
I know he’s manipulating me, that by threatening to leave when I still haven’t gotten everything from him that I can, that I’ll give in.
I have to give in.
Malachi turns on his heels to face me again, a victorious smile burning around his eyes. He brings his hands around to the front and folds them together, resting against his pelvis. And he waits.
“Okay,” I say taking a deep breath, “what do you need to check exactly?”
“Just come here.” His smile widens. “You might even like it.”
All of my thoughts just kind of freeze inside my head and I swallow even more vigorously. I hate myself for letting his carnal words cause any reaction other than disgust. Immediately I think of Isaac and how if he were here, Malachi might already be dead. Or, at least preferring it that way.
Malachi reaches out his hand again, this time for more than a handshake. I glance carefully all around me at the traffic moving down Commercial Street and the people walking by on the other side down Wharf Street. But I never really let my attention fully leave Malachi who now stands close enough that once I do reach out my hand it will be easy for him to take it.
I feel his fingers slip underneath mine and slide into the palm of my hand. Gently, he clamps his thumb down on the top of my hand and pulls me toward him. I glimpse the tiny tattoo between his fingers. I don’t want to be any closer and I sure as hell don’t want him to be holding my hand, but I feel calm and relaxed and consenting all of a sudden, as if someone else is inside my head making my decisions for me, telling me that it’ll be okay and I’m not doing anything wrong.
Malachi’s body is inches from mine and I watch nervously how his eyes close heavily and he leans toward my head. My first instinct is to pull away because I don’t want this, whatever it is. His closeness feels entirely wrong, and I don’t like it. But that calming voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me to ride it out, that it’ll all be over soon.