Very, very careful.
I decided to check the closet first because…well, I’m not sure why other than it seemed like just as good a spot to start with as any.
Moments later, I ran into a problem. I realized I had no clue what exactly it was I was looking for. Still, I didn’t want to just give up. So I continued to search through the massive amounts of clothes hanging up in the closet, and through the shoe boxes that were stacked on the closet floor, hoping that I’d know what “it” was when I found it.
But when I’d finished looking through everything, I came up empty-handed.
Whatever I was looking for wasn’t in the closet.
I moved on to the armoire, then the night stand. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though. I even checked under the bed, despite the fact that I knew I wouldn’t find anything under it.
Neat freaks never put things under their bed.
I let out a frustrated sigh. I should’ve known this would be a waste of time. I mean what had I expected to find? A secret letter explaining what was going on. Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.
Nothing is ever that easy.
Giving up, I headed to leave. But I slowed to a stop when I spotted a wood bench, lined with throw pillows. There was a small latch on the front of it. As good of a place as any to hide something, right?
I carefully removed the pillows from the bench, and then held my breath as I unlatched the lock. I half expected an alarm to go off or something, but the only sound it made was from the hinges squeaking when I lifted open the lid.
Inside were books, old photos of Sophia and Marco in various places, a box of pressed flowers, some ribbons and cards. Nothing unusual, or at least that’s what I thought until I picked up the final object—a glass swan with a bright orange beak—and noticed the floor of the bench rocked slightly. Setting the swan aside, I used the palm of my hand to put pressure on the board. It popped up on one side, and....Ta-da! A secret compartment. Whatever I was looking for had to be in there. It just had to be.
I removed the board the rest of the way and found a single manila envelope hiding beneath it. My hands started to sweat as I picked up the envelope. This was it. This was what would give me my answers.
I unwound the piece of string that sealed the envelope shut. The very first thing I came across was the papers stating that Marco and Sophia had custody of me.
Well, so much for my kidnapping theory.
I sifted to the next item; a piece of blue-lined paper with my name and a list of dates written on it in red ink. I recognized the flawless handwriting as Sophia’s. There were five dates total, all seeming random with no visible order. At least from what I could tell, anyway. The oldest date dated back nearly fourteen years ago, and each had a check mark next to it, except for one. February 8 of this year.
My heart stopped.
I couldn’t breathe.
Okay, so you’re probably wondering why I was freaking out. And, trust me, I was majorly freaking out. To you, I’m sure the date seemed completely ordinary. But to me it wasn’t. It was a more significant date than even my birthday. That’s because February 8th was the precise date I’d first felt the prickle that had released my emotions.
I felt sick to my stomach. Why would Sophia have written this down? And what did these other dates mean? None of them held any importance, at least as far as I knew.
I pressed my clammy hand to my forehead. I had a headache. A big, full of confusion, headache.
But I needed to get it together and figure out more.
I took a deep breath and looked at the next paper, a cream colored one with a gold border. My Birth Certificate. My fingers trembled as I read my mother’s name listed at the bottom. Jocelyn Lucas. It was the first time I’d ever known her name, yet it felt as familiar as my own. It was a beautiful name. I bet she was beautiful too. My stomach fluttered with excitement as I skimmed over to the line beside it—the one where my father’s name was listed. Or should have been listed. It was blank. My heart sank. Why would it be blank? I had to have a father. What, had he not wanted me or something? No. That couldn’t be it. Sophia and Marco had told me that both of my parents had died in a car accident, which meant they still had to have been together—we had to have been a family, right? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything.
I stared down at the blank line, trying not to cry and telling myself that everything would be okay—that I’d figure everything out. That’s when I heard the downstairs door slam shut. I just about jumped out of my skin. I hurried and stuffed the papers back into the folder, except the one with the list of dates on it. On a sporadic impulse, I decided to shove that one in my pocket. I set the envelope back into the secret compartment and placed the bottom board back on top of it. I piled the rest of the stuff back inside the bench, closed the lid, and threw the pillows back on, knowing full well Sophia was probably going to noticed how unorganized everything was and would know someone had been in here.
But oh well. I’d deal with that later. Right now, I had bigger problems to deal with.
I tiptoed over to the door and cracked it open. I could hear Marco and Sophia voices chattering downstairs so, holding my breath, I slipped out into the hallway and padded back to my room, gently shutting my door behind me.
I let out a huge exhale. That was close. Way too close. But it was worth it. I took the list out of my pocket and stared down at the dates. What did they mean? I mean, they had to be linked to one another somehow.
Not knowing what else to do, I started for my computer, figuring there was no harm in doing a quick search on the internet to see if anything came up. But before I could even get it turned on, someone knocked on my door.
My muscles seized up. Had Sophia already discovered I’d been snooping in her room?
No, there was no way.
“Gemma.” Sophia said through the door. “Are you in there?”
I stared at the door, frozen and mute, with the image of her on the other side of it, all red faced and pissed off, embedded way to clearly in my mind.
“Gemma!” she yelled, banging on the door again.
My adrenaline soared, and I couldn’t seem to bring myself to move.
“Gemma, open this door up. Now!”
I shoved the list of dates back in the pocket of my jeans, reminded myself to breath, and opened the door.
Yep. There she was all red faced and pissed off.
“Could you move any slower?” she asked snappishly.
I shrugged. “I don’t know? Maybe.”
Her temper flared. “Next time you better hurry up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you need anything else?”
She pushed past me into my room and gazed around like she was searching for something.
“Umm…what are you doing?” I asked, crossing my fingers she wasn’t looking for the list of dates stashed inside the pocket of my jeans, which, right now, had seemed to have taken on the weight of lead.
“Are you ready to go to your field trip?” she asked, still staring around my room.
“Wha…My astronomy fieldtrip?” God, I’d completely forgotten about that.
“Yes, your astronomy fieldtrip,” she snapped impatiently. “It’s tonight, right?”
I slowly nodded. “But I think I’m going to skip out on it.” I know I’d really been looking forward to going to it and everything—getting the opportunity to look through a telescope was something I’d wanted to do forever—but at the moment, it just seemed irrelevant. What I wanted to do was to stay here and find out what the list of dates meant, before Sophia found out it was missing. Anyway, I’d skipped out on school today, and showing up at this fieldtrip would eliminate the old I-was-sick excuse.
“No, you’re going,” she ordered.
“Why?” I asked, eyeing her over suspiciously. “I mean, why do you even care? You’ve never cared before. So what’s with the sudden interest?”
She fidgeted nervously, smoothing out invisible wrinkles on her perfectly pressed navy blue sweater. “There is no sudden interest. I just want you out of this house for awhile. That’s all”
Ouch. That stung. “Fine. I’ll go for a drive then.”
“No, you’re going to the fieldtrip.”
“But you just said that all you cared about was me being of the house, so what does it matter where I go just as long as I go,” I argued. “Besides, I missed school today.”
“And whose faults that?”
“You’re the one who didn’t wake me up when my alarm didn’t go off.”
She scowled. “You’re going. End.Of.Discussion.”
And it was, because she left.
Bursting with anger, I kicked the door, but not hard enough to do any damage. I let out a frustrated sigh. She was hiding something. And whatever I had to do, I was going to figure out what it was.
Chapter 11
A half an hour later, bundled up in a heavy black coat, purple gloves and a matching beanie, I was climbing out of my Mirage and onto the ice-skating-of-a-rink school parking lot. It was cold and dark, and I had only one lamppost to light the way to the entrance of the school. Plus, no one was around.
Needless to say, I was freaked out a little.
The icy air seeped through my clothes and burned coldly against my skin. My breath puffed out of my mouth in a cloud of smoke. I yanked my hood over my head, zipped up my coat, and picked up my pace toward the school. I’d made it about halfway when I suddenly got the shivers. I’d have chalked it up to the fact that it was as cold as death out here, but the flash of yellow I saw from my peripheral vision told me otherwise.
I started to jog, my eyes scanning the parking lot frantically. The flash could have been from a headlight of a passing car. That’s what I tried to convince myself until I caught sight of two eye-shaped yellow lights flashing wilding in a cluster of nearby trees.
“Oh my God,” I breathed and jetted off in mad sprint, my adrenaline pulsating like mad. The monster was back. Or maybe it had never left. Maybe it had been waiting around for the perfect moment when I’d be wandering around in a dark parking lot by myself. How could I be so stupid? I’d been so focused on the whole Alex and Sophia thing when, really, what I should have been focusing on the fact that there were real-life monsters around that wanted to kill me. And now my mistake had left me completely vulnerable.