Casters Series Box Set Page 41

  “Holy shit!” He leapt back up again, his gaze searching the room. Looking for a weapon, no doubt. Their eyes both fell on the poker by the room’s fireplace at the same time. The same one Seth had used to strike and immobilize Brooke the last time she’d entered this room.

  Then Alex blasted in, hovering between Bryce and the fireplace.

  “Oh, no!” Maryanne cried.

  Brooke recognized the exasperation in Maryanne’s tone, but hoped Bryce took it for fear.

  “Get down!” Bryce yelled, apparently too pumped on fear and adrenaline himself to notice anything odd in Maryanne’s reaction. “It’s me they’re after. Get under the bed if you can.”

  “I am not going to crawl under the bed and leave you out here,” she said.

  “Dammit, Maryanne, this is serious! Don’t you see them? They’re Hellers!”

  “Of course I see them! That doesn’t make them evil!”

  Bryce swore under his breath. Then he dove sideways and grabbed a floor lamp that stood beside the bed. Sweeping the shade off the top, he gave the pole a savage yank. Brooke heard the electrical cord strike the floor and a second later he was brandishing the pole like a weapon.

  “Oh, great,” Brooke said. “It’s probably cast iron.”

  “Likely,” Alex agreed. “And nothing copper in this whole damned room, as far as I can see. We’re not gonna win this one, Brooke.”

  Brooke watched Bryce, who stood balanced on the balls of his feet, pole clutched in his hands like a batter waiting for the right pitch. “Well, we can’t just leave him here with Maryanne.”

  “Okay, what’s your bright idea to get her out of here?’

  As they were debating that, Bryce lunged at Brooke, swinging his weapon. She dodged, but the iron pole brushed against her. Not enough to debilitate her, but enough for the pain to shoot through her.

  “Bryce, no!” Maryanne shrieked.

  “Get back!” he yelled. “I know what I’m doing. I can protect you, just let me handle this!” He took a swing at Alex, who dove out of the way.

  “I don’t need you to protect me!” Maryanne shouted. She angled herself toward Brooke. “I don’t need anyone to protect me. Do you hear me? No one!”

  “Brooke, I think she’s trying to tell us to bounce,” Alex said.

  Through the pain, Brooke’s gaze went back to Maryanne’s face, looking for confirmation. That’s when Bryce lunged again. This time, Brooke wasn’t going to be quick enough.

  “No!” Maryanne screamed, throwing herself in front of Brooke.

  Bryce pulled back on his swing, and it was almost enough to miss Maryanne. Almost. It just caught her right forearm a glancing blow. She cried out and grasped her arm with her other hand.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Maryanne, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She shook her arm. She angled a meaningful look at Brooke and Alex. The pain from the blow was evident on her face, but so was the determination. “I’m perfectly all right!”

  “Come on, Brooke,” Alex urged. “She wants us to go. She can handle this. Let’s just go before we make it worse.”

  Dammit, Alex was right. “Okay.”

  Brooke backed through the wall, keeping a wary eye on Bryce as she went. The last thing she saw was him folding Maryanne into a protective, relieved embrace.

  Back in the attic, Brooke’s original moaned with pain as the nails ripped through her again; Alex groaned low beside her.

  Chapter 15

  Therein Lies…

  Maryanne

  Maryanne glanced sideways again at Bryce as he drove her home. She sat in the passenger seat—close to the door and very still—and caught herself holding her breath a couple of times. Her arm ached where Bryce had accidently whacked her when she’d stepped in front of Brooke, but she wasn’t about to rub a hand over it now for him to see. Not that he’d need any reminder of what had happened tonight.

  Some date.

  And now he was bringing her home, well before curfew.

  That was another thing she’d be discussing with Alex and Brooke. They’d cast out earlier than the darkest hours of the night to spy on her, and that was dangerous.

  After Bryce’s initial shock of seeing the casters—and Maryanne’s feigned shock—he’d wrapped his arms around her protectively once Alex and Brooke had left. Strange as the situation had been, having his arms around her had been welcome.

  Then, suddenly, he’d pulled away from her. He’d held her at arm’s length and studied her guilty face. Then he’d walked across the bedroom, snapped on the light and looked at her hard from that short distance. Those deep, unspeaking moments had seemed like an eternity.

  “Bryce…I wasn’t—”

  “Don’t, Maryanne,” he’d said. “Just…don’t. Not now. There’s something I have to do.”

  She’d followed him back to the den, her mind frantically spinning with plausible explanations as to why she’d been digging around in Seth’s room. And she’d been ready to start spouting them. But Bryce had simply left her there in front of the dwindling fire. Without so much as an, ‘I’ll be right back’, he’d headed out. Out of the den, out of the house. Not daring to venture upstairs again, Maryanne sat there on the couch, her hands tucked down between her knees to stop them from shaking, and waited.

  And waited.

  Finally, after about ten minutes, she’d walked to the front door, opened it and peered outside. She’d been about to call out to Bryce, when she noticed the shed. The well-lit shed. Of course that was where he’d be. Writing in the journals about what had transpired tonight.

  She had stood there unmoving as that shed light went out, and as she heard that tell-tale slam, slam, slam of the shed door, making the night feel even colder. Maryanne hadn’t moved from the doorway as the hunter crossed the yard.

  “Getting late,” Bryce had said without looking at her, and Maryanne took this as her cue to grab her coat from the closet and slip her boots back on. He locked the door behind her as they exited the house.

  They’d driven back to Harvell House in silence.

  Bryce killed the engine and the truck’s headlights went out. Still they sat in silence. Then he snapped on the dome light. Somehow, she felt vulnerable, exposed by its glow. As if he could see the guilt all the more under this dim light. Then he faced forward again. Hands gripping the steering wheel, Bryce stared straight ahead through the windshield.

  Maryanne reached for the truck’s door handle. No sense delaying the inevitable end to the night. To her and Bryce.

  “Why?” Bryce’s voice cut through the silence.

  She let go of the handle. Swallowed once. And Maryanne measured her words, carefully, the ones she’d practiced in her mind. “I didn’t even know that was Seth’s room, Bryce.”

  “No? So you were just randomly…what? Snooping around—”

  “No!” She’d never been much good at lying, but right now, so much depended on this one. “Okay, yes, I was snooping. But I thought it was your room.”

  Finally he looked at her. “My room?”

  She shrugged. “In case you haven’t noticed, Bryce Walker, I’ve got kind of a thing for you.” Okay, well, that part wasn’t a lie. “So, yeah, I wanted to see your room. See where you hung out. Where you slept at night. What you were into…and stuff. What your world looked like. It wasn’t like I was going to burgle the place.”

  “I never said you—”

  “I just wanted to know more about you. It was immature and stupid and…” She ended on a shrug.

  Bryce looked at her for what seemed an eternity. But it was an eternity that softened as the seconds ticked by. Finally, he reached over and grabbed her hand. He played a rough and ink-stained thumb over her knuckles and they both gazed down on their entwined fingers. Maryanne started to breathe a little easier. He was accepting her explanation. She hated that she had to lie to him. And strictly speaking, it wasn’t all a lie. She did want to know more about him. Everything about him. She was seriously fa
lling for this guy. Dangerously, stupidly falling for him.

  Or is it the hunter I’m falling for?

  “But why…” Bryce paused, as if he didn’t want to go on.

  “Why what?” she whispered.

  He looked at her, pinning her with the question. “Why did you stop me from bashing that soul-stealing Heller? Why did you interfere? Why, Maryanne?”

  Maryanne’s heart slammed. She reached up with her free hand, inadvertently raising it to her chest right over the J-Bug tattoo. Of course he’d want to know. Of course she’d have to tell him…something.

  Maryanne turned away, stretching the time. She stared out the side window of the truck, toward darkened Harvell House. Not even the porch light shone. Mrs. Betts must have forgotten that one girl was still out. As she looked toward the house—at her vision in the shiny glass—her perspective changed. With the truck light on and the outside in darkness, she stared not just through the glass, but into her reflection in the glass. The images shifted back and forth. She’d done this before of course—everyone had. She’d done it most significantly when Alex had been in the coma back in November. In the window in Alex’s hospital room, looking into her own reflection and the darkness beyond. Not pitch black emptiness like caster emptiness, but maybe one that could be… She bit her lip as she reflected on that thought—the one that had ultimately brought Alex back.

  She stared deeper into her reflection. As she sat there with Bryce waiting, she looked into her own eyes then through her own eyes—those dark pools of nothingness. Emptiness.

  Loss.

  She said, “What if you’d killed her?”

  “Maryanne—”

  She wouldn’t be interrupted. Couldn’t be interrupted now if his words had shot from a cannon.

  “What if you didn’t mean to, but you killed her anyway? The deed’s still yours; you still own it forever and ever and ever. And it’s something you can never take back. Death. It’s a ripple—an action or inaction that owns us forever. Once those ripples wave out, they don’t go back. The grief waves out, the sorrow. Because you can’t roll back time, no matter how desperately you want to. You can’t undo some things. They haunt us…the things we can’t undo. Those moments in our past we’d give our very own lives to take back.”

  “Jesus, Maryanne.” His voice came out almost terrified. “How do you know these things?”

  The movement in the reflection startled her. Maryanne jumped. She’d almost forgotten that Bryce was there, she’d been so lost in her own thoughts.

  She turned toward him. “When you swung that iron pole, I had to step in. I just had to. I couldn’t let you do that to the caster. Nor to yourself.”

  She’d meant to spew yet another lie rather than tell him she’d intervened so he wouldn’t harm her casting sister. Maryanne only realized she was crying when Bryce raised a hand to brush the tears away.

  He settled a hand on her arm and began to rub it slowly. Yet despite this gentle action, his tone was hard when he spoke, as if he’d hardened all at once. Remembered all at once. “They’re Hellers. They’re evil. Pure, damned evil! Can’t you feel it? Grampy Walker could. He—”

  “You’re…you’re hurting me.” His grip had tightened as he spoke.

  Bryce dropped his hand instantly and groaned. “Your arm. I feel like such a shit over that. I’d never hurt you on purpose, Maryanne.”

  She shook her head. “It’s really not that bad. And it’s not like you meant to.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to, but still, I—”

  “Should ask me on another date to make up for it? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Okay, the teasing thing was totally not her style. Not that she had a style.

  Bryce grinned. “Yeah, that’s it. Geez, you’re good.”

  They leaned together for a kiss, and that was when the porch light snapped on.

  Then off.

  Then on again, off again. On again, off again.

  “Ah, I think you’re being paged,” Bryce said.

  Maryanne glanced toward the house, then smiling back to Bryce. “I do have to go.”

  He got out of the truck and helped her out, then took her hand as he walked her up the creaking front step. He was still holding her hand as the front door flew open.

  “Oh my God, Maryanne, we were so—”

  Brooke’s jaw snapped shut. Beside her, Alex was equally silent now. They’d not expected Bryce to be there, obviously.

  “Am I late, girls?” Maryanne asked, urgently.

  “Almost,” Alex answered tightly.

  Bryce stared at the two of them, framed there in the darkened doorway, and Maryanne studied him as he did. His eyes slid from Brooke to Alex and back again in those shadows. And dammit, those eyes narrowed. Maryanne reached around quickly and snapped on the light.

  “Your neck’s bruised,” he said to Brooke.

  Brooke’s hand shot to her neck, but she wasn’t quick enough to conceal the injury. Then, collecting herself, she laughed and drew her collar up. “Damn, can you still see that little love bite? I hope Mrs. Betts didn’t see it.”

  “A love bite?”

  Brooke batted her eyes at him.

  Bryce continued to study her, his eyes narrowing even further.

  A door slammed from somewhere in the house. Definitely a downstairs room—probably Martha Betts’s.

  “I…I’ve got to get in, Bryce,” Maryanne said. “That’ll be the House Mother coming.”

  He looked down at her, his glare finally lifting. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “That’d be great.”

  Bryce Walker stopped partway down the steps and looked back at them. He cast one more suspicious glance at Brooke, then Alex. And when he looked at her again, Maryanne could almost swear that he was looking at her in much the same way, with those narrowed, hunter eyes.

  Chapter 16

  Your Attention Please

  Alex

  Alex sat down on a chair in the midst of the other students in the parlor.

  Back in September, when Mrs. Betts had gathered the girls of Harvell for that first house meeting, Alex had taken the chair closest to the door. After the rape, the world had felt so suffocating. She’d had to be ready for a hasty exit if it tightened too closely. It had. She’d bolted.

  But that was then.

  Deep breath in. Hold it. Let it out slowly.

  Though the rape had been a nightmare, she was fighting the fear. Fighting the panic. Bit by bit, she was winning. And this early Sunday morning as the girls all gathered—half still in their pajamas, a couple still half asleep, and a glaring Kassidy Myers looking totally hung over—Alex didn’t race for the chair closest to the door. She sat with Brooke and Maryanne deep in the middle of the room, just to the left of Mrs. Betts’s music stand lectern. Not at all close to the door.

  It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

  “Wonder what this is all about?” Brooke asked. She was one of those still clad in her pajamas. Of course while most everyone else was wearing flannels from Wal-Mart, Brooke wore designer pajamas in a pretty, blue floral print. Even without her usual hair and makeup routine, she still managed to look luxuriously turned out.

  “Who knows,” Maryanne said with a yawn. She stretched before she continued. “Maybe some of the other girls are breaking curfew.”

  Alex snorted. “Some of the other girls?” Maryanne had missed curfew twice this past week, though only by a few minutes—but Alex had counted each second. Both times, she’d been out with Bryce.

  Brooke leaned back in her chair. “Ah, but we all break curfew, don’t we?”

  They shared a smile over that—that sly reference to casting. The girls still traveled out almost every night. Exploring the darkness, the freedom. The freakin’ release.

  “Okay, everyone,” Mrs. Betts said. “I’m terribly sorry to get you up so early.”

  She didn’t look terribly sorry. In fact, Alex thought, she didn’t look that sorry at all. But for her t
o drag this grumbling crowd in here before breakfast, whatever she wanted to talk about had to be serious. Alex looked at the music stand, then around the room. There were no colorful pages waiting to be handed out, so no agenda. Thank God, those meetings took forever! On the other hand, the caretaker John Smith was present, and he didn’t usually come in on Sundays. She also recognized George Hollis, who’d been chief of police decades ago and who now sat on the board of directors that oversaw Harvell House since C.W.’s death. For that matter, Mrs. Betts herself looked like she’d been up for hours. Agenda or not, something was definitely up.

  Mrs. Betts began, “Ladies, if I can have your attention?”

  The voices died out.

  “Well, it’s been quite a year so far, hasn’t it?”

  There was a general murmur of consensus at the statement. Or maybe consensus that it had to be the understatement of the year.

  Yeah, it had been quite a year, all right. The finding of the bodies in the basement, and the subsequent death of C.W. at Brooke’s hands. Then there was the media coverage, local, national, and even international. No one, it seemed, could resist that story line—girls’ residence benefactor implicated in rapes, murders; killed by student before he could kill again. Because of her age, and her lawyer-mom’s insistence, Brooke’s name had been kept out of the papers, but everyone in Mansbridge knew about her involvement. Brooke had pretty much basked in the attention, the whole living legend thing, but Mrs. Betts had been considerably less thrilled about the focus on Harvell House back in November. But all these weeks later, the media attention had evaporated. So why the meeting this morning?

  “I would like to remind you ladies that Mansbridge is perhaps not the safe place we would like to think it is.” Mrs. Betts said. The men beside her nodded their heads in emphasis.

  Alex went cold. She knew where this was going, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  Maryanne stiffened beside her, and a sideways glance at Brooke revealed absolutely no response, which was a sure sign that she was paying very close attention.

  “We’re all still…suffering…under the weight—the infamy—of what Mr. Stanley did. Now we have another—”