help Rider. Inching the door open slowly, so that it didn’t make a sound, I glanced around the bedroom. The lamp on the nightstand was on, flooding the room with muted yellow light. Empty brown bottles littered the top of the dresser. The room smelled funny. Stagnant. I moved toward the bed, squeezing my hands closed. Miss Becky was lying atop it, but she didn’t look right. She looked like one of those mannequins in the stores, pale and still.
“Miss Becky,” I whispered, breaking a rule. I was never to wake her up, but Rider needed help. There was no movement on the bed. I crept closer. “Miss Becky?”
Frightened, I hesitated near the bed. The room blurred. Burning tears filled my eyes as I shifted my weight from my left foot to the right. I tried to say her name again, but there was no sound. The strap of her tank top was halfway down her arm and her chest didn’t seem to move.
I started to turn away, to go hide, because something was very wrong, but Rider was outside, and it was cold enough that my gloveless fingers had ached on the playground at school earlier. I lifted bony shoulders and rushed back to the bed. I reached out, grabbing Miss Becky’s arm. Her skin felt cold and...and plastic. I yanked my hands back and spun, running out of the room. Miss Becky... She wasn’t going to be able to help. It was up to me, and I wouldn’t let Rider down. I crept back down the steps and quietly edged past the moldy-smelling bathroom.
Mr. Henry shouted a bad word from the living room, causing my heart to jump, but I pressed on, reaching the back door. Stretching up, I unlocked the door, the sound cracking like thunder throughout the kitchen. I turned the doorknob.
“What in the hell are you doing, girl?”
I flinched, shrinking back as my body locked up. I prepared myself for fists as I opened my mouth. Screams ripped through the air, through the house and—
“Mallory! Wake up!” Hands clutched my shoulders, shaking me. “Wake up.”
Jerking upright, I yanked myself free as I scuttled across the bed. My right hand hit air. Balance thrown off, I teetered on the edge of the bed. The hand on my left arm tightened. Another scream built in my throat. My wild gaze darted around the brightly lit bedroom. The past slowly peeled back, like the stain of tar and smoke being washed away. No beer bottles. No newspaper-covered kitchen table. I stared into Carl’s dark eyes. Concern was etched on his weary face. His hair stuck up in every direction and his gray shirt was rumpled.
“Are you okay?” he demanded as I dragged in deep, uneven breaths. “God, Mallory, I haven’t heard you scream like that...”
In years.
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Hand shaking, I brushed hair back from my face as I swallowed. My throat was raw. I realized then that Rosa stood in the doorway, cinching the belt on her robe around her waist. She said something, but I couldn’t follow. In my chest, my heart was pounding fast.
“It’s okay.” Carl patted my arm as he looked over his shoulder, at the door. “It was just a nightmare, cariño. Go back to bed.”
How could it be just a nightmare? Nightmares weren’t real. This...this was.
* * *
Morning came too soon, and it was all I could do to drag myself through the day. When speech class rolled around, I headed into class and immediately made eye contact with Paige. Today her hair was smoothed back into one of those ballerina buns and she was wearing large gold hoop earrings. She looked amazing. However, the pinched set to her face when she spotted me was not amazing.
Dragging my left foot, I stumbled and the crack of my flip-flop sounded like thunder. I didn’t fall, but my hip bumped into an empty desk.
Paige’s lips twisted up at the corners as she raised a brow.
Horrified, I froze for half a second and then I snapped out of it. Hurrying to my seat, I sat down. My cheeks were scalding. The way she had been staring at me before I tripped like an idiot made me think that Rider might’ve said something to her like he’d offered to the night before.
He wouldn’t, I told myself as I opened my notebook and saw the notes I’d scribbled down the day before. Eyes narrowing, I couldn’t figure out what the one sentence I wrote actually meant and—
“Mouse.”
Air caught in my throat as I looked up. Rider had to be part ghost, because I hadn’t heard him take his seat beside me or say anything to Paige, but there he was. Wearing an old shirt with a faded emblem and with his arms crossed against his broad chest, he was the picture of lazy arrogance.
Seeing him after last night had me feeling weird in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t told Carl and Rosa about Rider coming by the house. Worse, I didn’t plan to.
Mouse.
Part of me hated that nickname, because of what it symbolized. The other half sort of loved it, because it was his nickname. I wasn’t sure which feeling outweighed the other.
My heart decided to do something funny in my chest. “Rider.”
His full lips curved up in a half grin, drawing my attention to his mouth. How could a guy have such perfect lips? It wasn’t fair. And why was I staring at his mouth? The blush turned my face into a breathing strawberry, and his grin spread, showing off the dimple. “Miss me?”
My hands flattened across my open notebook as my gaze darted toward Paige. She was looking at something Hector was showing her on his phone, but I couldn’t believe he asked that in front of her. Or maybe that wasn’t a big deal and I was making a big deal out of it?
I forced myself to shrug as I glanced up and saw that the gash above his left eye wasn’t as ugly as before. “How is your head?” I asked, voice low.
“Totally forgot about it.” His gaze briefly dipped. “How was your day?”
Something warm shifted inside me as I heard the distant clang of the warning bell. “I ate lunch with Keira today. Second day in a row,” I told him, then winced at how stupid that sounded.
Rider’s grin turned into a full smile, transforming his handsome face into the kind of masculine beauty that was like a punch to the chest. “That’s really good, Mallory.” His voice dropped as he reached over, curving his hand over my arm. There was a near electric rush from his touch. “I’m proud of you. For real.”
Giddiness surrounded my heart as I stared at his large hand, darker than my own. He knew how big that was, and I didn’t feel so idiotic. He got it. He got me. And that meant the entire universe to me.
A shadow fell between our desks. Hector was in the process of sitting down, and had stopped halfway, his head cocked to the side. His eyes were on Rider’s hand, and he looked like a chupacabra had just walked in front of him.
Rider drew back, folding his arms. “You okay, bro?”
Hector’s green eyes flicked to him. “Are you?”
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