Fire And Ash Page 4

  “He sounds like a hardass with an even harder stick up his ass,” Cassie says taking the copies of From Colonialism to Independence and The Western Frontier that I hand her.

  “Ha! You have no idea. You’ll need those for his class too. Everyone else who might have lists should be understanding and give you an extension or a pass if you tell them you just moved here and didn’t know about the list before school started.”

  “Do you ever wonder what Hamilton’s deal is?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “He is like that with everybody for no other reason than he takes himself way too seriously.”

  We make our way out of the history section. When I tell her I need to look for books for my A.P. Literature class too she says she’s going to grab us iced coffees from the barista in the bookstore’s cafe while I do. As she walks away she asks me over her shoulder to get two copies of everything so she can buy Derek the books he’ll need too. I’m almost petty enough to pretend like I don’t hear her or to forget that she asked.

  We are eating pizza in the mall’s food court when every screen suspended from the ceiling in the court emits a loud buzzing then flashes a blue screen. After a beat, a gray haired man who appears to be in his early fifties comes on each of the screens. The running footer across the bottom of the television screens reiterate his words. “We have breaking news at Channel 2. The young girl that disappeared a little over a month ago is no longer missing. The massive search party of local and state officials that have been looking for her since her disappearance found the charred remains of her body approximately half an hour ago in Red Creek State Park. Authorities have not confirmed the time nor the cause of death at this time. We have reporters on the scene and will keep you up to date with any further breaking news.”

  I stare at the television screen and see the same photo I saw when looking up news headlines from Highland Village.

  “We should get going. The sun will be setting soon and it is probably a good idea to start driving before it gets dark.” Cassie looks understandably jumpy after watching the news bulletin.

  I push the flap on my messenger bag aside and glance into it. I see a brief glint of silver and know that the knives in it have not shifted to the bottom. It is why I am able to remain relaxed. If trouble comes our way, I’m equipped to handle it. Still, I agree with her because any ordinary girl should be just as shaken as she is.

  We almost make it to Laurel Springs before it gets dark. We have about twenty miles to go when the gas light comes on and we have to stop for gas. I swipe my card at the pump but the screen flashes that there is an error reading it. I tell Cassie I will be right back and go inside the station. As I hand my card to the attendant I notice a man is watching me from outside as he fills up a pickup truck at the pump closest to the door. His eyes lock with mine and a chill slithers down my spine. I think of my messenger bag in the car and how I should have brought it in with me. He leaves the gas nozzle in his tank and walks towards the store. I pick up an ink pen on the counter beside me. It’s not a knife, but it is better than nothing, and my grandfather has taught me the importance of knowing how to inflict the maximum amount of damage with the least amount of things available to use as a weapon.

  The man comes to stand behind and partially to the left of me. I track the movement of his right hand in my peripheral and am about to turn and embed the tip of the pen into his jugular when his hand extends past me and the gas station attendant places three one dollar bills in it. He tells him to have a good night and the man leaves without saying anything in return.

  The attendant hands me my debit card with two copies of the receipt. I sign one with the pen I’m still gripping and throw the other in the mini trashcan sitting on the counter beside me.When I exit the store the truck and the man are gone.

  I hang the gas nozzle back onto the pump and my breath catches in my chest when I realize Cassie is not in the front seat where I left her. I look around the empty lot frantically. Where could she have gone? I definitely did not see her walk into the store? Before I can fully panic a door at the far end of the gas station’s building opens and Cassie emerges.

  “Sorry,” she says as she returns to the car. “I had to use the bathroom and didn’t think I could hold it until we got back.”

  I breathe out a deep breath.

  We have both just gotten back into the car and closed the doors when a loud thump sounds on the window beside my head. Cassie jumps in her seat. My hand shoots to my messenger bag but admittedly I jump too while I’m grabbing for it. I whip my head to the left to see an elderly man in tattered clothes. He wordlessly slides a squeegee back and forth over my driver’s window, then the front windshield, then the passenger window. When he is finished he comes back around to my side of the car. I roll the window down just enough to hand him the folded up dollar bills sitting in my middle console.

  “Bless you, young woman,” he smiles toothily at me.

  I force a smile back and roll up the window. As I drive away it is not his face that sticks with me. It is the nondescript face of the man who was staring at me while pumping his gas. I think of the chill that passed over me when our eyes met and an identical one crawls the length of my spine again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kick 'Em When They're Down

  When I get home I try to go to bed but I toss and turn for much of the night unable to get the memory of the man at the gas station or the chill I felt when seeing him out of my mind. When I finally do fall asleep I dream the dream that has plagued me off and on since I was six.

  I hear heavy footsteps, I hear a voice, I hear shouting. I bury my head beneath the blanket. The shouting is coming from the same source that it usually does. My parents. They are fighting again. The footsteps thud down the stairs. A door slams and tires screech out of the driveway. Lighter footsteps pad down the stairs sometime later. They wake me up and I want to go to my mother now that we are alone again. Kiss the sadness off her face that I know will be there, just like I’ll do with Dad when he comes home again before the sun rises. I love both of my parents and I don’t blame either of them for their constant fighting. Even at six I understand that they are different people, moving in different directions, with different desires. Mom is not a hunter. She knew the life she was signing up for when she married Dad, but she can no longer bear the weight of it. She hasn’t been able to for two years now. Not since my cousins’ mother, her closest friend, was killed on a hunt in the park. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Dad or to me someday. But Dad has sworn a duty and Mom doesn’t understand why he feels so compelled to uphold it. She often yells at him that if he loves us he will leave. Dad yells back that he can’t. I wait for the footsteps to come back up the stairs. When they never do, I assume that she is sitting in the leather recliner, staring bleakly into nothingness with swollen, puffy eyes. I go in search of her and the recliner is empty. Our back door sits ajar. Our back door is never ajar. It and the front door and the basement door are always triple bolted. Especially at night when only her and I are inside. Something crawls over me warning me against going into the backyard. It whispers to go back upstairs and get back into bed. I ignore it because I know my mother is beyond that door and go outside anyway. I see something. Something that I know I shouldn’t be seeing. But my brain can’t make sense of the image. It’s fuzzy and shrouded in darkness. Then the darkness envelopes the entire scene and everything starts over from the beginning. I hear footsteps, I hear a voice, I hear shouting.

  I wake up feeling like I didn’t even get the three maybe four total hours of sleep that I got. I throw on a pair of running shorts and a cotton tank top and go for an early morning run. Afterwards, I end up at the local gym hammering into a punching bag trying to work out the tension the run hadn’t successfully eased and force the memory of both the dream and the man at the gas station out of my mind.

  “An unsteady confidence makes for an unsteady hand which makes for an uncertain kill.” The words my grandfather ha
s told me many times over chastise me for being so easily shaken as I pound into the bag.

  “Jacobs!” Frank, one of the gym’s trainers yells. “Are you going to wail on that punching bag all day or do want to make twenty five bucks?”

  I look at him with a deadpan expression playing hardball because I know Frank and if this is about a girl I can make more than fifty bucks off of him. Frank is Sean and Gerard’s childhood friend so I’ve known him practically all of my life. He suffers from chronic laziness and cuts corners whenever they are there for him to cut. It is why he never became anything better than a decent MMA fighter and returned to Laurel Springs after only a year of leaving to try and make it on the professional circuit. He also suffers from an extreme case of being a male hoe. He chases girls more than Sean and Gerard do.

  “Come on Ash. I need to leave for an hour or so.”

  “And I need more than twenty five dollars.”

  He crosses his arms over his broad chest and humphs at me.

  “Okay, whatever.” I turn back to the punching bag.

  “Fine. I’ll give you fifty,” He grits out.

  I smile sweetly at him. “Nice doing business with you Frank. Just out of curiosity who’s the girl I’m teaching your beginner’s class so you can go meet this time?”

  “Emily Isaacs, Farrah’s old friend, is home from college and she just hit me up asking if I wanted to meet for lunch.”

  I roll my eyes. With Frank and my cousins seventy five percent of the stuff they do is about a girl.

  Mick, the gym’s owner, enters the gym as the people in Frank’s beginner class file out.

  “Where the hell is Frank?” He growls after looking around and not spotting him.

  “He went out for lunch early and asked me to cover for him,” I say not completely ratting him out.

  “Oh really. And he didn’t think to run that idea by me?”

  I shrug. “I’m pretty sure the words Frank and think don’t belong in the same sentence.” Unless he is thinking about a girl.

  “The words Frank and work don’t either. I’ve told him a hundred times to stop pulling this shit. I ought to fire his ass when he gets back.” Except he won’t because he’s married to Frank’s sister and she’ll string him up by the balls for firing her baby brother even though everyone in town knows he’s a screw up.

  I take my gloves off so I can wrap my hands before the advanced session I’m staying for begins. They are not wrapped already because it wasn’t necessary with the basic class and I was demonstrating not participating. But at some point during the advanced class I’ll end up in the ring with an opponent and the people who attend the classes that Mick personally teaches are a far cry from amateurs who take classes as a hobby. They are the real deal. People on the professional circuit or seriously looking to be on it that pack a serious punch.

  Mick pulls a roll of hand tape out of his pocket and hands it to me. “Speaking of firing and hiring I’ve been meaning to ask you what you’re doing for the rest of the summer Jacobs?”

  “Not much.” I am curious as to where he is headed with the question.

  “Since you’re not doing much do you want a summer job?”

  “Where?”

  “Here,” he says it like I should’ve known that.

  “Doing what?”

  “Instructing a few beginner MMA classes.”

  “Seriously?!” I hadn’t thought about getting a summer job before, but it will be fun to work in the gym, and I can make some extra cash in addition to the monthly allowance Dad gives me .

  “Yes I am. The MMA classes are what keep the gym afloat. And now that Rashard is getting recognition on the national circuit, it’s seeing a big influx of new members from Highland Village who want to train at the same gym as their hometown hero. But most of them are newbies which means I have to add a few additional beginner classes to the schedule. Frank claims he has other things to do and between running this place, training Rashard full time, and instructing the advanced classes I don’t have the time. It will only be a part-time gig consisting of a few hours a week so it won’t take up much of your time but I figure it will make a fun summer job for you. You’re good enough to teach the classes and know what you’re doing. If you like it and enrollment stays up after the summer we can even work out an after school schedule too if you want.”

  I don’t hesitate to accept the offer. Mick reminds me that I also have to get approval from Dad but I know he’ll say yes. He likes Mick. They were classmates in high school and were on the wrestling team together. They still go out drinking together from time to time.

  Grandma will okay it for over the summer. Continuing to work when school starts back will be a harder sell, but if I promise her All A’s and B’s instead of the few C’s I normally have sprinkled in she will agree to it on a probationary basis.

  I make a quick trip to the locker room to grab an extra water bottle out of my gym bag and a towel before class starts. When I return Mick is standing in the ring. He sees me and waves me over.

  I walk over to the ropes and lean against them.

  “Climb in the ring Jacobs. We have a newcomer who thinks he belongs in the advanced class, but he needs to prove it. I’m using you to measure his skill.”

  I’m pulling my gloves on when a shirtless boy about an inch taller than me exits the men’s locker room. If It were not Derek I would have taken a minute or two to admire the defined six pack not too many guys my age possess. His gaze locks with mine as the door swings shut behind him and we stay staring at each other as he walks to the ring and climbs into it.

  Oh this is too good.

  His dark eyes twinkle with laughter as he pulls on his gloves. “And this was supposed to be hard,” he mutters to no one in particular.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t worry, it will be.” I plan on paying him back for every last rude thing he said to me at his house.

  His mouth splits into a smile that matches the laughter in his eyes. “You seriously want me to fight a girl?” He asks Mick. I know the question is simply to get under my skin.

  “I’m sure,” Mick drawls with amusement. Newcomers always underestimate me and he gets a kick out of watching them realize their error.

  Mick runs down the rules, announces he will be acting referee then gives the signal for the fight to start. He winks at me as he does. It’s his way of saying kick his ass Jacobs.

  “I don’t hit girls unless they hit me first so after you.”

  While Derek is sweeping down into a mocking bow, I move faster than I know he has anticipated that I can and land a powerful kick to his stomach. My bare foot is left feeling like it just connected with granite.

  He barely grunts as he straightens up. The right corner of his mouth upturns to mock me. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  I move to kick him again, this time in the head, to make him see stars and wipe the infuriating smirk off his face, but he moves as fast as I do and stops my foot in mid-air. His hands wrap around my ankle and my back is suddenly connecting hard with the ground. Pain shoots up the length of it but I ignore it. If he didn’t wince, I’m not going to either.

  I jump to my feet and come up swinging. When I land a left hook to his jaw it feels so good.

  “That’s for being an ass,” I can’t help but to retort.

  The smug smile on his face remains in place as I find my back slamming against the mat again. This time I can’t clearly recall how he’d moved to cause me to do so. My back stings, but my pride stings more.

  “Bastard,” I hiss jumping to my feet again. I act like I am going to hammer an uppercut to his chin, but when he shifts his weight to block it, I sweep his legs out from under him and he goes down on the mat.

  I smile down at him when his head cracks against it.

  He jumps to his feet without the aid of his hands and for a moment I marvel at the sheer strength it takes to do so. His biceps flex and I know they did so on purpose when Derek winks at me.

 
So he’s not just a jerk, he’s an arrogant jerk.

  I jab out powerfully enough to accidentally break his pretty nose, but he blocks my left fist from connecting with its target. I swing my right fist out and around but he wrenches my arm out of the air and jerks me forward. He uses his larger body mass to force me to spin around as I move. I end up with my back pressed against his chest, my right arm in a submission hold behind me and my left one restrained tightly at my side.

  My right arm burns like it’s been set on fire and I swear he’s trying to pull it from the socket.

  I clench my teeth against the pain, forcing myself to focus past it, exactly how I’ve learned to do in my training. My arms are restrained but my legs are still free. It’s nearly impossible to incapacitate all four limbs at once from a standing position. In a borderline dirty move I know Derek will not expect, I rear my head back, knocking it hard into his nose.

  If you ever find yourself outmuscled, go for the nose. A hit with enough force behind it will snap the bone. It doesn’t matter who has you, I promise they will release you.

  Aunt Farrah’s advice proves sound. My arms are at once freed. I take a couple of steps forward then spin on my heels to admire the damage I’ve done.

  Blood is trickling down Derek’s nose but it isn’t broken. Even though he deserves for it to be I pulled the blow when I struck so it would only feel like it was.

  Mick would throw me out of the gym and possibly bar me from ever coming back if I hadn’t. The golden rule of his gym is to fight a clean match.

  Derek and I face off again. If looks could kill we would both collapse where we stand.