8. Troublemaker #2
Usually, I’d go on my morning run, but with the lie about my ankle, it probably wouldn’t look too good if I ran into…well, pretty much anybody, at least for the next week or so. And since I only have my learner’s permit and no adult passenger, I can’t go anywhere.
Seems like it’s back upstairs to Leslie Knope and the good people of Pawnee, Indiana.
I snatch up a couple of cinnamon rolls and a can of soda—the breakfast of champions—and return to my room, flopping back down on the mattress. Before I can so much as lick the icing from my fingers, something drops down from the top of my armoire, swoops across the bedroom, and lands on my thigh.
I go still, finding beady little eyes and a beak peering up at me.
Common grackles are known for congregating in the treetops right behind the house, and with the bottom half of my window still wide open, it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that one may have flown into my room. Hell, you can hear the constant cooing from here.
But this isn’t a grackle or even a crow.
It’s a raven.
And a giant one at that.
Its front feathers appear torn, and various scars mar its body, the worst one so close to its eye.
My brain barely has time to process what I’m seeing as I react on impulse, and let me tell you, my instincts leave much to be desired.
I shriek and swat at the bird, tossing my food and drink aside as I scramble sideways. The effort has me tumbling off the bed and hitting the floor. I expect the raven to make a play for my abandoned cinnamon rolls, but oh, would I be wrong.
It comes to the side of the bed and practically dive-bombs down on me.
I don’t hold back my scream as I scuttle across the floor, hearing the rush of wings right by my ear.
I’m not sure if it’s using its talons or beak, but something repeatedly grabs hold of my hair with a rough yank.
When I feel feathers brush my forehead, I don’t bother with critical thinking, too terrified by the prospect of this damn thing pecking out my eyes!
I thrash my hands above my head, not caring that I likely just swatted the bird right in the face.
The second I feel it knocked away, I dart into the closet, collapsing on the floor.
That doesn’t seem to deter the raven from its mission, because even after I’ve shut the door and curled up into a ball in the corner, I can hear scrapes and pecks and the flurry of flapping wings along the doorjamb as it lets out shrill caws.
Seriously, is this thing possessed?
And how do I get it out? Animal control?
I can’t even call them, because my phone’s currently on my nightstand, ringing!
Further noises ensue, and they’re not just coming from outside the closet door. It’s deeper in my room, and it sounds like something is knocked over.
Holy shit!
Are there more of these things in here?
Is my bedroom being invaded?
I can only imagine the Hitchcockian scenario playing outside when my closet door is abruptly yanked open!
What the fuck?
I grab the first thing I can find—a travel pillow—and fling it out in a wide arc at the entrance. It does strike something, just not what I had envisioned.
Instead of feathers and wings, the pillow smacks into a face. A very human face.
There’s a grunt of surprise, followed by a laugh. “That’s one hell of a thank you.”
The person flips on the closet light, illuminating the inside…as well as their face.
Let me reiterate:
What the fuck?
It’s Jase Rivers.
The Jase Rivers.
The same Jase Rivers I haven’t spoken more than three words to since we were six years old.
The Untouchables’ Lieutenant himself.
He’s about five-ten and easily outweighs me by at least fifty to sixty pounds.
Jase isn’t bulky, but even in his jeans and loose T-shirt, there’s still some muscle definition—more than someone our age should be granted.
Dark locks fall into uniformly icy eyes, the former even more untidy thanks to my weaponized pillow.
“W-What are you doing here?” is all I can choke out.
Everyone in our class who lives on this side of town is supposed to be on our class trip.
Did Sienna send him?
Even though I dropped out, does she still blame me?
Did she plot for Jase to come after me when she knew I’d be all alone?
A hundred different (but equally horrifying) scenarios race through my mind as he kneels down in front of my huddled form. Of all things, he grins.
The sight sends my heart up into my mouth.
Everybody at Winterborn Prep knows Jase is a “goon,” the guy on the hockey team whose sole purpose is to fight the opposing players, and his reputation has followed him off the ice as well.
Rumors were aplenty during Freshman year about he beat up anyone who so much as looked at him crossly.
Hell, I’d caught the tail end of a confrontation he had with Pierce a few months back outside the field house, in which Jase broke the latter’s nose.
“I was cutting through your yard when I heard someone screaming bloody murder up here.” He reaches out, and I can’t help but flinch as his fingers brush the right side of my forehead, where I suddenly realize there’s something tacky in my hair. “Are you okay?”
To my relief, it isn’t blood he swipes off. But when I see the substance is thick and white and mixed with brown, I’m horrified for a hot second that maybe the bird had crapped all over me…until the abundantly sweet scent of sugar invades my nose.
It’s icing with a touch of cinnamon.
Jase follows my line of sight over his shoulder to the mess that was once my breakfast, which is now splayed out on the floor. “Are you hurt?”
I can’t help but rub at the crown of my head, the roots of my hair slightly sore from the tugging. Still, I shake my head. Jase asks something else, but I’m admittedly not paying him my full attention. Not as my eyes survey what I can see of my bedroom.
“Where—Where is it?”
There’s no sign of the raven, and even worse, my door is open. Did it fly deeper into the house?
Either Jase is a mind reader, or my expression asks as much because he shakes his head, as if in response to the question I hadn’t verbalized. “Don’t worry. It’s back outside, where it belongs. Though, I’d recommend throwing that out.”
He points to the empty Amazon box sitting on the floor. Thankfully, the books I ordered yesterday are already stacked on my shelves, sparing them from contamination.
A sharp bang! echoes from downstairs, and not five seconds later do we hear, “Ali!”
My stomach all but jumps up into my throat, because the sudden urge to vomit is strong with this one—the kind of reaction only my stepmother can induce.
“You better not have left!”
I scramble out of the closet as I hear Blythe’s heels smacking their way up the stairs, trying and failing to pull Jase back towards the window. He doesn’t budge, looking thoroughly confused.
“You have to leave,” I hiss.
I already know Blythe could never believe that someone who looks like Jase would ever bother sneaking into the house to see me . Vanessa, on the other hand?
His social connections may make him intimidating to someone like me , but looks-wise, Jase is right up my sister’s alley.
And it would take one look at him for Blythe to draw the two obvious conclusions. Either he’s a late-night booty call who waited to sneak out after he assumed the house was empty, or he hoped to sneak in and wait for Vanessa to get back home.
I could always tell Blythe the truth…
But that’s laughable.
Even if she walked in to find feathers littering the entire room and Jase holding the bird in his hands, she still wouldn’t believe what happened. Not if it involves me.
Blythe’s shadow casts down the hall, and I’m about five seconds from a heart attack…when I turn back to the window to find Jase climbing out of it. He just manages to duck out of view as Blythe storms into the room, her cell wielded in her hand like she might literally throw it at me.
“ What the hell? I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes—” She looks down at my nightstand, where, yes, my phone is still sitting.
And I can’t even use the excuse that it’s dead, because the screen is all too happy to light up, flashing the awaiting notifications.
To say that it looks like I was purposely ignoring it would be an understatement.
“Very mature, Ali. All I needed was for you to make sure the coffee pot was turned off. Instead, you scare the hell out of me.”
Her attention goes to my abandoned breakfast on the floor, and her scowl only deepens. Thank God the plate landed on the area rug around my bed and didn’t break, but smears and globs of cinnamon and icing stain the hardwood floor around where the pastries lie.
As expected, she doesn’t ask what could have happened to me to cause such a mess. Nope, I just get a short lecture about cleaning it all up. “I don’t want to see any residue. The last thing we need is to attract fleas.”
Without so much as a “goodbye,” she storms off back downstairs and into the kitchen.
Not until I hear her officially leave the house do I dare move to the window, grateful to find both the lattice and the yard below empty.
The following morning, I find myself in an empty house once again.
Dad isn’t coming home from his work trip until tonight, and Vanessa left with Blythe to go to the country club before I even woke up.
Since I had to spend most of yesterday disinfecting and/or washing everything (including myself) that the bird touched, I don’t mind being able to just kick back and relax…
for the first few hours. It’s barely ten-thirty, and I’m getting a little stir-crazy.
It isn’t that I get bored quickly. I just have pent-up anxiety that seriously needs to be exorcised.
I’d usually do that with a run or a trip to the falls.
However, with my so-called ankle injury, Blythe ordered me not to leave the house.
The one upside? I have sole control over the whole-home stereo system.