Page 43 of Jacob Michaels is Dead

“But maybe if I use—”

“No.” Jackson snapped, and there was heat in his voice this time as he let Lucas’ arm fall from his grip. “You forget everything you know again. Push it to the back of your mind. Never speak of it.”

“But grandpa—”

“This conversation is over.” Jackson Barkley stood from the bed abruptly and marched toward the door of Lucas’ bedroom. “And another thing—”

Jackson turned to find Lucas looked down at his feet, his bitten arm cradled in his other.

“Aw, Christ.” Jackson reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Look, Lukie…”

“What?”

“Your day is coming, son,” Jackson stated lowly. “You aren’t meant for what them powers was given to you for by…him. Your destiny is bigger than that. Better. Your destiny is good. I told you what you’d be one day if you just wait. Be patient. Forget.”

“Jason will just keep trying, Grandpa.” Lucas looked up. “I believe you. I trust you. But Jason won’t give up. What am I supposed to do?”

For the longest of moments, Jackson Barkley stared at his grandson. Finally, as if he had made up his mind about something, he straightened up in the doorway of the bedroom.

“Maybe you need a friend?” Jackson suggested. “Then you won’t be alone and worrying all the time?”

“Everyone at school sucks.” Lucas groaned and kicked at the floorboards with the toe of his shoe. “I mean, the people I’m supposed to hang with suck. The guys in football…well, ya’ know. They’re like Jason. The girls are dumb, and everyone else has their own thing going on. No one seems to want to really like me unless it’s about being on the football team.”

Jackson Barkley smiled.

“Well, most teenagers…suck, I suppose.” He chuckled. “Maybe you need to find a friend who has different interests than yourself then?”

“Like who?” Lucas rolled his eyes but smiled. “Justin McCafferty? He picks his nose and eats it. We’re in high school for crying out loud.”

Jackson Barkley laughed.

“Well,” Jackson said as his laughter tapered off, “I got a friend out there on the lake. Maybe you’d like her grandson? You go to school together, anyway.”

“Who?” Lucas perked up, though he was cautious about any suggestions his grandfather might have about how to make friends.

“Bobby...nah, Robbie Wagner?”

Lucas felt his breath leave his lungs.

“Rob?” He whispered.

“If that’s what he goes by, sure.” Jackson shrugged and leaned against the doorjamb. “Esther Jean—his grandmother—was tellin’ me that he gets lonely out there on the far edge of town out by the lake. Guess he ain’t got a lot of kids—ahem, young men—who live out by him either. Maybe you could make friends with him?”

“He’s,” Lucas felt his cheeks warm at the thought of Rob Wagner, “kind of…weird.”

Lucas didn’t mean “weird.” He meant to say something entirely different that would have led to a discussion he wasn’t ready to have with his parents or grandfather yet.

“Well, weird’s okay.” Jackson shrugged with a grin. “As long as it ain’t the booger picking kind, right?”

Lucas grinned and looked down at his shoes so that his rosy cheeks would be hidden by the shadows.

“Well,” Mrs. Wagner stood at the kitchen counter as Rob and Lucas sat across from each other at the kitchen table, “ain’t this a cute little playdate?”

Rob smiled at Lucas and turned his eyes to his grandmother.

“What?” Mrs. Wagner shrugged as Lucas sank into his chair, completely out of his element and with nothing to say.

“Oma.” Rob shook his head in a playfully reprimanding way. “Go away.”