AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It fell, pooling right in the center of a blackened scorch mark that marred the floor.
“Wait!” she called as he began to turn away again.
But it was too late. Her eyes were open and she was back in her bed, awake and alone in her darkened room.
18
Burned
“You want me to go in with you?” Gwen asked.
It was the one and only question she had posed to Isobel between picking her up from practice and arriving at Nobit’s Nook.
Isobel had not told Gwen about the previous night’s dream, but she hadn’t had to invent a reason to go to the bookshop, either. Gwen’s response to Isobel’s request for a ride had been uncharacteristically though blessedly simple. “Okay,” she’d said, “let’s go.”
Now, staring out the passengers’-side window of the Cadillac, Isobel blinked at what she saw and then blinked again, as though doing so would make it disappear.
But the Cougar remained, parked exactly the same way it had been in the dream.
Its ebony finish gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight, which had begun to break through the thinning screen of clouds. From where they sat parked on the opposite side of the street, Isobel could clearly read the hateful words YOU’RE DEAD FREAK, which Brad had once carved across the driver’s-side door.
She forced herself to look away.
“Isobel?”
“Stay here, please,” she murmured, and grabbed the door handle.
“What about that old guy?” Gwen asked as Isobel climbed out. “What if he tries to yell at you or tells you to get out? At least let me play decoy.”
“He’ll remember you from last time,” Isobel said, glancing back. “Besides, he won’t see me.”
“Yeah, nobody does incognito like a cheerleader,” Gwen scoffed.
Isobel tried for a smile, but it didn’t want to come. “It’ll only take a second,” she said, and shut the door. Rounding the Cadillac, she checked for traffic and was about to cross the street when Gwen rolled down her window and leaned out.
“You have your phone on you, right?”
Isobel nodded. She waited for a car to pass, its tires swishing over the rain-slicked pavement as it rushed by. Then she zipped her parka all the way to her chin, tugged the hood over her head, and hurried across the street.
She paused in front of the store and glanced up.
The sign for Nobit’s Nook hung crooked, dangling from its rusted bracket by a single metal loop. This time, though, the letters were not in reverse.
The tightness in her chest squeezed harder and she struggled to draw her next breath.
For the entire day, she had carried a knot of dread within her. Through each agonizing hour at school, her pulse had beat with an uneven rhythm, her gut churning with sick anticipation of this moment.
Could Varen really have heard her say those things to Mr. Swanson? Was that why she had seen his reflection in her phone during lunch? Could he have been there with her somehow, following and listening in?
Even if he had heard her, he wouldn’t really believe she’d meant any of it, would he?
But then . . . there had been the kiss in the locker room, too.
Isobel gripped the cuffs of her sleeves as a swift breeze stung her cheeks and caused the sign above her to rock and creak.
She channeled her focus to the front door of Nobit’s Nook and the flip sign inside that read OPEN.
Though she knew she would not have the answers to all her questions until she came face-to-face with Varen, she also knew that the answer to at least one of them could be found inside this store.
