Authors: V J Chambers
Trembling (6 page)
Chapter Five
michaela666 (04:31:43): If it worked so well, what
kind of results are you seeing? Does she seem different at all?
aird92 (04:32:01): shes alot more angry and paranoid. that count? idk, r u sure
we did it right?
michaela666 (04:32:15): My instructions were correct. I only have your word
that you followed them properly.
aird92 (04:32:30): i did follow them!! look i can't watch her every second of
everyday so i don’t know what shes doing all the time
michaela666 (04:32:50): find a way to watch her every second.
aird92 (04:33:04): doing my best here, k?
I didn't have time to talk to Hallam after our meeting
with Mr. Dingle, but I wanted to thank him for sticking up for me. I also
realized that I wanted to talk to Hallam about the bell and Mr. Sutherland. I
wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to me before. Maybe the fact that Jason was
repeatedly shooting down my ideas had kind of worn on my confidence. But Hallam
was clearly the person to talk to about this. He'd worked for the Sons in an
official capacity. He knew exactly what they were capable of. He would see that
what I was saying was true. Plus, he'd seen the picture on the bell. So he
would know why I was so paranoid. He'd definitely looked interested in the
engraving on the bell. Hallam was going to help me out. I just knew it.
The rest of the day passed without much incident. I wasn't looking forward to
detention, but I knew that I needed to just get it over with. I also wasn't
looking forward to whatever menial task Mr. Sutherland was going to assign to
us, either.
I spent the afternoon washing Mr. Sutherland's windows along with two other
girls, both of whom smelled like cigarette smoke and swore a lot. I really
didn't like detention. I tried to stay as clear of Mr. Sutherland as I could. I
didn't want to talk to him now that I was convinced he worked for the Sons. But
Mr. Sutherland seemed to hover around me, asking me about my schoolwork or
showing me how to wash the windows without leaving streaks.
He
was
watching
me. Jason could say what he wanted, but it was obvious that Mr. Sutherland was
very, very interested in me. And I didn't like it. Not at all. I couldn't wait
to get out of detention .Unfortunately, Jason was working, and Hallam taught a
night class on Wednesdays, so I'd be alone when I got home.
I didn't have to work that night, so after detention, I walked home. I had
expected Lilith to be there, so I hadn't been too worried about having an
evening at home by myself. However, Lilith was apparently at work with Jason,
so I had the house to myself. I didn't like that. I really, really hated being
by myself.
When I'd left detention, I'd made a point of having a completely fake
conversation on my phone with Jason, chatting with him about what we were going
to do together when I got home. I didn't want Mr. Sutherland to think that I
was going to be there by myself. If he really did work for the Sons, he'd know
where I lived, and he might come in and attack me. Mr. Sutherland didn't seem
to pay any attention to my conversation. I wondered if I
was
being paranoid. But it didn't matter.
It was better for me to play it safe. I couldn't afford to take risks.
Once back in the apartment, I locked all the doors. I tried to work on some
homework for about a half an hour, but I couldn't concentrate. Instead, I got
out the book I'd borrowed from Mr. Sutherland. I paged to the picture of the
rising sun emblem and read the copy underneath it.
"This picture," it read, "is believed to be associated with a
society entitled The Rising Suns. Little is known about this society except
that several of its members were executed as witches in the seventeenth
century."
Hmm. Bust. I looked through the index, but there weren't any other mentions of
The Rising Suns. The book offering no more information, I got on the internet.
A google search for rising sun yielded pages on the Phoenix Suns, the Animals
Song "House of the Rising Sun," and an obscure music video on
youtube. Nothing. I searched through the search results a little longer and
finally found a reference to the same book I was holding. Weird. If this book
had referenced the secret society, then where were its sources? Had they made
The Rising Suns up? Or was it just that the Sons had taken great pains to
eradicate any trace of their existence?
Idly, I did a search for "bell secret society." I found out that
there was a made-for-tv movie from 1970 called
The
Brotherhood of the Bell
. It was about Skull and Bones. It didn't
seem to have anything to do with Mr. Dingle's bell. Jason was right. It didn't
really make any sense for the members of the Sons to steal this bell if it
wasn't associated with them. The picture on the side of it
—
was it actually an old symbol for the
Sons? Why had Mr. Dingle acquired it then? And why would the Sons want to let
me know they were watching me? It was too confusing. The more I thought about
it, the more confused I got. What was I supposed to do with this information?
I'd decided that I would take care of this without Jason's help. What was I
going to do?
It was starting to get dark outside. I really didn't like the dark. I walked
around the apartment, checking the doors and windows, making sure they were
locked and secure. I thought about my conversation with Jason earlier. I'd
asked him to train me to fight the Sons. Jason had said no.
When Jason and I had first settled down in
The origin of that had been back when we were on the run. In
his own, because I thought that I was in the way. He could fight better than
me. I felt like I slowed him down. Jason had told me that he could teach me to
take care of myself. When we'd gotten settled, Jason had started to take me
shooting. He figured that if I knew how to shoot a gun, I'd feel much safer.
He was right. I liked it. We went to a shooting range in
since we weren't 18, but those were easily obtained, considering most kids have
fake IDs for the purpose of buying alcohol. We went twice a week at the
beginning. Jason taught me all kinds of things. He'd practically grown up with
a gun in his hand and had been shooting since he was about five years old. I
got better and better. We started to go less. Work got in the way. We had different
schedules. Soon it was once a week. Then it was once every two weeks. Pretty
soon we weren't going at all. When I asked Jason about it, he said that I was
fine. I could shoot well. And besides, why did I really want to know how to do
that? The Sons weren't after us. I was paranoid.
I kept asking about it, but we hadn't been there in a very long time. I really
missed it. When I came home from the shooting range, I always felt better. More
sure of myself. Less worried that the Sons of the Rising Sun were going to get
me. More assured that if they did come after me, I could at least take a few of
them down with me.
Wandering around my empty apartment, I realized that I wanted to go shooting
again. And I didn't see why I had to wait and go with Jason. I was just going
to go. By myself. Why not?
For one thing, I didn't have a car. Hallam had the car. Jason had gotten a ride
to work with a co-worker. The shooting range was at least a twenty-minute drive
from my apartment. I certainly couldn't walk. Dammit. I was going to have to
wait for Jason after all.
Then my phone rang. It was Jude.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Trying to do homework," I said. "But I can't concentrate."
"Wanna hang out?" he asked. "I'll come pick you up."
I only considered for a half a second. "You wanna shoot guns?" I
asked.
* * *
When Jude picked me up, (twenty minutes later, since
he had to scramble to find his fake ID) there was a car in the parking lot near
my apartment with the lights on. I didn't pay much attention to it, even when
they pulled out behind us. When I realized the car was following us into
a little nervous.
Was Mr. Sutherland in the car?
It was bad for me if I was being trailed by the Sons, but it was even worse for
Jude, who had nothing to do with any of the crazy stuff I was mixed up with. I
already felt a little guilty for taking Jude to a target range. Jude was
excited about the prospect of going shooting, but curious as to why I suggested
it. When I told him I'd gone a bunch of times, he was even more curious. Why
did I do that? I told him I just liked doing it. Shooting was fun. He was
intrigued. He'd never known this about me. "Girl, you've got all these
layers!" he exclaimed. "Are you sure you didn't steal that
bell?"
I worried that letting Jude further into my life would make him too curious
about me. And I didn't want Jude to get hurt. He needed to stay out of the
messy business of my circumstances. I needed to protect him. Still, going to
shoot guns seemed harmless enough. And Jude didn't seem to think it was too
weird.
I didn't want to mention the fact that the car behind us made me nervous. It
made me sound paranoid. We were going from
Route Forty-One. It was a pretty standard route, and lots of cars used it.
Maybe I was just being silly. Maybe nothing was wrong. Still. It was weird that
the car didn't pass us. It was weird that it just hovered behind us. I watched
it as Jude drove and chattered animatedly about stupid people at work. But I
didn't say anything.
I was relieved when the car turned onto
following us anymore. I
had
been
paranoid. Nothing was wrong.
The hardest thing about shooting a gun for me was keeping my hand steady. When
I first started, I wasn't very strong, and just a few minutes of holding the
gun straight out would really, really hurt my arms. Think of holding a book
straight out in front of you for hours at a time. Ouch. Anyway, after some
time, my arms got stronger, and that helped a lot.
When Jude and I arrived,I was worried that it had been too long. That I
wouldn't be able to shoot with the kind of accuracy I had before. But
apparently, shooting a gun was something like riding a bike. I still knew how
to do it, but in my muscles, not my head. My body remembered how it worked. My
body remembered how to stand. My body remembered how to breathe. One of the
mistakes I kept making in the beginning was to hold my breath while I aimed. It
kept screwing me up. Jason taught me to breathe evenly and steadily, and to
pull the trigger as I exhaled.
I didn't have much luck teaching Jude what to do. He was hopelessly horrid with
a gun. He didn't even hit the target the whole time we were there, which meant
that the both of us spent a lot of time laughing about how bad he was at
shooting. Jude was also completely awed by my skill. He thought I was really
good. Of course, I wasn't. If Jude had seen either Jason or Hallam handle a
gun, he'd know I was a complete amateur.
But I did feel better. My aim was good. I was able to hit the target (mostly)
where I wanted to. If I was on the run from the Sons, I'd have a fighting
chance. I felt more confident. Less concerned for my safety. I was glad that
I'd come to the range. And Jude seemed to like it too.
As we turned in the guns we'd rented, he said, "We've got to come back
here and do this again sometime. This was too fun." (We rented guns
because you could shoot guns owned by the range without a permit. Jason and
Hallam had guns in the apartment, but they didn't have permits for them. We
didn't bring those guns to the range. That would get us in a lot of trouble.) I
assured Jude that we could come back whenever we wanted, feeling cheered. Maybe
I couldn't go shooting with Jason, but I could get practice in with Jude. And
Jude was fun to hang out with.
We burst out of the range and into the parking lot, talking loudly and
laughing.
"How long have you been shooting?" Jude asked me.
"A few months," I said.
"That's all? You're like a pro."
"No, it's just not that hard. You can get that good too."
"That'd be kind of sexy, don't you think?" Jude asked. "Don't
you think guys would dig it if I could shoot guns like really well?" He
got his keys out of his pocket as we approached his car.
I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess."
"Does Jason think it's sexy that you shoot?"
"Um . . ."
Jude opened his car door. "He's totally threatened, isn't he? I knew it.
He's such a tough guy. There's no way he could handle it if you were tougher
than he was." He swung into the driver's seat.
I opened the passenger's side door and stood there thoughtfully for a second.
"It's not that," I said, struggling for a way to explain what Jason
thought about it without giving too much away.
Suddenly, strong arms grabbed me from behind.
I shrieked, twisting to see who had me. I couldn't see anything in the
darkness.
One arm pinned my arms to my chest. Another swept my legs up so that I was
being carried like a baby.
And then whoever was holding me was running.
I could hear Jude yelling my name.
I strained to look back at him. I could see him getting out of the car and
running after me and my attacker.
Looking up, since I was closer, I tried to get a look at my attacker. My heart
was thumping in my chest, but I felt an odd sense of calm radiating throughout
my limbs. Maybe I'd been expecting this all along.
I couldn't see anything. The man had a black ski mask over his face.
For several seconds, I did nothing. I let the strange man who was cradling me
run with me. I went limp.
Then it was like a switch went off in my brain. I was being captured. I wasn't
going to stand for this.
I wished I still had a gun. At this range, I could have made a complete mess of
the guy who had me.
But I didn't have a gun. I didn't have anything but my body. I struggled in his
arms, digging my elbow into his rib cage.
He made an umphing noise, but kept running.
"Azazel!" Jude called from behind us.
I kept struggling, and with an effort that wrenched the muscles in my arm, was
able to free the arm that wasn't against my attacker's body.
We thudded against the ground with the rhythm of his running feet. The jarring
was making my stomach hurt.
I didn't have much time to think.
He was grabbing for my arm, attempting to pin it down.
I didn't know why I did it. Lots of other things made more sense. Going for his
eyes. Clawing him with my nails.
But instead, I balled up my free hand into a fist and I drove my fist into the
man's nose.
The man grunted. Stopped.
Blood gushed onto his ski mask, dripping onto me.
He dropped me, his hands going to his face.
Pain shot through my hip as I hit the ground hard. I winced, but rolled over as
fast as I could and scrambled to my feet.
"Jude!" I yelled, running away from the man who'd grabbed me.
I could see Jude ahead of me, running towards me.
He paused, seeing me on my feet.
"Go, go!" I yelled, catching up to him.
Jude grabbed my arm and we raced towards his car. Both of the doors were still
open.
As I threw myself inside the car, I looked back. The man who'd grabbed me was
gone.
Jude started the car, and we screeched out of the parking lot.