Page 64 of Wild Blades

“No.”

“Who did then?”

“Me.” He toes the ground, before adding sheepishly, “Didn’t want you having a breakout or anything. Your skin is… perfect.”

“Thank you.” I can’t believe he did that. I've spent all day with him, and I still can’t figure him out. He’s deeper than the Pacific Ocean.

Shooting me a half-smile, he walks to his car and calls back, “Go inside. It’s cold.”

He swings the driver’s door open, jumps in his truck, pumps the rock music up, making his truck vibrate, then he’s gone, roaring down the street at the speed of light.

I close my front door, shut my eyes, and lean my back against it, wishing I’d invited him in. I like spending time with him.

God, what am I doing?I drag my hands down my face, pop my lids back open and stare at the photo of me on the wall.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I tell myself.

The much younger me pins me with a judgmental glare.

“Oh, shut up,” I tell her. “I hate it when you’re right.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Wade

The baby cries and cries. It’s not happy that my mom is screaming at her daddy.

The man shouts back at my mom when she tries to grab the baby; a little girl.

“Don’t do this. We’re a family,” Mom wails and falls to her knees in front of the big white house, soaking the skirt she’s wearing.

The rain batters my shoulders, falling faster than the tears running down everyone’s faces.

Moving closer, I squint, trying to make out the man’s face who is holding the baby, but I can’t. It’s all fuzzy and blurred as if he’s been rubbed out with an eraser.

Then the baby is waving at me, then I’m chasing her around a table.

And she’s giggling.

We’re happy, but the man pulls me away from her.

I’m falling into an abyss of darkness.

And there’s a sound in the distance of a crowd laughing as the sounds and pictures melt into one another. I’m confused as the crowd morphs into people standing out on the street Iwas standing in, into an arena of fans manically laughing and booing me.

They are pointing, calling me names and there’s a spotlight shining down on the faceless man who was holding the baby. “You’re not my son,” he roars. I want to ask him so many questions, but I can’t speak. I have no voice and silently scream for help, but it never comes. No one can hear me as the laughter continues, swirling around me like a cyclone.

The rink is spinning and then I’m falling through the ice, into an ocean of water. The ice overhead cages me in and I’m punching it, trying to escape, but it’s impossible. From below, someone grabs my legs and drags me deep, drowning me in the murky depths. I’m screaming, but I can’t breathe and claw at my throat as crystal blue eyes pierce through the water.

“It’s me, Wade.” A man’s face comes into view, changing from the faceless man into one I recognize instantly. I’d know him anywhere.

An odd calmness overwhelms me as a glimmer of something shiny catches my attention; a gold and enamel hockey pin.

“It’s me, Wade,” the man says again, his eyes changing from the same color as mine to black as he dissipates into a plume of blue smoke.

I’m screaming underwater, begging for him to come back, but I’m falling.

Deeper and deeper.

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