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  “Where did you get it?” Mrs. Churnley demanded, bending down and slowly reaching out to touch it.

  “Lauren, uh, excavated it from the bottom of the creek,” Angie replied, the shadow of a smirk on her lips.

  “My, my, my,” Mrs. Churnley blustered. “I have absolutely no idea what it could be, or why it would be sitting at the bottom of the water. It definitely does look like a wing, though.”

  “I’ll go visit Mr. Doherty tomorrow,” Mr. Churnley said, making his way back to his seat, his eyes remaining glued to the specimen. “Bring him here to take a look at it.”

  “Good idea, cupcake,” Mrs. Churnley said. “Maybe he’ll have a better idea. In the meantime, girls, maybe stay away from the creek?”

  Lauren let out a dry laugh. “I do think so, ma’am.”

  We eyed the wing a few tense moments longer, before Angie made for the staircase. “Not sure about you, Lauren and Riley, but I’m pretty exhausted after all the fresh air and surprises we’ve had today.”

  Lauren and I nodded, saying goodnight to the old couple before following Angie to the staircase. Once in our bedroom, we collapsed in our beds. I was exhausted after the day’s events, and all the physical activity I wasn’t used to, but at the same time, the last thing my mind felt like doing was shutting down. It was still downstairs, stuck in that kitchen, mulling over what the heck the strange wing belonged to.

  “I wish we had internet right now,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead. I lay on my back, facing the shabby ceiling.

  “Yeah. Could’ve Googled… “giant bats of Texas”, or something…” Lauren mumbled, trailing off. I could hear the fatigue in her voice. Unlike me, she did sound ready to drop off. I guessed that cool water had really gone to her head.

  Angie, taking the hint, switched off the light, and we lapsed into silence, listening to the distant murmuring of the Churnleys’ conversation downstairs, then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. They were probably moving the wing to one corner of the room, where it would wait for us till morning… Then came the creaking of stairs, the Churnleys retiring to bed.

  Lauren’s first snore of the night filled my ears, followed shortly by Angie’s, and I turned over on my mattress to face the open window, to which I was closest. The moon’s rays filtered through the thin curtains, casting pale light upon my face, and a gentle breeze caressed my skin.

  I closed my eyes, hoping to begin coaxing myself to sleep, and slowly, my thoughts pulled away from the externals—from the weird wing, the creaky old farmhouse, and this crazy vacation I found myself on with my two best friends—and withdraw deeper into my subconscious, and the thoughts that I had locked away there, waiting for me just beneath the surface.

  It wasn’t a surprise that my parents were the first among those thoughts. Their faces, drained, and looking… so much older than the day I’d left home. It was a memory of the last time I’d seen them face to face—a little over a month ago, before my eighteenth birthday, when they’d appeared illegally outside my school, claiming that they just wanted to see me. That they’d brought me a gift. Jean had already arrived to pick me up, so I hadn’t stood there behind those school gates, facing them, for long. But it was long enough to receive their little brown parcel in my two shaking hands, and the sight of them remained burned in my brain as if it were yesterday.

  You should see them, a small part of me whispered, as it often did when the lights were out and the night was still. They’re your parents, and they won’t be around forever, especially given their lifestyle. If you deny them even a simple meeting after all these years, and something happens… you’ll live with that for the rest of your life.

  My parents had conceived me late in life, and I was a shock to them as much as I was to the doctors, when my mother checked into the hospital with a stomach complaint. My parents would both be sixty-one next year and were already riddled with various medical issues.

  It was nights like this when I felt like a terrible person. I hadn’t even opened the gift they’d come all the way to my school specially to give me. It still sat under my bed at home, where I’d shoved it to try to forget about it… because I feared what it would hold.

  Because I knew what it would hold.

  Its contents were the same as the last little brown parcel they’d sent me, six months prior. I’d rattled it to check; it sounded like photographs. Opening the previous set had left me a trembling mess. There had been almost twenty of them, snapshots of a little blue-eyed girl, ranging from two to five years old, a toothy grin always plastered across her face—often eating ice cream or some other treat—and enveloped in the protective arms of her parents.

  It was as if they thought sending me these photographs could rewrite history. Erase the childhood they had given me—everything that had happened in between the moments when a smile crossed my face for the camera—and replace it with the one they were presenting… and make me feel guilt. Make me seem like the monster.

  The worst part was that it had worked. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and barely functioned the next day at school. I’d suddenly found myself battling with doubt. I hadn’t even remembered them taking photos of me as a kid, and I’d been nine when I left home. So very young. Could I have been exaggerating things, in my immature little mind? Could there have been another side to things that I just couldn’t see? They were my parents, after all. Surely they loved me? Why would they have bothered to take pictures of me if they didn’t care?

  Thankfully, Jean had been there for me when I returned home from school that day. It had been a difficult conversation for her to have with me for sure, because on the one hand she didn’t want to demonize my parents, but on the other, she cared deeply for me, and she didn’t want me suffering further because of a toxic relationship. In the end, she had simply stated facts: the police had found them guilty of physical, alcohol-fueled abuse and consistent neglect of a minor. They had gone to jail for it.

  After she’d calmed me down, I had been able to remember why I was staying away from them, remember that it wasn’t out of hate or vengeance, like they might have me believe. I wasn’t doing it because of them, but for me. It would be a lie to say I didn’t resent them at all, but that had faded, like a scar fades with time. I was keeping my distance because I was carving out a new life for myself. By genetics and upbringing, I was fated to follow the same path as them—just like so many young adults with dysfunctional childhoods who fell by the wayside later in life. But, by God, I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I wasn’t going to be the repeat of an old song; I was going to be the damn definition of avant-garde.

  That’s why I avoided talking about my past life with my friends—even Lauren and Angie. I never told them that doubts still haunted me from time to time. Because they were my future. The people I had chosen to let mold me, with their happy childhoods and bright futures. They were part of a painting I was creating, stroke by painstaking stroke, of a beautiful spring morning, and I didn’t want any black ink seeping into it.

  I wasn’t sure the niggling doubts would ever fully go away. Maybe one day I’d actually feel ready to face my birth parents again, but I couldn’t pressure myself—or allow them to pressure me. They’d made their choices, and I’d been forced to make mine.

  A sudden grating noise broke through my thoughts. It sounded like the gate bordering the yard outside. My first thought was that it must be one of the Churnleys, but why would they be leaving the house’s compound at this time of night? And I hadn’t heard any creaking stairs either. My eyes shot open, and I turned to look over at Angie and Lauren. They were both still sound asleep.

  I slipped out of bed and crept closer to the window, looking out in time to see a tall, dark masculine silhouette moving with alarming speed toward the house.

  The next thing I knew, there was a loud bang downstairs, and the dogs erupted into barking. Lauren and Angie woke with a start, eyes wide and gazing around.

  “Wh-What was
that?” Angie murmured.

  I was already halfway across the room. “Shh! Stay there!” I hissed.

  My brain was in a haze of panic, and all I knew was that my instincts were telling me to keep quiet. If this person was a burglar, then we should just let him come in and take what he wanted, rather than try to fight him off. There was literally nothing to take anyway—which made the situation even more bewildering. Who would break into an old shack like this? Whatever the answer, for all we knew he was armed.

  The Churnleys’ door opened as I reached the landing, and Mr. Churnley stepped out wearing nothing but a long nightshirt and underwear, his eyes bleary.

  “Which one of you—?” he began, but I quickly held a finger to my lips, cutting him off.

  “What’s going on?” Mrs. Churnley emerged wearing a cotton nightie, her hair in curlers.

  “Someone broke in,” I breathed. “We need to stay quiet.”

  “Riley?” Angie whispered from behind me. She and Lauren were standing in our doorway, looking pale and utterly terrified.

  “J-Just stay where you are,” I repeated, barely daring to breathe as I inched toward the staircase, a shaken Mr. Churnley following me.

  “What the devil,” he cursed beneath his breath. “My guns are downstairs.”

  I prayed none of the floorboards creaked too loudly beneath my feet as I lowered myself and craned my neck to look down in between the banisters, trying to catch a glimpse of what the intruder was doing.

  From my mostly obscured view of the kitchen, I caught a blur of black sweeping past the edge of the dining table—heard rapid footsteps pounding across the floorboards, and then, to my confusion… head outside. The gate groaned seconds later.

  My heart was in my throat, and I stayed frozen in my position for several moments, wondering what on earth had just happened. Had I heard what I thought I’d heard? Had the intruder seriously already left? It remained quiet downstairs—save for the barking of the dogs—so I could only conclude he had.

  “I think he’s gone,” I managed, my voice raspy as I rose to my feet. My knees felt shaky from the shock and the adrenaline still coursing through me, so I kept gripping the banister for support.

  “Maybe he heard us wake up,” Lauren said, her voice uneven.

  Swallowing hard, I proceeded down the staircase, and the others followed. Arriving in the kitchen/dining area, we analyzed the room, looking for signs of disruption and anything that might be missing.

  Nothing looked immediately out of place. The chairs were still drawn neatly around the table; all the kitchen cupboards and drawers were closed. He’d been down here for barely a minute, and clearly hadn’t had time for any rummaging around.

  Then what had he been—

  “He took the wing!” Mrs. Churnley suddenly exclaimed.

  Everyone stilled, scanning each corner of the room.

  Indeed. The wing was gone.

  Chapter Four

  We barely slept two hours that night. We sat around the table, fruitlessly trying to make sense of the situation. The most absurd suggestion came from Mrs. Churnley: “Maybe it was someone’s homemade Halloween prop that they’d left curing in the river, so they just came in to take it back.”

  To be fair to her, the suggestion was made at about seven in the morning, by which time we were all complete zombies. And it wasn’t like we’d come up with any better alternatives—or really any alternatives at all. We went around in circles until I couldn’t take it anymore and slumped my head down on the table.

  After a bit of sleep, we all felt more human. We showered, and I was expecting the Churnleys to want to get in touch with the police as soon as possible, but Mr. Churnley decided to head out and talk to their closest neighbor, Mr. Doherty, instead.

  “It’s not like the man took anything that was ours, anyway,” Mrs. Churnley said as she bustled around the kitchen cooking us all a late breakfast. “He clearly didn’t mean any harm. Just took what was… apparently his, and left.”

  Angie, Lauren, and I argued against it, saying that there was no harm in calling the police—since we’d had a break-in after all, and they might be able to get to the bottom of the mystery—but it seemed that the morning had brought newfound confidence to the old lady, and she wasn’t having any of it.

  “We’ve lived here for decades without needing help from the police, and we don’t need it now—whoever it was won’t come back. Just don’t go picking up any foreign objects and bringing them home!”

  I knew it was futile to argue. Even if her stubbornness sprung from nothing but prejudice against relying on “the system,”, this was her home, so the decision was entirely hers to make.

  She offered to have Mr. Churnley drive us in the truck to the nearest town so we could talk to our parents about what had happened, if we wanted, but ultimately we decided not to. I didn’t want to worry Jean and Roger, and Angie and Lauren felt the same about their folks. What was the point? Mrs. Churnley was right, in the sense that the intruder was highly unlikely to come back. It was clear he’d visited for one thing and one thing only; otherwise, if he was a petty thief, why go for such a weird, heavy object, out of all the other knickknacks in the kitchen he could have swiped?

  As we ate breakfast, my mind wandered back to that journey home through the woods… that sensation I’d felt of eyes watching me. I shuddered. Had there been someone watching us? Who?

  Mr. Churnley strolled into the house just as we were finishing our meal, clad in blue dungarees, sweat staining the pits of his shirt. He dabbed a napkin to his forehead and sat down in a chair with a creak, while his wife hurried to prepare a plate of food for him.

  “I’m not ready to eat yet, Nora,” he said, helping himself to a glass of water. “Just a few minutes and I’m off again.”

  Mrs. Churnley swiveled around from the kitchen counter to look at him. “Hm? What do you mean? How did it go with Brendon?”

  Mr. Churnley laughed dryly. “He’s no police sergeant. Was as clueless as us. But he did serve me a grand portion of his wife’s hash browns…which is one reason I’m not ready for your lovely cooking just yet.” He gave us three girls a wink. “But on my way back, I noticed someone’s building a fence on the other side of the cornfields.”

  Angie sat up straighter in her chair. “On the other side of the cornfields?”

  Mr. Churnley nodded. “Mhm,” he replied, finishing his water.

  “But we have no neighbors on that side!” Mrs. Churnley exclaimed. “Not for miles.”

  Her husband rose to his feet. “Well, there’s a fence being built as we speak. I’m going to go see what’s up.”

  Angie looked at me and Lauren, and I could tell what she was about to ask from the expression on her face. “Can we come with you?”

  “‘Course you can,” Mr. Churnley replied, heading out the door.

  We followed him, leaving Mrs. Churnley behind to finish her meal.

  “Do you think…” Angie began as we walked across the yard toward the truck, a few steps behind Mr. Churnley.

  “That the lumberjacks are building a fence?” Lauren finished, her dark brows raised.

  Angie shrugged.

  “This is all so weird,” I said.

  We had yet to even lay eyes on these mythical lumberjacks, so before we mulled over the strange twist of events any further, that was the first step—find out if they actually existed.

  We piled into the truck, and Mr. Churnley drove us down the track toward the forest. As the new fence came into view, my eyes widened. When Mr. Churnley had reported that a fence was being built, I’d figured perhaps a dozen feet or so would have been set up by now, given that there had been nothing standing there at all yesterday. Instead, I found myself staring at a fence that must have spanned at least a mile in circumference, cornering off a large enclosure of the forest.

  “How on earth—” I paused as three tall figures came into view, surrounded by strips of wood. The men must have been at least six feet in height, and t
hey… definitely matched Angie’s description. They were shirtless, the sun beating down on their bronzed skin, and held tools in their hands—a hammer and nails, while one of them held an axe aloft over his shoulder.

  They went still, staring at us, as we trundled toward them.

  Mr. Churnley sped up. “Hey, fellas!” he called out of his open window, the sound carrying clearly through the noiseless afternoon.

  He pulled the truck to a stop a few feet in front of them, and as we all tumbled out of the vehicle, I laid eyes on the strangers—all apparently in their early twenties—properly for the first time.

  The man holding the axe, who was also the tallest by about an inch, stole my attention first, and it took my brain a few moments to process his appearance. His eyes reminded me of winter, twin whirlpools of harsh steel and ice blue, while everything else about him screamed pool parties and picnics on the beach.

  His sun-kissed skin had a radiant glow to it, and his hair was black, cropped close at the sides in an almost military style. He wore black pants that hugged him low around the waist, exposing a chest that was clearly the product of years of wielding axes. It belonged to a swimsuit model, a perfect canvas of sculpted pecs and abs… except for the scars that criss-crossed it, one even extending over his heart. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of terrible accident had caused those. His strong jawline also bore a scar.

  I suddenly realized his gaze was on me and I had been gawking way too long. I quickly looked away, glancing toward his two companions. The man to his right was probably his brother. His hair was of the same color and style, and though his eyes were less steely and closer to sapphire, there were other marked similarities in the shape of their lips and broad facial structure.

  The third man, the shortest of the three (though by no means short), had fairer features, with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and pale brown eyes.

  “Dang,” Lauren breathed, voicing my general thoughts appropriately.