A Want So Wicked (A Need So Beautiful #2)(7)
Author: Suzanne Young

“What—a victim of random attacks? No, Lucy is her own sort of trouble. She’s the risk-taker of our little tribe.”

“I bet she’s not as pretty.”

My cheeks heat as I blush, but I pretend like I didn’t hear his compliment. Abe makes me feel unsteady, out of my comfort zone. But at the same time, he seems to be genuinely interested in me, and that in itself is appealing.

“What about you?” I ask. “Any brothers or sisters?”

Booming thunder fills the air, followed by blue streaks of lightning across the dark desert sky. The universe seems to open up and pour rain all around us.

“Good thing you offered the ride,” Abe says. “My walk home would have been treacherous.”

“I didn’t actually offer,” I tease him, starting the car as I shift into reverse.

“Details.”

Following Abe’s directions, we drive slowly, the rain making visibility zero. Lucy’s car is a piece of crap, so I don’t push my luck with its tire treads on the slick pavement.

“It’s amazing that I was here, really,” Abe says. “If I hadn’t shown up at that exact moment, she might have dragged you out of the window and gobbled you up.”

“That’s comforting. You should consider a job in law enforcement, talking people down from ledges.”

“I will consider it. Thanks!”

I slow to a stop at a red light, worrying when I notice it’s after curfew. My father is probably having a coronary right about now. But I had to give Abe a ride home. It’s the least I can do.

“Do you usually walk to work?” I ask when the signal changes.

“Yeah. I like the fresh air. Well, that and the fact that I don’t have a car.”

“How do you get places?”

“I go around saving attractive girls,” he says. “Obviously.”

I park at the curb in front of Abe’s house. It’s a small, stucco home with bright yellow paint and rocky landscaping with a few weeds popping through. The windows are dark and I wonder why no one is waiting up for him.

“It was fantastic meeting you,” Abe says, sounding sincere. “Thank you for the lift.”

“Anytime.”

Abe smiles to himself. “I hope so.”

I wait as he walks to his house, unlocking the door before slipping inside. I think then about the old woman, the visions she showed me. They were nothing like what I saw with Diego, the bright light surrounding us. The woman was sharing something else entirely. And she had a warning: Watch out for the Shadows.

Whatever they are.

After dropping Abe off, I head home. Our neighborhood is a community of tract homes, variations of the same style all within the desert color scheme—tan. When I pull into the driveway, I let Lucy’s car idle for a moment, feeling safer now that I’m here.

The front door opens, spilling light onto the porch. My father stands there, leaning against the frame with his head cocked at a “you are so late and I can’t wait to hear why” angle.

“You probably won’t believe it,” I say when I climb out of the car. “But I have an explanation.”

“I’m sure you do.” As I get closer, my father snaps his gum like a football coach on the sideline of a big game. He says he used to smoke when he was younger, and the gum-chewing replaced the habit. But now he only does it when he’s frustrated. Behind his glasses his blue eyes are tired, his tall frame sagging with exhaustion. I think he’s lost weight since moving here, but he blames it on the stress of having two teenage daughters.

“Elise,” he says. “Your curfew is in effect for a reason. That reason being my sanity. And when you break curfew without calling, it makes me think you’re hurt, lying in a ditch somewhere.”

“Or my phone could have died and I was sidetracked by a wicked old witch in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant.” I hold up my arm and show him the scratches, which are now an angry red.

My father practically bowls me over as he takes my arm to examine the wound. “Someone did this to you?” His voice is concerned, and I don’t know how to tell him that a woman trying to pull me through a car window isn’t even the weirdest thing to happen to me today.

“One of the guys from work showed up and scared her off,” I say, trying to reassure him. “It was random.” I lower my eyes then, thinking that it wasn’t just by chance that she grabbed me. She saw something in me, the same thing that Diego saw. Just then fear crawls over the back of my neck as if I’m being watched.

“Let’s go inside,” I tell my father, and push his elbow back toward our well-lit house. And it isn’t until we’re on the other side of a dead bolt with the alarm set that I begin to relax.

CHAPTER 5

I give my father the shortened version of my attack, and even make Abe sound like a superhero—one who has excellent serving skills. My father’s not impressed. He says that Santo shouldn’t have left me alone in a dark parking lot in the first place. I nod in agreement, trying to take the quickest route out of the lecture.

“Hey,” Lucy says to me as she walks into the kitchen. “I heard the door and hoped you were my pizza.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Lucy must have just gotten home because she’s still dressed from a night out. She’s wearing heavy blue eye shadow with false lashes, the edge of her liner curved up into a cat’s eye. It’s not my taste, but it’s a good look on her.

“I forgive you,” my sister says. “I made Dad a bet that Peppino’s still delivered this late, and now I’m waiting to collect my winnings.”

My father pulls out a kitchen chair to sit down, chuckling to himself.

“Laugh it up,” Lucy says to him playfully. “But when that pie arrives, you owe me twenty bucks. And I’ll take that in small, unmarked bills.” Lucy shoots me a quick smile as if it’s our secret sisterly pact to give him a hard time.

Since our mother died, the three of us are close. My dad calls us his little tribe. Despite the strict rules sometimes, Lucy and I admire all he does for others, what he stands for. He’s inspiring.

The doorbell rings and Lucy sticks out her pierced tongue before bolting to answer it. My father exhales, rubbing his forehead. “How I hate that piercing . . .”

I drop down in the chair, reminding him that it’s a perfectly normal fashion statement. Three weeks ago Lucy had brought me with her to the tattoo shop, planning on getting a tribal armband. At the last second she decided instead to poke a hole through her tongue. Seemed like a decent enough decision at the time.