Caeleste High, Kennedy Harkins, Erin Baker [books to read in your 20s .TXT] 📗

Chapter Two: Short Crappy Vacation

We had stopped for the night at this ratty, back street hotel. The beds weren’t even made when we walked into the room, and a few flies were buzzing at the window. It smelled like old, stale cigarettes, even though there was a no smoking sign on the door. I turned around before anyone could enter the room. “We are not sleeping in here tonight.”

Caine being the brother he is just had to look into the room and agree with me. I picked up the bags that I had set down and started back for the car, Caine and Mom following shortly behind.

We drove around for a while before finding a Holiday Inn with our name on it. Mom was still pretty shaken up so I slipped her Platinum Mastercard out of her purse with no one the wiser, except for Caine of course.

I strode confidently up to the front desk where a man in his late forties greeted us with a raised eyebrow.

I gave him the credit card without blinking, “Two connecting rooms, please.”

He frowned and ran the card through the cash register, when it took he smiled and gave us our keys. He probably figured who was he to argue with money?

I grabbed Mom by the hand and drug her over to the elevator, leaving Caine to get the heavy bags.

Smiling to myself I hit the up button and waited for a few seconds before the doors opened revealing soft but aggravating music. Caine was in last so he hit the 4th floor button and leaned against the wall.

“If you think your sleeping in my room-”

` “Wouldn’t dream of it, deary,” I spit back sarcastically.

We road the rest of the ride in silence. I was mostly thinking about Mom, about the tests, and about how strange she’d been acting.

The doors opened with a ding and I dodged past two children on their way to the pool.

I practically sprinted down the hall to room 434, with Mom in tow the whole time. Sliding the key in the slot I waited for the light to turn green. It seemed to take half a century, but finally I closed the door behind Mom and me. Caine could bring the bags around later.

It took a lot of work, but I convinced Mom to sit on bed near the bathroom and the door, so that I could take the one by the window and closest to the TV.

A few hours later there came a knock at the connecting door. A little annoyed that I had to get out of bed, I made my way over and opened it.

“What?” I hissed. Caine looked a tad surprised at my hostility, but he hid it well.

“I’m heading to the bar, if you need anything,” he shrugged.

“Your not old enough,” I trailed off realizing that I sounded like a total dork.

He guffawed in amusement, “That’s not what my fake ID says.”

I stepped back and slammed the door in his face, I could still hear him laughing from all the way across the room.

I settled in to watch pay-per-view movies all night, hey not my dime

. I glanced over at Mom who I had tucked in a few minutes ago. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, which was good. Maybe all she needed was a few good hours

, was what I wanted to believe.

I went back to watching movies. I realized that the movie that I was previously watching had ended. I exited it and went on to flipping through the other options.

I’m going to rack up a huge bill

, I thought with a smile on my face.

I drifted off to sleep while watching a sappy ‘chick flick’ and the next thing I knew someone was shaking me awake.

“Hey kid, get up. The open road’s calling our name,” Caine’s annoying gruff voice called from just outside my mental bubble.

I glanced quickly at the electric clock on the night stand. 5:54 AM, I groaned and covered my head with the nearest pillow.

“Rain check for noon,” I grumbled, hoping against the impossible that he would let it go.

“You can leave here with your dignity or you can leave over my shoulder, either way get up.”

“Fine! Sleep Natzi.”

I shrugged off the covers and shivered as the cold air hit me like a ton of bricks. Sprinting to the other side of the room I grabbed up some warmer clothes and made a bee-line to the nearest bathroom.

I tugged on the jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt, not my usual outfit by any means. I was like my mother in that aspect, clean cut designer clothes nothing to show off, but never out of place in the life my family lived.

Opening the door slowly, I poked my head out. Empty.

Frowning to myself I walked through the two rooms, without luck. I was completely pissed, this was always happening to me! He got me up, called me names, and then left without me.

Thinking back now I realized he hadn’t called me any names and with everything that was about to unfold I’m sorry I was mad at him for even a second of the time we had left.

Chapter Three: More Weight

Back on the road again, I was still mad that Caine was driving, but slightly relieved that it wasn’t Mom behind the wheel. I swear, before this trip is over I will have one of those ass rashes that you need ointment to treat, from being flung back and forth in this freakin’ car. Fun. The only good part was that you could tell when he was about to start something, he flipped his longish brown hair out of his hazel eyes and then next moment BAM!

I was starting to get used to Caine’s driving. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I still reached for the nearest hand-hold when he accelerated ‘and or’ turned, which was often. I think he got got a thrill from just upsetting me.

Pretty soon the constant beating became a comfort, like as long as I was being thrashed, I knew my brother was right there beside me, being thrashed around too. I started to relax into the seat and let my body go limp, with in minutes I was fast asleep.

One thing you know to know about me and cars, they put me to sleep like an overdose of NyQuil.

Not to soon later, I felt more than saw, street lights passing over head, the constant light made it hard for me to sleep. After about five more minutes of trying to drift back off to Lala land, I gave up. Opening my eyes I found that we were crossing a huge flooded river.

Glancing over to my brother, I asked, still some what groggy, “Where are we?”

Caine keeping his eyes on the road answered, “Just now crossing the Mississippi, heading into Iowa from Illinois.”

I was confused, “Weren’t we just in Indiana?”

“Yeah, like four or five hours ago.” he said, reaching over to put his hand on my forehead. I knew that he was just trying to piss me off. He also knew that I hated to be touched. I swatted his hand away, only to see that he was wearing a smug smile.

Staring out the window I couldn’t see anything but forest the city lights had disappeared a few minutes ago, leaving only eerie silence behind.

“How long til we get there?” I asked in an off hand tone. What I really wanted to know was how long before my life as I knew ceased to exist.

“Ten minutes tops,” his voice was unreadable.

I’m pretty sure that my eyes bugged out of my head. “TEN? Are you serious, or are you just shitting me?”

He glanced at me, a small smile tugging at his lips. Just as he looked back to the road, something huge, furry, and black jumped out from the forest. Caine swerved to try to miss it, if only he would have stayed going straight. We hit the thing. I saw sweat start around his hair line, making his dark brown hair a glossy black. The air bags had inflated, crushing my arm to my chest, I swore that I heard something snap. There was a sharp pain, then nothing at all. I had lost all feeling in my left arm. Once my vision came into focus, I saw Caine start to get out of the car to go and see what it was that we hit.

As soon as the door shut on Caine’s side my brain went crazy. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before, everything in my body was in hyper mode and it was all saying ‘Caine’s in danger! Save Caine!’.

I tore out of that car faster than a NASCAR driver who just found out that they won. With in seconds I was standing in front of Caine, blocking his path. A look of surprise flashed on his face, I think it was because he didn’t think that I was fast. After the surprise came the pissed. Shoving me out of the way with a grunt, he started towards the giant pile of black fur.

Kicking it, Caine declared it dead, whatever it was. Turning around he started to walk away. At first I though that I was seeing things, the lump appeared to be twitching. I took a step forward as if to pull Caine behind me. At that exact moment the lump of fur jumped up, landing on all fours with a thud. It was the biggest animal that I had ever seen.

It was all black with sharp grey eyes, like ice. The teeth were long knives with drool dripping down from them. It stood towards me, slightly tensed like it’s about to pounce. Probably because it was.

Now what happened next I blame entirely on the fact that I’m pretty sure I had been infected by all those bad action pay-per-view movies. My legs moved of they’re own accord, closer to the wolf.

I was so close I could smell the grime coming off him, like decaying animals, and see his breath in the frigid night air. Somewhere in all the fear I decided it was male.

I made eye contact with him, in his eyes I could see the anger, pure animal instinct. The next moment he was air born and the next his weight was