Page 7 of The Bleeding Woods

At the counter sits a man too handsome to be real.

He sports jet-black hair, long enough to leave soft, endearing wisps across his forehead.

His ivory skin sits flawlessly over a modelesque bone structure, and his eyes—deep, dark, and sinful—draw attention like lures to a fish.

Under the sun’s glow, they are amber. His pupils swim within the resin pools like fossils from another time.

When a cloud crosses the sky, they shift to the deepest shade of black I’ve ever witnessed.

It’s like a sunset, the transition from dusk to darkness—breathtaking.

I am mesmerized, soaking up his features, until Joey waves a hand in front of my face.

“Earth to Clara,” he whispers.

“Huh?”

“You’re staring at the guy and it’s, like, really obvious.”

“Oh!” I jump, horrified. Folding my arms over my chest, I duck behind a potato chip rack and peer over like a panther stalking prey. Almost every fiber of my being hopes I haven’t been spotted. Almost.

“Do you think he saw me?”

“Probably.”

“Damn it.” I stomp, inwardly demanding my heart to stop fluttering like a caught firefly. “We’ll just buy your chocolate and leave. I’ll never have to see him again.”

Joey shrugs, handing me the bars and the ten.

“Let’s do this.” With a sharp inhale, I stride to the counter, place the bars on it, and hold out the money with my elbow comically straight.

It looks like a chopstick. The clerk looks at my arm, then at me, and then back to my arm.

With a charming smile, he plucks the bill from between my fingers and nods a thank-you.

“Oh . . . um . . . thanks. We’ll be taking these chocolate bars with us. We’re going on a road trip, so we need them. All five,” I ramble, retracting my hand.

The clerk laughs, and the sound is dizzying enough to make me sway.

“Well,” he says at last.

His voice is like the most beautiful bullet to the chest. My heart rate picks up, mimicking the rhythm of the bathroom buzz, and my stomach fills with a migration’s worth of butterflies.

Not butterflies—fireflies. He’s lighting me up, and the glow is spreading far beyond my abdomen.

It drips down my legs and grapples up to my brain stem.

By the time it’s reached the crown of my skull, my mind has thoroughly record-scratched.

“Since you’re in dire need of these bars, they’re on the house.” He extends his arm stiffly to hand back the bill, teasing me.

“Thank you.” I accept it with my eyes glued to his. If only I could muster enough social prowess to keep speaking. I’ve never done this before. Idle flirtations aren’t for people like me. Romance on the whole is off-limits. Connection is dangerous.

“No problem.” He winks, and I wish I could see it in my mind’s eye, on a loop, forever.

Joey sighs and grabs one of his chocolate bars, as agitated and impatient as his age justifies. “I’ll be in the car. Come out when you’re done flirting, Clara.”

I whip around to give Joey’s retreating figure a frown.

He’s long gone by the time I do. The bell above the double doors jingles, and as he exits, a man clothed entirely in gray enters.

His vehicle sits outside, parked in front of a nonoperational gas pump.

An intuitive pang surges through my stomach.

We’d been driving for hours on a road with few winds.

Surely we would have noticed a sleek two-door painted like a mirror traveling close enough to meet us here.

The man surveys the aisles, his sunglass-shrouded eyes as focused as lasers.

His deep-brown skin contrasts the slate tones of his suit.

The way his shoes click against the beaten tiles suggests their price is well above average.

Whoever he is, he holds some kind of rank, and commands respect for it on calculated strides.

I’ve always worried about the sanctity of my secret.

I’ve always wondered if someone would crawl out of the gloom to arrest me for parricide.

He looks like a private investigator, and if I didn’t know any better, I would accuse Jade of hiring him.

She’s up here with ulterior motives as well.

It isn’t the greatest impossibility I’ve faced.

I’m being paranoid.

My hands tremble, but they will remain human, and therefore, I will remain hidden.

I’ve had my dose for the day, the blood on my hands has had a decade to dry, and the suit-clad stranger is focused solely on whether to buy salted or unsalted pretzels.

I’m safe. The clerk’s intoxicating voice calls my attention back.

“Clara . . . what a beautiful name.”

I turn to him. I’m no longer playing any sort of part. I’m not pretending to be an attentive Clara; I really, truly want to offer him all the headspace mileage I own. “Thank you. Um . . . and yours?”

“I’m . . . Jasper.”

The sound of his name sets off a shock wave.

Everything, absolutely everything, goes silent.

No birds chirp. No cars zoom. No wind blows.

Suddenly, everything is Jasper. Jasper and the sound of his name.

With a wolfish smirk, he leans forward, tucks a finger under my chin, and gently closes the gap between my top and bottom lip.

“Let me just say, if this is your way of flirting, I’m ensnared,” he whispers.

My face burns, dropping a few shades on the color chart to produce a rosy hue. I pull away from his touch, though my senses yearn to stay. “I’m sorry.”

He laughs again. “What are you apologizing for? It’s cute. I’m not much better when it comes to this, trust me.”

Before I can retort, a harsh round of beeps erupts from the Hummer. My attention now Jasper-centric, it takes a second for the sound to register. “My friends are waiting outside. I have to go.”

Jasper’s brows furrow in what looks like disappointment, but it wears off quickly. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Clara. Enjoy those extremely crucial chocolate bars.”

I’m unable to bear concluding this conversation, so I linger, waiting for my frontal lobe to produce a suave goodbye. Joey, likely given orders from his brother, reenters with intent to drag me out the door. He does so with sheepish haste, outwardly unnerved by the still-smiling Jasper.

“C’mon, Clara.” He clasps a hand around my upper arm and makes a clumsy beeline for the exit.

“Coming . . .” My lips move dutifully, the rest of my human exosphere unaware it’s started moving.

I wave to Jasper with my free hand before being wedged between the double doors, and upon being hit by cloud-filtered sunlight, I snap out of the lovesick stupor he induced.

Eyes sharpening and movements less languid, I walk by myself instead of allowing Joey to lead.

“Sorry,” I start, flushed. “I don’t know what happened to me, I just . . .”

“All good.” He opens the passenger door like a tiny gentleman.

“There’s this kid in algebra who does the same thing to me.

One time, he asked for help on the homework, and I just kind of .

. . well, I threw up, but the hibachi from the night before wasn’t agreeing with me.

” He plucks the remaining chocolate bars from my hands once I am seated, closes the door, and gets back to his place beside Jade.

“You handled it better than I would have.”

“Handled what?” Grayson chimes in.

“Clara just ensured she’d die alone by failing to flirt with the creepiest dude I’ve ever seen.

” Joey shrugs, tearing open a bar and beginning to break it into squares.

“It felt like the whole room dropped below freezing when he walked in. He had crazy eyes and everything. Total package, Clara. Good instincts on that one.”

Grayson’s head snaps toward me, his eyes demanding an explanation.

“That is not what happened, I swear!” I fan out my arms in defense. “Firstly, he was not creepy. Secondly, I did not fail. I was able to maintain full eye contact the entire time.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself.” Joey pops a melty bit of sweetness between his teeth.

“At least I didn’t throw up,” I tease, stealing a square.

“It was the hibachi!” He steals it back. “Now, drive, Grayson! Before she goes back in and brings even more dishonor upon the car!”

Grayson speeds away. Deafening silence absorbs us.

He grips the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and glares through the rearview mirror as though attempting to telepathically intimidate the stranger we’ve left behind.

Jade busies herself with snapping apart perfectly rectangular pieces of the bar she was given.

I am left to my own pocket of quietude to wonder what on earth came over me, and what could lie beyond the maze of rusted barbed wire in the distance.