Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre

Author:Ann Aguirre
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Publishing Group

BEHOLD A PALE HORSE

Monday morning, I got up at five thirty and went for a run. The sky was still dark, but I stayed off the side streets; there were other fitness buffs out, and they nodded at me as we passed, though most of them had pedometers and special music players strapped to their arms, along with more expensive shoes and spandex pants. I ran in Converse, sweats, and a hoodie, feet pounding out my confusion and dismay against the sidewalk.

I wanted to trust Kian, but my nature wouldn’t let me take him on faith. Maybe I could take a field trip to Cross Point, Pennsylvania, and look for proof. If I saw his “before” picture, I could at least believe he was who he claimed. Sure, he could produce ID, but given the resources at his disposal, that wouldn’t prove anything conclusively. But I couldn’t keep up the back-and-forth dance, where I drew closer and then I pulled away. It wasn’t fair to either of us, and if he was being straight with me, if, then he deserved better.

Everyone needs one true thing. I want him to be mine.

As I ran, I heard the scrape of footsteps behind me, not running shoes, more like hobnail boots, heavy and uneven. When I turned, I saw nothing but the smoky shadows cast in the final hour before sunrise, only thin fingers of light clutching at the horizon. The street was empty, but still the footsteps drew closer, and as I spun, I caught the flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. My flight reaction kicked in, so I raced toward the apartment, listening to my heart thump out a warning.

Danger. Danger.

With pure relief, I tore around the corner onto my street and within screaming range of fifty families in the identical brownstones. If something happened, if I called out, someone would hear me. Still, I didn’t slow down, sprinting the last fifty feet to my front stoop. I was bathed in cold sweat when I bounded up the steps and into the foyer. The door shut behind me, meager protection from the forces arrayed against me. I skimmed the dark street one last time and just as I was about to write off the incident as my imagination, a stooped figure shuffled into view beneath a streetlight. He looked like an elderly man, dressed in garb more suited to the World War I era, right down to the hobnailed boots I’d heard. His mouth was sunken from loss of teeth and he had whiskers growing all over his face, not a beard, more like a human cactus. Over his left shoulder, he carried an empty burlap sack.

He stood across from my house, staring back at me with eyes like drowning, big and wet, and somehow hungry. Two children stepped out of the shadows behind him, flanking the old man, close enough to touch, but separate. They, too, were dressed in old-fashioned clothing; the boy in knee pants and socks pulled up high, the girl in a pinafore with a dirty ribbon in her hair.

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