Falling

By Tori Briar and Teresa Breeden

FALLING is the story of fifteen-year-old Kallie, an introvert with a mean round kick, who has survived the reoccurring violence of a curse only by faithfully following rules she must now break to stay alive; and Adlai, a powerful but bored vampire who, through contact with Kallie, begins to rediscover emotions he thought lost af

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indy Publisher
• Release date: Mar 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869254276

Book preview

Chapter 1

Kallie leaned into the darkness as she strode, as though it were an old friend and could never surprise her. The night air was bitterly cold but quiet, lacking the wild Nevada wind she had come to half love and half hate in the weeks since she had moved to Ransco.

The high school football game had gone into overtime and Kallie had stayed even after it ended, watching streams of people weaving a complex pattern of heat and life toward the gates. Only when the bleachers were empty did she finally stand, stamp her feet for warmth, and head home.

It was the second game Kallie had attended since moving here. She went alone and chose a seat at the top of the stands where she could see the whole field laid out below her. In the eerie glow of the field lights, the players looked like ghosts, darting and twisting as though they had seen their lives flash by and were desperate to catch them.

Between plays, and sometimes during, she watched the people. They huddled in the stands under blankets, hats pulled down tight, or stood up to cheer and chant and yell the names of their favorite ghostly players. They talked and laughed and leaned into one another casually, as though used to touching. The girls moved in packs, trailing looks and sometimes boys. The boys ate hot dogs and bought overpriced cups of hot chocolate for their favorite girls.

She tried to guess which girls would say no or yes, which would take the hot chocolate and return to her girl huddle and which would angle off under the bleachers with the boy who had brought it. A gangly boy she had seen waving a pizza sign on a street corner offered cocoa to a thin brunette in Kallie’s math class. Though Kallie hoped to be wrong, she bet against the boy. Sure enough, the brunette- Michele, Kallie thought her name was- barely glanced at Gangly, though she did accept the drink before turning away. Kallie continued guessing, smiling a small private smile each time she was right. Part of her longed to walk in front of the stands in a pack of girls, to taste hot chocolate purchased for her, but she dismissed the feeling. Anyone she got too close to could hurt her. Or get hurt because of her, which was far worse.

When the stands finally echoed with silence, the field even more macabre as a churned expanse under glowing lights, she detached herself from the shadows and began her walk home.

The night held an air of expectation, the sharply cold air like waking suddenly. It felt like something was approaching, some pending change. Not that change was good— Kallie had moved enough times to know better— but she continued to hope that her life might take a turn towards the better. She sure could use a lucky break.

Though thick, Kallie’s jacket didn’t fully shield her from the winter air; she walked rapidly, the motion warming her slender frame, then slowed to brisk, hands clenched in her pockets. She wondered at the easy way people interacted. She watched them enough that she should have it down by now. There ought to be a formula one could follow. Perform steps one through seven for making new friends. Repeat as necessary to keep them. She imagined herself back in the stands. Not on the top bleacher, but in the middle where the seats were so packed people almost sat on their neighbors’ laps. The cheering, the elbows and knees. The friendships. Not that she could have friends, or even wanted any –No Friends was one of her primary rules- but sometimes she wondered what it might be like.

She was yanked from her musings by a male voice. Hey! Kallie, right? Need a ride?

Kallie tensed, surprised to be caught off guard. A small blue pickup truck had pulled up beside her, and an attractive boy leaned out of the window, his smile gleaming against his dark skin. Devon. Geometry class. She scanned his face for signs of aggression.

His eyes matched his smile- friendly with a disarming honesty.

Kallie took a step toward the car, then caught herself. What was she thinking? She knew better than to encourage advances. If he were a predator, she’d be in trouble. And if he were a nice guy, he’d be in trouble. She stepped back.

No thanks.

I promise to be a gentleman and take you straight home. I’ll even open your door if you simper a little. His voice held a hint of laughter.

Kallie’s eyebrows rose. Not going to happen.

The simpering or the ride? he asked

Yes.

His face turned serious. You sure? It’s colder than deep space out here. I’d feel terrible if tomorrow’s paper had a picture of your frozen body on the front page. He smiled as he said the last, but his eyes stayed somber. Definitely concerned.

Or maybe he was just a really good con-man. Even as she thought it, she knew it for a lie. But it worked. It kept her out of the truck.

I like walking. It’s what I do. So thanks, but no thanks. To punctuate, she marched away, didn’t look back. Colder than deep space? Who keeps track of the temperature in deep space, anyway? No one she wanted to ride with. And frozen bodies weren’t funny. She was better off walking.

But his face had been open, his eyes single-minded, helpful. And it would have been so much warmer inside the truck then in the frigid night air.

She imagined the cozy cab, imagined warming her fingers over the vent, the charred scent of heated air filling the small space. It wouldn’t even be awkward. Or at least not very. Devon was one of those laid-back, friendly types. Likable. Easy to be around. The kid who smiled effortlessly and seemed to get along with everyone. The opposite of her. Which was one more reason to congratulate herself for not being in that warm truck right now.

Not noticing how his dark brown hair curled into a messy mop on top of his head. Not watching his profile as he drove. Not being warmed on the outside from the heater and on the inside from the lilt of that persistent smile in his voice. Not putting a truly nice person in danger.

Kallie knew she wasn’t unattractive. Her body was naturally narrow and her training kept her toned. She had good skin, though it was a bit on the pale side of olive for her Italian heritage, and her dark unruly hair made it seem even paler. Her features were even. And though her eyes were an unremarkable grey, her lips were full and she had a decent smile. She had been picked up on before. She was used to seeing that hunger in a guy’s gaze as his eyes licked over her. It made her skin itch, an invitation from someone who didn’t actually know anything about her. As though good skin and a physique that matched the current whip-thin model norm was all she was.

But Devon’s look had been different. His gaze held interest, true, but it didn’t feel like a leer. And his tone had been more concern than invitation. Not that she’d mind an invitation from him. From those full soft-looking lips. She stomped the next few steps. Enough of that. No friends. Boyfriends were an even worse idea.

Besides, that truck had gotten much too close without her noticing. Another lapse like that might get her killed. Pay Attention was the most important rule for a reason.

Kallie’s neighborhood was one of the rougher areas of town. She moved past several apartments with lights still on inside. Some pumped out muted music, some the byplay of arguments. When she heard something shatter in one of the apartments inside the Mona Lisa, a two story, outdoor-entry complex, she paused. After a few moments, she moved on. If no one was screaming, it couldn’t be that bad. Besides, trouble would find her just fine without her looking for it.

Parked cars lined both sides of the street, and the poorly spaced streetlamps left long pockets of darkness. She missed the wide empty streets of the Wisconsin town they had recently left, the quiet of Martiniok’s small-town nights. She was used to moving, but the first few weeks in a new place still jarred her. And though they had lived in a cheap apartment in Wisconsin also, somehow this new neighborhood felt grittier, like she was living on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

Even the cold was different. In Martiniok, winter had pressed down like a vise, holding everything silent in its colossal arms. Winter lumbered over the land with deliberation, hunkered down, and stayed a while. The temperatures were killing cold in the curling-up hours, the days only slightly warmer. Frozen ground and freezing air met and coalesced, veiling the town in icy mourning until spring.

Here in Nevada, the winter was temperamental, a spoiled moody child. One day might be bright with sun, steaming ground, and cats lolling about on sidewalks, the next howling with a tantrum of snow-bitten winds. Tonight was colder than the day’s warmth had led her to expect. Kallie shook her head. She didn’t understand this climate any more than she understood people.

A sudden shiver ran down Kallie’s spine, and goose bumps not caused by the cold rose on her arms under her coat sleeves. She slowed and glanced warily around as she turned onto her block, her body automatically lowering slightly, knees bent, weight light on her feet, each step the smooth glide of a fighter.

As she entered the next pocket of darkness between streetlamps, a man stepped in front of her from an unlit doorway. She couldn’t see the details of his face in the shadows, but the lamp up the street reflected a glimmer on the blade of a knife he held toward her like an invitation. She shifted to the balls of her feet, and took an inventory: male, white, several inches taller than Kallie, so a little under six feet. Right-handed. The knife looked like a kitchen knife, long and triangular.

Kallie logged what she could name as well as subtle observations about his posture and balance, his stance. Sizing him up was automatic, like tying a shoe. He didn’t stand like he had any formal training. Good.

He took another step toward her. Don’t move, and don’t scream, or I’ll cut your tongue out. Get in that car. The man dipped the knife tip toward a dark sedan parked beside her.

A giggle almost slipped out of Kallie. Tongues were slippery. It would be seriously difficult to keep one’s grip while holding a tongue out far enough to actually cut it off. And all the while, the victim would be struggling. You’d have to be well-trained to immobilize someone while still keeping both hands free to hold and cut. Plus with a kitchen knife? Really? The image of him trying to control the tip of the unwieldy kitchen knife with precision enough to cut off a slippery tongue was absurd. She gave him the award for stupidest threat she’d ever heard. And she’d heard a lot of threats. She didn’t let the nervous laughter show though. Men tended to act badly when laughed at, especially when they thought they had the upper hand.

Plus, the guy’s hand was shaking. He obviously wasn’t a seasoned criminal. This might even be his first attempt to attack someone. She wondered; not for the first time, if she were the cause of his violence. If she had left the football game sooner or taken a different route, if he hadn’t crossed paths with her tonight, maybe he never would have attacked anyone. Did she attract criminals, or did she make them?

That thought made the tongue-cutting image almost pleasant by comparison. And she couldn’t treat him with any benefit of the doubt. His shaking could be nerves but it could also be excitement or drugs. And even if it was his first time, even if she was a catalyst for his behavior, he had still decided to take up the knife and come after a girl walking home alone. He was a threat and threats needed to be dealt with.

In the car! the man repeated, his body tensing, the knife rising.

The air around Kallie felt vibrant and sharp: a bite of snow, a waft of sweat, woodsmoke. Blood flashed through her veins, her body thrummed, alert and ready, a tool honed for this purpose. A long golden hair, outlined in the lamplight lifted as in prayer from the edge of her assailant’s coat.

Let’s not do this, Mister. Let me pass, Kallie said without moving. She always tried talking first.

I like the Mister part. You can call me Mister Jake all night, baby.

Well, you can’t call me baby. Emotionally, I’m at least a decade older than you. What are you, like four? Tongue cutting? Really? Despite herself, a giggle escaped her.

He lunged at her with the knife, his other hand grabbing for her arm.

Kallie spun away from him and used the momentum to snap her forearm down on his knife hand. As she struck his wrist, she transferred her weight to her back leg, driving her front foot hard into his crotch. He buckled forward, and Kallie’s second kick snapped his head back. The knife clattered to the pavement as he fell. She was surprised he had held onto it that long. After retrieving the knife, she stood over his moaning figure.

"You only get one second chance, Mister. Don’t blow it." Her heel came down sideways on his knee and he screamed over the crack. Always disable the predator. You never knew when they might get a second wind. And at heart, Kallie wanted to be as optimistic as Devon. If he took some forced down-time to reconsider his life choices, maybe he wouldn’t attack anyone else.

Kallie backed away until several feet separated her from the groaning man, then turned and continued home, transferring the long knife from hand to hand while warming her free hand in her coat. She wished more than once that he had used a pocket knife or that she had gloves. It was colder than deep space outside.

Chapter 2

High school parties were all the same: lots of people drinking who were too young to get drunk, but had very little else to do. Most of the partiers, Adlai surmised, didn’t even like drinking. It was the little else to do that persuaded them. That and their almost tangible desire to connect, to feel included in something. Loved. That needy energy was what he was attracted to— what he was searching for now. High above the small city, he trailed his awareness through the houses below, looking for a party.

Disappointed by the city’s quiet - its empty streets and measured heartbeat- Adlai decided to try elsewhere. He was almost out of town when he felt the pulsing of a crowd. This town kept its entertainment on the outskirts it seemed, in the foothills and scrub, in the oversized houses on streets without sidewalks. He made a circuit around the edge of town, to test his theory, and found enough going on to offer him choices. He might even stay awhile.

Though hungry and tired, he also fought boredom. A quick bite was tempting but a twirl around the dance floor of compulsion would be more interesting. He toyed with each possibility before delayed gratification won out. A quick meal would only satisfy his hunger, and he was craving more than just food.

He zeroed in on a party from a mile or so distant, moved by the intensity of it. He guessed high school, maybe even younger from its reactive feel. He made a game of it, testing how well he could read the signals from a distance, how accurate he could be: forty plus people, young; early high school; more girls than boys, and already pretty liquored-up. He hoped there were some sober ones left.

In the quiet between heartbeats he was there, dropping to the ground of the backyard beside a trio of boulders planted in the lawn. He could hear the party now. Music throbbed against a hum of voices, sounds stacking over his other senses like a map. He smelled skin and nervous sweat. He tasted the metallic tang of youthful purpose: that concentrated passion, that belief that the world has a plan for them and they are on the verge of finding meaning. Maybe tonight. Maybe now. It smelled, it sounded, it tasted like a feast.

Inside the house, Adlai watched, casually leaning against a wall. He had guessed right. They were young and drunk. The boys wore t-shirts and loose jeans. They swaggered unconsciously, adolescent and hopeful, bolstered by liquor and surrounded by flesh. The girls favored tight shirts with spaghetti straps, despite the freezing temperature outside, and most of them wore what he called nether jeans: low-cut denim that left the curve at the top of the hips exposed, and angled toward the front button like an arrow pointing the way down.

He could feel heat and light rising off them in waves. He zeroed in on two girls talking quietly near the kitchen sink. Their more restrained shirts, one rose and one white, covered shoulders and navels. Though attractive, they wore little if any makeup, and seemed to have equally little in common with most of the partygoers. Straitlaced and serious, they were two flowers in a field of weeds. His decision made, Adlai began to mingle.

As he moved, the rhythm of the party accommodated him. Boys swaggered a little more, shoulders back and chests out. Girls flushed and straightened, subconsciously shifting themselves toward him.

He picked a beer off a coffee table and slung an arm over a boy in the nearest drunken cluster. A toast! Adlai announced, raising his beer toward the boy’s face.

The boy grinned To the Ransco Rattlers! Another crushing win! They knocked bottles and drank.

As he meandered through the crowd, Adlai collected social and city data. From a brief dance with a hazel-eyed nether-jeans girl, he learned where the good and bad neighborhoods were— where she lived and where she wished she lived instead. His hunger flared slightly when she began grinding against him. Better to wait. Better the anticipation of conquest. Adlai glanced toward the modestly dressed girls in the kitchen. The scent of his dance partner clung to his skin as he removed her arms from around his neck and excused himself.

From a muscular boy in an oversized letter jacket, Adlai learned there was only one high school in the town and its mascot was a rattlesnake. The surrounding hills were full of rattlesnakes, the boy assured him, but the Ransco football team was meaner than any of them.

Adlai smiled at that. The fool had no idea what mean looked like.

Tony, was it? The boy nodded vigorously, his head bobbing on his neck like a cork in the ocean. Adlai resisted the urge to tear it off.

I’d sure like to see a real rattlesnake. Adlai slung his arm over Tony’s shoulders. Maybe sometime you’ll show me one?

More bobbing. Big smile.

Adlai left Tony by the hallway, his bobble-head still bobbling in agreement. Tonight he wanted more challenging prey.

He catalogued both facts and subtle shifts in body language as he drew information from the teens: street names and party spots, who was dating whom and who wished they were dating someone else. People vied to talk to him, to be near him, drawn like iron to a magnet. Boys punched his shoulder or slapped his back. Girls sidled up next to him, sliding the escaped curves of their hip bones against his thighs, leaning into his dangerous pull without even realizing.

Moving methodically through the room, Adlai took time to linger with each group of students, to slip an arm around a pretty girl here, bump fists with a boy there. As he moved, he tracked the two girls in the kitchen. At first only their shoulders shifted as they turned slightly toward him while talking. Then they began to glance his way, then to watch him while they spoke. He spun them in a slow circle as he moved across the room, then spun them back the other direction as he weaved between pockets of gossip, boasting, and drunken philosophical reverie. When even leaning forward or back caused shifts in their shoulders, he set his unfinished beer down and headed toward them.

As he brushed past the two girls, he could sense them reorient toward his back, their heartbeats quickening. He opened cupboard doors until he found a glass, then glided back to his intended prey. Adlai smiled a slow, easy smile.

Evening, Ladies.

Chapter 3

As the adrenaline faded, Kallie felt the bruising on her arm beginning. She was glad she healed quickly. And at least there wouldn’t be another encounter for several months.

She tried to remember when she first realized the attacks would never stop, that she had some kind of curse that drew malevolence to her. She hadn’t figured it out immediately, though after the second attack she began learning to defend herself. At the time, self-defense was more of a just in case scenario than the understanding that there would always be a next time.

Maybe when she was seven— with the fourth grade boys behind the maintenance shed at recess? Or was it earlier? Six? Were there two attacks that year or just the one that gave her those first nightmares? She shook her head. She hadn’t started cataloguing the fights until later, so she hadn’t realized until eight or nine that not everyone drew trouble like she did.

The apartment was dark and cold when she entered. Since her eyes were already adjusted to the night, she didn’t turn on any lights. She wore her coat into her room, hanging it over a chair and kicking her shoes off just before getting into bed. Curled up under the covers, with her hat and clothes still on, Kallie shivered, waiting for her small cocoon to warm up enough for sleep.

A little after midnight Kallie started awake, heart pounding. She poked her head up and listened but heard no unusual sounds, just the humming of the refrigerator coming from the kitchen. She had forgotten to close her door. She lay back down but couldn’t sleep.

Saturday was her birthday. In two days she would turn sixteen. Usually her birthdays came and went with little fuss on her part. Just another day. But when she thought about this one, her skin tingled as though in expectation of something. She wasn’t sure why this birthday felt different. She didn’t think it was the sweet sixteen balloon-and-flower excitement she saw at schools she had attended. She had never been one for histrionics and not much for birthdays either really. She had learned early what to expect. With no friends, a new city every few years, and limited funds, birthdays weren’t extravaganzas, though her dad did what he could.

She got out of bed and slipped her coat and shoes back on. Her head felt like it was stuffed with sand, pressurized with a sense of waiting. She felt her way to the kitchen, flicked on the single overhead light, and slid a half-full saucepan of water onto the stove to boil.

Sixteen. Every year she hoped that the upcoming year would be different. She wrapped this feeling around her like a quilt, basked in the warmth of it. She knew better, knew that the world spins at a constant rate and doesn’t adjust its twirl to a birthday. The way things are is the way they generally stay.

And she was right. Each year, that sense of wellbeing carried her for a week, maybe two, got her almost believing, then dropped her abruptly back into life. And each time her confidence got more threadbare. By her teens, even at the moment she cast her birthday wish, she could see the grime of the real world through the grainy film of hope. And when nothing changed, when her birthday optimism faded and her hope blanket got a couple new tears, she would fold it up carefully and store it away until the following year.

Until this year.

She was being silly. This year was no different. It was one thing to daydream and another to expect. She knew the difference. She needed to never forget the difference or it might destroy her. She pressed her aching temple with her thumbs and thought about what she could count on happening on her birthday.

There’d be a small cake, homemade if her dad had time. Since her birthday was on a Saturday, he’d probably bake it. She hoped so. She loved seeing him work in the kitchen. It was the only time he looked content. If he had a hope blanket, he took it out to cook.

Leaned over the cake, he would bite his lip while he concentrated. Kallie realized she was biting her own lip as she thought about him, and released it. She hunched further into her jacket.

Though lip-biting was a mannerism they shared, they had few other similarities. Where her dad was broad in the shoulder, a solid presence, with ropy muscles and dark brown eyes under thick brows, Kallie was willowy with long limbs, narrow hips, and grey eyes that shifted color based on what she wore. His face was square, with a blocky jaw and ruddy skin that flushed when he got upset. Kallie’s face was oval, the paleness of her skin accentuated by her dark, curly hair.

Kallie loved her hair because it was the same color as her dad’s hair. Physical proof of their connection. He was the only family she had, the only family she’d ever had, and the one thing she could count on in life. This weekend, for at least an hour or two, he would be all hers. No thoughts of work or bills. Just the two of them sharing their wishes. She could do without friends as long as she had her dad. And maybe, just maybe, this year really would be different.

She smiled, imagining him bent over the cake, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed slightly under his thick hair, his lower lip trapped between his teeth the whole time he frosted the cake.

On top of the cake, he would place two fortune cookies: their family tradition. Over dinner they would discuss what fortunes they wished for and how those fortunes might come about. They would tell stories for hours, making up a convoluted series of events that ended with their fortunes coming true.

She didn’t remember it, but her dad had told her that when she was four, she chose sparkle jelly shoes, a Barbie townhouse, and never having to eat canned tuna again as her fortune. That was the last time her wishes were so naive. By five, she had a better idea of the realism of the world, and her dream fortunes were very different: to have friends and shoes without holes, to have a permanent home. The last one, she wished for from ages five to nine as she blew her candles out, but never said out loud. By ten she knew better than to even wish.

Kallie filled up a mug with the nearly boiling water, shut off the burner, and returned to the table, warming her hands, and leaning her face forward to absorb the kiss of steam. The night lay outside like a waiting beast, dark and silent, hibernating. She felt there should be a sunrise at least, a small glimmer of something real she could pretend was just for her. She heard the scrape of a key in the front door, and glanced at the clock.

1:23 am. The pressure behind her eyes had leveled off to a constant ache, a fist knuckling her brows. She thought darkly that maybe this year she should use reverse psychology and ask for what always happened instead of what never did. Maybe fate or whatever blind chance was rolling against them would get confused and roll the other way for once. What would she wish for then? No friends. A cold house. Beans and rice for dinner. Her only pair of sneakers with the peek-a-boo hole for her left big toe. Her dad always working and tired, always behind on the master list he kept in his head.

Hi, Ruthie. her dad said, interrupting her thoughts. You’re up late. He rummaged in a bag and then popped a slice of bread in the toaster. Kallie hated the name Ruth. It was Hebrew for friend and Kallie wasn’t that to anyone. The word itself- her fourth grade teacher made her do a report- meant remorse and grief as well as apt to cause sorrow, which were disturbingly accurate. She wished her dad would use her middle name like everyone else.

I couldn’t sleep, she said, sipping her hot water. How was work?

Her dad leaned over the warmth of the toaster. "Fine. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I’m