The throb of firelight against the barn’s walls and rafters could no longer match the pace of Mallory’s pounding heart.
Derrick kissed her mouth, her cheek, her neck. He nibbled at her ear; she hadn’t expected such a thing to be so arousing. He kissed her neck again, her throat, cheek, then returned to her lips.
They slid closer together. Derrick ran one hand through her hair, then the other across her thigh.
She tingled with excitement, wanting to close her eyes and enjoy the exhilaration of the moment, but she couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder, afraid one of her friends might ascend into the loft and see them. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, wanted to feel the contours of his body, but nervousness paralyzed her muscles.
Outside, another cycle of flashes shone through the barn’s weathered siding, casting bluish-white bands across the floor. Thunder growled, shaking the air with its low-end vibrations.
Derrick’s hand slid along her leg, caressing it, moving to her waist. He found the hem of her shirt, and Mallory tensed when his fingers passed from her shorts to the bare skin of her belly. His hand ascended the curve of her abdomen, climbing her ribcage, moving toward her chest.
For a second, she couldn’t draw a breath. Couldn’t move.
“Wait…”
The word whispered between their kisses, but Derrick didn’t respond.
She didn’t want to tell him to stop, didn’t want to disappoint him and ruin the possibility for any future together, but the setting wasn’t right. The sequestered barn, the storm, the warm firelight; those elements created a tantalizing ambiance, but she’d begun to notice a multitude of distasteful smells lingering in the air, half of which seemed to emanate from the old couch. Not to mention the presence of her friends.
Derrick’s exploring hand closed around the cup of her bra, and Mallory eased apart from him. Their eyes met, and she shrank away from his bewildered expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She wanted to explain the significance of the moment, confess how long she’d dreamt of being in his arms, but she only managed to say, “Too fast,” while pulling down her shirt.
His puzzled gaze worsened. “I thought this is what you wanted?”
Mallory blushed and looked to the loft’s ladder to hide it. “Well, yeah, sort of, but not here. I mean, what if someone comes up?”
He laughed. “I doubt you have to worry about that. I’m pretty sure they all know what we’re doing up here.”
The heat in her face flared stronger, and she stared at the floor, too embarrassed to speak.
He eased up behind her, folding his arms around her waist. “Hey, I apologize,” he whispered. “Is it… Have you never done this before?”
The question froze her blood. She tried to think of something, anything, to say in reply, but in the end, the drawn out silence spoke for her.
“Wow, you haven’t, have you?”
She replied with a wordless shake of her head.
“Not even when you went to school at Olson?” he asked. “You never fooled around in the back stairwell outside the swimming pool hallway? Everyone goes there once.”
“I guess no one thought I was pretty enough back then.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He planted a light kiss on the back of her neck.
The warmth ebbed from her face, creeping back into her veins.
“Don’t feel nervous,” he said into her ear, kissing her earlobe. “I can teach you things, show you how to feel good.”
Her pulse built up speed again, her heart a revving engine.
“I-I’m just a little shy, that’s all.”
“Don’t be, Mallory. Not with me.”
She hesitated, once more afraid of putting him off. He shifted beside her, one hand going to his crotch to readjust the bulge in his pants.
“Can we start again, then? You’re okay?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“You can trust me,” he told her. “I just want to make you feel the way you make me feel.”
He leaned in, kissing her neck again as her own words repeated in her mind.
I don’t know.
Mallory’s lips parted, ready to accept Derrick’s next kiss, when her eyes popped open and she pulled away.
“What now?” he pleaded.
She looked into his eyes and saw only the threat of rejection. Not comfort or understanding, not concern or compassion. All night she had worried about disappointing him somehow, fearing she would say the wrong thing or not make the right move. It was the same on-guard feeling she’d forced herself to endure in her last school, and no matter how passionate his words, she still didn’t know how he felt about her.
Tim’s voice filled her thoughts.
You always know who your friends are.
Derrick tried pulling her closer.
She shook her head, sliding away from him. “I can’t do this. I made a mistake.”
He took a deep breath. “Mallory, I already said you can trust me.”
“It’s not you,” she replied. “Not really. It’s something Tim said to me earlier. Something I was too stupid to realize sooner.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Before she could reply, a cry rose out of the night.
Mallory faced the loading doors. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Someone yelling,” she said. “Shouting in the distance.”
She stood up and hurried to the loft’s open doors, looking out at the expanse of parched and withered weeds in the fields beyond. The cries sounded like they originated within the far trees, from the same woods through which she’d first come to find this place. When the shout came again she recognized the voice of someone calling her name—screaming it.
“It’s Tim,” she said.
Derrick joined her at the loading doors.
Tim burst from the trees on a mountain bike and plowed into the field at break-neck speed, yelling her name with every breath.
“Up here,” she called.
Halfway to the barn, Tim’s bike hit something hidden in the weeds, and he crashed to the ground, impacting with the sound of punched dirt and crisp grass.
“Tim,” Mallory cried.
Derrick stifled a laugh.
The others had gathered near the front of the building, drawn by Tim’s shouts, and now they stood at the entry doors making remarks about his landing.
“Don’t just stand there,” she shouted down at them. “Go help him!”
But when she looked up again, he’d already scrambled to his feet and started sprinting for the barn. Even from a distance he looked like he’d just run through a minefield. His arms and knees had been scraped raw in numerous places, leaving dark clots of blood across the skin. Streaks of dirt and plant matter stained his torn clothes.
“Mallory,” he wheezed, speaking between strides. “We’ve got to get out of here. Y-you’re in danger.”
“What?”
“Listen,” he said, “T-this is going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me, okay? S-someone’s after you… this psychopath… I-I don’t have time to explain right now. It’s probably on the way here already… We have to get someplace safe, and we have to move fast.”
“Dude’s lost it,” Derrick commented under his breath.
She ignored his remark. “Hang on, I’m coming down.”
Tim opened his mouth to say something when a gunshot thundered out of the dark, taking the place of his reply.