Out of This World

“We hooked up three times.”

“My point is,” he said through his teeth, “I’m not ever going to be that adventurous badass guy you always go for, just my own blend of sure-and-steady Kel. The Kel you like.”

“There’s nothing wrong with sure and steady.”

“No, but we both know that’s not what floats your boat.”

“Okay, so I’ve gone for some real winners before. We both know that. But people can change what they want, Kel.”

He just looked at me. “You’re changing?”

“Yes.” Maybe the thought of going back to Los Angeles and my dating scene made my gut tighten. I didn’t want my usual dating scene. I didn’t want any dating scene.

I wanted Kel.

I knew he had no reason to believe that I could feel this way for him. And actually, that hurt more than the bolt of lightning had the other day, but it was my own fault. I couldn’t even say the L-word.

“Out the window.”

I looked down. “It’s far.”

“There’s a drainpipe. We can shimmy down that.”

There were so many things wrong with that statement, beginning with “drainpipe” and ending with “shimmy,” and I gulped.

“It’s not so bad when you consider the alternative.” He guided my leg over the ledge. “How’s your head?”

I clung to the ledge. “If I say bad-really, really, really bad-do we still have to do this?”

“Yes.”

Oh God. There were a few bushes to break our fall.

And our necks.

Because I was staring at them with dread, I could see through them, to the hard, hard ground. To the bugs burrowing in that ground. “Kel-”

But my sensitive, laid-back, easygoing Kellan just shoved me the rest of the way out the window.

I clung to what felt like a very, very small window ledge with my toes, my fingers refusing to let go of Kellan.

He merely pried my fingers from his, reached through the window and guided my grip to the drainpipe. Then he looked into my eyes and softened slightly. “Hold on tight.”

“You have any better advice than that?”

“Yes. Don’t look at the ground.”

Right. Not looking at the ground. I began to inch down, my gaze locked on the sky, which wasn’t a bad view really as Kellan climbed out after me.

“Rach?”

“Yeah?”

“Faster.”

“Oh. Right.” Hand over hand, foot over foot. After a minute, I was level with the third-floor window, one of the staff bedrooms, which I really hoped was empty versus being filled with pirates holding guns. Then I realized my eyes were closed, and I forced them to open, so that I could peek inside-

“Hey,” Axel said, sticking his head out the window, looking unusually tense, his shoulders blocking my view of the room behind him. He wore a big, nasty-looking gun strapped over his chest. “Where’s Marilee?”

I nearly fell. “Jesus.”

“Nope, just me.” He didn’t flash his usual stoner smile. In fact, he looked intense, reminding me what I’d read about him in Gert’s Blackberry.

He wasn’t really a stoner. He’d only been acting like one.

“Have you seen her?” he demanded.

“Uh, no. But there’s-”

“Pirates. I know. I distracted them away from you and Kellan by making noise.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“What did you think?”

Telling them in code to kill us.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” he said, as if talking to me hanging off the drainpipe was the most natural thing in the world.

“Right. No, I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

“I can see you’re good, and you’ve got Kellan.”

“Thanks,” Kellan said from above. “But I’d feel better if she had someone at her side who actually knew what the fuck was going on.”

“Just stay away from the guys with guns.”

I looked at the gun Axel still had strapped across his chest, which, if I wasn’t mistaken, had come from Gertrude’s stock.

“That doesn’t include me,” he said.

“You going to help us?” Kel asked.

“Yes. Meet me in the woods. Where the swap occurred.” He pulled back inside the window, but then hesitated. “Oh, and probably the best thing would be to hurry.”

“How about you scoot back and let us inside?”

Axel grimaced regretfully, scratching his head. “I’d like to, but if they find you, it’ll go worse for all of us.”

“It can’t get any worse.”

“Sure it can. We could all be-” He mimed being hung by his neck, complete with tongue sticking out and eyes bugging.

It was an image that made me shudder.

“This is serious shit, dudes,” Axel said.

“Yeah, thanks for that valuable info.”

“Dudette, listen to me.” I’d never seen Axel look so serious. “If you believe anything, you’ve got to believe this is bad. The worst. I’m going to go find Marilee and help her. Meet us in the woods. And hurry.”

Hurry. No problem. But then I made the mistake of looking down, which caused black spots to swim sickeningly in my vision. “Damn it.”

“I told you not to look down,” Kel said above me.

Yes. Yes, he had. Gritting my teeth, I began moving again, not quite quickly enough for Kellan, though, who urged me on with his size-thirteen feet, which kept threatening to clock me in the head.

“You should have gone first,” I hissed up at him, concentrating on hand over hand, foot over foot, and on not falling to my certain death.

“If I’d gone first,” he said with maddening calm, “you’d have never gotten out on the ledge.”

True enough.

“Hurry, Rach.”

If one more person told me to hurry, I was going to seriously lose it, and I swear, if I had it to do all over again, I’d have poked him in the ass instead of staring at it.

“Breathe, Rach. Are you breathing?”

“I am now.” To prove it, I inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly. “I need cookies. And a Prozac.”

“Keep moving.”

Hand over hand.

Foot over foot.

Don’t breathe too fast, but don’t forget to breathe.

Oh, and don’t look down.

And don’t fall either.

Falling would be bad. Really, really bad. Finally I arrived at the second-floor window. It opened into one of the guest rooms, a particularly rustic, country-styled room with a queen-size four-poster bed and a golden pine dresser with a mirror, through which I could see the rest of the room reflected.

Axel wasn’t in there, but I received an even bigger shock.