“Jennifer, get off my bed—now.”
“Woah, since when is that a rule?”
“Jennifer, I’m serious! Get off the damn bed!”
At my sharp tone, she jumped off in a hurry, and I saw the comforter by the pillows ripple again. I was petrified. There were only a handful of things that could be under my covers and make them move like that. My fear was starting to swallow me, and I felt Echo rise to the surface and meet my fear halfway.
Get a grip Eden, don’t panic, you need to stay calm the damn thing is halfway across the room.
“Eden what’s wrong, you’re scaring me,” Jennifer said as she crossed the room and stood beside me.
I reached my right hand over and grabbed her arm. With my left hand, I pointed to where my comforter was still rippling. I knew she saw it when I heard her gasp.
“Oh my—what are we gonna do?”
Eden, you listen to me. Call Daryl and tell him to bring his gun.
I don’t think I’d ever shouted louder in my life, and each borderline screaming word was drenched in fear. If there was one thing on this earth that absolutely terrified me, it was snakes. Dad was up the stairs and in my room in less than five seconds. He hadn’t even taken his Forty-five off from work yet.
“What, what’s wrong, are you okay? Eden, look at me.”
By then, I was full-blown shaking and crying, but I managed to still point to where the snake was slithering around under my covers. Dad took out his gun and shot at the bed, and the slithering became a jumble of violent movement under the covers before it finally slowed and came to a stop in a huge heap damn near in the center of my bed.
“Jennifer, go downstairs, beside the fridge there’s a broom, please bring it here. Eden, sit down.”
I sunk to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest, still quaking in fear. When Jennifer returned with the broom, Dad, at a careful distance, managed to move the top cover off and then the top sheet. There in the middle of my mattress coiled into a tight ball of death was the biggest copperhead I’d ever seen in my life.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A Study of Self Control
They’d been inside my house. The one place I should feel safe, I didn’t, and neither did Dad. So we left, and I rescheduled my sleepover with Jennifer for another time to be determined. Dad was confident that he could protect us but didn’t see the point in taking any chances that night. So, he called Sara, and that is how I found myself sitting on the end of Drew’s bed and staring around his room. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought there’d be a stack of baseball cards, posters of half-naked women, and rock bands on the walls, but it wasn’t. Instead, there were anatomy posters, astronomy posters, and stacks of books on the same subjects. I saw a couple of telescopes, a microscope, and off in one corner of his room was his baseball cleats, a bat bag, and a bucket of balls. He chuckled and had his head cocked to the side as he looked at me from across the room.
“Not what you expected?”
I laughed, “No, not exactly—oh, okay, not at all.”
“Yeah, I get that from just about anyone that has ever seen my room, well except Aiden. He gets it, and his room looks a lot like mine. I guess all that most people want to see about me is the fact that I make good grades, and I’m an athlete.”
He shrugged like it didn’t bother him, but I had gotten pretty good at reading below what he was putting out on the surface. I felt like the fact that he was so misunderstood bothered him a lot. I also knew that bringing it up would be pointless if he wasn’t ready to talk about it. I ran my hand over the flannel softness of his blue comforter and let loose a yawn. After the day’s events, I was tired. I glanced back over at Drew and realized he hadn’t moved a foot outside of the box he seemed to have put himself in since we’d come into his room.
“Drew, why are you standing all the way over there? I’m not gonna bite you.”
He ran a hand through his hair and then shoved his hands into his jean pockets with so much force I thought I heard the fabric tear. He was nervous, I realized. I pulled my legs up, sat Indian style, and patted the spot beside me on the bed. He let a whoosh of air go and took a single step forward and then shook his head, stepped back, and shoved both hands through his hair.
“Did I do something wrong. Why are you so upset?”
He gave a half-laugh that sounded sarcastic and pinned me with those green eyes I’d fallen in love with. The look in them was one I hadn’t seen from him before. It was possessive, protective, and utterly consuming.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Eden. You are in my room on my bed. Do you have any idea what that is doing to me? I know that my mom wouldn’t have a problem with us doing something, but then again, my mom knows I’m still a virgin. She also knows that I may talk the talk, but I won’t walk the walk unless it’s the right girl. Any guy who is our
