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  THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Playing with Fire

  Copyright ©2015 Sherry D. Ficklin

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-63422-120-7

  Cover Design by: Marya Heiman

  Typography by: Courtney Nuckels

  Editing by: Cynthia Shepp

  Sidge 2.0

  00101101001101

  But when you read it backwards…

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  In my dream, I’m drowning. It’s not the first time. Hell, it’s not the one-hundredth time. Even as I blink away the last dying fragments of the nightmare, I can still feel the cold water clinging to my skin. I look down to see my arms shining with sweat.

  Around me, the car hums, the gentle vibration of tires on asphalt trying to lull me back to sleep. Travel far enough for long enough, and you develop the uncanny ability to sleep anywhere. Like in a crowded plane, on a noisy bus, even in a two-door rental sedan while your father drives down Highway 70 like he’s being chased by armed assassins.

  I force myself awake, stretching as much as I’m able to in the cramped car. Reaching for the cooler behind my seat, I pull out a Red Bull and crack it open. Dad doesn’t say anything, even though I know he hates me drinking them. I can’t tell if he’s just distracted by the road or if he’s finally given up the fight against my caffeine addiction.

  When I’ve gulped down half the can, he points out my window to a small, wooden sign that reads, Welcome to Havelock. Pardon our noise. It’s the sound of freedom.

  “We’re almost there,” he says, as if I should be excited.

  Truth is, I kind of am. Sure, I’ll miss the blistering hot summers and barren deserts of Arizona… oh wait, no. No, I won’t. Not even a little. I won’t miss the heat—and whoever coined the term dry heat should be shot in the head—I won’t miss the crappy little town, and I sure as hell won’t miss my friends. Or the people I used to call friends, I should say.

  This move might as well be a prison break, as far as I’m concerned. There were worse places we could have ended up besides the small, coastal North Carolina town. There were better places too, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

  When we pull up to the gate to the base, I notice a Harrier on display to my right. It’s angled so it looks like it is just about to land. Or crash. I can’t decide which. The guard, looking perfectly disguised in his dark green camouflage uniform, takes one look at the ID badge Dad flashes out the window, salutes, and raises the gate, letting us pass through.

  We drive in what feels like circles until finally pulling into a skinny driveway.

  “You have got to be joking,” I whine. Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point boasts stunning, seaside officer housing. I know—I’d looked it up online. Tall, spacious homes overlooking the ocean with big windows and hardwood floors, all generously loaned to the officers stationed there, free of charge. What I’m looking at now is so not on the brochure.

  Being a military kid, I’ve lived in a lot of places, seen a lot of things. I’ve seen impoverished towns in Okinawa and Nigeria. I’ve seen entire communities made of straw shacks with one communal outhouse. None of that has prepared me for what I’m seeing now—the lowest form of civilization.

  Enlisted housing, aka puke-brown duplex houses with metal windows and cheap, brown doors left over from the 1950s. There’s a patch of what at first glance looks like grass but upon further inspection turns out to be shredded newspaper painted green.

  I swing a glare at Dad as if lasers might shoot out of my eyes and vaporize him on the spot.

  He just shrugs. “Sorry, Farris, I know it doesn’t look like much, but officer housing is full because of the renovations. They have some new places coming open that we should be able to get into in about three months.”

  I snort. “Three months? What, did they bring in the Army Corps of Engineers?”

  “Worse. Civilian contractors.”

  I make a horrified face, and he grins.

  My father walks around the car, popping open the trunk and tossing my worn green duffel bag into my arms. “But we can make do. I mean, we’ve been through worse, right kid?”

  I’m not sure if he’s talking about the summer we spent in a tent in San Paolo or the two weeks I just spent at my Great-Aunt Penelope’s place in Kansas, which I’m actually pretty sure is some kind of portal to hell. She has a tiny condo in an “active seniors” community. Aunt P is sweet and all, but there’s only so much knitting and bridge club a girl can take before she tries to drown herself in the walk-in bathtub.

  I shake it all off, pushing everything down inside myself. It’s a clean slate, I remind myself. A chance to start over. Maybe do things right this time. “Sure, Dad.”

  Dad came ahead to North Carolina to get the house set up and get things situated before rescuing me from Aunt P’s place. At almost seventeen, I’m old enough to stay on my own for a few weeks if I need to, and I’d lobbied hard to do just that. But Dad isn’t big on trust these days. I suppose I deserve that, really.

  From the looks of things, he hasn’t gotten far with the set up. When he opens the front door, I see that the house is still stuffed with boxes, piles of brown packing paper, and empty takeout containers. I kick one aside as I enter.

  “Your room is over there,” he says, pointing down the hall.

  I pull my shoulders back, resigned to sleeping on the floor for a few nights, but when I push the door open, I see my room is mostly set up. My bed, desk, and dresser, at least. Of course, it has the same bubblegum-pink bedspread and curtains I’ve had since I was nine, but still, it feels a little like home. I toss my duffel bag on the bed and am rewarded with a familiar creak.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He brushes past me, bringing in my oversized suitcase and depositing it beside the empty closet. “I’m sorry I didn’t get more done. Things are already piling up at work.”

  I can’t say I’m surprised. One of the biggest reasons we landed here was Dad’s ability to fix any mess—well, any mess but me—and from what he’s told me, this squadron is in one helluva mess. “Is there anything I can help with?” I ask, looking around.

  “It’s late, kid, and you have school tomorrow.”

  I groan. “I slept in the car. Besides, I’ve got too much nervous energy to sleep. Tonight, I work,” I say in my best soldier voice. “For tomorrow, I die.”

  Dad frowns. “Yes, high school. A fate worse than death.” With a derisiv
e snort, he turns and marches down the hall and out of sight.

  “Do you even remember high school? It isn’t all egg creams and sock hops anymore,” I call after him. “Now it’s more metal detectors and drug dogs.”

  I turn away, unzipping my sack and digging around inside until my hand finds the cool metal edges of a picture frame. Pulling it out, I carefully set it up on the edge of my dresser. My mom grins out at me from the old photo. It’s of us at my first middle school dance—which she’d chaperoned, of course. My dress is violet and black and flounces around my knees. She’d spent weeks sewing it for me. I touch her picture gently, trying to hold the sound of her voice in my head, just a moment longer. But it’s gone as quickly as it comes, leaving me with watery eyes and a knot in my throat.

  I set the frame on my dresser, my heart aching, a mixture of longing and sorrow that I’ve become all too familiar with. It hangs over me like a dark cloud, never really gone, but sometimes ignorable. I do my best to ignore it now.

  From down the hall, Dad calls out, “I’m gonna order pizza. That okay?”

  I back away slowly, poking my head out my door. “Is it the only number you know?”

  “It’s the only place that delivers this late.”

  “Pizza it is then,” I agree, rolling up my sleeves and grabbing the nearest box, looking forward to the distraction.

  ***

  The next day comes entirely too soon. The metal rails of my bed shake with the force of a speeding train as a formation of jets pass overhead. The noise grows unbearably loud, crests, and then fades into the distance. Then, another wave of jets approach. The sound of freedom, my ass.

  I moan, grabbing the pillow from under my head and pressing it to the upper half of my face. When the noise finally subsides, I toss the pillow aside and wrench one eye open, grasping for my cell phone. The stark white numbers confirm my feeling that it is way too early for that sort of thing. I open up the clock and slide the alarm off even though it isn’t set to sound for fifteen more minutes.

  Dawn creeps in through the slats of my cheap vinyl mini-blinds. I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin like an ant under a magnifying glass. Grudgingly, I toss the covers aside and roll my legs off the side of the bed, automatically lifting my feet as soon as they hit the cold linoleum floor. I blink, wipe my hands down my face, and sigh as I make my way upright. Hastily, I pull my violently strewn blankets into place, tossing the pillow on top, and trudge into the tiny bathroom.

  The light overhead flickers on with a buzz you might expect in a hospital or a mental institution. The generic, cream-colored vanity holds a simple white basin beneath a wall-mounted mirror fastened with clear clips. The room was void of any color, except for a brown cardboard box in the corner marked “bathroom”. The plain white shower liner crinkles as I sweep it aside to twist the hot water knob. While the water slowly warms to steaming hot, I take a minute to look at myself in the mirror. Pulling out the rubber band that held my chocolate-colored hair in its braid, I comb through the tangles with my fingers. Tendrils of steam curl up from the shower, causing tiny droplets of moisture to cling to my skin.

  Still only half-awake, I step into the shower and let the pounding water massage the tension out of my neck and shoulders. We’d been up till the wee hours of the morning unpacking box after box of clothes, dishes, and randomness, and we still haven’t made a dent. I lean against the white plastic wall and try not to hate my life.

  “Be positive,” my therapist always said, “and positive things will happen.”

  Clearly, he’d never had to share a crappy one-bathroom duplex with his dad. Still, I try to focus on the good things.

  This year, there will be no one giving me dirty looks or calling me names behind my back. There will be no rotten eggs thrown at my house or dead rodents placed in my locker. There will be no long days spent in uncomfortable hospital chairs or waiting for visiting hours to begin. There will be no moping and no solitary lunches eaten in the drama room.

  This year will be different.

  Better.

  So even if I am forced to spend the next three months in a cookie-cutter duplex in a row of cookie-cutter duplexes, in a neighborhood of… well, you get the idea, it will still be better.

  Once again, a plane flies over the house with its engines at high power. The mirror in the small bathroom vibrates so hard I think it might shatter, but it holds firm.

  Sighing, I rinse the frothy, apple-scented shampoo out of my hair. Today is going to be my first day of junior year. Finally, I think as a familiar anxious knot twists in my stomach. It’s well into the first semester so the idea of slipping in unnoticed is crushed, but I’m hoping there will be so many new faces that mine won’t stand out too badly. It’s an on-base school, which is always nice. It’s not much fun having to fight your way into cliques that formed in preschool and there’s normally a pretty regular shuffle of people in and out, making it easy to get into clubs and things.

  I step out of the warmth of the shower and wrap myself in a rough, olive-green towel. Military kids just seem to know what it’s like to be new all the time, to have to adjust and readjust every few months. You don’t get that six-month period of being a social pariah before people start talking to you. They tend to jump in with both feet. I let the thought calm my nerves as I dig through the “bathroom” box, close my hand around the handle of my blow-dryer, and pull it out.

  I blow out my long, brown hair and pull it straight until it lies placidly over my shoulders. My hair is a strange combination of straight in the front and kinky in the back. I get that from my mother. If I let it do what it wanted, I’d spend my life looking like a wet poodle. Unfortunately, my hair serum, the only product under heaven that can control the frizz, is still boxed up somewhere, so I pull my hair into a high ponytail, carefully tugging the very front into a discreet, rocker chick-looking faux-hawk, and make a mental note to keep better track of my essentials next time we pack. All I’ve been able to find so far was my shampoo, blow-dryer, and some lip balm I’m not entirely sure is mine. I toss that back in the box, just in case.

  Glancing over myself in the mirror, I wonder how much longer I can keep procrastinating. Surely, there is something else I can wash, brush, polish, or paint to keep from having to leave the small, damp room. My blue eyes look dull and milky in the yellow glow of the overhead light. I slowly rotate my face, looking for signs of an it-never-fails first-day-of-school breakout. My skin is clear, if a bit dry, with the ever present patch of freckles riding across my nose. With one dark purple fingernail, I tug at my eyes, pulling them back and wishing I had a stick of liner to apply. I sigh, giving up and pulling on my blue jeans and my favorite vintage Clash T-shirt. My favorite purple Converse low-tops are practically falling apart at the seams, but I slip my feet into them anyway and wiggle my toes experimentally. Sometimes being packed away does strange things to shoes, but these are soft with years of wear, which makes them fit perfectly to the shape of my feet.

  With a final glance in my bathroom mirror, I force the remaining anxiety from my body with a hard exhale, pick up my red backpack with all its various mini-buttons from my room, and head for the kitchen and my final inspection.

  ***

  Dad is sitting at the faux-granite breakfast bar, newspaper lying flat in front of him as he sips coffee from his favorite mug. The mug is a hideous greenish-brown mash-up that I’d made for him when I was in kindergarten. I’d been trying to make it look like camouflage, but it turned out more like pea soup and mud. I glance over his shoulder as I make my way past him to the pantry, dropping my bag on the counter with a clang as I go.

  “The Giants looking good this season?” I ask, rummaging through the packages of instant food he picked up last night.

  He grunts, his narrow eyes never leaving the paper. Must still be on his first cup, I decide.

  Dad looks like your typical marine, puke-green T-shirt tucked carefully into camouflage utility pants. His hair is shaved to the skin in what t
hey call a “high and tight,” which resembles a patch of freshly mown grass on an otherwise barren lawn. His eyes are an intense blue, like mine, and his face is clean-shaven and stern. Basically, he scares the living shit out of most people, which in his chosen profession is a good thing.

  After some debate, I settle on a pre-packaged snack cake and a green sports drink—the breakfast of champions.

  “We need to get some real food in this place,” I say, tossing the crumpled wrapper into his lap. I hop onto the counter, turn the snack cake upside down, and suck the filling through the holes in its underside.

  Without looking up, he balls up the plastic and tosses it in the nearest pile of trash. “I’ll do some shopping after work.”

  I swallow. “I could do it, if you need me to.”

  It’s a shallow offer. I hate grocery shopping, but I’ll go if it’ll help him out. Another thing my therapist kept drilling into me. I have to earn Dad’s trust back with small, meaningful gestures. He hasn’t said anything about putting me back in therapy since the move, and I’m not sure I want to bring it up. On one hand, I can’t imagine having to relive everything—again—with someone new, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine not having someone to talk to when things get bad.

  And they always seem to get bad.

  “Nah, that’s okay, kid. I’ll do it. You’d better get going, though, or you’ll be late for your first day,” he says, taking another sip of coffee.

  Relief spreads through my body, but I just nod.

  He looks up at me for the first time, his fuzzy brow furrowing in the middle. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  My head jerks back. Is he really criticizing my wardrobe? That has to be a first. “Um, yeah. Why?”

  I look down at myself, hoping I haven’t forgotten anything important, like pants. To my relief, I am, indeed, fully clothed. I frown, wondering what his comment was all about. I’m covered in all the necessary places, nothing stained or torn that isn’t supposed to be.

  “I just thought you might want to try something less abrasive for your first day.” He shifts in his seat and turns the page, turning his attention back to his paper, “You should at least try to make friends.”