Fallen Souls by Linda Foster

 
     
     
    “Ash!” a girl shouted
from across the room. He heard her, but
barely; the music was louder than ever, and there were at least one
hundred people crowded into the house, screaming and laughing. She
had seemed stifled and far away, but he turned to the sound of her
voice, searching for her. He was sure it had been his sister.
Ducking and weaving through the crowd, he finally found her,
meeting her eyes through the sea of classmates. Grace grinned and
waved, and began shoving through the people, trying to get to
him.
    He watched his sister approach,
laughing. By the time she got there, she was flushed and pink, her
chest heaving. Her eyes were also glossy, he noticed
disapprovingly, her walk more of a stumble than anything else.
She’d spilled most of the drink in her hand with her inability to
walk straight, and arrived by falling into him.
    He caught her by the arm to steady
her, but quickly buckled under the added weight, and they fell into
the couch together, laughing. Ash looked around, breathless,
wondering if anyone else had seen that exhibition of drunken
stumbling. He loved his sister, but her drinking was getting
seriously out of control. He scanned the room, seeing the usual
group of jocks and cheerleaders, laughing, joking, and flirting,
and all unabashedly intoxicated. Suddenly, his eyes stopped and
drifted slowly back to a face that didn’t belong.
    There … the man at the top of the
stairs. He’d seen him only seconds earlier, he was sure, though he
hadn’t paid much attention to him. Now, however, the man was
staring at Grace with a smile on his face. A smile that Ash didn’t
like.
    Ash glanced around, wondering if
anyone else saw the man, or if his sister had caught sight of him.
Something about the man made him uncomfortable, and he definitely
didn’t like the way he was looking at Grace, like she was his next
midnight snack. He felt the urge to go and say something to him,
but didn’t want to go making trouble on his own. If anyone else had
seen the stranger, maybe he could find an ally. Unfortunately,
everyone else appeared to be either drunk or busy, and when he
glanced back, the man was gone. Ash shrugged and let it go,
chalking it up to his imagination or the double vision from the
beer in his hand. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure if
he’d even be able to describe the guy. He looked down at the drink
in his hand and put it carefully to the side. If he couldn’t
remember the face of someone he’d seen two seconds earlier, he’d
obviously had enough to drink.
    Grace, on the other hand was still
drinking and giggling hysterically at his side. He turned to her,
trying to put the man out of his mind for a moment.
    “ What is it, Grace?” he
mumbled, his eyes running around the room.
    “ How did it go with
Stacey?” she asked raising an eyebrow.
    He grinned self-consciously, and all
thoughts of the creepy man scattered. Stacey, the cute girl his
sister had introduced him to earlier, was on the cheerleading squad
with Grace. She had short strawberry blonde hair, cut just above
her chin, and brown eyes that turned to gold in the sunshine. Her
smile took his breath away. He’d had a crush on her for months, and
when Grace found out, she’d brought him to his party to introduce
him.
    He knew he was lucky to have a sister
like Grace. She was a typical cheerleader: beautiful, with long
blonde hair and a brilliant smile. And of course, she was popular.
She’d always claimed that she had a deeper side, though, and drew
the line at dating guys who didn’t also appreciate her mind. Ash
had lived with her long enough to know that she was just as smart
as she was beautiful, and went far deeper than most people
realized, though she didn’t always show it. Ash, on the other hand,
had always been a bit more socially – how to put it? – challenged.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends, or that he’d never had a
girlfriend. He was just pickier about who he let into his