A Different Kind of Animal

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Arabelle had barely slept a wink all night. Her mind was a restless mess of anxiety. Thom had already called her house as soon as the first hints of pink had touched the sky with the sun’s impending rise over the mountains.

“Is he there?” Thom had asked, and just like in the three phone calls the night before, she had to supply him with nothing but a feeble, “No, Thom. I’m sorry.”

Who was that man in the Jeep? Who is he to Leo? she found herself thinking over and over. She hardly had a reason to feel so tormented about Leo’s disappearance and possible endangerment, but she did. Perhaps it was because of how childlike he was—how seemingly innocent. If anything were to happen to him, it would surely be undeserved, a tragedy.

But you don’t know that for sure… Maybe Leo isn’t who he seems.

Regardless, Leo had wanted to protect her from whoever that man was. That meant that her new friend couldn’t be all bad. She felt it in her gut that he was a well-intentioned person, and he didn’t deserve to feel so afraid.

His father? Is that who that man was?

The thought suddenly seemed like a very probable possibility. Why was Leo really here with Thom, anyway? Maybe he was having problems at home. Maybe his father abused him.

Wincing at the idea of Leo being hurt by anybody, Arabelle padded over to her bedroom window, peering out into the ever lightening sky. The thin patches of trees alongside the road to her home didn’t look as foreboding as they had to her the night she’d left Crystal’s, and she vaguely recalled running in terror from a voice in the dark.

That voice she’d heard… For some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that that was somehow related to all this. Now that she thought about it…

Before she could change her mind, she grabbed her black hoodie and slid it over the outfit which she’d worn the day before since that was what she’d fallen asleep in. Tiptoeing out to the kitchen, she quietly opened the front door, determined not to wake her mother, who had no idea that any of this was happening.

Keeping a brisk pace and constantly looking around herself in paranoia, Arabelle made it to the spot where she’d thought she’d first heard the phony cry for help.

Or was it phony?

She replayed the sound of the voice over again in her mind, realizing now just how familiar it had become to her.

Leo…

Why hadn’t she realized that before now? He’d started staying at Thom’s the same day after she’d heard his call for help. Had he gone to Thom for help? Looking across the road, she wasn’t surprised to find that Thom’s house was the closest one to this spot.

Your cousin’s son, my butt, Thom. I doubt he’s even related to you at all.

And then there’d been the Jeep at McDonald’s. It was so obvious now, and she once again couldn’t believe that she hadn’t made the connection immediately. Maybe she’d been too distracted by Leo. But she was sure now: the Jeep and the man inside it were the same as the ones she’d seen earlier that day on her way to Thom’s. Hadn’t she thought that the driver had been acting suspiciously?

She took two more steps toward Thom’s house— ready to talk with her old friend about everything that she’d discovered—when something brushed her arm from behind.

She screamed so shrilly that she hurt her own eardrums.

Heart pounding out of her chest, she screamed again when the thing which had brushed her arm—a hand—grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her right into—