“Ma, I’m stayin’ at Jen’s tonight, ‘kay?” Jared calls out, letting his voice echo through the Ranch-style home in the rural part of Texas. His mother appears seemingly out of nowhere and nods with understanding, making a point of telling Jared to behave himself.

Jared rolls his eyes and sighs obnoxiously, “Mom, I’m sixteen.” He whines, as if that makes any sense. “Stop treating me like I’m five, god!”

His mother, bless her heart, holds back a laugh and settles for a knowing smirk. “Yes, and you sound so grown up, sweetheart.” She replies pointedly, quirking her brow in silent direction to give his own opinion.

Jared scratches his head, chewing on his lip and nods. “I’ll behave, momma. Promise.”

She points at him, her eyes narrowing on him for a moment, then she smiles. “I know you will, honey. Just be back my noon tomorrow. Your daddy’s got business comin’ for lunch.”

“Okay, I will!” Jared replies, already out the door.

What his momma doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

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Jared is fifteen when he first sees this strange man.

He’s walking home from school on a cloudy day, hoping it doesn’t rain until after he gets home. On route, he passes a few store fronts and there’s a place in the line up where the buildings are pressed together so compact that maybe two large men can fit between them snugly. This little crevice is where he sees those intense green eyes for the first time.

The man is pinning a woman to the brick of the building, keening against him and Jared comes to an abrupt stop without thinking. The sounds, not unlike anything he hasn’t already heard at fifteen with an older brother just down the hall and his own healthy appetite, but there’s something different about this scene. Mysterious and dangerous.

Suddenly, they stop altogether. The man pulls his face away from the woman’s neck and to Jared’s horror his lips are covered in blood. Her blood, Jared realizes with a jolt to his system and he opens his mouth to scream for help but nothing comes. Only, this woman isn’t acting like she’s being attacked. Not a hint of pain or discomfort lingers in her too pretty features and when Jared looks back where the man had once stood, he was gone.

The woman rights herself, situating her clothes and walks passed Jared with an annoyed expression on her face and he only just thinks to examine her neck as she walks by but her skin is unblemished; not so much as a freckle. Bewildered, Jared watches the woman walk in the direction he’d come and looked back in between the buildings.

Had he been seeing things?

With a deep breath, Jared shoves his hands in his coat pockets and tries to make sense of the last couple minutes. None of it made any sense to him and the longer he thought the harder it was to believe he’d actually seen it. Maybe he was seeing things. A trick of the light or something.

Jared was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice figure silhouetted in an alcove down the street, passing him by without a care in the world. The stranger lit a cigarette, illuminating his shadowed face and startling green eyes appeared in the darkness before disappearing again.

The young boy had no idea what he’d just gotten himself into.

PART TWO

PART ONE

Eighteen finds Jared on his uncle’s ranch, helping out with what he can for the summer before entering into college. The sun is high above him, causing him to sweat in the Texas heat. He’s been baling hay all day, which isn’t as easy as one might think. It sure isn’t as easy as his uncle made it out to be when he’d asked Jared for help. It’s a piece of cake, boy, he’d mused. My back’s just ain’t what it used to be, is all.

Well, at least he’s keeping busy. Jared is grateful for the distraction from his own thoughts. Being alone, worrying about college and his ‘adult’ plans works him up into a nervous frenzy and no one wants to deal with that. So, working on a farm, doing hard labor is fine by him. However, his thoughts still flutter around in his head as he works.

Once he finishes moving the small bales from the back of the flatbed truck into the hayshed, he stands in the doorway and admires his work. Breathing heavily, he wipes his brow of sweat with a bright red bandanna from his back pocket. He closes his eyes, wipes down his face as well and as he tucks the material back in his pocket he glances back up to a shadowed figure to his right.

The stranger has a wicked, cryptic smirk playing about his striking features. It doesn’t take long for Jared’s mind to locate the memory of those same intensely green eyes from the alleyway. His mind is screaming for him to run, even feel his brain sending the signal to his limbs but nothing happens. He’s pinned to his place under that unearthly stare, his heart beating like a jackhammer in his chest.

“Who are you?” Jared asks finally, going for annoyed confidence. His voice fails him, stammering in fear over his words. The stranger simply laughs, rubs his hand over his jawline and Jared tracks the movement with his eyes. Muscles tensing, he readies himself for an attack he’s not even sure will come, but he knows, now, what he saw in that alley when he was fifteen isn’t just his wild imagination.

“Relax,” The stranger coos, a hint of amusement in his tone. He licks his lips, tongue dragging his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

That doesn’t comfort Jared in the slightest. The fact that that is the first place the man’s mind goes by means to soothe Jared’s nerves means that, at some point, that fact was on his mind. It makes Jared’s blood run cold and he swallows hard. Clenching his fists, Jared sets his stance again, preparing for the worst if it happens to come is way and tightens his jaw. Nostrils flaring slightly, he fixes the other man with a dagger-like glare and speaks again. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The green-eyed stranger gives him a full blown grin then, clearly enjoying the entire situation. He laughs softly, seemingly contemplating his next course of action. He opens his mouth to speak, but another voice echoes over the land from the farmhouse a little ways away.

“Jared, sweetheart,” His aunt calls, Jared whipping his head in that direction out of sheer habit. “There’s food, when you’re done.” She informs him, wiping her hands on the bottom of her apron. Jared nods in response, not trusting his voice and she smiles before going back in the house.

When Jared turns around again, the man is gone. He hadn’t made any noise that Jared could remember, which makes Jared feel queasy. How could a man move around so stealthily at the drop of a hat? It didn’t matter now. He was gone now, again, as quickly as he’d appeared.

Taking a deep breath, he lets his body relax and grips at his chest instinctively. That probably was the most frightening position Jared has ever been in and just a simple conversation had taken place. Then, he remembers that afternoon on his way home, the fear that bubbled up within him.

The image of the man’s stained red lips is vivid in his mind’s eye then as if it’d happened yesterday. He rounds around the hayshed, barely making it to the large metal bin used as a makeshift garbage and every bit of his lunch comes back up with a vengeance. He can’t allow himself to dwell on the possibilities, the puzzle pieces falling into place, because if he does he knows he won’t like what he sees.