Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,1

I choked out, the adrenaline starting to ebb from my system, a hurricane of emotions moving in.

“Please,” he whispered, his desperate and pleading brown eyes sparkling with unshed tears in the moonlight. “Just run home and get in bed. I’ll meet you there. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Okay. That was a word I recognized all too well. Not good. Or great. Or even fine. Just simply okay was a state of being for us.

Besides, Ramsey had never steered me wrong before.

So I squeezed his hand, and like a coward, I ran.

Choices. Everyone makes them.

But mine would ruin us all.

Three years earlier…

Things I hated:

The sound of Styrofoam squeaking.

The seeds in strawberries and therefore strawberries in general because the seeds were too tiny to pick out.

And bugs. Every shape. Every size. Every color. I hated them all.

Ramsey told me I was crazy because I would carry frogs around in my pocket when I was younger and trap lizards in old shoeboxes. My brother thought that was “way more gross.” But if I so much as crossed the path of a grasshopper, it might as well have been a hitman. It didn’t matter how many times he told me that dragonflies wouldn’t hurt me. Or how often my teachers tried to convince me that butterflies were kind and gentle. One flutter, hop, or squirm and it would push me past the point of all reason and straight into hysterics.

Clearly, hunting earthworms was the obvious career choice for me.

Well played, Karma. Well played.

“Ew, ew, ew,” I whispered, using my fingers to rake through the dirt. It was going to take all night to get my fingernails clean.

My long, brown hair fell into my face, the purple glitter barrette Ramsey had given me for my birthday failing me. I should have grabbed a ponytail holder before I’d left, but sprinting from the house and pulling on my shoes before my dad went on a tirade about who’d eaten the last of the cereal was something of a priority.

“Oh, God.” I fought a gag when a fat earthworm rolled out of the dirt. “It’s just a worm. That’s not even a real bug. It’s more like a snake.” I paused my pep talk and shivered. “Crap. Okay, snakes are bad too. This is not like a snake. Not at all.” Using a stick, I transferred its slimy, squirming body into the coffee can my employer, Mr. Leonard, had fashioned into a bucket.

Sweat dripped down my forehead as the sweltering Georgia humidity curled around me like a suffocating wet blanket. It was only the first Sunday since school had let out, but I was already sick of it.

Ramsey and his girlfriend, Thea, were off sitting under their tree as usual. The invitation was always open for me to join them, but there were only so many googly eyes a girl could witness before losing her lunch.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved Thea. She was super cool and fun, a little too tomboy for my taste, but my brother didn’t seem to mind that his “Sparrow” had an aversion to makeup and nail polish. She lived two doors down from us, so we hung out a lot. Honestly, she was as close to a sister as I would ever get. But those two were getting grosser by the day.

For the record, collecting earthworms for Mr. Leonard was still worse by a million miles. It was a paying gig though, so I’d pounced when I saw the sign posted at the end of his driveway. My father was worthless, and with Ramsey’s lawn mower out of commission until he could afford to fix it, I was responsible for earning the grocery money. My brother had told me not to worry about it and he’d figure it out, but I liked the idea of helping for a change.

Although I had zero experience in the worm-hunting industry, I was the star employee in the running-away-from-worms-at-any-and-all-costs industry. At twenty cents a worm, I figured even if it gave me nightmares, I could still make a pretty penny.

Or so I’d thought. The meager four worms I’d collected over my first three hours on the job said otherwise.

I scooped another handful of dirt while the rushing stream echoed off the surrounding trees. It had been a rainy week, so the creek was swollen and the usual hum of the flowing water had become a dull roar.

It was exactly why I didn’t hear him walk up.

“Catch anything good?”

“Crap!” I startled, knocking my bucket over. “Crap!”