Cole and I stayed where we were for a long moment, silent.
“What I saw with him...” I began, fighting for calm. I’d said it wouldn’t make a difference, and now had to pray I was right. “It was the first vision all over again.” Only a bit more vivid.
“Don’t tell me,” he lashed out. “Not tonight.”
“Cole—”
“Not tonight, Ali. Please.” With that, he walked away from me for the second time that day.
He watched me from afar the rest of the night, but at least he continued to wear the hat.
* * *
As the days wore on, I had to admit my relationship with Cole was unraveling.
Every day he grew a little more distant with me. Anytime I tried to talk to him about Gavin and the vision, he would shut me down, saying, “I can’t do this right now.”
I was trying to trust him like he’d asked. I really was. But the hot-and-cold treatment was wearing me down. Even though he’d always been lavish with his praise of me, I hadn’t spent the past few weeks mutating into a secure person. Especially with matters of the heart.
Should I call him again?
What was considered good girlfriend behavior? What delved into Stalkerville?
I knew something other than the vision was bugging him. The few times I’d seen him, his features had been withdrawn and pinched. And what had the panic been about? But again, when I tried to talk to him about it, he shut me down and walked away.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait for an explanation about his odd behavior without banging on my chest like a gorilla and screaming.
Eventually, he stopped returning my calls. His replies to my texts were short and abrupt—if he bothered to reply at all. He stopped coming by Mr. Ankh’s, and he stopped working out at his own gym.
Maybe Gavin had told him about the vision, and he’d decided to wash his hands of me?
Oh, good glory. No! I bet that was it, though. Dang it! The admission should have come from me. I should have grown a pair of lady balls and forced Cole to listen to me. Then I could have assured him I would rather die than allow my lips to touch any part of that he-slut’s body.
I hadn’t seen the Georgian slayer since Halloween, and I had no idea what would happen the next time we locked eyes. Part of me didn’t want to know. Part of me needed to know. If nothing happened, I could assure Cole wires had somehow gotten crossed—twice, yes—and I was meant to lick and grind on him.
What should I do next?
I couldn’t talk to Kat about this. She had her own problems, and I wouldn’t add to them.
I couldn’t talk to Reeve. I couldn’t risk a slipup.
I couldn’t talk to Nana. She’d just lost her husband.
I couldn’t even talk to Emma. To her, kissing was gross.
I missed the days when I’d thought the same. I was alone in this.
A bell rang, loud and shrill, signaling the end of class. I stood on shaky legs and gathered my notebook and pencil. Earlier today I’d met the new principal of Asher High, an older black man with kind eyes—a nice change considering the last one had been the queen of ice-cold hearts. I’d turned in all the work the teachers had sent to my sickbed. I was finally caught up.
“Glad to have you back and dominating my assignments, Ali Bell,” called Ms. Meyers as I strode from the room.
That was right. In my turmoil over Cole, I’d lost my excitement for my grade. I palmed my cell and texted Nana.
Got an A on my Creative Writing paper! I’d been working on my own at home, and it was nice to know the time and attention I’d put into everything had paid off.
A few seconds later, her reply came in. WTF an A!
I blinked, sure I was misreading. But no, the letters didn’t change.
Me: Nana, do U know what WTF means??
Her: Of course, silly. It means “well, that’s fantastic.”
I swallowed a laugh. I luv U!
Her: Love you, too! Now get back to work.
I stuffed my things in my locker and made my way to the cafeteria. Along the way I ran into Mackenzie. I was as happy to see her now as I’d been at the club but still grabbed her by the arm to stop her.
She looked at my fingers, curled her red lips in distaste and jerked away. But she didn’t walk off, as per usual, and I was grateful.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
Such a sweet, sweet girl. “Where’s Cole?”
“What am I? His keeper?”
“Just tell me where he is,” I gritted.
“He’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” He’d left without saying goodbye? Again?
“Is there more than one meaning for the word?”
Don’t punch her. You can’t afford a suspension. “What’s the deal with Veronica? She and Cole are on such great terms, I’m curious about how long they’ve known each other.” I should be discussing this with Cole, and only with Cole, but curiosity—and maybe a little anger—urged me onward.
“Cole dated her before me. I’ve heard rumors, but I’m not one hundred percent sure why they broke up. He never said.”
Keep it together. Something about her tone... She knew something she wasn’t telling me. “When he broke up with you, how did he do it?”
She stared at me as if I were a bug under a microscope—already dissected, ready to be sold for parts. Finally she averted her gaze, but not before I caught a glimmer of pity. “It was a few weeks after Bronx and I moved into his guesthouse, and a few months before you showed up. He got me alone, sat me down and told me we were over. I was absolutely blindsided. Even the day before, we were pretty into each other. Or so I thought.”
Blindsided.
Into each other one day, but not the next.
Keep. It. Together.
Kat sidled up beside me, saying, “There you are.”
She would help me, despite her problems.
“Well, well. Hello, Ally Kat.” Mackenzie smiled with saccharine sweetness.
The two had never been friends, and probably never would be. Mackenzie, so protective of “her” boys, had tried to ruin Kat’s relationship with Frosty a time or ten.
“Hello, Love Button,” Kat replied, using the same tenor of falseness. Then she turned to me, putting her back to Mackenzie, as if the girl were of no consequence. Her cheeks were colorless, and her lips chapped from being chewed. “I’m blowing lunch and my last few hours and taking off. I’ll pick you up for tonight’s game. And I know you want to spend a few minutes explaining why you can’t go, but I’ll save you the time since there’s no way you can win this argument. You’re going and that’s final.”
I opened my mouth, but she kissed my cheek and bounded off before I could get out a single word. “What if I have to, I don’t know, help Cole?” I called. A few slayers had to patrol the streets nearly every night, just in case.
She never turned back.
“You don’t. You haven’t been put on rotation,” Mackenzie said, and bounded off in the other direction.
Cole still hadn’t added me.
Trembling, I entered the lunchroom and headed toward the table I shared with Reeve and the slayers. Halfway there, I slammed into a brick wall. Or rather, a brick wall that went by the name of Justin Silverstone.
“Move,” I commanded.
Big brown puppy-dog eyes peered down at me, beseeching. “Why would I? I’m right where I want to be.”
“That’s odd, considering your location might just get your testicles knocked into your throat.” I wasn’t falling for his innocent act. Not again. He’d once used me for information to feed to Anima. He might even have helped them bomb my house. No telling what he’d do next.
“Give me a chance to explain my side of things, Ali. Please. I had nothing to do with—”
“Save it.” I took a step to the side, intending to brush past him, then stopped as a thought occurred to me. “First, answer a question for me. Did you talk to Cole on the phone last Sat
urday night?”
An emotionless mask descended—the same one Cole had been donning lately. “No. Why?”
If he was to be believed, I’d dreamed their conversation. My mind really was a mess.
“Watch me as I don’t discuss that with you.” I marched to the table and sat with more of a slam than I’d intended.
“What did Justin want?” Frosty asked, looking ready to commit murder on my behalf.
“To chat about old times.”
Bronx ran his tongue over his teeth. It was his way of telling me he would be at Frosty’s side, inflicting major damage on the boy. With his spiked hair now dyed an electric blue rather than green, and the piercings in his eyebrow and lip—and, okay, the tattoo peeking from under the collar of his shirt—he didn’t have to say anything to scare the crap out of most people.
Frosty crossed his arms over his chest. “Want me to break his face?”
“That’s sweet of you to offer,” I replied, liking that I had such fierce protectors, “but if there’s going to be any face-breaking, I’m going to be the one to do it.”
“Well, if you change your mind...”
“I’ll let you know.” I picked at the lunch I’d packed—a bagel with cream cheese—and wondered where Cole had gone, what he was doing and if this day could get any worse.
* * *
What a stupid question, I told myself later that evening. Of course the day could get worse.
By five, a cold front had swept into Birmingham, and by eight I felt like a Popsicle despite my winter wear. I huddled on the stadium bleachers between Kat and Reeve. Neither girl seemed to notice the frigid temperatures. They were too busy bouncing up and down and celebrating. The Tigers had just scored their first touchdown of the game.
As the second quarter kicked off, Kat said, “So, get this. I’m, like, way more mad at Frosty than ever before. I may not ever forgive him.”
“Why?” I asked. She was paler than she’d been at school, and despite her excitement over the game, her eyes were a little glassy. “What’d he do?”
“Last night he kissed some skank—right in my front yard.”
“Oh, Kat. I’m so sorry.”
“That snake!” Reeve exclaimed. “He deserves to die a thousand painful deaths.”
Kat nodded, saying, “And that’s not even the worst part. He put her on the back of his unicorn and rode off into the rainbow. He’s never taken me to a rainbow.”
Wait. “What are you talking about?”
“My dream last night,” she said easily, then sipped her hot chocolate.
“Your dream.” Reeve shook her head. “You’re more mad at him than ever because of a dream?”
“Hey! I always behave myself in dreams,” she said. “He should, too. And if he can’t, he needs to apologize with more than my favorite flowers.”
“He actually brought you flowers?” Stunned, I blinked at her. “For what he did in a dream?”
“Well, yeah. Wouldn’t you?”
At the moment, I couldn’t get Cole to say more than seven words to me. In real life.
Gavin suddenly plopped into the seat in front of me and though he grinned at me, he didn’t look me in the eye.
Was this a nightmare?
A pretty brunette eased beside him, and she wasn’t one of the girls from the club. She wrapped a possessive arm around his shoulders. A clear warning to me and my friends.
He had a girlfriend.
He frowned at the girl, removed her arm. O-kay. Maybe not a girlfriend.
“Ali Bell,” he said with a nod of greeting. “It’s good to see you again.”
He hadn’t shaved since the last time I’d seen him, and golden stubble now covered his jaw. Heart pounding unsteadily, I jerked my gaze to just over his shoulder, just in case he accidentally glanced up. “Uh, hi,” I replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“Hey, I remember you,” Kat interjected. “From—” she caught herself before she admitted something she shouldn’t and finished with a limp “—somewhere.”
Reeve stiffened, as if she knew Kat was hiding something.
“You should,” Gavin said. “I’m unforgettable.”
“What a strange coincidence,” Kat replied, fluffing her hair. “I am, too. So, are you a new member of the Asher High student body?”
The maybe/maybe-not-girlfriend snorted. “Does he look like he’s in high school, kid?”
Her disdain irked.
Gavin, I’d discovered, had graduated last year. He was nineteen, not that much older than me, but he looked about thirty. The finest of lines branched from his eyes—either laugh lines, scowl lines or both. With slayers, you couldn’t be sure. Most of the guys were as mean as rattlesnakes, but they were also quite warped in the humor department.
“Hillary,” Gavin admonished.
“It’s Belinda,” the girl corrected tightly.
“Whatever. I wanted one night, you wanted two. I agreed to give you the second night if you promised to behave. You’re not behaving.”
She pressed her lips together and remained silent.
Are you kidding me?
He was casually discussing sex with a woman he’d called by the wrong name. I had no words.
“Since no one is willing to make introductions,” Reeve said to break up the tenser-by-the-second silence, “I’ll do it. I’m Reeve Ankh.”
Gavin looked her over with unabashed interest. “You the one dating Bronx?”
“Not dating, no. We’re not even on friendly terms anymore.”
I caught the bitterness in her tone. She had no idea her father had threatened to pull his support from the slayers if one of the boys made a play for her. Every day Bronx had to choose between the girl he wanted and the friends he was determined to protect.
“I’m actually seeing someone else,” Reeve admitted quietly.
“What!” Kat gasped. “And you didn’t tell me? Who is it? How long has this been going on?”
“I’ll share if you will.”
Kat’s excitement deflated. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Wren Kyler and Poppy Verdeck making their way toward the concession stand. They made a striking pair, the beautiful black girl and the delicate redhead. A few weeks ago, Kat, Reeve and I would have been with them.
The moment I’d started dating Cole and she’d gotten back together with Frosty, they’d dropped us. We were now considered troublemakers, a bad bet, and they’d thought their futures would be brighter without us.
They were probably right.
Justin was dating Wren, and he walked behind the pair. He looked up, his gaze landing on me as if he’d known where I was all along. Just like before, his eyes pleaded at me.
I broke the connection.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” Gavin asked me. “Alone?”
Hillary/Belinda opened her mouth to protest, quickly closed it.
My palms began to sweat. Gavin wanted to find out if we’d have another vision, didn’t he?
I nodded, trying to sound normal as I said, “Sure. Why not?”
We stood in unison. He led me up the bleachers, his hand on my lower back, making me uncomfortable.
“Here’s good.” He stopped at a secluded spot overlooking the parking lot, then motioned to the section we’d just abandoned. “I need to be able to see the girls.”
Agreed. Emma hadn’t formed a rabbit cloud, so I wasn’t worried about an attack, but I’d learned to err on the side of caution.
“Before you ask,” I said, still not meeting his gaze. “I don’t know what causes the visions—or, apparently, what stops them. I thought building emotional walls was the key, but I’d built what I considered an impenetrable fortress against you before Hearts and yet we had another one.”
He pushed out a heavy breath. “Note to self. Take Prozac before talking to Ali.”
That probably wasn’t a bad idea. “I don�
��t think we should look at each other. Not here. Just in case.”
“All right. Where? When?”
How about...never? I ignored the questions, saying, “Have you experienced a vision with anyone else?”
“No. But you have.”
“Yes.” And I was clearly the only unchanging variable. Somehow, this was all my fault. “What did you see in the barn?” Maybe he’d seen something different. Maybe—
“I saw you tasting my neck.”
I gulped. No maybe. We’d seen the same thing. “That’s never going to happen.”
“That’s not what Cole said.”
Fury rose inside me, even though I’d already suspected Gavin had spilled the worst of the details. “You told him?”
“Of course. I had to. He’s my friend. You’re his girl.”
Was I? I licked my lips. “When did you do it? What’d he say?”
“The day after the incident at the club. And nothing. He stormed off.”
Why hadn’t he called me?
I had to talk to him. I had to explain...what? What could I say to make this better?
“I feel the need to reiterate—I’m never going to lick you or throw you on my bed,” I said.
Gavin fingered a lock of my hair. “Honey, I have to agree with you on that one. You’re not even close to being my type.”
“What type is that? Easy?”
“Among other things,” he said unabashedly.
I stepped away from him and gripped the railing in front of me. In the parking lot, darkness was chased away by the occasional streetlamp, revealing car after car.
“I just want to figure out what’s going on,” he said.
“Me, too. And by the way, you’re not my type, either.”
“You don’t like sexy?”
I rolled my eyes. “I just like Cole.”
“So you like moody and broody.”
I kind of wanted to smile at that. “I—” The scent of rot hit me, and I wrinkled my nose. Stiffening, I searched for any other sign of the zombies. They couldn’t be here. They—
Were here.
Red eyes cut through the night, and my heart skittered into a wild beat. Anyone who wandered through the parking lot would be unable to see the evil lurking nearby, and the odds were good they’d become dinner.
“They’re here,” I said, trying not to panic. “The zombies are here.”
The White Rabbit Chronicles Page 40
