“Jacinda Jones, come up here to the front and introduce yourself.”
My stomach twists at these words. It’s third period, which means it’s the third time I’ve had to do this.
I slide out from my desk, stepping over backpacks as I move to the front of the room to stand beside Mrs. Schulz. Thirty pairs of eyes fasten on me.
Mom enrolled us last Friday. She insisted it was time. That attending high school is the first step to assimilating. The first step to normal. Tamra is thrilled, unafraid, ready for this.
All last night, awake in my bed, sick to my stomach, I thought about today. I thought about the pride and all I was giving up. So what if daylight flight was forbidden? At least I could fly. The rules I chafed against with the pride suddenly pale beside this new reality. I’m not even sure why I resisted Cassian so much anymore. Was it only for Tamra? Or was there something within me other than loyalty to my sister that opposed being with him?
Teenagers surround me. Human teenagers. Hundreds of them. Their voices ring out, loud and nonstop. The air is full of false, cloying scents. A draki’s worst hell.
It’s not that I never expected to live in the outside world. Among humans. I would probably have taken a tour. But no one tours during adolescence. Only as an adult, as a draki strong and fully developed, and never in a desert like this. All for good reason.
I resist the urge to scratch my arm. It’s only spring, but the heat and dryness make my skin itch. Beneath the buzzing fluorescent glare, a sick, wilting sensation coils through me.
Clearing my throat, I speak in rusty tones. “Hi, I’m Jacinda Jones.”
A girl near the front twirls a strand of her hair. “Yeah. We already know that.” She smiles, her lips obscenely glossy.
Mrs. Schulz saves me. “Where are you from?”
Mom drilled these answers into me. “Colorado.”
An encouraging smile. “Lovely, lovely. Do you ski?”
I blink. “No.”
“Where did you go to school?”
Mom covered this, too. “I was homeschooled.” It was the easiest explanation to get us enrolled. We can’t exactly ask the pride to forward my school transcripts.
Several kids laugh outright. The girl twirling her hair rolls her eyes. “Fuh-reak.”
“Enough, Brooklyn.” Mrs. Schulz looks at me again, her expression less welcoming now. More resigned. Like I just confessed to reading at a first-grade level. “I’m sure that has been an interesting experience.”
Nodding, I start for my desk, but her voice stops me, holds me hostage.
“And you have a twin sister, right?”
I pause, wishing the interrogation would end. “Yes.”
A boy with a patchy red face and small ferret eyes mumbles, “Double the pleasure.”
Other kids laugh. Boys mostly.
Mrs. Schulz doesn’t hear, or pretends not to. Just as well. I want this over so I can slink back to my seat and work at being invisible.
“Thank you, Jacinda. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
Sure.
I return to my desk. Mrs. Schulz dives into a one-sided discussion on Antigone. I read the play two years ago. In its original Greek.
My gaze swings to the window and the view of the parking lot. Above the gleaming cars’ hoods, far in the distance, mountains break the sky, calling to me.
I’ve decided to try to fly. Mom did it when she lived here. It’s not impossible. Right now it’s hard to sneak away. Mom sticks so close. She’s determined to pick us up and drop us off from school like we’re seven-year-olds. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s afraid the pride will track me down at school or if she’s worried I’ll run. I like to think she trusts me enough to know I wouldn’t do that.
Sneaking away to stretch my wings for a little while isn’t stopping Mom and Tamra from having the life they want so badly.
I shift in my seat, the crinkle of the city map in my pocket my only hope right now. I’ve pored over it several times already, memorizing every park in the area. Just because I live here doesn’t mean I’m willing to wither away. The thought of flying again is the only thing keeping me going. Risky or not, I’ll taste the wind again.
The bell rings, and I’m on my feet with everyone else.
Ferret Eyes turns to me and introduces himself. “Hey.” He nods slowly, giving me a full appraisal. “I’m Ken.”
“Hi,” I manage, wondering if he somehow thought his “double the pleasure” remark won me over.
“Need help finding your next class?”
“No. I’m good. Thanks.” Stepping past him, I hurry to my locker, head down.
Tamra’s waiting for me. “How’s it going?” she asks brightly.
“Fine.”
Her smile slips. “You have to be open to it, Jace. Only you can decide to be happy.”
I work the combination, mess up, and try again. “Enough with the psychology please.”
She shrugs and fingers her iron-flat hair. It took her an hour in the bathroom to accomplish the feat, but she saw it in a magazine and wanted to match the picture. My own red-gold hair trails down my back in a frizzy, crackling mess. Wild with static. Like the rest of me, it misses the mist.
I survey her, so chic in her snug red top, dark jeans, and knee-high boots she bought over the weekend at a thrift store. Several guys walk past and do a double take. She’s at home in this world, not suffering any of my unease, not even pining for Cassian anymore. And I’m happy for her. Really. If only her happiness wasn’t my misery.
“I’ll try,” I promise, meaning it. It’s not like I want to ruin this for her.
“Oh. I almost forgot.” She digs in her satchel. “Look. They’re having tryouts for next year’s cheerleading squad.”
I glance down at the bright orange flyer in her hand and wince at the cartoons of tiny pom-poms and somersaulting, short-skirted girls.
She waggles the paper. “We should try out together.”
I finally get my locker open and swap out textbooks. “Nah. You go ahead.”
“But you’re so”—her amber gaze sweeps over me meaningfully—“athletic.” She might as well have said draki.
I shake my head and open my mouth to stress my unwillingness, then stop. My flesh shivers. The tiny hairs at my nape prickle in alert. A textbook slips from my fingers, but I don’t move to pick it up.
Tamra lowers the flyer. “What? What is it?”
I stare over her shoulder, down the crowded hall. A warning bell peals, and everyone’s movements become frenzied. Lockers slam and the soles of shoes squeal against the tiled floor.
I remain still.
“Jace, what?”
I shake my head, unable to speak as my gaze darts over every face. Then I find him. See him. The one I sought before I even realized it, before I even understood…. The beautiful boy.
My skin snaps tight.
“Jacinda, what is it? We’re going to be late to class.”
I don’t care. I don’t move. It can’t be him. He can’t be here. Why would he be here?
But it is him.
Will.
He leans against the lockers, taller than everyone around him. Twirly-hair Brooklyn plays with the hem of his shirt, shamelessly leaning into him, glossy lips moving nonstop. He smiles, nods, listens as she chatters, but I sense that he doesn’t really care, that he’s somewhere else…or wants to be. Just like me.
I can’t look away.
Honey brown hair falls over his brow carelessly, and I remember it darkly wet and slicked back from his face. I remember the two of us alone in a cave, his hand on mine and that spark that passed between us before his face became so stark and angry. Before he vanished.
Tamra sighs beside me and twists around to see. “Ah,” she murmurs knowingly. “Yummy. Too bad though. It looks like he’s got a girlfriend. You’ll have to set your sights on someone else—” Facing me, she gasps. “Jace! You’re glowing!”
That jerks my attention back. I gla
nce down at my arms. My skin blurs in and out, shimmering faintly, like I’ve been dusted with gold.
The draki in me stirs, tingling, yearning to come out.
“God, get a grip, jeez!” Tamra hisses, leaning closer. “You see a hot guy and start to manifest? Have some control.”
But I can’t. That’s what Tamra never understood. When emotions run high, the draki surfaces. In times of fear, excitement, arousal…the draki comes out. It’s the way we are.
I look back at Will and pleasure whips through me. And beneath it, fear at what his being here means.
My sister grabs my arm and squeezes almost cruelly. “Jacinda, stop it! Stop it now!”
Will’s head lifts with the suddenness of a predator scenting its prey and I wonder if hunters are really human at all. If maybe they aren’t just as otherworldly as the draki. He looks around, searching the hall as I struggle to get myself under control. Before he sees me. Before he knows.
My lungs start to smolder, the familiar burn catching the exact moment his hazel eyes lock on mine.
The slam of my locker jars me and I tear my gaze off him. To Tamra. Her hand presses flat my locker, her fingertips white where they dig hard into the metal.
The last bell sounds.
With a quick dip, she grabs my books off the floor and drags me toward the bathroom. I glance over my shoulder as bodies empty the hall in a rush of unnatural scents. Perfumes, colognes, lotions, hair sprays, gels…they clog my senses. Here, nothing feels real. Except the boy staring after me. He watches. His gleaming gaze following, stalking me like the predator I sense in him. He moves away from the lockers in a loping, catlike motion.
My draki continues to stir, awake and alive at the hungry way he watches me. My skin quivers, the flesh of my back tingling, itchy where my wings push. I keep them buried. Buried, but not dormant.
Tamra’s hand tugs harder, pulling me. And I lose sight of him. He’s swallowed up in the flurry of humankind around me, like so many moths bumping and dancing around a light, congesting the hallway.
But I still feel him. Yearn for him. Know he’s there even when I no longer see him.
My nostrils flare against the harsh bite of astringent. Instantly, my draki withers at the unnatural odor. I press a hand to my mouth and nose. The hint of fire in my lungs dies. My back stops tingling.
Tamra’s gaze slides over me, and she exhales, clearly satisfied to see it’s me again. The me she approves of, the only me she wants around. Especially here in this new world she hopes to conquer for her own.
“You’ve stopped glowing. Thank God! Are you trying to blow it for us?”
I stare toward the bathroom door. Almost like I expect him to follow. “Did he see?”
“I don’t think so.” She shrugs one shoulder. “He wouldn’t know what he saw anyway.”
That’s true, I suppose. Even hunters don’t know draki manifest into human form. It’s been our most carefully guarded secret. Our greatest defense. And it’s not like I was unfurling my wings in the hallway. Not quite, anyway.
I hug my arms as the invigorating hum fades from my core. This is my chance, I realize. I can tell her about Will…confess just how much I risked that day in the cave with him…confess how much I risk right now. I can declare everything as I stand in this putrid bathroom. Tamra squints at my face. “Are you going to be okay? Should I call Mom?”
I consider this. And more. Like what Mom would say if I tell her everything. What would she do? And instantly I know. She’d yank us out of school. But she wouldn’t take us back to the pride. Oh no. She would just plant us in some other town. Some other school in another desert. In a week, I would be redoing this wretched first day all over again, suffering the heat and climate somewhere else without a beautiful, exciting boy around. A boy whose mere presence has revitalized my draki — the very part of me that hasn’t felt alive since we left the mountains. How can I walk away from that? From him?
Tamra shakes her beautiful mane of hair off her shoulders as she surveys me. “I think we’re okay.” She wags a finger at me. “But stay away from him, Jacinda. Don’t even look at him. At least not until you’ve gotten yourself under better control. Mom says it shouldn’t take long before…”
She must see something in my face. She looks away. “Sorry,” she mutters. Because she’s my sister and she loves me, she says this. Not because she’s really sorry. She wants my draki dead as much as Mom does. Wants me normal. Like her. So we can lead normal lives together and do stuff like cheerleading.
My stomach cramps. I take my books from her. “We’re late.”
“They’ll cut us some slack. We’re new.”
I nod, plucking at the severely dog-eared corner of my geometry book. “See you at lunch?”
Tamra moves to the mirror to check her hair. “Remember what I said.”
I pause, staring at her beautiful reflection. Hard to believe I’m a twin to such a polished creature.
She drapes a perfect strand of her red-gold hair over her shoulder. The end curves slightly inward. “Stay away from that guy.”
“Yeah,” I agree, but even as I walk out into the deserted hallway I stop and scan to the left and right of me, looking, searching. Hoping. Dreading.
But he’s not there.
6
I hide during lunch. Cowardly, I know, but when I faced the double doors leading to the cafeteria, the volume alone made me feel sick. I couldn’t bear the thought of going in.
Instead, I walk the halls, ignoring my hungry stomach and the guilt I feel at not being there for Tamra. But somehow, I know she’ll be fine. At least I convince myself of this. She’s been waiting for this day since we were kids. Ever since I manifested and she didn’t. When Cassian began to ignore her and became a dream forever beyond her reach.
I find the library. Immediately, I inhale musty books and savor the silence. I slide into a table near the windows that faces the quad and rest my head on the cool Formica until the bell rings.
I float through the rest of the day. Relief seizes me when I make it to the last class of the day. Almost done.
My seventh-period study hall is packed with people who either opt out of athletics or lack the requisite GPA to play sports. This I learn from Nathan, my shadow ever since fifth period.
He slides in beside me. His fleshy lips spit out each word with a faint spray of saliva. “So, Jacinda. What are you?”
I blink, inching back, before I understand. Of course. He couldn’t mean that. “Uh, I don’t know.”
“Me?” He juts a thumb to his swelled chest. “I can’t pass English. Which is too bad, because our football team might actually win a game if I was on the line. What about you?” His gaze travels my long legs. “What are you doing in study hall? You look like you could play basketball. We got a good girls team.”
I tuck a wild strand of hair behind my ear. It springs loose again and falls back in my face. “I didn’t want to join any teams midsemester.” Or ever.
The room is comprised of several black-topped tables. Mr. Henke, the physics teacher, stands behind a larger version of our table at the front of the room. He stares out at the class with a dazed, bleak expression, as if unclear where the overachievers from the previous period went. “Find something to do. No talking. Study or read quietly, please.” He brandishes an orange pad. “Anyone need a pass to go somewhere? Library?”
Nathan laughs as half the class lines up for passes. The bell hasn’t even sounded, but it looks like most of the kids will be gone before it does.
“And there goes the herd.” Nathan looks at me, leans in conspiratorially. “Want to get out of here? There’s a Häagen-Dazs not far.”
“No. My mom is picking me and my sister up after school.”
“Too bad.” Nathan crowds me. I scoot closer to the edge of the table. His gaze flits over me.
My elbow knocks over one of my books, and I gratefully hop off the stool to pick it up. Squatting there on the grimy tiles, my hands reaching for a book,
the tiny hairs at my nape start to vibrate. My breath goes faster. I press my lips together, trying to quiet the sound. My flesh pulls and tightens with awareness, and I know it’s him before he enters the room.
I know it. And I want it to be him, even with Tamra’s warning ringing in my head. Wiping a sweaty palm on my jeans, I peer at the door from beneath the table. Recognition burns deep in my chest, but I remain where I am, huddled close to the floor, watching as he steps inside.
I hold myself still, waiting. Maybe he’ll get a pass, too. Disappear with the others.
But he doesn’t get in line. He moves into the room, a single notebook clutched loosely in his hand. Then, he stops, angling his head strangely. Like he hears a sound. Or smells something unusual. The same way he looked in the hall today. Right before he saw me.
I toy with my book, letting the pointy corners bite into the sensitive pads of my fingers.
“Hey, you okay?” Nathan’s voice booms above me.
Wincing, I force myself to stand, crawl back onto my stool. “Yeah.” I can’t hide forever. We’re in the same school. Apparently the same study hall.
I stare straight ahead, at the chalkboard. Anywhere but at him. But it’s impossible. Like forcing my eyes to remain wide-open when biology demands I blink. So I look.
His gaze finds me. He walks toward our table. I hold my breath, wait for him to pass. Only he doesn’t. He stops, the sliding scrape of his shoes on the floor a long scratch down my spine.
This close, I stare into eyes that can’t decide on a color. Green, brown, gold — if I look too hard I get lost, dizzy. I remember the ledge — the two of us, enclosed in that damp, tight space. His hand on my draki skin. The word that I think he said.
Shivering, I break free of his gaze and stare down at the table, concentrate on inhaling slow even breaths. I look back up at the sound of his voice, ensnared in the velvet-smooth rumble.
“Mind if I sit here?” he asks Nathan while looking at me.
“Guess not.” Nathan shrugs, shoots an uncertain look at me as he grabs his backpack. “I was heading to the library anyway. See you later, Jacinda.”
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