Will waits a moment, stares at the vacant stool before sitting. As though he expects me to say something. Stop him? Invite him? I don’t know.
He turns slightly on his stool and smiles. Just a small smile, but lovely. Sexy.
A dangerous warmth begins to build inside me. Unwanted right now. My skin pulls tight, eager to fade into draki skin. The familiar vibration swells up through my chest. A purr grows from the back of my throat. Instinct takes over and I’m almost afraid that if I do say something, it will be in the rumbling cadence of draki-speak.
Funny. In this desert, I worried my draki would shrivel, die as Mom wants. But around this boy I’ve never felt so alive, so volatile. I chafe a hand over my arm, willing my skin to cool down. For my draki to fade. At least for right now.
In silence, we sit. And it’s the strangest thing. He knows about me. Well, not me. He couldn’t possibly know that this me is that me. He knows about us though — my kind. He saw me. He knows we exist. He saved me. I want to know everything about him. And yet I can’t speak, can’t say anything. Not a single word. I’m too busy focusing my thoughts, on keeping the core of me cool, relaxed. Keeping the draki away. I want to know him better, but without breathing, without speaking, I can’t see how.
The only thing I need to know about him is that his family hunts. I must not forget that. Ever. They kill my kind or sell us to the enkros. In their foul hands, we’re either enslaved or butchered. My skin shrinks, and I remind myself he is part of that dark world. Even if he helped me escape, I should avoid him. And not because Tamra told me to. I should gather up my stuff and move to another table.
Instead, I stay where I am, balancing so carefully on my stool, making certain our bodies don’t brush.
“So,” he says, like we’re in the middle of a conversation. Like we know each other so well. A nerve ticks, jumps near my eye at the sound of his voice. “You’re new.”
I summon the strength to strangle something out. “Yeah.”
“I saw you earlier.”
I nod and say, “Earlier in the hall. Yeah. I saw you, too.”
His eyes warm, slide over me. “Right. And in PE.”
I frown. I don’t remember seeing him during fourth period, don’t remember feeling him.
“You were running around the track,” he explained. “We were up in the natatorium. I saw you through the windows.”
“Oh.” I don’t know why, but it thrills me to know he was watching me.
“You looked pretty fast.”
I smile. He smiles back, the grooves along his cheek deepening. My heart squeezes tighter.
“I like to run.” When I run really fast, the wind hits my face and I can almost pretend I’m flying.
“Sometimes,” he continues, “the guys and girls run together during PE. Although I’m not sure I could keep up with you.” His voice is low, flirty. Heat licks through me, curls low in my belly.
I imagine this scenario, imagine running side by side with him. Is that what he’s saying he wants to do? Air shivers past my lips. Of course, I’d love running with him. But I shouldn’t. I can’t. That wouldn’t be a good idea.
Two guys drag in late as the final bell rings. They look our way. At Will, not at me. I’m beneath their notice.
One with raven-dark hair shaved close to his head walks ahead of the other. His face is elegant, narrow, and beautiful with dark, liquid eyes. Apprehension curls through me. His eyes are dead cold, calculating.
His bulky friend swaggers behind him — his hair so red it makes me squint.
“Hey.” The dark one nods at Will, stopping at our table. I shrink, feeling oddly threatened.
Will leans back on his stool. “What’s up, Xander?”
Xander looks almost…confused. Arching his brow, his attention drifts to me. And then I get it. He doesn’t understand why Will is sitting here. With me.
I don’t understand either. Maybe on some level, Will remembers, recognizes me. Sweat dampens my palms. I squeeze my thighs under the table.
Red gets to the point. “You’re not sitting with us?”
Will shrugs one shoulder. “Nah.”
“You pissed or something?” This from Red.
Xander doesn’t speak. He continues to watch me. That ink black gaze makes me queasy. One word fills my head. Evil. A bizarre thought. Melodramatic. But I’m draki. I know evil exists. It hunts us.
I shift uneasily on my stool. Clearly Xander understands what his friend hasn’t grasped. For whatever reason, Will wants to sit with me. I consider moving to another table, but that would just draw more attention to me.
Natural. Just act natural, Jacinda.
“I’m Xander,” he says to me.
“Jacinda,” I offer, feeling Will’s stare on the side of my face.
Xander smiles at me. Darkly beguiling, I’m sure it works on most girls. “Nice to meet you.”
I manage a brittle smile. “You too.”
“I think you’re in my health class.” His voice is smooth, silky.
“You must mean my sister, Tamra.”
“Ah. Twins?”
He says “twins” like it’s something rich and decadent, chocolate in his mouth. I can only nod.
“Cool.” His gaze lingers on my face in a way that makes me feel exposed. Finally, he looks away, claps a hand on Red’s back. “This is my brother, Angus.”
I blink. They are nothing alike. Except in the menace they emit.
He continues, “And I guess you’ve already met Will.”
I nod, even though we haven’t actually met.
“We’re cousins.”
Cousins. Hunters. Only not like Will.
My lungs expand with smoldering heat. I hold my breath. Suppress the surge of heat at my core, the rumbling vibration inside me. Strangely though, I feel no surprise. Prickly hot alarm has been there since the pair walked into the room. They are different from the other humans surrounding me. They are a threat. Instinct tells me this.
Xander and Angus would never let me escape. They would relish the chance to kill me. I don’t know where to look. Awareness of them, these cruel hunters, crushes down on me. I worry they will see the truth in my eyes. My gaze darts around, looking for a safe place to rest.
“Really,” I say with a muted voice, unable to stop myself from looking at them again. “Cousins. Cool.”
Angus’s lip curls, lifts over his teeth, and I know I sound stupid. A vapid girl.
With a smirk at Will, he shrugs and walks to the back of the room, dismissing me. Relief washes over me, but only a fraction. Xander lingers. With his cunning eyes he is the greater threat. The smarter of the two.
He looks back and forth from me to Will. “Are you coming tonight?” Xander asks.
“I don’t know.”
Xander’s demon-dark eyes flash with annoyance. “Why not?”
“I have homework.”
“Homework.” Xander drops the word like it’s something foreign he never heard before. For a moment, he looks on the verge of laughter. Then, he’s all business, his voice a hard bite as he says, “We’ve got stuff to do. Our dads expect you there.”
Will’s hand curls into a fist on the table. “We’ll see.”
His cousin glares at him. “Yes. We will.” Then, he looks at me. His inky eyes soften. “See you around, Jacinda.” With an idle tap on our table, he strolls away.
Once he’s gone, I breathe easier. “So,” I say to Will, “your cousins seem…nice.”
He smiles a moment but his eyes are grave. “You should stay away from them.” Will’s voice is low, a stroke of warm air that reaches across the distance to my skin.
I already plan on doing that, but I ask anyway. Anything to better pick him apart. “Why?”
“They’re not the kind of guys a nice girl should hang out with.” The tendons on his forearm flex as he opens and shuts his hand. “They’re jerks. Most anyone will tell you that.”
I try for a flirty tone to lighten the dark mood. “A
nd what will most anyone tell me about you? Are you a good guy?”
He turns and faces me. Those changeable eyes pull me in, remind me of the lush greens and browns of the home I left behind. His face isn’t soft. The angles are hard, chiseled.
“No. I’m not.” He swings his face forward again.
Mr. Henke ignores the class, tapping a staccato rhythm at his computer.
My chest feels tight and prickly. Smoldering warm. “Why are you sitting with me?”
The silence stretches so long I begin to wonder if he’s going to answer when he finally admits, “I don’t know. Still trying to figure that out.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say. That on some level he knows me? Neither of us cracks a book. I barely breathe, too afraid that the heat mounting inside me might find a way out through my lips or nose. I take small sips of air and wait for the bell.
Conversation buzzes at a steady drone throughout the room. Mr. Henke’s typing stops. I watch his eyes drift shut and his head bob to his nonexistent neck. His glasses slip on his nose.
I jump at a burst of shrill laughter behind me. I look over my shoulder and see a girl in the back, her chair squeezed between Will’s cousins. Angus tickles her side and she jumps, her long blond hair flying like streamers in the air. She clings to Xander’s arm as if he might save her from the delightful torture.
Xander wears a lazy smile — looks bored. As if he senses me watching, his gaze cuts to me, the smile vanishing from his face. His dark eyes seize hold of me.
“Turn around.”
My pulse jackknifes against my throat at the deep voice. I look back at Will.
His lips barely move as he speaks. “Trust me. You don’t want to be one of the girls Xander notices. It never goes well for them.”
“I’ve hardly spoken to him. I don’t think he—”
“I noticed you.”
A dark thrill races through me. I wipe damp palms on my jeans.
He laughs then. Low and soft. An unhappy sound. “So, yeah. He noticed you.” His lips twist. “Sorry about that.”
The bell rings, its unnatural peal jarring me as it has all day.
And he’s gone. Out the door before I can even grab my things or say good-bye.
7
I’m fighting with my locker again, the steel lock a cold kiss on my fingers. Bodies bump and rush past me. Strangely, my eyes burn. Tears want to spill. Which is stupid. Just because I can’t get my locker open is no reason to wimp out.
But it’s more than this. I know that. It’s everything. I scan to the left, hoping Tamra will get here soon, so we can get out of this wretched place.
“Will Rutledge. Impressive.” At the droll voice, I turn and recognize a girl from fourth-period PE. She was faster than most of the other girls. I remember lapping her only once around the track today. Her sleek brown hair reminds me a little of Az, but her eyes are large and blue-green, staring widely from beneath a choppy fringe of bangs. The bangs are a little too long, slightly uneven as though she takes scissors to them herself.
“Excuse me?” I say.
“Will and his cousins. They’re the show around here.” Her voice is low, guttural, dragging each word.
“Really,” I murmur.
“Rich, hot, and they’ve got that bad-boy edge going for them.” She nods. “Xander and Angus are users. Been through half the girls in this school. Not Will though. He’s…”
I lean forward, eager for anything she will impart about him.
“Well. Will…” A wistful smile curves her mouth. “He’s elusive. None of the girls here interest him.” She rolls her magnificent eyes and sighs dramatically. “Course that just makes us want him harder.”
Stupid delight flutters inside my chest.
“I’m Catherine,” she announces.
“Hi, I’m—”
“Jacinda. I know.”
“How do—”
“Everyone knows your name. And your sister’s. Trust me. It’s not that big of a school.” She steps forward and brushes my hands off my lock. “What’s the number?”
I toss out the six digits, vaguely wondering if I should be giving out my combination to a stranger and how I’m ever going to learn to open the thing myself. Catherine’s fingers fly. She lifts the handle and frees the door.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” She leans a shoulder against the lockers, looking content and natural. Like we do this every day. “Word of advice. You might want to stay away from him.”
“Will Rutledge?” I ask, getting a thrill from just saying his name.
She nods. For a moment, I feel like I’m talking to Tamra again. Frustration seeps through me. My whole life I’ve been given advice that I’m expected to follow.
I hold on to my chemistry book and slide my lit book down from its shelf. “Why is that?”
“Because Brooklyn Davis will pulverize you or any girl who goes after him.”
I thought maybe she had been warning me off Will because he’s trouble. Like he told me himself. This, I could believe. This, I already know. I’m reminded of it every time he’s near in the tightening of my flesh.
“Oh.” I nod, remembering the girl from my English class. Then, I shrug. After running for my life from hunters, a girl with too much lip gloss doesn’t register on my fear radar. I’ve dealt with girls who didn’t like me before. Miram, Cassian’s younger sister, leaps to mind. That girl hated me. She couldn’t stand the amount of attention her family gave me — her father, Cassian. Even her aunt doted on me in a way that always creeped me out. Like she thought she was my mother or something. But because Catherine is looking at me like I should say something more, I add, “I’m not going after him.”
“Good. Since you’re the new girl, Brooklyn can make your life hell.” She winces and readjusts the strap of her backpack on her shoulder. “Well, really if you’re any girl, she can make your life hell. Take it from me. I’ve been there.”
I shut my locker. The sound bleeds in with all the other slams ricocheting down the hallway. “Then it doesn’t really matter either way, does it?”
“Just a warning. She’s probably already heard that he sat with you and is plotting your slow demise as we speak.”
“So he sat with me.” I shrug. “We hardly spoke.”
“This is Will Rutledge we’re talking about,” she reminds me, as if that means something. And of course, it does. But not in the same way it does for other girls.
With Will, I feel connected, drawn. Every fiber of my being remembers those moments in the cave, prey and predator finding communion in each other. But because the last thing I want to do is reveal that Will is anything special to me, I say, “So.”
“So?” She stresses the word. “He doesn’t date high school girls. He hardly talks to any of us. No one knows that more than Brooklyn. Just watch your back around her.”
“So if Brooklyn can’t have him no one can?”
“Pretty much,” she replies.
Incredible. I’ve only been here a day and I already have an enemy? “Why are you telling me this?”
“Call me a Good Samaritan.”
I smile and decide that I might like Catherine. Maybe I could find a friend in this place, after all. I’m not opposed to friends. I miss Az like crazy. Not that Catherine could ever replace her, but she might make being here more bearable. “Thanks.”
“Sit with me in study hall tomorrow.”
Instead of Will. As if Will might want to sit with me again. “Sure.”
“Great.” She shoves off the lockers and tosses her choppy bangs back from her eyes. “Can’t miss my bus. See you tomorrow.” As she disappears into the throng of students, I spot Tamra walking between a guy and a girl. She hasn’t spotted me yet. She’s smiling. No, beaming. Happier than I’ve seen her since Dad died. Even further back than that. Since it became clear she wouldn’t manifest.
I can’t help feeling sad. Sad and lonely as I stand in a crowded hall.
Mom
’s one of the first at the curb when we step outside. Heat blurs the air. It tastes like steam in my mouth and nose. My skin itches, roasting in the hot, drying atmosphere. I press my lips tight and hurry toward the car.
Our blue and rust-stained hatchback noses to the head of a long, coiling serpent of vehicles.
Tamra groans next to me. “We need our own car.”
I don’t bother asking how we might pull that off. When Mom traded in the wagon several towns ago for the hatchback, she still had to toss in some cash. And there is the small matter of survival…keeping a roof over our heads, food in our bellies. We barely scratched enough together to cover rent and a deposit on a place to live. Thankfully, she starts work tonight.
Tamra slides me a look. “Not that you would be allowed behind the wheel. I’ll have to drive us.”
I roll my eyes. It’s a running joke in the family. I can fly, but I can’t drive to save my life. No matter how many times Mom has tried to teach me, I’m hopeless behind the wheel.
Tamra takes the front seat. I climb in the back.
“Well?” Mom asks, all loud and peppy. Too bad she can’t try out for cheerleading with Tamra. She has the enthusiasm down pat.
“Great,” Tamra offers. As if to prove her point, she waves out the window to the kids I saw her walking with in the hall. They wave back.
I feel sick. Lean to the side and let my face rest against the warm, sunbaked glass.
Mom looks over her shoulder. “What about you, Jacinda? Did you meet some nice kids?”
Will’s face floats in my mind.
“A couple.”
“Fantastic. See, girls? I told you this move would be great for us.” Like we collectively decided to make a fresh start and didn’t abscond in the middle of the night. Like I had been given a choice.
Apparently Mom can’t hear the misery in my flat voice. Or she chooses to ignore it. The latter, I suspect. It’s easier for parents to ignore, to pretend that everything’s great and then do whatever they want while convinced it’s something you want, too.
Thankfully the car moves forward, turning into the busy parking lot. We jerk to a stop several times as students reverse from spaces with reckless abandon, cutting in front of our car. All except the kids who linger, loitering in groups around their cars.
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