The World in Shadow (Eternal Warriors Book 2)

by Vox Day

  “Can I use your bathroom,” she asked Christopher hopefully. “Please?”

  “Why can’t you just get ready with Holli?” he asked, not catching her drift. Then he raised his eyebrows as she scowled at him. “Oh, sure, go ahead. I think I’m out of T.P. though—”

  “Never mind,” she waved him off. What was she thinking? Boys were so gross. It was safer to sneak quietly down to the guest bathroom and hope Mom didn’t hear anything. The downstairs bathroom was supposed to be off-limits to all three of them, and to Dad as well, but Jami figured she’d rather take the chance of getting yelled at than risk entering her brother’s biohazard zone. Right from where she was standing now, she could see a tattered towel covering the blue-and-white tile, white toothpaste spots dotting the mirror, and a crumpled pair of boxers on the counter.

  She shuddered. High school boys might be past the whole cooties and girl germs thing, but they were still barely ahead of chimpanzees on the civilization scale. They were just disgusting, that’s all there was to it. How could they be so nasty, but so cute too, both at the same time? It was a mystery, but Jami wasn’t sure it was one she really wanted to solve.

  “That’s what you’re wearing?” Holli asked, raising her slender eyebrows as Jami joined her in their two-sink bathroom. She herself had on a little black skirt and a sleeveless cotton babydoll top that Mom would say was at least one size too small. Her eyes were done, and she was just starting to apply her lip liner.

  Jami glanced at herself in the mirror and shrugged. What was the matter with khaki shorts and an Abercrombie t-shirt? She eased her ponytail out of her scrunchie and shook her hair free. Okay, maybe tonight she’d wear it down, for once.

  “Yeah, so?”

  Holli shrugged herself as she picked a stray golden strand from her tight black shirt. Jami shook her head. Between the two of them, you’d think someone was hiding a golden retriever in the house.

  “Well, Jason is going to be there, obviously, since it’s his house, and so is Robbie Dale. I just thought you might want to make a good impression, that’s all. One of them is probably going to ask you to the prom, you know, so maybe you want to show them what’s up?

  Jami glanced at her sister’s reflection in the mirror, then back at her own. Her sister had a good three inches on her now thanks to her chunky-heeled sandals, and she couldn’t deny that Holli had a definite look thing going on that she herself was missing. This wasn’t anything new, naturally, and Jami didn’t usually mind since she knew how much time and effort her twin put into putting herself together. But tonight, for once, she didn’t feel like being overshadowed, and she certainly didn’t want to see the boys’ eyes resting on her for just a moment before flicking dismissively past her.

  Of course, she couldn’t care less if she went to the stupid prom or not, but it was hard to resist the tempting thought that she’d score a ton of points if one of the seniors really did ask her. And Holli had been so busy running around with Eric and his friends lately that every once in a while, Jami found herself feeling left out of things. A boyfriend might not be such a bad thing, especially if she went out with one of the soccer players, like Jason. Or, for that matter, Eric. It was a bit of a shock to her when she suddenly realized that maybe some of her recent irritation with Holli was rooted in jealousy. She had so much more in common with Eric than Holli did; why hadn’t he wanted to ask her out?

  She reached down and opened her drawer. It was mostly empty, with two barely used tubes of lipstick, three eyeliner pencils, and an unopened compact rattling around with two big bottles of sunscreen and scrunchies of many different colors and sizes. The contrast with Holli’s overstuffed drawer could hardly have been greater; it was a sad, but accurate image of their love lives too.

  “Want me to do your make-up?” Holli asked her kindly, seemingly reading her mind and anticipating her question. “You can wear my new pink skirt too. It’ll look really good on you!”

  Jami ran her hands through her straw-colored hair and lifted it up, away from her head. She narrowed her eyes and stuck her lips out, imitating the bored, but superior attitude projected by the models in Holli’s fashion mags. Okay, the sunburn around her eyes sort of ruined the effect, but the mirror at least reassured her that she wasn’t a hopeless case.

  “You don’t mind?” she asked Holli. “Won’t that make us late?”

  Her twin shrugged.

  “Oh, it’s all right. It’s in a good cause, and besides, it’ll be fun to see the look on Jase’s face when you walk in. If he’s liking you already, then this’ll make his jaw drop!”

  Holli smiled confidently as she stepped back and pointed to the counter.

  “Now sid’down, girl. Just close your eyes and think pretty thoughts. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  You could hear the thump-thumping of the music from the end of the block, which was where Christopher had to park the Explorer, since there were cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street. Jami felt horribly self-conscious as she slid carefully out of the high seat, and once out of the truck, she tugged anxiously at her borrowed skirt.

  “Are you sure I look all right?” she asked Holli. “It’s not too short?”

  “You look awesome,” Holli reassured her. “Don’t worry about it!”

  Christopher walked around the front of the Explorer and cocked his head as he examined her.

  “If you weren’t my sister, I’d say you look pretty hot. But is this one untied shoe some kind of, like, Michael Jackson thing or what?”

  “Hrrrahh,” Jami made a face at him, when she realized he wasn’t just ragging on her. Sighing, she placed her foot carefully on the running board and tied her almost new ankle boots for the third time. She’d bought them a while ago, mostly because Angie had encouraged her too, but she never wore them. She hadn’t really remembered why not until now—they were cute, but they had those round shoelaces which were apparently designed to come untied every ten minutes. She quickly double-knotted the laces. You couldn’t be too careful, especially not if you were wearing a miniskirt.

  Jason’s house was in the middle of the block, with a brick-and-stucco exterior and a pointed roof that reminded Jami a little bit of the ski chalets at Powderhorn. The sidewalk leading up to the house was littered with empty plastic pop bottles, along with a solitary beer can, and as they walked past a red Honda Accord, Jami was surprised to hear faint murmurs coming from inside the parked car. She glanced down, and was surprised to see a couple making out in the front seat. Embarassed, she quickly looked away.

  “Jeez, get a room,” she said.

  “Who was it?” Holli asked distractedly. She was checking out the group of boys sitting on the front step, trying to see if Eric was waiting there for her.

  “I don’t know. She was blonde, is all I saw.”

  “Nothing like getting an early start on things, I guess,” Christopher remarked philosophically.

  Jami took a deep breath. This wasn’t her first senior party, and Eric had told her that Jason really wanted her there, but she still felt a little about nervous walking into a place that she didn’t really belong. The boys on the steps had noticed them now, and from the way that a familiar-looking redhead sat back and pushed up his baseball cap, it appeared that Holli’s magic had done the trick after all.

  “Hey, what’s up, Holli.” Dan Larson was a junior at their school, and Jami’s appearance seemed to have taken him off guard. “Jami, wow, you look, like, older.”

  Holli snorted disdainfully, and Jami herself had to keep from cracking up when Christopher whispered in her ear.

  “Watch out for Dan, he’s pretty smooth.”

  “She’s too old for you anyway, Larson,” one of the other boys said, and the rest of the juniors burst out laughing. Jami remembered there had been a story going around last year about Dan asking out a seventh-grader from Chippewa. Apparently, it had been true, judging by the boy’s face, which was now redder than his hair.

  Holli opened the doo
r without knocking, and the volume of the music hit them so hard it nearly made Jami retreat. The bass was so loud that she could feel it penetrating through her chest, like an out-of-sync second heartbeat.

  “Why does it always have to be rap?” she shouted in Holli’s ear.

  “Because they have to show off how cool they are,” her twin yelled back. “Don’t worry, somebody’s girlfriend will complain pretty soon and they’ll put on some dance music.”

  “You’re the one going out with Eric!”

  Holli looked surprised.

  “Oh, I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Well, let’s go find Jason and make him turn it down, at least.”

  Jami turned back and grabbed Christopher’s arm. He was glancing around uncertainly, and she remembered that he probably didn’t know anyone here except for a few of the soccer players.

  “Just follow us,” she told him. “We’re looking for Eric.”

  Her brother nodded quickly, pleased that they weren’t abandoning him. Jami gave Holli a little push to let her know it was okay to move on, and the three of them made their way through the crowded front room. They were encountered by more than a few unfriendly glares from some of the snobbier senior girls, but Jami took her cue from Holli and ignored them as they made their way for the kitchen.

  Jason was there, as was Eric and four or five other guys. Jason was sitting on the counter, popping the cap off of a bottle of beer, and while Jami wasn’t surprised, she couldn’t help being a little dismayed. She’d never heard he was a drinker, but then again, she’d only been to three or four senior parties before.

  “Hey, it’s the twins!” Aaron Chau was the varsity left midfielder. He was one of the nicer players on the team, and was ridiculously smart. He was supposed to be going to Stanford next year, from what Jami had heard.

  “And my man,” Eric said cheerfully, locking thumbs with her brother in that weird guy handshake. “What’s up, Christopher? Want a beer?”

  Jami knew Eric meant well and was just trying to include Christopher in on things, but she was still glad to see that her brother wasn’t afraid to shake his head.

  “Thanks, but I’m driving tonight.”

  “Good for you, Christopher,” Jason said, handing the beer he’d just opened to Aaron. “Eric and I have regionals next weekend, so we’ll just be the Dry Musketeers tonight!”

  He laughed, and both Christopher and Aaron grinned at him as if he had said something amusing, but Jami didn’t see anything funny about it. Neither did anyone else, apparently, but only Holli was brave enough to ask.

  “Was that, like, a joke?”

  Aaron and Christopher looked at each other for a moment, then Christopher shrugged and explained.

  “In German, the word for three is D—R—E—I, but it sounds like dry. So he was making a play on words about how the three of us weren’t drinking tonight. Kind of a pun, you see.”

  “Don’t you mean a palindrome?” Aaron interjected quickly.

  “Oh…” Holli said reflectively, after giving everything a moment’s thought. “But that’s not funny at all!”

  That set all the guys off, except for Eric, who slipped his arm protectively around Holli and guided her out of the room.

  “I say we forget these losers,” he said with a smile. “We’ll go dance and have a good time while they sit around making dumb jokes to show off how smart they are. Jason, put something else in the CD player, will you?”

  “All right,” Jason answered. He glanced at Jami. “Want to help?”

  He really was good-looking, Jami decided suddenly. Maybe he wasn’t as quite as magazine-boy pretty as Robbie Dale, but he had an easy aura of casual confidence that was very attractive.

  “You going to be all right?” she asked Christopher. “Rachel should be here soon.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he assured her. “I just want Aaron to tell me who he had to kill to get into Stanford.”

  “No, no, blackmail’s all you need….” Jami thought she heard Aaron reply as she followed Jason out of the kitchen. She wasn’t sure, though. In fact, she wasn’t sure about anything at the moment except for the fact that Jason had just taken her hand in his.

  It was strange. She’d been fine just a moment ago, and now she felt that the world had closed in on her. She was conscious of her heart beating, and was amazed how loudly her breathing sounded. His hand was cool and dry, and she worried that this must mean hers was warm and sweaty. She tried to see his face. Was she grossing him out?

  But if Jason was bothered, he didn’t show it. Smiling easily, he led her into what looked like his dad’s office, and offered her a seat in a big, comfy-looking leather chair. He opened a tall wooden door that revealed shelves full of high-tech stereo equipment that was all made of matching silver and looked extremely expensive.

  “I think there’s enough engine in this thing to launch the space shuttle,” he joked as he extracted a monster-sized remote, then pulled out the high-backed chair that was set in front of the big wooden desk and sat down next to her. “I think it’s nuclear powered. It’s got a one hundred CD changer, which is about ninety more than any reasonable human being needs.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jami heard herself replying. “My brother could sure use it. Then maybe he could listen to more than the same three Metallica CDs.”

  “Metallica? He doesn’t look like a metal head. I would have figured him for, oh, I don’t know, maybe an alternative guy?”

  “No, not him. He likes the hard stuff, some of the electronic stuff too, Nine Inch Nails and all that.”

  Jason nodded absently as he pressed a button on the remote.

  “There, that’ll keep them for a while. Picked it up last summer in London. A little happy dance music never killed anybody.” He returned his attention to her. “So how about you? I take it you’re don’t so much dig the Metallica?”

  Jami was feeling more comfortable talking about Christopher at the moment; and the direct question about herself flustered her.

  “Oh, I like all kinds of music.”

  “No way,” Jason argued, shaking his head. “People say that, but they can’t really mean it. It just means you listen to the radio, and you don’t particularly care what it is as long as there’s a beat and a decent melody.”

  “Fair enough,” Jami admitted. But what was up with him, she wondered. It was like he was showing off, except he was almost kind of weird about it. “So you really like music?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “I always wanted to be in a band or something, but I never really had time for it, what with soccer and all. My dad bought me this little Casio keyboard when I was in junior high, but I never really learned how to play it. I can’t read music or anything, you know? I write songs sometimes, although I guess they’re sort of poems since there isn’t any music to go with them.”

  His story was pathetic, in a way, but for some reason Jami found it charming. Before tonight, she’d never thought of Jason Case as being anything but a cute older guy who played sports and was really good at them. To hear that even an All-State super jock with a sleeve lined with letter bars and a chest loaded up with medals had his own frustrated dreams was a revelation to her. With a start, she realized that even though he was three years older than her, he was as nervous as she was, and maybe even more so.

  To put him a little more at ease she decided to compliment him. But she didn’t want to be too obvious, or give him any wrong ideas, so she casually looked him over for something that would be safe to talk about.

  “I like your pants,” she told him. No, no, no, she mentally shouted at herself. I like your pants? What are you thinking?

  He looked down at them. They were a fairly nondescript pair of khakis.

  “They’re missing some buttons,” he told her seriously. “I keep forgetting to have my mom sew them back on.”

  They looked at each other, and as their eyes met, they both started laughing.

  “This is ridicul
ous,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe… why can’t I talk to you like normal?”

  “Well, why am I talking about your pants?” she replied, equally embarassed.

  He laughed out loud, and a playful spark lit up his dark eyes.

  “Don’t even go there!” she warned him. “I mean it?”

  “Okay, okay,” he raised his hands in mock innocence. “Forget the pants. But the thing is… I mean, what I wanted to talk about was…”

  He looked away, and his face flushed slightly.

  “Yeah…?”

  Now that she had a good idea on where things were going, Jami found she was almost starting to enjoy the situation, despite all the awkwardness. She was surprised to feel a sudden rush as she realized how much power a girl had over a guy at a time like this. She could play dumb and pretend not to understand, and make him suffer by making it harder for him. She could even destroy his cool-guy reputation at school by dropping a word or two in the right ear later. It would be so easy!

  But she didn’t want to. She actually found his vulnerability more appealing than his normal nonchalance, and hurting his feelings was pretty much the last thing she wanted to do.

  “Okay,” Jami mentally applauded him as he cleared his throat and worked up his nerve again. “Here’s the deal. I know you’re only a freshman and all, but I think you’re really pretty, and I was wondering if maybe you’d, ah, like to go to the prom.”

  This time he didn’t look away, but stared at her with an intensity that suddenly made it hard for her to swallow.

  “With me,” he added unnecessarily.

  “That would be fun!” Jami managed to say, as a giddy sense of excitement flowed over her. “Maybe we can even go with Eric and Holli.”

  Jason nodded. He was smiling, but more than anything, he looked tremendously relieved.

  “Yeah, the thought had crossed my mind. About us going with them, I mean. So let’s go tell them what’s up, hey?”

  He leaned forward, and for just a second, Jami froze, thinking he was going to kiss her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to or not, at least not yet. But he was only reaching out to pick up the remote for the CD player, and a moment later she was filled with an unfamiliar mixture of relief and disappointment as she followed him out of the study and back towards the party.