Chapter 1
I could not let him see me. If that happened, I was literally going to curl up in the fetal position and pretend I was dead. There was no way I could allow that scenario to play out.
Frantically looking around, I searched for my nearest escape route. There wasn’t any. I needed to hide in plain sight. That was my only option. He would not confront me if I was with other people, he wouldn’t dare. Not after last time.
I hurried over to the first person standing alone I could see – some random guy reading a textbook. “Hi, do you mind if I stand here and pretend to have a conversation with you?”
His eyes flicked up from the book, blue ones, like the Caribbean. “Uh, okay?”
“That’s great, thank you. I’m trying to avoid someone so it would really help me out if we just pretended this was the most intense conversation of our lives. Think you can do that?”
“You must really want to avoid that someone.”
“You have no idea.” If it wasn’t painfully obvious, it should have been. I would sooner pull out my own eyeballs and eat them rather than have Davis see me and think we could actually talk. That would only happen over my dead body.
“You can kiss me if you want,” the guy said casually, so casually I wondered if I had heard correctly.
“Uh, what?”
His blue eyes pierced me. There was something intense burning behind them. “I said you can kiss me if you want to. That should help you hide better. You know, covered face and all that.”
There was no way to tell whether he was joking or not. I narrowed my gaze. “I think I’m good, thank you.”
He shrugged, finally smiling. So he was joking, that was a relief. “Fine with me, just trying to help. My name is Caden, by the way. In case you need to tell that someone how amazing your friend is, it’s better to have details. Details always help with a lie.”
For a second, I completely forgot what I was doing. Clearly, I had chosen the wrong random guy to talk to. I had chosen a weirdo. I searched around, seeing if Davis was still stalking me. He was nowhere in sight.
I breathed a sigh of relief and plastered on a triumphant smile. “Well, thanks, Caden, but I think I lost him.”
“Glad to be of help,” he said, weirdly sincere. “So, can I get your number?”
He wanted my number? That didn’t seem like a good idea. “I already have one guy I need to avoid, I don’t think I need two. Thanks for your help.”
I started heading for class, but Caden called out after me. “Are you sure? I happen to be terrible at stalking people. I just don’t have the patience for it.”
Turning around, walking backwards, I couldn’t help but smile. “Then you’re going to have to get better at it if you want my number.”
“Sounds like a challenge.”
“Really? It sounded like a rejection to me.” I turned around again and slipped through the doors, shaking my head. Who the hell was I just talking to? And how on earth was I going to avoid Davis for the rest of my life?
The classroom offered a little safety as I took my seat. Davis wasn’t in this class so he couldn’t accidently run into me here. I had managed to avoid him for almost a week now, but that only meant his urgency would grow. He would try anything to get to me now.
Trying to focus on Economics, while also trying to think of a way to solve my Davis problem, was not an easy feat. I didn’t accomplish either very well.
By the time class finished, I was no better off. I lingered afterward, moving in slow motion to pack up my things. I knew Davis was on campus, I had seen him that morning. He knew my schedule, he could easily have been hiding outside.
“Come on, why are you taking forever?” Mandy, my best friend in the entire universe, moaned. She waited beside my desk, shuffling from foot to foot with impatience. Frankly, I was surprised she wasn’t pulling me out by my shirt collar by that stage.
“I saw Davis this morning,” I replied. Her face turned from irritation to horror in about as much time as it took me to flee that morning when I saw my ex.
“Is he still following you?”
“And leaving me notes too.” I pulled out the piece of blue paper I found stuffed in my locker that morning. That’s when I first realized Davis had been there. I should have known when I had smelt his cologne lingering in the air.
Mandy read through my little love note. Or, more appropriately, the death threat. Davis wanted me back and apparently he thought the best way to do that was to scare me senseless. Clearly, he didn’t know me very well. You’d think two years of dating would have taught him a thing or two.
She handed me back the note, folded now so I couldn’t see the words again. “You need to tell someone about this.”
“Who would believe me? Everyone thinks he’s a seventeen year old boy. Harmless.”
“Not everyone,” Mandy replied. I knew exactly who she was referring to.
I looked at the floor, wishing all my answers would magically appear there. “I don’t want to tell them. They’ll make a big deal out of it. I can handle Davis myself.”
“No, you can’t. Are you planning on hiding from him for the rest of your life? You know he’s going to catch up with you eventually.”
Way to crank up the fear factor, Mandy.
I knew what I was getting into with Davis. I was well aware he wasn’t the human he pretended to be. Unfortunately, I was thinking in a love struck haze at the time. Perhaps if he wasn’t staring at me with his black eyes that day, I might have thought it through a little more. Hindsight’s a bitch.
Mandy continued, ignoring my epic sigh. “You have to tell the coven, Lacey. It’s the only way we can deal with him.”
I finally finished putting everything into my bag, which meant we would have to move onto the next class. We started for the door. “The coven will think I’m an idiot for being with him in the first place.”
“Better to be embarrassed than dead,” she pointed out. It was a good point, actually. I had tried to deal with Davis myself and it wasn’t working out so well. Perhaps it was time.
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll bring it up at our next meeting.” If I stayed alive until then, anyway. Although, death was a bit of an extreme way to avoid an embarrassing and uncomfortable conversation.
As we rounded the door to the corridor, I ran directly into a male chest. We collided, my bag falling to the floor. My first instinct was that it was Davis and the cold panic spread through me.
Looking up, that panic completely disappeared. It was Caden. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” he replied, a stupid smile plastered across his face. Man, he had a nice smile – all lush lips and white teeth. “Oh, it’s you. Stop stalking me already.”
My face flushed red as I remained motionless. Mandy was standing there, enjoying this moment, I’m sure. “I’m not stalking you.” I returned his teasing tone. “I was just leaving the classroom. You, on the other hand, were lingering in the corridor. I think you were stalking me. And after you said you wouldn’t and everything.”
I made the mistake of gazing up into his eyes. They were deep ocean blue, shining with amusement through thick lashes that any girl would kill for. “I was lingering?”
“Totally lingering.”
“I guess I owe you an apology then,” Caden replied. He did a mock bow to me. “My sincerest apologies for lingering and making you run into me.” He reached down and retrieved my bag from the floor, sliding it onto my shoulder. “See you around, Lacey.”
He walked backwards for a few steps before finally breaking eye contact with me and disappearing into the throng of people. I was dumbstruck, having no idea what just happened.
The only thing I could think of was how on earth did he know my name?
Celestial Page 33
