He must have lost track of everything but me, too, because the tone of the kiss changed from eager and curious to flat-out ravenous. He devoured me, and I did the same to him. My hands roamed over his back, my nails scraping at him. I was inexperienced, yes, but just like in the visions he knew exactly what he was doing.
This was consuming…drugging. He made me feel, without any kind of filter. For so long I’d wanted my life to be nothing more than a dream. Now, with emotions and sensations flooding me, I wanted this reality. And I wanted to stay in the safety and intensity of his arms. I wanted to give him everything. Here, now. Want, want, want. Want to touch him, more of him. Want his shirt off. I reached for the hem.
He reached for the hem of my shirt.
Then, suddenly, Cole was gone.
Wait. “Come back,” I demanded, a strange fog filling my head.
Voices, at a distance. Couldn’t decipher them.
My ears were ringing, I realized. Trembling, panting, I tried to focus on what was happening around me. First person I noticed as Frosty. He must have jerked Cole away from me, because he now stood between us, holding out his arms to widen the distance. His mouth was moving. He was speaking, but I couldn’t understand him.
A dancer bumped into me, and I stumbled to the side. A scowling girl shoved me into someone else. I tripped, hit the floor. Watching me go down enraged Cole. He tried to get to me, but Frosty stopped him. Of course, that caused his rage to transfer to Frosty. Cole pulled back his elbow, his hand fisted, ready to smash into his friend’s face.
Bronx moved behind Cole and wrapped big arms around his chest in a bear hug, holding him immobile. Cole struggled to tear free, and would have succeeded, since he was clearly the strongest of the three, but then the other boy, the one who’d been dancing with Reeve, joined the fray.
Thankfully, the fog in my mind thinned and the ringing in my ears faded. The world swooped back into focus. Like a flash flood of heat, my entire body nearly erupted into flames. I’d just kissed a boy in front of everyone in the club. And I hadn’t just kissed him, I’d devoured him.
Another trait I’d inherited from my dad. A few times, when my parents had thought Emma and I were in our rooms, they’d gone at it that intensely—and I’d promptly prayed someone would scrub my corneas with sandpaper and my mind with bleach.
Kat appeared at my side and helped me to my feet. “What’s going on?” she asked, as stupefied as I was.
“I don’t know.” I’d only meant to kiss him back, to compare vision with reality. I’d planned to stop after a minute…maybe two. And now, Frosty was glaring daggers at me, as if I’d stabbed Cole in the heart and laughed while he bled out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Inch by inch I backed away from him. Our Q and A could wait. I was gonna pretend I hadn’t enacted three rules tonight and run.
“Ali.” Cole’s attention zeroed in on me. Suddenly I was a target, the gimpy gazelle to his hungry lion. “Don’t you dare take off.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I had to get out of here. Now.
Shaking off Kat’s hold, I whirled around and pushed my way through the still-writhing bodies on the dance floor. A strobe light tossed out beams of pink, blue and yellow. Where I would go—and how I could get there—I wasn’t sure. I was miles from home, and there was no way I’d walk in the dark.
“This is becoming a very bad habit,” Cole growled, suddenly keeping pace beside me. His arm wrapped around my waist. “You run, I chase.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. His expression might break me. “We can’t do that again,” I said. Ever.
“Why?”
I noticed he didn’t have to ask what I was talking about. “As you so eloquently pointed out in the forest, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but we almost…you know…in public!”
“You know. That’s what you call it?”
Was that amusement in his tone? “Do you want me to punch you in the face?”
“No, I want you to be still and listen to me.”
“That’s not happening.”
He sighed, a wary sound. “Even if I promise not to you know in public again?”
“No,” I snapped, and I wasn’t sure whether I was happy or ticked by his easy assurance.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.” He linked our fingers and stalked ahead of me, leading the way. Everyone parted as though he was Moses and they were the sharks in the Red Sea.
“I’m not going home.”
“Even better.”
Outside, warm night air relaxed me. Not the heat so much, but the fresh, clean scent. No perfumes or sweat lingered in the breeze, and I was able to breathe deeply, savor. Cole never slowed. He just plowed ahead, toward…his Jeep. He’d parked at the end of the lot, under a streetlight, angled so that he had a straight shot onto the road. The top and doors had not been replaced.
“I’ll leave with you,” I said, “but I can’t be gone long.”
“Fine.”
“So why was Frosty upset with me?”
A pause. Then “You’re a wild card, and we don’t know exactly what to make of you. Plus, I’m supposed to exercise caution when dealing with you, yet several times already I’ve acted out of character and put myself in danger.”
Truth, no evasion, but the words gave me no comfort. He and his friends had discussed me, and they obviously thought I—weird little staring me—was nefarious.
“Maybe we shouldn’t see each other tomorrow.” The words were sharp, lashing out at him. “Things will be easier if we—”
“Oh, we’re seeing each other tomorrow. Don’t even try to get out of our date.”
“Date! You said it wasn’t a date.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to date him anymore. I wasn’t ready for a guy like him. I couldn’t handle him.
“Whatever. We’ve got some getting to know each other to do.”
“And we will, maybe,” I said. “But I’m actually going to the party with another boy.” I didn’t owe him an explanation, but I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “It’s not a date, either, we’re just friends, but I—”
Cole stopped, just stopped, and whirled on me. His eyelids narrowed. “Who?”
No. No way I’d tell him. I might not have any experience with boys, but I knew he’d threaten Justin simply to prove his status as Asher Tough Guy. The problem was, he’d follow through. “You will not hurt him. Promise me.”
Those lids narrowed further. “I’ll promise not to kill him, how’s that?”
Okay, that was taking things a little far. “Why would you want to kill him?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
How informative. My first thought: I should cancel with Justin, just in case this mood of Cole’s continued into tomorrow night. My second: I couldn’t let Cole’s moods dictate my life.
“Nothing else to say to me?” Cole asked.
I lifted my chin in defiance, a new habit I must have developed. “No.”
“We’ll see about that.” He darted back into motion, dragging me with him. We reached his Jeep, and he placed his hands on my waist to heft me inside. Before he’d lifted me an inch, his entire body tensed. He sniffed the air.
In reflex, I, too, sniffed the air.
Rot.
Panic threatened to consume me. That same stench had permeated my backyard two nights ago when I’d gone tearing out with a baseball bat, intending to confront Bridezilla.
Only two nights. Too soon.
“Cole. We need to leave.”
“You’re leaving. I’m staying.”
I blinked, and Cole had his crossbow palmed. A cold sweat sheened my skin. “Cole?”
“Go back inside, Ali.”
Sounded like an excellent plan, considering I was weaponless, but I stayed just where I was. “Come inside with me.” If he stayed out here, alone…no! I couldn’t let him, wouldn’t leave him to face whatever danger lurked out there. He might know what it was, he and his friends migh
t even seek it out as I suspected, but I wasn’t going to watch another person fall to the monsters. “Please.”
“Tell the boys I need them,” he said, ignoring my plea.
Just then he reminded me of my dad, looking in every direction, stiff, alert, poised to erupt into battle.
“The f-fighting vision I had,” I stuttered, my mind locking on the thought. Our kiss had happened. Why not this, too?
I had to tell him all the details I hadn’t had the courage to tell him before. If I stayed quiet, he would stay out here. He was too stubborn for his own good.
“I don’t know what happened in yours, but in mine, there were monsters all around us, wanting to eat us.” The words gushed out of me. “And the other night, I saw two of them, outside my window, for real and not in a vision. At the time, I thought I was crazy.” Now, I wasn’t so sure. “They were watching me and when I checked on them, there were tracks. The ones you showed me.”
He sucked in a breath, an indication he’d heard me, but he never glanced in my direction. He kept his attention straight ahead, clearly waiting for the threat to materialize. If it did, would he see the monster or not? Would I?
“Do you have any idea what you just—”
A twig snapped in the distance, and he went silent.
Four men trudged into a ray of moonlight, their clothing dirty and ripped. Their eyes sagged, their skin was pitted and their finger bones were gnarled and curled in. Hair had fallen out of their scalps in chunks, leaving them mostly bald.
Nausea hit me with such force I nearly doubled over. “Come with me, Cole. Please!”
“Go back to the club!” he shouted at me—and sprinted toward the monsters.
* * *
There was no time to process the surreal fact that Cole did, indeed, see the monsters, that this wasn’t a hallucination, that my dad had always been right, that monsters had eaten him and my mom. That would come later, and I suspected I would scream and cry and rage.
Right now, I had to fight, had to put the skills my dad had given me to use. I couldn’t allow Cole to face the monsters alone, whether I had a weapon or not.
Breathe…in…out…as if I were part of a movie and someone controlled the stage, the world slowed around me. I watched as Cole ran and his—oh, sweet heaven. Cole multiplied. One Cole became two Coles.
The passage I’d read from that journal suddenly boomed inside my mind. We are spirit beings, those spirits our source of power, and we have a soul…our logic and emotions, and we live in a body.
No way. Surely not…but what other explanation was there? Cole’s spirit had just left his body.
There were now two versions of him, and both wore the same clothes. Cole One—his body, most likely—appeared solid while some sort of mist shimmered around Cole Two. His spirit, I would bet.
His spirit.
It was almost too much to take in. His body stood completely still while his spirit continued to surge ahead. I watched as he extended his crossbow and launched an arrow. Midair, the arrowhead grew sharp little arms and those arms sliced one of the creatures across the throat.
There was no ensuing spray of blood, but there was definitely an open wound. The creature’s entire body shook, then he just sort of stopped, his head detaching from his body and both toppling to the ground. And yet, still the monster’s body moved. Still his eyes blinked and his teeth snapped in Cole’s direction.
Even in two pieces, he lived.
How was that possible?
Cole launched another arrow, hit another creature, seconds later meeting the two left standing with his fists. He punched and ducked, spun, went low, reaching for another weapon stashed in his boot. A blade.
A moan sounded from behind me. I whirled. Three more monsters had decided to join our Dance Party Massacre. Two males, one female. I knew their sexes only because the boys wore tuxes and the girl wore a lacy pink gown that belled at the waist. Though they weren’t my stalker bride and groom, they projected the same hungry menace.
My panic grew wings and flew throughout my entire body. These things had killed my parents. These things had killed my grandfather. I couldn’t let them attack Cole while he was busy with the others. He’d lose.
Rage simmered inside me and burned through the panic. These things killed my parents. They killed my grandfather. They wanted to kill Cole.
These things had to die.
Another deep breath, and I, too, launched forward. I had a straight shot, parked cars lined up at both sides, creating a clear path for me. Black oozed from each pitted face watching me, and up close, I saw that their eyes were also black, glazed and shiny with feral yearning. And though one was hunched over and hobbling on what looked to be broken ankles and the other was actually missing a foot, they moved with surprising speed.
Like Cole, I threw punches the moment I reached them—but my fists went through their bodies. I felt only air. Well, air and a wave of revulsion that fizzed in my veins.
The creatures reached for me, too, and they, too, missed, but again that wave of revulsion turned my blood into corrosive acid. I stumbled backward, smacked into a car. The monsters kept me in their sights and closed in on me.
The rage expounded in a starburst of energy, propelling me forward. I’d make contact this time. Nothing would stop me.
And you know what? I was right. I punched and I made contact. The waves of revulsion were replaced by frigid cold. I’d never been this cold in my entire life. Tremor after tremor shook me as the creatures grabbed for me, trying to latch on to my arms, scratching me. I spun out of the way, my muscles stiff, as if I’d never before used them—and that’s when I saw myself leaning against a car.
But I was here, fighting. Wasn’t I? Or…was I like Cole? Was my spirit now, somehow, operating outside my body? But how could that be? Can’t process this, either…
The confusion cost me dearly. Fingers tangled in my hair and jerked me to the ground.
My dad’s advice played through my mind. If you fall, go down swinging.
Yes! I’d trained for this. I could do this. I arched my back, giving my arm more room to fly backward. My palm slammed into the creature’s nose, sending him propelling backward. I lost several strands of hair, but I was freed.
I straightened, twisted, and kicked out my leg, nailing another creature—the female—in the stomach and sending her propelling backward, too. She ghosted through a car, only to stand on the other side and shake off her disorientation. Her gaze locked on me, and I knew she planned to come back for more.
She’d have to wait her turn. The one I’d sent to the ground had turned over, was sitting up and reaching for me. My teeth chattered as I kicked his arm, then his jaw, and though he twisted with the momentum, he remained focused on me.
How was I supposed to disable these things for good? And where was the third one?
Never lose sight of your enemy. You’ll regret it. My dad had also told me that.
As with everything else, he’d been right.
From behind, trunklike arms wrapped around my torso. I felt a humid puff of breath against my neck. Crap! I slammed my head back, hitting the creature with as much force as possible. His grip loosened, even as my brain protested the action with a sharp lance of pain. Spinning, I doubled tapped him in the jaw with so much power, I think I severed his spinal cord.
As he fell, teeth flew out of his mouth like pieces of candy. But when he landed, he, too, seemed unaffected by the damage. He stood, his head remaining at an odd angle—but still he moved toward me.
In the back of my mind, I knew something just as odd was happening beyond our little fight club circle, but I couldn’t yet reason out what it was. Something to consider later, I supposed. If I survived.
I had to survive.
My three opponents converged.
I punched one, then another, while kicking the third. All three extended their arms toward me, and I darted out of the way, still punching, still kicking. The more we fought, the harder my
heart pounded, and the more excited they seemed to become. The more excited they grew, the faster they moved.
When one of the males at last managed to shackle my wrist with his fingers, his grip was so strong I couldn’t bust free. He tugged me to the ground. I went down swinging, just as before, but he held on, flashing his teeth at me.
I couldn’t let him bite me. Couldn’t die like this.
But no matter how I twisted or how hard I bucked I still couldn’t free myself.
Both the female and the other monster dropped to their knees beside me. There were only three of them, but it seemed as though they possessed a thousand hands, holding me down, ripping at my clothing, their faces lowering…lowering…when they bit me, I screamed.
Blistering, sizzling pain struck, though it failed to melt the ice that encased me. I was a toxic mix of too hot and too cold, dying…wanting to die. Their teeth burrowed through my skin, their faces seeming to disappear inside me. It was as if they were actually gnawing on my bones without spilling a single drop of my blood.
I fought and fought and fought to no avail. One of them finally stopped chewing, then the other, then the other. Though they maintained a steady grip on me, they peered down at me in horror, as if they’d tasted something disgusting.
Suddenly one of the males seized up, an arrow protruding from his neck. He swatted at it as he fell forward and landed beside me. Without him holding down my ankles, I was able to kick the female in the chin. She stumbled backward. The other monster released me of his own free will.
Cole was behind the woman an instant later, reaching around and flattening his palm over her heart. A white light erupted between them, blinding in its intensity. It remained only for a moment, a single snap of fingers, but when it vanished, Cole’s arms were empty, the female gone.
He raced to one of the males, then the other, producing the same blinding white light. A second later, he was hovering over me, and our gazes met. We were both panting, sweating.
“I…I…” Couldn’t speak. Hurt too badly. Could barely breathe. Darkness swallowed me whole, and I lost sight of him.
Maim… The word whispered through my head, followed by another, just as bad.
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