B00AO57VOY EBOK

by Myers, AJ

  With that, she turned on her heel and stomped out of the library, the sound of the last bell of the day serenading her departure. I sat there, watching her go, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to make things better. Even after the last of my fellow seniors had followed her out, I continued to sit there, wondering how my life had gotten so crazy. It was the thought of Nathan waiting in the parking lot—and the thought of Kim getting to him before I did—that finally pushed me into motion. Gathering up my own crap, I headed for my locker.

  I stopped halfway down the hall and stared at Jack’s locker for a long minute, Kim’s words echoing in my head. There were cards and pictures taped all over the front of it, a tribute to the football star and friend we’d all lost. Since Jack had disappeared without a trace, taking nothing with him, it was widely believed he was dead.

  Only, I knew it was true. If I had any doubts about that, the memory of his screams as I shoved him into the void was all the proof I needed. There was also the fact that he hadn’t been seen or heard from since. His parents were offering a huge reward for any information, but no one had come to collect. There had been no activity on his credit cards, and his cell phone hadn’t been used since the day before I banished him—a fact we had learned from the local PD thanks to Nathan’s vampy compulsion skills.

  Besides, Grams had been doing daily demon searches and hadn’t come up with anything. Mrs. Amelia had been casting daily wards over Moonlight too, promising me that if anything even remotely demonic entered the city limits, she would know. It was like he had dropped off the face of the planet. Which I guess, in a way, he had.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as my eyes fastened on a picture of Jack the way I had once known him, smiling into the camera with all the charm that had made him so irresistible to most girls. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

  And I was. I was sorry I’d been forced to send the body of one of my oldest friends to the lost plane with a demon inside it. I was sorry I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened to him. But most of all, I was just sorry he was gone. I was sorry I would never get to see him smile at me again, or listen to his vulgar jokes, or tease him about his string of girlfriends. I was sorry I had lost him. So very sorry.

  With tears in my eyes, I turned and ran the other direction, away from the memories of my friend, away from my locker, and toward the door and the man waiting for me outside whose comfort I needed so badly.

  I had just cleared the front steps when I felt a chill sweep through me that had nothing to do with the icy winter wind blowing across the lawn. My head snapped up, and I found myself searching the trees that bordered the property, looking for something I couldn’t even name.

  And then I saw him. Slouched against a tree directly across from me, his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest, was Jack. I stopped right where I was, everything inside me from my blood to my heart freezing up like I’d been encased in ice.

  He’s not real, he’s not real, I chanted to myself, staring at the apparition in front of me. He’s on the lost plane now. He’s not really there.

  I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe, and counted to ten. And, sure enough, when I opened them again, he was gone. Though I scanned the trees around where I had seen him, there was no sign of him. And yet, he had seemed so real, so solid.

  “You need to get a grip,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head. “Just let it go.”

  But, as I threaded my way between the parked cars and packs of students in the parking lot, not even the sight of Nathan waiting for me, propped against the hood of his Aston Martin, was enough to make that image go away. All I could think about was that empty, photo-plastered locker…

  And Jack leaning against a tree, looking smug and very, very much alive.

  Ever have one of those moments when you really feel like homicide is the only option? Well, about the time I reached Nathan’s car and saw the biggest skank at Oakhurst Academy batting her ridiculously long—and obviously fake—eyelashes at him, I experienced one of those moments firsthand.

  “It’s just going to be a few of us,” Stacy Martin was saying as I came to a stop a few feet away. “You should definitely come. You know, get to know some new people, that kind of thing.”

  I suddenly wished one of my powers was laser vision. That way, I could have killed her and said it was an accident. Hell, I wouldn’t have even felt bad about it.

  Of all the people at Oakhurst, I honestly think Stacy Martin was the only one I’d ever truly hated. From her long blonde hair to her too-tight clothes, she was the ultimate Barbie clone. Even her vapid smile and empty head screamed Barbie. And there she was, getting closer and closer to my boyfriend like she was considering making him her new Ken.

  Over my dead body.

  “I’ll think about it,” Nathan said shrugging. I really wished he hadn’t done that. The way his muscles rippled beneath his black, long-sleeved t-shirt nearly had Stacy drooling on his shoes.

  Like I said. She’s. A. Skank.

  “Good,” Stacy purred, laying her hand on his arm, a coy smile on her lips. I honestly thought about removing her entire arm from her body. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  I cleared my throat, loudly, and Nathan looked over at me and gave me one of those tingle-inducing smiles of his. When he saw I was about one touch away from dismembering his new friend, he winked. Turning to see what had drawn his attention away from her, Stacy sneered.

  “Oh,” she said, giving me a once-over that made it clear she was insulted that I was her competition for Nathan’s attention. “Hi, Ember.”

  “Stacy, do you like your hand?”

  “Well, that’s a stupid question,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Of course I like my hand, Ember.”

  “I was just wondering,” I told her, taking another step in their direction, “because if you don’t get it off my boyfriend, I’m going to remove it for you.”

  “He didn’t seem to mind,” Stacy said with a shrug and an almost vicious smile, sliding her hand up Nathan’s arm just to piss me off.

  “No, he’s just too polite to come right out and tell you he’s not into skanks,” I told her, smiling back when she glared at me. “I, on the other hand, don’t have any problem letting you know.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but seemed to think better of it at the last minute. Apparently she was smarter than she looked—something I seriously doubted since I knew the girl who did her homework. With an offended huff and a look that should have had me writhing in agony, she turned on her heel and flounced off. I watched her go with a smirk before turning back to look at Nathan. He was watching me with an amused grin, and I rolled my eyes before heading for the passenger side of the car. He caught me around the waist as I tried to pass him and pulled me between his knees, holding me close.

  “You’re really beautiful when you’re jealous,” he breathed in my ear, causing a delicious shiver to slip down my spine and radiate throughout my body.

  “You shouldn’t encourage her,” I told him, then gasped as he caught my earlobe between his teeth and gave it a playful nibble.

  “She’s scared of you, did you know that?” he asked, leaning back just enough to look down at me. When I giggled at that, he just arched an eyebrow at me. “I take it you two have some kind of history?”

  “Yeah, you could say that,” I told him, nodding. “I broke her jaw in the sixth grade when she wouldn’t stop picking on me. We’ve made a point to stay out of each other’s way since then. Guess she thought you were worth chancing a repeat performance.”

  “Am I?” he asked, grinning devilishly.

  “Oh, I won’t break her jaw over you,” I told him, returning that grin as I slid my hands up his chest. “Her neck maybe, but not her jaw.”

  He was still laughing softly when his lips closed over mine and I felt my body light up like I’d just been plugged directly into a nuclear power plant. While Nathan was holding me, kissing me, I could forget everything else. I could forget that I w
as slowly but surely losing my best friend. I could forget Jack and my nightmares. All there was in those moments was the feel of his touch and the heady scent of his skin and the silky smoothness of his lips. The rest of the world ceased to exist.

  Which is why it took me by complete surprise when my body tensed against his and I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Suddenly, I felt like my skin was crawling and all I wanted in the world was to get away from the man holding me. It was totally bizarre, and I fought the urge with every ounce of willpower I possessed. Sensing my sudden unease, Nathan pulled back and looked down at me in confusion.

  “Em, you okay?” He frowned. When he saw how close I was to bolting, his frown turned to downright concern. “Em? What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “I just feel…all weird.”

  For some reason, my eyes darted to the other side of the lawn, to the place where I had seen the apparition of Jack. I felt a sick sense of foreboding when I thought I saw something slithering into the shadows of the trees, but it was gone before I could be sure.

  “Did you see…?” I looked up to find Nathan staring across the lawn as well, his face a whiter shade of pale than usual. “You saw that, too, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. “I don’t know what I saw.”

  With a hand at the small of my back, he practically propelled me around the car and threw the passenger side door open, his eyes still trained on the distant trees across the lawn. Rather than get in, I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to decipher his expression. There was something off about it. There was plenty of dread to be seen, true, but there was something missing. Surprise.

  Nathan, it seemed, had been holding out on me.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Em?” he asked, finally looking me in the eye again.

  “Because, I get this funny feeling you know something you haven’t bothered to tell me.” When he winced, I knew I was right.

  “This isn’t the place,” he said quickly when I let out an angry hiss between my teeth. “I need you to trust me on this, Em. Just get in the car and lock the doors.”

  “Uh-huh, because locking the doors will keep me safe from demons,” I huffed, rolling my eyes.

  “It will if the car is warded,” he said with a grin. “Now, please don’t be difficult. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “And where are you going?” I demanded, stubbornly propping my hands on my hips and planting my feet right where I was rather than follow his order to get in the car.

  “To investigate.”

  Before I could stop him, my feet flew out from under me and I fell into my seat. The door slammed between us before I had time to yell at him for treating me like a child. I knew there was no way I would catch up with him if he didn’t want me to though, so I sat back in my seat and planned the ass-chewing he was going to get when he got back.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was just wishing he would hurry the hell up and come back. The parking lot had slowly emptied around me, leaving me sitting alone in the shadows of the hulking monstrosity that was Oakhurst Academy. Oakhurst had been built as a boarding school in the 1800s, but Moonlight didn’t exactly scream Ivy League. Most of the school was unused with wings completely blocked off as safety hazards. Those unused wings suddenly looked sinister and unnatural. Anything could be hiding in there.

  By the time Nathan finally emerged from the woods and headed toward me, I had totally freaked myself out, imagining demons and every other manner of thing that went bump in the night watching me from the windows of those abandoned wings. When I got a good look at Nathan’s ashen complexion and tense shoulders, that spine-chilling factor multiplied exponentially, leaving me shivering. When he wrenched his door open with enough force to nearly tear it off, I pretty much became a nervous wreck.

  “Did you find something?” I asked, my voice trembling as badly as the rest of me.

  “First, you are going to answer a few questions for me,” he snapped, sliding behind the wheel but making no move to start the car. “First question, did anything happen today I should know about?”

  I started to say ‘no’, but the look on his face told me he already knew something so I decided to try honesty out for a change. Training my eyes on the dashboard, I whispered, “I thought I saw Jack.”

  “Is that right?” Nathan seethed. “And you didn’t think to tell me that?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think he was real,” I mumbled, still not looking at him. “I was standing in front of his locker after the last bell rang, looking at the pictures everybody keeps adding to it and thinking about how much I missed him. And when I walked out, there he was, leaning against that tree over there.”

  “You miss the spawn of Satan himself, Em?” he growled. “What? Was it more exciting for you when you were being stalked by a damn demon?”

  I stared at him, speechless for a few seconds. That wasn’t fair. Nathan only knew the demonic version of Jack, but I knew the real one. I knew the guy who was charming and sweet. Yes, I missed him. And, damn it, I wasn’t about to let Nathan make me feel bad for that.

  “No,” I whispered, shaking my head as my eyes filled with tears. “I miss Jack, Nathan. My Jack. The guy I grew up with and fought with and danced with and went to parties with. I miss my friend. Is that so hard to understand?”

  He sat there and stared at me for what seemed like forever, and I could see the emotions flitting across his gorgeous face. He was feeling guilty for being such a prick. He was jealous because I had just admitted to missing another guy. He was pissed I hadn’t told him I’d seen a ghost. He was worried about something. And he was…afraid. Like, really and truly afraid.

  Oh, that could not be good.

  “Next question,” he said softly, his voice sounding even more strained. I got the impression that he was trying not to yell at me, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why he would want to. “Em, where is your cross?”

  My cross? Was he serious? I never took the little gold cross he had given me off. Nathan knew that. He’d even teased me about it. Why the hell would he be asking me where it was when he…already…?

  Oh, shit.

  I patted my chest where my cross usually rested, but didn’t feel anything beneath my sweater. With a little thrill of panic shooting through me, I pulled my sweater out so I could look for myself, sure it was there and I was just missing it. But all I found was a pair of too-big boobs harnessed by a white lace bra and smooth skin.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted in a strangled whisper, my eyes filling with tears.

  I looked over at him, preparing myself for the anger I was sure I would see glowing in his eyes, but instead I found myself staring at what was dangling from one of his long fingers. The cross glinted in the muted winter light coming through the windshield, the symbol of my mark that was engraved in the center of it seeming to almost glow in that faint light.

  I reached for it, wanting nothing more than to put it back where it belonged. That cross was more than just a pretty piece of jewelry. It was a magic amulet so powerful that it could transcend worlds and my only guarantee of safety in the crazy world I was coming to think of as my own. It was more than that I wanted it. I needed it. Even before Grams had turned it into a portal to the lost plane I had reacted that way to the little cross. It was mine, damn it, and I wanted it back.

  To my surprise, Nathan snatched it back and then curled his big fist around it. Taking a deep breath through his nose in an attempt to calm down, he growled, “You can have it back after Shea and Amelia check it out.”

  “Where did you find that?”

  “In the woods!” he snarled, flashing his fangs at me as his eyes began to glow like a pair of light bulbs. “It was nailed to a tree. Along with this.”

  He held a folded, crumpled piece of paper out to me. I took it with trembling hands, pretty sure I didn’t want to see what was on it. I had to force mysel
f to unfold it, and when I did I wished I had just gone with my first instinct and refused. It was a copy of the story Kim and I had been reading in the paper before she got pissed and walked out on me.

  With a few very conspicuous differences.

  “What the hell?” I squeaked, staring at the picture of me someone had put in place of Blood Red’s latest victim.

  It wasn’t just the fact that my face had replaced that of a dead girl that terrified me; it was the picture itself. Only one person had that picture. He’d refused to even send it to me after he snapped it with his phone the summer before, saying it was going to be his and only his forever. And, as far as I knew, he’d kept that vow.

  The photographer had been Jack.

  “Read it,” Nathan said, refusing to take the paper back from me even when I practically shoved it into his hand. “Read it, Em.”

  Though I didn’t want to, I forced myself look at the paper again. It wasn’t the story I finally found myself reading over and over—though that would have been enough to terrify me all by itself, seeing as the dead girl’s name had been replaced with mine throughout the article. No, what had me wanting to go find a hole to hide in was the handwritten message at the bottom.

  Hey, bloodsucker. It’s playtime again. May the best man win.

  “Your boyfriend’s back, Em,” Nathan said when I started to shake like I was having a seizure. “That message he’s been sending, it’s to me. This time, he’s playing to win.”

  By the time we made it home, the terror had begun to wear off and I was pissed. The thing about the psycho playing hairdresser with his victims? Yeah, Nathan knew that. The Sheriff’s Department coming up with the theory about it being a message to someone? Yeah, that too. Nathan had known everything thanks to his compelled deputy, and he hadn’t said a damn word.

  “Baby, you’re overreacting,” he said quietly as I slammed through the door from the garage.