Dangerous Boy

by Hubbard, Mandy

“Yeah. We should all do a late dinner or something.”

  “Sounds good.” As I step away, she touches my arm. “Be safe, okay?

  I swallow and nod, turning to push my way back into the gym, elbowing through the crowds, just as the song transitions to something upbeat. I see Logan’s head bobbing above my classmates’, so I squeeze my way through the crowd until I’m standing in front of him.

  He doesn’t even have to ask, just pulls me against him. We adjust to accommodate the uptempo, swaying and stepping more quickly. He holds me by the waist, his hips moving with mine. I laugh, because it feels a little awkward and oh-so-good at the same time.

  I wrap my arms more tightly around him, pulling his body even closer against mine. Then I turn to his ear, whispering, “Number two.”

  He pulls back and stares into my eyes, waiting for the answer.

  I lean forward, my lips touching his ear. “This one has nothing to do with my mom and everything to do with my dad.”

  Logan raises a brow and waits for me, so I lean back in to shout into his ear. “I’m alone all the time, just waiting for someone like you to come along. I was afraid I’d fall for the wrong boy.”

  Logan stares down at me for a moment, the softest of smiles tugging at his lips, and then pulls me against him, and I feel the heat of him up and down my body. “That’s one fear we don’t need to worry about,” he whispers into my ear.

  He pulls back, tangling his fingers in my hair as he leans down to meet me, his lips crashing into mine.

  Burning desire courses through my veins as he deepens the kiss and I slide my good arm up his shoulders, my hand gliding over his neck. My fingers burying themselves in his unruly dark hair.

  When he tilts his head, my thumb slides further back, and as it pushes his hair aside, it meets bare skin.

  I jerk. Bare skin, where it should be hair. We kiss again, and the thought dangles at the edge of my mind.

  And then I freeze, horror sweeping over me. Just like that I’m standing in Logan’s basement, watching the darkness swarm in Daemon’s—Trent’s—eyes as he readjusts his ball cap, giving me a glimpse of that jagged, angry scar behind his left temple.

  I wrench away. For a moment, his hands just tighten over me, and I have to push him, hard. He stumbles back and we stand there, three feet apart. I stare at him with wild eyes as he looks back, confused.

  “You’re not Logan,” I say.

  His jaw drops, but he recovers quickly, stepping toward me. “Harper—”

  “You have the same scar as Trent,” I say, my voice shaking. Tears spring to my eyes. My chest heaves, and one thought echoes over the heavy bass beat of the song: I just kissed Trent.

  I whirl around and run, shoving my way through the crowds, desperate to get away.

  “Hey!” Someone yells as I elbow them hard. They glare at me with black eyes—contacts—but I just keep going. I have to get away from Daemon—Trent—whoever he is, have to find Adam. Someone I can trust.

  Why did he tell me all that stuff in the car if he was Trent the whole time? Is this some kind of game to them? Am I some kind of game?

  I don’t even know what’s true anymore, what’s an elaborate lie. I’m swimming in too many of them.

  The crowd is too thick near the front doors, and Trent’s catching up with me. Where is Logan? How could Trent take his car and pick me up and not get caught?

  I can’t be near him. I don’t want to talk to him, don’t want him to touch me. I make a wide arc and find the back door, my heart beating out of control. I only saw Allie two, three minutes ago. Adam’s probably still out there, parking the car.

  If I can only just make it to him…

  I shove my way outside, onto the covered walkway, and the upbeat song melts into the heavy hum of the pouring rain. Lightning streaks across the sky, lighting up the lot like it’s dawn.

  I see Adam’s Samurai at the far edge of the lot, near the tennis courts. I dash out into the rain, racing toward his car as the door to the gym flies open behind me.

  “Harper, damn it!” Trent yells.

  I run faster, my feet splashing through puddles, soaking through my shoes. The strands of my wig hang down around my face, dripping wet in an instant.

  Trent’s dress shoes pound on the concrete behind me, catching up. I make it to Adam’s Samurai, yank on the handle.

  But the door is locked and no one’s in the car.

  My heart slams into my throat and I whirl around. “Stay away from me!” I scream.

  Trent skids to a stop, puts his hands up like he’s trying to corner a wild animal.

  “Harper, calm down,” he says. His eyes are dark, shadowed behind the mask, and his hair is plastered to his face.

  “I will not calm down! You are not my boyfriend!”

  “Yes I am,” he says, creeping forward. “Please, just calm down.”

  “Stop lying. I know you’re not him.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you have a scar,” I say, backing into the Samurai. “The same scar as Trent.”

  He stops a few feet shy of me. “They’re similar. They’re not identical. I’m not him.”

  “It’s in the same place,” I say, now trembling. The rain has soaked me to the bone, and my dress hangs around me, heavy with it. I yank off the wig and drop it to the wet concrete.

  “We were both seriously injured in the accident. The car rolled, Harper.”

  I want to believe him, but I’m sick of trying so hard to trust him when nothing he says adds up.

  “I don’t believe you. Back up,” I say. “Back up!” I yell. “I’m going back to the gym and you’re going home. I’ll get a ride with Adam and you’re going home alone and that’s going to be the end of us.” I pause and shake my head. “The end of me and Logan. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Harper—”

  “Back up!” I scream, the panic rising.

  He blanches, hesitates. I’m about to run, and then it’s too late.

  He’s on me in a second, slamming my head into Adam’s car, and then the world goes black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When I come to, my head pounds so hard I want to vomit. My mouth tastes chalky and dry, like I spent the last twenty minutes eating cotton balls. I’m laying on something hard and cold, my cheek smashed down.

  I sit up on my elbows and blink against the haze, everything coming into focus.

  I’m in an empty room. The lights are off, save one in the hall with an ornate, stained glass cover that splashes a rainbow of muted light across the aged hardwood floors. I twist around. The window behind me is open, strong wind whipping through the gap.

  I turn back and stare at the glass fixture for a long time, and then down at the old hardwood floors beneath my feet. Blinking, I finally realize where I am—an empty room on the second floor of Logan’s house.

  Lightning flashes, and I jerk back as I see him—Trent, leaning against the wall in the corner. I stifle my scream, and he smiles back at me, his white teeth flashing in the darkness.

  My collarbone pounds, waves of pain washing over me. He put me down so I’m lying right on it, and it feels worse than the day it broke.

  “So glad you could finally join me. I thought maybe I’d been too rough with your head.”

  “Logan’s going to kill you for this,” I say.

  His grin grows wider. “Ahh, see, I thought you really had figured it out. But you haven’t yet, have you?”

  I swallow, nerves intensifying. What haven’t I figured out? What else is he hiding? I sit all the way up, cradling my arm. Why had I ditched the brace and sling in favor of the pretty dress? I can barely think through the blinding pain.

  “Logan!” I scream, desperate. He has to be in the house. He has to help me.

  What if he’s not? What if Trent did something to him?

  “Logan!” he yells, imitating me. Then he laughs.

  Fear creeps up my spine. The way he says it brings a moment of
clarity. “His name’s not Logan, is it?”

  He shakes his head, his lips pursed as if he’s fighting a smile, but he’s doing a poor job of masking his pleasure. He likes that I don’t have it all figured out, likes that he’s holding the strings.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

  “Ask me. Ask me what his name is.”

  I swallow. “What’s his name?”

  And now the grin is wide, ear-to-ear. “Trent.”

  Ice grips my veins, turns my insides out. “You’re lying. You’re Trent. I saw the articles. I know what you did.”

  “Do I really have to spell it out? Look around, Harper. Does this look like a bedroom to you?” He stares at me, that same proud smile on his face.

  I look around the empty room. Look at the bare hardwoods, the blank walls. This is supposed to be Logan’s room.

  But it’s empty.

  Horror washes over me, and like the last piece of a puzzle, this empty room snaps into place, and in an instant, I see the whole picture, and I know.

  I know why Logan didn’t tell me about his brother at first. I know why he hid everything from me, why he lied over and over and over. I know why the boy at the dance—the boy who held me close and so right—has the same scar as the boy in the basement.

  I know why Logan never wanted me to sit down with him and Daemon.

  He didn’t want to because he couldn’t.

  There is no twin brother.

  I think I might be sick. I think I may vomit right there. “But I saw the pictures of you two.”

  He laughs. “Don’t look so nauseated,” he says, his voice cool, calm, collected. “See there were two of us. Once. Trent—who you know as Logan—he just loves to cart those pictures around. No one ever questions why we don’t have any recent ones of us together.”

  “Your mother’s accident.”

  I’d assumed the pictures stopped because the happy times died with his mother. Not because one of them died too.

  He nods. “Yes. We were in the car together when dear old Mom careened off the road. I was behind her. The driver’s side took the brunt of the damage. And stupid, spoiled Trent was in the front passenger seat.”

  I blink, stare. So there were two of them…and now there’s one? But if Trent lived through the accident and Daemon died, why is he the one standing in front of me?

  My head is spinning so hard I can barely process it.

  “See, Harper, some souls just don’t want to let go. I was supposed to die; he was supposed to live. But I couldn’t quite handle that. Call it unfinished business. Call it revenge. Trent got everything he ever wanted. He had all the friends, the girls, the sports trophies, even my dad. And he was the one who got to stick around while I was supposed to die? Wasn’t going to happen.”

  Behind me, the rain intensifies, pounding against the window as another bolt of lightning flashes across the sky, making dark shadows on his face. “So I hung around for a while, biding my time. Call me a ghost, a soul, whatever. But I had unfinished business, and I wasn’t going to let it go. Then when Trent was under the knife so the doctors could repair his injuries from the accident, I took my opportunity and just…slipped in. He never liked sharing things with me. Rather poetic that I forced him to share a body, eh?”

  I grind my teeth. “That’s not possible.”

  “Oh really? And you would know…how?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous!” I say, my voice rising, hysterical. I hold my arm tightly against my body as I climb to my feet. Blood rushes to my head and my temple pounds harder. “A person can’t just die and take over someone else’s body! He’s still here, and his name isn’t Daemon or Trent. It’s Logan.”

  Daemon twists his head at a funny angle, his glare slicing through me. “Now you’re pissing me off, Harper. And you don’t want to do that.”

  “Please—”

  “Shut up,” he snaps. “The Logan you know doesn’t exist. And Trent is…let’s call it taking a nap.”

  I nod. I’ll do anything to pacify him, calm him down. “Daemon, I’m sorry—”

  “How badly do you think he wants to keep you? He can never just tell the truth, can he? He’s so desperate to cover me up he’d do anything. He doesn’t want anyone to know his brother is still here. He always did think he was better than me.” He pauses for a second, his eyes sweeping over me. “He probably likes you, even. Never did have good taste in girls.”

  He purses his lips, then shakes his head. “Some of those stories he made up just to keep you…ridiculous. Then again, you bought it, didn’t you? Today’s story, on the way to the masquerade, before I took over? Bravo. Academy Award winning speech, really.”

  I glance around, trying to figure out the best escape route. There are only two: the window—across the roof, and down the round columns to the ground—or the bedroom door. “So you can…see us? Even when…” I swallow. “Even when he’s the one in control?”

  Daemon beams at me. “Yep. I don’t think he’s figured that one out yet. He has no idea what I do, I can tell. But I always was the stronger one. It’s frustrating when I can’t totally control him, but at least I can watch.”

  I glimpse hopelessly at the window. We’re on the second floor. I can’t escape over the roof either.

  Daemon slips something out of his pocket, and I realize with horror it’s the rusty hook from the basement. He twists it in his hands, and the panic doubles. If I scream, would anyone hear me? I need him to keep talking. Need him to turn back into Logan somehow. If that’s really how it works…

  “This town is too small,” he says, surprising me.

  “Huh?”

  “There’s not a lot of things to do, havoc to wreak.”

  It dawns on me, what he’s saying. “You did more than the stop signs and the car accident.”

  He nods.

  “The bloody cow bones?”

  He grins. “Genius, right?”

  “The birds?”

  He nods. My breathing turns shallow.

  “Bick’s quad?

  He scowls. “See, that one was meant for him. Didn’t expect you to be the one on it, so I had to go back and wreck his truck just to get him. Guess it all worked out, though. That collarbone must hurt like a bitch.” He lights up. “Would have been better had you died, but I suppose that’s asking too much.”

  He looks past me, out the window.

  “What do you have against Bick?”

  “He likes you.”

  I blink. Huh?

  “See, it’s like the world playing out on a big screen, except I’m seeing it through Trent’s eyes. And I saw you two that day in the parking lot. Saw Bick spring to your rescue, try to go knight in shining armor and get the blood off your window.”

  He slides a finger over the hook, playing with the point of it. “But you couldn’t get together with Bick. I needed you to be with Trent. He’s always been such a stupid sucker for love. If Bick got in the way of that, I’d have less to use against Trent.” Daemon shrugs. “It was Trent who cleaned your window, you know. I think he knew it was me. He didn’t realize you’d already seen the handprint.”

  “How’d you do it? How’d you get the handprints on the windows in the middle of the day? Logan—” I gulp, catching myself. “Trent must have been in charge of your…” My voice trails off. “Your body. I had class with him. Ate lunch with him. He was totally normal.”

  “Fifty bucks and a couple of freshman,” he says, laughing. “Shockingly simple, I know. Trent was a little confused by that one. I usually take care of things on my own.”

  Lightning crashes outside, and I look out at the branches of the trees whipping together in the wind. Why does Logan—Trent—have to live so far away from everything? If I get out of this house somehow, do I even stand a chance? “Why’d you bring me here?”

  Daemon shrugs. “Because I can’t physically hurt Trent, but destroying you would kill him. One of these days, he’s going to join me on the dark side. If h
e would just stop fighting me, I think we could figure out a way to share this body, but he’s not convinced. He keeps trying to walk a tight line, play by society’s rules, when I’d like to do anything but.” He lights up, staring down at me with a look of such perverse pleasure, I want to shrink into myself. “The less he has to live for, the less he’s going to fight me for dominance. How much of his life do I have to ruin before he gives in?”

  I glance back at the window again, then turn to Daemon. The window will never work. I have to get past him, somehow, and down the stairs. The only way it will work is if I catch him off guard.