I tilted my head just the barest fraction of an inch to let him know I’d heard. He reached across with his other hand and tilted my face toward his. He stared into my eyes for a long moment, then bent down to kiss me. I realized with part of my mind that he had waited for a big, bright explosion—the better to backlight you, my dear. But the rest of my mind was completely focused on the kiss.
When he pulled away, he glanced down at me and cursed softly. Not, I thought, the kindest response possible. But then I looked at my arm, and cursed too.
I was glowing. Barely, almost imperceptibly, but glowing nonetheless.
I pulled him back down to me. “I thought you said no glamour,” I hissed against his lips.
“It’s not me,” he murmured. “I swear.”
The light from the screen dimmed for a moment. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I said, panicked that someone might see me shining in the darkness.
“Let’s go.” He pulled me from my seat, and we made our way swiftly to the exit that led directly outside—down by the screen, so no one could miss our going.
Back at his car, the silver sheen to my skin faded away as we watched the Cineplex for our followers. We sat close together, arms wrapped around each other. “Just to keep it realistic,” Josh said with a grin.
Sarah and Ally emerged a few moments later from the same exit we had used.
“Okay,” Josh said. “We’re on.” He pulled away from me and started the car, making sure Ally and Sarah had plenty of time to see us.
We left the theater parking lot and headed to the outskirts of town.
“So where are we going?” I asked. “Local make-out spot?”
He laughed aloud. “No. We don’t have one of those. We’ll just have to find an opportune place.”
“I thought all small towns had, like, a Lovers’ Lane, or something.”
“Not Fairy.”
“No. You just have demons.” I stared out the window, watching the headlights of Ally’s car as she dropped back to follow us from what I assumed she imagined was a safe distance. “I think I might prefer the make-out spot.”
Josh glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “How about both?” he suggested, wheeling into a darkened self-storage facility and parking the car between two rows of long, metal buildings. He turned off the headlights, killed the engine, and turned to face me again.
“Now what?” I asked nervously.
“Now we convince Bartlef that we’re following his orders.” He adjusted the seat so that it set as far back from the steering wheel as it could go. He pulled me out of my own seat and around so that I sat on his lap. “Swing this leg over me,” he said, tapping it.
I could feel my face flaming hotter and hotter as I turned to straddle him.
“Good,” he said.
“This is awful,” I said. I leaned into his shoulder so that his shirt muffled my voice.
He laughed softly. “Really? Because it doesn’t seem all that bad to me.”
I leaned back and hit him in the chest. “You’re not the one who’s going to get crucified at school tomorrow morning. It doesn’t work that way for guys.”
He ran his hand over my hair and looked up into my eyes. “It shouldn’t be that way,” he said softly.
“No, it shouldn’t,” I said.
“If I could think of any other way to save you, I’d use it,” he said, his voice solemn. His silver eyes glinted in the dark.
“I know,” I said. We stayed perfectly still for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes.
“I think our audience is here,” he whispered.
I had completely forgotten about Sarah and Ally.
“Where?”
He wrapped his arm tightly around my shoulders and pulled me down to him. “Don’t turn around. They got out of their car, and they're watching from around the side of the building.”
“I don’t know what to do!” I said, suddenly panicking.
“Shh,” he soothed, running a hand down my back. “Just keep looking at me like you were a minute ago.”
And then he was moving beneath me, slowly, sinuously. Like we were dancing. Or . . . I blushed and buried my face in his shoulder again.
“Good,” he whispered, turning his face into my neck and kissing it gently. I shuddered and felt him shiver in return. “They’re getting closer to the car,” he said, peeking out from behind my hair. He moved a little faster and I gritted my teeth in embarrassment.
“I can’t do this,” I gasped, sitting up straight and grabbing Josh’s arms.
“Perfect,” he said, sitting up with me so that he was leaning me back into the steering wheel and then going perfectly still. “Stay just like that for one . . . two . . . and three.” And then he slumped back into the seat.
I rolled off of him and slid into my own seat. “Did they see?” I asked, pushing my hair away from my overheated face.
“Definitely,” he said.
“That was awful,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I meant for it to be.”
“What?”
“Shh. We don’t want them to hear us talking.”
“Why would you want it to be horrible?” I was back to hissing.
“So you wouldn’t turn all glowy,” he said from between clenched teeth.
“Oh,” I said, slightly mollified.
“Now, pretend you’re adjusting your clothing,” he said, following his own advice. “Gotta aim for realism here.”
“You sure know a lot about this,” I said.
He grinned. “Really? Huh.”
“Anyway,” I said, finally taking in the steamed windows around us, “How much can they see in here, anyway?”
“More than you’d guess,” he said. “And I used a little Power on them just to be sure,” he added.
“We’re going to have to have a longer talk about what all you can do with that Power,” I said.
“Later,” he said, starting the car. “They’re leaving.”
I peered out the window and caught just a glimpse of something moving away from us.
“Where did they leave Ally’s car?” I asked.
Josh shrugged. “Not our problem.” He pulled out of the storage facility and headed back to town. “What do you say we go finish our date?”
“Do we have to?” I asked plaintively. All I wanted to do was go home, curl up in my bed, and possibly die before going back to school the next day.
Josh glanced at me. “I think we need to. You need to be able to look at me tomorrow without cringing away from me.”
“I’m not cringing!” I said.
“Well, now you’re not,” he said with a smile.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go finish our date.”
“I promise to have you laughing about this before I have to take you home,” he said quietly. “Besides, I think we were porn-tastic.”
I smiled grimly. “Pornariffic,” I agreed.
“Pornalicious.”
“Porntabulous.”
“Pornormous.”
It wasn’t until we’d run through about three more versions of the word that I started laughing—and then realized that he had managed to keep that promise.
Chapter Sixteen
I woke up early the next morning. I was beginning to recognize the knot in my stomach as if it were an old friend. Mom had gotten home while I’d been out with Josh, and was waiting up for me when I got home to discuss my date. We used to do that all the time in Atlanta. When I was younger she’d come in from a date and tell me all about the food she’d eaten, the movie she’d seen, the play she’d gone to. When I got to high school, we kept up the tradition; I told her all about my dates when I got home.
This time I didn’t want to talk about it. There was too much I simply couldn’t tell her, but I made up some inconsequential details, told her we’d skipped out on the movie early and gone to get a rootbeer float at Sonic. I just skipped the part where we tricked our friends into thinking we had sex.<
br />
Then she gave me my new cell phone, a really fancy one. “I know you miss Leah and the others,” she said. “Maybe this will help you keep in touch with your new friends and your old ones.” She stroked my hair. “And I know this week was hard on you, Laney. John is doing the best he can; I’ll talk to him about clarifying limits before he springs another punishment on you, okay?”
I nodded, too upset by her kindness to say anything out loud.
So the first thought in my mind that morning was something along the lines of God, I hope the rumors we’re setting up about me don’t get back around to my mother. I hated lying to her.
I comforted myself a little with the thought that if she hadn’t married John Hamilton, none of this would have happened. A very little.
“Did you have fun last night?” Kayla asked snidely as we got into her car. I didn’t answer, just stared out the window at the barbed-wire fence rolling by. If I couldn’t just ignore her now, I’d never be able to control myself once she found out about last night’s scene with Josh.
Honestly, I was a little surprised that no one had told her yet.
Maybe Ally hadn’t started making her speed dial calls as quickly as we had hoped, I thought.
But I was wrong. I knew it as soon as we stepped out of the car and into the school parking lot. Word just hadn’t gotten back to Kayla yet.
But it’s about to, I thought as one of her friends called her over and started whispering excitedly. She turned around and looked at me, eyes wide. Then she smirked in a way that made me want to slap her.
It was like that all morning. Everywhere I went, people around me whispered. Unless I got too close. Then they all just shut up.
I could feel my face burning every time anyone looked at me.
I stood at my locker after Geometry, staring blankly at my books as I tried to remember where I was going next. “Hey,” Mason said.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“Chin up, Harris,” he whispered. “If we’re going to do this, let’s make it look good.”
I looked up at him, surprised out of my reverie. “Do what?” I whispered back.
He grinned. “Phase Four.”
Phase Four? No one had told me anything to me about a Phase Four.
Just then Josh came around the corner from the stairwell. He joined us at my locker, leaning in close and whispering “Just play along.” Right before hauling his fist back and slamming it into Mason’s face.
Mason’s head snapped back and blood flew from his mouth.
I screamed and jumped as Mason lunged at Josh. They went down to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Other students gathered around in a circle, some of them cheering one or the other of the boys on, some watching in horrified fascination. I saw one head downstairs.
Josh and Mason scrambled back to their feet, then circled each other for a moment. Mason rushed Josh again and they crashed into the lockers. I heard Josh’s head thud against the metal door.
By the time one of the teachers arrived to break it up, both guys were breathing hard, their faces and fists bloodied. They were hustled off by several adults, presumably to whatever punishment Fairy High meted out to boys who fought at school. Kids began drifting away in groups of two and three.
No one said anything to me, but just about everyone cast furtive—or in some cases, not-so-furtive—glances in my direction.
I went to English class in a daze.
Ally didn’t even wait until I’d taken my seat. “I saw you and Josh at the movies last night,” she said ever so casually.
“Yeah?” I responded, without any real interest. I knew what she had seen.
“You two left awfully early.”
“We didn’t like the movie,” I answered shortly.
“Really?” The smirk on Ally’s face looked a lot like the one I’d grown used to seeing on Kayla.
I didn’t answer. I just opened my book to the next scene of Julius Caesar and waited for the teacher to finish calling roll.
Halfway through class, a student aide came in and passed a note to Mrs. Norman. Her lips pursed as she read it. “Laney,” she said, “you’re wanted in the counselor’s office.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I gathered up my books to take with me, in case this turned out to be a longer session than I hoped. Josh and Mason and I had discussed this moment. I had known it was coming. Bartlef was going to try to discover whether Josh and Mason were telling the truth about me. I hadn’t realized the guys were going to stage a fight in order to get the information to Bartlef, but it made sense in retrospect.
I took a deep breath and made my way down to the lead demon’s office. I had to lean against the wall outside the door and wait for my gut to stop churning before I could bring myself to walk in.
I left the door open behind me.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked tentatively.
“Yes,” Bartlef said in his too-high, too-rough voice. “Please, have a seat.” He stared at me intently as if trying to read my mind.
“So,” he said, steepling his long, thin white fingers underneath his chin. “I understand you were involved in a disturbance this morning.”
“No, sir,” I said honestly. “I wasn’t involved in it.”
His eyes narrowed at me and he stared down his long, pointed nose. “Do you deny that it related to you?”
“No, sir,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I was involved in it.”
“I see,” he said, leaning forward so that his voice blew his fetid breath directly into my face. “So you fancy yourself a bit of a rhetorician,” he said with a sneer.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I met his eyes directly.
“I mean, you don’t tell the whole truth, do you?”
I didn’t bother to answer that one. I just stared at him impassively and waited for his next comment.
He leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers against his thin lips. “So what exactly happened between Mason Collier and Josh Bevington this morning?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was standing at my locker talking to Mason, and Josh came up and hit him.” There. That was honest enough.
“With no provocation whatsoever?” Bartlef’s voice was disbelieving.
“No. Not at that moment.”
“But at another moment?”
I looked away, staring out the window behind Bartlef’s back. He had a view of a brick wall. Still, it was better than looking at Bartlef’s face.
“I’ve been out on dates with both of them,” I said. “I suppose that might have set them off.”
“Indeed.” His voice was quiet, his eyes narrowed. He held his hands together as if in prayer under his lips.
I shrugged. “But that doesn’t make it any of my business,” I said. “It’s not my fault if they think fighting it out is going to have any effect on my decisions.”
In a move like a striking snake, Bartlef flipped his hands out so that they faced me and muttered a word that sounded like “Rigan.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
Bartlef leaned forward again, this time placing his hands on his desk and moving as close to me as possible. “Tell me of your relationships with Josh and Mason.” His foul breath brushed across my face and I sat perfectly still, focusing on not inhaling too deeply.
When I felt it was safe to breathe again, I opened my mouth to give my rehearsed response, but my throat suddenly constricted. I gasped for air and tried again. This time I felt a chill in the air around me, a thick coldness that I could almost see.
I realized that Bartlef must be using some sort of Power on me, like a glamour, but used to force me to tell the truth.
Yep. That conversation about all the ins and outs of the Power was going to be coming sooner than Josh might have thought.
Finally, I forced words out. “I don’t know,” I said. “I like them both.” I felt an urge to tell Bartlef all of it—the plan, the tricks, everything. I fought it off. Just a glamour, I t
old myself silently. Just a mind game. “But I think they might be using me,” I finally said. My voice strained as if the admission had been pulled out of me. “For sex or something,” I added, and then bit down on my tongue to keep from saying anything further.
Bartlef nodded and leaned back again, satisfaction evident in the slight curving of his lips.
He stood up and walked around me. He closed the office door and moved back to his desk, trailing his fingertips along my shoulder and up across the nape of my neck as he walked past.
“And that would be a bad thing?” he asked.
“Would what be bad?” I replied, distracted by my sudden desire to scrub the spot he had just touched. Scrub it with soap and boiling hot water. And maybe a steel brush.
“Sex with Josh or Mason. Or both.” He shrugged.
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. And what could I possibly have said, anyway? The shock must have been clear on my face because Bartlef flicked his hand out again and said, “Rishaya. Ganuna.”
Would it be so bad to have sex with Josh or Mason? I wondered. They were both really hot. I remembered their kisses, and felt myself smile a little. I was almost seventeen. Surely that was old enough to . . .
Dammit! Another glamour! I closed my eyes and fought to keep my expression serene as I worked to replace the all-too-clear images in my mind with less pleasant ones. Like dead puppies.
I repressed a shudder as the glamour slithered off of me.
“Hm,” I said, working to keep my voice a little dreamy, “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Well,” Bartlef said mildly, “As school counselor, it’s my job to help students who are in trouble.” Yeah, right. “Please feel free to stop by any time, Laney.”
His smile was horrible.
“Um. Okay,” I said. I stood up, gathering my bookbag. “So, if we’re done here, I need to get back to class.”
Bartlef nodded. “Of course,” he said, standing to usher me back out into the hallway. “Remember, Laney, anytime at all,” he said as I scurried away. I bounded up the stairs as fast as I could, and made it to the bathroom just in time to land on my knees in front of the toilet in one of the stalls and vomit up the coffee I’d had in lieu of breakfast.
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