AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Which is the whole point.” Cautiously she stood, tested her steadiness, then took her coat from the chair where he’d dumped it and began shrugging it back on. “I’ve run from these ‘death visions’ every time I’ve encountered them. And I haven’t learned anything that way. It’s past time to face them down. You’ve got a key, right?”
“Yeah, but—Skye, that’s incredibly dangerous for you. You’ve nearly died before.”
“I’ve felt like I nearly died. It’s time to find out exactly what happens to me afterward. I know it’s risky, but that’s why you’re coming along.” She tossed him a challenging glance over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “You are coming along, right?”
“Right.” He had no choice now but to follow where she led.
Chapter Twenty
SKYE WRAPPED HER COAT MORE WARMLY around herself as Balthazar drove through the winter storm on their way back to Darby Glen High. The snowfall had, if anything, only increased; the true winter of upstate New York was now well under way. All around them cars crawled along, cautious on slush-slick roads.
“Are you sure about this?” Balthazar said. His handsome face looked almost brutish in the harsh dashboard lights of his old beater car. “We could try later. Another day, maybe, when you haven’t had such a rough time.”
“If I wait, I’ll chicken out. Let’s just do this.” Skye tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear. On the radio, some guy sang about sadness and loss, and how they kept you up at night. “I’m not feeling the … enhanced senses, or whatever they are, so much anymore. So it probably won’t get to me until I’m in Ms. Loos’s room.”
“Wait—that’s right. You said that today, you could sense it even outside her room. It enhanced your psychic senses, too?”
It. The bite. The moment he’d pulled her close in her bed, and she’d felt herself surrendering completely. They were just going to call the bite “it” from now on. Fine. “I guess so. It made me a little crazy—went running off through the hallways, and evil Coach Haladki was screeching at me—”
“Nola’s not that bad. Just cranky.”
“I knocked Britnee Fong down in the hallway, which led to a whole screaming match between me and Craig. Today’s been awesome all over.”
Balthazar hesitated before saying, “Screaming match?”
“Well. Not screaming. Neither of us wanted the entire school to hear. But we had it out about our breakup.” The taste of it was still sour. “It was a good thing, I guess. We talked about how weird things got after Dakota died, and how we—” Did she want to say this out loud to Balthazar? What the hell, she decided. After a guy had bitten you while na**d in your bed, privacy pretty much flew out the window. “How we never should have slept together. We weren’t going to be together long. Craig already knew it, and I… I guess I should’ve known, too.”
Even Craig admitted it was his mistake. That ought to have helped her more than it did. Maybe it would in time.
“You couldn’t have been thinking clearly that soon after your brother’s death,” Balthazar said. “He shouldn’t have done that to you.” She could see him clenching and unclenching his jaw in the dim light, as if he were biting back something else to say. Her face flushed warm as she realized that he was jealous—that the thought of her with Craig got under his skin.
Even one day ago, that jealousy would’ve made her incredibly happy. Now, however, Skye didn’t see how it mattered. So what if Balthazar wanted to be with her, if he refused to do anything about it?
Slowly she said, “If a guy wants to be with you, he should be. If he doesn’t, he should keep his distance.”
A pause followed before Balthazar said, “I guess maybe he had his reasons.”
“Or maybe he was too chicken to face the truth.” Skye turned the volume up on the radio, so that the sad song was even louder. For the rest of the ride, it was the only sound in the car besides the slap-slap of the windshield wipers pushing away the snow.
Darby Glen High became a lot creepier after dark.
Skye had been here at nighttime before, of course, but always for a dance, ball game, or recital, which meant that the parking lots were filled with cars and a few people were always milling around. Now the place was deserted, so eerily silent that she could hear the echo of their footsteps on the tile and Balthazar’s keys jangling in his pocket. The flashlight Balthazar held provided their only illumination.
They reached the door of Ms. Loos’s room and stopped. Neither made a move. Skye breathed in and out, keeping the rhythm regular and slow.
“Is it getting to you already?” Balthazar stepped closer to her. Once again she remembered how much bigger he was than her, with his dark outline looming overhead. “We should go back.”
“No. I don’t sense anything, I’m just—”
“I know.” His hand hovered next to her shoulder for a moment before he dropped it again, denying them both the touch.
After one more deep breath, Skye put her hand on the doorknob and turned.
When she first walked in, the room looked like any other classroom. Written on the dry-erase board in all caps were the words UTERINE CYCLE, which made her profoundly glad she’d dropped out of Ms. Loos’s class when she did.
“Anything?” Balthazar kept glancing around the room, like he expected a ghost or vampire to appear at any second. At least they would have known how to fight those.
“It usually takes a few minutes.” Skye sat on the edge of one of the desks—the one where Britnee Fong used to sit. She hadn’t really thought about Britnee since her fight with Craig; she’d hardly had a chance. Now, though, she realized that if Craig was telling the truth, Britnee wasn’t the schemer Skye had believed her to be. Craig wasn’t off the hook with Skye yet—not by a long shot—but maybe she’d try being more polite to Britnee in the future. Or at least get Madison to quit snarking on her so much.
