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“You didn’t yet know they were after you specifically.” When he wanted to be reassuring, Balthazar’s voice became so warm. Almost soft. Coupled with his imposing, broad-shouldered frame, it made for an intoxicating combination.
“I knew vampires were on the loose in town, which is bad news … no offense.”
“None taken.”
“But I still rushed out of school, just because I wanted to be alone, and I wasn’t thinking. Obviously I can’t make any more mistakes like that until—until we get this taken care of.”
But what did that mean, in this context? How were they supposed to get the vampires to leave her alone? Kill them all? She remembered seeing vampires lying on the grounds of Evernight, stakes buried in their chests, and wondered if that was what they’d have to do. Skye had never asked herself if she could kill anyone or anything except for Eb, in some nightmare scenario in which he’d broken his leg.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to attack anyone. Balthazar would keep her safe. After seeing him today—swooping in just when she thought she was dead, wiping the floor with that vampire, smashing through that wall to get her to safety—Skye could believe that there was nothing he couldn’t handle.
Her phone dinged one more time, signaling a final text from Clem: Use protection.
As Skye silenced the phone, hoping desperately that she wasn’t blushing, Balthazar said, “Why did you want to be alone?”
“Huh?” She had to backtrack past her overheated thoughts about Balthazar to remember what they were actually talking about. “Oh, this afternoon. My first day back at school just—it wasn’t good. Although now that I compare it to getting repeatedly attacked by vampires, it doesn’t seem so awful.”
“Why was school so rough?” He frowned, looking genuinely concerned, like bad times at Darby Glen High could possibly compare to the situation they now found themselves in.
Then again, she was going to have to go back tomorrow, wasn’t she? Unless she was dead by then. Skye sighed. “Someone died in my anatomy classroom.”
“What?”
“Not today! Long ago, I mean. But I can still see it.” The horror had been buried under the sheer panic of the afternoon, but now it welled up again, cold and bright. “I’m going to have to watch this guy die of a heart attack every single day.”
“Can you transfer out of that class?”
“Maybe. I’ll have to check.” Evernight Academy hadn’t allowed transfers; she had no idea what the rules were here.
“The effect could stop over time, or lose power, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Skye said doubtfully. “I’ve been avoiding every … death place I’ve found, so I haven’t tested that. It feels like it’s always going to happen. You’re right, though. I don’t know. I guess anatomy class is where I’ll find out.”
“We might still figure out a way for you to manage your—psychic gift.”
“That would help,” she admitted. “But it’s not the worst part about school. The rest sucks, too. I mean, I fell out of touch with most people back here while I was at Evernight. Now they all think I’m some kind of stuck-up snob who doesn’t want to have anything to do with Darby Glen.”
“They’ll see past that,” Balthazar said gently. “And there must be some people from before that you were glad to see.”
A lump formed in Skye’s throat as she thought about the only person from before who had really counted. “Well, I saw my ex-boyfriend, Craig. With his new girlfriend. So you can imagine how much fun that was.”
“Ouch.” Balthazar made such an exaggerated face of pain that she had to laugh despite herself. “This is the guy who dumped you right before the Autumn Ball last year, right?”
“How did you know about that?” She hadn’t thought Balthazar More paid much attention to her at Evernight Academy, much less that he was keeping tabs on her love life.
“Lucas told us. He was nervous about asking you to the ball just as a friend. Sounds like this Craig guy has rotten timing.”
Remaining her constant boyfriend for two and a half years, then dumping her for someone else only a couple months after they’d had sex for the first and only time—and not even half a year after her brother’s death: Yeah, that counted as rotten timing. “To say the least.”
“Forget him,” Balthazar said simply. “I know—easy to say, hard to do. But any guy who doesn’t appreciate you isn’t worth keeping.”
Which sounded like maybe Balthazar appreciated her. No—she was reading too much into it, surely. Balthazar glanced away, no longer meeting her eyes. Skye didn’t know whether to feel awkward or elated; she knew only that it was impossible to look away from Balthazar, his handsome profile outlined against the dark, frost-rimmed glass of the window—
Wait. The frost was—growing. Lacing over the entire window—on the inside of the window, too, turning everything white, blinding out the night.
The sudden chill in the air made Skye’s skin prickle, and she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself as the cold became almost painful. Her lamp flickered, the electricity failing, but the light didn’t die out. Instead it changed into an eerie blue-green color that seemed to shimmer, almost as if they were underwater.
She remembered one of Dakota’s last photos from Australia, a scene from an underwater cave, and she wondered if this was what he’d seen before he died. Terror and sorrow seized her at the same time, paralyzing her.
