Page 32 of Hallowed Bones

A waft of cold air moves over the exposed skin of my nape like the icy breath of a ghost is behind me. I slap a hand up to cover the place and whirl around. No one is there. My eyes settle on a shelf of philosophy texts. My shoulders droop, and I slowly lower my hand, moving on.

The papers had described Jonah’s death as tragic and untimely. The understatement of the year, but vagueness of the details reminded me of a more recent nightmare I’d had. A large, shrouded figure chasing me through the woods by Drowning Lake. Screams and cries. My chest being torn open. Bones cracking. Then, silence … utter silence.

Reyes hadn’t been there this time. No one but the monster and me.

I round the corner of the next bookcase and nearly collide with someone.

“Fuck, I’m s—” I say quickly, whispering the apology as I step back and look up, only to pause.

Cameron is there, eyes wide behind his glasses as he looks down at me. I stand there dumbly, just blinking up at him for several long moments. To my surprise, though, he does the same. He doesn’t move away, doesn’t make an excuse and leave, but watches me and waits. Dark hair falling just a little too perfectly into his eyes, black button-down rolled up to his elbow, collar loosened like he’s perpetually somewhere between lecture and sin.

All the moisture in my mouth floods south.

“Haven.” His voice is a husky sound, deeper than normal, and he clears his throat and offers me a small smile. “Hey.”

I glance down to the book in his hand. It’s the same one he’s been reading—The Picture of Dorian Gray. “You’re still on that?” I ask, nodding toward the book. “I thought you’d have finished it by now.”

Cameron frowns at the book in his hand as if seeing it for the first time, and then he blows out a breath. “I’ve read it many times already,” he tells me. “But I’m searching for something in it—I haven’t found it yet.”

“Searching for something?” I lift my gaze back to his. “What are you…” My question tapers off as the rich hazel of his gaze practically glimmers with warning. His pupils contract as if we’ve been cast into a brightly lit place, but we haven’t. It’s dark here between the bookshelves. Quiet and … removed. As if we’re the only two people in existence.

“Cameron?” I reach for him, my fingers brushing the soft fabric of his shirtsleeve.

Cameron’s eyes return to the book. “Corruption and vanity,” he says. “There’s a lot of it in this story, but there’s more to it than just that. There’s something deeper that comes with the desire to be loved for more than just what’s on the outside.”

Is that what you’re looking for? To be loved? The question hovers on the tip of my tongue, a silent curiosity.

Cameron shakes his head after a beat of silence, as if he’s casting off whatever dark thoughts have invaded. When he resettles his gaze on me, his pupils have gone back to normal. “What are you doing here? Catching up on schoolwork since classes are canceled?”

He knows, then, about Jonah’s death. I suppose it was stupid to think he didn’t. Everyone received the school’s email and the reason for the cancellation of classes. Ipswich is too small for this not to rock the town and school in its entirety.

“No,” I say. “I just needed somewhere to think. Elodie’s pretty upset about … well, you know.”

Cameron nods. “And you?”

“Me?” I frown. “What about me?”

“How are you?”

“I…” I don’t know how to answer him, so I go with the truth. “I didn’t know him well or for long. I don’t feel like I have as much of a right to mourn him as she does.”

Topaz and amber swirl against the backdrop of smoke gray in his eyes. They’re entrancing, captivating. I find myself leaning toward him, unable to stop myself, as if I’m being sucked into the whirlpool that is Cameron Goode. “You don’t need to know a person at all to mourn the loss of human life.”

“Everyone’s upset about his death,” I say. “But no one really knows how he died. Isn’t that weird?”

Cameron tilts his head to the side, his gaze roving over me in a way that makes me feel pinned like a butterfly beneath glass. Then he takes a step back and to the side, gesturing toward what I now see is a small alcove with a cushioned window seat against more stained glass windows.

When he holds a hand out to me, I don’t resist. I take it. Following him over to the seat, I let him urge me down and then wait as he sets his now-closed copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to the side. The air between us is different, tighter somehow, as if there’s less of it in this smaller place. When his knee brushes mine, a searing heat burns through the fabric of my jeans, my skin, and delves into my blood and bones.

“Did you see something?” he asks.

I shake my head immediately. “Oh, no,” I say. “Nothing like that. I don’t even know where he was found—the newspaper and email didn’t say anything. I just…” I bite my lower lip and release it. “It’s just a gut feeling, I guess.”

“I didn’t ask if you’d actually witnessed his death,” Cameron clarifies. “I asked if you’d seen anything.”

“What?” I laugh lightly. “Like a premonition or something?” My lips continue to twitch as I peer over at him. “You know, people are going to keep thinking you and your friends are strange if you say things like that.”

“Strange?” One side of Cameron’s mouth curls upward. “You mean, they’ll think we’re witches?”