The relief crashing through me made me hug him, hard. So hard he lost his breath, so hard my bruises and aches came back. It felt like we were back in Dad’s truck in the Dakotas, clinging to each other for dear life. Both of us shipwrecked and holding on to whatever we could.
He was the only thing that hadn’t whirled away when everything started spinning. He was the only thing nailed down, and I was not letting go. Not ever, not if I could help it.
“I like you,” I muttered against his pulse, moving my lips carefully so my teeth didn’t get any funny ideas. “I like you a lot, Graves.” You’re all I’ve got, now. When it gets right down to it. “I, you know, I just really like you.”
Then I could have kicked myself. Way to go, Dru. “I like you” is all you can say?
“Things are messed up.” His breath was a warm spot in my hair. “You know. I don’t want to, well, pressure you.”
Oh, that is so not even a concern right now. “You shouldn’t worry. You’re the only decent boyfriend material I’ve found in, like, sixteen states.”
“You’re picky.” There was the sarcasm. Goth Boy was himself again.
“I have good taste, okay? I like you, Graves.” I stopped myself from saying Edgar again, with an effort of will.
“I like you too. I just, we should be careful. See what happens. Okay?”
Sure. All right. “Okay.” What does that mean?
Apparently it meant he was going to untangle himself from me. Which he did. He slid off the bed, not looking at me, and headed for the bathroom. I watched him walk away, in that weird way guys have when they’re feeling you watch them. I should have said something, but what? What the hell could I say?
He shut the door, and I lay there for a few seconds breathing, before he turned the water on and I heard him brushing his teeth.
Had he just suddenly figured out he was kissing someone who could get fangs? I mean, werwulfen had big scary teeth too, but . . .
Oh, Lord. I’d just had my first kiss with Goth Boy, and that was good. But I had no idea whether he thought it was good, or if I’d just gotten the brush-off. See what happens? What did that mean? And he was my best and only friend right now. The only person I was really sure of, here.
I rolled over, stuffed the pillow under my head, and closed my eyes. When he came back from the bathroom, I just lay there breathing like I was asleep. He stood by the side of the bed for a little bit, probably wishing he had somewhere else to roost, then eased himself down and stayed on his side. The space between us had just gotten bigger than it ever was, and in a completely new way.
The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t get any easier to figure out.
Great.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I stared at the fall of heavy golden late-afternoon sunlight through the window for a little bit, my back against Graves’s. Neither of us had climbed under the covers, and I hate the feeling of sleeping in jeans. Everything gets twisted around and pulled up, crawls into cracks it’s not supposed to, and you end up feeling like you’ve been sleeping on nails.
I lay there, breathing softly. The sunlight flickered because a shadow moved across the window. A faint scratching sound, and I tensed, muscle by muscle.
The shadow bobbed again, and I pushed myself up, even my elbows creaking with exhaustion. Graves muttered and moved beside me, and the shape in the window froze. Golden light poured past it, and all I could see reflected on the blue carpet was a distorted blur.
I grabbed for the switchblade on the pretty, postage-stamp-sized blue night table, knocking over the lamp. It fell with a crash, Graves sat up and swore; the shadow disappeared with a final scratching sound. I leapt out of bed, the switchblade snicking free, and was halfway between the bed and the window before I realized yanking it open and sticking my head out might not be a good idea.
“What the hell—” Graves said in a slurred, sleepy voice.
I grabbed the sash anyway and tugged the window open, the switchblade almost squirting free of my sweating fingers. A cool spring afternoon drenched in honey light poured in, and the garden a story below was starred and speckled with new growth on old thorny bushes. There would be roses in awhile, and if I was still here it might be nice to open the window on a clear day and smell them.
Instead I inhaled, dragging in the cool breeze. Grass, sunlight, the edge of soft rain last night and more rain on the way, the aroma of the earth waking up after a long nap. I had to snatch my left-hand fingers away from my mother’s locket, the chain doing weird things because it had rotated while I half-slept and the catch was stuck in the locket’s loop. It was warm, not icy like it would have been if something dangerous was around, and I wondered if it had ever heated up or cooled down for Dad.
I also caught a breath of warm apple spice, and the fang marks on my left wrist gave a throbbing flare of heat.
Oh. “Hello?” I whispered. Tried to look everywhere at once.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Graves’s voice almost broke. He scrambled off the bed, and I thought I saw something across the square of the garden glinting, a reflection from deep in the shadow of the wall. There were other windows, all of them blank. Of course: no other svetocha except Anna and me.
Where did she sleep? Did I even want to know?
I stood there in the flood of sunshine and felt cold. The breath of spiced apples was blown away on a brisk, green-smelling wind. Gems of water sparkled on the garden, each one perfectly placed.
I lowered the switchblade. Christophe? I opened my mouth to say his name, shut it again.
Because Graves was right next to me, fisting at his eyes. “What’s up?”
“I thought I saw something.” I swallowed hard, used the windowsill to push the blade back in until it clicked. “In the window.”
“Oh.” He blinked a couple times, rubbed at his hair. “Anything there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was asleep.” The lie tasted like ashes. I knew I hadn’t been.
“What exactly did you think you saw?” He was pale under his coloring. “A dreamstealer? Something else?”
The thought of a dreamstealer and having seizures again after it stole my breath was enough to make all remaining sleepiness jump out the window. My shoulders hunched. “Just a shadow.”
He leaned forward, peered out. “A drop straight down. And nothing above to hang onto. But that doesn’t mean anything lately, does it?” He sniffed, inhaling deeply, passing the air through his nose the way I’ve seen people in fancy restaurants smell wine. And gave me an odd, very green sideways look. “Huh.”
“What?” The lump in my throat wasn’t just my heart.
“I dunno.” He pulled the window down. “Think we should lock the shutters?”
I think it was Christophe. The words trembled right on my lips. I shook my head. The air always feels dead when you barricade windows. Like you’re under siege. Or buried. “I dunno.”
“Okay.” He stayed where he was, sunlight edging his threadbare T-shirt and touching his jeans, bringing out the blue in the denim. He leaned forward, like he wanted to get a little closer. “You all right? You look a little . . .”
Stupid? Silly? Sleepy? “Fine.” I almost flinched away, stamped back to the bed, tossed the switchblade on the nightstand. The lamp was okay. I picked it back up and settled it where it belonged. Then I dropped down into the bed’s softness and wished again that I was wearing boxers. “Sorry to wake you up.”
I was also getting to the point of being sorry I’d kissed him. What the hell had he meant? But that was useless to think about.
He stood there, irresolute. I got comfortable, putting my arm under the pillow, busying myself with getting settled. My wrist throbbed like a bad tooth.
If I’d known what would happen when Christophe bit me, would I still have done it? He’d needed my blood to save us. Even Shanks agreed about that.
But still, I wondered. There were other things I wondered about, too.
Like what he??
?d said, alone in a wulfen’s room with the darkness covering everything and the bloodhunger burning in my throat. If I need a reason now, Dru, it will have to be you.
As uncomfortable situations go, thinking about a bossy djamphir while a loup-garou you’ve just kissed and been rejected by stands there and stares is pretty high on the scale. Jesus. I never used to have problems like this.
Graves slumped near the window. His face was shadowed; I couldn’t see his expression.
“You might as well come on back and get some rest.” I tried to sound gracious. “I mean, jeez. Unless you want to sleep on the floor.”
“Maybe I should go find Shanks.”
Hot embarrassment flooded me. Could he make it any more obvious that he didn’t want to hang around me? Still, I wasn’t giving up without a fight. “Okay. I mean, if you want to. If you do, I’m not gonna sleep though. I’ll go with.”
He straightened a bit, losing the slouch. “You don’t have to.”
“You think I want to be alone?” I sounded mad even to myself. “The only time I feel safe is when you’re around.”
Which was half a lie, too. Because I felt safe when Christophe hugged me, and when he told me he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. It was like being with Dad again and knowing I had a place in the world.
But Graves sounded relieved, and that was worth any kind-of half-assed lie I could dredge up. “Oh.” His socks dragged as he shuffled across the carpet. “All right, then.” He paused by the foot of the bed. “You okay, Dru?”
I closed my eyes. Put my other arm up so I was hugging the pillow. “Peachy.” As long as you’re here, I guess. You’re about the only person I’m sure of. I’m just not so sure about some things to do with you.
“Okay.” He settled down on his side stiffly, careful not to touch me. The flaming in my cheeks became hot trickles of water between my eyelids. “Dru?”
“What?” I hated to snap at him, but my throat was full and my eyes were beginning to leak.
A long silence. Then he settled in, moving around a little on the bed the way a cat will turn around before it goes boneless. “Do you mean that?”
What, about liking you, or about feeling safe? “Of course I mean it.” I sniffed hard, pulling everything back up into my nose. “You’re the only good thing that’s happened to me since my dad got zombified, Graves. You want me to put it on a billboard?”
“I just asked. Jeez.” But he moved a little closer, tentatively. And when he put his arm around me, I didn’t move or protest. I just lay there stiffly until the relaxation started to feel natural. He breathed into my tangled hair, a spot of heat, and all of a sudden I was content just to be still.
It wasn’t quite swapping spit, but it was okay. It left me more confused than ever, though.
He fell asleep again after a little while. I could tell by his breathing.
Soon dusk came around, and the Schola woke up again. Nothing else scratched at my window, and I couldn’t tell whether I was relieved or unhappy about that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I brushed my teeth again, tied my hair back, then turned the computer on once more and spent some time poking around. It was your basic intranet with a gateway to the Internet, but the security stuff was way more intense than it had been back at the other Schola. I had to verify three times with the information on the sheet next to the keyboard before it even let me near the Web.
I was betting my every keystroke was logged, so I didn’t visit anything fun or informative. But I was feeling sharper and more myself, so I poked around for more clothes. For me, this time. I’d been so strung-out earlier I’d just gotten Graves some stuff and called it good. Now I looked back at what I’d ordered and about slapped myself on the forehead.
Shopping while sleep-deprived is a Bad Idea.
I sat and compared prices and wondered where the Order’s money came from, while I spun the switchblade idly on the desk sometimes and thought about what I was doing.
I’m used to shopping for myself in army surplus stores or Goodwills or something. Getting stuff sent to you over the Net was always a big no-no while I was with Dad. All that stuff leaves a footprint, a happy little trail—and you have to pick it up somewhere; even P.O. boxes and those rent-a-box places need ID of some kind. You have to go back and actually get the stuff you’ve ordered, and when you do, whammo. There’s no better time for someone or something to hit you.
No, the Net’s only good for a few things. Research, though you have to apply the bullshit test and cross-check everything. Scams, because you can’t spit on the Net without hitting one. And the occasional entertainment. Nothing like people making fools of themselves for the world to see.
Sometimes I wonder what Gran would have thought of the digital age. Of course, it’s hard to get broadband down in the hollers and up on the ridges.
She probably would have just sniffed and called it more foolishness than normal. Which is pretty damning, considering what she thought of the whole human race.
I actually had some fun picking out more T-shirts for Graves. I got him a Captain America tee, and one that had a huge dinosaur and lasers screened on it, with the caption Look out! That velociraptor has a lightsaber! screaming across it. It made me laugh into my cupped hand, trying to keep it muffled because Graves was muttering a little bit and stirring in the bed. Plus a few plain black ones, large- size athletic fit, not medium, in case he kept bulking up the way he had been. Becoming loup-garou had made him way broader in the shoulders.
I knew his sizes from shopping at the other Schola. Before he went out with the wulfen and got kitted out, that was. Maybe they’d do it for him here, but just in case I got him socks and more boxer-briefs, too. He seemed like a tighty-whitey kind of kid when I met him, but I guess that had changed.
I was just sitting there, wondering whether or not to get him an athletic cup—you know, for sparring and stuff, but I had to weigh the embarrassment factor in—when there was a knock at the door. A nice polite three raps, a pause, two more taps.
What now?
My mother’s locket cooled abruptly, icy metal against my skin. I pushed myself up from the office chair. It squeaked a little bit, sliding across one of those hard plastic pads they put down to save carpets from the rollers. Then it hit me, and I froze, hunched halfway over.
Oranges and wax. Sliding across my tongue, reaching and touching that place at the back of my throat where the bloodhunger lived, right next to the place ordinary people don’t have. The little spot that warns me when danger or weirdness is right around the corner.
I glanced at the bed. Graves lay on his side, curled up as if I was still there, hugging my pillow. I swallowed hard, though I didn’t want to with that taste in my mouth. Hooked my fingers around the switchblade and straightened.
I felt ridiculous. It was probably a teacher or something. Or Shanks, or even Benjamin.
You know it’s not, Dru. Don’t you dare open that door.
The warding’s thin blue lines came into view inside my head, seen with the queer non-sight I didn’t realize other people didn’t have until I was about ten years old. I can remember the moment, too. I’d come home crying from the valley school because the kids had been picking on me, and Gran’s mouth had clamped together like a vise. Her disapproval hit me like a wave, and I’d had to admit that if I wanted the kids to tolerate me I shouldn’t have been listening to their little secrets with that muscle inside my head even if I thought everyone could do the same thing and just didn’t let on.
The problem wasn’t actually knowing. It was letting them know I knew.
People hate that. They hate it because they fear it. There are places in America where . . . but never mind. That’s too awful to think about.
Gran was big on privacy, and she’d had to let me learn the lesson the hard way. Because there just isn’t any other way if you’re born with the touch, she said. And she was right.
I fingered the release on the switchblade and eyed the
door nervously. There was the bar on it, even if someone had the keys for the four or five different locks. Two of the locks didn’t have an outside keyhole, so that was all right.
But . . . Jesus, someone at my window and someone at my door, too? I could tell whoever was at the door meant me no good. The warding said as much, sparking and fizzing as it drew together, blue lines running uneasily under the surface of the visible.
Another scent cut through clotted waxen citrus, filling my nose so my eyes prickled and burned with the overflow.
Warm perfume and spice. A red smell, like silk and high-heeled boots with tiny finicky buttons up their sides. Long hair and a vicious little laugh.
What the hell would she be doing here?
Graves muttered shapelessly, as if he was having a bad dream. The listening silence grew even more intense, and the doorknob jiggled slightly.
Oh, you think I’m too stupid to lock my door? Whatever. But I was shaking badly. She could have a perfectly valid reason for coming here and knocking. She really could.
Christ. I was even doubting the touch now, something I’d never done before. Gran would have fetched me one upside the head—figuratively, I mean; she never hit me. Just one glare would’ve been enough.
Stop dithering about Gran and figure out what you’re going to do!
But that was just it. The door was locked and barred, and I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to hunker down and hide. As a long-term strategy it really sucked. But for the short term—like the next few minutes, as the last honeyglow of sunset filled the window and turned the garden into a haze below—it was looking pretty good.