“C’mon!” Will urges at the sound of a front door lock clicking free.
Panicked, I run—don’t even hesitate as Will yanks open the passenger door for me. I jump inside, instantly assailed by the smell of leather upholstery. The door thuds shut behind me.
For a moment, I’m alone. I glance around at all the shiny gadgets and knobs in the vast dash. I peer at the back. It’s huge and could comfortably hold several bodies. I shudder at the thought of who those bodies usually are.
Will climbs in beside me before I can rethink where I’m sitting and pulls away from the curb just as a man in a bathrobe emerges from his house.
Slowly, it dawns on me. I’m with a draki hunter. At one in the morning. We’re all alone.
And no one knows where I am.
That this could be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done crosses my mind. When Will drives in the opposite direction of my house, I’m convinced it is.
“You do know where I live, right?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“So why aren’t you taking me there?”
“I thought we could talk.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, squeeze my thighs with both hands. When he doesn’t say anything, I ask, “How did you know where I live?”
“It’s not hard to find out. Your address is on file in the school office.”
“You broke into the school office?”
“No. I know one of the office aides. She got me your address that first day.”
My first day. He’s had my address all this time. Why? I cross my arms. Cool air blasts from the vents, I shiver a little. Only not from the cold.
He adjusts a dial. “Cold?”
“Why did you need my address?”
“Just in case I wanted to find you. See you.”
Evidently, he did.
“That’s funny considering you ignored me in class today.”
“You ripped up my note,” he accuses. A muscle feathers the flesh of his jaw.
“It doesn’t matter.” I shrug and roll a shoulder, rotating the joint.
“Yes. It does. You should have read it.”
I resist asking what the note said, refusing to be sucked in. I decided to stay away from him. I can’t care, can’t let him get to me. “Were you planning on ringing my doorbell at one in the morning?”
“Of course not—”
“Then why—”
“I don’t sleep well. I figured I could at least see where you live.”
He didn’t sleep well? That makes two of us. But what keeps him awake? Guilt? The blood of my kind that stains his hands? Or could it have to do with me?
He asked me out and then changed his mind—treated me like a leper in study hall. Why?
I want to know, but don’t dare ask. That’s only inviting trouble. Opening a door I had vowed to forever seal.
Quiet surrounds us. So thick I can taste it. He sends me a sidelong glance, the gold of his hazel eyes sparking warmth in my chest, igniting a burn I thought was dying.
With a single look, the embers stir. Leaves rattling, waking from a sudden wind. He does that to me. No matter how I try to believe I don’t need him to wake my draki, he proves me wrong every time. Maybe there’s no separating need from want.
He drives for a while, aimlessly. Turning down street after street. They all look alike.
Middle-class homes in varying shades of white and beige stucco line the sidewalks. Tiled roofs undulate like a red sea.
My heart races, excited at his nearness. Alive as it hasn’t felt in the days that stretch like years behind me.
I’m aware of the promise I made to myself. The promise to avoid him. I feel its echo in my head. In my bones.
But I recall the other promise I made to myself when I first came here. A promise to keep my draki alive whatever the cost. And around him, my draki can hardly contain itself. It definitely lives.
I gently grip my thighs and slide my hands over my skin, chafing my goose-bumped flesh. Until I persuade Mom to take us back, getting close to him might be the only way.
And letting him get close to me…My heart trips at the thought of this.
His low voice breaks the stillness. “You didn’t say what you were doing out this late.”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” I reply. Not a lie.
His mouth curves. “So we’re perfect for each other. A pair of insomniacs.”
Perfect for each other.
I grin a mad, stupid smile.
Even when his smile fades, I can’t stop grinning—can’t play down the dumb happiness tripping through me.
“You’re bleeding,” he announces, quickly veering to the side of the street and setting the car in park.
I follow his gaze down, to the streak of blood on the top of my thigh. Panic squeezes my heart. Flipping my hand over, I see the small tear in the plump ridge of my palm oozing blood. Please, please, please. Don’t let him notice.
In full light, it’s easy enough to detect the purple shimmer of my blood. In this gloom, it’s surely too subtle for him to note. At least I tell myself this as I draw in a deep breath.