123389.fb2 Hexbound - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 60

Hexbound - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 60

“Did I say ‘make’? I meant to say I bought them at a bakery on the way over here.”

“I figured. I mean, how would you have the time to bake? And you live in a dorm room, right? Do you even have a kitchen?”

“I have matches and a mug warmer.”

“Rebel.”

“And with a cause, too. Just stick with me, kid. I’m going places.”

I shook my head at the joke and pulled out another piece of brownie, trying to avoid splattering my jeans with a snowfall of powdered sugar.

For nearly an hour, we sat on the blanket in the grass, and ate our lunch. We joked. We laughed. We talked about our hometowns and the people we went to school with.

For nearly an hour, we pretended to be teenagers who had nothing more to do on a weekend than finish up homework, spend the night at a girlfriend’s house, or figure out what to wear to class on Monday morning.

We just . . . were.

And the more we sat in the grass on that beautiful fall day, the more we laughed.

Every time Jason laughed, his nose crinkled up.

Every time Jason laughed, my heart tugged a little.

If I wasn’t careful, I was gonna fall for this boy.

And yet something was . . . weird. Maybe it was the fact that I’d seen Sebastian.

Maybe it was the fact that I’d seen Jason in wolf form. Maybe he was just tired. But there was something in his eyes. Something darker than I’d seen before. Scout had said once that the summer had been long, that the Adepts were tired.

Maybe fighting the good fight was wearing on him, as well.

But I pushed the thought aside. There would be enough worry when darkness fell again. For now the sun was enough.

When lunch was done, the trash was tossed and the blanket was packed away again. Taking my hand in his, Jason led me toward our “appointment” on the other side of the river. As we crossed the bridge, I walked beside the railing, my eyes on the water beneath us.

“They dye it green for St. Patrick’s Day, you know.”

“Yeah, I saw that on TV once. It’s cool that it runs right through downtown.”

On the other side of the bridge, we took a set of steps down to a small riverside dock. I looked over at him. “What are you up to?”

“We’re taking a ride,” he said, then gestured to his right. I glanced out across the river, where a longish boat topped with dozens of chairs was gliding toward us.

“River tour,” he added. “We’re going to take a little trip.”

“I see. Thanks for keeping me posted.”

“Anytime, Lily. Anytime.”

When the boat pulled up, we waited while the passengers stepped off; then Jason handed the captain two tickets. We took seats beside each other at the front of the boat, and when the coast was clear, the captain motored us into the river. We headed away from the lake, deeper into the forest of steel and concrete.

I stared up as the towers drew nearer, growing larger. Some looked like pointy pinnacles of glass. Others were round, like giant sugar canisters.

“They call them the corncobs,” Jason said, pointing to those twin, curvy towers that were full of parked cars.

“They look like it,” I agreed, neck stretched upward as I watched them pass.

“Here, lean back against me,” he whispered, rearranging himself so that his body supported mine. I leaned back, my head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, and we floated down the Chicago River, the world around us. For the first time in a long while, I felt safe. Secure, like even if the world was full of ghosts and monsters and evil motivations, they couldn’t get to me. Not now. Not while we floated on inky blue water, the riveted steel of bridges above us, orangey red against the bright blue sky.

“I was thinking about the Sneak,” he whispered. “I think we should go together.”

My stomach felt like tiny birds had taken flight, and I was glad he couldn’t see the silly grin on my face. “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”

He squeezed me tighter. “Life is good.”

For once, in that moment, it simply was.

But moments like that don’t last forever, do they?

We were back on land, walking toward St. Sophia’s when he pulled me toward the alley and the garden of thorns. I figured he wanted a quiet place to talk. I hadn’t expected him to unbutton his shirt. Blushing, I looked away, but I got enough of a view to see that he had the body of an athlete.

“You can look,” he said with a chuckle. “I need to show you something.”

I glanced back, my eyebrow arched suspiciously.

He held up two fingers. “Completely PG. I promise.”

I looked . . . then gaped. Across his chest were three foot-long scratches. They were well-healed now, three ripples of pinkish skin, the scars of an attack.

Instinctively, I reached out my hand to touch him, before curling my fingers back into a fist. “What happened?”

“Initiation,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he meant it was a badge of honor for joining the werewolves, or it was a mark of how he’d become one. But then I remembered that he’d told me being a wolf was hereditary.

“When a wolf is old enough, he or she spends a night on a kind of journey. Like a vision quest. He—I—went into the woods. Some of the night is gone—the hours passed, but I don’t remember what I did. Some of it I remember, but a lot of those memories are just random sounds and images.”

“What sounds and images do you remember?”

He shook his head. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“Seriously?”

His expression was grim. “It’s one of the rules. My parents don’t even know what went on. Just me and”—he looked down at the scars on his chest—“me and the wolf who did this.”

“Initiation,” I repeated. “That seems kinda harsh.”

“You’re thinking like a human. Think about puppies. They learn by play fighting,