Death and the Girl Next Door (22 page)

“Is it?” I asked.

“No,” Jared said, watching Cameron as he labored away. “It doesn’t work that way.”

An aggravated sigh pushed past my lips. “Someday, Jared Kovach, you’ll have to explain exactly how it
does
work. But for now, we need to do something.” I leaned in and spoke directly to him. “We have to help them.”

He frowned in doubt, and I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or at the apple crisp dessert he was coveting. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Did you ever think that maybe that’s why you’re here? Maybe you’re here to help people, to use your powers to champion the cause of those who are … well, championless.”

“Lorelei,” he said patiently, pushing his tray away, “I’m here because I broke the law. I’m just as carbon based as you are.”

“You will never be as carbon based as I am. You’re like Cameron, remember? Strong. Powerful. Nigh indestructible.”

“Nigh?”

I sat back and crossed my arms. There had to be a reason for his presence on earth. Maybe that woman in my dream was real. Maybe she was trying to tell me something. This was too big, too miraculous to just be an accident. “Aren’t you even curious?”

“Not especially,” he said. Then he gestured toward Cameron’s stainless-steel tepee with a nod, an evil grimace spreading across his face just as it collapsed rather loudly due to an inherent structural failure—utensils tended to slip on slippery surfaces.

Cameron cast him a frustrated frown, as though Jared had something to do with the downfall of his masterpiece, then began to rebuild it.

“Hey, man,” Glitch said in sudden annoyance, “did you jack my fork?”

Then it hit me. “Fear the darkness.”

“What?” Brooke asked.

I turned to her in wonder. “I just realized what Ashlee wrote on her arm. It said ‘fear the darkness.’”

“She wrote on her arm?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, blown away by the fact that Ashlee would mutilate herself. “It was carved into it. She cut into her own arm.”

With a grimace, Brooklyn said, “That’s disgusting. Crave attention much?”

“I don’t think she did it for attention, Brooke. I think she’s scared. Terrified. Do you know what it means?” I asked Jared and Cameron.

Cameron hunched his body, ducking his furrowed face in concentration, carefully linking prongs together, and said slowly, “It means Brooklyn thinks self-mutilation is disgusting.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not that. Fear the darkness. What does it mean?”

He tipped a shoulder toward Jared. “Why don’t you ask lover boy over there.”

Jared cut him a razor-sharp warning.

“It seems Mr. Kovach has something of a reputation,” Cameron continued.

“What kind of a reputation?” I asked.

“I don’t have a reputation,” Jared said, his voice even, threatening.

Cameron’s face brightened with silent laughter. “Come on, Reaper. You can tell them.”

Jared leaned forward. “Why don’t you and I go discuss this outside.”

“Shins,” I warned. “And I am wearing steel-toed boots this time. Don’t even mess with me.”

But neither backed down. Crap. I knew the shin thing wouldn’t last.

Cameron held his grin steady as he spoke. “See, messengers have to follow all kinds of orders, answer all kinds of prayers, all manner of requests. Including those that involve other supernatural beings.”

“Like ghosts?” Brooklyn asked.

“Exactly. There are evil ghosts just like there are evil people. And any Joe Schmo can pray to have one evicted. You just have to believe, have faith in the Big Guy’s word, and boom!” He made the umpire strikeout sign. “That pesky little poltergeist is outta here. And guess who sends them off to suffer in the fires of eternal Hell and damnation?”

He questioned me silently. I didn’t move.

“That’s right,” he continued. “Your reaper, here. Azrael is somewhat of a specialist. And the ghost world doesn’t think very highly of him. Right, Az?”

Jared sat stone still, hardly breathing. Personally, I found the whole idea rather fascinating. Who knew? But Jared seemed furious that Cameron was even talking about it. He cast a furtive look my way before refocusing on his hands folded on the table in front of him, his jaw tight.

“So, this ghost haunting the Southern belles, it knows Jared’s here?”

“It knew it the moment he started stalking you.”

“Cameron,” I said, a gentle warning in my tone, “Jared wasn’t stalking me. He was doing his job, remember? We talked about this.”

Cameron shook his head with a soft chortle. “Please, Lorelei. Use some common sense, will you?”

“What?” I asked, rather offended.

“Angels, or messengers, or whatever the Hell politically correct term you want to call them are master manipulators of space and time.”

“You should probably stop talking about now,” Jared said.

“They can come and go in a blinding flash.”

“Lusk—”

“He could have popped in, taken you, and popped back out before even I could have seen him. Or felt his presence on this plane. But he didn’t. Why do you think that is?”

Jared shoved his chair back and stood. Without hesitation, Cameron did the same. Our table almost toppled over as they both did their best to intimidate each other. I shot up and did my darnedest to get between them. It was like trying to shove two cinder block walls apart.

With a hand on either chest, I hissed a harsh warning: “Do you really want to give Principal Davis a reason to come in here?” My gaze bounced back and forth. “Do you really want to give the sheriff a reason to be suspicious? He already believes you two were the cause of that little earthquake scenario. You’ll just be giving him ammunition.”

After a moment, Jared looked at me, his eyes dark with anger. “Keep a muzzle on your dog,” he said, then turned to leave.

Not this time.

I grabbed his shirt and forced him to look at me again. “Is it true?” I asked. Was he really following me just to see me? To watch me?

He lowered his lashes and waited an interminable amount of time before answering. “Yes,” he said, his voice deathly quiet.

Now for the sad part.

My soul took flight! My heart soared! A euphoric, deliriously giddy sensation washed over me with the knowledge that Jared was following me because he wanted to. Not because he had to, because it was his job. The realization sent a tingle rushing over my skin.

Jared glanced back at me then, and I tried to control my elation, a feat that proved impossible. Until I looked at him. Really looked. And reality sank in. “Why?” I asked, suddenly confused. “Why me?” Did he have any idea how gorgeous he was?

His lips thinned in frustration like I should already know the answer. He inched closer until his knee touched mine, his eyes, curious and intense, boring into me. “Because you move like fire rushing across a floor,” he said, his voice hushed, velvety smooth, “like flames licking up a wall.” The rest of the world crumbled away as he lifted my chin. “Your energy is liquid and hot. Even from a distance you burn, you scorch anyone who gets too close. You are wine on my tongue and honey in my veins, and I cannot get enough of you.” He leaned forward and whispered into my ear. His warm breath sent shivers cascading over my body. “You intoxicate me, Lorelei McAlister. You will be my downfall.”

“I’m not kidding, you guys need to sit down. Coach Chavez is headed this way.”

My eyelids shuttered. We were standing just as we had been, with me in between the two cage fighters. I realized Brooklyn had been talking to us. Coach Chavez was on his way to our table.

“Sit down, hurry,” I said to the boys, trying to snap back to reality. They obliged reluctantly.

“Hey, Coach,” Glitch said, standing to head him off.

As they spoke, I sat in stunned silence, wondering what had just happened. Jared suddenly seemed way more interested in the pattern on the table than in me. Did I just have a vision? Or would that be considered wishful thinking?

“If you guys are finished, I suggest you clean up and go cool off outside,” the coach said. He was a brawny man with thick black hair and a graying beard, and everyone liked him, including me. I didn’t want to get on his bad side.

“Okay,” Brooklyn answered, the forced nonchalance in her voice plain.

As we rose to clean our table, Cameron leaned in to me. “And, yeah, he can do things like that, too.”

TEAM SPIRIT

“Where is he?” Brooklyn raised her brows in question as she scurried up the bleachers. The homecoming pep rally would start soon.

I was still in a state of dazed confusion. Cameron had seen it, the exchange between Jared and me, so it had to be real. But how had he done it?

“Uh-oh,” Brooklyn said. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

Oh, that was the other thing. Nobody but Cameron heard what Jared said to me. Not Brooklyn, not Glitch, not the weird chick at the next table drooling into her lunch tray. Nobody!

Could Jared have done something where only I could hear him? But Cameron heard him. Blondie got an earful, then snorted and strode out the door. Not that I cared. My feet weren’t anywhere near the ground. Brooklyn said she’d been talking to Glitch, but honestly, how could anyone have missed such a speech?

“So?”

I blinked at Brooklyn. “So, what?”

“Where’s lover boy?”

“Oh. Tabitha and Amber stole him,” I said absently, referring to Jared’s recent abduction by the sugar lumps.

“I wonder what they’re up to.”

“I wonder what it’s like to have the intelligence of squirrel feces.”

Brooklyn whistled. “Wow, I’m impressed. You go with that.”

“I know it’s wrong, but I just dislike them so much. Ever since they put toothpaste in my hair on the way back from camp, I’ve hated them.”

“Right there with ya, babe. You know what I’ve noticed?”

“That deep down inside I’m really jealous of them, which makes me a lonely and pathetic loser?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh,” I said. “Then what?”

“I’ve noticed that ever since Jared saved your life, you haven’t had to use your inhaler. Not once.”

“Wow,” I said. She was right. I hadn’t even thought about it.

Brooklyn scanned the crowd. Glitch turned and waved from the front, where the football team sat. She waved back, then spotted Cameron sitting alone at the very top of the bleachers, apparently in the farthest corner he could find.

“You were right,” she said. “That boy is just plain antisocial.”

I turned and motioned for him to join us. He shook his head. I glared at him and waved again. Exhaling visibly in annoyance, he pushed himself off the bleachers and maneuvered through the crowd to where we sat.

“Happy?” he asked when he arrived.

I smiled. “Very.”

The pep rally progressed with the usual antics and silly games. The pep band played and the crowd cheered. Each class tried to out-yell the other three for the honor of leaving school ten minutes early. The seniors usually won, their experience and impending release date—otherwise known as graduation—lending them a ruthlessness the other classes lacked from the get-go.

In one of the more amusing moments, volunteer tag teams from each class had to wrap a different teacher in toilet paper then race back to the finish line for the win. I laughed at the sight of Ms. Mullins being toilet-papered into a mummy.

But soon afterwards, I began to worry. The pep rally was coming to a close, and still no Jared.

“Where could he be?” I asked Brooklyn. “Do you think Principal Davis has him cornered somewhere? Or maybe the sheriff arrested him after all.”

“I doubt it. Tabitha’s up to something.”

I watched absently as the cheerleaders acted out a final skit. Apparently, two members of team spirit weren’t spirited enough. They stood back with their arms crossed, looking sad and despondent. So—in the crucial interest of school pride—the others escorted one of the two to a huge decorated box marked
SPIRIT INFUSER.

They placed her inside and closed the lid. After a few seconds, the cheerleader jumped out of the box, full of life and an annoying, nails-on-a-chalkboard kind of joy.

“She’s like a gerbil on Ritalin,” Brooklyn said.

I beamed and continued to survey the crowd for Jared.

In the meantime, the cheerleaders—having had such great success with the first dispirited teammate—did the same with the second. Again, after the girl was placed in the box, she jumped out almost immediately, springing with happiness and energy.

“Hmmm,” Tabitha said into the microphone. “Whatever’s in that box sure causes a lot of excitement. What could it be?”

The cheerleaders lifted the lid, leaned in, and brought out a very embarrassed Jared Kovach.

I gasped aloud as the crowd cheered. Girls all around me screamed as Tabitha introduced the newest recruit to Riley High, like he was some kind of rock star. If they only knew.

In sympathy, Brooklyn wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Just think,” she said into my ear, “none of them have ever been called a flame licker by the guy.”

“He didn’t call me a flame licker.”

“Right, sorry,” she said absently, punching keys on her phone to check messages. So much for sympathy.

*   *   *

“Well, that was interesting,” Brooklyn said as we strolled through the parking lot. Glitch had a team meeting before the big homecoming game, so the rest of us decided to hang at the Java Loft until then.

Despite the fact that we were all technically grounded, Brooklyn and I managed to get permission to go to the game. It was homecoming after all. The big game. The one event that we languished over all year.

Okay, we exaggerated a tad. But at least we got permission to go—with conditions, of course. We had to be home right after the game, missy. No ifs, ands, or buts. Later, when we inevitably got home late, we would simply explain that, first we had to wait for Glitch to help with team stuff, then Ms. Mullins wanted to talk to us about how well we did on the nine-weeks exam—emphasis on
well
and
nine-weeks exam
—then the parking lot was so full, we just sat there for-like-ever. We had no idea it would take us so long just to get out of a parking lot, Grandma.