Inception (The Marked Book 1) (17 page)

“Like if I had my own time machine?” I resisted the urge to laugh considering the gravity of it.

“Something like that.”

I didn’t have to think about it. I knew without a doubt that if I could go back in time and change things—warn him about what was coming—I would do it. “In a heartbeat.”

“Even if it goes against the rules? Even if other people get
hurt
because of it? Would you still do it?”

“I-I don’t know. Why are you asking me this?” I suddenly felt suffocated under the weight of the conversation.

“It’s just a hypothetical,” he said curtly. “Would you do it?” His eyes met mine, stirring me with their depth.

Would I sacrifice innocent people so that I could have my father back? I felt the shame before I gave my answer. “I would give anything to have him back,” I admitted, dropping my head.

I wasn’t sure what that said about me but I imagined it wasn’t anything great.

He pushed his knee up against mine.

“I would too,” he said in a gentle voice that made me warm. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for someone I loved.”

His words felt intimate, sacred, like I shouldn’t have been allowed to hear them. It made me wonder what it would feel like to be loved in that way by someone...

To be loved in that way
by him
.

He pulled his leg away from me, steering me back from my errant thoughts. “It’s getting late.” His eyes were pinned on the door. “I should probably go, let you get back to sleep.”

I nodded and then rose with him even though I wasn’t sure how I would ever get back to sleep after everything that had been said tonight. My mind was still reeling from the eddy of emotions circling inside of me and showed no signs of slowing down. I had to get some of it off my chest before he left.

“About what you said earlier tonight,” I began cautiously, following him to the balcony door. He turned to face me, his eyes distracting me with their intensity. “I just want you to know that I respect your decision not to be a part of this
thing
anymore, whatever your reasons are. And I’ll keep my distance if that’s what you want.” I nodded into it, affirming it as my truth. “But I’m not going to quit my job at All Saints. I just thought you should know that.”

I braced myself for his reaction.

“Okay.” He answered too easily, almost as though he had been expecting my refusal all along.

“
Really
? That’s it?”

“Things would have been a lot easier if you never moved here,” he muttered and then stepped out onto the terrace, his dark hair blending into the night.

“Well, I’m sorry your life is worse now that I’m in it,” I called out after him. “If it makes you feel any better, I wish I never moved here, too.”

He stopped abruptly as though I had just flung an insult at his back. Heart pumping, I felt my temperature spike with anticipation when he turned around and walked back over to me, stopping just inches from where I stood in the doorway.

“I don’t,” he whispered, leaning in. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my lips. “I said my life would have been easier, not better.”

“Oh.” My voice was a murmur, barely audible had it not been for his close proximity. “So then, um, are you saying that you’re...I mean, are you happy that...”
Jeez, Jemma, speak much
?

His dimples pressed in, a prelude to his barely there smile. “Yeah, something like that.” He pushed off the door-frame and walked away without saying another word.

Before I could formulate a guess as to how he was going to get off the balcony, he’d already cleared the railing and launched himself over the ledge in one fluid movement. It was completely elegant, and reckless, and stupid. Not to mention, impossible to land.

In a state of panic, I ran to the railing and peered over the edge, praying I wouldn’t find him splayed out all over the concrete below like tattered road kill. But what I found was even more disturbing. I found absolutely nothing.
Zilch
.
Nada
. No sign of him whatsoever.

It was as though Trace Macarthur had just jumped off my balcony and vanished into thin air.

21. CHEMISTRY

I had two missed calls from my sister when I walked into school the next morning, already frazzled. I had yet to take any of her calls since I left her that message over two weeks ago, and with good reason. I was angry with her for lying to me, for hiding the truth from me for all these years. And it didn’t matter that I knew I’d forgive her (eventually), right now I was still mad as hell and I wasn’t ready to let any of it go.

Not to mention, there were slightly more pressing matters to contend with, like training with vampires and ex-Keepers who appeared to vanish into thin air.

“Whoa!” cried Benjamin, grabbing my shoulders to steady me after he blew out of the main office, nearly running me over in the process. “I just saved you from a serious face-plant right there. You owe me big time.”

“I think you almost just
caused
my serious face-plant so I’m not sure that qualifies as an actual save.”

“You say tomato,” he laughed, walking backwards down the hall. “I say you owe me.”

“Hey, Ben, hang on a sec.” I took a few rushed steps to catch up with him and then lowered my voice. “Have you seen Trace this morning? I need him.” I paused to cringe at the playback. “I mean, I need to
find
him. Is he here today?”

His dark blond brows shot up. “Freudian slip?”

“No. Lack of sleep slip. I mean, it’s a lack of sleep—there’s no slip.” I broke eye contact and adjusted my schoolbag awkwardly. “So? Have you seen him?”

“Yeah he’s around here somewhere. Probably at his locker checking his pretty self out in the mirror again,” he grinned, running his palm over his buzzed hair.

“So he’s really here? Like, you’ve actually seen him?”

“Yes, I’ve actually seen him,” he repeated mockingly, though his smile quickly dissipated once he noticed my expression. “Are you feeling alright, Jem? You look a little pale.”

“What? No. Yeah, I’m totally fine.” I tried to laugh it off but it came out unnatural and pitchy. “I lent him my Chemistry book yesterday. I’m just trying to get it back before class.”

That sounded completely legit. But then why didn’t he look convinced?
Shoot
. Did Trace even take chemistry?

“Jemma!” Saved by the freaking bell.

I turned around to see Taylor coming up behind us carrying a bucket of soapy water. I was happy to see her up until I caught wind of the troubled look on her face, and then not so much.

She shook her head. “Just don’t freak out, okay?”

“Wow, Tay. Way to stay calm. I think you missed your calling as a crisis counselor.”

“Shut up, Benjamin!”

“What’s going on?” I asked her, already worried.

“It’s not that bad.” She grabbed my wrist and started towing me down the hall, the bucket hanging rigidly from her other hand. “We can totally clean it. And hardly anyone saw it. It’ll be like it was never even there to begin with.”

Okay, now I was freaking out. “What are you talking about?”

She didn’t answer until we rounded the corner, only adding to the dramatics of it all. She stopped in the middle of the hall and pinned her eyes on the target.

I followed her gaze...to my locker.

The letters S-L-U-T were painted across it in big, black marker for
all
to see. And
all
were definitely seeing. Dozens of other students were walking by, pointing and snickering, obviously chomping at the bit for the chance to spread this newly acquired piece of intel all over the school.

False
intel.

Not that it mattered though. The truth seldom ever did in the face of a juicy lie.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, her tone lacking conviction.

“Really? How can it be any worse?”

Ben stalked up to the locker and began rubbing his finger over the marker in an attempt to erase it, or merge with it, I couldn’t tell. “It can always be worse,” he said without turning back. “It’s permanent marker.”

I groaned.

Taylor tightened her arm around my shoulder as we stood side by side, staring at my locker like a scene from some tragic car wreck—a car wreck that was my life.

“Morning, ladies.” Caleb appeared smiling next to us, along with a far less chipper Trace. “Why are you all…
oh
.” He dropped off as soon as my vandalized locker registered. “Damn.”

“I know, right?” Taylor was taking it pretty bad. She picked up the bucket and moved it to the base of my locker.

“Any idea who did it?” asked Trace, his eyebrows furrowed.

“I’ll give you one hint,” said Taylor ringing out the excess water from the rag. “Her name starts with Nikki Parker.”

“Nikki?” His tone was dripping with skepticism as though he couldn’t even fathom Nikki doing something like this. What planet was he living on anyway?

I rolled my eyes at him.

Even though I had no proof that she did this, I was willing to bet more than a pretty penny that she absolutely
could
do something like this and most likely did. If not her, then who? I couldn’t think of a single person who had it in for me even half as much as Nikki did on a good day. Clearly, the girl had issues. That much had already been established. 

“It’s not coming off,” cried Taylor, throwing the rag back into the bucket just as the first bell wailed around us.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Caleb, reaching for the bucket.

“And what exactly are you going to do? Wave your magic wand around and make it disappear? It’s permanent marker, Cale.”

Caleb looked at Ben strangely before answering her. “I have a special cleaner in my locker. Industrial strength. It should get rid of it, no problem.”

Taylor started saying something back to him but I’d already turned my attention to Trace who was watching from the sidelines. I had some unfinished business to settle with him.

“Can I talk to you for a minute…alone?”

Everyone piped down, their eyes suddenly heavy on us.

“...so that you can give me back the history book I lent you yesterday,” I added choppily.

“Chemistry.”

I turned to Ben with doe-in-the-headlight eyes. “Huh?”

He was grinning. “Don’t you mean your chemistry book?”

Dang it
. “Right. Chemistry. That’s what I meant.”

I grabbed Trace by his sleeve and shuffled us away from their accusing eyes before any other comments could be made. He looked down at me with questioning eyebrows though he didn’t say anything as I towed him along.

“Here’s the thing,” I said as soon as we were in front of his locker and out of earshot. “I know we’re supposed to be staying out of each other’s business and all, but you have to admit it’s kind of hard to do when you throw yourself off my second-story balcony in the middle of the night and then disappear without a trace.”

His dimples ignited. He was laughing at my unintended pun.

“You know what I mean.” The second bell rang, but I hardly cared. “First I thought you were dead, then I thought I was losing my mind and just imagined the whole night, like it was all part of some convoluted fantasy I was having.” I flattened my back against the locker next to his, exhausted by the incessant questioning of my own sanity.

“Fantasy, eh?”

My cheeks warmed at the sound of his husky voice. What the heck was wrong with me?
Stay focused, dammit
. “Just tell me I didn’t imagine it.”

“You didn’t imagine it.” He shut his locker door.

“How did you do it?”

He thought about it for a moment and then stepped out in front of me so that we were standing face to face. Everyone around us faded into the background as he leaned his body into mine and rested his forearm against the locker beside my ear, like he was going to lean in and whisper something, only his lips never made it to my ear.

“You want a play-by-play?” he asked, his molten eyes never leaving mine.

Whoa, gummy legs
. I grabbed the locker behind me to brace myself. “I-I want to know what you are.”

“What I am is late for class.”

“That’s not what I…” I trailed off when his eyes dropped down to my mouth, sending whatever was left of my concentration to hell. I finished off the sentence with an inaudible squeak.

A
freaking
squeak.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” he said as he pushed off the locker and started down the hall.

I let the air expunge from my lungs as I tried to bury the electric charge racing through my body just then. Fortunately for me, it simmered right down the second I noticed Taylor and the others were still standing by my locker, gawking at us with various degrees of astonishment on their faces.

Well, that’s just perfect
, and I forgot the dang book too. I darted off to catch up with him before he reached them.

“I need your chemistry book,” I whispered, anxious and still visibly flustered by our exchange. “I told them you borrowed it. They’ll know I was lying if I show up empty handed.”

“That’s too bad,” he whispered back, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Because I don’t take chemistry.”

Taylor was already waiting for me at my locker when I got there at lunch. I still hadn’t been able to figure out how she consistently managed to get out of class ahead of everyone else and was just about to ask her to spill her trade secrets when I noticed my locker behind her.

“How did you do it?” I asked excitedly, giddy at the sight of my slander-free locker.

“Wasn’t me, babe,” she said, glancing back at the empty canvas. “It must have been Caleb.”

It looked great, good as new. You couldn’t even tell anything had been written there before. I wondered when he had the time to do it. He must have come between classes.

“I bet Nikki was all torn up to see it gone.”

I laughed. “You still think she did it?”

“Well, let’s see,” she said, pressing her pink fingernail to her lips. “Was it mean, vindictive and catty? Check, check, check. Sounds like Nikki to me.”

I shook my head knowing she was probably right.

“Anyway, enough about Nikki. We can plot her takedown later,” she said, re-applying her lip-gloss sans mirror. “We have more important matters to discuss right now.”

“Such as?” I stuffed my books back into my locker.

“Such as you and Trace—” She held up her hand to silence me when I began to protest. “And don’t even try to deny it, I have
eyes
. I could practically see the fireworks shooting out of your head this morning. I want to know what’s going on with you two and don’t spare any of the dirty details!” Her eyes were twinkling like two brilliant slate-blue stars.

“There’s nothing going on. We’re barely even friends.”

“Come on, I’ve seen the way you guys look at each other. You don’t look at someone that way and feel nothing.”

My cheeks flushed. “I don’t look at him in any kind of way.”

“Um, yeah you do,” she said emphatically. “And he looks at you the same way. At first I thought it was just some kind of forbidden fruit thing, but I’m starting to think there’s more to it. It’s like there’s this pull between the two of you, but you’re both too stubborn to admit that you’re into each other. It’s kind of delicious to watch.”

“I’m not into him,” I lied, knowing the truth was slightly more complicated than that. “I mean, obviously, I find him good looking, he’s a good looking guy—”

“He’s an Adonis.”

“—But there’s more to liking someone than just being attracted to them, isn’t there? And none of that even matters if the feelings aren’t mutual, and I happen to know for a fact that he doesn’t like me, nor does he want anything to do with me. He said so himself.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, though I knew it was a loaded statement. “I’m sure that’s the reason he got into it with those two guys from Easton that night at the game...you know, because he doesn’t like you.” She tweaked her eyebrows the way she does when she’s spilling a secret. “I know when I don’t like someone, I definitely make it a point to defend their honor whenever I can,” she added, every word rich with sarcasm.

Defend their honor
? I shut my locker door and turned to face her. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Trace beating up those guys from Easton because of some inappropriate comments they supposedly made about you,” she squawked, beaming as she let the cat out of the bag. “Inappropriate
sexual
comments.”

“What?” My eyes grew wild. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“Oh it’s true!” she insisted. “You can lie to yourself all you want but boys don’t beat up other boys over girls they
don’t
like. It’s like, sacrilegious.” 

“I don’t know where you’re getting this from but I don’t believe it for a minute.”

I couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t make sense.