The Dead List (13 page)

“You okay?” Heidi bumped her shoulder against mine.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile that felt weird on my face. I needed to get some sleep tonight because my paranoia was at an all time new high. As we left the cafeteria, I glanced up the wide hall leading to the front entrance of the school. I squinted.

“Cops?” Heidi said, swinging her purple book bag.

I shook my head. Definitely cops, but not the school kind. They were deputies, and from this distance, I couldn’t tell who they were, but one of them looked like Deputy Jordan—the officer from where Jensen was giving me lessons. “I wonder why they’re here?”

Heidi’s delicate brows furrowed together. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s about rainbows and puppy dog tails.”

Wrinkling my nose, I pressed my lips together “Yeah, I doubt it.”

Curious about their presence, I dwelled on it throughout trig class. Heidi was right in her own little weird way. Deputies at the school didn’t bode well, but there could be a million reasons as to why they were here. During art class, my last period of the day, I couldn’t sit still in my class as we studied a bunch of paintings of vases with flowers in them and started our own versions of the paintings. Nervous energy built in my system, like I’d chugged three Red Bulls.

It had nothing to do with my impending self-defense lesson.

At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

Needing to drop off my books and grab my English text for homework, I headed to my locker with Linds, crossing paths with Gavin, who ended up tagging along. The black shirt he wore had more wrinkles in it than an elderly home.

“You should volunteer to help out with the haunted farmhouse this year.” Linds eyed Gavin like he needed to have a reason to be where he was.

“Huh?” He frowned, appearing distracted.

“The haunted farmhouse,” Linds repeated, sighing as I stopped in front of my locker. “You know. The thing we do every year that you never help out with.”

“Also the thing that Linds cons me into doing every year,” I added, hiding my grin when she shot me a dirty look.

“Oh, yeah. That.” Gavin leaned against the locker beside mine. “You know, not interested.”

Linds frowned, but like a tenacious pitbull, she wasn’t ready to drop it yet. “You know, you should be interested. Volunteering builds good karma. And you want good karma, right?”

“I’m pretty sure volunteering for Habitat for Humanity brings good Karma,” he reasoned, glancing over at me with a slight smile on his face. “Not volunteering for a stupid haunted attraction.”

“You’re going to Hell for that,” Linds replied.

“I’m not sure that’s helping your case.” Laughing, I opened my locker door and came face to face with a wide smile and black, empty eyes. A scream burst out of me as I jumped back, dropping my book bag on the floor.

“What the hell?” Gavin pushed off the locker, swinging around so he faced mine. “Jesus.”

Linds clapped both of her hands over her mouth.

Hanging from a rope off the small hook in the back of my locker was nearly an identical replica of the mask the attacker had worn—the same kind of mask I’d found on my bed, but had disappeared as if it had never been there.

It was the same wide, red smile and large, empty eyes painted on a plastic mask.

My heart kicked in my chest as I squeezed my eyes shut. Arms went around me, turning me away from the locker. It was just a stupid mask, but good God, seeing it again froze the blood in my veins. All I could see was the mask inches from my face and feel the hands around my neck, squeezing the life right out of me.

Someone smothered a laugh behind me. Or attempted to. Another person issued a harsh curse. I pressed my face against Gavin’s chest, wanting to wash away the image of the mask. The trembling edge of panic crept over me.

“What’s going on?” boomed a deep voice—Mr. Holden, our English teacher. “Hey, what is…?”

Gavin stepped back, pulling me with him, and I knew the moment the teacher had arrived. I opened my eyes as Mr. Holden walked in front of us.

“This is ridiculous!” shouted Mr. Holden, snatching the mask out of my locker. “Masks? Dead birds? These are not funny, people. Have some common sense.”

As Mr. Holden raged on about the “seriously disappointing level of maturity” in the school, Gavin and Linds quickly ushered me away. We made it to the stairwell by the time I realized my face was still planted against Gavin’s chest and his arm was around me. There was something too intimate about the embrace, so I pulled away, slipping out of his arms. I was a little embarrassed, because I felt… it felt weak, but maybe I was being too harsh on myself. I did almost die in the hands of someone wearing that mask.

“You okay?” Linds caught my hand, her dark eyes flashing.

“Yeah, it’s just, I saw that and all I could think of was what happened. I wasn’t prepared for that.” As the initial shock of seeing the mask in my locker faded, anger rose like a fire-breathing dragon. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know.” Gavin reached for the door, opening it. “Someone with an extremely sick sense of humor.”

My hands were shaking as I went down the cement stairs. “It wasn’t there before lunch. Someone had to have gotten in to my locker and put it in there afterward.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to do.” Linds tucked a tight curl back behind her ear. “I mean, you hit those lockers in the right spot, and they pop right open.”

That much was true, but I didn’t get why someone would do that. Like the dead cardinal, it was the kind of prank that was unnaturally cruel and not funny.

“They shouldn’t have given the description of the mask in the news,” Linds commented. “I get why they did it, but every idiot knows what it looks like now and they’re doing shit like this. Kind of like that old movie in the nineties, where the killer wore the mask and then everybody at school started wearing one. Who knew people in real life would be just as stupid?”

Gavin snorted. “I would’ve wagered that they would’ve been that stupid.”

“I don’t get it, though,” I said as we stepped into the warm air outside, my heart still beating too fast. “It wasn’t funny. Knowing what happened to me, why would someone do that?”

Linds looked away, nibbling on her lower lip.

My breath caught as anger and a tangy fear warred inside me. “What if it wasn’t a prank?”

She stopped, folding her arms around her waist. “What else could it be?”

“Maybe a warning?” I shivered in spite of the warm air.

“A warning of what?” Gavin found my hand, gently squeezing it when I didn’t answer, because there was none. “I don’t know, but it was a prank, obviously a really bad one, but that’s all it was.”

I squeezed his hand back, but the knot below my ribs had sprouted a bunch more as I glanced over my shoulder, back at the school. Deep down, call it instinct or good old paranoia, but I knew that mask wasn’t just a prank.

And maybe neither was the cardinal.

#

“What to try something different?”

I nodded as Jensen’s arms slipped from around mine, and he stepped back as I faced him. We’d been practicing the whole bear hug thing again, and I was pretty sure I got it, but according to Jensen practice made perfect. “What?”

Wearing nylon blue sweats and a white shirt that would’ve looked average on anyone else, he looked like a young celebrity caught leaving the gym. He brushed a lock of light brown hair off his forehead and grinned. Immediately, I was suspicious.

“Want to hit me?” he asked.

A surprised laugh escaped me. “What?”

“Hit me.” He walked to where I stood and then laughed as I gaped at him. “Not every attacker is going to come from behind you. Some are going to come right at you and you said you wanted to know how to fight, you’ve got to know where to hit.”

“Oh.” I popped my hands on my hips. “So kicking a guy in the balls and running isn’t the best method?”

Jensen winced. “That would work, too, but I’m sure you’d want a little more in your bag of tricks.”

I grinned, surprised by how relaxed I was. One would think this kind of class would be stressful, but since we’d begun, I hadn’t thought about what happened with my locker or the nightmare I’d had last night. There really was something empowering in making a conscious decision to protect myself

“I want to see what kind of punch you pack,” he continued. “And don’t worry about hurting me. I can take—”

Cocking back my arm, I punched him in the stomach. Dull pain lanced over my knuckles as I drew my hand back, shaking my fingers, and damn if his hard stomach didn’t give one centimeter, but surprise did widen his eyes.

“How was that?” I asked, massaging away the twinge in my shoulder.

He tipped his head back and laughed. “You hit like a girl.”

I scowled at him. “Well, I am a girl in case you’ve forgotten.”

Lowering his chin, his gaze started at the tip of my bare feet and slowly made its way up to my lips. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten. Trust me.”

My frown slipped away, and I had no idea what to say to that, because I felt like the kind of girl who would break out in a fit of giggles at any given moment around him.

“Nah, you actually did pretty good and I’m honestly just pretending that didn’t hurt because it did, but you’re throwing a punch wrong.” He moved so that he stood behind me. “You have to throw from your stomach—not your arm. Doing it the wrong way is a sure-fire way of injuring yourself. See?” He placed his fingers on my right shoulder, over the tight muscles. “Aches, doesn’t it?”

I started to tell him it wasn’t that bad, because it really wasn’t, but the tips of his fingers pressed into my shoulder. Holy Cracker Jack, he hit the
right
spot. Like the kind of spot I didn’t even know existed. My back arched as he moved his thumb in a tight circle. He moved closer, until the front of his leg brushed the back of mine. Warm breath danced along my neck, sending shivers skipping across my skin.

“I heard about the mask in your locker,” he said after a few moments.

I tensed. “How… how did you hear about that?” He hadn’t been around when it happened.

“Brock texted me.” His other hand rose to my opposite shoulder, and I bit down on my lower lip to stop a sound that I would’ve been mortified over. “He said someone had hung it up in there.”

I kept my eyes peeled open, refusing to see that empty mask.

He continued to move his thumbs, loosening the muscles that had tensed. “I’m sorry that happened to you. Whoever did it is a dumbass.”

A heartbeat passed. “You… you think it was a prank?”

His fingers stilled only for a moment. “What else could it be?”

I didn’t answer, because voicing my suspicions out loud gave voice to how absurd they sounded.

“Ella?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning my head slightly. “I was just… thinking out loud.”

Jensen fell quiet after that, and my muscles had long since loosened, but his magic fingers kept doing their thing. I wasn’t sure how long he kept at it, but my skin felt toasty.

“Better?” he asked, voice gruff as his hand slid down my side.

Jelly had replaced my muscles. “Yeah.”

He cleared his throat as he shifted behind me, putting some space between our bodies as he rested one hand against the center of my stomach. I jerked at the contact. “Easy,” he murmured, stirring the soft strands of hair at my temple. “Move your arm back—your right arm, like you’re about to throw a punch.”

I did what he asked, and his fingers splayed across my stomach.

“Now move your arm like you’re hitting someone, but use your stomach to turn—to put the power behind the throw.”

Biting down on my lip and forcing myself to concentrate, I did as he said, which turned out to be incorrect. Jensen took my left hand and placed it where his hand on my stomach had been and then he gripped my hips.

Oh dear.

A tremble coursed down my legs. When I threw my next punch, he tilted my hips, and I finally got what he was saying. And I got a whole lot of other things that had nothing to do with his training. My imagination face planted the gutter.

We went through the motion a couple more times, taking longer than necessary, probably because I wasn’t all that focused. When we finally broke apart and I turned toward him, my face felt like I’d been sunbathing during a solar storm.

His eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, shaded by thick, dark lashes, and I averted my gaze before I did something stupid, like tell him he had beautiful eyes.

“Want to get something to eat?” he asked.

The question caught me off guard, drawing my wide gaze back to his.

An uneven grin appeared. “Based on the way you’re staring at me, I’m going to either go with you didn’t hear me or it’s a resounding no.”

“It’s just that you haven’t shown me where I should be hitting someone.”

“I know.”

When he didn’t elaborate, I fiddled with the edge of my ponytail. “Okay. I thought we’d do that today. It’s still pretty early.”

“And that’s why I asked if you wanted something to eat.” He swaggered up to me, and I held my breath. He reached out, caught my fingers and gently pulled them away from my hair. “You didn’t eat much at lunch today.” His gaze flicked away when my brows rose. “You were dropping off your tray. Half your food was still there.”

“You noticed that?”

His gaze bounced back to mine. “I always notice you.”

Again, I was struck absolutely speechless.

“And I’m actually attempting to delay my training sessions with you. You know, string them out so I have a reason for monopolizing your free time.” Dropping my hair, he grinned at my dumbfounded expression. “You’re surprised. Don’t even try to say you’re not. You’ve never been able to keep what you’re thinking off your face.”

Jensen touched my injured cheek that was almost completely healed with the tips of his warm fingers. “I always liked that about you.”

I raised my gaze and our eyes locked. So many things rose to the tip of my tongue. Lots of questions. He’d said he wanted to be friends, but he was awful touchy to be considered that, and there was more to it, in the way he
did
touch me, how he looked at me, even the way he spoke.