“All right,” I whispered, rubbing his hand across my cheek. “You get one free kiss … whoever you want.”
Although I could see him struggling, he couldn’t maintain his scowl. A smile broke across his face. It was like the sun breaking out across a tempest-tossed sea.
“What if who I want to kiss is you?” he asked.
“I think that can be arranged,” I said.
Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he drew me to the hard wall of his chest. His arms weren’t the only thing that enveloped me. The smell of him enveloped me, as well — that comforting smell of wood smoke and autumn and something distinctly John that I realized, as his lips came down over mine, now meant only one thing to me: home.
“There’s something you promised you’d tell me when I got back,” he murmured after finally letting me up for air.
At first I was too dazzled by his kiss to remember what he was referring to. Then I blushed.
“Not now,” I said, looking down at Seth, who sat on the floor a few feet away being fussed over by Farah’s friends Nicole and Serena. Bryce was still recuperating nearby, too, though Seth didn’t seem all that sympathetic.
“Did you not hear me?” Seth demanded of Bryce, swatting away the blood-soaked napkins the girls kept pressing to his face. “I said get up and take him out.” He shot a deadly look in John’s direction.
“Bro, I’m not feeling so good.” Bryce clutched his stomach. “Maybe if Cody and those guys hadn’t left. But that guy is pretty big.” Looking up at John, Bryce whispered, as if Seth wouldn’t be able to hear him, “Dude, I think you’d better go. My friend here is really mad at you.”
John glared at Seth. “Tell your friend the feeling is mutual. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. In fact —”
John began to move with murderous purpose towards Seth, but I caught him by the wrist.
“John, no,” I said. “Don’t waste your energy on him. We have more important things to do —”
Right then, one of them came stumbling from the back bedroom into which Frank had carried her.
“Seth,” Farah cried. “Where are you?”
She wasn’t exactly fully recovered, as Seth had assured me she’d be. Kayla and Frank stood on either side of her, each with an arm around her waist. Their support appeared to be all that was keeping Farah on her feet. The only reason she’d stopped moving was because they’d both stumbled to a halt when they saw John. A pleased smile spread over Frank’s face.
“Well,” he said. “Look who’s back from the dead.”
Farah, however, only had eyes for Seth.
“I turn my back on you for one minute,” Farah cried, weaving unsteadily on her high heels, despite her human crutches, but nevertheless able to focus a laser-like glare of wrath at Seth, “and I find out you’ve been hooking up with Pierce Oliviera?”
Seth wasn’t paying any attention to Farah, however. He was staring at someone who stood behind her. Not Kayla or Frank, though. It was someone who’d popped his dark shaggy head up from the basement stairwell.
“Hey, Seth,” Alex said, waving a file folder he had tucked in one hand. “Bad news. Your dad’s office is completely flooded. So’s your truck. But there’s some good news. I managed to print out all this stuff from your dad’s computer before it got ruined. Some kind of geographic reports on Reef Key and how it shouldn’t ever have been made into a housing development on account of — well, your dad probably told you why, didn’t he, Seth?” Alex winked at him. “I’m sure some nerds who know more about this stuff than I do are going to find it very interesting when I send it to them.”
Seth went white as a ghost beneath the blood that was smeared all over his face.
“No,” I heard him mutter. “It’s not possible. You’re dead.”
“No, he’s not,” I said. “I told you.”
“Listen,” Kayla said, ignoring everyone. The usual sparkle was gone from her eyes, and not because she was missing the rhinestones she often pasted at the corner of each of her eyelids. She looked at John and me. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said to John. “But I don’t want to be responsible for adding another inhabitant to your world. Princess here has had way more than just too much to drink —”
Farah’s head had been lolling, but it jerked up at the word princess. “Don’t call me that,” she slurred. “Can’t you call me chiquita like you do your friends?”
“Yeah,” Kayla said unsmilingly. “Not gonna happen. I think we need to get her to the hospital. Nine-one-one says the ambulance can’t make it through with the tidal surge this high, but I know Patrick’s Jeep can —”
“Take her and go,” John said. “Pierce and I will settle things here.”
Outside, the wind was howling so loudly, the sliding glass doors had begun to shake. I questioned once again Seth’s wisdom in not boarding them up. My diamond had gone from ink black to a midnight blue, indicating that while no Furies were immediately present, we weren’t entirely clear of danger.
Seth climbed to his feet as Kayla and Frank began to drag an unresisting Farah towards the front door. “Bryce,” he said, in a tightly controlled voice. “Don’t let those freaks go another step farther.”
Bryce was distracted, however. “Hey,” he said, gazing at the sliding glass doors. “Maybe we should go with them. It’s getting kind of bad out there.”
Seth whirled on Bryce to demand, “Are you kidding me? Have you seen who’s with them?”
The DJ, who himself was on his way out, looked up in alarm at hearing Seth’s tone, and even a couple of the stoners raised their heads from the leather couches and blinked at him.
“Cabrero,” Seth shouted, when Bryce only looked at him blankly. “The file, you idiot! Get that file from Cabrero!”
Bryce shook his head, then turned his attention back towards the storm. “I’m sorry, dude,” he said. “It’s like what they were saying on the news. The bad side of the hurricane is starting to pass over, you know?”
Alex had hurried forward to open the front door for Frank and Kayla. Now, after the two of them had safely passed the stained-glass double dolphins, Alex turned to wave the file folder suggestively at Seth, along with both his middle fingers.
“Better luck killing me next time,” he called. “Oh, and great party, thanks.”
He disappeared into the storm, slamming the double doors behind him.
“You idiot,” Seth yelled, throwing an empty red party cup at Bryce. The floor was littered with them, everyone having dropped them where they stood as they’d fled the party. They lined the floor the way red poinciana blossoms lined John’s crypt, surrounding the cracked, empty coffin Farah and Serena had decorated.
“Hey, man. Not cool,” the DJ said disapprovingly to Seth. He threw on a rain poncho. “I’m out of here.”
“Can we get a ride?” Nicole asked, grabbing her sequined clutch. “I’m pretty sure my Audi’s not gonna start.”
“If you help carry my equipment,” the DJ said. He strode over to lift each of the remaining stoners from the couch by their shirt collars, like a shepherd tending to his flock. “Blue van parked over by the bulldozers. It’s a hike. My speakers get wet, you’re paying for them.”
Serena grabbed a turntable. “Bye, Seth,” she called over her shoulder. “Great party.” The gaze she sent in my direction — or, more accurately, John’s direction — indicated that she hadn’t actually thought it was such a great party at all. “See you later.”