I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream and smack him like I really wanted to. Instead, all I did was shake my head and say in my coldest voice, “Erik, enough. Just because we’re back together doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”
“How about does it mean you don’t cheat on me again with your human boyfriend?” Erik snapped.
I gasped and took a step back from him like he’d slapped me. “Why the hell do you think you can talk to me like that?” My stomach clenched up so hard I thought I was going to be sick, but I ignored it, meeting Erik’s angry glare with a steely stare of my own. “As your girlfriend, you’ve just pissed me off. As your High Priestess, you’ve just insulted me. And as someone with a working brain, you’ve made me wonder if you’ve lost every bit of your sense. What do you think I’m going to do in the minute or so I’d be alone with Heath standing outside in the parking lot during an ice storm? Lie down and let him do me right there on the cement? Is that really the kind of girl you think I am?”
Erik didn’t say anything; he just kept glaring at me.
In the electric silence Heath’s chuckle was supermocking. “Hey, Erik, let me give you a little advice about our Zo. She really, really, really doesn’t like it when you try to tell her what to do. And that’s how she’s been since, uh, I dunno, third grade or so. I mean, even before she got the vamp mojo from her goddess, she hated to be bossed around.” Heath held out his hand to me. “So would ya walk outside with me for just a sec so we can talk without an audience?”
“Yes, yes I would. I think I need some fresh air,” I said. Ignoring Erik’s pissed-off stare and Heath’s offered hand, I stomped over to the metal grating that looked way more closed and secure than it was and with an annoyed shove pushed it aside and walked out into a very nasty winter evening. The blast of cold wet air felt good on my heated face, and I breathed deep, trying to calm down and not shriek my frustration with Erik up into the bruised gray of the sky.
At first I thought it was raining, but pretty quickly I realized it was more like the sky was spitting little pieces of ice. It wasn’t coming down thick, but it was constant, and the parking lot, railroad tracks, and the side of the old depot building were already starting to take on the weird magical look of being gilded with ice.
“My truck’s just over there.” Heath pointed to where his truck was parked at the edge of the deserted parking lot under a tree that had obviously at one time been planted as an ornament near the sidewalk that wrapped around the depot. Years of being ignored and not pruned had really messed with it, though, and instead of fitting neatly into its circular opening in the cement, the tree had grown way bigger than it should have and its roots had broken the sidewalk around it. Its ice-slick limbs swayed precariously close to the old granite building; some of them were actually leaning on the roof. Just looking up at the tree made me cringe. If we got much more ice, the poor old thing was probably going to shatter into zillions of pieces.
“Here,” Heath held one side of his coat up over my head. “Come on over to my truck so we can talk out of this mess.”
I glanced around at the gray, soggy landscape. Nothing seemed frightening or freaky—as in half-man, half-bird grossness. It was just wet and cold and empty.
“Okay, yeah,” I said, and let Heath lead me over to his truck. I probably shouldn’t have let him hold his coat over me and tuck me close to his side while I clutched on to him to keep from falling on the ice-slick pavement, but it felt so familiar and easy to be with him that I didn’t even hesitate. Let’s face it, Heath’s been in my life since I was in grade school. I was literally more comfortable with him than with anyone else in the world, except for my Grandma. No matter what was going on, or not going on, between us, Heath was like family to me. Actually, he’s better than the vast majority of my family. It was hard to imagine trying to treat him all formally like he was a stranger. After all, Heath had been my friend before he’d become my boyfriend. But he can never just be my friend again; there’ll always be more between us than that, whispered my conscience, but I ignored it.
We got to his truck and Heath opened the door for me, the interior smelling of an odd, familiar mixture of Heath and Armor All. (Heath is a neat freak about his truck; I swear you could eat off the seats.) Instead of sliding in, I hesitated. Sitting next to him in the cab of his truck was just too intimate, too reminiscent of the years I had been his girlfriend. So instead, I pulled a little away from him and half sat, half leaned on the end of the passenger’s seat, enough out of the icy rain to stay semidry. Heath gave me a sad smile, like he understood that I was doing my best to resist being with him again, and leaned against his side of the open door.
“Okay, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I don’t like you being here. I don’t remember everything, but I do remember enough to know that the tunnels down there are bad news. I know you said those undead kids have changed, but I still don’t like you being down there with them. It doesn’t seem safe,” he said, looking serious and worried.
“Well, I don’t blame you for thinking it’s disgusting down there, but it really has changed. The kids are different, too. They have their humanity back. Plus, it’s the safest place for us right now.”
Heath studied my face for a long time, then he let out a heavy sigh. “You’re the one who’s the priestess and stuff like that, so you know what you’re doing. It just feels weird to me. Are you sure you shouldn’t go back to the House of Night? Maybe this fallen angel guy isn’t as bad as you think he is.”
“No, Heath, he’s bad. Just trust me on this one. And the Raven Mockers are seriously dangerous. It’s not safe to go back to school. You didn’t see him when he rose out of the ground. It’s like he can put a spell on fledglings and vampyres. It’s really creepy. You already know how powerful Neferet is. Well, I think Kalona is even more powerful than her.”
“That is bad,” Heath agreed.
“Yeah.”
Heath nodded and didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. I looked back at him, and somehow got caught by his sweet, brown-eyed gaze. I’d been sitting there in silence for a while, just looking into his eyes, when I started to be intensely aware of him. I could smell Heath. It was the nice, soapy, Heath smell that I’d grown up with. He was standing close enough to me that I could feel the heat from his body.
Slowly, without saying a word, Heath took my hand and turned it over so that he could look at the intricate tattoos that decorated it. He traced the pattern with one of his fingers.
“It’s really amazing that this has happened to you,” he said softly, still studying my hand. “Sometimes when I’m waking up in the morning I forget that you’ve been Marked and you’re at the House of Night, and the first thing I think is how much I’m looking forward to knowing you’re going to be at the game Friday night watching me play. Or that I can’t wait to see you before school getting sausage rolls and your brown pop at Daylight Donuts.” He looked up from my hand and into my eyes. “And then I wake all the way up and remember that you won’t be there for any of those things. That wasn’t so bad when we were Imprinted, ’cause I still felt like I had a chance, that I still had a part of you. But now even that’s gone.”
Heath made my insides tremble. “I’m sorry, Heath. I—I just don’t know what else to say. I can’t change any of this.”
“Yes, you can.” Heath lifted my hand and pressed my palm against his black Broken Arrow Tigers football shirt just over his heart. “Can you feel it beating?” he whispered.