I felt sick.
“And you’re going to keep breaking her until there is nothing left to break if you don’t figure out a way to let her go.”
I looked away. She made me feel alive again. She made me feel things that should have stayed buried with my body at the bottom of the ocean. God…I’d been dead for so long, I didn’t know how to give that up. “What if I can’t?”
Easton grunted and clutched his scythe, which glowed red between his fingers. Just before he let himself be pulled away by the call of the damned, he whispered, “Then I think you better get used to the idea of Hell.”
Chapter 5
Emma I shut my blinds and let my eyes adjust to the dimness of my room, then flipped on my camera. I felt so unfocused. Rattled even. And by a stupid boy, no less. One I could have sworn I’d seen before, but when I tried to pin down the memory in my head, it floated just out of my grasp like a dream. The way he looked at me, though… It was like he knew me. Like he wanted to consume me. And the way that look sent shivers down my spine made me want to let him.
I shook my head to discard the cute guy’s face from my mind and focused on the digital camera in my hands. It didn’t matter how he looked at me. Once he found out I was the crazy chick who had spent half of junior year in a mental institution, he wouldn’t look at me like that again. And even if he did…it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. I was stupid for even thinking about it.
My phone buzzed beside me and I jumped, dropping the camera on the bed. I stared at the screen, not wanting to answer it, but sighed and picked it up anyway.
“Hey, Mom.” I put it on speaker and set the cell phone in my lap.
“I just got off the phone with your principal. Are you okay?” She sounded frantic. “You should have waited for me to pick you up.”
“You’re thirty minutes away. Besides, I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not even hurt. Promise.”
She sighed and the sound of two car doors slamming shut sounded in the background.
“I’m coming home,” she said. “I can have someone else cover the open house.”
“Why?” I picked up my camera and turned it over in my hands. “So you can watch me do my homework? I can do that without you here.”
She sighed. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes!”
“Okay…I’ll be home right after the open house then. Don’t leave the house until I get home. Got it?”
“Yes. Got it.”
“Love you.”
I told her I loved her, too, then leaned back against my pillows and clicked through the pictures I’d taken at last week’s pep rally until the images blurred together. The boy’s green eyes stayed superimposed on the backs of my lids, offering a glimpse each time I had to blink.
My bedroom window slid open and a gust of cool air swirled into the room. Cash. He must have heard already. Crap.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you have calculus this hour?” I asked, refocusing on the camera.
He ignored my question and turned on the lamp by my bed. “Are you okay?”
I closed my eyes. “How did you find out?”
“Are you kidding? I got three texts before I even got to school. Not to mention the mess they’re still dealing with out front.”
I considered watering down the truth. If I told him everything, he was just going to worry. But if I didn’t tell him, he would just find out from the gossip queens at school, and then he’d be pissed. He was a pain in the ass when he was pissed.
I let my head thump against the bed frame and stared at the ceiling. “The sign fell while I was standing under it. Somebody knocked me out of the way before it landed. End of story. It’s not a big deal.”
He leaned on my desk, his brows pulled together. “Don’t tell me it’s not a big deal. You could have died.”
Like I needed him to remind me. We both knew this wasn’t the first time I’d had a close call like this. And whether he wanted to admit or not, we both knew it wouldn’t be the last. Thinking about all of the times I’d only been a second ahead or behind being the victim of a major “accident” made me want to swathe myself in Bubble Wrap and never leave my room. “I’m fine.”
Cash folded his arms across his chest. I could hear the worry in his quiet sigh, could feel his eyes on me, looking for scratches, bruises, anything that might drive me over the edge. “Do you need to go to the hospital? Just to make sure—”
“The paramedics already checked me out at school. I have a scratch on my knee, that’s it.” I looked over at him. “How did you get out?”
“You act like it requires blueprints and some big escape plan to get out of that place.” He sat a little paper sack and a foam coffee cup on the table. “I just left.”
“You’re going to get detention again,” I said. “And your dad is going to flip out.”
He shrugged. “That’s okay. You can make it up to me. We can order pizza for lunch and watch really bad daytime television.”
I slumped farther into the bed, wanting to do just that. Hide in my hole and refuse to face the rest of the world. But I couldn’t. Not when Mom was forcing me to take this stupid yearbook class.
You’re not involved in anything, Emma. You need a dose of normal. How about more school activities?
“You know I can’t,” I said. “If I don’t get the senior pictures for yearbook ready by Mr. Hall’s deadline, he’s going to fail me. Missing today is already going to screw me. I’m going to have to work on it from home.”
Cash frowned. “You wouldn’t even be worrying about this if it wasn’t for your mom. It’s total bullshit for her to make you take yearbook our senior year. You’re not supposed to be taking pictures of the memories—you’re supposed to be making them with us.”
“I know.” I sighed, then turned back to my camera, hoping he’d drop the drama. I clicked through a picture of our mascot doing a cartwheel. The cheerleaders spurring on the crowd that sat in shiny silver bleachers. Two football players in blue and white face paint. Half of them were ruined, marked up by a random white spot that kept appearing on the prints. “Have you met the new guy yet?”
I wished I could stop thinking about him. Yeah, he’d saved my life, but did that require that every thought be devoted to the guy? Couldn’t I just bake him a pie or something? I blinked and there he was again. Green eyes wide, amazed and nervous all at the same time. Something in my chest fluttered.
You’d be dead if it weren’t for him.
Part of me couldn’t help but think it would be over if it weren’t for him. I didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful.
“What new guy?” Cash asked.
“The one I sort of met in the quad today,” I said. “He saved me from being squished.”
“You mean the someone who knocked you out of the way?” He looked like he was fighting a smile.
“So he’s a guy?”
“Yeah, I think he must be new. I’ve never seen him before.” I think.
“I don’t think I’ve met him. What did he look like?”
I shrugged, feeling my face flush. “I don’t know.” I bit my lip, stalling. “About your height. Kind of short brown hair, green eyes…” I averted my eyes. “Cute.”
“Do you like him?” Cash finally broke into a full-on grin. “Of course you do! He saved you. Chicks love that crap. Does this mean you’re actually going to go on a real date now?”