Feeling dumb for being the last person in the room standing, Isobel finally slid into the seat next to his, her gaze darting over the room.
A low murmur started among the pockets of groups, growing in volume as everyone went about exchanging ideas. After swapping scribbled sheets of notepaper, two groups even got up and left. And here she was, still stuck trying to commune with a member of the living dead.
Her jaw tightened. She was starting to think that Mr. Swanson’s claim that all pairings had been made “at random” was a bunch of bull. This was probably his idea of a great joke, his way of getting back at her for not turning in that stupid paper on Don Quixote.
“As long as we’re getting things out on the table, so to speak,” he said, calling her attention back to their little space in the corner—it was so weird to hear him talk. “I’m not doing it on my own either.”
He turned his head and caught her with his eyes.
She froze, locked by the intensity of his stare. His eyes were stark and cold, the concentrated green of pale jade. Outlined in smudged black kohl, those eyes focused on her, unblinking through the feathery strands of his jet-black hair, and it was like being watched through a cage by a complacent and calculating cat.
Discomfort welled in her, thick and black as an oil spring.
Who was this guy and what was his royal problem? Her gaze flicked briefly to the small metal loop that hugged one corner of his bottom lip.
He blinked once, then slowly lifted one hand and crooked a beckoning finger at her.
Isobel hesitated but then as though spellbound to obey, she found herself leaning in.
“What are you staring at?” he whispered.
She drew back, her face going hot. She swiveled away from him and put her hand in the air. Mayday, Swanson. Do you read me?
There came a slow, ominous clink of chains from behind her. Isobel went rigid. She lowered her hand and, looking up, found him towering over her, all tall straightness and stone pale.
She bit back a protest as he took her hand in his. She gawked as one long-fingered hand grasped hers and stared, unblinking, at the black pen that appeared from nowhere and began moving against her skin, the tip as cold and sharp as those eyes.
Oh. My. God. He was writing on her.
She tried to make a noise but couldn’t.
His face remained emotionless as he made small, careful lines with the pen. The steady impression of the ballpoint tickled, creating knots in her stomach.
All she could do was stare at an enormous ring, molded into the shape of a silver dragon, as it snarled at her from his middle finger.
When at last he finished, he released her hand and, with one final almost admonishing stab of that razor gaze, turned away. Grabbing his black book, he slung his beaten leather satchel over one shoulder. “Don’t call after nine,” he said, and tucking the pen behind one ear, strolled out of the classroom.
Isobel’s face burned. Her skin tingled where he’d touched her, with an almost imperceptible electricity that she couldn’t be sure if she was imagining. Like the tips of her fingers had somehow fallen asleep.
She took a quick inventory, first of her senses, then of the people still in the room, afraid to see who had noticed, amazed that apparently no one had. Even Eagle Eye Swanson had just returned to his desk, where he now sat munching a sandwich and leafing through the school paper, the Hawk’s Call.
Isobel looked down at her hand again.
In deep purple ink, he’d written
“V—555-0710.”
2
Marked
“So are you going to tell Brad?” Nikki asked, an all-too-eager gleam in her pretty sapphire eyes.
Isobel dialed her combination, then kicked the dented bottom corner of her locker. The door popped open, sending her makeup bag toppling out to hit the floor with a muffled crack, contents spilling.
“No,” she muttered, and squatted to recover her eye shadow, the bronze cake of color inside having split apart into crumbles. She growl-sighed, shoving it all back into the pouch, yet again catching sight of the slanted, dark purple numbers that glared like an insignia against her skin.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Isobel said, “I think Mr. Swanson likes the guy, and anyway, I have to pull off a good grade because of that paper I didn’t do.”
Isobel rose to stuff the pouch back into her locker when Nikki halted her, grabbing her by the wrist, shaking her own hand at her. “Izzy,” she said, “look at this! He wrote on you. Like he was marking you as his next victim or something.”
Isobel pulled her hand away. “Okay!” she said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “We’ve already established that he’s a weirdo. So let’s just leave it at that. Brad doesn’t need to know.”
She jumped, cutting off Nikki’s prepared retort, startled by a mysterious hand that, with a clink of bracelets, appeared from around the side of her open locker door. The handheld Isobel’s runaway tube of Raspberry Ice lip gloss between a set of long fingers.
Isobel took the gloss and tossed it into her locker, about to mutter a quick thanks, when Nikki interrupted, snatching her wrist again.
“I mean, look at this!” she said, bringing Isobel’s hand to her nose, scrutinizing the numbers as though they spelled some hidden message. “It probably means you’ve made his death list or something. I mean, the guy is a total Trench Coat Mafia wacko.”
Isobel detached her wrist from Nikki’s grasp once more and leveled a mordant stare at her friend. “Nikki, are you kidding me? It’s a phone number.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I’m saying. You got hit on by Lurch, and now he’s going to leave dead animals on your porch and cyber-stalk your Facebook page.”
“It isn’t like that.” Isobel sighed again. “We just got stuck together for this . . . thing.”
She stared into her open locker as she changed out her books.
To her, the presence of Varen Nethers, aka “that one guy,” had always been like that of a fleeting shadow, an estranged entity that floated through the halls, never wanting to be bothered. In all truth, he’d probably crossed her mind no more than a handful of times and even then, only when someone chose to dredge up the latest crazy goth-centric gossip. She’d never had a class with him until this year, and Trenton was a big enough school that her day-to-day interaction with him had, before now, never amounted to more than the occasional hallway pass-by.
Isobel jumped again, shaken from her reverie, her breath catching when the mystery hand reappeared. This time it looped over the top of her locker door, the fingers clutching a familiar pistachio-green cylinder.
Cautiously Isobel took the tube of Pink Goddess lipstick and watched the hand of her locker neighbor slither away once more. She glanced at Nikki, who made a show of blinking before grasping Isobel’s locker door and moving it aside. But the girl—Isobel thought her name was Grace or Gabbie—slammed her own locker shut, swiveled away without a word, and walked off.
“Creepers,” Nikki muttered. She plucked the lipstick from Isobel’s hand and, repositioning the locker door, stooped to use the mirror inside. “Back into the Middle Ages she goes.”
Isobel watched the retreating back of the girl, whose too long, too straight brown hair swished in time with her floor-length broom skirt. With a final faint tinkle of bracelets, the girl swept around the next corner and out of sight.
“Anyway,” Nikki said, finishing with the lipstick and tucking the tube back into Isobel’s makeup bag. She blotted her lips and popped her mouth. “I still think you should tell Brad.”
“Drop it, Nikki. I’m not going to tell Brad,” Isobel snapped. “And don’t you tell him either,” she added, slamming her locker door shut. At this, Nikki’s expression morphed, fading at once from scandalized coyness into wounded annoyance, and Isobel had only half a beat to regret her words before her friend twirled away.