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“What does my pansy factor have to do with anything?” John asked. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. I need you to talk to Chloe for me. I want you to tell her what I can’t.”
He could have resisted. He still didn’t know what would happen if he failed, or even if he succeeded. But right now he was John’s only link to the living, and he knew what it was like to want something desperately but be unable to have it. Okay, he wrote.
John sucked in a breath. “Really? You’ll talk to her?”
He gave another nod.
“You swear?”
Another nod.
“Today?”
Nod. What do you want me to tell her?
“If you’re lying…” John balled his fists and slammed them against Aden’s desk. The intensity of his emotion must have given him some solidity, because Aden’s desk rattled. As the students around him jolted, John said, “I’ll follow you. I swear I will. I’ll haunt you until you do it.”
Aden tapped his finger against the question.
John’s anger melted, dejection taking its place. “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I didn’t use her, that I…loved her. I did.”
Aden’s brow creased in confusion.
Shame coasted over the boy’s face. “We didn’t hang with the same people, but I asked her out on a dare. I never expected to like her. But I did. Her emotions are so pure, you know? Not overpowering. Then she overheard my friends teasing me about her. They wanted her to hear. Pla
John stared down at his wringing hands. “God, man. Her devastation…I can still feel it. It’s like I soaked it up and it became a part of me. I tried to talk to her, to explain, but she wanted nothing to do with me. I was desperate to forget, to feel nothing, you know, and did something stupid. Now, here I am.” His voice trailed off, perhaps too shaky to work past his throat, and he coughed in renewed embarrassment.
“—Mr. Stone?”
Aden straightened in his seat. The teacher was holding out a piece of chalk. “I’m sorry, what?”
I’ve been listening to him, Eve said, always the one to his rescue. He asked you to conjugate the verb run in Spanish.
“Never mind,” Aden muttered, pushing to his feet. He approached the head of the class with trepidation. “Sí, señor” was the only Spanish he knew.
Good luck, Caleb said. I could tell you the color underwear the blonde to your right is wearing—rojo. That means red, by the way. But that’s all I know.
“I’ll help,” John said, keeping pace beside him.
Thank God. With John telling him what to write, Aden managed to impress the teacher for the first time. He didn’t feel guilty about cheating, either. As he’d listened to John and written what he’d heard, he’d learned.
Halfway back to his seat, the bell rang. Crap. He wasn’t finished talking to John. He quickened his step, swiped up his backpack, then lifted the pad and pen and wrote, Since I’m helping you with Chloe, will you help me? I need a bottle of nail polish.
John barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t peg you as the type.”
He shook his head as kids filed past him, jaw locked together, cheeks heating. It’s for a girl. Last night after Victoria had left him so abruptly, he’d started to think. She had to paint her fingernails with that metal to protect herself from…he couldn’t recall the name of the liquid in her ring, but she could paint her toenails and she loved color, so…
Still laughing, John asked, “Any particular color?”
Doesn’t matter, he wrote. As long as it’s not black. If you can’t, I’ll—
“Oh, I can. I’ve learned a few tricks these last few months. And I happen to know where Mr. White keeps all the bottles the teachers confiscate from the students.”
Has to be unopened, never used.
“Mr. Stone. The bell rang,” the teacher, Señor Smith, said impatiently. “You need to leave.”
“Never used won’t be a problem,” John said.
Aden crossed the room to the door. John remained beside him until he hit the hallway, then disappeared.
Time to hunt for Chloe. It was now lunch, so she should be in the cafeteria. He’d pla
Something slammed into his shoulder, and his bag went flying. Suddenly Tucker loomed in front of him, scowling, pure menace. Determined. “Watch where you’re going, Crazy.”
He ground his teeth. “Get out of my face, Tucker.” He didn’t need the threat of Tucker now, on top of the threat Ozzie still presented. Not to mention all the creatures newly arrived in town.
“What’ cha go
The world around him faded, another taking its place. This one was an empty alleyway, redbrick walls colored with graffiti. There was a Dumpster and rats ran along the edges. In the background, he could even hear the wail of a police siren. What the hell?
“It’s just you and me now,” the jock said, smug.
Aden saw the way Tucker’s eyes were swirling, the gray laced with sizzling silver. This had to be an illusion, he realized grimly. Tucker had tried before, but it hadn’t worked. This time, Mary A
Riley somehow always negated Mary A
Lost in thought as he was, he was unprepared when Tucker shoved him and went flying backward. He tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. Though his eyes told him he’d hit a brick wall, that wall jumped away from him with a curse. Had he actually hit a person?
Tucker gri
As Aden popped to his feet, Tucker launched forward. Back to the ground he went, but this time he rolled, pi
“I don’t want to fight you,” he snarled.
“Chicken?” Tucker jerked his arms free, grabbed hold of his shoulders and tossed him aside.
Just determined to stay here. He stood, fingers curling into fists. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I’ve never done anything to hurt you.”
“Go ahead.” Tucker stood, too. “Get up and walk away. I’ll just follow you. I’ll be your new shadow. Every time you turn around, there I’ll be, my fist in your face. Then, when I’m done with you, I’ll turn on Mary A
Aden roared, his rage springing up, spilling over. Tucker’s eyes widened as Aden’s fist came at him. Contact. Cartilage snapped and blood poured. Tucker howled in pain.
Stop, Eve said. You have to stop. He’s just taunting you, trying to force you into this fight so you’ll be kicked out of school.
Aden was past the point of listening. No one threatened his friends. Him, sure. He’d dealt with threats his entire life. But Mary A
Next thing he knew, a fist was co
Destroy him, Caleb said.
No matter whose face he shows you, attack, Julian added.
Eve is right, Elijah said, trying to be the voice of reason. He’s provoking you on purpose. Only reason he hit you back is because his own temper is too volatile to control.