My skin snaps tight.
“Jacinda, what is it? We’re going to be late to class.”
I don’t care. I don’t move. It can’t be him. He can’t be here. Why would he be here?
But it is him.
Will.
He leans against the lockers, taller than everyone around him. Twirly-hair Brooklyn plays with the hem of his shirt, shamelessly leaning into him, glossy lips moving nonstop. He smiles, nods, listens as she chatters, but I sense that he doesn’t really care, that he’s somewhere else…or wants to be. Just like me.
I can’t look away.
Honey brown hair falls over his brow carelessly, and I remember it darkly wet and slicked back from his face. I remember the two of us alone in a cave, his hand on mine and that spark that passed between us before his face became so stark and angry. Before he vanished.
Tamra sighs beside me and twists around to see. “Ah,” she murmurs knowingly. “Yummy. Too bad though. It looks like he’s got a girlfriend. You’ll have to set your sights on someone else—” Facing me, she gasps. “Jace! You’re glowing!”
That jerks my attention back. I glance down at my arms. My skin blurs in and out, shimmering faintly, like I’ve been dusted with gold.
The draki in me stirs, tingling, yearning to come out.
“God, get a grip, jeez!” Tamra hisses, leaning closer. “You see a hot guy and start to manifest? Have some control.”
But I can’t. That’s what Tamra never understood. When emotions run high, the draki surfaces. In times of fear, excitement, arousal…the draki comes out. It’s the way we are.
I look back at Will and pleasure whips through me. And beneath it, fear at what his being here means.
My sister grabs my arm and squeezes almost cruelly. “Jacinda, stop it! Stop it now!”
Will’s head lifts with the suddenness of a predator scenting its prey and I wonder if hunters are really human at all. If maybe they aren’t just as otherworldly as the draki. He looks around, searching the hall as I struggle to get myself under control. Before he sees me. Before he knows.
My lungs start to smolder, the familiar burn catching the exact moment his hazel eyes lock on mine.
The slam of my locker jars me and I tear my gaze off him. To Tamra. Her hand presses flat my locker, her fingertips white where they dig hard into the metal.
The last bell sounds.
With a quick dip, she grabs my books off the floor and drags me toward the bathroom. I glance over my shoulder as bodies empty the hall in a rush of unnatural scents. Perfumes, colognes, lotions, hair sprays, gels…they clog my senses. Here, nothing feels real. Except the boy staring after me. He watches. His gleaming gaze following, stalking me like the predator I sense in him. He moves away from the lockers in a loping, catlike motion.
My draki continues to stir, awake and alive at the hungry way he watches me. My skin quivers, the flesh of my back tingling, itchy where my wings push. I keep them buried. Buried, but not dormant.
Tamra’s hand tugs harder, pulling me. And I lose sight of him. He’s swallowed up in the flurry of humankind around me, like so many moths bumping and dancing around a light, congesting the hallway.
But I still feel him. Yearn for him. Know he’s there even when I no longer see him.
My nostrils flare against the harsh bite of astringent. Instantly, my draki withers at the unnatural odor. I press a hand to my mouth and nose. The hint of fire in my lungs dies. My back stops tingling.
Tamra’s gaze slides over me, and she exhales, clearly satisfied to see it’s me again. The
“You’ve stopped glowing. Thank God! Are you trying to blow it for us?”
I stare toward the bathroom door. Almost like I expect him to follow. “Did he see?”
“I don’t think so.” She shrugs one shoulder. “He wouldn’t know what he saw anyway.”
That’s true, I suppose. Even hunters don’t know draki manifest into human form. It’s been our most carefully guarded secret. Our greatest defense. And it’s not like I was unfurling my wings in the hallway. Not quite, anyway.
I hug my arms as the invigorating hum fades from my core. This is my chance, I realize. I can tell her about Will…confess just how much I risked that day in the cave with him…confess how much I risk right now. I can declare everything as I stand in this putrid bathroom. Tamra squints at my face. “Are you going to be okay? Should I call Mom?”
I consider this. And more. Like what Mom would say if I tell her everything. What would she do? And instantly I know. She’d yank us out of school. But she wouldn’t take us back to the pride. Oh no. She would just plant us in some other town. Some other school in another desert. In a week, I would be redoing this wretched first day all over again, suffering the heat and climate somewhere else without a beautiful, exciting boy around. A boy whose mere presence has revitalized my draki — the very part of me that hasn’t felt alive since we left the mountains. How can I walk away from that? From him?
Tamra shakes her beautiful mane of hair off her shoulders as she surveys me. “I think we’re okay.” She wags a finger at me. “But stay away from him, Jacinda. Don’t even look at him. At least not until you’ve gotten yourself under better control. Mom says it shouldn’t take long before…”
She must see something in my face. She looks away. “Sorry,” she mutters. Because she’s my sister and she loves me, she says this. Not because she’s really sorry. She wants my draki dead as much as Mom does. Wants me normal. Like her. So we can lead normal lives together and do stuff like cheerleading.
My stomach cramps. I take my books from her. “We’re late.”
“They’ll cut us some slack. We’re new.”
I nod, plucking at the severely dog-eared corner of my geometry book. “See you at lunch?”
Tamra moves to the mirror to check her hair. “Remember what I said.”
I pause, staring at her beautiful reflection. Hard to believe I’m a twin to such a polished creature.
She drapes a perfect strand of her red-gold hair over her shoulder. The end curves slightly inward. “Stay away from that guy.”
“Yeah,” I agree, but even as I walk out into the deserted hallway I stop and scan to the left and right of me, looking, searching. Hoping. Dreading.
But he’s not there.
6
I hide during lunch. Cowardly, I know, but when I faced the double doors leading to the cafeteria, the volume alone made me feel sick. I couldn’t bear the thought of going in.
Instead, I walk the halls, ignoring my hungry stomach and the guilt I feel at not being there for Tamra. But somehow, I know she’ll be fine. At least I convince myself of this. She’s been waiting for this day since we were kids. Ever since I manifested and she didn’t. When Cassian began to ignore her and became a dream forever beyond her reach.
I find the library. Immediately, I inhale musty books and savor the silence. I slide into a table near the windows that faces the quad and rest my head on the cool Formica until the bell rings.
I float through the rest of the day. Relief seizes me when I make it to the last class of the day. Almost done.
My seventh-period study hall is packed with people who either opt out of athletics or lack the requisite GPA to play sports. This I learn from Nathan, my shadow ever since fifth period.
He slides in beside me. His fleshy lips spit out each word with a faint spray of saliva. “So, Jacinda. What are you?”
I blink, inching back, before I understand. Of course. He couldn’t mean
“Me?” He juts a thumb to his swelled chest. “I can’t pass English. Which is too bad, because our football
