Her chest hol owed. She poised on the edge of a decision, about to jump.
When she Fel , the moment of choice had passed without effort or reflection. Her act of disobedience had been sheer reflex, a burst of compassion, an impulse born of love.
Why that child, unloved even by the mother who gave her birth? Why that moment, when the girl was almost free of her short, miserable existence? Of al the children Lara had watched and guided over the centuries, what made this one’s pain so intolerable, her life so precious?
Lara didn’t know.
The choice then—her immortality or the child’s soul—
had been no choice at al . But by stopping the girl from taking her own life, Lara had doomed herself to Fal .
She was not that pure anymore. That fearless. She knew now that she could make mistakes. She had learned, in her soul and her fragile flesh, that she could hurt and be hurt.
She had paid for her disobedience by becoming human.
What would the price of disobedience be this time?
And what, she wondered, would it cost her to obey?
She looked at Justin, his lean, stubbled face, his long, amber eyes. The bandage on his head. The lines of pain around his mouth.
She was. Oh, she was. Something other, something more than human. Or maybe something less.
Caged.
She had the right to embrace the security of her own F o r g o t t e n s e a 93
bars. But she could not make that choice for him. There were worse sins than disobedience.
She took a breath. Released it slowly. “I’l take you as far as Newark. There are things you need to know.” Even if tel ing him violated the precepts of safety and the rule of silence.
“But you have to promise to listen.”
8
C l o u d s s c u d d e d a c ro s s t h e pi n pr i c k e d s k y.
The trees rippled and sighed. Lara gathered moonlight in her palms, bending the rising air around them, murmuring a quick glamour under her breath. Any student glancing out the dormitory windows would only see two shadows gliding over the lawn.
Beside her, Justin stalked as silent as the night, dimmed to black and silver by the uncertain light.
“Here,” she whispered.
The garage loomed out of the landscape, built two levels down into the side of a hil roofed with trees and sod. She tapped the door code into the keypad.
The double doors hummed. Light slanted across the drive.
“Kil the lights,” Justin snapped.
“They’re automatic.”
He grabbed her elbow. She felt the jolt of his touch before he dragged her under the opening door. Releasing F o r g o t t e n s e a 95
her arm, he mashed his palm on the controls. The mechanism checked.
Heart pounding, Lara scanned the pegboard hung with keys. A row of six blue school vans occupied the numbered spaces closest to the doors. The other cars—a fleet of gray Ford Taurus sedans—were parked in the row behind and on the lower level.
“Give me the keys to a van,” Justin said.
“What? No.” Didn’t he see the Rockhaven logo painted on the sides? “They’re too identifiable. We’l take a Taurus.”
“You can drive whatever you want. But give me the keys.”
She was stil reeling from the effects of his touch.
Automatical y, she obeyed his tone of command.
He glanced from the numbered key in his hand to the row of painted parking spaces. “Thanks.”
She watched, mystified, as he climbed into the number three van. The engine roared to life. The van backed across the cement lane and stopped. Justin got out, slamming the driver’s side door, and stooped by the front tire. His arm jerked. She heard a pop, a hiss, before he straightened, stil holding his dive knife.
“Get us a car,” he said.
Her brain sparked back to life. “What are you doing?”
He moved to the next tire. “Making sure nobody comes after us.”
Slash. Pop. Hiss.
She winced. “But—”
“Park by the doors. I need to block the other lane.”
She ran for a car at the end of a row, close to the ramp that led to the lower level. Through the windshield,
