Nevermore

though she couldn’t place their fleeting surroundings. Around them, the world bled into one long streak.

Someone screamed at them from the sidewalk. The car rumbled like a beast.

Between the music and the speed, Isobel felt as though her mind might either melt or shatter.

The crashing song fizzed and zipped as they rocketed through an underpass. The lights on the dashboard dimmed and guttered. Static washed over the music while the needle of the speedometer teased higher, then loosened to swing back and forth. A low, dry voice cut through the static of the radio, buried amid a chorus of whispers. Unintelligible, the murmuring grew into a collective hiss.

“Go away,” Varen growled between clenched teeth.

At his command, the static rippled, then cleared. The music blared full force once more, and the dashboard lights resumed their dim red glow.

Ice water replaced Isobel’s rushing blood. Her fear spiked, crawling its way up from her very depths, paralyzing her. Her eyes slid from the dashboard radio to Varen. Who was he talking to?

“Varen—?”

He turned again, cutting her off. Her shoulder slammed into the passenger-side door, and Isobel pressed a hand to the glass to brace herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and yelled,

“You’re going to get us killed!”

He wasn’t listening.

She felt the buzzing sensation of speed course through her seat and hum through her body. She hated this feeling, of being so totally out of control. This was exactly what she’d always hated about driving with—

Isobel opened her eyes. She slammed her hand on the Discman beside her, killing the meltdown music. “Would you stop?” she screamed. “You’re driving like Brad!”

She saw his hands clench on the wheel and had only an instant to regret these words before his foot slammed on the brakes. Tires screeched. The world of buildings, streets, cars, lights, and people gained on them, stuttering into focus as the car squealed and skittered to a stop.

Isobel pitched forward in her seat, then slammed back again, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Around them, horns blared. Cars swerved and went swooshing past, drivers yelling from their windows.

Silence.

She stared at him, her breath coming in heaves. White headlights pierced the rear window, casting as much shadow as stark light into the car. Black shapes, sharp and quick, slipped over him. They swept their way down his form, retreating to their corners and crevices as a car passed around them, the light vanishing with it. He stared forward, both hands still fixed on the wheel. They sat in silence again, the engine still rumbling, a tension pulsing between them so thick that Isobel thought she might never catch her breath.

He moved finally, leaning forward in his seat so that his forehead almost touched the top of the steering wheel. “Sorry,” he said, the word scarcely audible.

Isobel dropped her gaze to her lap. She stared at her still-quivering knees and found herself once more at a loss for words.

He sat back and shifted the car into gear, and they were moving again. He drove with total control, and suddenly Isobel recognized the overpass they turned onto. He was taking her home.

“Varen—”

“Don’t,” he said.

Isobel snapped her teeth together and set her jaw. Deep down, she knew that it would be better not to say anything. Not when she knew he had never meant for her to see. To know.

30 Projected

Isobel let her bag drop in the foyer as soon as she stepped through the door. She stood dazed, remembering the way the Cougar had shot off the second she’d shut the car door. Just like that, he’d left her standing there in front of her house without so much as a “See you tomorrow.” She couldn’t even think where he could be headed, but she was certain that he wouldn’t go home.

“Wherever,” he’d said in the attic.

Isobel frowned, hoping that his “wherever” didn’t mean Lacy’s house.

She stared at her sneakers and tried, for a moment, to imagine what it would be like not to be able to go home. Then she had to stop, because to her it was unfathomable. And yet she had seen enough of the Nethers household to know she had not witnessed the worst.

Isobel hugged the Poe book to herself. She rested her cheek against the cool, gold-lined pages and black binding, grateful, for once, to have it—her one solid link back to him. Her one tether to his impenetrable world if, after tonight, it proved true that she held no others. If they failed the project— when they failed the project—the book would give her one last excuse to see him. To tell him everything, she thought, letting her eyes slide closed. Everything she should have said already. She’d spit it all out, regardless of who was around to hear it. She’d tell him how she couldn’t stop thinking about him, how she just wanted to be near him. She’d do the unspeakable. She’d let her hands slide inside his jacket and her arms slip around him.

Brave thoughts, she told herself, opening her eyes. All brave thoughts.

She leaned down to hook her hand once more through one shoulder strap of her backpack. She trudged down the hallway, dragging her book bag behind her like a ball and chain.

The living room was dark and empty, and so were the hallway and the kitchen. Everyone must be upstairs, she thought. She lifted her book bag and slung it onto the nearest kitchen chair, deposited the Poe book on the table, went to the cabinet to get a clean glass, then stalked to the sink to fill it.

Tilting her head back, Isobel drained the glass, then wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She set the glass on the counter and sat down at the table, shoulders slumping.

The dishwasher swished while the kitchen clock ticked.

Isobel stared off in the general direction of the refrigerator.

She felt the remnants of adrenaline subsiding. He’d scared her tonight. After becoming so used to his composed demeanor, his unruffled coolness, to see him like that, so beyond reason, had terrified her. And in that moment, she knew that he’d wanted to terrify her. Or at least he hadn’t cared. And then, when he’d spoken aloud to the radio, all the warning bells she possessed had blared through her in one unanimous clangor, recalling to her mind all the rumors, all the original forewarnings that had spooked her from day one.

Isobel brought her hands up to her face, rubbing, not caring if she smudged her mascara. That wasn’t him. He’d been beyond himself. She might have been too had things been reversed.

Anyone would have.

She sighed, feeling suddenly so tired. How had it all come down to this? So much had gotten in the way, and now, after everything, they were both going to fail the project.

“You’re home early.”

Isobel stopped rubbing her face. She spread her fingers and opened her eyes to see her father standing in the doorway, dressed in torn jeans and the red flannel shirt she sometimes liked to steal. His arms were folded, a stance that made Isobel want to reply with something sarcastic. She settled instead on ignoring him.

Opening the zipper on her backpack, she lifted her notebook out, realizing she at least still had her list of quotes, even if their poster-board pictures and index cards had been left on Varen’s bedroom floor. Would he remember to bring them? Did he even care anymore?

For a split second, Isobel imagined she could try and fake the presentation for both of them. Maybe she could pull it off. Maybe. If she stayed up all night. But quotes alone wouldn’t be nearly enough to get by on.

“Isobel.”

The sound of her father’s voice irritated her. Couldn’t he take the hint? She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Most of all, she wasn’t in the mood for an “I’m just looking out for you”

lecture.

“Did you get your project finished?” he asked.

Pretending she hadn’t heard the question, she opened the Poe book. She stared down at the tiny words