This close, Isobel could see that his hair, which really was more like coarse feathers, grew darker, almost black toward the roots that weren’t roots at all, but thick quills sprouting from his scalp. “That’s very interesting,” he continued, “that you can see me like this.” He smiled, flashing a dangerous, dark pink mouth filled with jagged teeth the color of red coral.
Isobel swallowed, clearing the way for her own voice. “Who are you?”
Brad flipped his fork onto his tray, and Isobel jumped at the clatter. She’d almost forgotten he was even there.
“Aw, c’mon, Iz,” he said, “don’t give me that old ‘I don’t even know who you are anymore’ crap. And don’t pretend I didn’t warn you.”
Suddenly the blood-haired boy moved. Isobel’s focus snapped to him as, in a series of quick, jerky motions, like a DVD on fast-forward, he brought an arm across Brad, extending a red-clawed hand toward her. “The name is Pinfeathers.”
Isobel drew back half a step, making no move to touch him, staring instead, as though it were a dead rat he’d offered her and not his hand. His nails, more like the scarlet fangs from some deadly venomous snake, gleamed in the light.
“What, you leaving already?” Brad said. “Is that it? You trying to be deep or something? I don’t get it.”
Pinfeathers withdrew his hand. “Oh, don’t trouble yourself with introductions,” he said. “I know you. You’re the cheerleader.” He blinked at her sharply, cocking his head to one side.
“Now, you might not realize this,” he said, “but you and I, well, we’ve met before.”
Isobel found herself once again staring into the hole in Pinfeather’s cheek, her gaze held by the scarlet teeth and the movement of his jawbone as he spoke. There were no muscles, no tendons, no cartilage, nothing to hold him together, only hollow blackness.
He raised a clawed finger to point at the missing portion of his face. “Oh, don’t let this bother you. Happens to the best of us.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Brad snorted. “I sit here.”
“I like your friends here,” Pinfeather said. “Especially the big one.” He brought a claw toward Brad’s face, poking lightly at his ear. Isobel watched in horror as Brad swatted at the nonexistent fly.
“Stop it.”
Pinfeathers drew his hand away, using the same claw to point at her now. “Never pegged you for the jealous type.”
“Don’t touch him again.”
Brad smiled suddenly, broadly. The unexpected expression startled Isobel so much that for a moment she was distracted from the weirdness that was Pinfeathers. “Ah, I
Isobel shifted her gaze back to Brad now, her concentration zeroing in with effort on his self-satisfied expression. His inflection on the word “he” could only have meant one person.
“Wh-what?”
“Uh-oh,” Mark said, biting off a piece of his roll.
Wait, Isobel thought, what had she missed? What was going on? She looked to Alyssa next in her search for clarification, but knew her mistake in doing so when the other girl, returning to her nails, displayed only a knowing smile.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded of the three of them. “What’s going on?” she said, this time appealing to Pinfeathers.
The creature winked and tapped his thin white lips with a red claw, like he was letting her know the best part was coming.
“Well,” said Brad. He wiped his hands with his napkin, then crumpled it and tossed it onto his tray. “Let’s see, Iz.” He pushed his tray away and folded his hands on the table. “We caught up with your little bloodsucking boyfriend last night after he dropped you off, that’s what. Did he, uh, happen to mention anything to you about it? See, Mark and I had a bet going.
I said he’d run to you first thing, but Mark—Mark’s giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
Isobel watched dully as Mark leaned in to murmur something to Brad that she couldn’t catch. Their laughter ensued. Pinfeathers listened too, folding his hands on the table, mimicking Brad’s posture.
“We waited for him by your house, and then we followed him,” Mark said, as though it were as simple as that.
“I felt we needed to have a talk. A one-on-one,” Brad explained, “about the defacement of personal property.”
“We did give him a choice,” said Mark.
“Yes. We were very diplomatic.” Brad nodded.
“He surprised us,” Mark said, an almost appreciative note to his voice.
“Yeah, we’d thought for sure he’d pussy out and opt for us trashing his car.”
Mark shook his head. “But he didn’t.”
“Nope. He didn’t.”
“You’d have been proud of him, Iz.”
“Yeah,” Brad admitted, “we were impressed.”
Her throat tightened.
“Nope,” Brad said. “No, Iz, we’re not.” He leaned forward, blocking Pinfeathers from her view, looking her in the eye. He lowered his voice. “And don’t go off thinking this was about you, because it wasn’t. He deserved it, and you know what he did as well as I do.”
At these words, Isobel felt something hot inside of her rush up and snap, like an electric cable.
“Don’t you get it?” Before she could stop herself, she lashed out, flipping his Coke over. Ice clattered out of the tall blue cup, liquid splashed over the table. Alyssa screeched and slid away. Brad shot up from his seat as soda cascaded onto his lap. “He didn’t touch your car!” she shouted. “And I know you’re lying!” He was toying with her. They were just trying to get a rise. She’d seen Varen not twenty minutes ago. He’d been fine.
Or maybe, she realized, her thoughts jarring, maybe that’s why he’d sunk so slowly into his chair. Maybe that’s why he’d refused to remove his glasses. Maybe that’s why he’d avoided her.
“Does this look like I’m lying?” He moved out from the table to tower over her. Her eyes darted briefly to Pinfeathers, who watched unblinking. Lifting his pinky, Brad aimed it at a large blood blister on his upper lip that she hadn’t paid attention to until now. Brad was a running back, and she was used to seeing him with scrapes and bruises.
“Hey!” came Mr. Nott’s shout from the far end of the room, followed immediately by the hard, fast jangling of keys.
Brad bent low to speak into her ear. She felt powerless to do anything but listen. “He was a real sport about it. He only clipped me once, but by that time I was done, and I let it go,
’cause I said something I shouldn’t have. Somethin’ about you, Iz.”
Horrified, she recoiled, and Mr. Nott, coming to a jangling halt, stepped into the widening space between them, asking in his deep, authoritative voice the obligatory, “What’s going on here?”
“I spilled my Coke, sir,” Brad announced over the sudden quiet. A few titters ran through the table next to them. If the whole entire cafeteria hadn’t been watching before, they were now. “It was an accident, sir. Pregame jitters.”
Isobel returned her gaze to the table, where Pinfeathers watched her. His expression seemed darker now, his humor gone, and the fathomless black of his eyes now threatened to swallow her. “Don’t look so lost, cheerleader,” he said. “I’ve watched you watching him—
For you . . . for us.”
“Isobel, did you hear me?” Mr. Nott asked. “I said, go take your seat.”
Isobel didn’t move. She found her gaze unable to waver from Pinfeathers, from his face as it seemed to struggle and twist between several emotions, finally contorting into a grimace of malice and pain. Why did that
