“I don’t know,” I say wearily. “Anything else you want?”
His dimple appears. “Nope,” he says.
“Good night, then.”
“Night,” he says, and drives off into the dark.
The porch light comes on as I creep up the steps. Mom stands in the doorway.
“That wasn’t Christian,” she says.
“Brilliant observation, Mother.”
“What happened?”
“He’s in love with another girl,” I say, and pull the silver laurel out of my hair.
Later, in the darkest time of night, my vision turns into a nightmare. I’m in the forest.
I’m being watched. I feel the amber eyes of the Black Wing. Then he’s holding me down. He’s touching me, his icy hands sucking the warmth from my body. Pine needles stab into my back. His fingers twist over the top button of my jeans. I scream and flail. One hand strikes his wing and I pull out a fistful of black feathers. In my fingers they evaporate. I keep pulling at the angel’s wings, each feather a piece of his evil, until he suddenly dissolves into a heavy cloud of smoke, leaving me coughing and panting in the dirt.
I jolt awake, tangled in my blankets. Someone’s standing over my bed. I suck in a breath to start screaming again, but his hand comes over my mouth.
“Clara, it’s me,” Jeffrey says. He removes his hand and sits down at the edge of the bed. “I heard you screaming. Bad dream, huh?”
My heart’s pounding so hard I hear it like a war drum. I nod.
“Want me to get Mom?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“What was it about?”
He still doesn’t know about Black Wings. If I tell him, he’ll be more vulnerable to them, Mom said. I swallow.
“Prom didn’t exactly go as planned.”
His eyebrows bunch together and he frowns. “You had a nightmare about prom?”
“Yeah, well, it was that kind of night.”
He looks over at me like he doesn’t believe me, but I’m too tired to explain how my life seems to be coming apart at the seams.
Chapter 13
Goth Tinker Bell
My cell phone chirps. I take it out of my pocket, look at it, click IGNORE, and then put it back into my pocket. Across the dining room table, Mom raises her eyebrows at me.
“Christian again?”
I cut a bite of French toast and put it in my mouth. I can hardly taste it, I’m that mad.
Which makes me madder still. Normally I love French toast.
“Maybe you should talk to him. Give him a chance to make it right,” she says.
I put my fork down.
“The only possible way for him to make it right is if he builds a time machine, goes back to last night, and. ” My voice fades. And what? And turns his back on Kay while she’s falling apart? And takes me home instead? And kisses me on the doorstep? “I just need to be mad for a little while, okay? I know it might not be the most mature thing, but there it is.”
The phone in the kitchen starts to ring. We look at each other.
“I’ll get it,” she says, and slides out of her chair to grab the phone off the wall.
“Hello?” she says. “I’m afraid she doesn’t want to talk you.”
I slump at the table. My French toast is cold. I pick up my plate and go into the kitchen, where Mom leans against the counter, nodding as she listens to whatever he’s saying. Like she’s totally taking his side.
She puts her hand over the receiver. “I really think you should talk to him.”
I slide my French toast into the trash, then casually rinse my plate in the sink, put it in the dishwasher, and dry my hands on a kitchen towel. I hold out a hand for the phone. Surprised, she gives it to me. I put it to my ear.
“Clara?” Christian says hopefully.
“Take the hint,” I say into the phone, then hang up.
I hand the phone back to Mom. She’s smart enough not to say anything as I stalk past her and up the stairs toward my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and throw myself onto my bed. I want to scream into my pillow.
I won’t be that girl who lets the guy treat her like crap and still fawns all over him. I went to prom with Christian Prescott. It wasn’t supposed to be magical, I tell myself.
It wasn’t supposed to be romantic. It’s my job, pretty much. But it wasn’t supposed to end with me being
