Crescendo

Using his foot, Scott nudged open the bedroom door. He killed the lights, and soft shadows settled around us. I glanced at the small twin mattress on the bottom bunk, then at the window. The window was cracked. In a panic-induced moment, I actually imagined myself slipping through the crack and disappearing into the night. Probably a sign that what I was about to do was a huge mistake. Was I really going through with this just to make a point? Was this how I wanted to show Patch the magnitude of my anger and hurt? What did it say about me?

Scott took me by the shoulders and kissed me harder. I mentally flipped through my options. I could tell Scott I was feeling sick. I could tell him I’d changed my mind. I could simply tell him no….

Scott shucked off his shirt and tossed it aside.

“Uh—,” I began. I looked around once more for an escape, noting that the bedroom door must have opened, because a shadow blotted out the light spilling in from the hall. The shadow stepped inside and closed the door, and I felt my jaw go slack.

Patch tossed Scott’s shirt at him, catching him in the face.

“What the—,” Scott demanded, yanking the shirt over his head and rolling it down to cover himself.

“Fly’s down,” Patch told him.

Scott yanked on his zipper. “What are you doing? You can’t come in here. I’m busy. And this is my room!”

“Are you insane?” I told Patch, blood rising in my cheeks.

Patch sliced his eyes toward me. “You don’t want to be here. Not with him.”

“You don’t get to make that call!”

Scott brushed past me. “Let me take care of him.”

He made it another two feet before Patch shoved his fist into Scott’s jaw with a sickening crunch.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at Patch. “Did you break his jaw?”

“Unnuh!” Scott moaned, clutching the lower half of his face.

“I didn’t break his jaw, but if he lays a hand on you, it will be the first of many things to break,” Patch said.

“Out!” I ordered Patch, thrusting a finger at the door.

“I’m going to kill you,” Scott growled at Patch, opening and closing his jaw, making sure it still worked.

But instead of taking the cue to leave, Patch crossed to Scott in three steps. He flung him around to face the wall. Scott tried to get his bearings, but Patch slammed him against the wall again, disorienting him further. “Touch her,” he said in Scott’s ear, his voice low and threatening, “and it’ll be the biggest regret of your life.”

Before leaving, Patch flicked his eyes once in my direction. “He’s not worth it.” He paused. “And neither am I.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t have an argument. I wasn’t here because I wanted to be. I was here to shove it in Patch’s face. I knew it, and he knew it.

Scott rolled around, slouching against the wall. “I could’ve taken him if I wasn’t wasted,” he said, massaging the lower half of his face. “Who the hell does he think he is? I don’t even know him. You know him?”

Scott obviously didn’t recognize Patch from the Z, but there had been a lot of people there that night. I couldn’t expect Scott to remember every face. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, gesturing at the door Patch had just exited through. “Are you okay?”

He smiled slowly. “Never been better.” That said with a welt-like bruise blooming across his jaw.

“He was out of control.”

“Best way to be,” he drawled, using the back of his hand to wipe a ribbon of blood from the crack of his mouth.

“I should go,” I said. “I’ll bring the Mustang back after school tomorrow.” I wondered how I was supposed to walk out of here, past Patch, and maintain any level of self-dignity. I might as well stroll up to him and admit he was right: I’d only followed Scott back here to hurt him.

Scott crooked his finger under my shirt, holding me in place. “Don’t go, Nora. Not yet.”

I unhooked his finger. “Scott—”

“Tell me if I’m going too far,” he said, tugging his shirt up over his head for the second time. His pale skin glowed in the dark. He’d clearly been spending a lot of time in the weight room, and it showed in the lines of muscle branching down his arms.

“You’re going too far,” I said.

“That didn’t sound convincing.” He swept my hair off my neck and nuzzled his face in the curve.

“I’m not interested in you this way,” I said, putting my hands between us. I was tired, and a headache was buzzing between my ears. I was ashamed of myself and wanted to go home and sleep and sleep until I forgot this night.

“How do you know? You’ve never tried me this way.”

I flipped on the light switch, flooding the room with light. Scott threw a hand over his eyes and staggered back a step.

“I’m leaving—,” I began, then broke off as my eyes fixed on a patch of skin high on Scott’s chest, halfway between his nipple and collarbone. The skin was warped and shiny. Somewhere deep in my brain, I made the connection that this must be the branding mark Scott had been given when he swore allegiance to the Nephilim blood society, but it felt like a hazy afterthought, dull in comparison to what had really arrested my attention. The brand was in the shape of a clenched fist. It was identical, down to the exact shape and size, to the raised stamp on the iron ring from the envelope.

With a hand still flung over his eyes, Scott groaned and reached for the bedpost to steady himself.

“What’s that mark on your skin?” I asked, my mouth gone dry.

Scott looked momentarily startled, then slid his hand down to cover the mark. “Some friends and I were horsing around one night. It’s nothing serious. It’s only a scar.”

He had the audacity to lie about it? “You gave me the envelope.” When he didn’t answer, I added more fiercely, “The boardwalk. The bakery. The envelope with the iron ring.” The room felt eerily isolated, detached from the throbbing bass out in the living room. In an instant, I no longer felt safe trapped back here with Scott.

Scott’s eyes narrowed and he squinted at me through the light, which still seemed to hurt his eyes. “What are you talking about?” His tone was wary, hostile, muddled.

“You think this act is funny? I know you gave me the ring.”

“The—ring?”

“The ring that made that mark on your chest!”

He shook his head once, hard, as if to shake off his stupor. Then his arm lashed out, shoving me up against the wall. “How do you know about the ring?”

“You’re hurting me,” I said with venom, but I was shivering with fear. I realized that Scott wasn’t pretending. Unless he was a much better actor than I imagined, he genuinely didn’t know about the envelope. But he did know about the ring.

“What did he look like?” He fisted my camisole and shook me. “The guy who gave you the ring—what did he look like?”

“Get your hands off me,” I ordered, pushing back. But Scott weighed a lot more than me, and his feet stayed planted, his body trapping me against the wall. “I didn’t see him. He had it delivered.”

“Does he know where I am? Does he know I’m in Coldwater?”

“He?” I snapped back. “Who is he? What’s going on?”

“Why did he give you the ring?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Why don’t you tell me?”

He shuddered hard against the raging panic that seemed to grip him. “What do you know?”

I kept my eyes nailed to Scott’s, but my throat was clenched so hard it hurt to breathe. “The ring was in the envelope with a note that said the Black Hand killed my dad. And that the ring belonged to him.” I licked my lips. “Are you the Black Hand?”

Scott’s expression still held deep distrust; his eyes darted back and forth, judging whether or not he