At least until I open my eyes in the morning, back in the waking nightmare.
Thorns prick my skin as I push my way through the tangle of old rose bushes, most of which stopped flowering years ago. It’s Founders’ Day, and the whole town has gathered to celebrate. Even the black sheep are invited, including us.
I don’t always understand the whispers, but I know what the people in this town think of us. That we belong down in the Gulch with the day laborers and the riffraff.
But we’re Milbournes, and we have as much a right to be here as anyone, that’s what Grandpa always says.
Zion has wandered off to do God knows what with his friends and left me alone. I don’t like the crowds — all the people make me nervous and edgy. So I’m searching for a place where things are quiet.
The ground is littered with large stones that dig into the sole of my too thin shoes, making my feet ache. Thorns catch in the fabric of my shirt, some deep enough to poke my skin. But I keep going, drawn inexorably forward and unwilling to turn back.
I don’t mind pain when it serves a purpose
When I emerge from the thick patch of overgrown roses, I see a boy standing all alone at the edge of the cliff, staring down into the crashing waves below. He doesn’t turn as I approach, but I know he must have heard me.
I come to a stop next to him, my toes just touching the edge of the cliff that is a hundred feet above the jagged rocks below. I’ve always been an anxious sort of kid, but in that moment I don’t feel any fear. Wind blows against my back as if pushing me closer to the edge, but I won’t take a step back, not until he does.
The boy finally turns to look at me, a mix of curiosity and respect in his gaze. I stare back as the wind picks up.
Something passes between us. Something that feels eternal and dangerous.
When he smiles, it’s like the clouds parting to reveal a glorious sun.
I won’t find out until later just how rare it is to see him smile.
He tells me his name, but it’s chased away by the wind.
Five
When I snap awake in the middle of the night, I immediately know I’m not alone.
The thin curtains covering the window let in enough of a glow from the floodlights outside that I can just make out the figure sitting at the desk chair in the corner of my room.
For a moment, fear tightens my throat and steals my breath as I reorient myself to the present instead of dreams about the past. The fear only lasts until my vision adjusts to the darkness enough that I can tell who it is sitting there.
As if there is more than one person that it could be.
Vin watches me come awake with an expression that isn’t visible in the dark, but I know he has a scowl on his face. Wood creaks in the silence as he shifts his weight, but he doesn’t say anything.
And neither do I.
Grandpa is long asleep, not that he would be capable of mounting the stairs to come to my rescue. And I know Zion hasn’t returned from wherever he goes at night, because the noise he makes coming in the house would have woken me up.
Vin and I are never alone at school. He either has the other Vice Lords with him, or he avoids me like the plague. At least, it feels like he avoids me. But I can’t ignore the fact that he always seems to be around anytime the rules are broken. One time, Liam Connelly grabbed my elbow and tried to pull me into a broom closet, knowing I probably wouldn’t open my mouth to protest. Vin was there before Liam even had the chance to close the door behind us, breaking my would-be rapist’s jaw badly enough that he required corrective surgery.
But that has always been one of the rules: no one else gets to touch me.
I see a flash of white in the darkness, and I know it’s the note Jake had my brother pass me at lunch. Vin leaves it on the table as he stands, seeming to loom over me even though he is still across the room.
He circles the bed like a shark in the water, scenting blood. But it’s his scent that permeates the room, a heady mix of wood-smoke and bergamot with just the barest hint of oleander. Always, with the fucking oleanders. I have the feeling he rubs himself down with them just to mess with me. That scent will stay here, tainting the air, long after he leaves.
It’s been so long since the last time he showed up here like this that I almost had myself convinced we were done. But the two of us are like two meteors on a collision course in the darkness of space, destined to collide in a spectacular display of destruction.
In a moment of fancy, I wonder if it’s jealousy or possession that has brought him here tonight, after months of staying away. Realistically, I know the reality is both simpler and more complicated than that. He is here because he can’t stop himself from coming.
He wants me in a peculiar and twisted way, but he also might wrap his hands around my throat and squeeze the life from me, something he has threatened to do more than once in the past.
His presence here is inexplicable, because there isn’t any explanation required.
Vincent Cortland does whatever he wants whenever he feels like doing it. That is the way it has always been.
Everybody talks about destiny like it’s some wondrous thing that must be written in the stars. Really, destiny is just the inevitable result of your decisions rushing up from the future to blast you in the face.
