Firelight

him? Wow, you’re really desperate to go back if you think I’m stupid enough to fall for that.”

Embarrassing heat washes up my neck. Am I that transparent? “I just find it hard to believe you’ve totally forgotten him.”

Her eyes spark and her voice trembles with feeling. “Would you rather I keep deluding myself? I don’t have a chance with him. The pride won’t let it happen. Cassian won’t let it happen. I’m starting over here.” Her eyes harden, chill me. “I have my dignity, Jacinda. I won’t let some stupid crush stop me from finally having a life, so can we just drop the subject?”

Ignoring the request, I ask something I haven’t brought up in a long time, haven’t dared, reluctant to give my sister false hope. “What if you haven’t given it enough time…”

Her eyes flash furiously. “Don’t go there. If I was going to manifest, I already would have.”

I shrug. “Maybe you’re just a late bloomer? Nidia manifested late—”

“A thirteen-year-old is a late bloomer, not me. Now, please, can we drop it already? I don’t want to talk about the pride anymore!”

“Okay, okay,” I say, returning my attention back to my legs. Dry again.

I shake my head fiercely, furiously. My hand works harder, pressing the lotion deep into my skin. Scent-free lotion because I’ve had enough with the odors, the smells that constantly suffocate me in the human world.

Already, I feel different. It’s working. Mom’s getting her way. My draki is withering. Dying in this desert.

Except around Will.

My fingers slow, still on my skin. Hope flutters inside my chest. Except around Will. Around him my draki lives. Will. Of course there’s risk in that, too. But these days, risk is like air to me. Everywhere. My life is a far cry from safe — no matter how hard Mom clings to the notion.

9

I follow the throng of girls heading to the gym, trying to keep a healthy distance from the press of bodies. It’s all so overwhelming. The foreign smells, the grating sounds, the lack of open space and fresh air. Dribbling balls beat the stale air, echoing off the wood floor, growing louder as we near the gym’s double doors.

“Looks like we’re working out with the guys today,” Catherine says as we step through the doors into sour, sweat-saturated air.

That feeling comes over me again, and immediately I know he’s here. I spot Will across the gym, watch as he shoots a three-pointer, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Even before the ball clears the net, he’s looking at me. Familiar heat creeps up my chest to warm my face.

“Boys this side, girls this side!” A coach blows a whistle and gestures to separate sides of the court.

“Ugh, the dreaded basketball unit,” Catherine mutters in her slow drawl. “I’d rather run the track.”

We file into line to shoot free throws. At half-court, the end of the boys’ line collides with the end of the girls’. It’s a little chaotic here, where the lines converge and the sexes mingle to abuse each other good-naturedly.

From the corner of my eye, I spot Will getting out of line and dropping back to where Catherine and I stand at the end of our line.

“Hi,” he greets me.

“Hi.”

Catherine looks back and forth between us. “Hey,” she volunteers dryly.

Will and I both look at her.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, shaking the bangs from her eyes and moving in front of me, giving us her back.

“So,” Will begins, “do you play ball as well as you run?”

I laugh a little. I can’t help it. He’s sweet and disarming and my nerves are racing. “Not even close.”

The conversation goes no further as we move up in our lines. Catherine looks over her shoulder at me, her wide sea eyes assessing. Like she can’t quite figure me out. My smile fades and I look away. She can never figure me out. I can never let her. Never let anyone here.

She faces me with her arms crossed. “You make friends fast. Since freshman year, I’ve spoken to like…” She pauses and looks upward as though mentally counting. “Three, no — four people. And you’re number four.”

I shrug. “He’s just a guy.”

Catherine squares up at the free-throw line, dribbles a few times, and shoots. The ball swishes cleanly through the net. She catches it and tosses it back to me.

I try copying her moves, but my ball flies low, glides beneath the backboard. I head to the end of the line again.

Will’s already waiting at half-court, letting others go before him. My face warms at his obvious stall.

“You weren’t kidding,” he teases over the thunder of basketballs.

“Did you make it?” I ask, wishing I had looked while he shot.

“Yeah.”

“Of course,” I mock.

He lets another kid go before him. I do the same. Catherine is several ahead of me now.

His gaze scans me, sweeping over my face and hair with deep intensity, like he’s memorizing my features. “Yeah, well. I can’t run like you.”

I move up in line, but when I sneak a look behind me, he’s looking back, too.

“Wow,” Catherine murmurs in her smoky low voice as she falls into line beside me. “I never knew it happened like that.”

I snap my gaze to her. “What?”

“You know. Romeo and Juliet stuff. Love at first sight and all that.”

“It’s not like that,” I say quickly.

“You could have fooled me.” We’re up again. Catherine takes her shot. It swishes cleanly through the hoop.

When I shoot, the ball bounces hard off the backboard and flies wildly through the air, knocking the coach in the head. I slap a hand over my mouth. The coach barely catches herself from falling. Several students laugh. She glares at me and readjusts her cap.

With a small wave of apology, I head back to the end of the line.

Will’s there, fighting laughter. “Nice,” he says. “Glad I’m downcourt of you.”

I cross my arms and resist smiling, resist letting myself feel good around him. But he makes it hard. I want to smile. I want to like him, to be around him, to know him. “Happy to amuse you.”

His smile slips then, and he’s looking at me with that strange intensity again. Only I understand. I know why. He must remember…must recognize me on some level even though he can’t understand it.

“You want to go out?” he asks suddenly.

I blink. “As in a date?”

“Yes. That’s what a guy usually means when he asks that question.”

Whistles blow. The guys and girls head in opposite directions.

“Half-court scrimmage,” Will mutters, looking unhappy as he watches the coaches toss out jerseys. “We’ll talk later in study hall. Okay?”

I nod, my chest uncomfortably tight, breath hard to catch. Seventh period. A few hours to decide whether to date a hunter. The choice should be easy, obvious, but already my head aches. I doubt anything will ever be easy for me again.

Catherine saves me a seat at lunch. I slide in across from her and her friend. Apparently one of the other three people she’s spoken to thus far in high school.

She introduces us. Brendan is all gangly limbs and bobbing Adam’s apple. He hunkers over his packed lunch, nibbling on a peanut butter sandwich clutched between his two large hands as if someone might snatch it from him.

“Hey,” he says quietly, almost inaudible. His darting brown eyes never looking too long at my face. At anything or anyone really, except Catherine.