Firelight

out, and if she makes the squad, we’ll have to come up with the money for uniforms and supplies.

I have no doubt Tamra will make the squad. I watch, curious to see what Mom will do, if she will surrender to at least one daughter. I know this is different, but I can’t help thinking, Why doesn’t she care what I want?

Mom nods, the motion weary, defeated. “Okay.”

And in that moment, I feel defeated, too.

My life has fallen into a quiet pattern since Will left. School, dinner with Mom, homework, listening to music and watching TV with Tamra.

I walk the halls like a coldly functioning robot. My draki continues its slow descent. Suffering in silence, that part of me fades into dark. Like a healing wound, it throbs less, hurts less, feels less. Wildly, I want to tear it open, rip wide the jagged edges…make it bleed. Make it remember.

By Friday I wonder if something hasn’t happened to Will. Almost every moment I wonder where he is, where he hunts. My pride isn’t the only one out there, but we don’t interact with others so I don’t know where they are — where Will might be.

It’s wrong of me, but I hope his family is hunting another pride. Just not mine. I want those I left behind safe — Az, Nidia…even Cassian.

When it comes to Will, my feelings are terrible and confusing. To want him safely back one moment, but pray that whatever draki he hunts is safe and free in the next. The two wishes conflict.

I convince myself my pride is safe. We aren’t a weak species. We have our talents. Our strengths. When innocent hikers stumble past Nidia’s mists, she shades their memories and guides them back out. But hunters?

I cringe. It’s one of those things never discussed, but always understood. The pride must be protected. Even if Nidia shaded a hunter’s memory, he could return to hunt our kind. He would forever be a predator.

A predator that needed destroying.

Before now, I never thought anything wrong with the practice. Especially after Dad. But now…

I see only Will’s face. At the thought of him dead, my throat aches. For the boy who spared me. The boy whose beauty seems an impossible dream, unreal to me now, so many days since I’ve had my last glimpse of him.

“Hey, Jacinda.”

I look up, startled. The face is familiar. I think she’s in my English class.

“Hi.” I nod at her. Don’t remember her name.

I try to wake up as I move down the hall. Switch off the autopilot. I’ve become like the desert that surrounds me on every side. Dry and barren. Accustomed to living in a state of nothing.

It is this. The quiet pattern that worries me. The lulling tide of acceptance threatening to pull me under. Mom’s right. Nothing like a barren environment to kill off one’s draki.

I can’t stay like this. I can’t remain here. I have to find a way out. I have to fly — have to keep trying.

Before I enter study hall, I take a deep breath. We didn’t see the boys in PE today. They worked in the weight room while we scrimmaged in the gym. I don’t know if Will’s back, but I tell myself it shouldn’t matter either way. I can’t go out with him, can’t let myself rely on him. I won’t.

Big words. I feel like such a fake. Because despite my vow to forget him, I haven’t. I remember everything about him. I feel his absence. Like the loss of shaded skies, mists, and pulsing earth.

He cannot possibly be all that I remember, all that I crave to see again. Even as I know it’s wrong. Even as I know that I must avoid him.

Walking into study hall, my steps falter when I spot Xander and Angus in the back of the room. Cold prickles down my neck.

They’re back.

11

Immediately, I search for Will. See him nowhere.

My treacherous heart sinks. Xander watches me, his tar black eyes impenetrable. He sends me a hello nod. Angus talks to the girls at the table beside them, his big crushing hands moving the air. He doesn’t notice me.

Only one desperate thought echoes through my mind. No Will. No Will.

I sink onto my stool. Face forward. Catherine hasn’t made it to study hall yet. She has a long trek from the art building.

I rub my hands over my jeans. Everyone begins lining up at the front of the room, eager for a pass, looking for escape. I feel Xander’s stare on my back and consider joining them in line.

He’s just returned from the hunt. Does draki blood, purple and iridescent, stain his hands? Does he, like a bloodhound, have a nose for prey? For draki? For me? That would explain the avid way he watches me.

The warning bell rings its ear-bleeding screech. I’ve grown accustomed to the sound. Hardly jerk where I sit. Bleakness swirls through me. I blink once, hard, squeezing my eyes tight. I don’t want to get used to any of this.

“Hey, Jacinda. Want to go to the library with me and Mike?” Nathan pauses near my table, an easy grin on his boyish, rounded features.

“Thanks, but no. I’m going to study here with Catherine.”

Shrugging, Nathan and his friend step into the pass line, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have joined them. If I still should.

Then my thoughts of escape grind to a stop. That much-missed vibration ignites in my chest, spreads to my core. My skin snaps alive. My head turns, eyes searching, honing in on Will as he walks into the room.

Everything about him is brighter than I remember.

The gold streaks in his brown hair. The gleam of his hazel eyes. His height. The breadth of his shoulders. He makes every other boy look small. Young and silly.

Suddenly, the days without a glimpse of him feel like forever. I have waited too long for this moment. To see him again. For my lungs to tighten. For my heart to pound and swell against my rib cage.

To feel my draki stir.

His gaze lands on me, the hazel eyes bright and hungry in a way that makes my skin flare hotly. But his eyes aren’t the only ones I feel. Behind me, Xander’s stare sinks deep.

Will approaches my table, and I forget about everyone else. I forget that I’m supposed to stay away from him. This near to Will, I even forget whatever vague fear Xander feeds in me. I only want Will to stop, to say something, work his magic on my withering soul. I need that. He’s almost to my table now. My lungs expand, smolder. Steam wells up in my throat. It feels wonderful. It feels like life.

My tightening skin heats, flashes a brief shimmer of red-gold. I clasp my arm, my fingers tight and hurtful. As if the press of my hand can stop me from manifesting in a room full of humans.

He’s so close now I can see the shards of green, gold, and brown in his eyes. One more stride and he’s even with my table.

I hold my hot breath. Search him for some sign…

He looks away from me then, over my head to where his cousins sit. Something passes over his face, a ripple that washes clean the rapt intensity. With a bored expression, he walks past me where I tremble on my stool.

His cold rejection steals my breath. The heat leaves me in a slow sizzle of air out my nose. The blaze in my lungs dies, fades to embers.

Nothing. Not a word?

I think of the last time I saw him — his warm attention. I think of the note he left me. It doesn’t make sense. My hands shake. I press them together, squeeze them tightly. I shouldn’t feel so shattered. I’d decided to avoid him after all. To end it before it ever really began.

The bell rings just as Catherine slides in next to me, those bright eyes of hers luminous beneath the room’s harsh fluorescent glare.

“Hey,” she says, breathless from her long hike from the art building. “What’s up?” She glances over her