Firelight

The bed dips from my weight. I exhale as I pull the covers to my chin, fold my hands over my chest, and strive for a calm I don’t feel, all my thoughts tangled up in the shirt bearing my blood that’s now in Will’s possession.

“If you ruin this for me, I’ll never forgive you.”

Strangely, my sister’s disembodied voice stretching across the dark doesn’t startle me. Not with my head spinning with rapid schemes to reclaim the evidence that I’m not human.

She doesn’t ask for an explanation, and I don’t offer one. It’s enough that I snuck out, and she knows it. As far as she’s concerned, I can’t be up to anything good.

Her bed squeaks as she rolls onto her side. I can think of nothing to say. Nothing to reassure her. Nothing to make me feel less guilty, less selfish.

My lips hum from the memory of Will’s kiss. I almost lost it back there. Almost exposed myself. Almost ruined us all.

And that still might happen if I don’t get my hands on Will’s shirt.

I have to get it back. At any cost.

14

The following day sweat traces my spine as I run the last mile to Will’s house, the hard smack of my shoes on asphalt strangely fortifying.

I promised Mom I would be back before dinner. She likes to eat early on Saturday evenings. There’s enough tension in the house that I don’t want to upset her.

If I’m lucky, Will uses a hamper like Tamra and I do. I picture the shirt wadded up inside it, my blood, purple and iridescent and gleaming even when free of my body, unnoticeable. Hopefully. He of all people would recognize the purple stains for what they are. Discovering I’m draki exposes us all. Puts every draki at risk, even Mom and Tamra. Just by relation to me their lives would be forfeit.

I slow as I approach his house, spotting the Spanish-tiled roof between the trees. I memorized the directions Catherine gave me over the phone. I knew I liked her for a reason. Other than a meaningful hmmm, she didn’t pry and ask why I wanted to know where Will lived.

The gate is open, so I run down the drive, hesitating only a moment before the sweeping portico when I notice the Land Rover parked outside the detached garage. I jerk in place for a moment, debating my next move.

In a perfect world, the house would be vacant with a window left open or unlocked. I would slip inside, find the shirt, and be out in five minutes. But my world has never been perfect.

I don’t have a choice. I can’t risk another day. I just have to play it out. With an ugly mutter, I push on.

Before I can reconsider, I’m up the front steps and knocking on the large double doors. The sound echoes, like a great cavern or abyss stretches out on the other side. I wait, wishing I had worn something other than my striped running shorts and tank top. I’d scraped my hair back into a ponytail that hangs like a horse’s tail down my back. Not my best look.

When the door starts to swing open, that feeling sweeps over me again and I know Will’s on the other side before I see him.

He doesn’t even try to look happy to see me. Given how fast I fled his car yesterday, it’s no wonder he looks surprised. “Jacinda. What are you doing here?”

I toss back his explanation from the night before. “I thought I would check out where you live. You know. Just in case.”

He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile at my joke — the reversal of his words last night. Instead, he looks uneasily over his shoulder. At least he’s not shouting out an alarm that a draki is on his doorstep. Clearly he hasn’t examined his shirt closely.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Will? Who’s here?” The door pulls wider. A man with Will’s hazel eyes steps up beside him. The similarity ends with the eyes. Not as tall as Will, he’s wiry, like he spends a lot of time in the gym, honing his body.

“Oh, hello.” Unlike Will, he smiles easily, but it’s empty. Like he does it all the time without meaning.

“Dad, this is Jacinda. From school.”

“Jacinda,” he says warmly, reaching for my hand. And I offer it to him. Shake hands with the devil himself, see in his eyes, feel in his touch, that he’s nothing like Will. This hunter would never let a draki escape.

“Mr. Rutledge,” I manage to say in a normal voice. “Nice to meet you.”

His hand surrounds my crawling flesh. “Likewise. Will doesn’t bring many of his friends around.”

“Dad,” Will says tightly.

He releases my hand and claps Will on the back. “Okay, I’ll stop embarrassing you.” He looks at me again, his expression avid as he surveys me with obvious approval. “Jacinda, join us. We’re grilling on the back deck.”

“Dad, I don’t think—”

“I would love that,” I lie. Eating with Will’s dad ranks right up there with having my teeth drilled, but I have to get inside. It’s not just about me. Tamra, Mom, the pride, draki everywhere…leaving that shirt in this house puts us all in peril.

Mr. Rutledge waves me inside. I sweep past Will into the frigidly chill house.

“Do you like brisket, Jacinda? It’s been smoking since this morning. It should be ready soon.”

Will falls in beside me as we follow his dad through the vast entrance hall. Our steps echo over the tiled floor. The house is coolly perfect. Lifeless art hangs on the walls and solid white fans whir down at us from the double- high ceiling as we file down a wide corridor.

Will’s voice is a rasp near my ear. “What are you doing here?”

And with that question, I’m struck with being here. In his home, my enemy’s lair. Is this where they bring captive draki? Before selling them to the enkros? My skin ripples, fear dangerously close. I suck in a breath and chafe a hand over my arm, reining in my imagination.

“Are you so disappointed to see me?” I ask, finding courage. His dad rounds a corner ahead of us. “You wanted to see me last night.” I nearly choke on the reminder. Last night I almost thought he would chase me into my house.

He grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop. Those changeable eyes of his rove my face, searching. I sense his confusion, his inability to understand me…or why I’m here. “I want to see you, I haven’t thought of anything else….” He pauses, looking uncomfortable. “Just not here.”

“Will? Jacinda? Come on!”

He flinches at his father’s voice. His gaze flickers beyond me, over my shoulder. “We can see each other somewhere else. I told you how I felt about my family. You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly.

“Well, I am here, and I’m not leaving.” I pull my arm free and walk ahead, calling over my shoulder, “Just in time, too. I’m hungry.”

“Jacinda,” he pleads, his voice tinged with a desperation I just don’t get. I’m certain his determination to keep me out of his home, away from his family, is tangled up in the fact that he’s a draki hunter. But what does that have to do with me? He doesn’t know what I am. His family shouldn’t suspect anything just because he has a girl over to his house.

Will catches up with me in a kitchen of gleaming surfaces and state-of-the-art appliances. I sense his anxiety as we step through the French doors onto the deck. Several faces turn to stare. No one speaks.

Mr. Rutledge motions at me as he opens the lid to the smoker. “Everyone, this is—”

“Jacinda,” Xander supplies, rising from a wrought-iron chair, a sweating bottle of soda in his hand. “Will, I didn’t know you were bringing a date.”

Angus munches from a large bag of potato chips, not bothering to stand or speak, just watching with his thuggish stare.

“Must have slipped my mind.” Will guides me to one of the patio tables and introduces me to the others: Xander’s parents, a set of uncles and aunts, several more cousins. Hunters all, I realize. At least those over thirteen. I don’t imagine the toddler sucking a juice box or the swinging seven-year-old hunts. Yet.