Firelight

hot vibrations starting at my core, the need to purr welling up inside me.

“What are you…” The pathetic whisper of my voice fades.

Tamra drops back beside me. Our shoulders brush. I shoot her a look. She’s glaring at me like I have something to do with Will standing on our curb.

In the distance, the bus approaches. The roar of its choking engine growls louder. Any moment it will round the corner of our street.

I shake my head at her. She says my name again. Stretches it out like a long hissing wind. “Jacinda.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I deny.

Will speaks at last. “I thought you might like a ride to school.”

We gawk at him.

“Both of you,” he quickly adds, lifting one hand out of his pocket and motioning to each of us. Tamra and I exchange glances.

The bus turns the corner.

“Does this normally work for you?” I try for boredom, diffidence, but my voice is all wrong. Rings with something like anger.

He looks confused. “What?”

“Show up uninvited on a girl’s lawn — smile sweet and expect her to jump in the front seat with you?”

“Easy,” Tamra whispers, and I wonder if it’s because she’s afraid I’ll lose my temper and manifest in front of him or because she actually wants me to get somewhere with the guy she warned me to stay away from. But why would she want that? So I’ll fit in and like it here?

He nods, ducks his head. Looks sweetly—disgustingly—humble. Like he can read my mind, he says, “Only once before.” His lips curve in a slow, conspiratorial smile. I can’t help it. I blush madly and my face tightens in that dangerous way as I recall the night I first hopped in his car.

“Hi,” Will says to Tamra, as if just remembering he has never met her. Officially, anyway. He stretches out his hand so very adultlike. “I’m Will—”

“I know.” Tamra doesn’t shake his hand. Cutting her eyes to me, she announces with a sigh, “C’mon. Get in the car.” She moves ahead of me.

Will holds the door open for her. She climbs in the back as the bus rumbles past us.

Will flashes a crooked smile at me. “Missed your bus.”

“Yeah.” We stare at each other for a long moment before I finally ask what’s burning through me. “Why are you here?”

His chest lifts on a deep breath. “I’m done.”

“Done with what?”

“Done letting you avoid me.”

I cock my head. I hadn’t run him off? Could it be so simple? So easy? Poof! He’s here whether I like it or not. I didn’t even need to convince him that I had changed my mind? “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Because I’m not. Like the truest coward, when presented with my self-professed goal, doubts assail me. I’m not sure I’m ready for him. Even if being with him gets me the information I need about other prides, I’m still left with the issue of manifesting whenever I’m too close to him. And I want to be close to him. Can I be with him without being with him? In my true form?

Am I capable of that kind of control?

“I’m sure,” he answers in a firm voice.

“You ever heard of the expression ‘be careful what you wish for, you just might get it’?” It’s as close as I’ll ever come to warning him off.

Tamra calls from the car, “Are we leaving?”

Will’s smile returns, warms my already over-warm skin. “Want that ride?” he coaxes.

Like I have a choice. “I missed the bus,” I remind him as I stride past, climbing in the front before he can move to the door.

A moment later, as he pulls away from the curb, I’m assuming the ride to school will be awkward with my sister in the back. It’s confirmed when she asks, “So what’s the deal with you and my sister?”

He laughs shortly and rubs the back of his neck like something is there, tickling, tapping.

“Tamra.” Clutching the dashboard, I turn and glare at her. “There is no deal.”

She snorts. “Well, we wouldn’t be sitting here if that was the case now, would we?”

I open my mouth to demand she end the interrogation when Will’s voice stops me.

“I like your sister. A lot.”

I look at him dumbly.

He looks at me, lowers his voice to say, “I like you.”

I know that, I guess, but heat still crawls over my face. I swing forward in my seat, cross my arms over my chest and stare straight ahead. Can’t stop shivering. Can’t speak. My throat hurts too much.

“Jacinda,” he says.

“I think you’ve shocked her,” Tamra offers, then sighs. “Look, if you like her, you have to make it legit. I don’t want everyone at school whispering about her like she’s some toy you get your kicks with in a stairwell.”

Now I really can’t speak. My blood burns. I already have one mother doing her best to control my life. I don’t need my sister stepping in as mother number two.

“I know,” he says. “That’s what I’m trying to do now — if she’ll let me.”

I feel his gaze on the side of my face. Anxious. Waiting. I look at him. A breath shudders from me at the intensity in his eyes.

He’s serious. But then he would have to be. If he’s willing to break free of his self-imposed solitude for me, especially when he suspects there’s more to me than I’m telling him…he means what he’s saying.

His thumbs beat a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel as he drives. “I want to be with you, Jacinda.” He shakes his head. “I’m done fighting it.”

“Jeez,” Tamra mutters.

And I know what she means. It seems too much. The declaration extreme. Fast. After all, we’re only sixteen….

I start, jerk a little.

I think he’s sixteen. I don’t even know. I don’t know anything about him other than his secret. That sort of eclipses everything else. But he has to be more. More than the secret. More than a hunter. More than a boy who doesn’t want to be a force of destruction. More than the boy who saved my life. The boy I’ve built a fantasy around. I don’t know the real him. Xander mentioned Will being sick, and I don’t even know what happened to him.

But then I don’t feel bad about that for long. Because he doesn’t know the real me either. And yet he still wants to be with me. Maybe it’s perfect because I want to be with him, too. And not just because I need to get close to him and use him for information. Although there is that. Something I would like to forget but can’t let myself. Forgetting is resigning myself to a life here. Forever. As a ghost. A small voice whispers through me, a tempting thought…. Not if you have Will.

23

As soon as Will parks, Tamra leaves us. I watch her walk quickly through the parking lot. She waves to several people. Drops into step with a girl whose name I don’t know. They start chattering like they’ve known each other all their lives.

Will and I sit in silence. From our spot, far in the back of the parking lot, we watch other cars fly past us for better spots near the doors.

I can think of only one reason he parked so far in the back. So no one can see us together.

Laughter rises, bitter in the back of my throat. I swallow it down. Guess he isn’t as ready to face the world with me at his side as he thinks. I hug my books close to my chest, feet bouncing lightly on the floorboard.

“I guess we better go in,” he says.