A Fractured Light (7 page)

“Who?” I said. “I don’t see anything.”

“Shh,” he whispered. “Be still. Look again.”

This time, I did think I could make out some movement in the dark. Was I imagining things, or could I catch a glimpse of feathers among the trees, a flash of moonlit white against the night?

“Guardians,” I said in a low voice.

“Waiting.”

“For me.” I paused as I really let the weight of it sink in. “Asher, what if I see Devin at school tomorrow? What if I see Raven?” He tightened his arm around me protectively.

“Trust me, Skye, they’d never stage any kind of attack out in the open. At school like that, with everyone watching. Believe it or not, right now, school is the safest place to be.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said, shivering. “Hey, do you have anywhere to be tonight?”

“You mean other than right here?”

“I just thought, with Ardith and Gideon here—”

“Skye.” He stopped me. “I’m pretty sure protecting you is my top priority right now.”

“Good,” I said. “Look. I know this is stupid and embarrassing, but would you . . .”

“Yes?” He grinned.

“Um, sleep with me tonight? Just sleep, I mean. I hate saying this, but . . . I just don’t want to be alone.”

Asher raised an eyebrow. “Just sleep?” A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth in the most infuriating way.

I tried not to blush. It would only egg him on more. “Okay, you know what? Never mind. I’ll take my chances with the Guardians.”

“Oh, stop,” he said, helping me up. “I would love to just sleep with you, Skye.” He walked to the edge of the roof, then turned around, shaking his head. “Are you going to be this scared every night? Because I’ll have to check my calendar . . .”

I pushed him lightly. “Just don’t get used to it.”

We climbed back through my bedroom window. Asher took off his shoes and crawled into bed with me, pulling the covers tightly around us. I fit so perfectly in the crook of his arm. We were safe as long as we were together.

I turned off my bedside lamp, and we lay in the darkness.

“What’s the story with Ardith and Gideon?” I said sleepily.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he whispered. “Go to sleep.”

As we dozed off, I thought I heard him mumble, “Never leave me.” Though it could have been “I’ll never leave you.” I wasn’t sure.

In the morning, I woke up before my alarm, as prepared to face school as I’d ever be. Asher was gone.

He always left before I was ready.

Chapter 9

T
hat morning, I relished the familiarity of waking up in my own bed—but only for about five seconds. I was up and out of there like a shot. The exhaustion I’d been feeling since waking up in the cabin had melted away, replaced with a determined energy. I was back in River Springs, and I had things to do. I had to face my life again.

I reached for my jeans but hesitated. Remembering how ready-for-anything I’d felt the night of Cassie’s show at the Bean, I pulled on an off-the-shoulder sweater dress, tights, and motorcycle boots. A little blush, some mascara, tinted lip balm, a necklace or three, and a scarf, and I was good to go. My eyes blazed silver in the mirror. I didn’t even worry that they might not be normal again by the time I made it to my car. Somehow I knew they would be. I had to start trusting myself.

If I was going back to school, nobody was going to mess with me today.

“Whoa,” Aunt Jo said as I stomped through the kitchen in my heavy boots. “What did you do with Skye? And are those my boots?”

“I’m practicing mind-body consciousness,” I said, biting into a toaster strudel. “Look the part, act the part.”

“Just be nice to your teachers.” She tried to hide a smirk as she refilled her coffee mug.

“I am affronted!” I yelled, heading to the hall and zipping up my parka. “I am always nice!”

“Well, be
extra
nice today,” she called after me. “Offer to do extra credit or something. Get yourself back on track.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “See you later.” I hesitated in the doorway, remembering what it had felt like to come home to an empty house for weeks on end. “You’ll be home, right?”

“For sure I’ll be here. And you’re coming home
right
after school.”

“Got it,” I said. “Love you!”

“Ask the next time you borrow my things!” she called after me.

Oh, how I’d missed my car. The way it hugged the curves of the mountain roads. The way the piercing cold wind whipped at my hair. I always kept my windows open, even in the most freezing temperatures. Maybe because it made me think of skiing.

Or maybe flying.

I was early, but I wasn’t going right to school. I was going to pick up my best friend.

The closer I got to Cassie’s house, though, the more nervous I grew. What if she thought I had abandoned her? What if she never wanted to see me again? Suddenly, even though I felt sort of guilty for thinking it, the idea of Cassie hating me forever was so much worse than the thought of her dying.

I pulled around a tight bend and the grayish white side of her house came into view. The front yard had the same slightly askew, lived-in vibe it always had. Toy trucks and an overturned bucket of little green soldiers littered the frosted ground. As I parked alongside the curb, I noticed that the car parked directly in front of mine belonged to Dan. My heart beat double time. I hadn’t expected to find Dan here, too. I was hoping to have my reunions one at a time, in bite-size pieces.

Oh, well
, I thought.
Here goes nothing.

Good thing I’d worn my tough-girl boots.

The breeze was unseasonably warm today, the morning sky clear and bright, and even though it was still winter, I had a feeling I knew where to find them. Instead of ringing the front doorbell, I walked around through the side gate to the backyard.

Cassie and Dan were sitting side by side on the swing set with their backs to me. Dan was holding her hand, leaning in close to whisper in her ear. She giggled and swatted at him stiffly. Suddenly I panicked. They didn’t want to see me. Why would they? Whether I meant to or not, I had abandoned Cassie, and now there was no room for me in her life. She had Dan.

I took a deep breath.

“I better not feel like the third wheel all the time, now that you guys are couple of the year,” I said loudly. Dan whipped around so fast he almost fell off the swing.

“Skye! Holy crap, really?” He bounded over to me, grabbed me off my feet in a huge bear hug, and twirled me around.

“Ow.” I choked. “You don’t know your own strength.”

“Sorry,” he said, putting me down gently. “It’s just—you’re back! We missed you!” He turned to Cassie, as if she was going to chime in. But she still had her back to me.

Oh no
, I thought.
She’s mad. This is it. She thinks I abandoned her, and I’ll never be able to tell her the truth and I’ll have to find a new best friend and—

“Skye?” Cassie said breathlessly, and it sounded so normal—so like
us—
that she may as well have been about to say,
This gossip isn’t going to spill itself!
She tried awkwardly to turn around. “Is that really you? Shit, ow, wait—” She gripped the chains of the swing. “Dan! Crutches?”

“Oh, right, sorry.” He ran to her and picked the crutches up off the ground. Slowly he helped her lift herself onto them and turn around.

Cassie’s cascading reddish-blond waves had been hiding a neck brace, and her right leg was locked in a huge blue cast that went all the way up to the middle of her thigh. She looked up at me, and our eyes met. Half of her face was bruised, which gave her sort of an angry look.

I swallowed.

“Cass?” I said. “Oh my god.”

“Oh, whatever,” she said, a small smile lighting up her face. She was secretly into the fact that she looked like an invalid, I realized, as I broke into a smile, too. It was definitely dramatic looking. I bet she was getting tons of attention for it.

“You’re totally milking this, aren’t you?”

“What? No,” Cassie said, her smile widening like she really wanted to say,
Who, me?
“But listen, you’re going to have to come to me, because it’s effing impossible to move with this stupid cast on.” Before she even finished talking, I ran across the yard and threw my arms around her. “Ow,” she cried. “Ow, neck brace, neck brace!” But she was laughing. We both were.

Cassie pulled away and gave me a once-over. Her eyes looked glassy, but I knew she’d die before she let herself cry in public.

“Dan?” she said sweetly. “Can you get me that thing?”

Dan looked at her blankly. “What thing?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know, that
thing
. The thing I use to scratch inside my cast?”

“Oh,
that
thing. ’Course, babes.” I was surprised by the tenderness in his voice. He bent and kissed the top of her head. She smiled after him as he walked away, then turned to me.

“
Babes?
You guys say
babes
now?”

“Don’t change the subject,” she said, pointing her index finger at me accusingly. “Where the hell were you? I woke up and you were gone. And I thought something terrible must have happened to you, because there’s no way you would have left me there alone.” A tear brushed down her face, but she stubbornly ignored it. “So tell me that’s it, right?” she said. “You were kidnapped? You were abducted by aliens? A tribe of hot nudist boys whisked you off to their native land, where they hailed you as queen?” She looked hopeful.

I swallowed. Face to face with Cassie, the story I’d told Aunt Jo about being scared felt flimsy and stupid. Cassie would never buy that. I was the strong one. I was the one who was supposed to be cool and levelheaded and unemotional. I was good in a crisis. I didn’t panic and run away. Cassie, of all people, would know I was lying.

“I don’t . . . have . . . a good reason,” I said. She stared at me, and the silence hung between us. I couldn’t keep lying to her like this. I opened my mouth to tell the truth, but something flashed in the woods behind her yard.

Guardians.

My head snapped up, and I glanced behind her toward the trees. Was it my imagination, or could I see a streak of white disappear behind an evergreen? It was a reminder that I could
never
tell Cassie the truth—no matter how much I wanted to. “I was scared,” I said quickly, trying to sound convincing. “I guess . . . I guess I didn’t handle it well.”

“That’s
it
?” She hobbled backward on her crutches. “Oh, gee, Skye, you think?” Well, thank god one of us was scared. It couldn’t have been me, you see, because I was the one
in the coma
!”

I glanced behind me, nervously.

“What do you keep looking for?” she asked. Suddenly recognition dawned on her face, and her jaw dropped. “I know that look. That’s the same look you had plastered to your face in the cafeteria all winter, and the look you had when we were waiting for the bus to the ski trip.” Her eyes widened. “You’re looking for them, aren’t you? Asher and Devin?
They’re
the reason you ran away!”

“What?” I cried. “No way!”

“Don’t play this game with me, Skye. The jig is
so
up. You left me. For a
guy.
”

“I didn’t, I swear!”

“You know, Skye, I’m boy crazy. I can accept that. But I would never put one of them ahead of you.”

“Uh,” Dan said, coming up behind her with a long instrument that looked like a deconstructed hanger. “Standing right here.”

“Not you, Dan,” Cassie said. “The other ones.”

“
What
other ones?”

Cassie turned to him pointedly. “The ones who came
before
.” She raised an eyebrow. “Catch my drift?”

“It’s rare that I do,” Dan said.

“Aunt Jo may have bought the whole ‘I was scared’ line,” she continued, wheeling back around. “But I know you better than that. You really want to stand there and tell me that’s why you left?”

No
, I thought desperately.
I don’t.

“You weren’t even shaken up after that avalanche almost killed you,” Dan added.

“Well played, babes,” she said to him, holding out her hand so he could slap it five. “So are you going to tell us the truth?”

My throat went dry. Every fiber of my being fought against telling her. There were Guardians everywhere. And the last thing I needed was to put my friends in danger. Most of the time, they were all that was keeping me sane.

“You’re right,” I said. The words were out of my mouth before I could think about what I was going to say next. “The night of your gig—of the party—Asher told me that he wanted to, um . . .” I paused. How could I explain this? “Be my boyfriend. He said with all the drama at home and him and Devin fighting and everything, he wanted to take me away. There’s this cabin in the woods not far from here. We went there for a couple of days.” I paused again. “Just spent some time away from everything. I spent most of it worried about you,” I added, glancing at her. Cassie was frowning at me, listening intently.

“Skye, that is the”—she propped a hand on her hip—“
best
story ever! How romantic! Now I get why you couldn’t tell Aunt Jo. She’d flip, right? Wow. Are you grounded? In the name of love? Did you drive here? Where’s Asher?”

I grinned. I should have realized the way to distract Cassie sooner.

“I really was scared, though,” I said quietly. “That part was true.”

“Eh, I know.” Cassie sighed. “I was scared when I woke up and saw myself in the mirror.” She pointed at her eye. “Purple is not a good color on redheads!”

“I was scared, too,” said Dan. “My first and only girlfriend almost didn’t wake up. Can you imagine any other girl wanting me after that?”

“Aw,” Cassie cooed. “Of course they would. If I had died, you’d be all wounded and mysterious and nursing your broken heart. Girls love that crap. They’d want to put you back together.”

“Really?” Dan asked hopefully. Cassie hobbled over and put her arm around him.

“You bet,” she said. “But let’s not test the theory, okay?” Dan leaned in really quickly for a surprise kiss, and Cassie lost her balance. She toppled over her crutches, fell to the ground. “Dan!” she yelled. “Ow?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, rushing to help her up again.

“You know what, on second thought, those girls can have you.”

“You love it,” Dan said.

“Not as much as you do,” she crowed. They were kissing again.

“Guys?” I said. “I’m back now, remember?”

“Mm? Oh, right, Skye. Sorry,” Cassie said, breaking away sheepishly.

“Come on,” I said. “I’m driving. I don’t want to be late my first day back.”

Cassie leaned on Dan’s shoulder, and we made our way to the car.

“So,” she said as I pulled out of the driveway, “you may have left just in time. I heard that Devin has a new girlfriend.”

“What?”
I wheeled around involuntarily.

“Oh my god, watch the road!” Cassie and Dan shouted at the same time.

“God, sorry,” I said. I glanced casually in the rearview mirror as we turned on to the main road. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” Cassie took a deep breath, her eyes glinting mischievously.

“Um, have you been gossip starved or something?”

“I’m only getting started. There was a chemical contamination at River Springs High, right? And they had to shut it down, for like a month or so. They merged with us until it’s safe to reopen.” She met my eye in the mirror. “Some cuties, Skye,” she whispered. “That’s all I’m gonna say.”