B00AO57VOY EBOK (4 page)

By the time Nathan finally
emerged from the woods and headed toward me, I had totally freaked myself out,
imagining demons and every other manner of thing that went bump in the night
watching me from the windows of those abandoned wings.  When I got a good look
at Nathan’s ashen complexion and tense shoulders, that spine-chilling factor
multiplied exponentially, leaving me shivering.  When he wrenched his door open
with enough force to nearly tear it off, I pretty much became a nervous wreck.

“Did you find something?” I
asked, my voice trembling as badly as the rest of me.

“First,
you
are going
to answer a few questions for
me
,” he snapped, sliding behind the wheel
but making no move to start the car.  “First question, did anything happen
today I should know about?”

I started to say ‘no’, but
the look on his face told me he already knew something so I decided to try
honesty out for a change.  Training my eyes on the dashboard, I whispered, “I
thought I saw Jack.”

“Is that right?” Nathan
seethed.  “And you didn’t think to
tell
me that?”

“I didn’t tell you because I
didn’t think he was
real
,” I mumbled, still not looking at him.  “I was
standing in front of his locker after the last bell rang, looking at the
pictures everybody keeps adding to it and thinking about how much I missed
him.  And when I walked out, there he was, leaning against that tree over
there.”

“You miss the spawn of Satan
himself, Em?” he growled.  “What?  Was it more exciting for you when you were
being stalked by a damn demon?”

I stared at him, speechless
for a few seconds.  That wasn’t fair.  Nathan only knew the demonic version of
Jack, but I knew the real one.  I knew the guy who was charming and sweet. 
Yes, I missed him.  And, damn it, I wasn’t about to let Nathan make me feel bad
for that.

“No,” I whispered, shaking
my head as my eyes filled with tears.  “I miss
Jack
, Nathan. 
My
Jack.  The guy I grew up with and fought with and danced with and went to
parties with.  I miss my
friend.
 Is that so hard to understand?”

He sat there and stared at
me for what seemed like forever, and I could see the emotions flitting across
his gorgeous face.  He was feeling guilty for being such a prick.  He was
jealous because I had just admitted to missing another guy.  He was pissed I
hadn’t told him I’d seen a ghost.  He was worried about something.   And he
was…afraid.  Like, really and truly
afraid
.

Oh, that
could
not
be good.

“Next question,” he said
softly, his voice sounding even more strained.  I got the impression that he
was trying not to yell at me, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why he
would want to.  “Em, where is your cross?”

My cross?  Was he serious? 
I never took the little gold cross he had given me off.  Nathan
knew
that.  He’d even teased me about it.  Why the hell would he be asking me where
it was when he…already…?

Oh, shit.

I patted my chest where my
cross usually rested, but didn’t feel anything beneath my sweater.  With a
little thrill of panic shooting through me, I pulled my sweater out so I could
look for myself, sure it was there and I was just missing it.  But all I found
was a pair of too-big boobs harnessed by a white lace bra and smooth skin. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted
in a strangled whisper, my eyes filling with tears.

I looked over at him,
preparing myself for the anger I was sure I would see glowing in his eyes, but
instead I found myself staring at what was dangling from one of his long
fingers.  The cross glinted in the muted winter light coming through the
windshield, the symbol of my mark that was engraved in the center of it seeming
to almost glow in that faint light. 

I reached for it, wanting
nothing more than to put it back where it belonged.  That cross was more than
just a pretty piece of jewelry.  It was a magic amulet so powerful that it
could transcend worlds and my only guarantee of safety in the crazy world I was
coming to think of as my own.  It was more than that I wanted it.  I
needed
it. 
Even before Grams had turned it into a portal to the lost plane I had reacted
that way to the little cross.  It was mine, damn it, and I wanted it back.

To my surprise, Nathan
snatched it back and then curled his big fist around it.  Taking a deep breath
through his nose in an attempt to calm down, he growled, “You can have it back
after Shea and Amelia check it out.”

 “Where did you find that?”

“In the woods!” he snarled,
flashing his fangs at me as his eyes began to glow like a pair of light bulbs. 
“It was nailed to a tree.  Along with
this
.”

He held a folded, crumpled
piece of paper out to me.  I took it with trembling hands, pretty sure I didn’t
want to see what was on it.  I had to force myself to unfold it, and when I did
I wished I had just gone with my first instinct and refused.  It was a copy of
the story Kim and I had been reading in the paper before she got pissed and
walked out on me. 

With a few very conspicuous
differences.

“What the hell?” I squeaked,
staring at the picture of me someone had put in place of Blood Red’s latest
victim. 

It wasn’t just the fact that
my face had replaced that of a dead girl that terrified me; it was the picture
itself.  Only one person had that picture.  He’d refused to even send it to
me
after he snapped it with his phone the summer before, saying it was going to be
his and only his forever.  And, as far as I knew, he’d kept that vow. 

The photographer had been
Jack.

“Read it,” Nathan said,
refusing to take the paper back from me even when I practically shoved it into
his hand.  “Read it, Em.”

Though I didn’t want to, I
forced myself look at the paper again.  It wasn’t the story I finally found
myself reading over and over—though that would have been enough to terrify me
all by itself, seeing as the dead girl’s name had been replaced with mine
throughout the article.  No, what had me wanting to go find a hole to hide in
was the handwritten message at the bottom.

Hey, bloodsucker.  It’s
playtime again.  May the best man win.

“Your boyfriend’s back, Em,”
Nathan said when I started to shake like I was having a seizure.  “That message
he’s been sending, it’s to me.  This time, he’s playing to win.”

By the time we made it home,
the terror had begun to wear off and I was
pissed
.  The thing about the
psycho playing hairdresser with his victims?  Yeah, Nathan knew that.  The
Sheriff’s Department coming up with the theory about it being a message to
someone?  Yeah, that too.  Nathan had known
everything
thanks to his
compelled deputy, and he hadn’t said a damn word.

“Baby, you’re overreacting,”
he said quietly as I slammed through the door from the garage.

“Overreacting?!” I shrieked,
turning on him right there in the middle of the kitchen.  “You got mad because
I didn’t tell you I thought I’d seen a
ghost,
Nathan!  A ghost!  You
didn’t think I’d be a little pissed off when I found out you knew this freak
was turning his victims into Ember clones and didn’t tell me?  Really?”

“You’re right, I should have
told you,” he said, taking a step toward me.  The look on my face must have
been promising violence, because he came to a quick stop. 

“Then why didn’t you?” I
hissed.  “What?  You didn’t think I could take it, Nathan?  Is that it?”

“I didn’t tell you because I
couldn’t bear to put anything else on your shoulders,” he answered, his voice
almost a whisper in the stillness of the kitchen.  “Don’t forget who holds you
at night while you’re sleeping, Ember.  I’m the one who wipes away the tears
you don’t even know you’re shedding.  And I’m the one whose heart breaks when
you beg your friend to forgive you in your dreams, because I know you’ll never
forgive yourself.”

I opened my mouth to yell at
him again, and then snapped it shut and swallowed hard to choke back a sob that
was so close it was making my chest feel tight and uncomfortable.  Leaning my
hip against the counter next to me, I dropped my face into my hands and tried
to hold on to my anger.  It was all that was keeping me from becoming a
blubbering mass of tears and terror, and I was afraid to let it go.  I wasn’t
sure I’d be able to keep it together if I did.

Those girls,
I
thought, my chest tightening even more as a tidal wave of fresh guilt hit me. 
They
died in my place.  They died because of me.

“It’s not your fault, baby,”
Nathan said quietly, sounding as miserable as I felt.  “It’s not, Em.”

“It is,” I whispered as a
tear rolled down my cheek.  “They’re dead because I wasn’t strong enough to get
rid of him!”

With a sad sigh, Nathan
walked over and wrapped his arms around me, tucking my head under his chin.  I
let the tears fall then, tears of anger and sadness and a frustration that ran
so deep I could feel it in my bones.  I let him comfort me because I knew he
needed it as much as I did.  I let him wrap me up in his scent, breathing it in
deeply to help ease my aching conscience and my worried thoughts.  I leaned on
his strength, wishing I could borrow just a little of it.

“We have to call Shea, Em,”
Nathan said softly when he thought I was calm enough to be reasonable. 

I tensed against him and bit
my lip to keep from saying something I wouldn’t really mean.  Grams and I
hadn’t exactly parted on good terms when she left for Washington.  After
banishing the body of one of my best friends, I had sworn off all things
witchy.  Grams had begged, pleaded, and even tried to bribe me into
reconsidering, but I had refused to even hear her out.  Finally, in a fit of
temper, she had packed her things and gone home.  Her parting words hadn’t been
lost on me, however.

“Deny your heritage all you
want, Ember Leigh,” she had told me, giving me one of the piercing glares she
was so well known for, “but mark my words, a day will come when you can’t run
from yourself any longer.  When that time comes, I will be waiting.”

From where I was standing,
it looked like that day was coming sooner rather than later.

“Fine, call her,” I agreed
finally—albeit grudgingly.  “When you do, though, tell her I’m really not in
the mood to hear her say I told you so.”

“Noted,” he said with a
slight smile, dropping a kiss on top of my head.

I sank onto the stool next to
me as he walked out of the kitchen, his phone already pressed to his ear.  When
I was sure he was gone, I folded my arms on the counter and laid my head on top
of them.  I closed my eyes and tried to center myself the way Grams had taught
me to, but I shouldn’t have wasted my time.  As confused and overwhelmed as I
felt, my center was probably in the bottom of the Pacific or something. 

“If I could just find him,”
I whispered to myself.  “If I could find him, I could stop him before he hurts
anyone else.  I
have
to stop him.”

“Good luck with that, babe,”
a familiar voice said sarcastically just as a blast of freezing cold air hit
me, causing me to shiver. 

I lifted my head to find my
least favorite ghost—ever—leaning against the counter across from me, smoothing
out his orange-streaked hair.  I narrowed my eyes at him, but Snake just
shrugged, causing the chains on his leather jacket to jingle.

“To what do I owe the
pleasure, Snake?” I asked with a sigh, leaning back on my stool and crossing my
arms over my chest—more to keep warm than to be intimidating. 

“Aw, Ember!  You know I
love
to watch you wallow in self-pity,” he quipped with a grin, hopping up to sit on
the counter behind him.  “You’re my sole form of entertainment.  I mean, what
else do I have to do?  I’m dead, hot stuff.”

“But not gone,
unfortunately,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.  “Really, Snake, what do you
want?”

“Hmm…” he murmured, rubbing
his chin like he was really thinking about it.  “Well, I guess I want what I
wanted yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.  The stairway
to heaven.  On the other hand, if that old guy is really there ticking off
names on some list, there’s probably a reject stamp next to mine, so there’s no
hurry or anything.”

“At the moment, though, I’m
here to help
you
.  Again,” he said, winking when I arched an eyebrow at
him. 

“And just how do you think
you can help me?” I asked, not really in the mood to play games with him. 

“I know how you can find
your demon.”

“And how would you know
where he is?” I asked, my eyes widening to the size of flying saucers.  “Aw,
Snake!  You crossed over to the dark side, didn’t you?  What?  Are you playing
errand boy for this creeper now?!”