Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) (32 page)

When our lips met I thought I was going to burst. I had to restrain myself from going crazy. I clung to him, his own urgency awakening mine into a frenzy. I pushed him up against one of the tables and he pulled me into his lap, my leg ungracefully slung up over his waist. The chemistry was undeniable, his hands slipping down over my hips. My throat tensed up as our lips moved together.

“Ah, the sight of young lovers.”

Henry and I broke apart, horrified. I almost slipped into the snow, but instinctively Henry shot his arm out and caught me.

Dr. Briggs stood on the veranda overlooking the patio, smiling down at us.

CHAPTER 26

HOW MUCH HAD
he seen? It didn’t matter; he’d obviously seen us kissing, and that was bad enough. He’d arrived at the worst possible moment.

Dr. Briggs held a cigarette in his lips, struggling to light the tip in the brisk wind. Henry and I remained as still as the ice sculptures, which now seemed like grotesque gargoyles. The cold suddenly hit me without the heat of wanting Henry and I shivered uncontrollably.

“I just stepped out for a cigarette,” Dr. Briggs said when he’d finally lit it and taken a drag. He must have been mistaking our upset faces for the silly cigarette. “Never smoke, it’s a horrible habit. I had to get out of that building; is it just me or do they have the heat cranked to a hundred and twenty?”

I just nodded, unable to form words.

Henry was still holding my arm, but he dropped it as soon as he realized it. He shifted a step away, putting his hands together.

“If you’ll excuse us, we have to be getting back,” Henry said in a strained voice, starting off and leading me back up the path.

“We’re screwed,” Henry said with haunted eyes. “He’s with my father all the time; there’s no way he won’t tell him.”

“But he seems…different than the rest of them,” I tried to protest. “Nicer. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he won’t put two and two together. Maybe he won’t say anything.”

But I knew that wouldn’t happen.

Henry and I parted just inside the door, much like we had practiced at school. People were beginning to gather in the front room, with Phillip standing in the middle.

“What are they doing?” I asked the nearest girl, who was wearing a thigh-length purple dress and a vapid, open-mouthed look.

“They’re naming the newest members to Thornhill,” the girl whispered in a gossipy tone.

“New members?”

The girl nodded, her eyes wide in surprise that I didn’t know what she was referring to. “Of course. They’ve been testing them up until now, tonight was like the big induction. That’s why the women catered the event.”

Phillip quieted the crowd and started speaking. “Thank you for coming tonight, everyone. I know we’re probably all ready to go home and crash after this great evening together, but I didn’t want to keep our hopefuls waiting any longer to see if they got into Thornhill. As you know, we took our votes earlier this evening.”

He began reading off a short list of inductees. I saw Claire watching, hovering on her toes with the fingers of both of her hands crossed behind her back.

“…And Rachel Reed. Anyone whose name wasn’t read, better luck next time.” He raised his glass. “
Umbra regnum
.”

“
Umbra regnum
,” the crowd repeated robotically, also lifting their glasses. The people began separating into groups again, talking cheerfully to the excited new members.

Claire was still standing in the same spot, her face frozen in shock. Her hands slowly came out from behind her back. I went up to her and put my hand on her shoulder. Claire flinched away, glaring at me. Then she realized who I was and relaxed.

“We’re getting out of here,” she growled. She went to the table and downed one last champagne flute, then stalked off.

I turned and watched Rachel Reed, Jenna’s mother, shake Phillip Rhodes’s hand.
What is she doing here?
She wasn’t any more qualified than my mother. Didn’t she sense that Thornhill had something to do with her daughter’s death?

I realized my mother was probably getting irritated with me and ready to leave. Hopefully, she hadn’t left without me. I went towards the cloak room. I could hear Claire inside, arguing with other women, among them Deana Ford and Harlow Briggs. I peeked around the corner for just a second and saw Claire sitting on a bench in the back. Deana was holding one of her hands.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Claire was saying. “If I had, I never would have given it to her. It was among my mother’s last things at the hospital. I just thought it was a special token, since she died with it.”

“Oh?” Deana asked innocently.

“I looked everywhere for it,” Claire said. I stopped just out of sight, squeezing up against the wall.

“Of course you did, honey. We all did.” Deana was laying on the sweetness thickly.

“Then why is he using it against me? Barring me from entering?”

“I think it’s because of your past. Maybe Cheryl doesn’t want you in. You know that the special powers are intimidating.”

So she really was looking for the necklace. I thrill of fear rushed through me.

I heard them scooting around, and I stepped away. Claire came out, shot towards me and tossed me my coat.

“Were you saying your goodbyes?” I asked in a falsely cheerful voice. I just wanted to get out of there. Any minute, Briggs could tattle to Phillip and then things would get dangerous.

“We’re leaving. I’ve never felt so betrayed in all my life.” She whipped around, her hair tumbling out of her beautiful updo, and shouted across the room. “I hope you get what you deserve, Phillip!”

He gave her a snide little smirk, looking eerily like Henry, and lifted his wine glass.

“I will,” he said.

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, Clairy,” Cheryl Rhodes called. Roger snickered from beside her, the first I’d ever seen him laugh. It was completely mirthless, more like a sneer.

Claire and I stormed out and towards her car, not even getting her dishes back.

###

“
Experts are saying that the snow this year will be reaching record highs, an unparalleled pattern of heavy accumulation and cold temperatures. A blizzard advisory has just gone into affect for Livingston and Genesee counties and we are urging people not to leave home unless it’s an emergency…”

Claire stabbed the radio buttons until she reached a jazz station. Only now was I realizing just how much alcohol she had imbibed at the party and how much it was impacting her reflexes.

The car swerved liberally on the road, which was swiftly transforming into a glistening sheet of black ice. The sky was pitch black behind the endless torrent of thick white flakes.

“This is a nasty storm. I think it’s a good idea if you pull over and I take the wheel,” I told her firmly. I didn’t have great experience driving in snow, but at least I wasn’t drunk.

“My driving is fine,” Claire said through gritted teeth. I could smell the alcohol starting to seep out of her pores. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her lips set in a tight pout. “I can’t believe they used me like that. And then they figured out I didn’t have what they wanted, and dumped me like trash. How could they?”

I knew her questions were rhetorical, but I wondered if I should attempt to answer them to keep her lucid. I watched out of the windshield as the snow started to fall even more heavily, whiting out the view so that only a foot of the road was visible.

“We should really pull over,” I said, fear starting to race through me. This wasn’t good. The tires weren’t gripping. Each jerk of the car shot another dose of anxiety through me.

“I already told you, my driving is fine!” Claire said. She turned towards me. “If you weren’t so busy second guessing me—”

“Claire, watch the road,” I said anxiously, my eyes darting around the windshield. It was hard to make out anything. But Claire was too busy glaring at me to focus on the road. The back of the car started fishtailing.

“—Then you would realize that I am perfectly capable—”

“
Mom, watch the road
!”

She turned, but her reflexes weren’t fast enough. A black figure, in the shape of a large deer, stepped out into the snow. As the front of our car met the animal, I saw for a split second that it was the black dog. Its hollow eyes stared serenely at me before it shot up into the air and hit the top of our car with a hard thud.

Claire hit the brakes, screaming, but there was no traction. She spun the wheel uselessly and the car twirled on the icy road, tires squealing, heading right for the trees with no sign of slowing down. The car crashed head on into the hard black trunks, the glass in the windshield spiderwebbing. The last thing I remembered was bouncing my head off of the dashboard before everything went black.

CHAPTER 27

THE SNOW DIDN’T
stop just because we’d been in an accident. In fact, it started to fall more heavily. I felt like I was awake the whole time, but later I would realize I’d lost moments, like scenes cut out of an old reel of film. My legs were freezing in my tights, and I just stood on the side of the road, feeling shell-shocked.

“Did we hit it? Did we hit it?” Claire kept yelling. Her phone was up to her ear and she was plugging her other one. Her entire body shook like a leaf about to fall from a tree. She kept pacing in the road, watching for cars. Watching for cops. She was acting totally sober now.

I stalked onto the street. “I don’t see a body,” I said in a shaky voice. I almost slipped and stood still, my eyes following the tire tracks to the tree.

My nose felt numb and stung at the same time. I rubbed it, thinking maybe I’d broken it. Again. I looked at it in the remains of one of the rearview mirrors that had broken off and skidded to the ground. There was no bruise, so I figured it was just the biting cold.

The entire front end of Claire’s car was smashed. I was surprised we’d walked away unharmed—that we’d walked away at all. The place where my legs had been was pushed precipitously forward.

“Are the police coming?” I asked Claire, who was still pacing like she was having a nervous breakdown.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no.” Her eyes were flitting all over the stark road.

Suddenly, it seemed as though another scene was cut out of my memory, and Hugh’s Mazda was parked in front of me. Hugh ejected out of the car in a fury. He ran right up to Claire.

“How could you drive drunk with our daughter in the car?” Hugh growled through gritted teeth. “Aren’t you capable of thinking about anyone but yourself now?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Claire yelled back. “I didn’t have that much to drink.”

“Don’t give me that. Your reflexes would have been fine. You know you can’t combine the alcohol with your—”

Claire cut him off. “I’m fine.”

I sat on the hood of Hugh’s Mazda. I couldn’t get warm. I kept wishing for Henry to come and wrap me in his arms. Then I’d think about the mess we’d made.

“I would have had the same accident even without a drop of alcohol. A deer ran out in the road.”

“It wasn’t a deer, it was a dog,” I corrected instantly. “A dark one, hard to see.”

“No, Ariel, it was a deer,” Claire protested. “Brown, with white spots on the back. I saw it clearly.”

“I don’t care if it was a goddamn bear! The point is you shouldn’t have tried to drive home while you were plastered,” Hugh said. He came over to me, pulling a flannel blanket out of his backseat and wrapping it around my shivering shoulders. “Ariel is coming home with me. You are obviously too wrapped up in your personal life to give her the structure she needs.”

“Oh, and you can?” Claire challenged, getting in his face.

I touched Hugh on the arm. “She didn’t get into Thornhill.”

But Claire didn’t back down.

“Fine, take her! She’s just a disappointment anyway,” Claire yelled. “I’m sure she’s half the reason they didn’t want me. She just mopes around and has her head in the clouds. So much potential and no action.” She started walking down the road to where a taxi had pulled up.

Her words stung into me deeply, cutting me down to the bone. She’d never been quite so frank about her hateful feelings. I’d always known that while she loved me, I didn’t match up to her expectations. But I didn’t know how deep it went.

Hugh helped me to the back seat, opening the door. “Are you sure you’re okay, hon? We can get to the ER really quickly.”

“I’m fine,” I said through chattering teeth. “It’s just been a very long night. I need to lie down.”

I sprawled across the back seat, smelling the leather, the seatbelt buckle cutting into my back. I couldn’t drop off into sleep, though. My nerves were completely frazzled. I kept seeing the trees coming towards the windshield. The deep boom of the crash echoed in my ears.

“She didn’t mean it, Ariel,” Hugh insisted. “She’s just mad at me and bitter that Thornhill didn’t take her in. It has nothing, nothing at all to do with you. To be honest, I knew they wouldn’t. I told you they were using her.”