Never to Sleep (2 page)

Well, if you
insist… My afternoon was looking better already.

I smiled at him. “I’m still a little dizzy. Who knows how long that could take?”

“I’ll clear my schedule.” He replaced the shirt that had fallen out and picked up the box. “Which way?”

“Take the next right, and head straight for the double doors.”

We were almost to the hallway junction when Luca stopped in the middle of the floor. His eyes narrowed at nothing, then closed entirely, and when they opened, he looked…cautious. Like he’d seen something or heard something weird. Or like he’d felt a draft. But all I could hear were some locker door squeals and muted voices from around the corner, and I couldn’t see anything but an empty stretch of hall in front of us. And there was no breeze.

“Yeah. Let’s go this way.” He took my arm and started to turn back the way we’d come.

I pulled loose from his grip. “The gym’s that way.”

“Is there another route?” He frowned at the intersection behind me, and I turned to look again, but there was nothing there—just the junction of two hallways, with a set of restrooms on opposite corners.

“Only if we go around the whole building. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Luca fell into step beside me again, reluctantly this time, and I took a critical sideways glance at him. He was beyond gorgeous. But Eastlake High was full of pretty people who acted like total freaks. I blame the local water supply. Which was why I drank bottled water.

Still, Luca was new, and he was hot, and he was the first guy who’d looked at me with something more interesting than pity in his eyes since my mom died and my boyfriend was committed to a mental institution. If the universe was finally throwing me a bone—and let’s be honest, it owed me the whole damn
skeleton
, after the year I’d had—I wasn’t going to throw it back without at least taking a good look at the offering.

We turned the corner, and I glanced up when the voices I’d heard fell into a sudden hush. There were only a few people left in this corridor, and they were all staring at a couple in the middle of the math hall, making out like they were trying to swallow each other whole.

I didn’t recognize the guy’s pale curls or athletic build, but I would have known
her
anywhere. Thin, curveless body that she didn’t know how to showcase to its own advantage. Plain, thick brown hair that could be pretty, if she’d use a decent conditioner or let me flatiron it. But she never did, so I’d stopped asking when I was twelve, and I realized it’d be easier to pretend I didn’t know her than to try to explain how she could be so mousy when we sprang from the same genetic line.

“Who is that?” Luca whispered, and I had to swallow a groan. Of course the first things he’d see at Eastlake were me, flat on my butt with a bruise rising on my forehead—
not
my finest hour—and Kaylee, starring in yet
another
public spectacle.

I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him before, but she’s my cousin. And that is
not
her boyfriend. I swear, she is
such
a closet slut.” She’d gotten double detention for public display with Nash two days ago.

Luca glanced at me with upraised brows. “Looks like the closet’s open.”

“Great.” The only thing worse than a quiet, crazy cousin was a slutty, skanky cousin with an exhibitionist streak. At least Peyton knew how to keep her secrets secret.

For the millionth time, I wished my parents had let me change my last name so people would stop mistaking me and Kaylee for sisters. That’s
all
I’d wanted for my thirteenth birthday, and those little-girl diamond heart earrings were a poor substitute.

A second later, Nash and his creepy, goth-freak friend stepped around a corner on the other end of the hall and stopped cold, staring just like we were. I couldn’t decide whether to stick around for the fireworks, or run from the drama before I became collateral damage by association. Again.

“Kaylee?” Nash said, and my cousin and the mystery hottie jumped apart like someone had lit a fire at their feet.

I ducked into a classroom doorway, behind a row of lockers, and Luca glanced at me in surprise. “
That’s
her boyfriend. At the end of the hall, with the scary brunette.”

Luca stared down the hall again, and when the shouting started, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around the corner with me. “You’re right. Let’s go this way.” I started back the way we’d come and he fell into step beside me, still carrying my box, as the drama behind us grew louder and even more embarrassing.

“I take it you’re not close to your cousin?” Luca said, watching me with those beautiful eyes.

“I’m close to never speaking to her again. Does that count?”

“Why? What’d she do?”

“You mean other than the Jerry Springer-worthy public display back there? She lived with me until this year—her own
dad
didn’t even want her around for, like, thirteen years—and she’s been trying to wreck my life since junior high.”

“With serial public displays of affection?”

“No, that’s a recent development.” Thank goodness. “Kaylee’s kind of…unbalanced.”

“Meaning, she falls over a lot?”

“Ha-ha. She’s nuts. My eighth grade dance recital? We had to leave before my solo because Kaylee had this stupid panic attack.”

“A panic attack?”

“She was totally faking. She just started screaming at the top of her lungs, for no reason at all, and everyone stared at us, and my dad had to carry her out like a baby. Every time she does it, they fuss over her like she’s all fragile, when it’s my life she’s turning into a public tragedy every time she opens her mouth.”

“And you’re sure she does it on purpose?”

“
So
sure. She’s a social
assassin.
She sabotaged my run for Snow Queen. She got my boyfriend arrested and committed to a mental institution, and—”

“Boyfriend?” Luca looked disappointed, and my pulse rushed so fast I got a little dizzy again.

“Ex.”

But the worst part—the part I hadn’t told anyone—was that she was there when my mom died. Kaylee
did
something—or, at the very least, she
knew
something—but she wouldn’t tell me what really happened. She couldn’t even come through for me the one time I truly needed her help, yet she went to great lengths to hold me back from the social existence I was
born
to live.

“The moral of the story is that my cousin is a malicious freak, and you should avoid her like the social equivalent of the black plague.”

Luca’s brows rose. “That sounds a little harsh.”

I shrugged. “Survival strategy. If you’re not careful, this place will eat you alive, and Kaylee’s like bait for the beasts.”

“You make your school sound like a war zone. Should I come dressed for battle?”

“Always.” And it doesn’t hurt to have designer labels on your chain mail. “The key is to know which battles are worth fighting.”

“Would these be dance battles?” Luca said, his eyes sparkling with good humor. “If so, I’m afraid I’m not very well trained. Maybe you could give me some pointers.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to look or sound as nervous as I felt. He was
so
pretty, and he’d just heard all about my psychologically challenged cousin and wasn’t scared away. “I could probably make time in my schedule for some private—”

A boy appeared in the hall, right in front of me, inches from where I’d been smacked by the door minutes earlier. I squealed and jumped back, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it echo in my ears. “What the
hell?
” I backed away, my gaze glued to the boy who’d appeared out of
nowhere,
kneeling, head bowed like he was praying, hands flat on his own thighs.

“Sophie, wait…” Luca came toward me, his focus shifting between me and the guy in the middle of the floor, like he was afraid to let either of us out of his sight. Me, and the guy who shouldn’t exist. Who hadn’t moved since he’d materialized,
right in front of us.

How hard had that door hit me?

“You see him?” I demanded, eyes wide, pulse racing so fast my vision was starting to blur. “It’s not just me?” Maybe Kaylee wasn’t faking crazy after all. Maybe it
was
hereditary, and I was losing my mind too.

“I see him. He’s real.” Luca backed toward me, the box still tucked under his left arm, his right hand held out at his side, like he’d grab mine.

“Then why aren’t you freaked-out?” I couldn’t drag my gaze away from the guy-who-shouldn’t-be, still kneeling in black pants and a white button-up shirt like he was on his way to church. Or to wait tables. How did he get there? Why wasn’t he moving?

“I’m good under pressure,” Luca said, his voice soft and steady. “When I say go, we’re both going to run.” He knelt carefully and set the box down. “Okay?”

I nodded, but he couldn’t see that, because he was still watching the boy, who hadn’t moved. Who wasn’t breathing. “What the hell just happened? How are you so calm?” I demanded.

“I’m faking it. Give me your hand.”

“I don’t understand….”

“Sophie,”
Luca whispered fiercely, and I slid my hand into his just as the boy in the white shirt looked up. Slowly. Like he wasn’t sure he wanted to see us any more than we wanted to see him. Which was probably why his eyes were closed. A strand of dark hair fell over his ear, and his hand twitched on his leg, his thumb scratching across the black cotton. He was older than I’d thought at first. Too old for high school. The boy-who-couldn’t-be-there was really a
man
-who-couldn’t-be-there, but that fact barely even registered, because that wasn’t the part of this that made no sense.

I was breathing too fast. My lungs were starting to burn, and the hallway looked hazy. I’d passed out once—the night my mom died—and that’s what the world looked like right before I lost consciousness.

“Ready?” Luca whispered, and I nodded again, as the man in the white shirt stood. Then he opened his eyes.

And I screamed.

I screamed so loud my throat burned and my lungs ached.

Those weren’t eyes. They had no color. No irises and no pupils. They weren’t bluish, like the whites of normal eyes. They were bright white and blank. Empty. Like someone had scooped out his eyes and shoved miniature cue balls into his head in their place.

The man who couldn’t be there had eyes that couldn’t be real, and I couldn’t stop screaming, even when Luca squeezed my hand, wincing from the pitch of my scream, and tried to pull me away from the man without eyes.

Then the world went gray, and I screamed even harder. Fog rolled over the dingy tile floors, covering the impossible man’s feet, lapping at my own calves. Something moved in the fog—a slithery, sliding thing I couldn’t quite focus on. So I closed my eyes and the air changed around me, but I didn’t stop screaming.

I couldn’t, until I realized that my voice sounded different now. Less echoey, like the walls around me had changed and were bouncing the sound back at me differently now.

The shock of that realization choked the scream from my throat, and Luca’s fingers slipped from my grasp. A warm hand cradled each side of my face, and my eyes flew open as I sucked in a deep, chest-rattling breath.

Luca stared back at me from inches away, his eyes bright but wide with fear, his forehead deeply lined.

“What the hell happened?” I whispered. I tried to look around, because the hall felt…weird. Hell, it
smelled
weird. But he held my head in place and I could see nothing but him and I could feel nothing but his fingers, steady and strong, while my heart raced in panic. “Where are we?”

“Sophie, listen to me very carefully,” he whispered, and I was glad I’d whispered too. Everything I’d ever known before that moment seemed suddenly, terrifyingly, irrelevant, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I did
not
want to be heard here. Wherever here was.

I nodded, and his face blurred beneath the tears standing in my eyes.

“We are going to turn around and head straight for the nearest exit. Do not let go of my hand, and do not look around. Don’t make any noise. Don’t run unless I tell you to. And don’t touch anything. Understand?”

“No.” I blinked and the tears rolled down my cheeks in hot trails I couldn’t wipe, because I was afraid to move. “I don’t understand anything.”

“I’ll explain as soon as we get out of here. Okay?” His hands dropped from my face, and I nodded. Then I took my first look around. And immediately understood why he’d told me not to.

“How did we get here?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Luca said, and somehow, that made everything worse.

We were in a corridor, but it took me a second to realize that, because the walls were crawling with plant life. Literally. Dark green vines—some as thick as my thumb—squirmed over, under, and through themselves slowly, covering every single inch of walls I could hardly see through the tangles of heart-shaped leaves that bled to red on jagged edges. Thorns grew across from the leaves, an inch long and as sharp and thin as the sewing machine needles from my Life Sciences class. The thorns scraped other parts of the vines as they crept, leaving thin cuts that leaked a gooey, rank fluid.

“What is that?” I whispered, edging away from the nearest wall as the thin end of one vine reached for me like it knew I was there. My voice shook. My hands shook. This was impossible. All of it. This couldn’t be real.

Luca grabbed my arm, and I turned to see that he’d stopped me from stepping on another, thicker vine crawling slowly across the floor toward us.

“Crimson creeper. Don’t touch it.”

I had no intention of touching it. But I had to know. “What happens if I touch it?”

“The thorns secrete a fluid that will digest your organs from the inside out, over a period of about a week. But you’ll die screaming some time during the first twenty-four hours.”

My breath caught in my throat and refused to move. “You’re serious?”

“I never joke about carnivorous plants. Except that one in
Little Shop of Horrors.
”