The Blue Woods (16 page)

“Who's transformed?”

We whirled around. Carly had snuck up behind us just outside the French classroom door. “Uh . . . Gillian,” Jenny said. She hit the Send button on her phone and looked up, a lopsided grin on her face. “Gillian Carson. She just got a new haircut and looks totally, you know, transformed.”

Carly raised her eyebrows. “I didn't even know you were friends with Gillian.”

“I'm friends with everyone!” Jenny tossed her long blonde hair. “Jeez, Carly, step outside your box once in a while,” she added and sashayed into the room.

I went to follow her, but Carly put her hand on my elbow. “How's it going at her house? You about ready to kill her yet?”

“A little bit,” I said with a forced laugh. “But it's fine. Like a big sleepover.” Except without the fun, I added silently.

“Well, you know you can always take a break and stay at my house if you need to. Your mom, too.” We walked into class together and headed for our assigned desks. Jonah wasn't there yet.

“Thanks, Carly. I just might take you up on that.” I knew I wouldn't, but I gave her a grateful smile for offering.

Just before the bell rang, Jonah ducked into the room and walked to his seat behind me, keeping his head down and his face turned away from me. Carly gave me a look, but I ignored her. I swallowed hard, trying to force down the heat that rose up the back of my neck.

Halfway through class, when Madam Dubois was writing on the blackboard, Jenny checked her phone. A minute later, a note landed on my desk.

Cal says there's a prop storage room at WHH. He'll give you the key this afternoon.

I scribbled
Midnight?
at the bottom of Jenny's note and passed it back to Jonah. At that moment, Madam Dubois faced the class again, and it wasn't until the end of the period when we were all gathering our books to leave that I felt Jonah press the note into my hand.

I'll be there.

When we got back to Jenny's house after school, we found her bedroom in complete disarray and Bree shoving things into a duffel bag. “Do you have any travel-size moisturizer?” she asked the minute we walked into the room. “Mine is way too big to fit into my makeup bag.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Bree looked up from the turtleneck sweater she was rolling into a tight ball. “Tibet. First thing in the morning.”

“What?” Jenny and I yelled at the same time.

“Half the
Concilio
is going,” Bree said. She slid the rolled sweater into the bag and started counting out pairs of socks. “We're going to take the site.”

“Holy crap.” I sat on the edge of the bottom bunk. “So the failsafe is definitely happening there.”

“We still don't know for sure.” She stuffed the socks into a side pocket. “But I shadow-walked there this morning and saw the Rabbit. So shit is definitely going down there.” She looked up at me. “Did you find out anything more about that epidemic in Asia?”

“What? Why?”

“Because I think it has something to do with the failsafe.”

I stared at her. “You think the failsafe and the epidemic are connected? How?”

“I don't know. I was kinda hoping you'd give me something I could use to figure it out.”

“We didn't work on it today,” Jenny said. “Clemens was super distracted and made us watch a video about the Supreme Court instead. Who knew Ruth Bader Ginsberg was such a badass?”

“Damn.” Bree zipped up the side pockets. “Guess we'll find out when we get there.”

“Is anyone else from our Clan going?” I asked.

“Just me and Nerina.” She grimaced at me. “Sorry.”

I flopped back onto the bed. “You are so lucky! I never get to go anywhere.”

“Oh yeah, I'm lucky.” She tossed a couple of discarded sweaters into the corner of the room. “I'm so lucky I get to go to Tibet and fight the Malandanti, who are definitely doing something super evil over there. I'm so lucky I'll probably get killed in battle.” She sat down on the air mattress with a heavy sigh.

I pushed myself back up. “Bree, you're going to be fine. We all know you can hold your own. And the
Concilio
will be there to protect you.”

“I guess—”

The door opened wider. “Oh, hey, guys,” Cal said, leaning against the door frame. “Guess you heard the news.”

“Bet you wish you were going to Tibet instead of stuck here with me, right?”
And without Bree,
I added silently. A little spot of red had appeared in his cheeks as he watched Bree tuck underwear into her bag. I was dying to tease him about this little crush he'd developed the next time we trained. Maybe we could bond over our fascination with the Wolfe twins.

“I definitely don't think I'm ready for that yet,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the pair of black lace panties Bree had just packed.

Bree muttered something about the weather as she held up another sweater.

“Alessia, I have those keys,” Cal said, crossing the room to me. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and slid two of them off. “This one opens the side door of the school,” he said, holding up a shiny gold key first, then a small silver one. “And this opens the storage room. Just make sure you lock both doors when you leave.”

“Does the school have an alarm system?”

“Nah.” He pressed both the keys into my hand. “There shouldn't be anyone around, but if someone stops you, just tell them you're a friend of mine.”

“How do you have these?”

“I design all the sets for the school plays. I'm there late at night a lot.”

“Is there anything you
don't
do at that school?”

“Apparently, I don't attend classes anymore, since I got Called,” he said with a laugh.

“What's that for?” Bree asked. She nodded at the keys and tossed something into the growing pile of clothes in the corner. Jenny growled and began to clean all of the messes Bree had made around the room.

“Oh. I'm—” I toyed with the keys. “I'm meeting Jonah tonight. He was at school today.”

“He was?” She lowered the makeup bag she'd picked up and stared at me. “Is he okay?”

I nodded. “He's staying at Pratt's house. And apparently there's a Malandante at school keeping an eye on him.”

“Bet it's Principal Morrissey.” Bree ran her hand through her hair. “Maybe I should come tonight to check in with Jonah too. Since I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“It's not Principal Morrissey,” I said. “And, um, don't come.” I looked away from her.

“But what if I don't—?”

“You will,” I said, still avoiding her eyes. “I just, um, need to see him on my own.” Heat flared in my cheeks.

“Gross,” Bree said, a wicked grin widening her mouth. “At least try to get some information out of him before you do the nasty.”

“Oh, my God!” I buried my face in my hands. “Why is everyone obsessed with sex?”

“I'm not,” Bree said and returned to packing her makeup.

“I'm not,” Jenny said. I rolled my eyes at her. “Okay, yeah, that's a lie.”

Cal wisely said nothing; he just cleared his throat and backed out of the room. I shook my head and got my backpack. It was hours and hours until midnight; I thought I might as well fill the time with homework so my GPA didn't go down the tubes along with everything else.

Jenny turned to Bree. “Hey, there's a bunch of travel-size stuff in the bathroom. Top drawer of the cabinet. Help yourself.”

“Awesome, thanks.” Bree grabbed her makeup bag and dodged out of the room.

The instant she was gone, Jenny sat down next to me. “Okay, listen. The best way out of the house is through the back door. Watch out for the third step on the back stairs; it creaks. You'll have to go around the living room, but hopefully Heath will be asleep. Don't use the front door. It makes a racket when it opens.”

“Thanks.”

“And Lessi?” She pointed at the bottom drawer of her nightstand. “Take a condom.”

“We are not going to have sex!” I yelled, throwing my hands up.

She laughed. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“You sound just like Bree,” I told her.

I had no intention of having sex with Jonah that night, no matter what Jenny or Bree said. But my heart thudded against my ribs as the minutes ticked with agonizing slowness toward midnight. At last the clock read 11:30. I slid out of my bunk, tiptoed over Bree's sleeping form, and reached for the doorknob. “Have fun,” Jenny whispered from her bunk. “Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

“Which pretty much gives me free rein,” I whispered back.

Carrying my boots in my hand, I crept down the hall to the back stairs. I kept to the right on the third step and it stayed silent. When I reached the first floor, I hugged the wall as I skirted the living room.

Firelight flickered from the hearth in the living room. Shadows moved across the wall opposite me. I froze. Two silhouettes danced in rhythm, arching and bending. Voices whispered across the room. My curiosity got the better of me. I stepped away from the wall just enough so that I could see the floor in front of the fireplace.

Heath and Nerina lay on the rug, their naked bodies wrapped around each other. I clapped my hand to my mouth and backed away fast. They were in too deep to even know I was there, to know anything was going on around them at all. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to unsee what I'd just seen, but their embrace blazed on the back of my eyelids. The way he held her, like she was the most precious, beautiful creature on earth.

And to him, she was.

I turned and fled to the back door, not caring if anyone heard me. Once outside, the cold slapped me like an angry lover. I pulled my boots on and barreled to my mom's truck, thrust the key into the ignition, and turned it on. I hugged the steering wheel and bent forward until my forehead touched the cool leather.

I breathed hard in and out, the cold freezing like icicles inside my nose. Well, fine. If Heath could spend the night with his forbidden love, then so could I.

I blasted the heat and backed out the driveway without even checking the rearview mirror. At this hour, the streets of Twin Willows were empty, and I ran right through the one red light in the middle of town. The road curved and bent until I got to Willow Heights and then I drove seventy miles an hour to the high school.

A dark figure stood next to the side door. I parked the car at the curb and bolted out, didn't stop moving until I was with him. “Come on,” I breathed, twisting in his arms to get the door open.

Inside, the air was close. We'd come in the back of the dark auditorium, and a short walk led us to the storage room. My fingers trembled as I unlocked it. Jonah flicked on the light when I opened the door.

Harsh fluorescents flooded the room with bright white light. Backdrops from various shows were stacked upright against the walls: a fancy restaurant with a chandelier, a Renaissance villa, a red-roofed barn. Random pieces of furniture populated the rest of the room: tables, high-backed dining chairs, overstuffed sofas, and a daybed draped in red velvet. I turned away from Jonah, breathing hard, and turned off the fluorescents. “Too much light,” I whispered. As soon as my eyes adjusted and I could see the outline of his face, I went to him.

The space between us closed into nothing. He dug his fingers into my hair and covered my mouth with his. I peeled my coat off and then his, feeling the hardness of his shoulders with the palms of my hands. I stroked down his back, down, down. He groaned and with one swift motion lifted me into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him carry me backwards until we fell with a crash onto the velvet-covered daybed.

Jonah pressed the length of his body against mine, the heat of him burning through every layer of my winter clothing. It wasn't close enough. The distance of wool and denim was going to kill me. I trailed my lips from his ear to the base of his throat, feeling the pulse of him there. I pushed him up off me slightly, reached for the hem of his sweater, and pulled it over his head.

Clothing came off with breakneck speed, shoes and belts unbuckled, skin kissed the instant it was bared. We stretched long on the daybed, him in just his boxers, me in my bra and panties, and curled into each other. He was so warm, it could've been ten degrees below zero in that room and still I would've been on fire. He kissed in a line down my neck, my collarbone, my stomach, and pulled my underwear off, growling a little like the Panther inside him. I squirmed, wanting at once to shy away from the exquisite torture that flooded my body and to dive in headfirst. God, they were right . . . I was going to have sex with Jonah Wolfe tonight.

My spine arched as his mouth loved every inch of my skin. I struggled to breathe as he rose to lie next to me, his eyes so soft on my face that I wanted to die and be buried in them. “I love you,” I managed to say.