The Dead List (10 page)

Jensen looked over his shoulder. “I can hear you two.”

I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue.

He laughed as he turned back to where Penn was still clinging to the tree. Extending an arm, he wiggled his fingers. “Come on, Penn. You can do this. I know you can.”

Time seemed to have stopped as Jensen and Penn stared at one another, and I really didn’t think Penn was going to do it, and I started to panic. Because there was no way he was going to climb back down that tree. We were going to have to call 911 and they’d bring the fire truck. Instead of rescuing kittens, they’ll be rescuing Penn.

I was going to be so much trouble.

“Okay,” Penn announced, and then let go of the tree trunk. I held my breath as he reached up and gripped the branch above where he stood. He took a step forward, his gaze trained on Jensen. “I trust you.”

Jensen smiled.

Linds met me inside the school and immediately wrapped her arm through mine, drawing me to the side of the hall, out of the pathway. “You look like crap.”

“I feel like crap.”

“No sleep?” she asked, concern pinching her expression.

I shook my head. I hadn’t told her about what I saw last night, or at least thought I had seen. Maybe Mom and the police had been right and it had been stress. Or maybe it had been the creeper.

Trying and failing to suppress a shudder, I let Linds lead me down the hall, toward the stairwell. I told her about my self-defense lessons and when I got to who was teaching them, she almost fell flat on her face in the stairway.

“Jensen?” she whispered, dark eyes wide as she pulled me to a stop. “Are you serious?”

I smiled apologetically to the guy who almost slammed into Linds’ back. “Yeah, he’s going to be helping me. I guess.” Last night, around two a.m., I’d added his number to my phone. It felt like such a major step. “Yeah, so…”

“So? So!” She tugged on my hand and her tight curls bounced. “Wow. I was so not expecting you to break that kind of news to me.”

“It’s really not a big deal.” I pulled my hand free.

Linds darted around me, almost sending a small girl flying down the stairs, and blocked my path. “This is big,” she said, her voice barely audible above the conversations surrounding us. “This is huge. You guys are going to make up. Like after all this time, you’re going to—”

“Excuse me?”

I turned, spying Shawna and Wendy behind me, obviously waiting for Linds and me to move out of their way. Besides the fact they could easily walk around us, it was pretty damn ironic considering they had blocked the
entire
hall yesterday.

“I’m sure there’s enough room for you to walk around.” Linds gestured at the empty area next to us. “So walk around.”

“Or you could just move?” Wendy snapped back.

Linds came down a step, folding her arms. “Or not.”

Knowing that this was going to escalate as quickly as a rocket ship, I stepped aside. “Come on, Linds, we’re going to be late.”

She didn’t move.

Wendy’s bright blue gaze snapped toward me. “You really should cover up your face.”

My eyebrows flew up. “Excuse me?”

“Your face.” She pointed at my face as she moved her finger in a circle. “It’s gross. It looks like you shoved a vacuum hose against your cheek.”

As I stared at her, I kind of wondered what the hell Jensen was smoking when he dated her. “Wow,” I said, because really, what could I say to that?

Linds had something to add. “That’s funny, because at least the ugliness will fade on Ella’s face. That shit on yours is forever.”

“Oh!” someone shouted from below us.

Wendy’s cheeks flushed pink, but before she could reply, Linds leaned over, shoved her middle finger right in her face and then spun around. Gripping my arm, she all but dragged me up the stairs.

“God, I have no idea what crawled into her ass, but I am so not dealing with it,” Linds said as the doors swung shut behind us.

I glanced over my shoulder, but I didn’t see Wendy or Shawna. It was weird—her attitude toward us. Without Monica by their sides, they were usually like little fluffy bunny rabbits, especially Wendy. I didn’t get a chance to put a thought to it.

Gavin was there, waiting at my locker. He practically pounced on Linds and me. “Mom said there were cop cars at your house last night. I called, but—”

“I know. I just forgot to call you back. I’m sorry.” I opened the locker door and yanked out my English text. “They were over… um, to just check out the house. Nothing major.”

Doubt crossed his face. “She said there were like three cop cars there.”

“They roll deep?” I said, shrugging. How many people on our street noticed? Gavin lived further down than Jensen. “Really, everything was fine. They were just checking out the house.”

“God,” Linds exhaled deeply, tipping her head against the nearby locker. Two red circles blossomed across her cheeks. “She’s such a bitch!”

Gavin looked at her, confused. “Huh?”

“Wendy,” I told him, closing my locker door. “She’s talking about Wendy Brewer.”

“Oh.” He didn’t look surprised to hear that name as he straightened the hem on his dark blue polo shirt. “What did she do?”

Linds pushed off the locker beside me. “Breathed her bitchiness on me?”

Sliding the strap of my bag up my shoulder, I laughed. “I’ve got to go to class. See you guys later?”

“Yeah.” Linds started down the opposite hall, but whirled back around. “Oh! Before I forget, you’re helping out with the haunted house this year.”

“What?” I stared at her while a slight grin appeared on Gavin’s face. “It’s like, not even September. Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because I had my Leadership of Tomorrow meeting yesterday, and they’re already planning for this year’s Halloween crap.” She didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed as she trotted backward. “And they need volunteers. So thank you for volunteering.”

I gaped at her.

Holding her notebook close to her chest, she grinned like a cat that ate an entire cage full of canaries then moved onto a poor family of mice. “Our first meeting is Saturday afternoon. Of course, I’ll give you more details later. Bye!”

Tipping my head back, I groaned. “What in the hell?”

Gavin chuckled as he draped an arm over my shoulders. “Well, that should be fun.”

I slid him a dry look. “Last year I ended up being—”

“The girl dissected on the table,” Gavin finished, grinning down at me. “I remember. You were so thrilled about being covered with corn syrup and food coloring.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I groaned again. “I refuse to play the stupid half dead chick this year.”

There was a pause and then he said, “Too close for comfort kind of thing?”

I smacked his arm and a sheepish look crossed his face. “Yeah. That.”

#

Spying the redhead I was looking for, I hurried to where Heidi Madison was sitting at the end of the table, her bag in her seat beside her. I picked it up, setting it aside, and then dropped my tray down.

Heidi raised her chin as she pulled out her white ear buds. She dropped them into the lap of her flowery, flowing dress that was a multitude of pinks and purples. A headband pushed vibrant red hair back. With her baby face full of freckles, she looked like a freshman instead of a senior, something that bugged the hell out of her. I told her all the time that when she turned forty, she’d appreciate the fact she always looked younger.

Linds and Heidi couldn’t be any more different. One was loud while the other only spoke when she had something to say. Linds loved the outdoors and hated animals. Heidi preferred books to people and wanted to be a veterinarian. Linds was a meat lover and Heidi was a holy granola roller. I was somewhere in-between the two, kind of like the glue that forced the two opposites together.

“You’re late,” she said, closing the paperback she was reading. Her food sat untouched.

Picking at the bottle of water I grabbed, I glanced over to the table full of jocks when I heard Brock laugh, and then there was the sound of a tray hitting the floor. I turned around just in time to see a smaller student bending down and chasing peas across the floor. Why did the guys have to be such jerks? And why did I even think for two seconds that Brock was cute? A sense of betrayal slushed through me, because Brock and his crew of boys had always acted like that, ever sense I knew them. This was nothing new, so it was more of a case of me forgetting.

Forcing myself to forget a lot of things, actually.

I flipped back to Heidi. “I couldn’t get my dumbass locker open.”

“I don’t know why you have so many problems with it.” She slid her tray closer and picked up a fork. Interest sparked in her light green, almost hazel, eyes. “It’s like every year, the epic battle of the locker for you.”

“I know.” I sighed, feeling pitiful. “Hey, did Linds corner you over the stupid haunted barnyard crap?”

“She knows better than that.” She laughed softly. “She got you again, didn’t she?”

“Yes!” I picked off a slice of pepperoni and then another, resisting the urge to beat my head off the table. “It’s not even September and I have to think about this.”

She giggled. “And you know you guys will start building the props within weeks.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Over my shoulder, I scanned the cafeteria. Not that I was looking for anyone in particular, but my insides twisted in a funny way when I stopped at Brock’s table.

Wendy was sitting beside Monica, flashing super white and super straight teeth at the guy next to her, who just happened to be Jensen. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was leaning back with his arms across his chest and looking pisstastic, I’d be a lot less….

That very second he looked over to where I sat, and I swear that even though there were several tables separating us and many heads in the way, our eyes met.

One side of his lips quirked up.

My cheeks flushed as I flipped back around, meeting Heidi’s look. “So,” she said, drawing the word out. “Were you just eye-screwing Jensen Carver?”

“What? No.” I picked up my pizza. “Why would I do that?”

“I can think of a few good reasons,” she said dryly.

I coughed out a laugh. Heidi didn’t know about my history with Jensen and, as much as I loved the girl, I was so not going there. “Whatever. I mean, he is good looking—okay, he’s more than good looking and you know, very few girls or guys would kick him out of their beds, but eye-screwing?”

Her gaze flicked over my shoulder. “Uh, Ella—”

“If I’m going to eye-screw someone, it would not take place in the cafeteria. That just seems unsanitary.”

“Um—”

“I would eye-screw in class,” I decided, winging my pizza around. “Like in biology. While we’re dissecting frogs, I’d eye-screw the hell of him then, but he’s not in the class and that also seems unsanitary, so I guess I’m not eye-screwing—”

“Me?”

I swallowed the mouthful of pizza as I squeezed my eyes shut. He was not standing there. He was so not standing there. Oh no, no, no, no.

The chuckle that came next was too familiar, and I forced my eyes open. He dropped in the next seat, angling his body toward Heidi and me as he propped his chin on his palm. “I have bio after lunch, but you tell me when your class is, and I’d do all kinds of terrible things to get my class changed.”

Oh, my God, even the tips of my ears burned.

Heidi took a hefty drink of her all natural root tea or whatever gross concoction was mixed in her plastic bottle. “Well, we now know that Jensen is a fan of eye-screwing.”

His eyes darkened to a blue on a bright sunny day. “That I am.”

I wanted to crawl under the table and die.

Stretching his leg out, he knocked his knee against mine. “So I hear you had a little run in with Wendy this morning.”

Heidi placed her bottle on the table, frowning. “You did?”

I sighed. “I didn’t think it was a big enough deal that anyone would hear about it.”

“She was regaling the entire table with tales of your viciousness,” he added, eyes glimmering.

“Me?” Forgetting about my whole eye-screwing thing, I twisted toward him, which caused his knee to slide against the inside of my leg. My breath caught in my throat, and our gazes locked. I waited for him to pull back, but he didn’t. Neither did I. The grin on his face went up a notch.

His lashes lowered. “You.”

For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about. Something to do with….ah, yes. Bitchiness. “Wendy said I needed to cover up my face.”

The corners of his lips turned down. “She said what?”

I pointed at the strawberry mark. “Said I was grossing her out.”

“Well, that’s rude.” Heidi stuck out her lower lip. “It’s not like you could help it.”

“She’s a charmer,” Jensen murmured.

“And you dated her.” I grinned when his lips thinned a bit. “Just saying.”

He shifted in the seat, dragging his leg alongside mine, and I thanked God and Buddha that Heidi couldn’t see it, because I was convinced that Jensen was leg-screwing me. “I wouldn’t say I
dated
her.”

My skin prickled. Wasn’t jealousy. Absolutely not. “That’s nice.”

He shrugged his shoulder as he glanced over at Heidi, who watched us like she needed a bowl of popcorn in front of her. “So Ella was eye-screwing me?”

“Oh my God!” I shot her a death glare when she started to respond. “I was not eye-screwing anyone. What are you doing over here anyway? This is not your table.”

“We have assigned tables?” he asked.

Heidi pursed her lips. “I don’t think we do.”

I rolled my eyes. “You have always sat with
them
since you came back.”

His eyes had regained that playful, lazy quality. “So.”

“So?” I took a drink of my water. “You’re here.”

“I am.” He knocked his knee off mine again. “I wanted to visit you.”

Heidi made a cooing sound. “Aw, that’s so sweet.”

Fingers curling along the edge of the table, I shot her another look.

“What?” She pouted. “It is sweet. He crossed the brutal sea of the cafeteria and he’s visiting you.”

“I think it’s incredibly sweet, too,” Jensen said, biting down on his lower lip.