The Lost Saint (11 page)

The next thing I knew, I was being pulled through the throng in the club toward the exit, April following close behind. People practically jumped out of the flannel-shirt guy’s way in order to let us through. It wasn’t until we were up the stairs and outside in the slightly fresher air—and I realized that the guy was holding me by my hand—that I got my bearings enough to react.

“Where are you taking us?” I tugged my hand from his grasp, expecting him to keep it imprisoned in his, but he let go without hesitation.

“To your car,” he said. “I assume you drove a car here. You don’t seem like the girls who live nearby, and I’m guessing you’re not the public-transit sort.”

I hugged my arms around my bare stomach. I’m sure that only reinforced his assumption that we didn’t belong here.

“We’re the Corolla at the end of the street.” April pointed in the direction of my car, parked near the only working meter we could find. “We drove all the way from Rose Crest.” April sounded all breathless, and I couldn’t help noticing her smiling at the guy in an all-too-friendly way.

“April,” I snapped. I gave her a look that was supposed to say,
We don’t know this guy from Adam, so don’t tell him where we live!

“What?” she whispered,
not quietly
. “The dude just saved our lives … 
and
he’s cute.”

For some reason, heat flushed into my cheeks. I couldn’t deny the guy was attractive—in a down-home boy-from-the-farm sort of way, with his milk-chocolate-brown wavy hair, dimples, green eyes, and massive forearms that made it look like he’d spent hours baling hay. Even his flannel shirt and faded jeans screamed Clark Kent—without the superpowers, that is.

But it certainly didn’t
mean
anything that I’d noticed all of those things about him, right? And it especially didn’t mean I should trust him right away.

“I think we’re good from here,” I said to him. “Um, thanks for your help.”

“No way. Those guys are going to be pissed,” he said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re driving far away from here.”

“Really, it’s like two blocks to the car. You can go now.”

“Grace, you’re being rude,” April said. She swooped
in and grabbed Mr. Flannel by the arm and pulled him toward the car. “I’m April, by the way. Thank you for helping us. What’s your name?”

“Talbot,” he said, looking back at me as if checking to make sure I was following. Which I was—begrudgingly. “Nathan Talbot, actually. But I go by Talbot. My good friends call me Tal.”

“Well, Tal,” April said, “I’m glad you were there to help us out. We would have been toast without you.”

“Toast?” Talbot asked. The twang in his voice made it sound like he was thoroughly amused by April’s friendliness. “What are you girls doing here anyway? Doesn’t seem like your kind of scene.”

They were too far away for me to kick April in the shin before she could share any more information about us. “We’re looking for Grace’s brother. His name’s Jude Divine. He’s missing, and we think he may have been hanging out at that club.”

Talbot stopped and turned back toward me. I almost ran right into his chest again. “Really?” he asked. “What does your brother look like? Maybe I can help.”

I looked up at him. He grinned down at me with a friendly smile that made his dimples extra pronounced. Something about him put me on edge—made my heart beat faster when he looked at me. Maybe it was the way everyone else in the club had seemed a little bit afraid of him.

Talbot put his hand on my shoulder. “You can trust me.”

And there it was: the shape of his mouth or the tone of his voice—something I still couldn’t place—caused a wave of warm familiarity to ripple through my body. That same feeling had made me want to trust him in the club, so why not trust him now? He’d saved us from those guys, after all.

“I don’t know for sure what my brother looks like anymore,” I said. “I haven’t seen him in almost a year.” I remembered how much Daniel had changed physically in the three years while he was gone. Jude could look like anyone these days—especially if he was trying to hide. I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled to the very first photo I’d taken the day I got it—the day before Jude ran away. I’d snapped a picture of Jude as he looked at the moonstone ring Dad had given him.

I handed the phone to Talbot. “It’s kind of hard to tell in that picture because he’s looking down, but Jude’s, like, seven inches taller than me, and he has a lot squarer jaw. He had short, dark brown hair the same color as mine the last time I saw him. And we’ve always had the same nose and violet eyes.”

“Hmm.” Talbot held the phone up next to my head. He bit his lip while he studied the picture on the phone and then my face. I couldn’t help but stare back at him.
It was then that I realized that despite the dimples, he had a more mature fullness to his face than most teenage guys I knew. If I had to guess, I’d say he was probably about twenty-one or twenty-two years old. Talbot reached out and brushed my hair off the side of my face as if to help him see my profile better. He took a small step closer and studied me for another moment. I held my breath for every second of it.

“Nope, sorry. Haven’t seen him,” he finally said. He handed back my phone, his warm fingers brushing against my skin. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember eyes like yours.”

Heat crept into my cheeks again. I dropped my gaze and stepped away.

“Well, we’re here.” I motioned toward the Corolla about twenty feet away. “Um, thanks for your help back there.”

“Yes, thank you, Tal!” April looked like she was about to spring a bear hug on the poor boy.

Talbot held up his hands. “No problem. It’s what I’m here for.”

“Good-bye!” April waved at him while I dragged her to the car.

“Hey, Grace Divine?” Talbot called after me.

I glanced back at him. “Yeah?”

“See you around.”

“Okay,” I said, but I don’t know why—it wasn’t like I was ever going to see him again.

IN THE CAR

“You should so totally go for him!” April blurted out as we pulled away from the curb.

“What are you talking about?” I checked my rearview mirror and saw Talbot standing like a sentinel on the sidewalk. He wasn’t kidding about keeping an eye on us until we were driving away. “I already
have
a boyfriend.”

“Okay, I will concede to the fact that Daniel is wicked hot, but Tal is like a delicious new treat, don’t you think?” April trembled in that excited way of hers. “Did you see how those other guys practically
ran
away from him?” She squealed and sank into her seat with a dramatic sigh.

“Um,
you’re
welcome to make a move on the boy, if you want. I can turn the car around so you can get his number.”

“No!” April sat straight up. Her eyes were wide, as if horror-struck by the very idea. She could be a flirt sometimes, but she usually cowered like my old cocker spaniel when it actually came to something real with a guy. “Don’t you dare! Besides, he only had eyes for you.” She jabbed me in the arm. “Grace Divine,” she said in a deep voice, imitating Talbot, “see you around.”

Heat swelled in my face, and I turned my head away before she could see me blush. It didn’t mean anything,
and the last thing I wanted was for her to tease me about it.

Just when I thought April had already forgotten our purpose for going to the club in the first place, she sighed again and stared out the window. “Anyway, Jude is the only guy I care about.”

We were stopped at a traffic light a good three blocks away now, and Talbot had faded from my rearview mirror. I looked straight ahead through the windshield and noticed a long line of motorcycles parked outside a bar called Knuckle Grinders. One of them—a black-and-red Honda Shadow Spirit—reminded me of Daniel’s bike.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve already got the best guy out there.”

April made an uncomfortable noise and shifted in her seat. After a second she asked, “Do you think Daniel’s really changed?”

The light turned green, and I drove through the intersection. I took one last glimpse at the Honda outside the bar. It sure did look a lot like Daniel’s bike. But there was no way he’d coincidentally be at a bar only three blocks from where I’d been at The Depot. There was no way he’d even be at a bar at all. Besides, he was home sick in bed. “What do you mean?” I asked April.

“All the stuff Jude told me about Daniel—the things that he did. Who … what … he used to be. Don’t you worry about him just going back to the way he was before?”

“I know he won’t,” I said. “It’s physically impossible—he’s been cured of the wolf curse that turned him into a monster in the first place.”

“But the other stuff. You know, the stuff he was into before he even turned into a werewolf. Jude said he got real messed up before then. Drugs and drinking and fighting and stuff.”

“That was all still the influence of the wolf. He was born with the curse. The wolf was always there, driving him to make bad choices.” At least that was the way I thought about it. I guess it was possible that Daniel had made some of those decisions on his own. But that didn’t matter anymore. “I know he wouldn’t go down that road again. We sacrificed too much to save him. He’d never turn his back on that … on me.”

“My mom says people never really change.” April kept staring far out the window. I wondered if her mom was referring to April’s dad, who’d walked out on them a few years ago.

“If you really believed that, then you wouldn’t have come with me to help find Jude.”

“I guess not.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I still don’t think you should trust Daniel as much as you do.”

“Hmm,” I said, and let silence fill the space between us in the car.

For a while this evening it had felt like we were friends again. I’d missed the way April and I joked
around, and the way she drooled after guys and acted like an overexcited puppy most of time. With everyone at school treating me like last week’s gym socks, my mom checked into Hotel Alternate Reality, Dad leaving all the time, and me trying to keep Charity in the dark about everything, when Daniel wasn’t around, it felt like I had no one to talk to. I could handle the weird stares from people and the whispers behind my back, but I hated the silence that filled so many hours of my day. Not that it was quiet—especially when my superhearing kicked in—it was just that very few people talked
to
me these days, rather than just about me.

And I missed my best friend.

We were about ten minutes out of the city when I decided to break the silence. I didn’t want quiet anymore. “Those two guys were nasty, right? I can’t believe what happened.”

April perked right up. “Dude, the way you kicked that guy was awesome! Claire and Miya will never believe it … not that I would tell them about it, though. I mean, everyone would freak if we told them about going to The Depot.”

She smiled at me like we had this great secret. It made my heart feel lighter.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” she asked.

“I’ve been training with Daniel.”

“Training? What for?”

My heart suddenly felt heavier all over again, because
I realized that April might know about Daniel and Jude, but she didn’t know about me. She didn’t know that I was infected with a curse that could possibly turn me into a monster. And I didn’t know if I should tell her the truth. It was a pretty big deal to swallow.

What if the truth scared her away just when I was starting to get my best friend back?

But then I remembered how April had accused me of not giving her enough credit. She’d come with me tonight even when she knew how dangerous Jude could possibly be. Part of my heart still stung from the way she’d turned her back on me for the last year—but maybe that wouldn’t have happened at all if I’d just been honest with her from the moment Daniel came home.

I stopped at another red light and put the car in park. It was time to lay it all out on the line. “There’s something I have to show you.” I pushed my sleeve up to my shoulder and exposed the crescent-shaped scar on my upper arm.

“What is that?” April’s face went white. “Have you been … been …?”

“Bitten.”

“God. Daniel bit you? How can you still—?”

“Daniel didn’t bite me. Jude did. He attacked me right after he turned into a werewolf.”

April looked away. She played with one of the sequins on her shirt. “What does this mean? You’re not a werewolf yet, right?”

“No. I’ve been infected with the curse, but I’m not a wolf yet. And I never will be if Daniel and I can help it. He’s training me so I can use my powers to help people. But yes, there is the potential of me becoming a monster.”

A car honked from behind us, and I shifted back into drive. I looked at April for her reaction, almost afraid she’d bolt from the car now that she knew the truth. She was quiet until we’d driven through the intersection, and then she leaned in real close to me. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Are you telling me you’ve got superpowers? ’Cause that’d be pretty much made out of awesome.” She grinned at me and shook in her excited, trembly way.

“Um. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, I’m just learning how to use them, and they’re kind of fickle—but they came in handy tonight, didn’t they?”