Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (15 page)

“Should we really be here?” Trina asked.

“It’s okay,” Emily told her. “Joss and I
have played here before. We want to show you something cool.”

I wanted to tell Emily no, we shouldn’t. But
I couldn’t get the words out, and couldn’t stop myself from
following the little girls into the house.

We sat on the floor in the pink and purple
bedroom, so musty and dim with the curtains drawn. Emily held her
hand over the pile of trash and closed her eyes. Flame shot up, a
pillar of fire bigger than anything she had made before, catching
her hand. She fell back, screaming. Trina and I knelt over her,
trying to calm her, to see how bad it was. Part of my mind was
tearing at me to turn around, to look at the fire, but I couldn’t.
I was trapped, unable to change the past.

When I finally looked, the draperies had
caught, flame ripping its way up the walls. We were choking in a
world of dark, where we couldn’t see the crackling danger that
seemed to be hovering all around us.

The air stung my eyes, burned my throat, my
nose, my lungs. No more screams, only choking, terrified
weeping.

Then we were in the kitchen, so close to the
door, but somehow trapped. My body ached from the tumble down the
stairs. My head pounded and something buzzed inside my skull. From
outside, someone tapped on the glass.

I sat up, drawing in a huge breath, feeling
like I really had just lurched out of a burning house instead of a
dream. I reached under my pillow for the vibrating phone. I had
text messages and voicemail.

Before I could see how many and who from, I
heard the tapping on the glass again, and Dylan’s form faded into
view on the other side of the window. I abandoned the phone and ran
to open it.

It seemed like he was on me before he even
had his feet on the floor. We stumbled backward together, into the
middle of my room. I tried to pull back, to steady myself and look
at him, but he was holding me so tightly, with my arms trapped
between us, that my feet barely touched the floor.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” I asked him. “Are
you hurt?”

“Are you okay? You didn’t answer your
phone.” His voice was muffled against my neck, strange, and it felt
like he was shaking, just a little. Maybe from the cold. His
clothes carried the chill of the air outside.

I wriggled out of his grasp and pushed him
back, holding him away from me so I could see. “It didn’t wake me
up,” I muttered, distracted, searching in the dim glow from the
streetlight for torn clothing, injuries, some kind of clue. “Are
you
okay? What happened?”

His hands dropped to his sides and I didn’t
have to hold him back anymore. Physically he looked fine. For a
moment, we just stood there, staring at each other. Then his eyes
dropped.

Holy crap, what am I wearing?
I
looked down at myself. Really old pajama bottoms and a tank top.
The window was still open and it was, um, chilly in the room. I
crossed my arms over my chest and darted for the window. Dylan
followed saying, “This was dumb. I should go.”

What the hell? Obviously something
happened.
I shut the window, keeping one arm crossed stupidly
over my chest, grabbed his sleeve and hauled him across the room.
The footlocker was covered with my school stuff and I didn’t want
to bend over to clear it off just then, so I led him over to the
bed and gave him a push. “Just…sit there.”

I pulled on the first long-sleeved thing I
laid my hand on. An ancient flannel shirt of my dad’s with paint
all over it.
Oh, awesome.

It’s not a goddamned fashion show.
Whatever.

Before I could chicken out, I propped a
pillow against the headboard and sat on the other side of my bed.
Dylan’s back was to me, his shoulders hunched under his jacket.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened. I had a nightmare.”

“Oh.”
Seriously?
“Well, there’s some
of that going around.”

“I know I’m an idiot, okay? It just seemed
really real. And when I came out of it, it seemed really important
to know that you were okay. So I sent you a text, but you didn’t
answer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” he snapped. “I’m just
trying to explain why I’m acting like this total psycho. I tried to
tell myself it was nothing, you know? But then while I was waiting
for you to text back, I was getting more…worked up. So I buzzed you
again. And again. And then I called. And then I started running
over here and I called some more.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was hard to
understand him being that frantic over a bad dream.

Over…me.

But then, was it? Really?

For a moment, my mind flashed back in my
dream to the part where Marco was blackmailing me about Jill and
Dylan intervened. I thought about all the times he stood by me, or
stood up for me. All that time, I had been waiting for him to say
something to me. To tell me he liked me. To ask me out. Was I
completely ignoring what he was telling me with his actions?

Maybe Dream-Kat was right. Maybe I was
completely blind.

He was leaning back on his hands and I
reached out to touch the one closest to me. He collapsed on the
pillow next to me, making the bed bounce once, covering his face
with both hands. One blue eye peeked out at me from between spread
fingers and his voice came out muffled, “I don’t suppose we could
just…forget this whole thing?”

“Yeah, sure.”
Not likely.

If I stood back and thought rationally for a
minute, did it make any sense that Dylan could be
that
into
someone like me? Didn’t it make more sense that there was other
stuff going on with him?

What did I even really know about him?
Really nice guy, great smile, and I probably had a crush on him
since he used to go out of his way to ask me to play. I never
played. I used to sit by the fence and watch the other kids, which
was about the same as really playing. But still, he used to ask,
until he gave up asking. He’d paid attention to me, and I guess I
always paid some kind of attention to him.

That was such a long time ago, I hadn’t
thought about it in years. But crushing on a guy all that time
doesn’t mean you know him—know what’s really going on with him when
he shows up at your house in the middle of the night. I realized I
had no clue who Dylan really was, behind those blue eyes and
careless smiles.

“You’re thinking,” he accused, reaching up
to tug at my hair.

But I really, really wanted to know.

“Thinking it’s past time to throw me out, or
just generally regretting getting mixed up with me?” he asked.

I tried not to let my expression change as I
took that in. Was that insecurity? From Dylan? I scrunched down in
the bed with my heart pounding in my chest. He looked surprised as
he raised his arm so I could duck under it and get closer. I rolled
onto my stomach beside him and stuck what I hoped was a playful
smile on my face. “I was thinking you’re kinda making a habit of
the window thing. Maybe I could get used it.”

He grinned, smoothed my hair back, and I
felt some of the tension flow out of him. “Oh you could, huh?”

I quirked a brow. “I said
maybe.
”
Something in my stomach untwisted. I thought,
I think I just
pulled a Dylan!
Like I actually said the right thing and made
him feel better. I wanted to push it. I wanted to say, “Tell me
what’s really going on with you.” But that was probably an advanced
level technique.

“Hey, in the interest of you getting used to
me and all, think it would be okay if I stayed a little
longer?”

I dropped my eyes from his face. “Yeah, I
think I could live with that.”

“Oh, well good,” he chuckled lightly. “Come
here.” He pulled me up until I was tucked against his side. The
leather of his jacket creaked a little as his arms settled around
me. I pushed the zipper out of the way and settled my cheek over
his heart, listening to its strong, steady beat. My world was dark,
warm, and smelled like Dylan, a contrast study of hard and
soft.

I thought again about trying to coax him to
talk about what had really brought him over tonight, but I couldn’t
work up the nerve. He seemed so much more relaxed now that I didn’t
want to bring it up again. I concentrated on the sound of his heart
and the feel of his thumb moving over my hand.

Until his hand went lax around mine and I
realized he was sleeping.

I tried to stay awake so that I could wake
him up in a while to go home, and just to stay conscious of how it
felt to be with him like this. But I couldn’t remember ever feeling
like this, this warm and…safe. It felt too good not to sink into
it, and let sleep take over.

* * *

Dylan

I woke up with Joss’s hair in my face.

Which was not at all bad.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and I was
pretty sure she hadn’t meant for me to sleep over either. It was
dark out, so I figured I’d probably just dozed off for a little
while. I could easily slip out and catch a few more hours at my
place. But when I looked over her head at the clock on the bedside
table, I saw that it was six in the morning. And that’s when I
heard someone else moving around in the house.
Probably what
woke me up to begin with.
I should get out of here,
soon
, I thought. But I wanted to stay, curled around Joss, just
a little big longer.

Pieces of last night’s dream flashed through
my head. Even in dreams I was hopeless at protecting her. Just like
in real life. She’d just been so damned headstrong in my nightmare,
so ready to put herself in harm’s way to do what was right, and I
just couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t save her.

Now it just seemed really stupid. Like,
monumentally stupid, freaking out about a dream like that. Plus,
Joss was way too self-protective to put herself out there as
carelessly as she had in the nightmare. But I also knew that the
morality, that desire to make things right, was inside her and very
real. Just like my fear that I would lose her somehow.

Whoa, that was heavy.
I purposely
loosened my hold on her, to avoid pulling her even tighter against
me, and instead ran my hand lightly down her arm. When had she
become so important to me? When had I gone from attraction,
interest, and concern, head over heels into this obsession that
made me act like an idiot?

It was like one day she was just Joss who
had been around as long as I could remember. Pretty—even if it was
a different kind of pretty from other girls—but a loner, quiet, and
mostly she went unnoticed, even by me. Marco noticed her, gave her
a hard time, but who didn’t he harass at some point or other? And
she always took it so well, just ignored him. Seemed to let it roll
off her back the same way his friends did. Just…whatever. Marco, it
seemed, was as off her radar as the rest of us were. She didn’t
need saving.

And then one day, I couldn’t help noticing
how she would tuck her hair behind her ear when she had to speak to
someone. I kept noticing it. Noticing her. Noticing that there was
stuff going on behind that bland expression, feelings that crossed
her face in a blink before the mask came down again. The day we
found out Krista had disappeared, I saw heartbreak in her eyes when
I announced it to the class. Just for an instant. When Kat glommed
on her in the lunchroom that day, a spark of panic and a moment of
bewilderment flashed across the façade, and then it was Joss as
usual. That’s when I decided to go talk to her, and when I did I
saw nervousness, interest, and freckles. And I was hooked.

Joss came awake with a jerk that shook the
bed and sat up so fast she almost broke my jaw with her head. She
turned around and looked at me, wide-eyed and confused. I made a
stupid face at her, putting a finger to my lips and watching the
change in her expression as she remembered how I’d gotten there.
She yanked the flannel shirt closed as her head whipped around to
look at the clock.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe we fell asleep!”
she whispered.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Come here.” I
tugged her back down to the bed, taking her by surprise so she fell
half on top of me, and put my mouth to her ear. “We have to be
really quiet. I heard someone moving around.”

A shiver raced up her spine. “That would be
my dad. Did I ever tell you he always carries concealed, even in
the house?”

“Always carries what? Oh.”
Always carries
a gun. Of course he does.
“You might have mentioned that
sooner.”

“I’ve been distracted by the leather jacket
wearing bad boy who keeps showing up at my window.”

“Chicks dig the bad boy thing. What’s that
about?”

She tried to pull her arm out from between
us. I was pretty sure she was going to hit me, so I grabbed her
elbow and held her still.

“Would you get out of here?”

“Yeah, sure. In a minute.” I kissed her ear,
enjoying the feel of another shiver whipping through her.

“Dylan…”

I kissed my way across her jaw to her lips,
threaded my fingers into her hair and just kinda lost myself in it.
I rolled to my side, pulling her up against me. I loved the way she
kissed me. There was nothing like it. It was like that hardness
about her, that shell she showed everyone else just kind of broke
apart and what was inside was softer and sweeter than—

“Yeah,” I said, pulling back. I was getting
in over my head. “I should go.” But then I had to kiss her again.
“Really soon.”

She put her hands on my chest and held me
back. “No, really. I promised Heather I’d meet her before school,
so I’ll see you in Homeroom.”

“What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. She called last night and
asked me to meet her to talk.”