Unfaithful (2 page)

“They’re too close, Evan! Speed up! They’re right behind us!” I shouted, panic gripping me. My excitement was even stronger, though. It raced through my body like electricity, enhancing every sensation.

The sly half smile on Evan’s lips spread, his gaze piercing and seductive. “Time to get serious,” he murmured with that tough expression that always drove me wild. “Hold on tight.”

I instantly understood it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a warning.

Before I could take a breath, Evan jammed his foot on the brake and the car abruptly slowed, eluding our pursuer who shot past us like a bullet. Next, he grabbed the emergency brake and yanked it back while turning the steering wheel with his left hand.

I felt a pit in my stomach that spread to my head as the car spun out. I would have liked to catch my breath, but Evan didn’t give me the chance. The tires squealed against the asphalt, still damp with early-morning dew, and raced off in the opposite direction, pressing me back into my seat. My chest rose and fell convulsively as I tried to position myself in some way that might keep me from shaking.

Over my shoulder I glimpsed the Lamborghini coming toward us like a missile homing in on its target as our Ferrari zoomed onto Old Military Road at two hundred miles an hour. “Evan!!!” My voice was shrill, almost desperate.

“Brace yourself!” he ordered me through clenched teeth without giving me time to react. The words were still trapped in my throat when he swerved brusquely onto Mill Pond Drive so fast the landscape became a distorted blur of color as the car skidded into the school parking lot, squealing across the asphalt and shoving me against the window. Only seconds later did I anxiously turn and see the Lamborghini behind us copy Evan’s maneuver and skid to a halt just yards from us.

I sank into my seat, still shaking, and took a deep breath. At last, everything was still. A car door clicked open, breaking the stunned silence of the students who’d been left wordless by our arrival. My heart was still pounding, my head spinning. My eyes shot to the side-view mirror as the Lamborghini’s door swung up like an eagle preparing to take wing. The driver stepped deliberately out of the gray leather and Alcantara suede seat. A shiver ran over my skin, adrenaline still pumping through my veins. As I tried to regain control of my breathing, regular footsteps approached.

“Not bad, little brother!”

Ginevra’s long, sensual legs halted next to the driver’s door, her voice muffled by the glass. Evan tilted his head toward me and smiled with satisfaction before lowering the window. Ginevra leaned down, gracefully rested her elbows on his door, and winked at me, a smile on her lips. A soft cascade of blond hair hung over her shoulder, hiding part of the neckline of her dress, which was gray with black stripes around the bodice. Its skirt bared her breathtaking legs that, as always, ended in sky-high heels. For some strange reason, her poised, elegant bearing never made her seem inappropriate, no matter what she wore. Quite the opposite: one look and the rest of the world felt out of place and awkward when she passed.

I gave her a little wave, barely raising my fingers, and smiled to myself. My throat was still dry from the race. Although I was dazed and shaken, the thrill won out every time. It was an amazing sensation: pure adrenaline churned out by sheer excitement, totally devoid of fear. It flowed beneath my skin, enhanced by the awareness that at Evan’s side I ran no risk. Racing at two hundred miles an hour at the crack of dawn sent an incomparable surge of electricity through me. It was a feeling I’d known for only a short time but one I’d had to get used to quickly. And I would never give it up. Once I’d tasted it, I’d discovered that certain emotions were hard to forget. My body craved it; adrenaline quenched its thirst. I’d lived my life on standby, waiting for Evan to arrive so I could live every moment to the fullest.

Evan hadn’t answered Ginevra yet. He just smiled to himself, looking amused. I’d seen this a million times before.

“Don’t make that face. I can beat you whenever I want,” she insisted with a pout. “You’d better stay warmed up because I want a rematch.” Ginevra was totally incapable of admitting defeat.

“Wasn’t
this
the rematch?” I put in timidly, imagining that the exact same scene must have played out between them before they stopped by my place this morning.

A sharp look from Ginevra made me bite my lip. Evan let out a laugh, even more amused by his sister’s stubbornness. “I’m all yours,” he promised, raising his eyebrows.

We got out of the car and Evan walked around the Ferrari to me, but Ginevra was quick to link her arm in mine. “That means I’ll keep her hostage until then.”

“In your dreams.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, his smile slow and studied. I stifled a laugh, seeing Ginevra frown as we walked off. Turning back toward her, I mouthed
Sorry
. Evan stepped behind me to block me from Ginevra’s view. It was incredible how the two siblings competed with each other.

“Once in a while we could show up like normal people, don’t you think?” I teased, still trying to recover from the last curve.

He glanced at me, his expression sly. “We could.” He squeezed my waist from behind and whispered into my ear: “But that wouldn’t be as much fun—don’t
you
think?”

The warmth of his breath in my hair sent a quiver through me. He’d found a way to distract me from Ginevra. I shook my head as a murmur spread among the students of Lake Placid High. They cast curious glances at Evan and Ginevra’s cars that stood out among all the others in the parking lot. In general I tried not to be bothered by the interest they raised wherever we went in them—unlike Ginevra, I wasn’t exactly comfortable being in the spotlight—but cars aside, our spectacular entrance had definitely drawn attention.

“I told you the Ferrari would be overdoing it on the first day of school,” I murmured in embarrassment.

Evan tried to object but before he could open his mouth Ginevra swooped in from behind. “This is an important day! We needed to celebrate!” She turned to her brother. “You owe me one.”

“Celebrate what, exactly?” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I would be better off not asking.

“Today’s the first day of your last year of school, Gemma!” she said with surprise, as though the answer were obvious.

I rolled my eyes and decided to humor her. There was no need for Ginevra to keep coming to school, but she’d decided to attend classes anyway. I wasn’t totally convinced it was to keep up appearances like she’d said or whether it was so she could continue to keep an eye on me, as my instinct suggested.

In any case, no matter how frustrating it was, Evan was enough to draw attention even without his Ferrari. Their underground garage was packed with flashy, expensive cars they’d gotten who knew where. To Ginevra, money was certainly no issue.

Evan and I usually took his motorcycle. Common sense made him save the Ferrari for nighttime rides when he’d swing by my place and I would sneak out the window at the first light of dawn when Lake Placid was still sleeping. The same thing definitely couldn’t be said of Ginevra. Sometimes it was hard to dissuade her once she’d made up her mind. This was probably one of those mornings when Evan hadn’t managed to ignore his sister’s out-of-control competitive spirit. Ginevra couldn’t get enough of standing out.

I spotted some of my friends in the distance: Brandon, walking with his arms around the shoulders of two new girls; Jake, who was getting out of his dad’s police car; Faith and Jeneane, hopping off the school bus; and Peter, just arriving on his bike, wearing a Blue Bombers sweatshirt, ready to begin a new lacrosse season. Everything was so familiar and yet so different.

The shrill sound of the bell welcomed us as we walked through the school doors. I forced myself to take deep breaths until the adrenaline had subsided and the annoying hum in my ears was gone. I squeezed Evan’s hand and his fingers returned the gesture. That sound announced the beginning of a new year. A new year together with him.

“O true apothecary!

Thy drugs are quick.

Thus with a kiss I die.”

William Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet

Act V, Scene III

A few hours earlier

“The year was 1720. A September night, just like this one.” Evan’s gaze was distant, his voice deep and melancholy, as if the memory of his past might carry him away at any moment. He struggled to voice the words, as though afraid the events would come back to life in his head. I didn’t want to pressure him. I’d never insisted he give me details about his past but he went on, his tone dull. “I was seventeen.” He lay down next to me on the grassy lawn on the shore of Mirror Lake, gently resting his head on my lap, and closed his eyes as I looked down at him. “I remember every minute.” A twitch under his eyelids told me his mind had taken him back to that distant 1720, but only for a fleeting moment. A second later he opened his eyes again, escaping the memory that was probably too painful for him to experience a second time.

In silence, I waited for him to speak.

“Every single moment of that miserable night is engraved on my memory.” He stared at the cloudless sky. His eyes were focused but his blank expression made me doubt he was really there with me. Despite himself, he was lost in the memory.

“Evan, you don’t need to tell me if you don’t feel ready. What happened to you in the past doesn’t matter. All that counts is that you’re with me right here, right now,” I assured him—though it wasn’t true.

A trace of a smile appeared on Evan’s face as if he could tell I’d lied. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “I want you to know everything about me. No more secrets, remember?”

“In this case I don’t think it counts as a secret,” I said. Instinctively, I sank my fingers into his soft, wavy hair, the color of coffee beans.

“I want to tell you anyway.”

I waited patiently, continuing to stroke his head during the silence that followed.

“Passing on is a traumatic experience for all of us. Every Subterranean remembers it with sorrow and bitterness, as if we’d hoped for a . . . a better death.” He grimaced. “Or a different fate. But we soon learn, one way or another, that if the blood of the Children of Eve flows through our veins it doesn’t matter how we pass on. All that counts is our punishment, the sentence we have to serve. That is, if we’re even allowed the hope of atonement.”

“You aren’t damned,” I said instantly.

He looked at me. “I know that now. Otherwise I wouldn’t have you. I can’t imagine any worse damnation than never having met you—or losing you. In any case, those of us who manage to survive never forget.”

“Survive?” I gasped, as surprised as I was alarmed. “You mean you risk dying again right after you’ve just . . . died?” The word sent a shiver down my spine. I tried not to think about the fact that Evan wasn’t alive any more. He was so warm, so . . . human.

He smiled, but it was an empty smile. There was no sparkle in his eyes.

More silence.

“My father was a middle-class London merchant. We weren’t rich but we weren’t poor either. By day he earned a respectable income, but his nights were spent reinvesting the family money in far-from-reputable activities. Alcohol and women were his sole interests and, for my mother and me, our heaviest burden. She meant more to me than anything else in the world. I remember that I saw her through my childish eyes as an angel, and myself as her little warrior. I wanted to protect her from him but that wasn’t always possible. You can save someone from any danger, but no matter how important that person is to you, you can’t save them from their own feelings. Those are hard to change. In only a few years Father had disgraced our family name.”

From time to time Evan stopped, losing himself in long pauses, his breathing deep and labored. Anguished, even. “As a young boy, night after night, my mother’s silent weeping was deafening to my little heart. It was as loud as a scream, an unbearable pain that tore me up inside. I would slip into her room to comfort her. She would hold me tight and our embrace seemed to soothe her. It wasn’t until later that I realized she was pretending so I wouldn’t be upset. I was just a boy, but I felt like the only man in our house.

“I grew older and started to stand up to him. Our arguments became more frequent and uglier, especially when he would come home in the mornings drunk and half dressed. He was my father but I hated him. I couldn’t understand why my mother still hoped to see him change, but I gave in to her wishes and instead of making him leave all I did was argue with him. Her happiness was all that mattered to me. Father was handsome, charming, trim, quite tall, with a wisp of a beard as blond as his hair, but his behavior made him unworthy of my mother’s good graces.”

“What was she like?” I asked, even though I had carefully studied the family portrait that hung in Evan’s room. I was curious to know more about the woman Evan had loved so much, but I regretted the question the moment I saw a glimmer in his eyes.