Hunted (33 page)

“Because you know I can kick your butt with the elements?”

“Because I care about you,” he said. “You were starting to care about me, weren't you? I mean before all of this happened to me.”

“Yes.” On one hand, right about then was an excellent opportunity for me to mention the little fact that Erik and I were supposed to be back together. And maybe even say something about Heath. (Or maybe not.) On the other hand, I was trying to somehow fix the kid's humanity, or lack thereof, and it probably wouldn't help for me to be all:
Hey, I'll sleep with you and act like I care about you, but I kinda have a boyfriend. Or two
. And besides all that, I needed to start being honest with myself. Erik had seemed so perfect for me; he's who everyone thought I should be with. Then why have I always liked other guys, too, and that's even before he started acting all insanely possessive? It wasn't just Heath I'd been drawn to, but Loren and then Stark. The only thing I could think was that something must be missing with Erik, or else I was just turning into a nasty skank. I mean, really. I didn't
feel
like a nasty skank. I felt like a girl who liked more than one guy.

He shifted on the bed beside me and I tried not to jump when I felt his arm lift up. “Come on over here. You can put your head on my chest and go to sleep. I'll keep you safe. I promise.”

I pushed the Erik problem from my mind, and figuring I might as well—I mean, I was already in bed with the kid—I slid over. He put his arm around me and I tried to relax against his side with my head kinda awkwardly resting on his chest. I kept wondering if he was comfortable. Was I too heavy? Was I too close to him? Not close enough?

Then his hand lifted and found my head. At first I thought he was going to move my head (because it was too heavy), or maybe even strangle me or whatnot. So it surprised me when he started to stroke my hair like I was a skittish horse.

“You have really pretty hair. Did I tell you that before I died, or did I just think it?”

“You must have just thought it,” I said.

“I would tell you that you looked really hot today when I saw you naked, but that probably wouldn't be appropriate, being as we're in bed together but not doing anything.”

“No,” I stiffened, getting ready to pull out of his arms. “It wouldn't be appropriate.”

His chest rumbled under my ear as he chuckled. “Relax, will ya?”

“Then don't talk about seeing me naked.”

“Okay.” He caressed my hair silently for a little while, then he said, “That Raven Mocker hurt you pretty badly.”

It wasn't a question, but I still said, “Yeah.”

“Kalona doesn't want you hurt, so he'll be in for some shit when he gets back here.”

“He won't be getting back. I killed him. Burned him up,” I said simply.

“Good,” he said. “Zoey, would you make me one more promise?”

“I suppose, but you don't seem one hundred percent happy when I keep my promises to you.”

“I'll be happy if you keep this one.”

“What is it this time?”

“Promise me if I become a real monster like them, you'll burn me up, too.”

“That's not a promise I feel comfortable making,” I said.

“Well, think about it because it might be a promise you'll have to fulfill.”

We were silent again. The only sound in my room was Nala's soft snoring from the foot of my bed, and the steady beat of Stark's heart under my ear. He kept stroking my hair, and it wasn't long before my eyelids started to feel incredibly heavy. But before I fell asleep I had one more thing I wanted him to hear.

“Would you do something for me?” I asked sleepily.

“I think I'd do almost anything for you,” Stark said.

“Stop calling yourself a monster.”

His hand stilled for a moment. He shifted slightly and I felt his lips against my forehead. “Go to sleep now. I'll watch over you.”

I drifted to sleep while he was still slowly stroking my hair. Kalona didn't once enter my dreams.

 

 

 

 

Stark was gone when I woke up. Feeling majorly refreshed as well as starving, I stretched and yawned, which is when I found the arrow lying on the pillow beside me. He'd broken it in half, which immediately caught my attention. I mean, I'm from a town named Broken Arrow. I know what the symbolism of an arrow snapped in half means—peace, an end to fighting. There was a note folded underneath the arrow pieces with my name printed on it. I opened it and read:
I watched you while you were sleeping and you looked completely at peace. I wish I could feel that. I wish I could close my eyes and feel at peace. But I can't. I can't feel anything if I'm not with you, and even then all I can do is want something that I don't think I can ever have, at least not now. So I left this, and my peace, with you. Stark
.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked Nala.

My cat sneezed, “mee-uf-owed” grumpily at me, jumped from my bed, and padded to her food bowl. She looked back at me, purring like crazy.

“Okay, yeah, I know. I'm hungry, too.” I fed my cat and thought about Stark while I got dressed for what I was sure would be a very weird school day. “Today we're getting out of here,” I told my reflection firmly after I'd used the flatiron to semi-tame my hair.

I hurried downstairs and arrived in the kitchen just in time to grab my favorite cereal, Count Chocula, and join the Twins, who had their heads together and were whispering and looking annoyed.

“Hey, guys,” I said, sitting next to them and pouring myself a huge bowl of chocolatey deliciousness. “What's up?”

Keeping her voice pitched low for my ears only, Erin said, “You'll see what's up once you sit here for just a few minutes.”

“Yeah, observe the pod people,” Shaunee whispered.

“Okayyyyy,” I said slowly, adding milk to my cereal and watching the kids around us with what I hoped was utter nonchalance.

At first I really didn't notice much of anything. Girls were busy grabbing protein bars or cereal or some other favorite breakfast food. And then I realized that it wasn't what I was seeing that was weird—it was what I wasn't. There was none of the typical joking around going on where someone makes fun of someone else's hair, and then someone else tells her to tell her mom to be quiet. No one was talking about boys. At all. No one was complaining about not having their homework done. Actually, no one was saying much of anything. They were just chewing and breathing and smiling. A lot.

I gave the Twins a WTF look.

Pod people
, Erin mouthed to me while Shaunee nodded her head.

“Almost as annoying as that asshole Stark,” Erin whispered.

I tried not to sound massively guilty when I said, “Stark? What about him?”

“The buttball walked through here while you were still upstairs. All like he owned the place and didn't care who knew he'd been raping and pillaging some poor helpless pod girl,” Shaunee said, still keeping her voice down.

“Yeah, you should have seen Becca. She panted after him like a terrier,” Erin said.

“And what did he do?” I asked, holding my breath.

“It was pathetic. He barely looked at her,” Shaunee said.

“Talk about being used and then wadded up and thrown away like a snot rag,” Erin said.

I was trying to figure out what I could say that would give me more info about what Stark had or hadn't done without letting the Twins know I cared as much as I was caring,
and
I thought I should maybe
try to say a little something that would kinda somehow stand up for Stark, when Erin's eyes got all wide and buggy as she stared behind me.

“Well, speak of the damn devil,” Shaunee said in her best mean-girl voice.

“Literally,” Erin added.

“Wrong table,” Shaunee said. “Your minions are all over there and there.” She waved her hand around the room at the other girls who had stopped eating and were staring behind me, too. “Not over here.”

I swiveled around in my chair to look up at Stark. Our eyes met. I'm sure mine were wide and startled. His were deep and warm, and I could almost hear the question he was asking with them.

Ignoring everyone else in the room, I said, “Hi, Stark.” I was careful not to make my voice too friendly or icy. I just said hi to him like I would any other kid.

“You look better than the last time I saw you,” he said.

I could feel my cheeks getting warm. The last time he'd seen me we'd been in bed together. While I was still staring into his eyes and trying to figure out what the hell I could say to him in front of everyone, Erin spoke up.

“Big surprise that she looks better than when you were chomping on Becca last night.”

“Yeah, watching that would be enough to make anyone look a little peaked.”

Stark broke his gaze from mine. I saw his eyes flash a dangerous scarlet as he rounded on the Twins. “I'm talking to Zoey, not either of you. So butt the fuck out.”

There was something about his voice that was deeply frightening. He didn't yell. His expression hardly changed. Instead, he radiated a terrible sense of coiled snake, pissed and deadly and on the brink of striking. I looked more closely at him and saw a ripple in the air around him, like heat waves lifting from a tin roof in summer. I don't know if the Twins saw it, too, but they definitely sensed something.
Both of them paled, but I hardly spared a glance for them. It was Stark I was keyed on because I knew I was glimpsing the monster he'd talked about. Seeing the almost instantaneous change that came over him, I was reminded of Stevie Rae—before she'd found her humanity again.

Was that why I cared about Stark so much? Because I'd seen Stevie Rae struggle with the same dark impulses and win over them, and I wanted to believe he could win, too?

Well, dealing with Stevie Rae had taught me one thing for sure, and that was that a fledgling in this position could be a very dangerous creature.

Keeping my voice completely calm, I said, “What was it you wanted to say to me, Stark?”

I saw the struggle on his face as the kid I knew fought with the monster who clearly wanted to leap across the table and eat the Twins. Finally he shifted his gaze back to me. His eyes still glowed slightly red when he said,“I didn't really have anything to say. I just found this. It's yours, isn't it?” He lifted his hand and, clenched in it, was my purse.

I looked from it to him, and then back at the purse again. I remembered what he'd said about being scared of purses like I'm scared of spiders. When I looked into his eyes again, I was smiling.

“Thanks, it is mine.” I took it from him, and as our hands brushed I said, “A guy once told me that girls' purses reminded him of spiders.”

The red left his eyes like he'd thrown a switch. The terrible aura that had surrounded him was gone. One of his fingers wrapped around mine and held for just an instant. Then he let loose the purse and my hand.

“Spiders? Are you sure you heard him right?”

“I'm sure. Thanks again for finding this.”

He shrugged, turned, and slouched out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, all the fledglings except the Twins and me
started whispering excitedly about how hot Stark is. I ate my cereal in silence.

“Okay, he's beyond creepy,” Shaunee said.

“Was that what Stevie Rae was like before she Changed?” Erin asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, basically.” I lowered my voice and added, “Did you guys notice anything in the air around him? Like a weird rippling or an extra-dark shadow?”

“No, I was too busy thinking he was going to eat me to look around him,” Erin said.

“Ditto,” said Shaunee. “So is that why he doesn't freak you out, because he's like Stevie Rae before she Changed?”

I lifted one of my shoulders and used the excuse of a mouth full of Count Chocula to not say much.

“Hey, seriously, I know what Kramisha's poem said and all,” Erin said. “But you gotta watch yourself around him. He's totally bad news.”

“Plus, the poem might not have been about him,” Shaunee said.

“Guys, do we really have to talk about this right now?” I said after swallowing.

“Nope, he has zero importance to us,” Shaunee said quickly.

“Ditto,” Erin said; then she added, “You gonna check to be sure he didn't steal your stuff?”

“Yeah, whatever.” I unsnapped my purse and looked into it, pawing around a little and taking an out-loud inventory. “Cell phone . . . lip gloss . . . cool sunglasses . . . money holder thing with, yep, all my money and my driver's license in it . . . and—” I broke off abruptly when I found the little note that had an arrow broken in half drawn on it. Below the arrow were the words:
Thanks for last night
.

“What? Did you find something he ripped off?” Erin asked, trying to peer across the table and into my purse.

I snapped it shut. “No, just nasty used Kleenex. I wish he
had
ripped that off.”

“Well, I still say he's an asshole,” Erin grumbled.

I nodded and made little agreeing sounds as I finished my cereal and tried not to think about Stark's warm hand stroking my hair.

 

My classes, as my Spanish teacher, Professor Garmy, would had said, had she not turned into a good little pod professor, were
no bueno para me
. And the worst part was, if you took away the disgusting Raven Mockers, who seemed to be everywhere, I could have almost convinced myself that everything was normal. But almost can be a really big word.

It didn't help that my schedule had been changed around at semester, so that I was in classes with all different kids, none of them being Damien and the Twins. Aphrodite was nowhere to be seen, making me worry on and off about whether she and Darius were being eaten by Raven Mockers. Of course, knowing Aphrodite, they were still in her room playing doctor.