Софи Джордан - Firelight

He looks back and forth from me to Will. “Are you coming tonight?” Xander asks.

“I don’t know.”

Xander’s demon-dark eyes flash with annoyance. “Why not?”

“I have homework.”

“Homework.” Xander drops the word like it’s something foreign he never heard before.

For a moment, he looks on the verge of laughter. Then, he’s all business, his voice a hard bite as he says, “We’ve got stuff to do. Our dads expect you there.”

Will’s hand curls into a fist on the table. “We’ll see.”

His cousin glares at him. “Yes. We will.” Then, he looks at me. His inky eyes soften.

“See you around, Jacinda.” With an idle tap on our table, he strolls away.

Once he’s gone, I breathe easier. “So,” I say to Will, “your cousins seem…nice.”

He smiles a moment but his eyes are grave. “You should stay away from them.” Will’s voice is low, a stroke of warm air that reaches across the distance to my skin.

I already plan on doing that, but I ask anyway. Anything to better pick him apart. “Why?”

“They’re not the kind of guys a nice girl should hang out with.” The tendons on his forearm flex as he opens and shuts his hand. “They’re jerks. Most anyone will tell you that.”

I try for a flirty tone to lighten the dark mood. “And what will most anyone tell me about you? Are you a good guy?”

He turns and faces me. Those changeable eyes pull me in, remind me of the lush greens and browns of the home I left behind. His face isn’t soft. The angles are hard, chiseled.

“No. I’m not.” He swings his face forward again.

Mr. Henke ignores the class, tapping a staccato rhythm at his computer.

My chest feels tight and prickly. Smoldering warm. “Why are you sitting with me?”

The silence stretches so long I begin to wonder if he’s going to answer when he finally admits, “I don’t know. Still trying to figure that out.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say. That on some level he knows me? Neither of us cracks a book. I barely breathe, too afraid that the heat mounting inside me might find a way out through my lips or nose. I take small sips of air and wait for the bell.

Conversation buzzes at a steady drone throughout the room. Mr. Henke’s typing stops. I watch his eyes drift shut and his head bob to his nonexistent neck. His glasses slip on his nose.

I jump at a burst of shrill laughter behind me. I look over my shoulder and see a girl in the back, her chair squeezed between Will’s cousins. Angus tickles her side and she jumps, her long blond hair flying like streamers in the air. She clings to Xander’s arm as if he might save her from the delightful torture.

Xander wears a lazy smile—looks bored. As if he senses me watching, his gaze cuts to me, the smile vanishing from his face. His dark eyes seize hold of me.

“Turn around.”

My pulse jackknifes against my throat at the deep voice. I look back at Will.

His lips barely move as he speaks. “Trust me. You don’t want to be one of the girls Xander notices. It never goes well for them.”

“I’ve hardly spoken to him. I don’t think he—”

“I noticed you.”

A dark thrill races through me. I wipe damp palms on my jeans.

He laughs then. Low and soft. An unhappy sound. “So, yeah. He noticed you.” His lips twist. “Sorry about that.”

The bell rings, its unnatural peal jarring me as it has all day.

And he’s gone. Out the door before I can even grab my things or say good-bye.

I’m fighting with my locker again, the steel lock a cold kiss on my fingers. Bodies bump and rush past me. Strangely, my eyes burn. Tears want to spill. Which is stupid. Just because I can’t get my locker open is no reason to wimp out.

But it’s more than this. I know that. It’s everything. I scan to the left, hoping Tamra will get here soon, so we can get out of this wretched place.

“Will Rutledge. Impressive.” At the droll voice, I turn and recognize a girl from fourthperiod PE. She was faster than most of the other girls. I remember lapping her only once around the track today. Her sleek brown hair reminds me a little of Az, but her eyes are large and blue-green, staring widely from beneath a choppy fringe of bangs. The bangs are a little too long, slightly uneven as though she takes scissors to them herself.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Will and his cousins. They’re the show around here.” Her voice is low, guttural, dragging each word.

“Really,” I murmur.

“Rich, hot, and they’ve got that bad-boy edge going for them.” She nods. “Xander and Angus are users. Been through half the girls in this school. Not Will though. He’s…”

I lean forward, eager for anything she will impart about him.

“Well. Will…” A wistful smile curves her mouth. “He’s elusive. None of the girls here interest him.” She rolls her magnificent eyes and sighs dramatically. “Course that just makes us want him harder.”

Stupid delight flutters inside my chest.

“I’m Catherine,” she announces.

“Hi, I’m—”

“Jacinda. I know.”

“How do—”

“Everyone knows your name. And your sister’s. Trust me. It’s not that big of a school.”

She steps forward and brushes my hands off my lock. “What’s the number?”

I toss out the six digits, vaguely wondering if I should be giving out my combination to a stranger and how I’m ever going to learn to open the thing myself. Catherine’s fingers fly. She lifts the handle and frees the door.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” She leans a shoulder against the lockers, looking content and natural. Like we do this every day. “Word of advice. You might want to stay away from him.”

“Will Rutledge?” I ask, getting a thrill from just saying his name.

She nods. For a moment, I feel like I’m talking to Tamra again. Frustration seeps through me. My whole life I’ve been given advice that I’m expected to follow.

I hold on to my chemistry book and slide my lit book down from its shelf. “Why is that?”

“Because Brooklyn Davis will pulverize you or any girl who goes after him.”

I thought maybe she had been warning me off Will because he’s trouble. Like he told me himself. This, I could believe. This, I already know. I’m reminded of it every time he’s near in the tightening of my flesh.

“Oh.” I nod, remembering the girl from my English class. Then, I shrug. After running for my life from hunters, a girl with too much lip gloss doesn’t register on my fear radar.

I’ve dealt with girls who didn’t like me before. Miram, Cassian’s younger sister, leaps to mind. That girl hated me. She couldn’t stand the amount of attention her family gave me—her father, Cassian. Even her aunt doted on me in a way that always creeped me out.

Like she thought she was my mother or something. But because Catherine is looking at me like I should say something more, I add, “I’m not going after him.”

“Good. Since you’re the new girl, Brooklyn can make your life hell.” She winces and readjusts the strap of her backpack on her shoulder. “Well, really if you’re any girl, she can make your life hell. Take it from me. I’ve been there.”

I shut my locker. The sound bleeds in with all the other slams ricocheting down the hallway. “Then it doesn’t really matter either way, does it?”

“Just a warning. She’s probably already heard that he sat with you and is plotting your slow demise as we speak.”

“So he sat with me.” I shrug. “We hardly spoke.”

“This is Will Rutledge we’re talking about,” she reminds me, as if that means something.

And of course, it does. But not in the same way it does for other girls.