Meg Cabot - Awaken

Then he pulled back one of his powerful fists and planted it squarely into the center of Seth’s face.

“That forehead there which has the hair so black … ”

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno , Canto XII

John put a pretty solid end to the coffin party when he broke the host’s nose.

At that exact moment, the sea broke through the glass wall around the spec home’s deck and came gushing through the backyard, around the side of the house, and towards the driveway full of cars.

The party guests who weren’t screaming about all the blood coursing down Seth’s face suddenly began screaming about their vehicles, and they streamed from the house in a futile effort to save them … everyone except those helping Seth, who was cradling his own head and moaning, and Bryce, who immediately came to his QB’s defense.

Dropping his head, Bryce came at John like a bull, his face red with rage. John sidestepped him, then slammed a fist into the younger boy’s stomach. As a ball player, it couldn’t have been the first time Bryce had ever been struck in the gut, but it might have been the first time he’d ever been struck with such force, judging by the look of injured surprise that spread across his face. While Bryce was still doubled over in pain, trying to catch his breath, John plunged another fist into his kidneys. Bryce grunted, then sank to his knees, all the fight clearly knocked out of him.

“John,” I said urgently, since he was still breathing hard and pacing back and forth in front of Bryce, looking not unlike the “wild thing” I used to accuse him of being. He seemed ready to hit Bryce again — or anyone else in the room — at the least provocation.

None of the few remaining males looked as if they cared to engage, however. The DJ, Anton, was pointedly minding his own business as he swiftly packed up his equipment, and a few stoners were watching the fight with wide, astonished gazes from a nearby couch.

“John,” I said again, reaching for him as he swung by me with no sign of recognition. Wherever Thanatos had been keeping him, the conditions had evidently not been pleasant. “It’s me, Pierce. It’s all right.”

He threw me a skeptical look from beneath a lock of dark hair that had fallen over one eye. “Is it?” he asked as he paced, opening and closing the hand he’d used to punch Seth and then Bryce. “Funny, because it doesn’t feel all right. How could you have let him kiss you like that?”

Oddly, it was that irritable snarl, more than any loving greeting, that made me realize John was fine. He had really and truly come back, just as he’d assured me he would on that dock back in the Underworld, and he was entirely himself.

“John,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. Tears of joy.

“How could you even have let him touch you?” he asked. “Didn’t you know who he was?”

“Of course I knew who he was,” I said. Waves of love and relief were washing over me with as much force as the waves of seawater that were washing over — and destroying — Reef Key. “Thanatos, the Greek personification of death. He was holding you captive —”

“Yes,” John said. “Exactly. And you kissed him!”

“Well, all of Seth’s friends were standing around. How else was I supposed to get my necklace close enough to him long enough to burn him without making it look suspicious?”

John’s scowl deepened. “You could have had Frank hold him down,” he said.

I couldn’t help grinning up at him. I was so happy he was back and arguing with me. “Next time,” I said, “I will definitely have Frank hold him down.”

“It isn’t funny,” John said. “You kissed him on purpose just to annoy me. So do you know what I get to do now?” He stopped pacing and pointed at himself. “ I get to kiss someone — whoever I want — just to annoy you .”

I reached out and took hold of the hand he’d used to point at himself, which also happened to be his punching hand. He’d skinned his knuckles on something sharp — possibly Seth’s teeth — and they looked tender. I raised the bruised, battered hand to my lips.

I was standing close enough to him that I could see how quickly his pulse was leaping in his neck, and how, at my gentle touch, his pulse began to slow. His expression softened. Somehow he’d managed to acquire a shirt — a white one, loose around the collar, but close-fitting everywhere else, like his jeans — and a pair of boots not unlike the ones he’d left on the dock back in the Underworld. I wondered where he’d found them. Although his long dark hair was a tangled mess, and he needed a shave, he looked good. Death suited him.

“All right,” I whispered, rubbing his hand across my cheek. “You get one free kiss … whoever you want.”

Although I could see him struggling, he couldn’t maintain his scowl. A smile broke across his face. It was like the sun breaking out across a tempest-tossed sea.

“What if who I want to kiss is you?” he asked.

“I think that can be arranged,” I said.

Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he drew me to the hard wall of his chest. His arms weren’t the only thing that enveloped me. The smell of him enveloped me, as well — that comforting smell of wood smoke and autumn and something distinctly John that I realized, as his lips came down over mine, now meant only one thing to me: home.

“There’s something you promised you’d tell me when I got back,” he murmured after finally letting me up for air.

At first I was too dazzled by his kiss to remember what he was referring to. Then I blushed.

“Not now ,” I said, looking down at Seth, who sat on the floor a few feet away being fussed over by Farah’s friends Nicole and Serena. Bryce was still recuperating nearby, too, though Seth didn’t seem all that sympathetic.

“Did you not hear me?” Seth demanded of Bryce, swatting away the blood-soaked napkins the girls kept pressing to his face. “I said get up and take him out .” He shot a deadly look in John’s direction.

“Bro, I’m not feeling so good.” Bryce clutched his stomach. “Maybe if Cody and those guys hadn’t left. But that guy is pretty big.” Looking up at John, Bryce whispered, as if Seth wouldn’t be able to hear him, “Dude, I think you’d better go. My friend here is really mad at you.”

John glared at Seth. “Tell your friend the feeling is mutual. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. In fact —”

John began to move with murderous purpose towards Seth, but I caught him by the wrist.

“John, no,” I said. “Don’t waste your energy on him. We have more important things to do —”

Right then, one of them came stumbling from the back bedroom into which Frank had carried her.

“Seth,” Farah cried. “Where are you?”

She wasn’t exactly fully recovered, as Seth had assured me she’d be. Kayla and Frank stood on either side of her, each with an arm around her waist. Their support appeared to be all that was keeping Farah on her feet. The only reason she’d stopped moving was because they’d both stumbled to a halt when they saw John. A pleased smile spread over Frank’s face.

“Well,” he said. “Look who’s back from the dead.”

Farah, however, only had eyes for Seth.

“I turn my back on you for one minute,” Farah cried, weaving unsteadily on her high heels, despite her human crutches, but nevertheless able to focus a laser-like glare of wrath at Seth, “and I find out you’ve been hooking up with Pierce Oliviera ?”

Seth wasn’t paying any attention to Farah, however. He was staring at someone who stood behind her. Not Kayla or Frank, though. It was someone who’d popped his dark shaggy head up from the basement stairwell.