Meg Cabot - Awaken

“No,” I said firmly. “If we fall asleep and my mom finds us in here, she’ll kill you all over again.”

“If you’d just marry me,” he said, “the way I asked you to, everything would be fine.”

“You don’t know my parents,” I said. “Believe me, everything wouldn’t be fine if we got married.”

“I would rather be open with them,” John said. “I can provide for you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s not really the issue. And besides, you live in an underground cave.”

“In a castle in an underground cave.”

“That is currently overrun with the souls of the dead.”

John thought about this. “With a bit of luck, that’s something we’ll soon resolve.”

“Luck,” I said, gazing sleepily at the still flickering LED candle. “That’s something neither of us has ever had much of.”

He stroked a lock of my hair. “We found each other, didn’t we?”

“That was my grandmother, not luck. She made sure we met so she could kill me later and break your heart because she hates your guts.”

His hand stilled on my hair. “Oh. That’s right.”

“Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“I won’t,” he said.

The last thing I remember was lightning as it made a bright white stripe against my wall when it flashed between the slats of the shutters. I never heard the thunder that followed, however.

And light I saw in fashion of a river

Fulvid with its effulgence, ’twixt two banks

Depicted with an admirable Spring.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso , Canto XXX

Sunlight streamed through the slats in the storm shutters, making cheerful patterns across my walls.

I heard birdsong outside, as well. I hadn’t heard birds singing while the hurricane was blowing. I could also hear the steady hum of the air conditioner. That meant the power was back on. My room was cold enough that I needed to pull the down comforter up over my bare shoulders and snuggle closer to John for warmth.

The storm was over. It was morning. And I was in my own room, in my own bed, next to John.

Then a coldness that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning gripped me.

The storm was over. It was morning. And I was in my room, next to John .

We’d fallen asleep. After I’d told him not to let me fall asleep, he’d not only let me fall asleep, he’d fallen asleep himself. He lay beside me in a chaotic scatter of throw pillows, the comforter half on, half off him — but mostly off — his bare chest rising and falling deeply, dead to the world.

Probably not the best choice of words.

But I had the feeling he was going to wish he was dead to the world when he woke up and saw who stood in the open doorway a few feet away, holding a steaming cup of coffee and staring at the two of us in complete and utter shock.

“Mom,” I said, sitting bolt upright in bed. “This is not what it looks like.”

“Isn’t it?” my mother asked in an icy cold voice. She was wearing the fluffy bathrobe I’d given her for Mother’s Day. “Because I have the feeling it’s exactly what it looks like.”

I threw the comforter over John, as if, were he hidden from view, he would no longer exist. Perhaps he’d get the clue, wake up, and blink himself somewhere else. It would be the best thing that could happen.

Unfortunately, the lumps beneath the comforter stayed exactly where they were, except that they began to move slightly.

“Actually,” I said, “it’s kind of a funny story.”

“Is it?” Mom asked. “Your letter to me was far from humorous.”

John threw the comforter from his head and chest and stood up. Thankfully, he was wearing his jeans, although I didn’t know how or when he’d pulled them back on.

“I’m very sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, ma’am,” he said, extending his right hand. “My name is John Hayden. I’m very much in love with your daughter.”

I don’t know why John didn’t simply grab my hand and blink us somewhere else, the way he had the last time we’d encountered my mother. I supposed it had something to do with what he’d said the night before, about wanting to be open with my parents, and also probably something to do with the fact that no one was actually trying to kill us.

He didn’t know my mom very well.

Her dark eyes widened to their limits. She did not shake John’s hand.

“Pierce, I’d like you and your friend ,” she said, stressing the word friend as if it tasted unpleasant in her mouth, “to get fully dressed and then come downstairs so your father and I can discuss a few things with him.”

Now it was my turn to widen my eyes. “Dad? He’s here?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” my mother said, “making waffles. Or at least he was. Right now he’s on the phone with his lawyers, since I just received a somewhat disturbing phone call from Seth Rector’s father, complaining that you and — John, is it?” She gave John a skeptical look, as if she doubted that was his real name. “That you and John assaulted his son last night at some party. What you were even doing at a party in the middle of a Category Three hurricane, I don’t care to know, let alone why you assaulted him. But Mr. Rector fully intends to press charges.” She sighed. “Another name to add to the long list of people you’ve struck in the face, including your own grandmother.”

My jaw dropped.

“You’ve got to believe me, Mom,” I said. “Those are all lies. Everything Seth is saying is a lie, and everything Grandma said is a lie, too. Like I said in the letter I left you, I wasn’t kidnapped. Grandma tried to kill me. Twice. John is the one who saved me —”

My mother had already started shaking her head.

“Pierce,” she said. “Please. I’m so tired of all this. I don’t know what your father and I ever did to make you so unhappy. Maybe we weren’t the best role models, and Lord knows we went through a rough patch. But it isn’t fair of you to take it out on innocent people like Seth and your grandmother —”

“Innocent?” I burst out. “You’ve got it all wrong, Mom. John saved me from them. He saved me from Mr. Mueller, too. I can prove it. Remember the shadow on the security tape from my school in Westport? That was him . That was John. He saved me from Mr. Mueller again last night.”

Mom’s expression changed. Her mouth, which had tightened into a thin, disapproving line — she usually wore lipstick but obviously wasn’t wearing any this early in the morning — fell open. I saw the hand she’d kept wrapped around the coffee mug tremble slightly, and she reached out to clutch the doorknob to my room, as if to steady herself.

“Mr. Mueller?” she echoed faintly, her gaze flicking from me to John. “They just said something on the news about how there was only a single fatality in the area from last night’s storm … a Mark Mueller of Connecticut who was struck by a falling tree. But surely … that couldn’t be the same Mark Mueller as —”

“It was, ma’am,” John said gravely. “You can ask Mr. Richard Smith. He’ll tell you that it’s true. I believe he’s an acquaintance of your father’s —”

“That crazy old cemetery sexton who was so rude to me that first day of school?” My mom looked at me like I was the one she thought was crazy. “What’s he got to do with any of this?”

“You can just ask Alex, Mom,” I said. “He was there, too.”

“Alex?” My mother’s hand shook some more. “You know where Alex is? He hasn’t been answering his cell. His father’s frantic —”

“I do know where he is.” John stepped forward and neatly rescued the drooping mug from her hand, before she’d spilled a single drop. “Not to worry, Alex has been with us.” John didn’t add the part about Alex’s having been murdered, then revived. “Why don’t we go downstairs so we can talk about this with your husband —”