Kelley Armstrong - The Gathering

He’d tricked me. Lied to me. And the worst of it? I’d seen it coming.

I’d watched him go after half the girls at school. I’d rolled my eyes and said I couldn’t believe they fell for it. When he made a run at me, I shot him down and I was so pleased with myself. I could see through the guy when no one else could.

Yeah, right.

Sure, I’d fended off his interest easily … because he wasn’t all that interested at the time. Once he decided I might be who he was looking for, all he had to do was change tactics and I fell harder than any other girl.

Still, I’d suspected that he had a goal I couldn’t see. But I didn’t care. I didn’t want it to be true, so I told myself it wasn’t.

As much as I hated Rafe at that moment, the person I was most upset with was myself. As I trudged through the forest, I wallowed in that pain because it kept the rest at bay. Focus on the guy who played me for a fool, and I didn’t need to think about being a skin-walker, having a twin brother, having a white mother who chose my brother over me. I didn’t need to think about Annie, about becoming like Annie. Nope, just concentrate on the jerk that I’d really liked. Much easier that way. For now, at least.

I realized that my hip hurt a little, but when I stopped for a better look, the bullet graze was already scabbing over. Already healing. I shivered.

As I tugged my shirt down to cover the hole in my jeans, I thought about getting shot, which made me think about the dead guy. If being a skin-walker explained my healing powers, did it also explain my reaction to his death? And Mina’s? I’d met Mina, so I felt sparks of pity. The other guy, though, had been a threat, so I felt nothing. Reacting as an animal would. Like a predator would.

I shivered again.

When my cell phone blipped, telling me I had a text message, I almost didn’t answer. It wasn’t Rafe—he didn’t have a cell. But there wasn’t anyone else I particularly cared to speak to. I wasn’t even sure what I’d do when I got home. Tell my parents I’d eaten dinner at Rafe’s? Pretend everything was okay? Or walk in and say “Hey, remember what that old woman at the tattoo studio said? Well, it turns out she wasn’t crazy after all.”

No, I wasn’t saying anything to my parents. At least not until I was sure Rafe was telling the truth. In my gut, I knew he was. But informing my parents that I was, apparently, a member of a formerly extinct race of supernatural beings? Not until I knew more.

When I did check my phone and saw the text came from Daniel, my gut plummeted. I was supposed to meet him tonight. But how could I act like everything was okay? Keeping a secret from him was even worse than keeping one from my parents. Harder.

I checked his message.

Come over whenever you’re done with dinner. My dad’s not home yet .

As I read it, I realized I did want to go over. See Daniel. Tell Daniel. Get advice from someone I could trust, really trust.

I texted back saying I hadn’t stayed for dinner so I had to grab something to eat.

Come anyway , he texted back. I’ll make spaghetti .

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I turned the corner to see Mr. Bianchi’s car in the drive and knew there wouldn’t be any spaghetti tonight. Cooking any of Daniel’s mom’s Italian recipes was forbidden when his dad was home. I was about to text to ask if he still wanted me to come over, when I saw him, out back in the boxing ring he’d made with Corey years ago.

I crept up behind him. I was good at that. Some of my friends joked it was my Native blood. But it wasn’t, was it? Quiet as a cat.

The guys had made log benches for spectators, back when they were twelve and had visions of every girl in class lining those benches, swooning as they showed off in the ring. Never quite worked out that way—if there were spectators, they were more likely to be heckling than swooning—but the memory made me smile as I lowered myself quietly onto the bench behind Daniel.

He was shadowboxing, throwing punches and dodging an imaginary opponent. He was dressed in his usual gear—sweatpants and a tank top, both emblazoned with the school logo. I sat there and watched him, muscles flexing, sweat dripping from his dark blond hair, spraying with every swing, the silence punctuated by soft grunts when a blow seemed right and frustrated snorts when it didn’t.

As I watched him, I started to relax. This was familiar. The sight, the sounds, the feel of the bench under my fingers, even the faint smell of perspiration—it was familiar and it was real and it made the last few hours drift away, wisps of a nightmare disconnected from reality.

Finally, he sensed me there and danced in a circle, fists falling to his sides, feet still moving. His face lit up in a grin so big it chased away the last of my worries.

“I’m guessing spaghetti is off the menu?” I said, nodding toward the house.

“Yeah. We’re going out instead. My treat.”

I didn’t want to go out, but I would. Right now, I just wanted to be with him.

He looked over at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Is it Rafe?”

When I hesitated, his hands clenched, jaw clenching with them.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“This is the part where you get to say ‘I told you so.’ ”

He swore and came over to sit beside me. “What happened?”

He meant with Rafe, but I didn’t want to tell him about Rafe. Instead, I thought of everything Rafe told me, everything I desperately needed to share. But I couldn’t see any way to start.

So I settled for, “It just didn’t work out. Big shock, I’m sure.”

“He wasn’t who you thought he was.”

True, yet not in the way Daniel meant. Rafe really was the person I’d seen the other night on the roof, a decent guy thrown into a hellish situation, forced to grow up fast, be strong, take responsibility.

Even now, as much as I despised being part of his solution, I understood why he’d had to find me, whatever it took. He wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t even someone I could hate. That made it all the harder.

“You liked him,” Daniel said softly.

I forced a smile. “Fell for the wrong guy. Every girl has to do it once in her life. At least it was a quick lesson.” I got to my feet. “I could really use that dinner.”

He plucked the front of his sweat-soaked shirt. “I should have a shower and change. Guess I wasn’t thinking this through too well.”

He glanced toward the house, and I knew he wasn’t eager to go in. For the same reason he’d been out here boxing.

“You’ll dry,” I said. “And if the smell doesn’t fade, I’ll just sit at another table. Now come on before I starve.”

We started circling wide around the house, heading for the road. The Blender was only a ten-minute walk, so we didn’t have to bother with the truck. We made it about ten steps before the front door banged open and his dad yelled, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Daniel hunched his shoulders, as if against a blast of icy wind and mumbled, “Just keep walking.”

Footsteps pounded behind us. A hand grabbed Daniel’s shoulder and whipped him around. I could smell the booze.

Even before Daniel’s mom left, I’d never seen his father much. If he was around, he’d joke with us in that awkward way grown-ups sometimes do with kids—a little too loud, trying a little too hard—and there’d be the smell of beer on his breath.

Daniel would get embarrassed and herd us outside to play. We all knew something was wrong, but everyone’s parents had a drink now and then, and everyone’s parents did embarrassing things. So no one thought about it much until his mom took off, and we realized his dad wasn’t like every other parent, and maybe he never had been.