B00AO57VOY EBOK (14 page)

I unlocked my lock in record
time and had just finished grabbing the books I needed when Nathan reached
around me and slammed it shut before pressing me against it.  Before I could
ask him what he was doing, his lips closed over mine in a kiss hot enough to
melt the metal behind me.  By the time he drew back enough to give me a
seductive little grin, I felt like my entire body had turned to goo.

“What was that for?” I
whispered, too senseless to manage much more than that.

“Just letting everyone know
who
I
belong to,” he whispered back with a wink.  He jerked his head
ever so slightly to the left and I followed the gesture to find Stacy Martin
standing there, her mouth hanging open.  When I looked back up to smile at
Nathan, he took my hand and started leading me to class.  “Just in case that
didn’t get the message across, I’m willing to get more creative.”

“Were you thinking of having
sex in the hallway?” I asked him, starting to laugh.

“Depends,” he said, looking
like he was really thinking about it.  “You game?”

“Definitely not,” I told
him, really laughing by that point.  “I was thinking more along the lines of an
exhibition at the pep rally on Friday myself.”

“A girl after my own heart,”
he said with a chuckle.

Still laughing, I let him
continue to lead me down the hall, enjoying every envious glance I got as we
passed.

∞§∞§∞§∞

I didn’t have any classes
with Kim until after lunch and no matter how hard I looked for her between
classes, I couldn’t find her.  In the end, I decided I had been given a stay of
execution.  I can’t say I appreciated it, however.  Since I had decided to come
clean, I really just wanted to get it over with.

Nathan was practically glued
to me, which began to get on my nerves by the time third period was over.  He
had somehow managed to get the same schedule as mine and I noticed he compelled
people to move so he could sit next to me in each and every class.  The only
class he didn’t manage it in was Ms. Cantrell’s—who appeared to be immune to
his vocal charms.  In fact, she took a great deal of pleasure in directing him
to a seat all the way across the room from me.  Nathan noticed it, too, and
spent the entire class glaring at her murderously.

She asked him to stay for a
second after class and he looked like he was imagining her head on a plaque.  I
gave him a warning look I hoped he took to mean he wasn’t allowed to kill her
and ducked out the door, my eyes scanning the sea of students around me. 

I really didn’t want an
audience for my confession.  Visions of Kim freaking out in front of the entire
student body danced through my head, making me cringe, and I started running
down the hall to make sure I was waiting at the door of the cafeteria so I
could drag her off somewhere private. 

I was so focused on my goal
that I didn’t see the door to the west wing of the school open.  I completely
missed the gorilla-sized hand that came out of the darkness.  Before I knew
what hit me, I was jerked through the door and up against a broad chest.

I knew exactly who that
gorilla hand belonged to.  I should.  I had been dodging it for months.  And if
there was any doubt in my mind, the burning sensation where those long fingers
wrapped around my arm was a pretty good indicator that I was right.

“Hello there, gorgeous,” Bastian
purred in my ear.  “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Let go of me, you demonic jackass,”
I told him, sounding a
whole
lot braver than I felt. Instead of letting
me go, he gave me the most evil smirk in history and then tightened his grip,
snaking one arm around my waist.

“Did you get my note,
Ember?” he crooned in my ear, causing me to shiver in disgust.  “Since you
showed up with that parasite, I’m assuming you aren’t taking me seriously. 
Kim’s going to be very sorry to hear that, my love.”

He had Kim!  That’s why I
hadn’t been able to find her.  My stomach curled itself into knots as visions
of what he could have done to my friend started playing in the back of my
mind.  It was enough to make me sick—and so furious that suddenly I was seeing
the world through a filmy shade of bright red.

“If you hurt her…” I began,
but his soft laughter cut me off.

“You’ll what?” he asked. 
“You’ll cry and beg and plead?  Don’t make threats you can’t follow through on,
Ember.  It makes you look weak. You can still save her, though, my love.  I
believe we can come to an arrangement, you and I.  I have something you want,
and you
definitely
have something I want.”

He leaned down to nuzzle the
side of my neck and I felt my whole body tense in revulsion.  That revulsion
turned to horror when I felt his tongue dart out to taste my skin.  It froze me
in place, that feeling.  It wasn’t a normal human tongue.  It felt too thick,
too…scaly.  It was like being licked by a
reptile
.  I just stood there,
too scared and too repulsed to move for a second, but when his hand started
sliding up toward my breast I snapped out of it real damn quick.

“I said,
let go
,” I
snarled, feeling a surge of power beneath my skin. 

Bastian yelped in pain and
let go of me fast.  I immediately put some distance between us, hoping he would
give me the chance I needed to dart past him to the door.  Wishful thinking at
its very best.  With a howl of fury, he dove for me and I quickly jumped back
out of his reach.  Off balance and too furious to think clearly, Bastian
crashed to the ground where I had been standing just seconds before.  He rose
to his knees and then just stopped, staring at me warily.

Confused, I looked down at
myself to find dancing blue-white light flickering across my fingers—the same
light I’d seen in the mirror the day I banished him.  Bastian’s eyes kept
darting between my hands and the smug smile on my face as he got slowly to his
feet.  I could practically see the gears in his brain turning as he hesitantly
took a step toward me, his eyes blazing with anger.

You can end this, right
here, right now,
a hard, cold voice said in the back of my mind. 
You
can send this piece of crap right back to the lost plane.

But what about Jack?
Another
voice countered, stopping me as I reached for the cross around my neck to do
just that. 
He’s still in there, damn it!  Are you really willing to condemn
him to that kind of hell?

No.  I couldn’t do that.  I
couldn’t bear the thought of sending the demon back to the lost plane with my
friend trapped in that body with him.  Knowing he was still in there, still
alive and fighting, changed everything.

 “If you take one more step,
I am going to light your ass up like a firecracker.”   I told him, coldly,
refusing to back down as he took another step toward me.  I couldn’t banish him
without killing my friend, but I wasn’t going to let him kill me, either. 
“Seriously, back off.”

He stood there for a second,
unsure whether to believe me or not.  Then a slow smile began to tug at his
lips.  It wasn’t a pleasant smile, either.  In fact, it was downright sinister.

“Go ahead,” he said,
starting toward me again.  I looked down at my hands and saw that the light
show I had been so proud of was already starting to go out.  “I knew that show
at the B&B was a fluke.  Here, my love.  Let me show you how it’s done.”

I have no idea what he hit
me with, but it threw me back about ten feet, slamming me into an old desk that
had been stored there.  I stayed where I landed, all the breath knocked out of
me and every muscle in my body screaming in agony.  I had never hurt so much in
my life.  I could feel my very bones starting to bruise and let out a wheezy
groan of pain. 

For about the millionth time
in my life, I wished I weren’t so small.  If I had been a guy, he never would
have done that to me.  But, I wasn’t a guy and I sucked as a witch.  Therefore,
I couldn’t do anything but watch as he sauntered toward me like he was coming
over to chat about the weather.

Asshole.

He is so lucky I don’t
have a wand,
I thought with another groan when he was just a step or two
away. 
If I was Harry Potter, he would so be a toad right now. 

“Why do you keep fighting
me, Ember?  You can’t win,” Bastian said, his every word oozing satisfaction.

Maybe not, but I sure as
hell wasn’t going down without giving it my best shot.

His hand shot out, wrapping
around my ankle, and I reacted without thinking about it.  Using the leg he
didn’t have a tentacle wrapped around, I kicked him in the face with all I
had.  I heard the bone break when it made contact with his nose, and blood went
flying from both his nose and mouth.  Even then he didn’t let me go.  Instead,
he used his grasp on my ankle to pull me off the desk and sling me to the floor
hard enough to crack whatever bones he hadn’t crushed by flinging me across the
hallway.

Bastian, never one to miss
an opportunity when a girl was on her back, didn’t waste any time.  Before I
could force my screaming body to move, he was on top of me and had me pinned
down.

“Very good, Ember,” he
purred, turning his head to spit out what looked like more than one tooth and a
mouthful of blood.  “You’ve got spirit, I’ll give you that, but you were a fool
to think you ever had a chance against me.  You’re nothing but a pathetic
little girl who sees ghosts.”  

“Yeah?  Well I’m not.”

Bastian suddenly flew off me
backward when a blurred shape that looked and sounded a whole lot like my
boyfriend slammed into him.  Their momentum was enough to send them sliding
down the hall and straight into a wall.  I flinched at the sickening sound of
bones breaking then tried to scramble to my feet. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t in
such good shape myself.  I made it to a sitting position when the room started
spinning like a top, and I fell back with a groan.  I nearly died of a heart
attack when a delicate, feminine-looking hand appeared in front of me—and then
forgot to take it when I looked up to find Kim gazing down at me.

“Kim?” I wheezed out, so
relieved that my muscles went even weaker than they already were.  That demonic
piece of crap had lied to me!  He didn’t have Kim in some dark dungeon
somewhere torturing her for kicks.  She was standing right there in front of
me, healthy and all in one piece.

At least, I think she was…

 There was something
different about her.  It was like I was looking at someone else, someone
dangerous.  She looked like my Kim, but there was a look of cold calculation in
her dark eyes that my Kim couldn’t have pulled off in a million years.

“It’s okay, Em,” she said,
even her voice sounding off.  “Let me help you.”

Dazed, I let her take my
hand and help me to my feet.  I staggered and a pair of strong arms were
suddenly around me.  I looked over my shoulder to see Blake giving me a
sympathetic look.  Like Kim, he didn’t look right.  He had the same dangerous
air about him, the same coldness.

What the hell had happened
to my friends?

Before I could even pull it
together enough to start demanding answers, I was suddenly swept up into
Blake’s arms and he was moving fast toward the other end of the hall.  When we
reached the door leading to the main hall, Blake placed me back on my feet and
then moved to stand in front of me with Kim next to him. 

“What’s the matter, Bastian?”
Nathan crooned, drawing my attention back to the epic brawl going on in front
of me.  “Afraid of taking on someone your own size?”

I had never seen him look
so…so much like a
vampire
!  His lips were drawn back to reveal his
fangs.  His body was coiled and ready to launch at his opponent and his
beautiful hazel eyes were so white that not even a hint of his pupil showed
black.  He was covered in dust and he looked kind of windblown, but he was
perfectly fine. 

Bastian, on the other hand,
didn’t look so good.  His arm was hanging at a strange angle and…there seemed
to be a bone protruding out of his neck!  As we watched, he grasped his arm and
jerked it around so that it was hanging at the right angle without even
flinching.  When he reached up to do the same thing to his neck, I thought I
was going to throw up. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Bastian
sneered, rolling his recently repaired neck like he was working out a tense
muscle.

He had dropped the façade. 
The baby blue that had had every girl, except me, at Oakhurst hyperventilating
when he looked their way was gone.  His eyes were pitch black, so devoid of any
kind of color or light that they looked like a matching pair of black holes.   

I shivered when his gaze
found me again and pinned me to the spot and I immediately started choking.  Bastian’s
smoke and fire effect had been bad before, but it had never been as intensely
real as it was at that moment.  And when I say ‘real’ I
mean
real.  I’d
had visions before, but not like that.  Even when Bastian had somehow managed
to set me on fire in some kind of waking nightmare, burning my leg to the point
where it looked like overcooked roast beef, it hadn’t been as it bad as it was
then. 

I was burning at the stake
again, but this time the pain was everywhere.  I could feel my skin melting in
the intense heat of the flames and started to scream as it grew more intense as
the seconds passed.  A wild burst of hope cut through my pain and my panic when
I felt someone grab my shoulders, praying they were going to pull me out of the
flames. 

“It’s not real,” Kim said
softly, trying to reach me through my pain and my fear.  “Listen to my voice,
Em.  It’s not real.  There’s no fire.   It’s just his way of messing with you,
of getting under your skin.  Just think about something else.”

But I couldn’t.  I couldn’t
think about anything else, and the searing pain of the flames and the choking
stench of the smoke were only getting worse.  I was going to die.  I was going
to burn up, leaving nothing behind but the embers I’d been named after.