Darksoul (3 page)

“Shut your dirty mouth and give me my damn chocolate.”

“Demanding, aren’t you?”

“Give it to me.”

“Some men do love demanding women.” I could’ve sworn his gaze fell to my lips. “I’m one of them.”

I tried not to notice how close he was, tried not to stare at the rosy bow of his mouth or at the slick, metallic glint of the tongue ring that peeked through his lips every time he spoke. Trying to keep my cool, I stared him down. He playfully dangled the Butterfinger over my head. And then, for the second time in ten minutes, a dark wisp slithered along the back of his neck, curled out of sight.

“I’m
not going for it,” I said. “I’m not going to jump. You’re going to give it to me, Evans, and you’re going to give it to me now.”

“I’ll give it to you after you hear what I have to say.”

“Really.” I eyed the chocolate. “I’m listening.”

“You see the chap sitting way behind me?”

I didn’t look. I already knew who he was talking about. “No.”

“He’s been checking you out for the last hour.” As
h regarded me through hooded eyes. “I think he likes what he sees, Zel.”

Sumi:
“That’s what
I
said.”

“The two of you just want to wear my puke,” I said. “There are nicer w
ays to ask, you know, if that’s what you want.”

Ash dangled the Butterfinger over my face, taunting me. “His name is Hunter. You should go chat him up. He’s alone right now and could probably use some company.”

“No,” I said, reaching for the candy bar, but he lifted it out of my grasp. “And I know his name. He’s in my art class—in fact, he’s my partner for the next project—and he’s a complete asshole. Just like you.”

He
lifted the bar again when I tried to reach for it. For a moment I considered grabbing his tongue and ripping out his damn piercing. Either that, or stabbing his gauges out.

“Asher Evans,” I growled, “this is
not
funny. Damn you—” Giving in, I jumped for it, my fingertips barely brushing the inside of his wrist. The front of my sweater bunched up against his, fluttering halfway up my stomach, and he held back a smile. “Give”—
jump
—“it”—
jump
—“to”—
jump
—“me—”

Just as I was about to go for it again, he grabbed me around the waist and flung me ov
er his shoulder as if I were nothing more than a paper doll. Then he took off at a jog, laughing when I thrashed against him.

“Sumi!” I said
, kicking at empty air. “Help me!”

“I don’t have any
hotel numbers,” she called. “I’d get the two of you a room, but…”

Fine, then. “Ash,” I said, clutching the back of his hoodie, “put me down. Now.”

“No can do.”

Two could play at that game. “Oh, what’s this?” I said, and reached down to
his back pocket, where he always carried his tiny leather notebook. He’d gotten it last summer and was always writing in it, no matter what he was doing or where he was. Still bouncing against his shoulder, I lunged in and grabbed it. “Your secret math diary?”

No sooner had I fished it out did he put his hands around my waist and set my feet on the grass, lashing out to grab his little book. But I was too fast. I retracted my steps, slipping
it under the hem of my sweater. We were near the building now, tucked out of sight.

“I don’t think so,” I said, biting back a grin. “You want it back? You’re going to have to pay.”

A smile teased the corner of his lips. “I’m not above tackling you to the ground. I hope you know that.”

“And I’m
not above punching you in the face,” I returned sweetly.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No.
You
don’t want to get hurt. I’d merely walk away with all of your secrets tucked under my belt.”

“And a swollen mouth.”

“What?”

“You’
d walk away with all of my secrets. And a swollen mouth.”

I don’t think I heard him right. “What?”

As though to illustrate his point, he tapped a slim finger against his lips. His hazel eyes twinkled with laughter.

Huh. “Don’t tell me,” I said.
“You’d punch me, too. And in the mouth, to top it off. Listen. More power to you. I’d punch you right the fuck back.”

“Feisty.” Looking amused, he took a step closer. “But I’m afraid you’ve got the whole swollen-mouth thing wrong.”

“I’m never wrong.” Lie. Of course I was. More than the average human being.

“Now, Zel. Do us all a favor and hand the book over. Sorry for messing with your Butterfinger addiction. I’m going to give you the bloody candy bar now and you’ll return my little book to me, and—”

I turned on my heel and took off running.

It wasn’t
that I’d been dying to know what he’d written inside his secret diary since the dawn of time. It was that—well, okay. I’d really wanted to know what he’d written in his secret diary since the dawn of time.

I didn’t get very far.

Ash grabbed me around the waist and yanked me back toward him. “Where do you think you’re going, you little rogue?” he said against my ear.

“Somewhere I’m not being sexually harassed, you idiot. Get your filthy hands off me!”

His fingertips slid closer to the front of my sweater. “My hands like where they’re at. Quite a lot, actually.”

I elbowed him in the ribs and wriggled out, only to be brought back when he grabbed me
again. Laughing, he reached down, pulled the leather-bound thing out of my sweater and tightened his hold around me when I tried to run away.

“
Shh,” he said against my hair, opening the cover. As soon as I saw the numbers and weird mathematical symbols scribbled across the page, I stopped. “You want to see what I write in it. Well, here.”

Knowing
that this could mean trouble for me, I tried to shove my way out of his arms. “Look—fine! You don’t have to show me—”

“
Fubini’s theorem,” he began.

Too late.

“Makes it possible to compute a double integral using iterated integrals.” He flipped to the next page, showing more headache-inducing stuff. “Gives me little thrills every time I think about it. A tiny little orgasm. Better than porn, Zel, and trust me, I would know. Ah—here’s my favorite. The hessian matrix. Contains second-order partial derivatives of a function and describes the local curvature—”

I shoved him away
. “Okay, I get it. It’s just math. Fine. I’m sorry.”

Suppressing
a smile, he closed it and slipped it into his back pocket. “You’re sorry, and…?”

Of course,
this wasn’t the first time I’d bugged him about what was inside it. “And I’ll leave you alone about it for the rest of the month.”

“Month?”

“Sem—semester.” I had to bite this one out through clenched teeth.

“Not good enough.”

“I’ll—come over to your house. Wash your dishes.”

“Wearing a miniskirt?”

“Yes, wearing a mi—” I stopped. “What?”

“Nothing.”
He looked amused as he took out the Butterfinger from his pocket and held it out to me. “Here.”

“Finally.” Just as I reached out to take it, he grabbed my hand and reeled me in for some major hair-ruffling action, making a bigger mess of my hair than it already was. “You’re such an idiot,” I muttered
, circling my arm around his waist as we walked into the courtyard, typical Lisle-Evans style. The way we roll, you see. Something cool slid around my ribcage, tightened, pressed me closer against his side. When I looked, I saw nothing there.

Ash pulled the
beanie off his head and tugged it down on mine. “You know you love me.”

Truer words had never been said.

Chapter 3

As a certified member
of the female gender-slash-group-slash-team of America—no, the
world
—I could say with conviction that I’d thought about Ash liking me back.

Even though I knew it wasn’t possible.

I wasn’t stupid enough to feel special every time he threw me over his shoulder like a sack
of potatoes, or stared at me for three seconds too long, or touched me around the waist. Ash was, to put it bluntly, one hell of a player, and to waste my time on him—in the romantic sense, of course—wouldn’t be a good move on my part. He could go through thirty girls in one minute and, damn it, I wasn’t about to become one of them.

No matter how much I wanted to.

I dragged an orange pastel along the edges of my horrendous masterpiece—a sky, that’s what it was—and tried not to feel Asshole Slade’s eyes on the back of my neck. Art class had become an ugly stain in my school day. An ugly, blonde, tattooed stain. Not even my awesome cello music could make it better.

S
uddenly, scarred fingers swooped in, grabbed the pastel from me and gently colored the corners of my crappy horizon. Then two fingertips settled against the orange smudge and blended it in. I tried not to stare at the empty-eyed skull that glared at me from a lean and sculpted forearm. Epically failed at it.

“Like thi
s,” said Slade, his lips fluttering dangerously close to my ear.

Laura, who was
drawing in her sketchbook across from me, looked up at the new voice. She saw who it was and instantly turned into a living tomato. Hunter Slade: instant tomato-maker. Fantastic.

But so far, so good. He was being nice to me; I might as well be nice, too. “Getting too close,” I said, leaning away from him, “but thanks. Pastels are not my thing.”

“I noticed.”

“Ha-ha.” I nodded my h
ead at the chair beside me, picking up the blue pastel and going at it with the lighter parts of the sky. “Sit down. We’ve got to talk.”

“Oh?”

“Do it before I curse you out,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

I could’ve sworn he was trying not to smile. La
zily, as though doing so drained him, he pulled out the chair and folded his tall frame into it—just as tall as Ash’s; exactly six-foot-freaking-three—and angled himself toward me. His knee touched mine. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Making a miserable attempt
to imitate the way he’d blended it in, I said, “Okay, listen, about this project—”

He didn’t even let me finish. “I’m done.”

I stared incredulously at him. “Are you kidding me? It’s barely been a week. You couldn’t possibly have—”

“That plain face of yours
.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his long legs under the table. Regarding me through hooded gray eyes, he said, “Damn easy to draw. Did that shit in a day.”

My eyebrow twitched. “Well,
as it turns out, I haven’t gotten started—”

“Bummer.”

“—so we have to get together,” I continued, ignoring him. “Anytime next week that you’re free?”

He didn’t respond for a moment.
Something soft and silver flashed at the edge of my vision, skittered down my arm and played with my fingertips. I looked and frowned when I saw nothing there.

At last, he interlaced his fingers behind his
head. The sleeves of his shirt rode back and revealed more strips of tattooed skin. “Asking me out on a date,” he said. “I thought I made it clear that you’re not my type.”

There was the sound of something snapping, and I realized I’d broken the pastel in half. “Okay,
that’s
it.” I slammed down my sketchbook on the table. “Ms. Sanchez!”

She came over
, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Yes, dear?”

“Pair me up with someone else,” I said, sparing Slade a hateful glance.

Her gaze flitted from him to me and back. He said nothing, remaining that infuriating shade of calm that made me want to throttle him and fling him at a tree at the same time.

“
There might be a slight problem with that,” she said. “I’m sorry. He already finished—”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
And I don’t care.

“—and
turned it in. In fact—” Her soft brown eyes brightened. “Oh! Why don’t I show you? He did do a fantastic job, and it would be a shame if—”

Neither Slade nor I
batted an eye. “No,” we said.

“No, please.” S
he waved a hand. “I insist. Come on, Hazel, let’s go to the back room—”

“No,” I repeated.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Slade.

“For once, the both of us agree,” I said to her. “Let this harmonious feast last for the two minutes that it will. Then I’ll be back to wanting to rip his throat out. It’ll be good while it lasts.”

She studied me for a second, and then sighed. “I’m sorry, Hazel, but I can’t assign you to someone else. Please try to make it work. All right?”

As she walke
d away, I turned toward Asshole Slade with one mighty glare, only to stop when I saw that he was already staring at me. His eyes twinkled under his lashes. Amusement?

Mouth tightening, I turned back to my abandon
ed sky and picked up half of the broken pastel. “I saw you at lunch yesterday,” I said, going at it with my disaster again.

He said nothing.

“You were sitting alone,” I continued, outlining the clouds. A silver wisp darted across my peripheral vision, dancing over my shoulder before winking out of sight. I ignored it. “I’d make fun of you for it, but I’m not that big of a bitch. If you don’t have any buddies that share that lunch hour, my friends and I could always hang out. You know, with you.” There I went, lending a hand to a bastard who would probably end up cutting it off. “Or something.”

A whisper.
Good idea.

I froze.

Meanwhile, Slade said nothing. After a hesitant, confused pause, I continued drawing, trying to ignore the feel of his damned gaze on my face, or the brush of his jeans against my own. Too much touching, really, for people who’d barely spoken twice. I tucked my legs closer to my chair and scooted away. He made no move to close the distance between us again.

“Tha
t’s a nice offer,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it. “But the three of you look like a handful.”

“Don’t worry. Only Ash, the idiot in the group, is a handful. Sumi and I are awesome.”

“Sumi,” he echoed. “The one with the pink hair?”

“Affirmative.”

“She’s hot.”

Oh, for crying out loud. “Don’t even think about it.”

There it was again. A glimmer of amusement. “No?”

“You’re not her type.” I switched to a darker s
hade of blue, tucking my bangs behind my ear.
“And she’s my Sumi. Prove yourself worthy to me and I might let you date her.”

“Prove myself worthy,” he repeated. “To you?”

“To me,” I confirmed. “In fact, you have to apply for the position. You get a free ticket to hang out with us—you know, since we’re so cool and all—but to get to that next level? And with my Sumi, to top it off? No. I have to see your credentials.”

“Credentials.” Jesus, did he look amused. Was that a dimple surfacing on his cheek?

Just as I was about to respond, Ms. Sanchez swept in and slapped a thick portfolio on the table. Before Slade, the universe, or I could stop her, she flipped it open. Asshole Slade pressed his lips into a straight, unreadable line. She gave him an apologetic glance and turned to me.

“These are Hunter’s portraits of you,” s
he said, a kind smile curling her lips. She took out one of them and laid it in front of me. It was no small painting. It was huge. “They’re lovely, Hazel. Take a look.”

And I did look.

No. I stared. Gaped. Gawked. Everything in between.

Distantly, I heard her ask me, “Are you sure you want another partner?”

Did I ever.

I leaned forward and, wonderstruck, picked up one of t
he acrylic ones. It wasn’t a portrait. It was a freaking masterpiece. Me sitting under a tree, my camera strewn on the grass beside my crossed legs, the strap resting on my thighs. Such vivid color, such attention to detail. I was laughing at something and had been about to tuck a caramel tuft behind my ear, not looking at the viewer. Not even aware that there
was
a viewer.

I continued on, nodding when Ms. Sanchez asked if I didn’t think these were amazing. The other pieces were just as spectacular. There was always me. Frowning, narrowing my eyes, raising an eyebrow. At school, at a restaurant, at the park. There was something uncomfortably personal about the shots, as if they’d been painted in the moment they’d been happening.
If
they’d been happening.

Wait. Uncomfortably personal?

No. It was as though the artist knew me. As if he’d captured me, Hazel, the girl who’d been his neighbor since the beginning of time. The girl he knew everything about. The girl who laughed and cursed without batting an eye.

Ms. Sanchez called
the class to come and look at Slade’s—Hunter’s—masterpieces, spacing them out on the table. Hunter’s face was as cool and even as ever: no emotion, no dismay, no…anything.

“See, my dears,” she said, clapping her hands twice. “When you do a p
ortrait, you don’t have to draw the face. The piece simply has to embody the person you’re trying to portray; whether by an action or an object, you can choose. Look at these lovely examples.
Very
nice job, Hunter.”

Everyone stared in awe. A slight chatter ran through our classmates as they reached out to touch them, hold them,
feel the paint under their fingertips. Hesitantly, I turned toward him. “Aren’t you…proud of these?”

He didn’t bat
an eye. “Not my finest work. I didn’t have the best subject.”

“What?”

“Your face is painfully easy to draw. I couldn’t just do a portrait of you. I’d be bored to tears.”

My lips parted, but then I tightened them once again.

“The surrounding environment was the focus,” he continued. “You were merely an unfortunate blip on the page.”

“Say what you will
,” I said, clenching my teeth. “They’re still very nice works of art.”

His eyes were cool gray orbs. “You always say your opinion as if I asked for it. I didn’t fucking ask for it.”

I’d had enough. “Okay, I don’t know who stuck a pole up your ass, Slade, but you need to lay off it. I’m trying to tell you that this—what you turned in—is fantastic, and you sit there and offend me and curse me out. Well, you know what—”

When
I cut off, he waited, tattooed arms crossed over his chest and scarred fingers drumming a lazy pattern on his forearm. Despite the feather-light marks, it was admittedly the hand of an artist. An infuriating artist. An infuriating artist who made me want to stab a cow.

Suddenly, I
stood. “These are very nice, Ms. S,” I called over everyone’s chatter, collecting the damned paintings. I slapped them inside his portfolio—which, I noticed, was thick with our past assignments—and closed it. “Now make them go away. Let’s get back to class. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, now. Move along.”

A
girl with braids and full, rosy lips came over and tried to catch a glimpse of them. I whammed the cover shut before she could open it and leaned into her face.

“Move,” I hissed, “
along.
”

Looking terrified, she scampered away.

“Hazel, honey,” said Ms. Sanchez, coming around to get Slade’s art. “Everything all right?”

“I’m
fine.” Not.

Two soft, nondescript words.
How funny.

I stiffened, and then sat
. For the rest of the class, I ignored Slade. He’d decided to stay in the seat beside me and had my tablemate nearly fainting into her sketchbook because of his supposed good-looks.
Be strong!
I wanted to yell at her.
Don’t fall prey to his charms!

More than once, the
damn silver tuft winked in and out of sight. It would skitter across my neck, slip down my arm, kiss my shoulder and caress my fingertips. But when I looked, there would be nothing; my hand would be untouched, the sleeve of my sweater would be as it’d been before, and nothing would be out of place.

It didn’t feel unpleasant—in fact, it was gentle and warm, and tickled when it touched my skin—but I was so not in the mood for this crap. However cute and fluttery it might be.

Then I made the mistake of casting a hateful glance at Asshole Slade.

He was drawing in his sketchbook, his usually unreadable lips tilted up at one corner, as if
he were trying not to smile.

For some reason, that incensed me. “What are you laugh
ing at?”