Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) (6 page)

“I think there might be a car coming,” I whispered, sliding out from beneath him. The whir of a motor followed, cementing my suspicion. We watched the headlights become bigger and brighter against the snow. Henry tensed up beside me, and I could feel worry running off of him. Instead of passing us on the road, the car was going to come into the lot.

Henry and I scrambled off of the hood, on opposite sides. He snatched the checkered blanket that had been beneath us and rushed into his car through the driver’s side after me.

I hunched down, watching a beaten-up old Dodge slide into the parking lot. We both held our breath, tension filling the cab. The Dodge spun out in two donuts, then shot right back onto the road again with its tires skidding.

“Drunk driver,” Henry said, exhaling. We exchanged a nervous laugh.

“That was a close one,” I said.

“We don’t even know if that was anyone important,” Henry countered, as if to convince himself.

But our little unofficial date was over. He started up the engine and I buckled my seat belt, feeling morose and angry. As he drove out of the parking lot, I stared out of the window. Shadow shapes darkened the area around the forest. As I looked closer, the shadows weren’t shifting or waving like those cast by the trees. Instead of graceful movements, they seemed to twitch and jerk unnaturally. The hair on my arms stood up stiffly in response.

It was just my paranoia giving form to the shadows. At least that’s what I told myself, once we’d left them safely behind. But my own worried eyes in the mirror didn’t believe me.

###

The orphanage is creating the fire. Not being hurt by it.

I realized this standing at the base of the split staircase, heat screaming against my face. My hair flew around me in all directions. The building should have been reduced to cinders by now; however, the orange flames continued to crackle and snap. There was no indication that the building was going to fall or even break.

The orphanage’s siren call was luring me in. It took a strong dose of willpower to hold me still.

“You’ve got to wonder what Dexter is made out of,” Ambrose said beside me.

I jumped, not realizing he’d joined me. He was watching the fire with reverence, severe shadows etched across his face. He was one of the many exceptions to the rule that beauty can’t be evil.

“I was just thinking about that, actually,” I said. “Are you going inside with me?”

“Nope, not me.” Ambrose shoved his hands in the tuxedo pockets and rocked forward on his wingtips. “That’s all your rodeo. I have no interest in this old haunt—never really did. I was along for the ride.”

Charred shingles from the roof tumbled down and crashed to the ground like rocks.

“Why are you following me, then?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Ambrose said, sounding put upon. “You’re spinning this web, I just got caught in your thread.”

Enlightenment crossed his face. Ambrose reached out and bumped my shoulder with his fist. I was taken aback by the sudden contact, a little frightened that he could touch me.

“Do me a favor,” he said.

“Why would I ever do you a favor?” I asked. “Especially after what you did to Jenna? Twelve years of torture doesn’t make you my ally.”

“Hey now, there’s no need to be a bitch about it. And I never tortured you, you friggin’ drama queen. You’re not that important.” For a moment, I saw tendrils of smoke twirling out of his nose. I blinked and they were gone, maybe an illusion of the fire. He continued, “I was just asking whether you could—”

He paused, glancing back up at the orphanage.

“What are you doing?” I asked, irritated by his insane mood shifts.

He put one finger to his lips. “Shut up and listen. The phone’s for you.”

I listened very closely over the roaring of the flames. A dog was barking faintly from somewhere inside.

“You should answer it,” Ambrose said. I didn’t like the way his pale eyes fixed on me, the calm intensity of his stare. I turned back and listened to the dog.

“Hey, what favor did you—” I began, but Ambrose was gone. Gray space stretched on for miles behind me. Dark shapes moved and twisted in the fog, making me nervous. There was no way back.

I was still wearing the binding white dress, but like hell would I go into the fire with it. It was too heavy and it would slow me down if I had to get away. I reached down and ripped and tore at the seemingly endless layers. I finally pulled what was left off of me and dropped it on the ground.

Taking a deep, sobering breath, I took one final step forward. The fire went out as if I’d blown out a match, plunging the building into darkness. A smoking husk was all that remained, negative sunbursts of soot marring the stone.

My heart lurched in one painful beat, like I’d suffered a blow to the chest. My breath filtered out in icy whorls. The ground was now coated in gray snow, and ashes floated down like dingy flakes. A few ebony crow feathers were mixed in, too. I reached out and caught a feather gently by its quill, twirling it around.

I jumped up the obviously unsafe stairs. The porch sagged under my weight, buckling from years of rot and termites as I grasped the doorknob. I felt the beaten wood begin to give way. Slamming open the door, I lunged inside. The entire porch collapsed into a black hole below with a loud crash.

Ghostly light emanated from deeper inside. The dog continued complaining to itself. The interior didn’t appear burnt at all; in fact, it looked more like what it must have in its heyday. The decorating was spartan and tidy with paintings of trees on top of rusty red wallpaper.

I didn’t like looking at the paintings; the sight of the black, emaciated trees produced a funny buzzing inside my ears.

Hesitating for the briefest moment of self-preservation, I moved on. The floor creaked as I went down the hall and around the corner. A barking dog wasn’t a welcome mat. It might very well attack me, but I couldn’t ignore the pull the dog had on me, as though I was holding its leash. Or the other way around.

The canine’s shadow was thrown up huge on the wall. The dog stood just out of sight, but I knew I’d seen it before—a mixed breed lacking identification, capable of becoming one of the shadows.

The dog stopped barking. I was about to call out, but it took off, paws beating against the wood. I gave chase, adrenaline racing through me to feed my limbs.

Follow, follow,
my brain chanted.
Let it lead you.

CHAPTER 5

I WOKE UP
tangled in a mass of sheets and blankets. I’d pulled them all down with me when I’d fallen out of bed. The back of my head ached steadily and I rubbed my skull.
Ow.

“You hit it on your desk when you fell down,” Jenna said, startling me since I didn’t realize she was in the room. “Kind of funny.”

I rubbed my head again, feeling irritated, and gathered the lump of blankets. I shoved them untidily back on the bed, sitting on top. “Shut up.”

“Wow, you’re cranky in the morning.”

I squinted at the alarm clock. “Middle of the night. Not my morning.” I pulled my hair back into a messy ponytail and took a drink of the stale water on my nightstand. My throat felt as dry as a desert, raw and sharply painful as I swallowed.

“So, what was your nightmare about?” Jenna asked casually—too casually—as she strolled around the room.

“Why is it important? It was just a nightmare,” I muttered defensively.

“Normal people have nightmares. You have signposts to the afterlife,” Jenna pointed out, cradling the back of her head in her hands.

I let out a deep sigh. There was no way I could keep this from Jenna, who saw through me like cellophane.

“I’ve been dreaming about the Dexter Orphanage again,” I said in an unsteady voice. I left out the part about Ambrose for the moment. It felt weird even bringing him up, since they’d had a complicated relationship.

Jenna didn’t look very surprised. “More than once?”

“This is the second one…at least, that I can remember.”

“Why do you think you’re dreaming about it again now?” she asked. She leaned towards me, eying me hesitantly.

I’d thought about that quite a bit after the first dream. Now with this second episode, I was riddled with confusion. Why did I need to follow the dog? The dog was definitely the source of the tugging urge that had coaxed me inside, and following him was not an option. But what would I find when I caught up to him?

“I saw that evil dog again. I felt like there was a leash around my neck, and this force inside Dexter was tugging it,” I met Jenna’s wide, inquiring stare. “That’s got to be dangerous, right? I can’t go back there in real life. Who knows what kind of structural damage the place sustained. It was never very safe to begin with.”

“Good point. Still…”

“Still what? What if John Dexter’s evil spirit is trying to lure me into a trap?”

“Okay, but playing devil’s advocate, what if it’s something important?” Jenna asked. “What if there’s a good reason why you’re having these dreams?”

“Then I’ll wait and see what the dreams tell me.” I softened a little, looking at her conflicted expression. “I know I promised you I’d find out the truth, and I will. But I don’t think it’s smart to jump right into danger. I’m trying to get better about my impulse control, remember?”

“Good luck with that,” Jenna said, smirking. “Okay, I’ll practice patience. But don’t be afraid of the dream. Try to realize that your body is safe outside and follow where it’s trying to take you, instead of having to be dragged.”

###

I was screwed. Due to a mixture of insomnia and my own stubbornness, I’d never gone back to sleep. I didn’t want to be back inside the stifling interior of that awful place, especially if it was going to catch on fire again. What if the dog was just leading me in circles?

I’d used up my tricks to stay awake during class. Now, in the warm, quiet detention room, I felt my eyelids turning into lead weights. I shut my eyes and felt darkness overtake me.

I couldn’t stop running. Through winding corridors, I followed the dog. Urgency spurred me onward. I couldn’t stop or slow down to catch my breath or I would lose the trail.

I snapped awake as my head bobbed down, glancing around quickly in case anyone had noticed. Charlotte Gary, one of Hawthorne’s private punk selection, was using a rusty switchblade to carve an anarchy symbol into her desk. Her hair was a blend of black and blue spikes, complementing her fierce scowl and dark green trench coat. There were only two other students in detention, both boys who were staring off into space.

The teacher, a pencil thin, pretty woman, casually sauntered over and ripped the switchblade out of her hand. She glared up at the teacher, her lips twisting into a sneer.

“C’mon, Charlotte. I think we have enough of your art on the desks here,” the teacher said sweetly, a touch of amusement in her voice. “You just lost another weapon.”

“I’m just gonna get a new one,” Charlotte called to the teacher as she retreated back to the front.

Charlotte turned her head before I could look away and caught me staring at her. She snorted at me, unfortunate considering her septum piercing. “What the hell are you looking at, vanilla?”

I whipped my head in the other direction, blushing hard, and made a curtain with my hair so she couldn’t see my face. I waited for a spitball or a fist to land on me. Instead, I heard her rustling around. When I dared to look back, I saw she’d gotten out a ballpoint pen and was now doodling on the edge of the desk.

Any other kid would have been kicked out of school for having a weapon. Why was she getting special privileges? Was it just this teacher? Sure, Charlotte was scary to her fellow students, but she was still mostly bad attitude from what I could tell. I’d never paid much attention to her before, but it seemed like an anomaly.

I wondered if there were more kids given get-out-of-jail free cards that weren’t members of the popular club.

The mysteries of Hawthorne were beginning to pile up so high that I could barely see past them. I spent the rest of detention carefully moving around the threads in my head, without any success in unraveling them.

###

“I’m totally blocked,” Theo said. “I can’t even look at pens or paper without thinking they’ll sprout devil horns and attack me. It’s making it hard to even be in my room. I had to take my easel down.”

We were catching up a few days later on the way to the commons for lunch. So far, my dreams had been normal, and nothing exciting had happened at school. A false sense of security was settling in.

“Do you think it might have something to do with your dad?” Just mentioning Richard made my lips curl.

“That’s what Alex thinks,” Theo said, worrying her bottom lip. Two fingers went to the bridge of her nose; a nervous habit that hadn’t disappeared even though her glasses had. “I’ve been helping him out repainting the kitchen. But he’s just eccentric, that’s all. The way that he says things—it’s not his fault he has no tact.”

“But it’s probably not helping your concentration.”