Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) (32 page)

Chapter 31

Despite everything I’d experienced, everything I’d
learned, and how long it took me to finally fall asleep...I slept. Hard. And I
had no dreams to disturb me, good ones or bad ones.

When I woke, I glanced at my alarm clock to see I hadn’t even
slept in. It was seven o’clock.

Seven o’clock in the morning on the day after my death.

I got out of bed and glanced at my reflection in the mirror,
surprised in a way to see that nothing about my appearance had changed. I looked
exactly the same as I had yesterday, or the week before, or the month before any
of this had happened.

My mother had left a voice mail for me. She said her Hawaiian
vacation, as awesome as it had been, was nearly over. She’d be home the day
after tomorrow, Saturday, and she couldn’t wait to see me.

In a daze, I showered and got dressed just as I would on any
other Thursday morning. I had toast and peanut butter for breakfast.

Something was off, though. I stood there in the kitchen for a
moment, my hand pressed against my stomach.

“Oh, no. No, it can’t be,” I whispered.

I was still hungry—but it wasn’t for food.

It had to be my imagination. I wasn’t a gray anymore. I
wasn’t.
But there was only one way to find out for
sure.

I went to school and found him in the halls exactly where I
expected him to be.

Colin glanced at me as I tentatively approached. “Hey, Sam. Not
ditching today? Where have you been all
week?
”

“Around.”
Kidnapped, held captive, trying
to stop an angel from going postal at a Halloween party.
“Look, I—I’m
sorry about what happened on Monday.”

He grimaced at the reminder of our last kiss. Emphasis, I
sincerely hoped, on
last.
“You know, I think I’m
finally going to take a hint. I can’t deal with it, Sam. You push me away and
tell me you’re not interested in me, but then the next moment you’re all over
me. It’s not cool. I deserve to be treated better than that.”

“I totally agree. You deserve way better that I’ve been
treating you lately.” I forced myself to step closer to him, into the orbit of
hunger, and studied his face.

He watched me warily. “So what are you doing
now
?”

“Testing something.” I waited for the desire to kiss him to
grip me, for whatever remained of Colin’s soul to pull at my control like a
baited hook like it always did.

But there was nothing. I sensed nothing from Colin or anyone
else in the halls.

Nothing!

A smile burst forth on my face and I threw my arms around him
to give him a tight hug. He didn’t hug me back.

“Nobody likes a tease, Sam. I’m not interested in any more of
your games.”

I let go of him immediately. “Sorry. I, uh, I’m really sorry,
Colin. For everything. I hope we can still be friends.”

That lost look he used to have when around me was gone. He
wasn’t irresistibly drawn to me anymore. More tangible proof that I was finally
free—and so was he. “Yeah, sure. Just...no spontaneous hugging, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

We went to English and I sat there, face forward, trying to pay
attention. Despite my lousy grade the other day, school was supposed to be my
oasis. My touchstone. My way of feeling normal. This was what I’d clung to
recently to keep from totally falling apart.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work so well anymore.

I tried to ignore this mysterious new hunger inside of me, this
strange gnawing emptiness, but it was next to impossible. If it wasn’t for
food—or
souls—
then what the hell was it?

At lunch, I searched the halls and the cafeteria for Jordan,
but she was nowhere to be found. I asked some of her friends where she was,
worried she might have gotten into more trouble last night after the Halloween
party or worse, fallen back into Stephen’s clutches. They confirmed that she’d
texted this morning that she’d definitely gotten home safely after the raid. And
that her father was furious with her for disappearing for two days without any
explanation and then immediately taken off, in full Cleopatra gear, to a
party.

“She’ll be grounded till she’s forty,” one girl said with a
malicious grin.

She was probably right.

All day I tried very hard not to think about what I now knew
about Bishop.

His name. His past.

All the people he’d killed that had earned him a date with a
noose more than a century ago.

I already knew he was an angel of death, but this—it felt
worse. It felt dark and evil and unredeemable.

There had to be more to it. In fact, I had no doubt there was.
But still, why couldn’t
he
have been the one to tell
me any of this instead of his vengeful brother?

After a full school day where the most dramatic thing that
happened was witnessing two kids have a screaming break-up fight in the hall by
my locker, I went home and let myself inside, locking the door behind me.

Part of me wanted to go see Bishop, but the other part was too
chicken to face him.

“Pathetic,” I grumbled. “Some super powerful Heaven/Hell hybrid
you are, hiding your head like an ostrich when things get scary again.”

Fine, I was pathetic, but I wasn’t an ostrich. I just needed a
little more time to process all of this.

Everywhere I looked around the house today, especially as I
tossed out the remainder of the Chinese leftovers, I saw Cassandra.

She had secrets she wouldn’t tell anybody, too, when maybe we
could have helped her deal with them. I wondered if that was an angel thing.

I missed her more than I ever would have thought possible.

It was after six and getting dark outside when the sound of
someone pounding on my front door yanked me straight out of my memories. I
approached the door cautiously, peeking outside past the bamboo blind to see who
it was.

Red hair. Green eyes. Furious expression.

Reluctantly, I opened the door.

“I really hate you,” Jordan informed me.

“Good to see you, too.”

“You’ve ruined my life, do you know that?
Ruined.
My father thinks I’m some sort of lying juvenile delinquent
since I won’t tell him where I was. He threatened to send me to live with my
mother. I do not want that. Like, ever. She ignores me way better from a
distance.”

She seemed paler today, making the scattering of freckles stand
out that much more on her nose. “Are you all right?”

“Stellar. Really stellar, thanks so much for asking.” Her glare
was like a laser beam cutting through my skin. “You?”

“Super duper.” I pushed the door open wider. “Do you want to
come in?”

“No.” With a glower, she brushed past me as she entered the
house. I scanned the driveway where both my mom’s car and Jordan’s—a Mercedes
sports car I knew her mother had bought for her—were now parked, and the street
beyond to see that no one else was lurking around before I closed the door. “You
took off last night during all the drama and I didn’t see you again. What
happened with that angel dude? What happened with the ghosts? Is Julie
okay?”

“Everything’s...” I grappled for the right words, but found
myself at a loss. “Everything’s a bit better today, I think. Julie’s spirit is
free. She’s not trapped here anymore.”

Something hard in Jordan’s eyes eased off just a little at that
and they grew glossy as she turned away from me. “I felt like something
happened. I—I sensed it last night when I got home. After the raid. Like a
pressure had eased through the entire city. That’s why I’m here. I needed to
know. I wanted to forget it, forget you and your creepy friends, forget Stephen,
but I can’t. And that pisses me off.”

Jordan definitely had some supernatural insight going on. This
was only more proof. “Feel better now?”

“Yeah, just peachy, thanks.” She glanced around. “Where’s your
mom?”

“Hawaii.”

“Convenient.”

“You have no idea.”

Jordan didn’t speak for a moment, her arms were crossed so
tightly that it looked painful. “Is he really evil now? Like, forever?”

It was kind of obvious she was talking about Stephen. “I don’t
know.”

She groaned. “A lie would have been awesome.”

“Sorry. Yeah, he’s going to be great. Just like shiny new, no
problem at all.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Where’s your freaky angel guy? The one with the blue eyes to
die for. Isn’t he keeping you under close watch anymore?” She didn’t wait for me
to answer as she checked herself out in the full-length hallway mirror. “What’s
his deal, anyway?”

“Who, Bishop?” I twisted a finger tightly into my hair. “Oh,
you know. Grave robber from the nineteenth century, serial killer, murdered his
brother in cold blood. Now he’s an angel of death with a soul driving him
completely insane, and his brother’s a demon specializing in vengeance and
snark. Boring story, really.”

Jordan gaped at me. “Okay. And I thought I was in serious
trouble when it came to
my
love life.”

“Don’t worry, you are.” Now I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You know, we could get the two of them together. Bishop’s soul is destroying
him...Stephen
needs
a soul. A nice swap-o-rama might
just do the trick.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you really think—?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Damn.”

I eyed her. “Why are you really here, Jordan?”

“Honestly?” She sighed. “I didn’t know where else to go. My
father’s going to be furious that I took off again without saying anything, but
I don’t think I could be in any more trouble than I already am. So here I am,
seeking out the one person in the city who I actually have something in common
with. Crazy, right?”

“Pretty crazy,” I agreed. And as crazy as it sounded, I was
glad she was here. “Are you hungry? I could order something.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You and me hanging out on a Thursday
night? Who would have thought?”

I actually laughed at that. “Not me, that’s for sure.”

As I turned toward the kitchen, the vision that slammed into me
was more powerful than any other I’d ever had. It knocked me right off my feet
and I hit the ground hard, my short fingernails clawing at the hardwood
floor.

Powerful. But familiar.

A city in darkness, melting and draining
away like water in a bathtub—falling into a dark hole in the center of
everything. People, thousands and thousands of them, trying to run away but
getting pulled into the vortex. There was no escape.

It was a parking lot—a wide and empty one
next to an abandoned grocery store with a broken sign. Everything and
everyone was drawn here like a magnet. Nobody could escape from the swirling
and greedy mouth that devoured everything it could as if there was no end to
its hunger.

Bishop was there trying to help. To save
everyone, including me. I reached for his hand as he yelled my name, but he
was swept away from me before I could touch him.

Why was I still there? Why wasn’t I being
taken, too? My feet were planted firmly on the ground as I watched this all
unfold—this disaster beyond my worst nightmare. The end of the world. My
world.

All of it being taken into the Hollow’s
open and endlessly hungry mouth.

“Why not me?” I screamed at it. “Why
aren’t you taking me?”

The Hollow answered in that deep, dark
voice I’d heard before inside in my head. “Because you are me. We are the
same. And I need you—I can’t do this without you.”

Every word it spoke turned my blood to
ice. “Who are you?”

“You already know who I am.”

The vision ended as if a door had slammed in my face and I
found myself crouched on the floor, shaking. Jordan was next to me, staring at
me with fear and confusion.

“What. The.
Hell?
” she managed.
“What the hell was that? Did you just have a seizure or something? Should I call
911?”

My throat felt so raw I knew I must have screamed here, as
well. “A vision. I get them sometimes because of what I am.”

“A total freak of nature?”

“Yeah.” I was that, but it didn’t make what I saw any less
true. So what was it? A vision of the future? What future? When would it happen?
And how could I stop it?

The Hollow was sentient. I’d already figured that part out. But
what did it mean when it said that we were the same?

And what did it mean when it said that I already knew who it
was?

Something I hadn’t thought about since last night came back to
me in a rush. After everything that had happened since, I’d all but forgotten
it.

It was something Connor said while we were trying to deal with
the bodiless angel.

“All a damn distraction. What’s his game?
Where the hell is he hiding?”

Only I’d heard him, but there was something in his tone...

Connor knew something the rest of us didn’t.

Since he was an angel, I wasn’t terribly surprised he was
keeping important secrets from us. But this secret couldn’t remain that way.
Whatever he knew,
I
needed to know, too.

I looked at Jordan. “Mind giving me a drive somewhere?”

I half expected her to say no, roll her eyes and take off
without another word—unless that word was an insult. But I’d come to learn that
if there was anybody full of surprises, it was Jordan Fitzpatrick.

“Sure,” she said, nodding firmly. “Just tell me where.”

* * *

Hard to believe it had only been a day since the last
time I was at St. Andrew’s. Felt more like forever.

I swiftly checked the sanctuary and the rooms along the hall at
the back. Jordan trailed after me as I explored.