Chapter 23
Hayden and I are kissing hungrily in my dorm room.
He’s got me pressed up against the circle window, his mouth ravenous.
It’s been days since our trip to Hemlock Cove, and ever since the graveyard, that cold, strained distance between us has evaporated.
He’s clung close to me like a dangerous shadow, constantly touching and kissing me like he can’t get enough.
I pull back, gasping. “I really should go to class.”
“Like I said.” He kisses me, quick and deep. “In a minute. I’ll walk you.”
The door opens, and Delia makes a disgusted sound.
“Seriously? You two get worse every go-around. God. I’m gonna need to carry a hose with me.” Hayden pulls off my face with a wet pop, giving me a dark, dirty smile, making me shudder. Delia throws her bag to the ground and flops onto her bed.
“Sorry, Delia,” I say, straightening my shirt, pressing my palms to my cheeks. I touch the spot on my neck that makes me go crazy and catch Hayden watching me with heavy-lidded eyes.
“No, you’re not,” Delia says, giving me an arch smile. “Not even a little.” She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. You’ve died a billion times; I guess the least you deserve is a little dry humping.” I snort, but Hayden scowls.
“C’mon, Dee. That’s shitty.”
“It’s fine,” I say, rubbing his arm. Hayden shoves his hands in his pockets, unamused, but doesn’t say anything else. I gather my bag and coat, shooting Delia a pout.
“Are you really not gonna come to painting class today?” It’s my first class since ending things with Julian, and I’m dreading it fantastically. Delia crosses her legs and threads her fingers over her knee.
“I love you, Ro,” she begins, “but now that the cat’s out of the bag, I don’t have to pretend to be a college student anymore. I’m not going to listen to Julian ‘Shriveled Dick’ Hughes mansplain colors to me.”
“Don’t be so closed-minded,” I tease. “He might teach you something new—you never know!”
“Sweetheart?” she says. “I fucked Vincent van Gogh.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hayden drawls as he examines his fingernails.
“Okay, fine, I didn’t.” She leans back on her bed, her smile wry. “But I did live in Amsterdam for a minute, and I once bumped into him along one of the canals during one of his early-morning walks.”
“Did he say something to you?” I sit next to Delia.
“Yes. He said, ‘Pardon,’ then kept on walking.” Delia pats my head. “You’ll be fine, Ro. But I can walk you there.”
“I got it,” Hayden says, looking agitated. Delia laughs.
“Oh my god, you’re such a dork. What are you gonna do to stake your claim? Pee on her in front of Julian, Hay-Hay?” Delia teases. Hayden folds his arms, looking surly, but doesn’t say anything. I cross the room to him, cup his cheek.
“I’d love for you to walk me to class,” I say sincerely. “But please don’t pee on me.” Hayden rolls his eyes and huffs.
“You ready yet?” he asks.
“Yup.”
“Great.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me to the door. “We’re out of here. And, Dee?” He shoots Delia a meaningful look, and her face loses the humor, falls serious.
“Of course. Ears to the ground. Eyes peeled. I got you.” Delia’s gaze swings to me. “I got her.” Hayden smiles with fond gratitude.
“Later,” he says, and we’re out the door.
—
When we’re outside the arts building, my heartbeat starts to rise. As soon as it does, Hayden’s face darkens, his eyes flicking over my face.
“You okay?” he asks, concerned. I smile softly, pulling Hayden to a stop before we get any closer to the big stretch of glass windows that I know belong to Julian’s classroom.
“I’m more than okay,” I say. “Just nervous. I don’t want him to make it awkward.” Hayden grinds his jaw, shooting a dark look at the building.
“Well,” he says, voice low with threat, “if he does…”
“It’ll be fine.” I have to bite back my laughter. After all the things we’ve faced together over the centuries, he thinks this is something to get worked up about? Hayden drags his eyes from the front doors and sucks his teeth.
“Yeah, I’m sure it will be fine. I trust you, I just…” He shakes his head. “Whatever. Come on.” Hayden shoves his hands in his pockets and heads toward the front door. I clear my throat, shifting my weight. I don’t follow him. When Hayden notices, his eyebrows rise. “What?”
“It feels mean, you know? Like…you showing up at the classroom door? Like you’re already so…” I wave a hand up his entire body to indicate, like, everything. “You know?”
“No,” Hayden says dryly. “I don’t.”
“Ugh, Hayden, you’re the most beautiful boy in the universe, and Julian was so sick and unhappy, and it just feels mean, you know?”
Hayden’s eyes narrow, and he smirks. “Fine by me.”
I’m about to be pretty annoyed, but I think about how I would feel if I found out Hayden had shared a super-hot rain make-out with the incredibly gorgeous girl with lotus-leaf tattoos on her shoulders from Notorious. Jealousy rockets through me, and my empathy for Hayden is sudden and present.
“I get it, okay?” I say, walking up to him.
I put both my hands on his chest. “I think I’d find a way to, um…
as Delia said…dry hump you in front of Lotus Leaves if our positions were switched.
But, like, it’s not the first kiss that counts.
It’s the last, right? Firsts in general are overrated.
” I tilt my head up at him, smiling warmly.
“It’s the last kiss. The last touch. And, Hayden, you’re my last… everything.”
Hayden’s expression goes inexplicably soft. He lets out a long, low breath, closes his eyes.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay. Thanks for walking me to class. I’ll see you—” Hayden’s hands shoot out and he sweeps me up in a sudden, fierce kiss.
I know this is in front of god, the entire arts building, and probably Julian, but the vampire of my dreams is kissing the hell out of me, flooding my body with electricity, so what else can I possibly do but throw my arms around his neck and deepen the kiss?
When Hayden makes a sharp, delicious sound and licks into my mouth, I’m a total goner.
When Hayden pulls back, I whine. His eyes are glittering with mirth.
“Time to go, Ro,” he murmurs, his voice rough with lust.
“I…” I blink, clearing my head. Hayden gives me the most self-satisfied smile any boy has ever given a girl. When I look over at the windows and see a couple of students from my class gawking at us, I’m immediately embarrassed. “Oh my god,” I say, shoving at him. “You totally just peed on me.”
“Vampires don’t pee, beautiful,” he murmurs against my neck. He straightens, pulling out of my reach. “Enjoy class.” Hayden’s hands are in his pockets, his eyes gleaming as he walks backward.
I think the thing I’m most annoyed about is how all I want to do is sprint toward him and launch myself at his body. But I have some semblance of control, so I whirl around and march into the building.
I expect to have to slink in sheepishly to class, since I’m at least ten minutes late. But when I peek my head in, Julian’s not here yet. Everyone’s sitting at their easels, chatting with their neighbors. A few of the other students look up at me when I walk in, and their eyes get big.
My entire face goes hot, and I march to my usual seat, head down, tucking my hair behind my ear. I wish Delia were here. I glance up at Bianca’s usual seat, but she’s not here yet either.
Man, I am striking out today.
The door bursts open, and a tall, skinny, young-looking girl with giant round glasses stumbles in, arms full of papers and books and a thermos of coffee, looking flustered.
“Hey guys, sorry, sorry.” She barely makes it to Julian’s desk in time before everything spills out of her arms across the surface.
She turns to us, adjusts her glasses. “I’m Abigail, your new TA.
Sort of a last-minute thing. I won’t be late from now on…
probably.” Abigail gives us a charming smile.
I’m so shocked, it takes me a second to register what she’s said. She’s our new TA?
Where the hell is Julian?
“Okay, so, let’s see what you guys have done so far.” Abigail pulls out her phone and scrolls her screen. I raise my hand, but she’s frowning down at what she’s reading. I decide to just speak.
“I’m so sorry,” I call out. “But, um…do you know what happened to Julian?”
“Huh?” Abigail blinks up at me for a moment. “Julian? Yeah! Good quesh, good quesh. To be honest, no clue. I think he dropped out, maybe?” She frowns down at her phone again. “Okay, can someone pull up the syllabus? I’m totally lost.”
Abigail’s voice fades into the background as my chest tightens, dread pooling at the bottom of my stomach. Maybe he did just drop out. People do it all the time. Look at Remy. Though…okay, bad example.
But hadn’t Julian told me how much he wanted to impress Professor Brown? It feels super arrogant to think that Julian being gone has anything to do with me.
But…like…does it?
A memory from a couple of days ago returns to me. In the haze of Hayden’s and my insatiability, I’d forgotten about the glimpse of the man who looked exactly like Julian standing in the alley at Hemlock Cove, watching me with dark eyes. But that was just a vision. A figment of my imagination.
Right?
Something huge and black throws itself against the window. The slam is shockingly loud, shattering the classroom into chaos. My nerves are immediately stripped raw—I feel like I’ve just shoved my hand into a socket.
“The hell was that?” Abigail screams as the entire class jumps to their feet. Panting, heartbeat ricocheting around my ribs, I join the others slowly approaching the impacted window.
There’s a spider web of cracks in the glass and, sending horror through me, a bright smear of blood. The feeling of dread turns into something urgent, spurring me on. I sprint out of the classroom and down the hall, wanting to see what hit the window.
Maybe it’s just someone playing a prank, I think. A painted brick. A water balloon filled with rocks and paint.
These all, of course, sound impossibly ridiculous.
A cold, eerie snow has started to fall when I spill out of the building. The days are getting shorter.
The noose of time is tightening.
A few students have already gathered around something on the ground, their faces grim and unsettled.
When I get closer, they wordlessly step back to make room for me.
A girl with wild black hair is squatting on the ground.
When she looks up, I’m surprised to see it’s Charlie.
She looks up at me, her eyes filled with fear and confusion.
“It just, like, dive-bombed into the window, man. But what I wanna know is…” Charlie drops her eyes back to the ground. “Why’s his neck look like that?”
I follow her eyes to where the corpse of a large black raven is still twitching.
Its blank eyes are open, its spindly legs frozen in contorted angles.
But it’s the way its neck has been twisted nearly completely off its body that is truly disturbing, bent at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle from the rest of its body.
“Super fucked-up, man.” Charlie rises to her feet and joins my side. I can’t stop looking at the dead raven. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Rose. You doing okay?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, swallowing hard. God. Maybe it came at the window so fast, its head just twisted around a bunch?
“Good, I’m glad.” She pauses. “You haven’t seen Bianca around, by chance, have you?” I wrench my eyes away from the little corpse to look at Charlie. She’s twisting her nose ring, smiling, but there’s an undercurrent of concern there, and none of her usual levity.
“I haven’t,” I admit. “Sorry. Is she okay?”
“Yeah,” Charlie sighs. She pulls her top lip between her teeth.
“I introduced her and Chris, and they really hit it off. But I haven’t heard from either of them in a few days.
” Charlie rolls her eyes. “I just hope he didn’t convince her to elope or start a singer-songwriter duo, because he is a fucking terrible singer.
” She massages her forehead. “Anyway. Good running into you. Nae and I are down for more pub nights.” Her eyes drop uneasily to the bird.
“This fucking campus, man,” she mutters before walking away, her eyes unfocused and distracted.
I look down at the raven.
It’s just a coincidence. The fact that Julian’s missing. The creepy moment in Hemlock Cove.
You have no idea what danger you are in, said the palm reader.
I look up at the skeletal trees, all the naked branches, and a thin blade of dread slides down my spine.