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Belle shivered against the crisp Fall breeze that started up as she hurried toward the jitney stop at the end of the long boardwalk. The crowd was thicker now in the early afternoon, and she could feel eyes on her, and when she heard someone call out her name (a classmate from school?), she retrieved her ear buds from her bag and jammed them in, syncing with the playlist on her phone.
For the few weeks she’d been in Elmridge, she’d learned that while she didn’t miss the isolation she’d experienced in Littleton, she did value her solitude and privacy. Seemed she was an introvert after all. And music, she discovered, was a new escape. It soothed the chaotic rage that had filled her in the wake of Emily and Liam’s disappearance. Emily, she was happy for, but Liam, she wanted to slap. Cold, hard smack right across his GQ-model face.
But today, it wasn’t the absent Liam who churned that storm inside her. She had this Jäger to thank for that, and everything that had just happened in that alley.
She couldn’t stop the questions overtaking one another like the Indy 500: what task did the twins mess up that enraged Violet enough to leave them behind? She knew from Ernesto’s intel that she was in Europe, but the twins seemed jealous of the “animal” that was with her. Who or what was it?
And the Jäger. He hadn’t killed her because he didn’t want to yet? He’d even turned bodyguard and kept her safe from Violet’s spell. And those memories that surfaced when she inhaled his scent...all happy memories.
But that she knew she could blame on her flighty focus. Her mind did have an embarrassing habit of wandering off on its own and hijacking her along for the ride.
She wasn’t the only one randomly sniffing people—the Jäger had done it. Goosebumps erupted along her skin at the memory. It seemed intimate. She knew the Jäger wasn’t an old man from his voice and build. But, still. These goosebumps had to be creepy crawlies and not...anything else. Especially with the freaky, glowy eyes he had.
There was also that voice buried deep in her mind that had reared its ugly head in the alley. It didn’t sound like Violet’s. It was a raspy, rumbling voice that terrified her when it emerged. It rarely happened; only speaking in her most frantic, disturbing moments. Since Liam had left, it spoke in her moments of rage, whispering of revenge. It felt like the little cartoon devil on her shoulder, only the creature resided in some deep, remote part of her mind.
She couldn’t deal with the idea that she was possibly losing her sanity, so she coped through distractions—school, her friends, music, books—and by completely pretending the whispering thing didn’t exist altogether.
But a new question plagued her: how in blooming heck had her foot healed so quickly? She knew she hadn’t imagined the blinding pain of her crushed foot. She looked down at the blue Keds-clad foot and wiggled it.
Nope. Not even a flinch of pain.
“Young lady, you I’ on?”
Belle’s focus clicked in place, and she saw the bus driver hunched over his steering wheel, watching her expectantly.
“Sorry.” She quickly found her place on the crowded electric bus, standing and sharing a grip on the pole with another passenger.
The bus pulled forward, and she turned the volume up on her music, drowning out the plague of questions. She gazed out the window as Merry Lake, crowded with beachgoers, disappeared, and beyond that, laid the imposing iron gates that guarded the entrance to Manor Hill, a.k.a. Rich Row, a neighborhood of mansions where the wealthiest families resided.
Belle’s stomach dipped as she stared at the turrets of the Gothic-like castle further beyond, home of the second wealthiest family, well, now just one person: Liam Rawlins.
She blinked and wiped her hoodie sleeve across her eyes. Jerk.
Belle stared back out the window, willing herself to stay off that particularly painful memory lane. Her home, the Historical Society of Elmridge with its Southern-style, wrap-around porch and second-story balconies cruised by next. The first floor was a museum dedicated to Elmridge’s history, and the second floor was where she lived with Uncle Ernesto and Aunt Emily. No one else knew it but them, but Emily and her sister Abigail had personally collected the artifacts in the museum for over 300 years now. They literally preserved and built Elmridge into what it was today.
But she didn’t have her mother or aunt anymore. It was just her and Ernesto in that big, lonely house, an uncanny reminder of how it used to be with just her and Papa in Littleton, Kentucky. Which was why she found herself more often at Candy’s nowadays, and why she was gladly heading there now. The walls would start to close in on her if she had to wait alone at home now with her thoughts and replays until her uncle returned hours later.
She sighed and skipped to the next song on her phone. Celine Dion’s “All By Myself” wasn’t helping her current state of mind. Dido’s “Thank You” cued up.
Much better.
Life really was better here in Elmridge, Rhode Island. She’d made some friends, started attending a school, met more family, had a crush that turned into a weekend boyfriend....
She huffed out another sigh. Ok, I desperately need to get out of my head. Turn and chat with the nearest stranger. Go.
Finally looking directly at the person with whom she was sharing the pole, her eyes popped. “Eddie?”
“Hi.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Took you long enough.” He was wearing dark blue jeans, a loose-fitting gray thermal that she noticed was inside out with the long sleeves pushed up to the elbows, revealing a black leather wrap around one wrist, and a black beaded chain that disappeared beneath the neck collar. His black hair was short along the sides, but medium-length and tousled on top, as if he left it up to the wind to comb it for him. He stood just a foot from her, and now she could see she came up to his chin. Those full lips were curved into a slight frown.
Once again, being confronted by a full-faced look from Eddie just about knocked the wind out of her. Jeez, was he even aware of the effect he has? And why wasn’t he already recruited by the Princess Posse to sit at their table at lunch? Oh, right, he chose to sit at Q’s table. Automatic nullification as a Bold and the Beautiful candidate.
Feeling sheepish, she tugged her ear buds out. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been totally lost in thought. You must think I’m horribly rude.” He pursed his lips as if considering, but she rambled on, “I mean, we’ve sat at the same lunch table for a few weeks now, and I’ve barely spoken to you. I’m really sorry about that, by the way. I have a lot of, er, stuff, I guess, on my mind.”
His lips twitched into the barest hint of a smile. “We’ve all got stuff on our minds. I, uh, like to escape through books.”
Oh dear, a man after my own heart. “Me, too.” She flushed pink with book-talk excitement. “Only, I’ve already read everything I could get my hands on. I still can’t really focus on a screen for reading so the e-books are a lost cause for me. Which is why...” she pulled the Hunger Games book from her bag, “I’m absolutely over the moon that you let me borrow this.”
She stood grinning ear to ear at him, waiting for a response. But he was just staring at her, his mouth slightly agape and his thick brows furrowed, as if conflicted over something.
“Um,” she pressed on, “I just reached the part where you left off.” She opened the book to show him, but then realized those pages had the fingerprints charred onto them, so she snapped it shut and slid it back into her bag. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed.
He was still staring, but his expression had grown darker.
She glanced away, out the window. This was going to be a long bus ride if all he was going to do was glare at her like he’d done at lunch. But he’d let her borrow the book, and she was really grateful for that. Maybe he was bi-polar or something. That would help explain his lunch-table choice. Guess he was a kindred spirit after all. Like called to like, what with the issues that plagued her own mind and all.
“Do you think Peeta’s actually trying to hunt down Katniss?”
He’d spoken softly, in an octave that would’ve made her knees go weak, if she wasn’t so hung up on Liam. And was that an accent she detected? Or did he just articulate his words really well? He wasn’t glaring at her anymore. It was more reserved, like he was studying her. Why? Not a clue.
Cindy was right. Really hot, but weird.
“No way,” she responded. “He’s definitely a friendly. Probably even likes her.” She sighed, feeling herself transported to her very favorite place, inside a novel. “He’s very brave putting himself in danger for her sake. I think the story’s really just a romance at heart.”
“Hmm.” A light shone in his amber eyes. “What about Katniss? Think she’ll feel the same way?”
“Katniss, I’m not sure about. I don’t think she’d recognize true love if it stared her in the face.”
He reacted so quickly, she almost missed it. His eyebrows arched and his jaw dropped a fraction, but just as quickly he schooled his features. “So,” he cleared his throat, “where are you headed now?”
It took her a second to recover from his whiplash change of subject. “Oh, um, my friend Candy’s place. We’re going to a party later. I don’t know where actually, but you can come with us if you want. I know you’re new here. I was the last newbie, so I have some idea of what it might feel like in your shoes here.”
Something dark crossed his features and his face became stone. He looked away, and if it hadn’t been for her uncannily superb hearing lately, she would have missed him barely murmuring, “You have no idea.”
Before she had a chance to wonder at that, the bus swerved abruptly, landing her right smack against his chest. He’d quickly shifted his feet to balance himself, at the same time reflexively wrapping an arm around her so she was flush against him.
Holy smokes, Eddie works out!
He exhaled roughly and muttered something under his breath that sounded to Belle like, “Bloody hell.” But she had to have heard wrong because Eddie wasn’t British.
When she was finally able to right herself and put some distance between them, her cheeks were flaming and she couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Sorry, folks,” the driver announced. “Had to avoid a peacock jaywalker.”
Belle mumbled her apologies and her thanks to Eddie, while he grunted in response. When they finally looked each other in the face, the absurdity of the moment struck them at the same time, and Belle erupted into giggles while Eddie tried very hard not to smile, despite the mirth glowing in his eyes.
In her giddiness, she prodded him, “It’s okay, you can do it. Go ahead and smile. See?” She gave him a dazzling grin. “Like this.”
But that had the opposite effect on him. He looked taken aback.
Confused again by his reaction, she rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless.”
“Indeed,” he said on an exhale.
She noticed a brown shopping bag by his foot. The outside read Annie’s Antiques. “What do you have there?”
“This?” He lifted three objects from the bag, one of them exciting her. “The Beatles vinyl record—my original broke. Bleach anime DVDs and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.”
Belle reached for the book as if it were a puppy. “This is the only Dickens book Papa never brought me.” She touched the worn hardcopy cover. She was definitely going to have to check out Annie’s Antiques.
“Let’s do something then. Let’s switch books. You get Dickens, and I get Hunger Games back.”
This was a rare show of amiability from him, and she counted that as headway in making him her friend. A friend with books. “Alright then.”
“But let’s make this more interesting. We’ll each write our thoughts in the margins of the books as we read.”
“Oh, I like that.”
“And then we’ll switch books again.”
“You are on, mister.” Belle grinned with nerdy excitement. As they made the switch, she noticed as he dropped the book in the paper bag that there had been another thicker book in there. He noticed her craning her neck to see, so she straightened quickly. “Sorry, I was being nosey.”
“No, it’s fine.” He retrieved the heavy book and laid it in her hands. “I figured I’d get to know the mythology of this place, if I’m going to be living here.”
“The Elmridge Book of Fairy Tales,” she read aloud. “By A.E.P.” She swallowed. Abigail and Emily Prynn. Her mother and aunt had written the book hundreds of years ago as a way to record the new knowledge and stories that were imprinted into their brains when their transformation was initiated by touching the golden meteor they’d found in the forest. It was a family secret.
And because she felt so comfortable in her new friend’s company, it wasn’t so difficult to say, “I have the first edition at home.”
Eddie stilled. “You do?”
“Since I am officially declaring you my Book Buddy,” she touched each of his shoulders with the book, as if knighting him, “I welcome you to my personal library of books.” She had also realized with relish that literature seemed to be the thing to get him talking.
And then he grinned. A natural, lopsided grin.
She gasped comically, pointing. “There it is.”
He shook his head at her. “Silly creature,” he murmured. But all the same, his grin widened as the left corner of his smile climbed higher.
“Quite lovely, sir,” she gushed, ignoring his last comment. “You should do it more often.”
While she could still feel the frightful weight of the terrors she’d just experienced a little more than an hour ago nagging at her in the back of her mind, along with the mild relief that the vicious Minion Twins were no longer a threat to her and were probably bound in Ernesto’s interrogation room wishing they’d never been born, she was in this moment blissfully distracted and wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.
So when his smile slipped away as he studied her, the same dark cloud overtaking his features, she continued talking, trying to hold on to this camaraderie with him until she at least got off the bus.
“But I warn you,” she continued, “my little library’s not much. Just dusty old history books about Elmridge. If you decide to read them, they’d have to stay in the museum. There’s an old rocking chair you could sit in. See, I live right above the museum on the second floor.”
“I know.”
Belle blinked. “You know?” A mental alarm bell went off.
“Well,” he drew in a breath, “it’s common knowledge. Said so in my ‘Welcome to Elmridge’ pamphlet.”
“Are you sure it’s not from all the absurd rumors circulating the school about me? Which you shouldn’t believe, by the way.”
“I’m the new kid who decided to sit at Q’s table. I’m sure there are a few rumors about me, too.”
She nodded, smiling. “Well, since you know where I live, it would feel less stalker-ish if you told me where you live. Fair is fair.”
“But I am stalking you.”
Her smile faltered, unsure if he was joking or not.
“I mean,” he continued, his caramel eyes glittering, “we’re lunch buddies, book buddies, and now,” he gestured around them, “bus buddies.” He let loose another rare lopsided grin, effectively distracting her from her concerns. “Can I ask you about one rumor though? Did you really tase those girls?” He watched her closely.
“No.” She bit her lip.
He waited to see if she’d volunteer more information, but instead, she looked away and gazed out the window. The flock of peafowls roamed the field in the distance, right next to the Elmridge K-12 school complex. The Home of the Peacocks.
“I believe you,” he said finally, and with a firmness that made her lock eyes with him. “Was it Kat and her neon clones?”
She nodded. Katerina Sirtis, the self-declared Queen B of the tenth grade, and her henchwomen had cornered her in the hallway at school, taunting her. Kat had viciously circulated rumors about her and flaunted them in her face.
The most disconcerting lie had to do with the very first weekend she’d arrived in Elmridge. It was true she had spent some totally platonic time with Jared Prince, the hottie international pop star sensation, who also happened to be her chemistry lab partner. He’d given her a ride to the mall and then taught her to swim at a lake party, but that was the gist of it. Liam Rawlins was another matter that would have made front-cover tabloids if Elmridge had one. He’d been the one to take her to the lake party and then on a dinner date afterwards on the boardwalk.
And they’d kissed that night for the first time. It was her first kiss.
But Kat had spun all this into the new girl being the Urban Dictionary version of “a lady of the night.” So when Kat and her clones had cornered her, Belle placed her hand on the lockers they were leaning against and released an electric current from her hand. The shock had flung Kat and her posse onto their butts, and so the taser-rumor had been born.
“Well, then,” Eddie said, “I only wish I’d been there to see it.”
“You know,” she began, a smile spreading on her lips, “I call them ‘neon clones’ too.”
“Really?”
“I’ve imagined them at the roller-skating rink pumping to—”
“—80’s music,” he said at the same time she did.
“How’d you know I was going to say that?” she asked.
Eddie had only stilled, in shock himself, staring at her. “I... don’t know,” he said. His eyes tracked off to the side as if deep in thought.
Belle frowned and then tried to laugh it off. “Jinx, then.”
She knew anything out of the ordinary would be most likely her fault. This morning, her foot had healed itself, and now, maybe, she was manifesting some sort of mind-influence power. At this rate, maybe her appearance would mutate too, and she’ll truly become known as the Thing from Littleton.
She found herself leaning her forehead against the pole. She really missed Emily. Her aunt was the only one who she could talk to about anything supernatural or super-weird. But Emily was M.I.A. So who could she even talk to? Ernesto? He was a walking storm cloud over Emily’s absence and hellbent on tracking Violet. Belle wasn’t about to burden him further with her personal “mutant” issues.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the migraine that threatened to sink its hooks into her temples.
“So, what’s it like in there?”
Belle blinked up at Eddie. “Where?”
He touched her temple. “There. Your hide-out.”
She blushed at his recognition of her flaw, but mostly at the point of contact he’d made with her skin. “Messy. Frustrating.”
Hmm. This venting felt good, and she had an attentive friendly listener. What was that saying? It’s sometimes easier to open up to a stranger than your best friend?
So she didn’t stop the words that tumbled forth. “Like...my sanctuary is an outrageous mess, and I want to clean it up and put everything in order, but I just...” she shook her head, “end up staring hopelessly at the chaos.”
Eddie nodded. “I’ve had a few ravaged Mind Palaces in my lifetime.”
“That’s actually what I call it, too,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“Or Fortress of Solitude.”
Her eyebrows went up. “And that.”
He was staring at her intently, and then the corners of his mouth kicked up. “Let’s see how good I am. Think of a number from one through twenty.”
“Seriously? Ok, um, go.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the number sixteen, her age.
“I need to see your pretty eyes.”
She opened them in a flash, pink coloring her cheeks, and found his amber gaze locked on hers in a way that made her body warm. “Y-You aren’t wearing your glasses, I just noticed.”
“I only wear them when I need to. Have you got the number clearly in your mind?”
“Yes.”
“Sixteen.”
She gasped. “That’s not normal.”
“I have a confession to make. I dabbled in magic shows once upon a time. Had the beautiful assistant and everything.” His eyes twinkled. “You were thinking of your age, weren’t you?”
“Is that like a statistical thing you knew would happen?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Can I try?”
“Well, now, it won’t be so easy as me thinking of my age.”
“313,” Belle blurted out.
Eddie blanched.
She scoffed at herself. “Sorry, that was random. I kind of just threw that number out there because I was going to give you the same one through twenty range.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed visibly as he ran his hand through his hair.
Truth was she saw the number clearly in his mind: 313 made of white smoke against blackness. She’d called it out before the number dissipated.
This had to be a new power of hers emerging.
She needed to sidetrack him before he became suspicious. “Can I try again?” she asked in a small voice. “One through twenty. Pick a number.” If she did see a number in his mind again, she was going to lie and tell him a different one.
He shook his head, his lips pressing into a thin line, and his eyes narrowing slightly on her as if trying to make sense of something important.
Belle’s smile faltered under his scrutinizing gaze. “No?” she asked weakly.
Was he figuring out she was a freak of nature?!
At that moment, the bus stopped in front of the townhomes complex, right behind the grandiose Peacock Plaza Mall. As the people in the front made their way out, a young man exclaimed from the back of the bus, “Thiago, bro, wake up. We’re here.”
Some cursing from the presumed Thiago followed, in a distinctly rough, Hispanic-accented voice.
Belle waited with Eddie as she allowed the people to pass before she followed out. A gap opened and when Belle stepped in, it had unfortunately been right in front of what could only be Thiago because he stopped and opened his mouth upon seeing her.
“Daaamn, mamacita, where you been all my life?” He was biting his lip and looking her up from head to toe. He was tan and just a little taller than her, but with wide shoulders, a dark shaved head, and dark eyes to match.
Thiago and his friend looked sweaty in their gym clothes, and the tall friend, about Eddie’s height, with short dark hair that had been frosted at the tips in blonde, had a basketball under one arm. He was staring wolfishly at Belle, too.
A nervous laugh escaped her, and she instinctively retreated a step back toward Eddie. “Around.”
Thiago rubbed his hands together. “Then let me get your digits, honey, and we can go around together.”
“Yeah, um...” She glanced at Eddie, whose steely gaze was fixed on her, while his real attention was completely bent toward the guys, like a viper poised to strike. “I don’t think so.”
Thiago frowned, and then finally looked at her hulking shadow. He jutted his thumb toward Eddie as if he were nobody. “Why? You with him?”
This time, Eddie did see her. He raised his eyebrows as if also waiting for her answer, leaving the decision entirely up to her for how to proceed with the situation. She thought she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes, too. As much as she wasn’t here to amuse Eddie, it was the far better option than encouraging Thiago and his sketchy friend to stick around.
“Yes,” she said decidedly. “I’m with him.”
Eddie looked back at the two. “She’s with me.” His tone was clear: it was time for them to leave.
The bus driver yelled out, glaring at them through his huge rearview mirror, “On or off?”
“A’ight,” Thiago conceded. He gave Belle one last, long look. “But if you ever need a real man, look me up.” He frowned once more at Eddie, and then lightly elbowed his friend behind him. “Let’s go, G.” But when his friend didn’t move, he repeated, “Yo, G?”
Belle realized with alarm that G was too busy locked in an epic stare-down with Eddie. G had his hand in his pocket, and she could hear a clicking noise coming from there. The sound filled her belly with dread. A switchblade?
Eddie, with his thick, dark brows drawn tightly together over hard amber eyes, said in a firm, frosty voice, “Keep walking.”
Expecting a fight, Belle was surprised when G turned and nudged Thiago to start walking. She and Eddie listened to their fading conversation as the boys stepped off the bus.
“That girl’s the sheriff’s niece,” G said.
Thiago spun the basketball on one finger. “So what?”
“He locked my brother up for something petty. Cost him his college scholarship.”
Thiago planted the ball in his friend’s chest. “Assault-and-battery’s not petty, cabrón.”
When the bus driver slammed the door shut, Belle jumped and called out, “Wait, please! I’m getting off here.”
Before she could say goodbye to Eddie, he spoke up, “Me, too. I’ll walk you.”