Immortal

“I need to sing.” Andi screwed the lid onto a bottle of dark red fingernail polish. “Come with me?” Her voice was light, intentionally empty, but I heard the underlying desperation. The aching hunger. No one could hear Andi like I heard her.

I went still, staring at the back of the new Disturbed CD’s case without really seeing it. “Andi. . . .” After I’d nearly been trampled the last time, she’d said I wouldn’t have to tag along anymore. She’d sworn she wouldn’t ask.

“I really need this, Mallory.” Blue eyes pleading with me, she flipped onto her stomach on the mattress, careful not to let her wet toenails brush the bedding. “Look.” She shoved long, dark hair back from her face and ran one finger beneath her left eye. “I could fly to China with these bags, and my hands were shaking while I counted down my register drawer yesterday. And you see how limp my hair is? I’m withering. I can feel it.”

Did you know a siren can actually starve from silence? It’s true. And talking won’t help. Neither will standing in the middle of a crowded school hallway, listening to the secrets, the lies, and the general chaos. A siren suffers from her own silence, when she goes too long between feedings. And while I loved her voice, in that moment, I would have been grateful for a little quiet from Andi.

“You’re not withering. You just hate math, and you stayed up too late last night.” And her hair was flawless, as usual. Thick and wavy, with a truly unnatural shine.

As much as I loved Andi—we’d been inseparable since the first day of fifth grade—I often felt sorry for her brother. Being her best friend was practically a full-time job, so I could only imagine how frustrating it must be for a normal twenty-two-year-old guy trying to rein in a sixteen-year-old siren. Especially considering how quiet and easygoing Ty was. Sometimes I wondered how they could possibly share a mother.

There are no male sirens, and since Ty’s dad was human, so was Ty. Andi was a siren, just like her mom, but we had no idea who or what her father was. Her mom had never felt inclined to elaborate beyond the usual, “You’re better off without him.”

Apparently she was better off without a mother too, because when we were thirteen and Andi’s siren appetite began to approach full-strength, her mom had dropped her off at Ty’s apartment, and neither of them had heard from her since.

“Look, it won’t be like last time, I swear.” Andi tucked a lustrous strand of hair behind one ear. “I’ve been working on my focus. On singling one person out of the crowd. It’ll be different this time.”

I shoved the CD bin beneath her nightstand and sat cross-legged on the carpet, frowning up at her. “Didn’t Ty say he’d take you out this weekend?”

“Yeah, but he said the same thing last weekend. He doesn’t understand. And even if he remembers, we’ll wind up somewhere really lame, like a honky-tonk talent show. The audience is eighty percent geriatric, all wearing bandanas as a fashion statement.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you were really withering, I don’t think you’d be so picky.” She had to feed to survive. I understood that. But could she really be so hungry again already?

Andi shrugged. “I feel guilty feeding off old people; they’re close enough to death on their own. Besides, it’d take three old ladies to equal the energy in one ripe eighteen-year-old body.” Her eyes flashed with excitement, and her grin was contagious.

But just because my bruises had faded didn’t mean I’d forgotten them. “Last time some jerk shoved me into a sliding glass door trying to get closer to you. I’m not ready to fend off another hoard if you get carried away again.”

She frowned. “I told you, I’ve been practicing.” I didn’t answer, so she sat up on the bed, crossing arms beneath her breasts. “I’m starving, Mallory. I’ll go without you, if I have to, but I could really use some backup.”

Which was exactly why I’d always tagged along before: to keep Andi from making any new friends. Or fans. My job was to step in and shut her up once she’d had enough, before she could turn any of the listeners—a.k.a., human energy drinks—into desperate, fiending addicts or future mental patients. That moment usually came between the last notes of the crowd-favorite song and the first notes of Andi’s own personal melody. When a siren starts singing her own lyrics, it’s time to go. Or at least put earmuffs on all the humans.

I’m particularly well-suited to be her backup because a siren’s song cannot hypnotize most non-humans. I am leanan sidhe, so Andi’s singing has no effect on me.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Her singing astounds me. The beauty of her voice makes me ache with longing and burn with jealousy, all at the same time. But it doesn’t flash boil my brain, or overload my circuits, or whatever it is she does to make humans fall crazy-in-love with her while she slowly drains their energy. Andi can’t feed off me, and I can’t be hypnotized by her. I’m the only one she can trust to help her stop before things go too far.

“Besides, you know you want to get out of here.” She was grinning again, and I wished I was as immune to her smile as I was to her voice. “Otherwise we’re looking at a bowl of popcorn, an all-night slasher-fest, and a pizza around midnight, if we’re feeling adventurous.”

Well, she had a point there. The summer was half over, and we’d done nothing more exciting than serving fast food for minimum wage. My mom would be back in a few days, and our month-long sleepover would be over.

I don’t know where Andi heard about the party. Maybe from some guy at work. Maybe from some guy on the street. Maybe from some built-in party guidance system whispering inside her head. All I know is that there’s always something going on somewhere, and Andi always knows how to get there, even if we have to drive halfway across Texas.

That’s the first rule of survival: Never eat where you live and never hit the same place twice. Eventually someone will notice if people always get sick when you sing to them, especially if there’s no hangover to blame it on the next morning. The food poisoning excuse only works once.

“So, this is a private party?” I said when Andi turned off the highway onto a narrow, well-paved road, an hour from our one-horse, dead-end town. “What’s the plan? You just gonna climb up on the table and start belting out show tunes?”

Andi laughed and pressed a little harder on the gas as her excitement crested. “Hardly. Though that might work if I get desperate. There’s supposed to be a Rock Band tournament.”

I pulled down the passenger side visor and touched up my lipstick in the lighted mirror. I wasn’t siren-gorgeous; for me, looking good required effort. “Rock Band? Seriously?”

Though she would never have admitted it at school, Andi was pretty good on the plastic guitar; she played against her brother for cash once she depleted her paycheck. Ty wouldn’t let her sing, of course, so she played guitar against his drums, and beat him about seventy percent of the time, even with them both playing on expert.

I nodded, and she slowed to a stop at the end of a line of cars on a dark residential street, her glittery eye shadow sparkling in the flood from a streetlight overhead.

When I got out of the car, I could hear sound leaking into the night from the house ahead: a heavy bass beat with a crunchy guitar riff and angry, staccato lyrics. The clock on the dashboard said it was after eleven, but the night felt new, and suddenly I was high on possibilities, though I hadn’t come to feed. Chances were slim that I’d find a satisfying meal at some random party anyway—my skills were harder to define, my appetites much more difficult to satisfy than Andi’s. But I shared her excitement. Being with Andi was a rush. Even when she wasn’t singing, she exuded confidence and exhaled charisma. People wanted to please her, and I was no exception.

As we clacked our way up the sidewalk toward the well-lit house on the corner, I felt powerful, beautiful in my own right with Andi’s arm linked through mine. I’d have a couple of drinks and a couple of dances, and retreat to the back of the room and monitor the show while she fed. Then it’d be just the two of us again, rehashing the play-by-play on the way home.

Andi wouldn’t need to drink; she was high on anticipation alone for the moment, and after she sang she’d be stuffed and buzzed on human energy, but physically sober. Why had I resisted in the first place? The plan looked good, and we looked great. Everything would be fine. Better than fine.

Andi rang the doorbell. The right half of the double front doors swung open, revealing a guy in a frat T-shirt. He had dark hair, broad shoulders, and a plastic cup of beer. His eyes widened when he took in first Andi, then me. He stepped to one side and gestured for us to come in.

Our host grinned like a hyena. “Ladies, my name’s Rick, and you can crash my party any time you want.” Rick led us through a large room packed with people dancing, laughing, and drinking, then into the kitchen. “What can I get you to drink?” His wide-armed gesture took in a two-countertop spread of snacks and drinks.

Andi took a soda and I let Rick pour me a beer, then we wandered into the main room just as a new song began to play. “What’s with the toys?” Andi said, eyeing the neglected Rock Band setup in one corner.

“We’re having a tournament. Want to play? We can start you off on easy. . . .” Rick angled us toward the set-up while she pretended to think.

“We’ll get started as soon as my little brother gets here with the second drum set. So we can duel.” Rick mimed smashing the high hat with his empty hand.

Rick nodded like a bobblehead doll, and Andi and I wound our way through the mass of dancing bodies while he scribbled her first name onto the bottom of a list on a yellow legal pad.

As she watched the cowboy in anticipation, I sent up a silent thank-you for the fact that I hadn’t been born a siren. I wouldn’t die if I didn’t feed. But I wouldn’t truly live either. Though my body was nourished, my soul felt half-starved.

“See you when it’s over?” she mumbled, eyeing her intended meal like a tiger eyes raw meat. She’d already forgotten I was there, but only because she knew she could trust me to stop her before she drained the poor guy like some kind of mystical vampire. Our system was tried and true, if a little lopsided. I got a night out, a few drinks, and a designated driver. She got an emergency off-switch—someone to keep her from killing everyone in the room if she got carried away.

Which was not beyond the realm of possibility. There was no limit to how much energy a siren could drink, or to how long she could live as a result. Even once she’d gotten what she needed, she could never be glutted, or even pleasantly full. The only thing that stopped a siren from binging was self-control. Unfortunately, Andi hadn’t developed much of that yet.

“I’ll be here. . . .” I whispered, but Andi was already halfway across the room. She may as well have been halfway across the galaxy.

She’d barely said hi to the walking Slurpee when the front door flew open on her left, revealing a tall, lanky young man with a dark shadow of stubble on his chin and a set of plastic drums under one arm, the foot pedal dragging the ground at his feet.

The crowd broke into applause, shouts of “Evan!” tossed around like confetti at a parade. Rick took the drums from his brother, and someone else handed Evan a beer.

Andi and her prey followed Rick to the corner of the room, where she helped plug in wires and adjust the surround sound settings while the crowd buzzed around them. This was evidently a regular thing for the locals: get drunk and play real songs on fake instruments with two hundred of your closest friends. And they’d accepted Andi like one of their own. It was kind of scary.

I jumped and turned to find Evan—he of the plastic drum set—leaning against the wall on my left. I fumbled for a smile and he held out a clear plastic cup half-filled with ice and fizzing soda, but the scent said he was offering me something stronger than Coke.

I had no idea what else was in the cup, but I took it. No matter what this human predator was after with his cheap alcohol and easy grin, Andi was the most dangerous thing in the room, and I was immune to her particular brand of poison—no matter how badly I ached to sink into her song and forget about everything else.

“Thanks.” I took a long sip from the cup, and bad vodka scorched a path down my throat. The stuff we snuck from Ty was much smoother, but considering I was underage and crashing someone else’s party, I’d take what I could get.

Evan nodded and drank from his own cup, staring out at the room full of writhing bodies like we knew each other well enough to share a comfortable silence.

My next sip went down easier, so I took a third. The trick was to drink enough so that I didn’t hate Andi when she started singing—wasting unfathomable talent on a room full of humans who could never truly appreciate her—but not so much that I couldn’t stop her before her lyrics became too dangerous for their fragile psyches.

Usually two drinks was plenty. But as I watched Andi laughing with her cowboy while she helped Rick adjust the guitar strap over his shoulder, jealousy scorched a trail up my spine. Two wouldn’t do it this time. Two wouldn’t even come close.

Because no matter what she said, Andi didn’t need me like she needed the cowboy. On our own, we would never be enough for one another.

He set his drink on a nearby end table, where a bottle of vodka stood next to two sweating cans of Coke. “I didn’t bring ice, but the soda’s cold.” He popped the tab on the first one and half-filled my cup.

Andi’s laughter rang from across the room as he poured, and I tilted the bottle up, giving myself a stronger dose of liquid patience and tolerance. I was going to need plenty of both.

But as usual, when Andi started singing a few minutes later, I forgot how irritated I was. How jealous and . . . forgotten. I got lost in the song. In the beauty of the melody, the poetry of the lyrics. The perfect shape of her mouth as it formed each word. The guitarist fumbled, and the “percussionist” sounded like he was trying to beat the drums into submission, but Andi was flawless. Exquisite.

In the middle of the first song, people stopped dancing to listen. To watch her. She sang “Bring Me To Life” better than Amy Lee. Clearer. Cleaner. More visceral. And when the next song started, she moved effortlessly into a lively country shitkicker about revenge on a wife-beating husband.

Like a fish likes to swim. “Looks like everyone does.” All eyes were on Andi. The rest of the fake band practically faded into the background. She could have carried the song all alone.

By the time Pat Benatar started in on her infamous “Heartbreaker”—Andi must have chosen the set list—Evan had gone silent beside me, absently sipping his first drink, tapping his fingers on the wall at his back. The crowd was dancing again, some people singing along, but Andi saw none of them. She watched her living snack like he was the only one on the planet, and he stared back at her like she’d invented sex and promised him the first taste.

She wouldn’t sleep with him. She’d come to satisfy a different kind of appetite, and by the time she was done with him, he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight. Anything more complicated than that would be impossible for the next couple of days, until he’d regained some energy.

Andi had to feed to keep from literally wasting away, and she thought it was more humane to take a little bit from someone different every month or so than to drain some poor soul completely every couple of years. She did love singing for them—she was a siren, after all—but she wasn’t a killer.

I flinched, and a cold, hollow ache throbbed deep inside me, so deep no one else could ever see it. No one could ever know how bad I hurt. Except Andi. She knew, but she couldn’t fix it.

“Alas, I am completely, tragically talentless.” I forced a laugh, like I didn’t care that such beautiful music was so far beyond my capabilities that I couldn’t even see art from where I stood. “I’m just a spectator.” A desperately hungry spectator.

He was wrong, on both counts. But he was looking at me rather than at Andi, and that intrigued me, so I answered instead of killing a discussion I would normally never pursue. “No, I am honestly no good at anything that requires creativity. Talent just . . . doesn’t run in my blood.” I’d never uttered a truer statement, but his grin said he thought I was being humble. Or trying to prolong the conversation.

Evan’s grin deepened, and the look in his eyes could have set off the fire alarm. “Maybe you just need help finding your hidden talents.”

“Maybe so. . . .” Wait. I took a step back to clear my head and frowned up at him. Better safe than sorry. “You don’t sing, do you? Or play Rock Band?”

But that’s when Andi’s three-song set ended, and the crowd burst into applause. I turned to see her scrolling through a list of songs on the huge, flat screen TV, and nearly choked on my own surprise. Her eyes were glowing—actually pulsing with light—though I was the only one who could see it.

Startled, I went up on my toes, searching the sea of faces for Snack-in-Boots, but he wasn’t at the front of the crowd. Or the back of it. He was sitting alone on a couch near the wall, sweaty and pale, still watching Andi like he literally could not tear his gaze from her. He was totally mesmerized, and already suffering, though he didn’t seem to realize it.

“Um . . . can you hang on a minute?” I asked Evan, then took off before he could answer, pushing my way toward the front of the crowd. She’d already gone past her safety line, and I’d been too busy flirting to notice. At least she hadn’t ditched the band for a solo act yet. That’s when the real trouble began.

“Okay, this is a vocalist-only challenge.” Andi’s crystalline voice carried easily without the mic, and I groaned aloud. “I’m gonna let these guys take a break for a minute and sing one of my personal favorites,” she said, beaming at the fake backup band. Because this was her show now.

Crap! She was already flying too high to come down on her own. Andi would turn the microphone way up and the vocals track way down, and within a few bars of the opening notes, she’d be singing her own words without even realizing it. Once that started, it wouldn’t end well.

At the front of the crowd, I gestured wildly to get her attention, and all I got for my efforts was a wide Andi-grin, all straight white teeth and hypnotic, glowing eyes. “Andi, you’ve hogged the mic enough for one night,” I said, trying to ignore the stares that turned my way. “Give someone else a chance to sing.”

But Andi just laughed, and the crowd laughed along with her. Not a good sign. She was affecting most of them now, instead of just her snack. “Mallory can’t sing!” she cried, then winked at me like she’d just done me a favor. Rescued me from her new too-loyal fans and their glittering adoration.

But she had no idea what she was doing. She was flat-out drunk on human energy, because I’d let her go too far. What happened to focusing on one member of the audience? What about all that miraculous control she’d gained?

Andi clicked a button on the wireless PlayStation controller, then exchanged it for the microphone as music poured from speakers all over the room. She swayed to the rhythm, and the crowd swayed with her.

I glanced around desperately, looking for a plug to jerk from the wall, or a speaker to turn off. But that wouldn’t stop Andi. She was just as good a cappella, and if the crowd was too far gone, they wouldn’t even notice the missing music. I needed something that would get their attention, because without that, Andi wouldn’t sing. There was no point.

I considered “accidentally” bumping the huge TV, but it was a plasma screen—too expensive to replace. The speakers, maybe? No. I wasn’t sure that taking out one of them would be enough to stop Andi.

Then I noticed the PS3 whirring on a shelf beneath the television. Perfect. Expensive, but not a whole year of flipping burgers and salting fries. I glanced around until I spotted an unattended drink on an end table, then picked it up casually, as Andi sang the first words of the song. She was sticking to the real lyrics for the moment, but that would soon change. I knew that from experience.

So I edged casually closer to the shelf and accidentally-on-purpose tripped over an area rug. I caught myself with one hand, but spilled someone’s warm beer all over the PS3 in the process, making sure liquid splashed into the disk slot.

All eyes turned my way, and Andi’s voice trailed into pained silence. Rick shook his head to clear it, then rushed over, face flushed with either alcohol or anger. Or both. “Damn it!”

“I’m sorry!” I sat up unsteadily, faking a couple more drinks than I’d actually had, ignoring the daggers Andi shot my way as the glow in her eyes slowly faded. No one was watching her now. No one was listening.

“Are you okay?” A strong hand pulled me up by one arm, and I found myself face to face with Evan, who looked more confused than concerned. He’d seen me rush off, and had probably seen me take someone else’s drink off the table. I looked like either a lush or a saboteur.

I swallowed the thrill of success secretly buzzing inside me and was relieved to see anger fading from Andi’s expression. She shook her head once, then her focus found me, and her brows rose in question.

I nodded. Yes, I’d sabotaged her song and ruined Rick’s PlayStation. All to save her ass. “I’ll pay for that,” I added softly as Rick unplugged his machine. With Andi’s money.

Rick stood with the machine under one arm. “I’m gonna let this dry out and see what happens. So I can either put in a CD. . . .” His gaze found Evan, and a sly smile stole over his face. “Or I can put my brother on the spot.”

“Evan!” someone called from the crowd, and several voices seconded the request. Then someone came forward carrying an acoustic guitar. Evan rolled his eyes like he’d refuse, but took the guitar without hesitation, and I couldn’t miss the way his eyes lit up. It was a human glow, not as intense or as scary as Andi’s. But it reflected true passion.

Speechless, I nodded, even as Andi tugged me toward the door. “Let’s go,” she hissed, glancing from me to Evan, then back to me. I nodded again. We should go while he was tuning, plinking individual notes like the first drops of rain onto a drought-scorched wasteland. I shouldn’t risk listening. One near-catastrophe was enough for tonight.

But then he started playing for real, and the notes didn’t just plink like drops into a puddle. They flowed, like rivers of sound. They filled my empty heart and echoed in my hollow soul. I ached for that sound. For those notes. For the hands that played them, like they were no big deal, when they were everything. My entire world.

I stopped, one hand gripping the doorframe on my way out of the house. Andi pulled on my other arm, but I barely felt it. Barely heard her whisper my name. “I wanna listen. . . .” I murmured, already lost in the sound.

His voice was rough. Gravelly, as if the sound should have hurt coming out. I drank to satisfy desperate thirst, and I’d never tasted anything so wonderful. He’d said he wasn’t much of a vocalist, but he was wrong. Or else he’d lied. Mere humbleness couldn’t account for such an understatement.

His voice was raw emotion, gritty and gorgeous. I wanted to take off my clothes and roll in his voice. Wrap it around me. Wear it. Breathe it. Live it. His song filled me so thoroughly that for the first time in my life, I understood how empty I’d been before. How dull and tedious. I couldn’t make sounds like that. Couldn’t form notes with my fingers or throat. And I wasn’t sure how, now that I’d heard him, I could ever live again without his sound around me. In me. Singing. Making beautiful, aching music, just for me.

“Just one song.” I dragged her back into the house with me. “I can handle one song. And you owe me.” I risked looking away from Evan long enough to glare at her, suddenly sure my own eyes were flashing fiercely. I couldn’t compel like a bean sidhe, or mesmerize like a siren. But I would do or say whatever it took to get close to Evan. To hear his song.

“One song. Then I’ll drag you out of here by your hair, if I have to,” she snapped. Andi was mad. Because someone else was singing, soaking up attention? Or because I wanted to listen to someone else singing?

I don’t remember winding my way back through the crowd. Don’t remember nudging, or pushing, or stepping on toes. But suddenly I was there, and he sat in front of me on a drum stool, a beautiful acoustic guitar on his lap. It sang for him like he sang for me. His fingers slid over the frets, and he plucked the strings without a pick. His head bobbed with a beat he’d created from nothing.

All around me, people danced. They swayed, and bobbed, and clutched one another to the rhythm of his aching melody. I wanted to dance—needed to live out those notes—but I wouldn’t ruin his song with my clumsiness.

His fingers flew across the strings, and the heartsick, wandering melody deepened, ripened, gaining focus and complexity. His voice teased new words from the air between us. They were his lyrics, but they were mine too. I couldn’t have sung them. Couldn’t even have written them, but he drew them from me. Gave them to me.

Evan wasn’t like the others. Not like the sketch artist in downtown Dallas, or the singing waitress last month. He was more than a temporary fixation. More than a one-night song to scratch my soul-itch. Evan was . . .

The word tasted like a delicacy, but I thought it in a tiny, formless whisper, hardly daring to believe. Was it possible? Was that why Andi had insisted on going out? She couldn’t have known, of course, but she didn’t need to. Not if this was real, if it was meant to be.

If I was right, Evan and I could give one another everything we’d ever craved. We could make magic together. We could make music. I would feed his talent, and he would feed my soul. He would get fame, and fortune, and critical acclaim, and I would get him. If he was truly

I stood frozen, a statue in a room full of motion, thunderstruck and lost in the sound. I could no longer think. Couldn’t breathe. I could only lap at his genius like a starving cat with a bowl of milk.

And when he’d finished the last notes, when they hung heavy and lonely in my heart, the cold darkness descended again, and I collapsed. I fell to the floor in a heap of talentless limbs, uncoordinated fingers. And I cried from the emptiness.

“Mallory!” Andi whispered fiercely, trying to pull me up before anyone noticed. But I couldn’t move. The silence was too heavy, and I couldn’t fight it. How do you slink back to live in darkness after you’ve been warmed by the light?

“That was . . . beautiful,” I whispered, frustrated and humiliated by my own inadequate, artless vocabulary. He’d given me the most amazing gift I’d ever experienced, and I couldn’t even tell him how I felt.

“Thanks.” He grinned and pulled me up as new music snaked through the room from several speakers, cool and mechanical after the lifeblood he’d just shed for us. “I never played it like that before.” He tugged me gently away from the crowd, his brown eyes lit from within, and I would have followed him anywhere. I barely noticed Andi trailing us. “I think you’re good luck.”

“Stay for one dance,” Evan said, without even glancing her way. His eyes were all for me. So were his hands, and his mouth, and his songs. “Just five minutes.”

I wanted to. Desperately. But I would only humiliate myself and embarrass him in front his friends. So I started to shake my head, but Andi beat me to the punch with an ugly laugh.

When Evan laughed, the sound was melodic. “I’m not asking for a world-class waltz. Just one slow dance.” Before either of us could argue, he turned and pushed a button on the stereo, and the speakers went silent. The crowd started to grumble, but then he pressed one more button and a slow, sultry song slid into the room. The protests melted.

The first notes were just a bass guitar and drums, with a high hat for accent, but the rhythm brought with it images of damp, sweltering nights and little clothing. Evenings when it was too hot to touch anyone else, but you wanted to anyway. I felt the heat in spite of the air conditioned room, because Evan pulled me close and his magical, musical hands were on me. And when the words began, he hummed in my ear, so low that no one else could hear.

I couldn’t dance. Not one step. But I could put my arms around him and let him move us both to the music. Guiding me. Playing me like he played his guitar.

I wanted to make music for him, but I couldn’t. Art was mine to give, not to make. And it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from giving that song to him as he hummed it. From molding it and making it his. Ours. I forced the urge down. Buried it in the feel of his hands on my back, of his lips as they brushed my ear. I would enjoy him the normal way, if only for a few minutes.

Content in his arms, I closed my eyes, and when I finally opened them, I saw Andi watching us over his shoulder. Watching me. Rick stopped at her side, two cups in hand, but she brushed him off without a word, and her hard gaze never left mine.

I closed my eyes again, blocking her out. But a minute later, she pulled me away from Evan before the last notes had even faded around us. “We have to go,” she snapped, glaring at him now. “I have to be home before my brother gets off work.”

“Stop it!” I hissed as she pulled me toward the door, but she didn’t let go, and I didn’t want to cause another scene. “Didn’t you hear him?” I whispered desperately, tripping after her. “We’re supposed to be together. He’s genius, Andi! My first.”

Andi stopped at the curb and whirled on me, her eyes flashing in fury. “You can be pissed if you want, but you saved my ass, and now I’m saving yours. And if you don’t get in the damn car, I swear I’ll sing to him, and he’ll forget he ever even met you.”

“Mallory Bennett,” I called out, and Andi’s grip tightened until it hurt. She opened the passenger door and pushed on my shoulders until I sat, then slammed the door. She raced around the front of the car, slid into her own seat, and had the engine started before Evan made it to the curb. And as we sped away from the party where she’d almost killed and I’d almost lived, I twisted in my seat to watch Evan fade into the darkness, fighting back the cold steadily seeping back into my chest.

Andi tried to get me up before she left for work, but I couldn’t look at her without hating her. So I pulled the covers over my shoulder and stared at the wall. She curled up next to me and brushed hair back from my forehead. She said she was sorry. She promised that there would be others like Evan, later, when I was ready to nurture true genius.

When I still refused to look at her, she got dressed, and right before she closed the bedroom door, she swore that the next time I found a genius, she wouldn’t stand in my way. She would help me.

But I could hardly hear her. I heard Evan in my head, and in my heart. It was a hollow echo of the live performance, but it was enough to drown out everything else.

I spent the morning in Andi’s bed, huddled beneath her covers, but no matter how many blankets I piled on, I couldn’t get warm. Had Evan’s warmth shown me how cold I truly was? Or was I colder for having lost him?

The sun was high and bright when my phone chirped, signaling a new email. I rolled over and glanced at the clock. Eleven twenty-three. The day was half over. If I could survive another few hours, I’d make Andi take me out again. Anywhere loud enough to block out the echo in my head. She owed me.

I fumbled on the nightstand, then flipped open my phone and selected the latest email. The sender’s name was Evan Taylor. The message read, “Mallory, if this is you, please call me.” There was a phone number below the signature.

He sighed, and the sound was melodic. “Facebook. Thank goodness you posted a picture. There are four Mallory Bennetts in central Texas.”

Yes. “No.” Even cold and aching for him, for his music, in the light of day, with Evan’s song a mere memory, I knew I shouldn’t. Not without Andi there as backup. Even if she was wrong and I was ready for Evan, I wasn’t ready to be alone with him. Not for too long, anyway.

My eyes flew open and I glanced around Andi’s wreck of a room. We hadn’t done laundry in two weeks, and I didn’t even know where Ty kept the vacuum cleaner. So I gave him my address. My mom always cleaned before she left town because she hated coming home to a dirty house.

The phone clicked in my ear, and I flipped it closed, my heart pounding. Then I flipped it back open and emailed Andi. She had to leave her phone in her locker while she was on the clock, so we’d have at least a couple of hours of privacy before she got off work at three, in plenty of time to rescue us if something went wrong.

My precaution in place, I threw back the covers, tugged on the jeans I’d worn the day before, and grabbed my keys. Eight minutes later, I pulled into my own driveway and headed straight for the shower.

I waited for him on the living room couch, staring out the front window. One hour and four minutes after he’d hung up, a dusty gray sedan pulled into my driveway. I raced to the foyer and paused to get my pulse under control. Then I pulled the door open.

Evan stood on my front porch, holding his guitar. He grinned, and his brown eyes flashed in the sunlight. I stepped back to let him in without a word. I can do this. We don’t even have to sing today. This wouldn’t go bad if I didn’t let it.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he whispered. I leaned against the closed door, and he stepped closer. “Every time I close my eyes, I see you. I dreamed about you.”

“The best kind.” Heat blazed behind his eyes. He kissed me, and his mouth was hot. Scalding. Delicious. He pressed me into the door, and I let him, because kissing wasn’t dangerous. And it was almost as good as what I really wanted. What he’d come for.

When my hands found his chest and his found my hair, when we were both breathing hard and craving two different kinds of pleasure, his mouth left mine. His lips trailed over my chin toward my ear, where his warm breath sent shivers through me. “I want to play something for you,” he whispered, and I shuddered all over.

I could only nod. One song couldn’t hurt, and if we didn’t make room for a guitar between us, I would wind up making a whole different kind of mistake.

I pulled him down the hall by one hand, and only hesitated a moment in my bedroom doorway. I sat on the bed and he took the desk chair, his fingers moving across the frets before his jeans even touched the upholstery.

“This one’s new,” he said. “When I was trying to find you, this melody kept playing through my head, and it took me a while to figure out what it is.”

This song was different from the one he’d played the night before. More hopeful, but just as passionate. Beautiful. Fresh and captivating. Was that how he saw me?

Then he felt the song change. Evolve. I was watching his face the moment it happened. At first it was a note here or there. This one extended, that one cut short for emphasis. Depth. Then there were fresh chords, lending a melancholy note to the beautifully simple chorus. Next came new words.

His eyes widened as he tasted the new lyrics. Testing them. Then he smiled and closed his eyes. He leaned back in the chair and kept singing. Kept playing. The notes flowed between us, tempting me. Teasing me. But I forced my eyes to stay open. If I closed them, I’d lose myself in the music. I’d lose us both. So I watched him, reining myself in. Reducing to a mere trickle the flood I wanted to let loose.

When that first song ended, he set his guitar down and snatched a blank notepad from my desk and a pen from the jar. For five interminable minutes, he scribbled, and my heart beat to the rhythm of his pen scratching the paper. When he finally grabbed the guitar again, his eyes were bright and eager, but he was sweating in spite of the air conditioning.

That’s enough, my head said, while my heart argued otherwise. It would never be enough. Evan could sing to me for the next decade, and I would never be satisfied.

“Are you hungry?” Food would give him energy and distract us both. “I can make some sandwiches,” I said, though that delicious warmth inside me faded a bit with each word. I headed for the hall, forcing my feet into motion when they wanted to rebel, but Evan’s hand closed around my wrist.

He smiled, but his gaze was piercing. “I feel better than I have in months, Mallory. Like I have something to give. Something to say. Let me play for you. Please.”

“One more,” I said, and silently I swore the same thing. One more, and we’ll stop. We would eat, or watch TV, or I’d find some other way to keep him busy, even if that meant diverting one appetite with another.

The next song was pain, raw and exposed. He bled through his notes, and I could almost see his scars. Whoever she was, she’d hurt him, and I wanted to kill her. To draw out whatever she had to offer the world, and drink her dry. Break her for hurting him.

He didn’t stop to write after that one. Maybe he didn’t want to remember. Maybe he knew he couldn’t forget. Either way, he started the next one before I could get up, and I couldn’t stop myself. This one was remorse. His greatest regret laid bare, and I was almost ashamed to witness it. I cried with him, then kissed away his tears when his voice cracked, before they could fall on the strings. The vibrant wood.

Comfort kisses became something more, something deeper, but somehow wanting me became wanting to show me how much he wanted me—with a new song. I tried to argue, though I wanted the same thing, but his fingers plucked the strings even while we kissed. And when I pulled him up and took the guitar away, he sang without it. We wound up against the wall where his soft, throaty tune roamed as eagerly as his hands. And I didn’t want to stop either one. I didn’t know how to stop us. I was lost in the sound and the feel of him, and the physical element made the musical one so much harder to resist.

When he came up for air, he grabbed the guitar and pulled me onto the floor with him. He sat in front of me, his back pressed into my chest to keep me close, and temptation pulled at me mercilessly. My willpower wavered. I glanced at my alarm clock, and exhaled deeply in relief. Two forty-five. Andi would be on her way soon. I could relax for a little while. Enjoy one more song before she came.

Evan sang about a fractured relationship. About some girl who’d understood him and loved him, but resented his needs. I’d told myself I’d just listen this time. Stay out of the process. But the notes swirled through my head until I couldn’t focus on anything else. I got mired in the words, lost in the emotion, and began doling out new bits for it without even realizing what I was doing. And after that one, I forgot to check the clock.

Next came anger. The notes were violent streaks of red against the backs of my eyelids. The bitter melody scored my heart. But halfway through, something nagged at the back of my mind. Something wasn’t quite right. It needed. . . .

I stood and raced into the hall. Cold silence dropped around me like dark curtains and Evan appeared in the doorway as I knelt in front of the back closet. He braced one hand against the doorframe, but I told myself he only looked pale because of the weak lighting. He was fine. He couldn’t play so well otherwise.

What I wanted was at the back of the closet, propped carefully on its stand. I stood and offered it to him like sacrifice at an altar. He needed it to get through this song. To get it right. And surely one last song couldn’t hurt.

Evan took the vintage Strat and studied it while I dove into the closet again for an amp and the wires. I wasn’t supposed to touch the guitar. My mother saved it for special cases. For true

He strummed while I hooked up the wires and the pedal, and his smile was so bright I almost didn’t notice the lines around his mouth. The creases in his forehead. It wasn’t getting bad yet. He just needed to rest, after one more song. . . .

Evan knew exactly what to do. The crunch and squeal of the electric guitar painted my room with his anger, slashed through pain and into fury so skillfully I couldn’t breathe. At some point, my phone rang, and when I considered opening it, I noticed the sun was on the wrong side of the house.

After that, things got fuzzy. My head swam with melodies. Time lost all meaning, and my bedroom began to blur around me. Only the music remained in focus.

Evan became his music, and I knew him through his songs. Every note, every lyrical verse, tugged at my heart; each crunchy riff ripped through my soul. He showed me what he wanted and what he feared. What he loved and what he needed. And I drank it all in. He poured himself into the music, and the music poured into me.

Then, suddenly, he stopped, and there was only panting. Wheezing. His face scrunched in pain, a bitter reflection of the raw emotion he poured into his music. It was the song. It had to be. The song hurt him, but it was better to drain the wound, right? To let it all out, so he could heal. Stopping would be the worst possible thing for us both, right?

“What’s that pounding?” The guitar sagged in his grip, as if he’d lost the strength to lift it the moment he stopped playing. But we’d only done a few songs. Right?

I shook my head, trying to clear the fog, but notes bounced around in my skull, obscuring all logic with terrible, unfathomable beauty. I frowned when his dull gaze finally came into focus. Had his cheekbones always been so sharp?

The pounding came again, and someone shouted my name over and over. “Mallory, open up!” Andi. I glanced at the clock. Nine-oh-eight. At night? No wonder it was dark.

I trailed one hand down Evan’s arm on my way to the hall, and as I passed the mirror, I saw that my eyes were fully dilated. Literally. The brown in my irises had been swallowed by my pupils, and black bled into the web of red veins.

When I opened the door, she gasped, staring at my eyes. Then she brushed past me,. “I left my phone in the car and Carl made me work late. But I’ve been calling you for three hours. I drove by your work and the mall. Hell, I even tried the school.”

“No, you just said Evan was coming over. You didn’t say where. Mallory, what did you do?” But she took off toward the hall without waiting for my answer.

Andi turned on me, eyes narrowed in anger. She shoved me into the wall by my shoulders and held me there while the world swirled around me, notes hanging on the air. “You’re drunk.” Disgust dripped from her voice in thick, bitter drops, but beneath that, there was

I heard it. I know envy like bees know honey. I cultivate it. I drown in it. But not this time. This time I was full of beautiful music, glutted on pure art, and I did it without her. That’s why she was really mad. This time she was cold, and angry, and forgotten.

Evan sat slumped against the foot of the bed, his thin hands gripping the guitar. His veins stood out all over, like bruises tracing his body. His cheekbones looked like they’d slice his face open, and his eyes had sunk into the dark rings of flesh around them.

“No!” I dropped onto the floor next to him and cradled his face. “Evan? Say something.” He groaned, and I turned to Andi. “This isn’t possible. It happened too fast. It was just a few songs.”

Shocked, I stood and looked. For the first time in hours, I really looked. There was paper everywhere. On the floor. On the desk. On the bed. Loose sheets of it, notebooks, even Post-its, all scribbled with lines, and words, and slanted, sloppy notes, as if the composer had gone mad.

Tears pooled in my eyes as I glanced at Evan, but even through them, I could see the pencil on the floor near his right hand. It was worn down to a nub.

When had he written them? I’d never left him, yet I hadn’t seen the scribbling. I remembered only music. Blissful notes. Painful melodies.

“He’s dying,” Andi whispered, palms rubbing up and down the sides of her jeans, like she could wipe death off her skin. “You killed him.”

“Tell him what you did,” Andi demanded, and I flinched. But I couldn’t speak. So she spoke for me. “She gave you genius. But genius is short-lived, right, Mallory?”

“What are you?” His dull, colorless eyes accused me silently, his mouth gaping open, lips cracked. He exhaled, one last time. Then his chest was still.

I sobbed. Tears rolled down my face and dropped to the floor, but they were not musical. They were flat. Empty. That awful chill crawled back into my heart with cold, dead fingers. Even my screech of pain and regret was atonal. Ugly. And now I was empty. Cold. So hollow my heartbeat echoed.

Every drop of warmth Evan’s music had spilled into me died with him, chased away by the knowledge of what I’d done. Frozen into a thousand shards of ice, cutting me up from the inside.

“You can’t. . . . You know you can’t do this.” Andi turned to me, furious, but with open arms, like she’d yell at me and hug me at the same time. But I pushed her away.

I’d used him up. Wasted a lifetime of talent on one gluttonous binge. And I’d lost him. Lost my chance to inspire love and art in the same breath. Lost a life I was meant to treasure.

I stood and backed toward the wall, wiping tears from my face. Trying to block out the hollow echo in my chest. But there was no more music to cover it.

Andi pulled me forward and her arms wrapped around me. She rocked me, brushing hair down my back. Then she stepped back and made me look at her, and her eyes were the whole world. “You get it now? You and me? We’re the only thing that lasts. Everything else is fragile. Fleeting.” She gestured with one empty hand to the cooling corpse at her back. “We’ll always be the only ones left.”

Devastated, I slid to the floor, and she sank with me. We huddled in the corner, shaking. Crying. Craving. “I’m so cold, Andi. So empty. Sing to me.”