“We’ve got to talk,” Em said as soon as she answered. “I’m freaking out.”
“Hi to you, too,” Drea said. Then her tone turned uncharacteristically earnest. “Why don’t you come over to my place and let’s talk this through, okay? I think I might have some good news that will help you.”
Em agreed, hung up . . . and immediately realized that she had double-booked. She was due to meet Gabby in half an hour so they could get pizza before the movie. She typed out a text to Gabby—Running late but be there soon. Promise!—and was just about to press SEND when she heard a voice over her shoulder. “Tsk, tsk.”
She looked up. Crow was standing above her, holding a coffee, wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket. “Persephone should’ve listened when Hades warned her,” he said, pointing at her book.
She hadn’t seen Crow since that night at the underground club, which wasn’t to say that she was surprised to run into him here at the Dungeon—honestly, she wasn’t sure whether she’d been hoping for the chance to confront him, or if she’d wanted to avoid him. It wasn’t like she’d dressed to impress, in her ratty corduroys and green Gap shirt that she’d had since middle school. But there were tons of places she could have studied today, and she chose the coffee shop where Crow got his Red Eyes. That was an answer in itself.
Ugh. She didn’t know how she felt. Everything in her life was messed up—that was the only truth she could cling to.
“What do you want?” Em asked, trying to keep her voice impassive and making a show of packing up her things.
“To give you this,” Crow said, sliding a CD in a clear case across the small café table. Em stared at it blankly. “It’s a song. I wrote it.” He cleared his throat. “For you.”
A single butterfly’s wing fluttered in her stomach, but Em steeled herself to it. She tossed the CD in her bag as she stood up. “Thank you,” she said, before switching gears. “Though perhaps I should be giving you a gift for acting as a bodyguard the other night?”
Now it was Crow’s turn to stare at Em without expression. She noticed for the first time how symmetrical his features were—his straight nose, his thin lips, his square jaw. They were all set in firm lines.
“Come on, Crow—don’t play dumb,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about. The club below Benson’s. I saw you there the other night. How did you even know about it—did you follow us?”
“You and Drea aren’t the only ones who are hip to the local nightlife,” Crow said, rolling his shoulders back in his leather jacket. “Some friends told me about that place.”
Em pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, looking up at him. “What friends?”
He laughed. “Why do you want to know? You jealous?”
God. He was infuriating. She didn’t like his cocky attitude or the fact that he seemed to be hiding something from her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of continuing this conversation. She turned to leave and took a step away from the table.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him; when she turned around, his cockiness evaporated. “Yes,” he said. “I—followed you there. But only because I was worried, and . . . I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He took a breath and seemed about to say more, but finished quietly, “There’s a lot about me you wouldn’t understand.”
He was still holding her arm, and Em hadn’t wrenched it away. She stood there staring into his eyes, just inches from him, unable to move. His yellow-green eyes were flickering hypnotically. And at that moment someone coughed behind them.
Em knew who it was before she turned around. She swiveled and saw him watching them through eyes that were slits. “JD!” she said, her voice coming out high and squeaky.
From the look on JD’s face, he obviously believed he had stumbled upon a major love scene. Em snatched her wrist out of Crow’s grasp, but it was too late.
“If only there were more coffee shops in Ascension,” JD said, his voice dripping with condescension, before giving her a knowing, angry smirk and slamming out of the Dungeon.
“Wait!” she called out.
Crow tried to grab her shoulders. “Em, hold on.”
But Em could barely hear him—all she could feel was that the chasm between her and JD had cracked wider.
“Leave me alone!” she snapped, pushing past Crow and out into the parking lot, where she stalked to her car without a backward glance.
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