At first I thought the dirt in my ears was scratching together too close to my eardrums and creating a god-awful racket. Then I shook my head; the dirt came out, and the sound became even louder.
Someone was screaming.
I jumped up; earth fell like hail all around me, disappearing through the clouds billowing at my feet. The sky remained the shade of tree bark, and mist shrouded everything.
“Hello?” I called.
The screaming grew louder.
“Shit.” I pulled my silver knife—since Jimmy had given it to me several months ago the thing rarely left my possession—and moved toward the sound. Whoever, whatever, that was, I had to make the shrieking stop.
Then it did. Abruptly. Completely. The resulting silence seemingly louder than the screaming had been.
The mist thickened, brushing against my face like cobwebs of ice, curving around my neck, sliding down my back, so slick it almost seemed to whisper.
Lizzy.
I paused, straining my eyes, my ears. Was that the mist? Or was it Sanducci?
I was glad the shrieking had ended, and then again I wasn’t. The sound was crazy-making, sure, but without it I was lost in a world I didn’t know.
What had been screaming? More important, why?
“Hello?” I called again, and something in the swirl of white shifted.
My fingers tightened on the knife. Who knew what lurked here? Who knew if silver would do anything but piss it off? Nevertheless, silver was better than nothing.
I waited, trying to slow my breathing, to blend into the mist. But I was too big. I glanced down at my hot pink tank top and winced. Too bright. And my heart was beating too hard and fast.
I was a target, plain and simple. Luckily I was a target that was very hard to kill.
CHAPTER 18
I narrowed my eyes, squinting at the place where I’d seen the shifting sliver of darkness, but it was gone. My imagination, perhaps?
A scuffle behind me. I turned.
Nothing.
Something there? Or perhaps there?
Only the mist swirled.
I had to stay where I was. In this place, I could be lost forever. I could walk into a black hole. I could fall and never again get back up.
So I continued to wait and watch. I don’t know how long I stood there, knife clasped in my sweaty hand. Eyes and ears straining. Heart thundering despite my best efforts to make it slow.
I drew in a long, deep breath and caught a whiff of cinnamon and soap. Familiar hands slid around my waist; then familiar lips nuzzled my neck.
“You came back,” Jimmy murmured. “You didn’t leave me here to—”
I frowned. I had left him here to—
So why wasn’t he?
“Where’s—?”
“Shh.” He spun me around. I caught the sparkle of dew like diamonds in his dark hair; then he kissed me before I could stop him. Not that I wanted to.
The kiss was pure Jimmy—all I’d once loved, all that I still did. I should push him away, but I couldn’t. He hadn’t kissed me like this since—
My eyes burned. I couldn’t remember. There’d been so much between us—hatred and sadness and pain. Sure, we had our memories. First kiss. First love. First time. How did you ever get past that?
Making each other into vampires was a pretty good start.
So why was he kissing me now as if he meant it?
I didn’t ask. I was afraid if I did, I’d break whatever spell we were under. And it had to be a spell, because this certainly felt like magic.
The mist swirled faster, cooler and thicker. The only warmth in this place was him. I stepped closer, pressing my body the length of his, and realized something.
He wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Mist clung to my eyelashes, making them so heavy to lift. That was all right. I didn’t want to see any more than I wanted to speak.
He smelled like Jimmy, and he tasted like Jimmy too. For just a little while, I wanted to remember what it had been like to be loved like this. Back when forever wasn’t a curse but a promise. Back when everything was fresh and new and full of hope. Even me.
His palms traced my waist, my rib cage, skated over my breasts to smooth my shoulders, then skimmed down my arms. One hand cupped my wrist, squeezed just a little, then his fingers spread over mine, and I was shocked to realize I still held the knife. Shocked further when I let him take it.
I tensed, but the soft thud as he dropped it to the ground was reassuring. Not that a knife could hurt me.
No. That wasn’t true. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill. A major distinction these days.
His tongue moistened my lips, tickled my teeth. My hands no longer clenched; I was free to run them over him. Jimmy’s face might be just short of pretty, but his body wasn’t short of anything. That olive skin was slick and smooth, rippling over sleek muscles. His body lithe and long, I’d once spent hours learning every dip and curve until they were as familiar to me as my own.