“I'm plenty dangerous.” She ignored him, flopping down on my bed. “You'll see.” Link grinned. He hoped so, that much was clear. “They can't make me go to that backwoods dump you call a school.”
“Nobody was talking about you, Ridley.” Lena sat down on the bed, next to her cousin.
Link went back to pacing. “We were talkin’ about me.”
“What about you?” He looked away, but Ridley must have already seen something because she was across the room in a second. She grabbed the side of Link's face. “Look at me.”
“What for?”
Ridley zeroed in on him like a Sybil. “Look at me.”
As Link turned, his pale, sweaty skin caught what little light the moon cast into the room. But it was enough light to see the puncture marks.
Ridley was still holding his face, but her hand was shaking. Link put his hand on her wrist. “Rid —”
“Did he do this to you?” Her eyes narrowed. Even though they were blue now, instead of gold, and she couldn't convince anyone to jump off a cliff, she looked like she could throw someone off one. It was easy to imagine her sticking up for Lena at school when they were kids.
Link took her hand and pulled her toward him, slinging his arm around her shoulders. “It's no biggie. Maybe I'll get some homework done once in a while, now that I don't need any sleep.” Link cracked a smile, but Ridley didn't.
“This isn't a joke. John is probably the most powerful Incubus in the Caster world, aside from Abraham himself. If Abraham was looking for him, there's a reason.” I could see her biting her lip, staring out into the trees outside my window.
“You worry too much, Babe.”
Ridley shrugged off Link's arm. “Don't call me Babe.”
I leaned back against my headboard, watching the two of them. Now that Ridley was a Mortal and Link was an Incubus, she would still be the one girl he couldn't have — and probably the only one he wanted. Junior year was going to be interesting.
An Incubus at Jackson High.
Link, the strongest guy in school, driving Savannah Snow crazy every time he walked into the room without a single lick from one of Ridley's lollipops. And Ridley, the ex-Siren, who I was pretty sure would find her way back to trouble, with or without the lollipops. Two months until September, and for the first time in my life, I could hardly wait for the first day of school.
Link wasn't the only one of us who couldn't sleep that night.
6.28
Sunrise
Can't you dig any faster?”
Link and I glared at Ridley from where we stood, a few feet down in Macon's grave. The one he'd never spent a minute in. I was already dripping, and the sun wasn't even up yet. Link, with his newfound strength, had yet to break a sweat.
“No, we can't. And yes, I know you're totally grateful we're doin’ this instead a you, Babe.” Link waved his shovel at Ridley.
“Why does the long way have to take so long?” Ridley looked at Lena, disgusted. “Why are Mortals so sweaty and boring?”
“You're a Mortal now. You tell me.” I tossed a shovelful of dirt in Ridley's direction.
“Don't you have a Cast for this sort of thing?” Ridley flopped down next to Lena, who sat cross-legged beside the grave, looking through an old book about Incubuses.
“How did you guys manage to get that book out of the Lunae Libri, anyway?” Link was hoping Lena could find out something about hybrids. “It's not a bank holiday.” We'd gotten in enough trouble in the Lunae Libri during the past year.
Ridley shot Link a look that probably would've brought him to his knees when she was still a Siren. “He has a lot of pull with the librarian, Genius.”
As soon as she said it, the book Lena was holding caught fire. “Oh, no!” She yanked her hands back before they were burnt. Ridley stomped on the book. Lena sighed. “I'm sorry. It just happens.”
“She meant Marian,” I said defensively.
I avoided her eyes and busied myself with my shovel. Lena and I were back to being, well, us. There wasn't a second I didn't think about the proximity of her hand to my hand, her face to mine. There wasn't a moment when we were awake that I could bear to have her voice out of my head, after I'd lost it for so long. She was the last person I spoke to at night and the first person I reached for in the morning. After everything we had been through, I would've traded places with Boo if I could. That's how badly I never wanted to let her out of my sight.
Amma had even started setting a place for Lena at the table. At Ravenwood, Aunt Del kept a pillow and a comforter folded next to the downstairs couch for me. Nobody said a word about curfews or rules or seeing too much of each other. Nobody expected us to trust the world with each other if we weren't together.
The summer had gone beyond that. You couldn't un-happen things. Liv had happened. John and Abraham had happened. Twyla and Larkin, Sarafine and Hunting — they weren't people I could just forget. School would be the same if you ignored the fact that my best friend was an Incubus and the second hottest girl in school was a declawed Siren. General Lee and Principal Harper, Savannah Snow and Emily Asher, they would never change.