Page 25

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Water dripped down Kade’s face as he stalked down the street. He let it happen, glad for the excuse. He didn’t want any of these jackasses seeing him cry in public.

His socks were wet. There had been a hole in his boot for months now. He knew his fair share about mending clothes, but only for stuff he could sew or patch. He didn’t know about shoe repair . He’d meant to take it to the shoe place, but he’d put it off like everything else, and now his socks were wet. Because he was an idiot who ruined things, like plans and boots and tentative bonds based on mutual need, the closest thing he’d had to a friend in years and he blew it all up, of course he did?—

A deep honk jerked him out of his thought spiral. He scrubbed his cheeks, shoulders tensing defensively as a car pulled up behind him. Then he paused. He knew this car. It was Mr. Hawthorn’s navy blue 2012 Kia Sorento. Kade didn’t know anything about the model—he wasn’t a car guy. All he knew was that it was sleek and pristine, just like Mr. Hawthorn’s pressed clothes and stylish hair and straight white teeth.

Mr. Hawthorn wound the window down. “Kade! Get in!”

Kade wavered. He was drenched and miserable, but there was a sick satisfaction in it. Part of him had reveled in the idea of another half hour of slogging through this torrent. Also, he didn’t want to cry in front of his favorite teacher.

“I’m fine,” he called. “This is my weekly shower.”

Mr. Hawthorn patted the passenger seat. “I can’t let you walk home in this. I see your aunt in Yarn World sometimes, I want to be able to look her in the eye.”

Kade sniffed. “You go to Yarn World?”

“I do!” Mr. Hawthorn smiled, showing off all those shiny teeth. “I knit scarves. I have wool in the glove box for when I’m waiting in my car. I’m useless, but if you knit the same stitch over and over for long enough, eventually it’s a scarf! I always wanted to learn how to do fancy patterns, but…ah, you know how it is. Are you going to get in?”

Kade considered. He wasn’t crying anymore, and Mr. Hawthorn didn’t seem the type to get mad at someone for dripping on his car seat.

He got in.

“So,” Mr. Hawthorn said brightly as they pulled into the street, “what made you want to rage-walk through a storm?”

“Who says I’m rage-walking?” Kade asked. He made a face at all the water soaking the car seat. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Mr. Hawthorn assured him. “Bullies?”

“No. For once.”

“Love troubles?”

“Ha,” Kade spat. “He wishes .”

Mr. Hawthorn blinked. He looked politely surprised, like he had been last year when Kade was unloading all his love troubles on him. He’d only done it once and he ended up crying in the empty history class, face red with mortification as he made him swear not to say anything about the asshole he was fooling around with. Mr. Hawthorn had offered him a tissue and told him not to go to next period. Kade had spent the next hour in his empty classroom, hunched over in the corner while Mr. Hawthorn read a book about ancient Greeks. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him since his aunt took him in.

“Oookay,” Mr. Hawthorn said, eyes on the road. “Well, I’m always here to listen. You know that. Unless you want to talk to your aunt about this one.”

“Ha,” Kade said again.

They fell silent as rain battered the windshield. Kade shivered. It was kind of nice. Getting out of the rain.

“Um,” he said. Exactly how his word-vomit had started last year. He wouldn’t cry this time, he promised himself.

“He hangs out with these assholes,” Kade started. “Assholes who have done some really terrible shit to me. But he won’t ditch them. Obviously. Because we’re not—we’re nothing . We’re a transaction. He gets his, I get mine.”

Mr. Hawthorn hummed, too high. Kade winced. He knew how this sounded. He was glad Mr. Hawthorn was watching the road so intently, avoiding his gaze just like Kade needed.

“But you want it to mean something,” Mr. Hawthorn said.

“No,” Kade spat. He scraped a hand over his damp scalp. The whole walk out of that forest, he couldn’t stop picturing Theo’s wet hair, those damp, golden curls against his forehead. Kade wanted to yank it. Kade wanted to curl a fist into Theo’s hair, even if it blistered his fingers. He wanted to pull Theo’s hair like he wanted to drink until he puked or throw himself at someone fist-first. But he also wanted other things, infinitely more embarrassing: he wanted Theo to touch his hand, feather-soft. Brush a thumb over his hollow cheek. He wanted Theo to smile at him, warm and uncomplicated, no strings attached. He wanted those things with the small parts of him that had nothing to do with self-destruction, and thus they were doomed. Kade did not get warm and uncomplicated. He did not get feather-soft. Theo could hold him gently, but only if his fangs were in Kade’s neck.

Kade’s eyes filled. He ducked his head. “It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. But sometimes I get a glimpse of this really cool guy who likes all this dorky shit, and then, oh no, it’s asshole time again!”

“It can be hard to let your guard down,” Mr. Hawthorn offered, turning down the street that would lead them to Kade’s house. Kade blinked. He had never told his teacher where he lived. Then again, he never told anyone where he lived, and people still painted MONSTER on the front door last Halloween.

“Maybe you need to show him you’re a safe person to be himself around,” Mr. Hawthorn continued.

“I’m safe ,” Kade spat. “I’m…I just…I can’t be soft around him. That’s suicide.”

“Maybe he feels the same about you.” Mr. Hawthorn sent him a bemused smile. “You can have a lot of sharp edges, Kade.”

Kade flashed him a flimsy smile. “Porcupine rules, Mr. H. I don’t wanna get…”

He trailed off. Down in the footwell, next to his boot, was a large white fleck.

Kade nudged it, a chill crawling up his spine as he remembered where he knew it from: this had been all over their clothes after the creature attacked them in the Lemmings house.

Monster skin, Kade had said. I need to put that on a shirt.

“Kade? You were saying something? ”

Kade looked up. The car had stopped. They were idling in front of his house. Mr. Hawthorn’s gaze was steady on his, eyebrows raised politely.

Kade’s throat clicked, suddenly dry. “I don’t want to get eaten.”

Mr. Hawthorn laughed. It was the same pleasant, bright sound Kade had been hearing since middle school, and yet it sent shivers over Kade’s skin. There had been a strange dullness to Mr. Hawthorn’s eyes as he waited for Kade to finish his sentence. Like he’d been waiting for Kade to say something else entirely.

Kade had to hold back a flinch as Mr. Hawthorn slapped the steering wheel.

“Looks like we made it.” He reached past Kade to open the car door. Kade pressed into the seat as hard as he could, but Mr. Hawthorn’s sleeve brushed his stomach anyway. Kade tried to tell if there was any warmth radiating from Mr. Hawthorn’s arm, but it was impossible through the sleeves, never mind that Kade was already cold from the spring shower. Even lukewarm would feel hot to him.

The car door opened. The noise of rain rushed in, popping their tiny bubble. Kade looked out at his house—maybe ten seconds away, if he ran down the driveway. He stared at the wisteria climbing the door and imagined throwing himself on his bed, hopping into the shower, hugging his aunt, calling Theo to tell him his suspicions…

Bitterness rose in Kade’s throat. He turned to Mr. Hawthorn. “I could show you some fancy scarf techniques. If you want.”

“Oh! That would be lovely. Are you sure?”

Kade nodded stiffly.

Mr. Hawthorn stared at him. He didn’t blink. At first Kade thought he was going to insist Kade scurry on home. Then Mr. Hawthorn reached over again, elbow brushing Kade’s damp shirt, and pulled the car door closed.

They pulled back into the street. Sweat dripped down Kade’s back, mixing with the rainwater. When he got out of this car seat, he was going to leave a great big stain. Kade really hoped it would just be water and sweat.

Mr. Hawthorn didn’t reach for the glove box to get out his wool. He didn’t even speak until they were a few roads over.

“You know,” he told Kade. “I never saw you as a porcupine. I always thought you were more of a rabbit.”

Kade’s heart twisted. “Yeah?”

Mr. Hawthorn nodded, tapping a slow beat on the steering wheel. “Cunning. Quick. Flighty.”

Kade unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “If I were a rabbit, I’d be better at running away.”

Mr. Hawthorn laughed again. There was something dark in it that Kade had never heard before. Relief . Like an old weight had been lifted off his shoulders .

“Right,” he said. “A rabbit wouldn’t throw itself at Aaron Fletcher when he pisses them off.”

Kade reached slowly into his jacket pocket, curling a loose hand around the fire eye Skeeter Bass had given him in the hospital. Thorns bit into his skin. Not quite breaking it—not yet.

Kade gritted his teeth and closed his fist.

Sharp, stinging pain lit up his palm. Kade couldn’t stop the gasp that spilled out of him as warm blood trickled into his pocket lining.

Mr. Hawthorn sucked in a breath. His pupils bloomed, black and shiny. His mouth ticked, the slightest hint of an amused smile.

“Well,” he said. “I?—”

Kade wrenched the fire eye out of his pocket and shoved it into Mr. Hawthorn’s cheek.

The car swerved, Mr. Hawthorn belting out a swear. He twisted the fire eye out of Kade’s grasp. An angry line burned into his hand as he threw it in the backseat.

Kade reached for the door handle.

Mr. Hawthorn’s arm shot out. He pinned Kade easily into the car seat, trapping his arms at his sides.

“ That ,” Mr. Hawthorn said, as if there had been no interruption, “was very rude.”

Rain crowded the windows, shielding anyone from looking in. A car blurred by, a smeared shape in the glass. Kade watched it with a sinking stomach. You need to think before you act, his mother used to say. Which was pretty hypocritical, coming from a high school dropout with a mid-twenties divorce and multiple DUIs under her belt.

Mr. Hawthorn hummed as he drove. “What’s the plan now, little rabbit?”

Kade bit him. He bit his teacher’s arm so hard his jaw ached, but the skin stayed intact under his blunt, useless teeth.

Mr. Hawthorn sighed, twisting the wheel to lead them down a back road. “I have orders not to do anything with you until the time comes. That’s the plan. But plans change.”

Kade raised his head. “What plan?”

Hawthorn’s hand blurred. One second it was holding Kade still, the next it was over Kade’s face, smothering him. Kade yanked at it, fighting for air, but it was futile. Mr. Hawthorn’s grip was iron and unrelenting, pulling him down into unconsciousness.

Kade heard one last thing as he slipped into the dark. Mr. Hawthorn’s voice, a cold spot in the fuzzy static of rain:

“I always told you, Kade. You’re destined for great things.”