Page 4

CHAPTER

FOUR

Forty minutes before Theo Fairgood died, Kade was shitfaced.

Properly. Beautifully . Blurry vision, slow reflexes, calm-before-the-massive-fall shitfaced. He was going to be devastatingly hungover tomorrow, even if he hadn’t chugged two cups of that cheap beer from the drinks table.

“Beer before liquor,” he sung under his breath as he found an empty room to sit in, turning on the light to find a freakishly clean laundry room. “Never sicker. Liquor before beer—oh shit, maybe I’m fine.”

He stood still, considering. The freakishly clean laundry room spiraled around him.

“Not fine,” he muttered, sagging against the washing machine and setting his cup down behind him. He dug his knuckles into his eyes. He was going to have to do some serious puking before he walked home. Maybe he’d be spiteful and do it on somebody’s bed.

He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes and came up empty. Right. He’d smoked them all on the way here.

The door opened. Kade looked up to meet the startled green eyes of Aaron Fletcher. As startled as Aaron got, anyway: dark eyebrows raising slightly, slim lips parting. Practically a gasp from Aaron. Felicity hung off his arm, mouth stuck in a surprised grin that definitely meant trouble.

Kade sprawled back against the washing machine. “Excuse you . This room is occupied. Go do jock things with your jock buddies.”

Felicity snorted, propping her chin on Aaron’s shoulder. “Since when do you crash Fairgood parties?”

“I’m a party person,” Kade growled.

“You’re a freak,” Aaron said quietly.

The door creaked closed behind them. Kade eyed it warily, adrenaline creeping in through the drunken haze.

“You know,” Aaron said. “I never did get you back for what you did to me in the movie theater parking lot.”

Kade bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. “What I did to you ?”

“You gave me this scar.” Aaron tilted his head back. A thin white line stood out under his jaw, barely visible in the dim laundry room light.

“Great,” Kade said. “Wish I made it bigger. ”

Felicity nodded at the crinkled red cup behind him. “Thought you had your own liquor. Still crashing parties for more?”

“You know me.” Kade flashed his teeth. “Can’t get enough.”

Aaron detached Felicity from his arm and stepped closer. He was unfortunately handsome, if you liked expressionless assholes: steely green eyes. Gelled hair. Assured swagger, like everything was going his way forever and he knew it.

The distance got less and less. Kade backed up against the washing machine, Aaron’s strong thighs brushing his.

Kade swallowed, making sure his voice wasn’t as high pitched as it wanted to go. “Are we going to fight or kiss? ’Cause I’ll be honest with you, Aaron. I’m not sober enough for either.”

Felicity laughed. “Oooh. I’d actually like to see that.”

“ Liss ,” Aaron hissed. “Jesus.”

Felicity shrugged, twirling a strand of blond hair around her finger. She always struck him as someone he could like if they met each other ten years down the line. She was smart, vicious, and annoyingly funny. If you got to any house party after eleven, she was guaranteed to be doing something dangerous and interesting. Plus if the rumors were true, she was a fellow bisexual. If she stopped being such a colossal bitch, Kade would actually admire her.

Aaron turned back to Kade, sending shivers of anxiety through Kade’s whiskey-sodden body. Having the full brunt of Aaron’s attention was always bad.

Kade tried to square his shoulders. It didn’t go well. One of the reasons he snarled at people: he couldn’t exactly intimidate them with his skinny stature.

Aaron leaned in until their noses almost brushed. “I can’t believe you thought you could get away with coming here.”

“Free country,” Kade mumbled. “Right? That’s what you Yanks are always going on about.”

“I can’t believe you’d think, for a second, that you’re welcome,” Aaron continued, still with that low, infuriating voice. “That we’d let you anywhere near us. Why did you even come? You knew what we’d do to you.”

Kade twisted to hide the heat burning behind his eyes. He always cried easily, and he always hated it. There was nothing easier to tease than a boy who cried. Somebody like Theo Fairgood, who was all performance and annoyance, Kade could almost ignore. But Aaron…Aaron was quiet. Serious. No lofty performance, just malice. If they were alone, he could reduce Kade to tears in seconds.

Kade tried, “Aaron, piss off or I’m going to hit you.”

Aaron shook his head. His thighs pressed hard into Kade’s, his solid chest pressing into Kade’s skinny one.

Kade looked behind him. Felicity stood at his shoulder, toying slowly a clumsy braid she had twisted into her hair. She tugged at it, gaze wary as she watched the exchange. She’d step in if it got too bad, Kade was pretty sure. She didn’t like watching her guy get banged up.

She caught him looking and winked. Kade couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

“I still think you should kiss,” she said.

“ Liss ,” Aaron said, shifting uncomfortably. “Come on .”

“Aaron,” Kade tried. “Do you really think this is smart? You know what I did to you last time.”

The fighting was new. Just in the last few years. He got tired of waiting for that first punch. That, and he’d discovered that even if he was awful at everything else, there was one thing he was very, very good at: destroying things.

Aaron’s breath stunk of cheap beer, warm and gross on Kade’s cheek. “You know what I think, Monster?”

“What?” Kade snapped.

Aaron leaned in, beery breath washing over Kade’s ear. “I think somebody’s gonna die tonight.”

Kade punched him in the stomach.

Aaron doubled over. Kade gut-punched him again, then once in the back for good measure. Aaron crumpled to the ground, groaning.

Felicity let out a strange shriek-laugh, her kitten heel stuttering out like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to trip him or not. Kade leapt over it, almost slamming against the door as it spun around him. He fell into the hallway .

Aaron glared at him, pulling himself up to his knees. “I’m gonna get you for that, Monster.”

Kade snarled. “Goddamn try it. I’ll bite your nose off.”

Felicity giggled and did the Forrest Gump voice. “Run, Monster, ruuuun! ”

Kade ran.

Monster . He didn’t pick it, and he didn’t particularly like it. But god if he didn’t play the part well, growling and snarling and launching himself into fights. His ripped black clothes and cheap cigarettes; his strange jewelry and his head shaved down to the prickly scalp. There were so many rumors, and Kade rolled with every one.

He slammed the door, ignoring Aaron’s muffled threats as he wobbled down the hall, which was alight with noise and people. It was longer than he remembered it being, and wetter. He raised a hand to his cheek. That wasn’t the hallway, he was just crying. Great.

Classmates danced and chatted and laughed as he squeezed through them, pausing to shoot Kade disgusted or curious looks. Kade hated all of them. He reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the second floor. There was a rope barrier and a sign that read DO NOT ENTER.

Kade ducked under. The noise was dulled on the second floor. Muffled music and the occasional whoo ! from whatever idiot was having fun tonight .

Kade stood against a window and seethed. Assholes, all of them. Pieces of shit. He couldn’t take another two years in this place. He’d rather eat his sewing machine. He’d rather?—

He blinked. The window was cool against his forehead. Beyond it sat the forest, the cliffs, and Fairgood Lake. Not its official name, but the name everybody knew it by. You couldn’t get to it from up here, you had to walk down the cliffs. If you jumped from the cliffs next to the house…

“Huh,” Kade said, and stumbled back toward the stairs.

Three minutes before Theo Fairgood died, Kade was staggering toward the cliff edge.

This will show them, he thought. Those shitheads. Those asshole jackasses. Those pricks, this’ll show them.

He didn’t think about his aunt. He didn’t think about the drop. He didn’t think about much at all except the seething anger in his gut.

He got to the edge and peered out.

“Bloody hell that’s a long way down,” he blurted. He wavered at the edge, testing his courage.

This suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Surely throwing himself off the Fairgood roof would work better? The fall would be shorter, and he wouldn’t have to drown.

“Hey,” a voice barked behind him. “Get back here, dumbass. I did a whole speech, didn’t you hear it? You know how many people have died in that lake? A lot , and not because of the fall. Those rocks will mess you up ?—?”

Kade turned. It took some effort to stop turning, and he stumbled.

“Hey, dipshit…” the voice trailed off. It was Theo, Kade realized. Theo flushed and startled, his fluffy blond hair white with moonlight.

“Oh,” Theo said. He stopped walking. Had he been coming to pull Kade back?

Theo said more, but Kade wasn’t listening. There was a shadow in the tree line. Way back behind Theo, near the house. Then, all at once, it moved out of the trees. Too fast. Inhumanly fast, limbs blurring like something out of a horror movie.

Kade opened his mouth, but it was too late. The shadow grabbed Theo and dragged him into the air, up over the lake. It had wings, white and broad and terrible.

“ Ohshit ,” Kade heard himself say, twisting to watch Theo climb higher and higher. Was this a prank? This seemed like a really elaborate prank. How were they even up there, a crane?

A distant scream. The small shape of Theo writhed in the sky, held by a figure that Kade couldn’t see even if he wasn’t far away and wasted.

“ Ohshit ,” Kade said again. He bent over and vomited. It dripped over the cliff face, down toward the lake .

When Kade straightened up again, Theo was plummeting. He hit the water with a pitiful splash.

“SHIT!” Kade screamed.

Then, for reasons he wouldn’t be able to explain for months, he fumbled his dress jacket off and jumped.

The next few minutes were a blur. Screaming the whole way down. Miraculously missing the rocks. Swimming. Finding Theo’s hand just before it sank under. He gulped lake water as much as air, cursing himself and Theo and whiskey and water as he finally dragged Theo onto the grass.

He leaned over Theo and checked his pulse. His wrist, then his neck. Pressing harder and harder, trying to find a thump. Finally he held his hand in front of Theo’s still mouth, his heart sinking as it confirmed what he already knew.

Theo Fairgood was dead.