Page 3
CHAPTER THREE
Kade woke up screaming, head full of flames that had been smothered generations before he was born.
“Hey,” said a voice that had been calling for him in the dream. “You’re okay. I got you.”
Kade cracked his streaming eyes open. Theo was leaning over him in his work uniform, his nametag wonky in that ugly two-ply shirt. Sparky sat next to him, panting worriedly.
Sundance’s voice echoed in from the kitchen. “Are we getting attacked?”
“No,” Theo and Kade called back. Sparky barked.
“Alright,” Sundance called. “Well, better than an alarm clock.”
Kade scrubbed his cheeks dry, trying to banish the last of the vision. “How was work?”
“Fine,” Theo said. He paused, looking at Kade like he wanted to sink down on top of him. Then he sat against the headboard and heaved Sparky into his arms. “Think I need to work less. Or act more tired. People get suspicious when I show up to school after too many night shifts looking this hot.”
Kade laughed. “Sunshine. Multiple people saw you running barefoot in the woods at three a.m. They think I dragged you into a cult. Or we’re werewolves. Or you killed your dad to absorb his life force and your mom found out about it so she fled town.”
“ Please don’t update me on the town gossip,” Theo said.
Kade tried to smile. The dream still had its claws in him, phantom sensations of flames crawling over his skin, Theo screaming his name.
Theo slid on his knitted yellow gloves and ran his hand through Kade’s short hair. “They weren’t having a good time, huh?”
Kade shivered, arching into Theo’s touch. His mind ached with a memory that wasn’t his own: two boys lying in a patch of pink flowers. Gloved hands drifting through hair, past and present bleeding into each other: they’d done this all before. Even when Kade was growing up thousands of miles away, Theo was here. Lock was here. Waiting.
Kade sighed. “Why don’t you want to believe they were us?”
“Because they weren’t,” Theo said instantly. “ I’m me. You’re you.”
“I saw them. I felt—” Kade paused to push Sparky away gently before she could lick his nose. “I felt their feelings, I heard their thoughts. It was us ! What’s wrong with that?”
Theo’s fingers paused against his scalp. “I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe anyone is destined, or—or doomed. I don’t love you because of something that happened a hundred years ago. I love you because I love you. That’s the end of it.”
It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to Kade. He had to clench every muscle in his body so he wouldn’t surge up and shove their mouths together.
It would be worth it, Kade thought as he stared at his gorgeous dead boy who had brought him knitting needles and dutifully helped with his homework and put himself in front of danger for Kade again and again. I’d burn myself to the bone for one kiss.
“Cool,” Kade squeaked. “I mean. Thank you.”
Theo’s soft expression twisted with amusement. “You’re welcome?”
Kade shoved himself up. “I’m…shower.”
“You shower,” Theo agreed, nodding sagely like Kade wasn’t going caveman on him. “I’ll make you guys breakfast in a second.”
Kade stumbled into the hallway, reeling. He’d spent so long wanting Theo’s full attention, wishing Theo would talk to him in the halls or let his guard down instead of leaning away. Now Theo was holding his hand where everyone could see it and saying I love you and bringing him breakfast in bed like something out of Kade’s most pathetic dreams, and Kade had to run away so he could calm down.
He had his whole head in the fridge when Sundance came in carrying a collection of old mugs from her room.
“There you are. I wanted—” she stopped, staring. “Something interesting in the cheese?”
Kade shook his head, forehead still pressed against the cold plastic.
“Alright,” Sundance said. She heaved her mugs onto the kitchen counter, sighing in satisfaction when none of them toppled into the sink. “Okay. I’ve been meaning to talk with you, and you’re not allowed to run.”
Kade was back on high alert. He yanked his head out of the fridge and whirled to face her. “But that’s my number one survival tactic.”
“You’ll live,” Sundance said dryly. She looked nervous, Kade realized with a sinking stomach. She was tapping her belt with an urgency that he hadn’t seen since she gave him The Talk in middle school, which ended with him throwing himself out of a moving car. It was only going five miles in a parking lot, but still.
Sundance took a bracing breath. “You and Theo. You’re being… safe , right?”
Kade stared at her, uncomprehending. She couldn’t be talking about what he thought she was talking about.
“Like,” Sundance continued. She pointed down the hall, toward his bedroom.
Kade let out a nervous laugh. “He can’t touch my skin, so…yes? We can’t…we’re not…?” He waved nonsensically, cheeks burning. “We can’t .”
“You can’t touch skin, yeah. But there’s still ways to…” Sundance grimaced, looking at the ceiling. “There are other ways.”
“There are?” Kade said weakly. He felt like an idiot. In his defense, everything he’d done with Aaron had involved skin on skin. In his defense, whenever he thought about him and Theo together, he thought about third-degree burns. In his defense, he’d never considered doing anything further with Theo if he couldn’t kiss him while it was happening.
Sundance opened her mouth.
“We can’t NOT be safe,” Kade blurted in a panic. “Literally! We can’t! Dire, painful consequences!”
“I just don’t want to take anyone to the emergency room,” Sundance started.
“He’d heal me,” Kade said desperately. “Not that…we aren’t…”
His face burned. He reached for the fridge again. He was realizing several methods he’d overlooked, and he didn’t want his aunt watching him while that happened.
Kade’s bedroom door burst open. Theo blurred into the kitchen, Sparky galloping behind him.
“Milly texted,” Theo said before Kade could shove his face into the cheese for a second time. “She wants us to come over after school. She finished the—” He stopped, some of the urgency leaving him as he noticed the strange looks on their faces. “Are you okay?”
“Yep,” Kade said, strained. “We’re great. Aunt Sundance, aren’t we great?”
“So great,” she said, examining the ceiling with an intensity he hadn’t seen since she broke her favorite belt buckle and had to weld the whale back on.
Kade forced his mind back on track. Prophecy time. Today could be the day he told Theo what he’d been discussing with Milly. A failsafe. A way out, if they were right about this.
Theo wouldn’t like it. But he’d see reason. At least, Kade hoped he would. They were running out of time to try anything else.
Milly’s living room was the worst Kade had ever seen it. Coffee stains on the carpet, papers piled on every available surface. She’d taken all the photos off the furthest wall to construct a clue board. At the center were four ripped cards: DOG, RITUAL, REINCARNATION, CAROL. She had underlined RITUAL, while CAROL had a string of question marks after it and the least information. Overlapping red string connected the cards and a haphazard collection of notes. There was a new one Kade hadn’t seen before: MISSING STUDENT, complete with a yearbook photo of Skeeter and a disturbing note that read: (army? power source? food? sacrifice???)
“How’s Dungeons Felicity was smiling that sharp, sickly smile she got when something terrible was about to happen. Her broken-bone smile, Theo called it.
Kade said, “Before you get all weird about it, hear me out.”
“Weird about it,” Theo repeated, incredulous. “Kade. We’re not killing you. I’d burn the town down myself before I let that happen.”
“I know.” Kade rested his gloved hand on Theo’s leg. “Look, this is just…solidifying what we know. Right? Everyone’s saying I have to die for the ritual to work. So me and Milly came up with a plan. A loophole, if you will!”
Kade had gone through a magician phase as a kid. He would’ve been happy without Theo ever knowing about it, but then Aunt Sundance had to bring out the photo album during a movie night. Kade had lost that plastic wand in his move to America and hadn’t bought another one since. No top hats, no deck of cards. No rabbits. But as he bounded to his feet and threw out his arms, Theo and Felicity watching expectantly, he couldn’t help but think: abracadabra .
“You,” he told Theo, “turn me into a vampire.”
Silence fell on the room. It was only broken by the soft glug of Milly downing the rest of her water and resurfacing with a satisfied sigh.
Felicity snickered. “You heard him. Get those fangs out, blood boy.”
“Only he gets to call me that,” Theo said distractedly, eyes still glued on Kade. “Kade, I’m not going to do that to you.”
Kade groaned. “Come on! I’m asking . I’m begging , mate!”
Felicity’s phone vibrated on the coffee table. She reached for it, keeping one eye on the boys like they were a reality TV show she had grown grudgingly invested in.
“It’s the perfect loophole,” Kade insisted. “I have to die for the ritual to work, but if I’m already?—”
“Dead,” said Felicity.
Kade wavered her away. “Okay, thank you Liss for that helpful addition.”
“No,” Felicity said, looking up from her phone. “It’s Skeeter Bass. She’s dead.”