Galdoni (14 page)

I closed my eyes and saw the fear on her
face again; the same fear had echoed on her brother’s face when he
realized I could kill him.

“
What did you
do?”

Jayce’s voice brought me back to the
present. I shook my head to clear it and opened my eyes. “I
convinced them that they should leave her alone.”

Jayce slapped Nikko’s
shoulder. Nikko grunted as he tied off the last bandage. “Did you
hear that Nik? He
convinced
them. I wish I would have been there to see
that!”

I stared at him in amazement. If only he
knew. He met my gaze and his grin faltered slightly.

A knock sounded at the door and I jumped up,
still on edge.

“
Steady Kale,” Nikko said
in a calming voice. “It’s probably someone for Dad.” Brie stood
beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. Her touch slowed my
pounding heart.

Nikko answered the door. Muffled voices came
from the porch. Jayce stepped up next to him, blocking my view. I
took a step back toward the bedroom in case I needed to vanish.
Instead, Jayce pushed the door open wide. “Uh, Kale? You have
visitors.”

To my surprise, Krissy’s brother Zach and
his three friends from earlier crossed into the small living room.
Heat rushed through my body and I clenched my fists. The bite of
the bandages into my sore knuckles kept me grounded.

Nikko took a step to position himself
between us. I stared at him in shock. No one had ever stood in
harm’s way for me before.

Zach lifted his hands. “We don’t want
trouble. We came to apologize.”

Nikko glanced back at me, his eyebrows
lifted. He must have seen the same astonishment on my face because
he gave a slight shrug and stepped aside.

Zach walked to the couch. “Krissy told us
everything. I owe you the world, man. We were stupid.” He held out
a hand. “I owe you her life and mine. Please accept my
apology.”

Instinct screamed that it was a trap, that
he would pull me close and shove a concealed blade in my gut like
any trained Galdoni; but I heard the sincerity in his voice and
logic battled against instinct. Zach’s hand lowered a fraction at
my hesitation.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and
accepted the handshake. “You thought I hurt your sister. You were
being a good brother.”

He grinned in relief. “I try, but it’s nice
to have someone I can count on when I’m not there.” He glanced down
at the bandages on my hand. “Rory said you knocked him pretty
good.”

He glanced back at the one I had hit in the
teeth. Rory smiled good-naturedly, his teeth still red from
bleeding gums. “You almost knocked my head off. I’m just glad my
teeth stayed in my head instead of in your hand.”

“
Me, too,” I agreed
whole-heartedly.

“
Where’d you learn to fight
like that!” the one I had almost choked to death asked, rubbing his
throat.

I shrugged uncomfortably. “My dad was big
into martial arts.”

“
I’ve never seen anything
like that,” he exclaimed.

Zach leaned against the couch. “As a thank
you, I wanted to invite you and your friends to a party we’re
having at my house Friday night. My parents are out of town and
it’s gonna be wild. Do you work that night?”

My stomach tightened, but I shook my head.
“No, not Friday.”

“
Great, we’ll see you
there!” Zach said confidently. He pushed off the couch and slapped
Jayce on the shoulder on his way out the door, his friends close
behind. Jayce shoved the door shut behind them and we all stared at
it.

Jayce finally broke the silence. “Zachary
Finch, the star quarterback of the football team, is the brother of
the girl you saved from being raped?” The shock in his voice was
echoed on Brie and Nikko’s faces.

“
I almost killed them,” I
forced out, my throat tight.

“
I’ll bet you did!” Jayce
exclaimed.

I shook my head. “I almost killed them,” I
repeated, meeting his gaze. His eyes widened and his grin faded as
the implication of my words sunk in.

“
The red marks on the last
guy’s neck. You did that?” Nikko asked in a carefully neutral
tone.

I felt the pulse under my fingers again, the
rage screaming through my body for me to end it. I turned away from
them and rubbed my hand on my leg in an effort to erase the
feeling. A shudder ran through my body.

Nikko set a hand on my shoulder. “I think
you should go to the party Friday.”

I stared at him. “Are you crazy? Do you
understand what I could have done?”

He nodded, his eyes searching mine. There
wasn’t any judgment on his face; instead, I found something I
wasn’t prepared to handle, understanding. “You need more social
interactions that don’t end in you fighting for your life. If
killing and defending are all you know, then of course that’s what
you resort to. It’s ingrained. You need to replace it with
something else or it’ll never go away.” He glanced at Jayce for
concurrence.

Jayce nodded. He leaned against the door.
“He has a point, Kale. So far, school and this place are all you
know. It couldn’t hurt to relax a bit.”

“
Couldn’t hurt?” I
repeated, appalled. “It could hurt, and it would most definitely be
someone besides me. I’m dangerous, remember? I think the fewer
social situations at this point the better.”

“
I think you should
go.”

We all turned to Brie in surprise.

“
What?” I asked, not
bothering to hide my shock.

“
You should go. It might be
the only chance you have to just chill with friends and have a good
time.”

“
We have a good time here,”
I pointed out.

“
That’s different, and you
know it,” she argued. “What are you afraid of?”

My mouth dropped open as I searched for
words. “Well, I. . . .” I sputtered and she gave me a small smile
that made her brown eyes glow. I let out a sigh and told her the
truth despite what she would think of me. “I’m afraid of killing or
hurting someone by accident because it’s so easy.” I gestured
vaguely at the door. “That would have been so easy, and that’s what
scares me. I didn’t feel anything during the fight.”

“
But you do now,” Nikko
pointed out gently.

I rubbed my eyes with my palms in
frustration. “Yes, I do.”

“
Then that makes you
human,” he concluded.

The energy left my body; I felt like a boxer
who had just been punched in the stomach. I looked from him to Brie
and Jayce and then back. They watched me with encouraging
expressions, a tiny army banded together to fight my battle. I bit
back the arguments that fought to get free and turned to my
bedroom. “I’m not human,” I said before shutting them out.

I didn’t bother to turn on the light. The
faint outline of the familiar furniture beckoned to me. I threw off
my coat and settled onto the bed, the brush of dark feathers
against the backs of my arms a reminder of what I would never
be.

Chapter Ten

I followed Nikko and Jayce up the steps of
Zach's house. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” I
said.

“
Just relax; you’ll have a
good time,” Brie insisted. She took my arm and walked with me to
the open door where music and laughter spilled out like raucous
sunlight after a storm.

Students filled every possible space, eating
in the kitchen, playing pool on a scratched pool table in the back
room, lounging on couches that looked like they had survived the
last war, sitting on orange boxes turned into chairs, and in the
back yard playing what appeared to be volleyball over a rope strung
between two trees. Everywhere I looked, students laughed, ate,
talked, drank, and danced to the thump of music coming from a
rigged stereo in a corner by the pool table. Discordant music also
came from two cars parked outside, the owners of which seemed to be
trying to blast each other away through sheer volume.

Luckily it was cloudy outside and the air
carried a touch of chill, so my coat wasn’t out of place. I noticed
several students sporting similar styles lounging on the lawn.

“
Hey, you came!” Zach
shouldered his way past a group of students by the door and met us
on the porch.

“
Yeah,” I replied
noncommittally, a bit overwhelmed.

“
This is awesome!” Jayce
said. With a wave in my direction, he and Nikko lost themselves in
the crowd.

“
I’m glad you made it,”
Zach said sincerely.

I took a calming breath. “Thank you. Where’s
Krissy? Is she okay?”

“
She’s fine, thanks to you.
She went with my parents to my grandma’s house for the weekend to
kind-of get past everything. She didn’t want me to tell our parents
what happened, but I’m hoping she’ll do it while they’re gone. That
way my dad won’t be able to kill Bryce at least until they get
back,” he said with a glint in his eye that said he thought Bryce
deserved anything his dad would do.

I thought of what I had wanted to do and
figured he would be better off with Krissy's dad. “Good idea.”

Rory, the one I had almost strangled, made
his way through the crowd to Zach’s side. He smiled at Brie and my
heart gave a strange thump. I stepped closer to her.

“
Can I take your coats?”
Rory asked. He held his hand out to Brie.

“
No,” I replied stiffly.
Brie elbowed me discreetly in the ribs and I winced. “I mean, no
thank you.”

Rory laughed. “No prob, bro! Food’s in there
and y'all have a good time!”

Zach gave him a good-natured shove and he
stumbled back toward the kitchen. He gave us an apologetic smile.
“Don’t mind him; he’s Texan.” He laughed as though it was an inside
joke. “Make yourselves at home. If you need anything, don’t
hesitate to ask.”

“
Thanks,” Brie answered for
both of us.

He left up the stairs and we made our way
slowly through the crowded hallway. We arrived at a back room where
Jayce was throwing darts with a girl in braids. Several onlookers
laughed when his dart missed the board altogether and stuck in the
wall at least a foot away.

“
You okay?” Brie asked in
my ear after a few minutes.

“
Yeah,” I
replied.

“
You sure?” She put a hand
on my arm so I would look at her. “You’ve been awfully quiet since
Rory tried to take my coat.”

“
I think I felt jealous,” I
admitted.

“
And that surprises you?”
Brie asked with a sweet laugh that drowned out the noise in the
room.

I nodded. “I’ve never been jealous.”

She thought about that for a moment and then
gave me a small, sweet smile I had never seen before. It made my
heart beat faster and warmth tingled in my fingers and toes.
“What?” I asked.

“
No one’s ever been jealous
about me before.”

I studied her sincere brown eyes as she
stared up at me. I had never noticed the gold band that surrounded
her brown irises like the first light of the sun, or the freckles
that lightly spotted her nose. “I couldn’t help it.”

She gave me that special smile again and was
about to say something else when someone called my name. I turned
to find Jayce at my elbow. “How about it?”

“
How about
what?”

“
A game of darts. I’ll play
you.”

I shook my head, but Brie pushed my shoulder
gently. “Go for it; it’s fun.”

“
It’s not like he’s much
competition,” one of the onlookers shouted. He laughed at his own
joke and almost fell off his rickety box chair.

Brie tipped her chin. “Nikko will show you
how to play.”

Nikko pulled the darts from the board and
surrounding wall. “You can’t be any worse than Jayce.”

“
Hey!” Jayce
protested.

Nikko slapped him on the shoulder on his way
past. “At least I don’t need to tell you to go easy on him.”
Several of the onlookers laughed.

Nikko handed me the first dart. “Okay, now
the goal is to hit the red dot in the middle. Of course, Jayce’s
goal is just to hit the dart board.”

“
At least I can do this!”
Jayce balanced a dart on the tip of his finger for a moment. A
passerby bumped him and the dart fell into someone’s cup.
“Crap.”

“
Nice.” Nikko gestured
toward the board. “Go for it, Kale.”

I held the dart near the point like I had
seen Nikko do and launched it toward the board. It floated through
the air and hit the dart board just inside the edge.

“
Not bad!” Nikko said
encouragingly. “Try another one.”

I studied the dart for a second. The way it
was weighted held some promise. I gripped it near the tip again,
but this time flicked it underhand like a throwing knife.

The dart whizzed through the air and landed
with a sharp thump in the second ring from the edge. I felt the
surprised stares of several onlookers.

“
Whoa,” Nikko
said.

“
Dare you to try that
again,” Jayce challenged.

I shrugged and, more comfortable with the
weight now, held the dart closer to the end and flicked it toward
the board. The dart stuck in the ring that surrounded the red
center.

Some of the onlookers clapped. “Dang,” Jayce
said with his customary grin. “You’ve gotta teach me that. Do it
again.” He handed me one of his darts.

I shook off whatever liquid coated it from
the cup and flicked it toward the board. This time it hit the
center. Nikko and Jayce cheered the loudest; a crowd began to
form.