Oblivion (9 page)

“The dream,” Reynolds said, his low voice reverberating in the confined space. “It was my hand that took you there.”

An image of her ceiling light flashed in her mind, and she had her answer as to who had entered her room the previous night.

“What do you want?” she demanded, because, as always when it came to Reynolds, it wasn't remotely clear. If he'd come to complete the assignment of killing her, couldn't the task have been carried out while she slept?

“We can't speak here,” Reynolds said. “They're looking for you.”

Before she could determine what he meant by “they,” Reynolds stepped toward her.

Dropping her things, Isobel backpedaled to the landing below, her notepads and binders sliding after her. When her spine met with the wall, her hands formed into automatic fists.

But Reynolds brushed past her. “This way,” he said, descending to the second-floor landing, that moldering floral essence trailing him. “Quickly.” He rounded the corner below, slipping out of sight.

Dazed, still stunned by Reynolds's sudden appearance, and even more baffled by his breeze-by exit, she could only gape after him.

Did he seriously expect her to
follow
him? Weren't they past the whole Simon Says thing? He
knew
she knew he worked for Lilith—that he'd been under the demon's command from the very beginning.

And yet, since learning the truth about his allegiance, Isobel had puzzled repeatedly over why he had ignored all the opportune moments he'd had to kill her, and why he'd continually intervened on Isobel's behalf. Like when he'd pulled her from that collapsed grave in the dreamworld. Or when, in a surprising act of seeming compassion, he'd carried her home after she'd nearly died following his orders to destroy the link between worlds, Varen's sketchbook.

At the time, of course, she'd believed Reynolds had returned Varen home safely too. Like he'd told her he had. But if he'd truly been against her from the start, why would he have wanted that link severed in the first place?

Pushing off from the wall, Isobel ran a hand through her hair, and her thoughts returned to last night's dream. If Reynolds
had
transported her to the other side, stealing her astral self from her sleeping body as he'd done the night he'd first introduced her to the woodlands, then he must have known Varen would find her there.

Had Reynolds been counting on that? Perhaps he'd even staged the whole thing.

Drawn by the possibility of answers, Isobel took a step toward the descending stairway but paused again, unsure whether she was willing—or ready—to hear what he'd come to say.

Reynolds lied like it was his hobby.

And she had promised herself to let go of her part in all this.

I keep having bad dreams,
Danny had said last night.

This involves me, too,
Gwen had reminded her less than an hour ago.

And then there was the problem of the entire school witnessing the effects of last night's dreamworld encounter with Varen.

His abilities were expanding, that much had become evident. And if he could shatter lights and bring the other world with him when he came, then what more would he soon be capable of?

The nightmare had to stop. Varen had to
be
stopped.

Terror bubbled up inside of her as she spurred herself forward, each step taking her closer to her greatest fear. Toward the darkness that continued to prove it would catch up with her no matter what. As she neared the ground floor, though, she slowed at the sound of muffled voices.

“How should
I
know?” Isobel heard Gwen say. “She and I aren't even friends anymore.”

Isobel ducked below the stair railing. Balancing on her haunches, she rose up just enough to peek over the low wall.

Catching sight of Mr. Nott's salt-and-pepper hair and Principal Finch's gleaming bald head, she realized that the administrators must be the “they” Reynolds had been referring to. She was a little relieved, seeing as the other option possessed claws and smiles filled with jagged teeth.

How long had the school known she was missing?

Had someone contacted her parents?

Her dad was going to go nuclear.

“Of course,” Gwen went on while she glowered at the two men, “you might have known that if you cared to tune into more than this school's paltry sports channel. Vocab word of the day: ‘paltry.' Adjective meaning measly, lackluster, or otherwise disappointing. There. Proof I'll make you guys look good with my ACT scores. Everybody wins. For once. Can I go to class now?”

Scanning the area, Isobel searched for Reynolds but saw no sign of him anywhere. The propped door leading into the darkened gym, however, told her where he must have gone.

Isobel frowned, wondering how he'd managed to pass through the corridor unnoticed.

His pasty complexion and grim-reaper wardrobe didn't exactly scream “substitute teacher.”

“That's enough, Miss Daniels,” she heard Principal Finch say, his words echoed by a scratch of fuzz from his walkie-talkie.

“—not in class,” Isobel heard a woman's voice utter through static.

More walkie-talkie fuzz. Then Finch's reply of, “Thank you, Mrs. Tanager.”

Mr. Nott spoke next. “We have two witnesses who say they saw both of you sitting in your car just now. Right outside those doors.” He turned to point, and Isobel ducked low.

“Oh!” Gwen blurted, the exclamation letting Isobel know that Gwen, at least, had seen her. Isobel cringed.

“What?” Mr. Nott asked. “What is it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what is it'?” Gwen snapped, recovering quickly. “You just called the two kids with the rolling papers in their pockets ‘witnesses.' And if that's the terminology we're gonna use, then I think it's high time I give my legal adviser a ring. Let's just hope he's not in the middle of performing a laser procedure. Thank you, speed-dial and—”

“Stop that. Put your phone away—”

“Daddy?” Isobel heard Gwen say. “Yeah, listen, I know you're probably with a patient right now, but the school Feds wanna talk to you. Do me a favor and tell them who our lawyer is.”

One of the two men growled in frustration. Rising again, Isobel saw Principal Finch snatch Gwen's glowing cell from her. Pivoting, he pressed the phone to one ear.

“Hello,” he said, while Mr. Nott watched, hands at his hips. “Hello?”

Gwen shot Isobel a pointed glare.
Go home,
she said, mouthing the words, eyes round, brow furrowed.

Isobel tilted her head, unsure if she had misread the lip-synched message. But when Gwen kicked a foot at her, skirt flaring, Isobel moved.

“There's no one on the line,” Isobel heard Finch say as she scuttled down the stairs and darted to the gym. Kicking up the metal stopper, she ducked into the darkness, guiding the heavy door behind her until it closed.

Isobel whirled around to scan the wide room.

Shadows blanketed the space, casting the decorations for that night's Valentine's dance in tones of gray and black. Opposite Isobel, the red exit sign emitted an eerie glow that mixed with the sunlight peeking through the closed doors.

Against the far wall, beyond the basketball hoop, a balloon arch waited in front of a backdrop set up for photo taking. A disco ball hung motionless from the center of the ceiling. Small cloth-covered tables lined the bases of the bleachers, which had been folded away to turn Isobel's old cheerleading practice grounds into a dance floor.

Isobel could no longer make out what Gwen or the administrators were saying, though she had no doubt her friend was already en route with them to the main office. With her cell still in the pocket of her coat—which she'd left in Gwen's car—Isobel suddenly felt very alone.

Noticing tiny piles of ash blotting the floor, she moved forward with careful steps, following the dust to the center of the room, where the trail abruptly ended. Halting atop the emblem of Henry the Hawk's scowling head, she turned in a slow circle.

“I did not expect to see you in that churchyard.”

Reynolds's voice, deep and gruff, came from the empty space directly behind her.

The shadows shifted to her left, and fighting the urge to dart, Isobel forced herself to stand her ground as his hawkish profile entered her periphery.

“I thought for certain you would forget him,” he said, and Isobel knew he was talking about Varen.

“Yeah,” Isobel said, “and I didn't expect you to be a liar, a murderer,
and
an evil henchman. I'd say in terms of trumping first impressions, you've got me beat.”

“You have mistaken me,” Reynolds said, “and I freely admit that I have mistaken you.”

“You sent me to die,” she said. “The only mistake I might have made was agreeing to listen to anything else you have to say.”

“The fate I lured you to was one I thought would befall you regardless,” he said. “And because of your willingness to do as I instructed, your world, unlike my own, remains intact. Forgive me if I chose to cut your losses for you.”

Isobel folded her arms. “Yeah, you're good at doing that for other people, aren't you?”

He stayed silent, and lifting her chin an inch, Isobel awarded herself a secret victory check mark. But her smugness didn't last.

“You have already proven you would die for the boy by doing it,” Reynolds snapped. “Now, you will listen to what I have come to tell you or you won't, but decide. Our time wanes.”

Isobel blinked, startled less by this rare outburst than by what his words revealed.

There was only one way for Reynolds to know that she had actually died.

After waking in the hospital in Baltimore, she'd been questioned by the police about the stranger who had brought her to the ER and then disappeared moments after the medical staff took over. The conflicting reports and scrambled security footage had failed to offer any leads, however.

Though Isobel had not lied when she'd told the officers and her parents that she didn't know who the man had been, she'd kept her suspicions to herself along with everything else. In a practical way, it made sense that Reynolds had been the one to return her to reality. After all, he had displayed the ability to pass from one world to the other at will. But given all that Isobel had discovered about Reynolds's true moral code—or lack thereof—she couldn't figure out the deeper reason he'd bothered to rescue her once again.

That reason, she knew, would have everything to do with why he was here now.

Looking down, she focused on Reynolds's dust-encrusted boots. However he'd gotten here, it hadn't been without a struggle.

“The blending of the worlds,” Isobel whispered. “It's happening again, isn't it?”

“Do you remember what transpired here, in this room?” Reynolds asked, ignoring the question, his eyes searching the gloom. “The day you fell in front of that crowd.”

“I didn't fall,” she corrected him. “I was pulled.”

He was referring to the Halloween day pep rally. After she had climbed to the top of her squad's pyramid, one of the Nocs had yanked her base Nikki's wrist, causing Isobel to plummet straight to the floor. Just before she'd hit, though, she'd entered a twilight consciousness. The people around her became fuzzy silhouettes, and the world a blur of muddled shapes, muffled noise, and static. While she'd been in that between state, caught halfway in the dreamworld and halfway in reality, the Nocs had attacked her, attempting to draw her spirit out of her body and into the woodlands. Reynolds had appeared from nowhere to come to her defense.

“You fell regardless,” Reynolds replied. “And then you entered the veil. I asked if you remembered.”

“And I asked you what the hell you wanted,” Isobel said, her anger flaring anew. He needed to get it straight right now that she wasn't interested in being his puppet anymore.

“He thinks you're dead.” Reynolds locked gazes with her. “The boy. He thinks he killed you.”

Isobel's lips parted in shock. Of all the things she'd expected Reynolds to say, this was not on the list. Her mouth went dry, and trapped again by those two black, coin-size holes, she found herself unable to look away or reply.

He was lying. He had to be. Varen had sought her out in last night's dream. He'd zeroed in on her. He'd made his intentions clear.

They were enemies now.

“Your disbelief is a factor I have already accounted for,” Reynolds said, interrupting her thoughts. “That is why I risked crossing you through the veil while you slept. So you could witness the truth for yourself.”

“Witness
what
exactly?” She shook her head. “That he—”

“—sees you everywhere,” Reynolds finished for her. “You haunt him at every step. The guilt for what he believes he has done has all but devoured his sanity. His subconscious conjures your image without end. In short, your memory has become his everlasting nightmare.”

Isobel swallowed hard. Reynolds's words sent a seismic tremor through her, shaking the dirt from all she'd attempted to bury that day.

Taking a leaf from Reynolds's own book, though, Isobel did her best to keep her face smooth, impassive. She'd learned through experience that she couldn't afford to let him see he'd struck a chord, to allow him to believe he still had the power to manipulate her. Not when he held so much power already.
Power he should not possess,
Pinfeathers had once told her.

“You're telling me that he didn't think I was real,” Isobel replied in a monotone.

“No more, I suspect, than he did that night you approached him on the cliff.”

Reynolds stepped away from her, making his way toward the double doors that lead to the world outside.

More dust fell from his frame as he moved, tumbling from his boots and shoulders.