I tug at the helmet’s straps beneath my chin. His miner beam is singling me out like a spotlight. “Help me take this off?” I ask.
Jeb bends closer to hear me over the wailing vocals overhead. His cologne—a mix of chocolate and lavender—blends with his sweat into a scent as familiar and appealing as cotton candy to a kid at the fair.
His fingers curve under my chin and he snaps the buckle free. As he helps me push the helmet off, his thumb grazes my earlobe, making it tingle. The glare of his lamp blinds me. I can only make out the dark stubble on his jaw, those straight white teeth (with the exception of the left incisor that slants slightly across his front tooth), and the small iron spike centered beneath his lower lip.
Taelor raked him up and down about his piercing, but he refuses to get rid of it, which makes me like it all the more. She’s only been his girlfriend for a couple of months. She has no claim over what he does.
Jeb’s callused palm cups my elbow. “Can you stand?”
“Of course I can,” I snap, not intentionally harsh, just not the biggest fan of being on display. The minute I put weight on my leg, a jab shoots through my ankle and doubles me over. An employee supports me from behind while Jeb sits down to strip off his blades and socks. Before I know what he’s doing, he lifts me and carries me out of the bowl.
“Jeb, I want to walk.” I wrap my arms around his neck to stay balanced. I can feel the smirks of the other skaters as we pass even if I can’t see them in the dark. They’ll never let me forget being carried away like a diva.
Jeb cradles me tighter, which makes it hard not to notice how close we are: my hands locked around his neck, his chest rubbing against my ribs . . . those biceps pressed to my shoulder blade and knee.
I give up fighting as he steps off the cement onto the woodplanked floor.
At first I think we’re headed to the café, but we pass the arcade and swing a right toward the entrance ramp, following the arc of light laid out by his helmet. Jeb’s hip shoves the gym-style doors. I blink, trying to adjust to the brightness outside. Warm gusts of wind slap hair around my face.
He perches me gently on the sunbaked cement, then drops beside me and takes off his helmet, shaking out his hair. He hasn’t cut it in a few weeks, and it’s long enough to graze his shoulders. Thick bangs dip low—a black curtain touching his nose. He loosens the red and navy bandana from around his thigh and wraps it over his head, securing it in a knot at his nape to push back the strands from his face.
Those dark green eyes study the bandage where blood drips from my knee. “I told you to replace your gear. Your strap’s been unraveling for weeks.”
Here we go. He’s already in surrogate-big-brother mode, even though he’s only two and a half years older and one grade ahead of me. “Been talking to my dad again, have you?”
A strained expression crosses his face as he starts messing with his knee pads. I follow his lead and take my remaining one off.
“Actually,” I say, mentally berating myself for not having the sense to fall back into my silent-treatment bubble, “I should be grateful you and Dad allow me to come here at all. Seeing as it’s so dark, and all sorts of scary, bad things could happen to my helpless little self.”
A muscle in Jeb’s jaw twitches, a sure sign I’ve struck a nerve. “This has nothing to do with your dad. Other than the fact that he owns a sporting goods store, which means you have no excuse for not maintaining your gear. Boarding can be dangerous.”
“Yeah. Just like London is dangerous, right?” I glare across the gleaming cars in the parking lot, smoothing the wrinkles from my red T-shirt’s design: a bleeding heart wrapped in barbed wire. Might as well be an X-ray of my chest.
“Great.” He tosses his knee pads aside. “So, you’re not over it.”
“What’s to get over? Instead of standing up for me, you took his side. Now I can’t go until I graduate. Why should that bother me?” I pluck at my fingerless gloves to suppress the acid bite of anger burning on my tongue.
“At least by staying home, you
will
graduate.” Jeb moves to his elbow pads and rips off the Velcro, punctuating his point.
“I would’ve graduated there, too.”
He huffs.
We shouldn’t be discussing this. The disappointment is too fresh. I was so psyched about the study-abroad program that allowed seniors to finish out their final year of high school in London while getting college credits from one of the best art universities there. The very university Jeb’s going to.
Since he’s already received his scholarship and plans to move to London later this summer, Dad asked him to dinner a couple of weeks ago to talk about the program. I thought it was a great idea, that with Jeb in my corner I was as good as on a plane. And then, together, they decided it wasn’t the right time for me to go.
They
decided.
Dad worries because Alison has an aversion to England—too much Liddell family history. He thinks my going would cause a relapse. She’s already being prodded with more needles than most junkies on the street.
At least his reasons made sense. I still haven’t figured out why Jeb vetoed the idea. But what does it matter at this point? The sign-up deadline was last Friday, so there’s no changing things now.
“Traitor,” I mumble.
He dips his head down, forcing me to look at him. “I’m trying to be your friend. You’re not ready to move so far from your dad . . . you’ll have no one to look out for you.”
“You’ll be there.”
“But I can’t be with you every second. My schedule’s going to be insane.”
“I don’t need someone with me every second. I’m not a kid.”
“Never said you were a kid. But you don’t always make the best decisions. Case in point.” He pinches my shin, popping the torn knit leggings with a snap.
A jolt of excitement runs through my leg. I frown, convincing myself I’m just ticklish. “So, I’m not allowed to make a few mistakes?”
“Not mistakes that can hurt you.”
I shake my head. “Like being stuck here doesn’t hurt. At a school I can’t stand, with classmates whose idea of fun is making cracks about the white rabbit tail I’m hiding. Thanks for that, Jeb.”
He sighs and sits up. “Right. Everything is my fault. I guess your eating cement in there was my fault, too.”
The strain behind his voice tugs at my heart. “Well, the slam was
kind
of your fault.” My voice softens, a conscious effort to ease the tension between us. “I would’ve already aced an ollie if you were still teaching the skateboard class.”
Jeb’s lips twitch. “So, the new teacher, Hitch . . . he’s not doin’ it for ya?”
I punch him, releasing some pent-up frustration. “No, he’s not
doing
it for me.”
Jeb fakes a wince. “He’d sure like to. But I told him I’d kick his—”
“As if you have a say.” Hitch is nineteen and the go-to king for fake IDs and recreational drugs. He’s a prison sentence waiting to happen. I know better than to get tangled up with him, but that’s my call.
Jeb shoots me a look. I sense a talk coming on about the evils of dating players.
I flick a grasshopper off my leg with a blue fingernail, refusing to let its whispers make the moment any more awkward than it is.
Mercifully, the double doors swing open from behind. Jeb scoots away to let a couple of girls through. A cloud of powdery perfume wafts over us as they pass and wave at Jeb. He nods back. We watch them get into a car and peel out of the parking lot.
“Hey,” Jeb says. “It’s Friday. Aren’t you supposed to visit your mom?”
I jump on the subject change. “Meeting Dad there. And then I promised Jen I’d take the last two hours of her shift.” After looking at my torn clothes, I glance into the sky—the same striking blue as Alison’s eyes. “I hope I have time to drop home and change before work.”
Jeb stands. “Let me clock out,” he says. “I’ll get your board and backpack and drive you to Soul’s.”
That’s the last thing I need.
Neither Jeb nor his sister, Jenara, have ever met Alison; they’ve only seen pictures of her. They don’t even know the truth about my scars or why I wear the gloves. My friends all think I was in a car accident with my mom as a kid and that the windshield messed up my hands and injured her brain. Dad doesn’t like the lie, but the reality is so bizarre, he lets me embellish.
“What about your bike?” I’m grasping at straws, considering Jeb’s souped-up vintage Honda CT70 isn’t anywhere on the lot.
“They predicted rain, so Jen dropped me off,” he answers. “Your dad can take you to work later, and I’ll drive your car home. It’s not like it’s out of my way.”
Jeb’s family shares the other side of our duplex. Dad and I went over to introduce ourselves one summer morning after they first moved in. Jeb, Jenara, and I became tight before sixth grade started the next fall—tight enough that on the first day of school, Jeb beat up a guy in the breezeway for calling me the Mad Hatter’s love slave.
Jeb slides on some shades and repositions the bandana’s knot at the back of his head. Sunlight hits the shiny, round scars peppered along his forearms.
I turn to the cars in the lot. Gizmo—my 1975 Gremlin, named after a character in the eighties movie Dad took Alison to on their first date—is only a couple of yards away. There’s a chance Alison will be waiting in the lounge with Dad. If I can’t count on Jeb to back me up about London, I can’t trust him to meet the biggest nut who’s fallen from my family tree.
“Uh-uh,” Jeb says. “I see that look. No way you can drive a standard with a sprained ankle.” He holds out a palm. “Fork ’em over.”
With a roll of my eyes, I drop my keys into his hand.
He pushes his shades to the bandana at his hairline. “Wait here and I’ll walk you.”
A burst of air-conditioning hits my face as the door to the complex slams shut behind him. There’s a tickle on my leg. This time, I don’t swish the grasshopper away, and I hear its whisper loud and clear:
“Doomed.”
“Yeah,” I whisper back, stroking its veined wings and surrendering to my delusions. “It’s all over once Jeb meets Alison.”
Soul’s Asylum is a twenty-five-minute drive outside the city limits. Afternoon sun beats down, glaring off the car’s hood. Once you
get past the buildings, strip malls, and houses, there’s not much
landscaping in Pleasance. Just flat, dry plains with sparse growths of
shrubbery and spindly trees.
Each time Jeb starts to talk, I mumble a monosyllabic response,
then crank up the volume on the newly installed CD player. Finally, a song comes on—an acoustic, moody number I’ve heard
Jeb listen to when he paints—and he drives in silent contemplation.
The baggie of ice he brought for my swollen ankle has melted, and I
move my foot to let it roll off.
I fight drowsiness, knowing what waits on the other side of sleep.
I don’t need to revisit my Alice nightmare in midafternoon. As a teenager, Alison’s mom, Alicia, painted the Wonderland
characters on every wall of her home, insisting that they were real
and talked to her in dreams. Years later, Alicia took a flying leap out
of her second-story hospital room window to test her “wings,” just
a few hours after giving birth to my mom. She landed in a rosebush
and broke her neck.
Some say she committed suicide—postpartum depression and
grief over losing her husband months earlier in a factory accident.
Others say she should’ve been locked away long before she had a
child.
After her mom’s death, Alison was left to be raised by a long
line of foster parents. Dad thinks the instability contributed to her
illness. I know it’s something more, something hereditary, because
of my recurrent nightmare and the bugs and plants. And then there’s
the presence I feel inside. The one that vibrates and shadows me
when I’m scared or hesitant, prodding me to push my limits. I’ve researched schizophrenia. They say one of the symptoms is
hearing voices, not a winglike thumping in the skull. Then again, if
I were to count the whispers of flowers and bugs, I hear plenty of
voices. By any of those measurements, I’m sick.
My throat swells on a lump and I swallow it down.
The CD changes songs, and I concentrate on the melody, trying
to forget everything else. Dust slaps against the car as Jeb shifts
gears. I glance sideways at his profile. There’s Italian somewhere in
his bloodline, and he has a really great complexion—olive-toned
and clear, soft to the touch.
He tilts his head my way. I turn to the rearview mirror and watch the car freshener swing. Today’s the first day I’ve had it hanging in
place.
On eBay, there’s a store that sells customized fresheners for ten
bucks apiece. Just e-mail a photo, and they print it onto a scented
card, then snail-mail the finished product to you. A couple of weeks
ago, I used some birthday money and bought two of them, one for
me and one for Dad—which he has yet to hang in his truck. He has
it tucked in his wallet; I wonder if it will always stay hidden in there,
too painful for him to see every day.
“It turned out good,” Jeb says, referring to the air freshener. “Yeah,” I mumble. “It’s Alison’s shot, so it was bound to.” Jeb nods, his unspoken understanding more comforting than
other people’s well-intentioned words.
I stare at the photo. It’s an image of a huge black-winged moth
from one of Alison’s old albums. The shot is amazing, the way the
wings are splayed on a flower between a slant of sun and shade,
teetering between two worlds. Alison used to capture things most
people wouldn’t notice—moments in time when opposites collide,
then merge seamlessly together. Makes me wonder how successful
she might’ve been if she hadn’t lost her mind.
I tap the air freshener, following its sway.
The bug has always seemed familiar—eerily fascinating yet at the
same time calming.
It occurs to me I don’t know its history—what species it is, where
it lives. If I found out, I would know where Alison might’ve been
when she shot the picture and could feel closer to her somehow, but
I can’t ask. She’s sensitive about her albums.
I reach behind the bucket seat, dig my iPhone out of my backpack, and open a search for
glowing moth.
After twenty-some pages of tattoos, logos, Lunesta ads, and costume designs, a moth sketch catches my eye. Not a perfect match to Alison’s, but the body’s a bright blue and the wings shimmer black,
so it’s close enough.
Clicking on the image turns the screen blank. I’m about to restart
the browser when a strobe of bright red stops me. The screen throbs
as if I’m looking at a heartbeat. The air seems to pulse around me
in synchrony.
A Web page flickers to life. White font and colorful graphics
stand out vividly against the black background. The first thing that
hits me is the title:
Netherlings—denizens of the nether-realm
. Next follows a definition:
A dark and twisted race of supernatural
beings indigenous to an ancient world hidden deep within the heart of the
earth. Most use their magic for mischief and revenge, though a rare few
have a penchant for kindness and courage.
I scroll past images every bit as violent and beautiful as Jeb’s
paintings: luminous, rainbow-skinned creatures with bulbous eyes
and sparkly, silken wings who carry knives and swords; hideous,
naked hobgoblins in chains who crawl on all fours and have corkscrew tails and cloven feet like pigs; silvery pixielike beings trapped
in cages and crying oily black tears.
According to the text, in their truest forms, netherlings can look
like almost anything—they can be as small as a rosebud or larger
than a man. Some can even emulate mortals, taking on the likeness
of existing humans to deceive the people around them.
An uneasy knot forms in my chest at the next line of text:
While
wreaking havoc in the mortal world, netherlings stay connected to their
kind by using plants and insects as conduits to the nether-realm.
My breath catches. The words dance around me, a dizzying rise and fall of broken logic. If this were true and not just some Web weirdo’s fantasy, it would mean Alison and I share the traits of some
creepy, mystical creatures. But that’s not even possible.
The car bounces over a bump and I drop the cell. When I pick it
up, I’ve lost the website and any signal. “Crap!”
“Nope. Pothole.” Downshifting gears, Jeb sidles a lazy gaze my
way—Mr. Cool behind those shades.
I glare at him. “You should probably keep your eyes on the road
in case there’s any more, genius.”
He shifts back from third to fourth gear, grinning. “Fierce game
of solitaire?”
“Bug research. Make a right here.” I drop the phone into my
backpack. I’m so uptight about going to Soul’s, I probably read the
words wrong. Even though I’m almost convinced of that, the kink in
my stomach won’t loosen.
Jeb turns onto a long, winding road. We pass a faded sign: soul’s
asylum: offering peace and rest to the weary mind since
1942.
Peace. Yeah, right. More like drug-induced catatonia. I roll down the window and let in a warm breeze. Gizmo idles
while we wait for the automatic wrought-iron gates to respond. Flipping open the glove compartment, I dig out a small cosmetics bag along with the hair extensions that Jenara helped me make
out of shimmery blue yarn. They’re strung together and clip in for a
dreadlocks effect.
We cruise toward the four-story brick building in the distance; it
stands out bloodred against the clear sky. It could’ve been a gingerbread mansion, but the white shingles on the gabled roof look more
like jagged teeth than icing.
Jeb finds a parking space next to my dad’s Ford pickup and cuts
the engine. The motor grinds to a stop.
“Has the car been making that sound long?” He tosses his shades
onto the dash and concentrates on the panel behind the steering
wheel, checking out dials and numbers.
I lift my braid over my shoulder, sliding the elastic band from the
end. “About a week.” Hair hangs across my chest in platinum waves
just like Alison’s. Per Dad’s request, I don’t dye it or cut it because
it reminds him of hers. So I’ve had to find other creative ways of
ramping up my style.
I bend at the waist until my hair flows like a stream over my
knees. Once the dreadlocks feel secure, I flip my head upright and
catch Jeb watching me.
He jerks his gaze back to the dashboard. “If you hadn’t been
ignoring my calls, I could’ve already taken a look at your engine. You
shouldn’t drive this until it’s fixed.”
“Gizmo’s fine. Just a little hoarse. Maybe he needs to gargle some
salt water.”
“This isn’t a joke. What are you going to do if you get stalled out
in the middle of nowhere?”
I twirl a strand of hair around my finger. “Hmm. Show some
cleavage to a passing trucker?”
Jeb’s jaw clenches. “That’s not funny.”
I giggle. “Oh, come on. I’m kidding. All it would really take is a
little leg.”
His lips curve slightly, but the smile is gone in a blink. “This from
the girl who’s never even had a first kiss.”
He’s always teased that I’m a mix between skate glam and American sweetheart. Looks like I’ve just been downgraded to prude. I groan. It won’t do any good to deny it. “Fine. I would call someone on my cell and wait safely in my car with all the doors locked
and Mace in hand until help arrived. There, do I win a cookie?” He thumps a finger against the dash. “I’ll come over to look at
it later. You can hang with me in the garage. Just like we used to.” I pull some eye shadow out of the cosmetics bag. “I’d like that.” His smile makes a full appearance—dimples and all—a glimpse
of the old, playful, teasing Jeb. My pulse quickens at the sight of it. “Great,” he says. “How about tonight?”
I huff. “Right. Taelor would have a litter of kittens if you left
prom early to tinker with my car.”
He drops his forehead to the steering wheel. “Ugh. I forgot about
the dance. I still have to pick up my tux.” He glances at the clock
on my dash. “Jen said some guy asked you but you didn’t want to go.
Why not?”
I shrug. “I have this character flaw? Called dignity?” He snorts and picks up a bottle of raspberry-flavored water
wedged between the emergency brake and console and drinks what’s
left.
I open my compact and apply a smear of kohl eye shadow atop
what’s already there, and then elongate the outside corner like a cat’s
eye. Once I finish both eyes with a sweep along the bottom lashes,
my ice-blue irises stand out against the black like a fluorescent shirt
beneath the UV lights at Underland.
Jeb leans back in his seat. “Well done. You’ve managed to destroy
any resemblance to your mom.”
I freeze. “I’m not trying—”
“C’mon, Al. It’s me.” He stretches out a hand to bat the air freshener. The moth spins, reminding me of the website. The pinch in
my sternum tightens.
I drop my eye shadow into the bag and fish out some silver gloss
to spread over my lips, then stuff the bag back into the glove compartment.
Jeb’s hand rests next to my elbow on the console, his warmth
seeping over to me. “You’re scared if you look like her, you’ll be like
her. And end up here, too.”
I’m speechless. He’s always been able to read me. But this . . . it’s
like he’s crawled inside my head.
God forbid.
My throat dries, and I stare at the empty water bottle between us. “It’s not easy to live in someone’s shadow.” His face darkens. He would know. He’s got the scars to prove it, deeper than the
cigarette burns on his torso and arms. I still remember after they
first moved in: the blood-chilling screams next door at two in the
morning as he tried to protect his sister and mom from his drunken
dad. The best thing that ever happened to Jeb’s family was when Mr.
Holt wrapped his truck around a tree one night three years ago. His
blood alcohol level was at 0.3.
Thankfully, Jeb never touches the stuff. His dark moods don’t
mix well with alcohol. He found that out a few years back, after
nearly killing some guy in a fight. The court sent Jeb to a youth
detention center for a year, which is why he graduated at age
nineteen. He lost twelve months of his life but gained a future,
because at the center a psychologist helped him rein in his bitterness through his art and taught him that having structure and
balance was the best way to contain his rage.
“Just remember,” he says, weaving our fingers together. “With
you, it’s not hereditary. Your mom had an accident.”
Our palms touch with only my knit gloves between us, and I
press my forearm to his to align the ridges of his scars against my
skin.
You’re wrong,
I want to say.
I’m exactly like you.
But I can’t. The fact
is, alcoholics have programs, steps to take so they can fit into society
and function. Crazies like Alison—all they have are padded cells and
blunted utensils. That’s their normal.
Our
normal.
Looking down, I notice blood has seeped and dried on the bandage at my knee. I run a hand over it, worried about Alison. She flips
out at the sight of blood.
“Here.” Without my even saying a word, Jeb works the bandana
off his head. Leaning over, he ties the cloth around my knee to hide
the soiled bandage. When he’s done, instead of moving back to his
side of the car, he props an elbow on the console and runs a finger
along one of the blue falls in my hair. Either it’s vibes from our
unresolved issues or from our intimate conversation, but his expression is serious.
“Those dreadlocks are wicked tight.” His voice is low and velvety,
filling my stomach with knots. “You know, you really should go to
prom. Show up just like this and knock everyone on their asses. I
guarantee you’ll still have your dignity.”
He studies my face with an expression I’ve only seen when he
paints. Intense. Absorbed. As if he’s considering the painting from
every angle.
Me
from every angle.
He’s so close, I smell the raspberry on his hot breath. His gaze
shifts to the dimple in my chin and my cheeks flame.
In the back of my head, that shadowy sensation rouses, not so
much a voice as a presence, like a shudder of wings scrambling my insides . . . urging me to touch the labret beneath his lower lip. Instinctively, I reach out. He doesn’t even flinch as I trace the silvery
spike.
The metal is warm, and his stubble tickles my fingertip on either
side. Hit full-on by the intimacy of my action, I start to draw back. He grabs my hand and holds my finger against his lips. His eyes