“What about Callahan? You told me he was coming over here, right? Shouldn't we wait for him?”
She shook her head, ushered him back out to the hallway, and shut the door.
Alexandra threw the robe to the bed and slipped the suit over her pale skin. “Ouch,” she hissed at the price tag that was poking her in the rib.
“I'll fix you,” she said, snapping the plastic fastener away from the spandex with a yank. Slicing across her palm, the edges of the cardboard tag peeled through the skin. From under the bed, Jack howled lowly, the smell of fresh, warm blood rippling through the air.
That is so not right
, she thought, the red trickle oozing slowly like a flow of fiery lava from the center of her palm. She raised the hand to her forehead, smearing her own blood across her cheeks.
“Hush,” she hissed at the bed. “I can't help it, Jack. Stop growling at me.” Alexandra kicked a chewed stuffed bear across the floor under the bed. “Something is wrong, and I'm going to fix it,” she said to the rustling bedskirt beneath her mattress. The bulldog scooped a toy into his mouth and cuddled with Rusty Bear against the wall.
I have to get out of here
, Alexandra thought, sucking at the wound.
I am going to spontaneously combust. I will become the urban legend about the shy, quiet girl who literally bursts into flames because some guy has her blood boiling.
She realized that it was not Benjamin who, no matter how perfectly adorable he might be, had her in a frantic tizzy. This fit was due, she reasoned, to her immortal stalker, Kraven, who had dripped his blood all over her hands. If that had not happened, she would not be in this position, changing into her bathing suit with a golden boy waiting for her a few feet away.
The black suit clung to her body. Shrugging her shoulders, she glanced at the mirror.
Taylor is so lucky
, she lied to herself, knowing her best friend lived on gum, cigarettes, and Red Bull.
She is so pretty and her body makes guys like Ben go crazy.
In the mirror, her reflection reminded her of how she was going to have to rely on her brains to take her far in life. She did not see in herself the beautiful, natural grace that both men and boys were beginning to notice.
Yearning to be in the cool pool, she quickly yanked down the navy-blue, striped bath towel, dangling over the shower rod, to wrap around her chest.
Stripes make me look taller
, she thought. She flipped off the vanity lights and bounced to her bedroom door.
In the hallway, Benjamin paced the floor with his hands in his pockets. Then his cell phone rang. He knew from the ring that it was his mother, and he hadn't a clue what to say. The BMW had been towed. He did not know where. He did not know if he would ever see it again, and at the moment, he did not care. A pretty girl wanted to go swimming, with him, now. He recognized that face. Women with that glint in their eyes did not take no for answer.
To some extent, he had learned this from his mother. When she squinted her eyes at him like that, she did not take no for an answer. In the eight months and counting that she had been pregnant, she had glared at him a lot. He wondered why the Senator couldn't make peanut butter and banana sandwiches for her once in a while. He also wondered why she'd married the guy.
Alexandra heard his muffled voice in the hallway. She cracked her bedroom door just in time to hear his conversation with his mother.
“Hey, Mom,” Benjamin said. “I don't know when I'll be home . . . Your car is . . . um . . . in good hands . . . So like, I've made some new friends so . . . Yeah . . . No, not the blonde, she's not here . . . We're going swimming . . . Her name is Alexandra.”
The door hinges squeaked before Alexandra could slip out of the bedroom.
“I have to go,” Benjamin said into the phone. “Don't worry about me. Take care of yourself and get some sleep. You know the doc wants you on bed rest.”
Alexandra stepped closer and smoothed his rumpled hair flat to his head.
“Take a nap, Mom. I'll see you later,” he said, brushing Alexandra's hand playfully from his face before he shoved the phone back into his pocket.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to his chest.
Is this how it feels
, Alexandra asked herself,
to be wanted?
Her heart fluttered when she met his gaze.
“Torn in two,” she said softly under her breath.
Kraven
, she thought guiltily.
How could I have left him standing there, after all he had confessed?
Her cheeks flushed, shame choking her throat.
“What?” Benjamin asked and leaned closer to her mouth. He gently brushed a stray lock of auburn hair from her bashful green eyes.
“Nothing,” she whispered. Taylor made it seem so easy to juggle boys' hearts, but Alexandra needed practice.
“You're so warm,” he said.
“Yeah,” Alexandra agreed, beads of sweat rising along her collarbone. “So let's go to the pool!”
“Do you think Taylor is okay?” Benjamin asked, grasping her palm in his hand as she tucked her bangs behind her ears. “Her stepmom was so mad this morning. I think they would have seriously torn each other up if the cops hadn't shown up so fast.”
Taylor?
Alexandra thought.
What about me? I'm the one with blood on my hands. Nobody is trying to kill her. Nobody is stalking her.
“Taylor can take of herself,” Alexandra said, blushing at her lie. She knew that Taylor needed her, and that she needed Taylor.
I keep her from smoking too much, partying too much, and I even remind her to do her homework.
Alexandra went to refill Jack's water dish before they left. She considered the fact that she'd never met the mother Taylor lost. She had only seen the woman in photographs Taylor kept in a shoebox under her white canopy bed. They looked so much alike, with their long, straight hair and high cheekbones. They would have looked like sisters except for Taylor's dyed-blonde hair. Taylor's mother had worn her hair to her waist and it was dark as a starless night.
“I know Taylor is tough,” Benjamin agreed. “But you should have seen the look in her eyes.”
“I know the look,” Alexandra said, retrieving her keys from her purse. “When we were freshmen, we hated each other. We shared a locker and had every single class together. She told me daily that I was a geek, because I made good grades and stayed out of trouble.”
“So what happened?” Benjamin asked.
“Turns out we both really needed a friend and nobody else would have us.”
Benjamin scratched his head and gazed quizzically at the auburn-haired girl standing in front of him in only a towel and bathing suit.
“She wouldn't let anything happen to you,” he said.
“Did she tell you that?”
“No, but she would not have tracked you down last night if she didn't care.”
“I guess opposites attract,” Alexandra said, brushing past him down the hallway.
She ignored her red flip-flops by the front door and stepped barefoot into the corridor.
“Are you coming or not?” she said to him and began skipping down the hallway.
“Wait for me,” Benjamin said.
“Close the door!” she yelled back.
His fingers tugged on the brass knob. The door clicked shut behind him. Alexandra hopped impatiently up and down, waiting for the elevator.
“I don't have any trunks,” Benjamin warned her as he slid in beside her.
The ding of the arriving elevator chimed on the tenth floor of Park View Tower. “Finally,” Alexandra sighed. She did not realize that someone else was already in that elevator car: Kraven and Taylor.
They had just had a match of wills. Inside the mirrored walls of the shuttle car, Taylor had hugged her arms around Kraven's neck and winked at her own reflection. Draped around his chest, she had reveled in the warmth of his skin against her bare arms.
As Kraven had held her closer, he had heard her thoughts. He had wanted to warn her:
Be careful of what you wish. Stay away from me. I am a monster and have no right to be here with innocent creatures.
Kraven had shuddered when she scratched the nape of his neck with her fingernails. “I'm not as innocent as I look,” Taylor had cooed.
“And I'm not a pet,” Kraven had told her, loosening her grip around his shoulders and easing her legs to the floor.
“But my ankle,” she had protested, a pout on her lips.
He had ignored her.
“Alexandra has never even kissed a boy,” Taylor had huffed at Kraven.
It was at this point in the chess match that the elevator doors slid open at the tenth floor.
Jealousy sparked in Alexandra's green eyes when she met Kraven's gaze, and she fell, head first, into the azure abyss.
“Kraven,” she said as Taylor twirled around to face her.
“Ben,” Taylor said, recognizing the boy standing next to her best friend.
Kraven remained inside the elevator, unflinching and stone-faced.
“Miss me?” Taylor asked Benjamin, leaning back against his chest as she fidgeted with her crutches under her shoulders.
“You're in my way!” Alexandra shouted at Kraven.
“What are you wearing?” Taylor asked.
Benjamin tugged his palms around Alexandra's waist as she stumbled backward and bounced off his chest. “I'll take the stairs,” she decided, and he let her slip away from his grasp.
Diving into the stairwell shaft, Alexandra panted for breath. “Ten to go,” she told herself and skipped every other step as she bounded eagerly toward the rooftop.
“What's her problem?” Taylor snarled when Benjamin shoved her back into the elevator.
“Shut up for once,” Benjamin said, slamming his fist on the glowing yellow button for the twentieth floor. In the corner, Kraven fell silent, remembering how he had watched Iselin fall into the sea.
“FYI,” Taylor said, petulantly shoving a finger into the center of Benjamin's chest. “Alex can't swim. She hates the water.”
“Then we'd better hurry,” Benjamin answered, tapping his sneaker against the linoleum floor.
Kraven gripped a handrail mounted to the mirrored wall. He was feeling the weight of an eternity of regret.
Twenty stories above the city, the plastic poolside lounge chairs sat empty in the afternoon sun. A stiff breeze whipped Alexandra's auburn locks into her face and stung her moist eyes. In the pool, gentle waves rippled along the glassy surface. Staring down at her reflection, she dropped her towel from her chest and dipped a toe over the side of the pool to test her fear.
Perfect, like bath water
. Her legs launched from the cement. She rose from the pool deck, climbing higher toward the cloudless sky, eyes wide open. The wind licked her feet.
But she forgot to breathe. Instead, she exhaled. As she plunged downward, her legs smacked the water first. They curled up to her chest as she sank to the bottom. There, she flipped upside down, and her head pounded the cement bottom of the pool.
In her ears, she heard a wild monster. She had no thoughts. Instead, only instinct fed her dazed mind:
Black. Cold. Deep.
Even the fire eating her skin faded, retreating into the darkness consuming her body. The face of a raven-haired man with blue eyes swirled in the rippling water around her, his image wrapping itself around her dimming consciousness.
Her lungs begged for air. Instead, water slipped into her throat and gushed into her chest. But the seductive process of drowning was interrupted, pierced by shrill screeching, a painful sound that grew louder.
“Help her!” Taylor was crying repeatedly. When Kraven managed to pull Alexandra up to the deck, Taylor flung her crutches to the ground and pounded her clenched fists on Kraven's back.
Sprawled across the deck, Alexandra's blue face wobbled back and forth listlessly on top of her limp neck. Kraven cradled her head in his lap.
My fault
, he thought.
Again and again, forever and always, this is my fault.
Benjamin moved quickly toward her, shouting at Kraven and Taylor to get out of the way. Silently, Kraven obeyed and crawled away from her body. Benjamin's lifeguard training over the summer in San Diego paid off. He blew air and life into her. She gasped. Spitting water on Taylor's cast, Alexandra looked up at the terrified faces staring down at her.
Stooping over her best friend, Taylor wrapped the blue-striped bath towel around Alexandra's trembling shoulders.
“Do not scare me like that ever again,” she growled into Alexandra's ears.
“That goes double for me,” Benjamin said on his knees, his shaking hands resting on the top of his thighs.
Looming over them, a shadow shielded Alexandra from the harsh rays of the brutal afternoon sun. Wiping the pool water from her face, she blinked and strained to see his face through her blurry eyes. But no sooner had she sharpened her gaze than he vanished.
A cough convulsed her chest. She raised her upturned palms to her face. Not a speck of blood clung to her wrinkled fingertips, and she shivered.
“Gone,” Alexandra whispered and pointed to the roof ledge.
In an alley dumpster, twenty stories below the rooftop pool, Kraven shook free of several torn trash bags.
I need to work on my aim
, he thought. He did not dare glide in the daylight with his wings. The fall into the dumpster did not hurt him. Nothing could hurt him. “Only Alexandra can,” he said and slunk into the alley shadowsâwhere he had decided he belonged.
While Eminem was blasting through his earbuds, Ricky Wozinowski beat his thumbs like drumsticks on top of the pizza delivery box tucked securely against his belly. He could not hear the ding of the elevator when it arrived on the tenth floor of Park View Tower. Yet when the gleaming steel doors opened, he stepped as nonchalantly onto the plush indigo carpet as if he owned one of the suites.
Smacking his jaws around a canary-yellow wad of banana bubblegum, Ricky double-checked the address on his delivery receipt against the numbers of the doors. At the end of the corridor, the last door on the left opened slightly just as Ricky blew a yellow bubble from his wet lips. Rushing toward the smell of hot pepperoni, Jack escaped from his apartment and pounced on Ricky's shuffling feet. Popping the bubble with a snap of his tongue, Ricky dropped the pizza box upside down.