Vengeance Bound (18 page)

She gives me a nervous smile. “Thanks for the ride. Sorry today wasn’t your thing.”

I shrug and force a smile. I’m not quite sure what to say. Rolling around in the snow and watching someone throw up aren’t exactly my idea of fun. Unless, of course, justice is being handed down. “It was fun hanging out, anyway,” I say, hoping it will erase the uneasy expression on her face.

“Yeah.” Jocelyn hesitates and then leans over so that she’s in my personal space. She grabs my arm. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Uh, okay.” I really want her to let go of me.

“Don’t tell anyone what I told you about Mindi, okay? We’ve been friends for, like, forever, and she really is kind of delicate. And she likes you a lot. She used to talk about killing herself all the time, but since you got here, all she talks about is you.” There’s some bitterness in her voice, but she flashes me a smile. “I don’t want her to think . . . you know.”

I just nod and smile, and Jocelyn’s face sags in relief.

“You’re pretty cool, Dixie. Thanks for the ride.” She releases my arm, and I pull it back with relief. There is an indentation in my coat from her palm, and I shake my arm, as though I can chase away the personal contact.

After Jocelyn gets out, I turn the car around and head toward my apartment. Throughout the entire drive the only thing I can think about is Niko. It makes my heart trip along happily, and I sing along to the radio the rest of the way home.

It’s only after I get home that I realize They’ve been a little too quiet.

CONFLICTED AND CONFUSED

It’s after one in the morning when my phone rings. I’ve been asleep less than two hours, and I can’t imagine who could be calling me, let alone at this time. I fumble in the dark for my phone and hit the ignore button, mercifully silencing the annoying pop song that is my ringtone.

A few seconds later it rings again. I swear into the dark and grab my phone, opening it with my eyes closed. “You have the wrong number.”

“Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure I was told there’s a badass Southern belle at this number.”

I sit up, suddenly awake. “Who is this?” The voice on the other end chuckles, and chills run across my skin. “Niko.” I breathe in relief.

“You’re avoiding me.”

I think of our last time alone together, and our kiss. I’m suddenly too warm, and I kick off the blankets. “No, I’m not.”

“Prove it. Come meet me. I’m a few miles from your place.”

“How do you know where I live?”

He gives a low laugh. My heart pounds, and it’s not from being awoken in the middle of the night.

“It’s a small town. Everyone knows where everyone else lives, princess. Now, are you going to climb down from your castle and rescue me, or are you going to leave me to the dragon?”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to think up an excuse why I can’t meet him. And wondering why I desperately want to.

“I can’t. My mom will kill me if I go out at this time of night.” The lie sits woodenly in my mouth, and part of me hopes he’ll buy the lame excuse. I keep forgetting that parents are the biggest obstacle for most other people my age.

Niko sighs. “You know I don’t believe you, right? Do you really think I’d believe that you’ve never snuck out? Especially since I just saw you last night. What was the story? Cough medicine, right?” There’s a playful tone in his voice that makes me forget what a very bad idea it would be to meet Niko in the middle of the night.

I immediately silence the thought. Despite what Jocelyn said, I think he and Mindi do have some connection. Dysfunctional, maybe, but I can’t buy that a guy would be sensitive enough to go on coddling an unstable girl just to keep her steady. I’ve met a lot of guys. None of them were ever that nice.

Maybe Jocelyn just had everything wrong. Maybe Niko really does care about Mindi, as more than friends.

So why isn’t he calling her?

“Hello, are you still there? Cory?” Niko’s voice has an odd edge to it, and I gnaw on my lower lip. I want to know what’s behind the emotion in his words. Is it really possible he feels the same compulsion that I do?

“I’m still here. Look, Niko—”

“Ten minutes. That’s all I ask. Come and talk to me for ten minutes.”

“Why?”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Niko clears his throat loudly. “I need to see you,” he confesses. His voice is raw with emotion, and the sound does something to me. It wrecks whatever resolve I had to stay away from him, to just let this thing between us die a slow death.

Because the truth is, I feel exactly the same way.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Niko whoops in triumph on the other end of the line. He gives me directions to where he is, a few streets over. “Hurry. I’m freezing my ass off,” he says, and then hangs up.

I get out of bed and slip into a pair of jeans and a sweater. I debate putting on makeup before I go out, but I don’t want to spend the time. I’ll have to count on the darkness to hide the fact that I don’t have flawless skin.

Niko’s directions are pretty straightforward, and I find him easily. His Jeep is parked in a vacant lot at the edge of town. Dead weeds reach through the snow with sharp branches. Broken beer bottles litter the frozen ground. I get out of my car and grimace, wondering how many bottles are from Niko. He leans against the door of his Jeep, feet crossed at the ankles, a bottle in his hand. Realizing he might be drunk makes me feel silly for being so excited to see him. It’s easy to be in love when your judgment is clouded.

“So, you made it. Welcome to my pity party.” Niko tosses back the remainder of a beer and hurls the brown bottle into the darkness. It shatters with a musical tinkle.

“Yeah, well, this is pretty lame. You should’ve at least sprung for a DJ.” I notice for the first time that his headlights reflect off a sign advertising luxury town houses, coming soon. Not likely.

Niko laughs. “You know what’s funny about you?” Niko twists off the cap on a fresh beer and takes a long drink. “Sometimes I actually think you’re exactly who you pretend you are. But other times I think it’s all an act. Like, maybe you’re a cop pretending to be a high school student or something, you know?” He moves toward me, and he is surprisingly sure-footed, considering how drunk he sounds.

“You watch too much TV. And I’m going home.” All of my earlier feelings—the excitement to see him, the way the sound of his voice made my heart race—have disappeared. Niko is exactly like every other boy I’ve ever met. I was stupid to think he was any different.

I turn around to leave, and Niko blocks my path. He’s incredibly quick, and I freeze as he leans in.

“Like right now. And when you first answered your phone.”

I sigh and wrap my arms around myself to keep warm. I forgot my jacket in my hurry, and the night air is freezing. “What about it?”

“Your accent. It just disappeared. Poof. Like it’s just a prop.” Niko takes a deep drink of his beer and moves around me toward his Jeep. He pulls out a notebook and waves it at me. “Like this. Every day I take this to school. I sit through boring lectures given by teachers who barely made it through college, teachers who don’t understand what it is they’re trying to teach any more than we do. And I write. They think I’m taking notes, but I’m not. It’s just a prop so they’ll leave me alone.”

I watch Niko, unmoving. My curiosity is piqued. “What do you write in there?”

Niko freezes, like it’s not the question he expected. “Stock purchase plans.”

I blink. I expected him to say “song lyrics” or “poetry” or to show me a set of sketches, preferably of me. After all, isn’t that how it goes in the movies? Niko hands me the notebook, and I open it up. In the light from his headlights I can see dates and stock quotes, and at the end of the week a graph charting their progress. I track the lines that move up and down across the page. Underneath, Niko has written his own notes like “should spike after third quarter sales” or “overvalued, wait until after June to purchase.”

“Not the kind of thing you’d expect to find in the notebook of the guy who gets a D in math, huh?”

I have no idea what kind of grades Niko gets in math, but the notebook is a surprise. It makes me like him a little more. “How’d you learn all of this?”

“My father was a stockbroker, and when I was younger, he used to talk about that stuff with me. It kind of stuck.” The pain on his face is so raw, I can’t help myself.

“What happened to him?”

Niko leans heavily against the Jeep. “He was killed by an investor who lost a lot of money when the economy went down the tubes. Guy came into the office and just started shooting people. He wasn’t even one of my dad’s clients. Afterward my mom married some mechanic she knew from high school.”

I don’t say anything. I’m not good at consoling people, even though I understand his raw grief. I feel like I should say something, but anything I say will just sound hollow. So I let the silence stretch out for what seems like an eternity.

Niko eyes me, and finishes his beer. “So, enough about my shitty life. What about you?”

“What do you mean? What about me?”

Niko tosses the beer bottle off into the darkness and stalks toward me. “What are your props, Miss Dixie? Hmmm? Lip gloss and designer jeans are a couple. What else?”

I shrug. “I don’t have any props. What you see is what you get.” His gaze makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t feel threatened. I’m excited by the possibility that he’s seen through my act. The range of emotions when I’m with him is staggering. It’s the first definite crack in the wall I’ve built. I can’t predict what Niko will do next, and I like that. He is the first person in a long time who has surprised me. At least, in a good way.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that.” Niko moves closer. He’s now close enough for me to see the irises of his eyes. The low light makes them shine, the blue the same pale shade as the sky right before dawn. I stand still as his eyes search my face. “You have freckles. And you look a lot different without makeup.”

His comment alarms me, and I move to take a step back. His hands snake around my waist, and before I can respond, he lowers his mouth to mine.

The shock of the kiss reverberates throughout my entire body. Niko’s lips are as warm and soft as I remember, and the pressure of the contact heats me from the inside. Kissing him is like diving headfirst into a wave, shocking and exhilarating. There’s none of the anxiety I usually feel when people touch me. Instead I’m relaxed and fluid, like I’m made of molten metal. For a split second I think of Kevin Eames, but Niko nibbles at my bottom lip, and thoughts of the only other boy I’ve ever kissed melt away. Just like in the drugstore, my mind is silent. The Furies aren’t here to ruin this moment, and that makes the kiss all that much better. I sigh in delight.

Right now I want Niko more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.

I break off the kiss and notice with some surprise that Niko’s arms are pulling me even closer. Our bodies are pressed together, and I’m no longer cold. He nuzzles my neck, trailing little kisses down to the space where it meets my shoulder. I lean into his touch, wrapping my arms around him to steady myself, since my legs have gone weak. He kisses the hollow near my ear. “What’s your secret?” he whispers, before nibbling my earlobe. I sigh, since I’ve lost the ability to speak coherently, and he laughs before kissing me again. “How does a girl as gorgeous as you learn to beat down a guy twice her size?”

His words send a chill of warning down my spine. I start to pull away, but heated, insistent kisses at the base of my throat quickly douse my alarm. I slip my hands under his shirt, and the play of muscles under his skin makes my head feel like it will float away.

Niko kisses a path back up to my ear and laughs softly. “There’s something about you that makes me think crazy thoughts. It makes me wonder if the universe sent you just for me.”

I know how he feels. He’s the most perfect guy I’ve ever met and a guy They’ve never found fault with. Maybe They secretly approve of him? Is that why They’re so quiet when he’s around? Or is it just a coincidence?

I really want it to be some sort of sign that it’s safe to feel this way about him.

I don’t resist as his hands reach up under my sweater. His fingers are surprisingly warm splayed against the small of my back. He kisses me again, mouth slightly open, and his tongue darts out to meet mine. I tilt my head to the side, slanting my mouth across his so I can taste him. The flavor of root beer in his mouth mingles with the toothpaste lingering in mine.

Wait, root beer?

I break off the kiss and lean back, sniffing his breath. There’s no hint of any alcohol. Instead he smells like soda.

“Are you drunk?” I demand, and Niko laughs. He rubs his cheek against mine, and the stubble on his jaw scratches my skin. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does. I almost forget my alarm as I breathe in the fresh scent of rain and ocean.

“No. What would make you think that?”

I’m afraid again, and I push him away, backpedaling until there are a few feet separating us. An icy breeze cuts through my thin sweater, stealing away Niko’s warmth. I’m freezing now, and I wrap my arms around my middle to try to keep some of the remaining heat. I don’t like being manipulated. “They way you were talking, the things you were saying . . . You called me in the middle of the night. I thought you were drunk.”

“I thought we already covered this. I called because I wanted to see you. And just now? I was being honest. You’re the one who wanted to know how I felt about you last night. I was trying to tell you.”

I watch Niko, looking for some insight into how his mind works. There’s none. I just can’t figure him out. But I think I like that about him.

I take a deep breath. This is my opportunity to figure out the situation between him and Mindi. “Since we’re being honest, I have a question for you.”

He grins, his good mood back. “Ask away.”

“Earlier today Jocelyn told me that you and Mindi are just friends. Is that true?”

Niko blinks at the sudden change in subject. “Yeah.” His voice is flat. “What does Mindi have to do with this?”