Blood Kiss

Then again, she didn’t seem like the only one who was intimidated. The entire class had stopped milling about and was staring at him, transfixed by the sheer excellence of the performance in the otherwise empty expanse of the gym.

Clank.

The sound of a door closing made her glance over her shoulder—and she gasped before she could help herself.

There he was, the one she had waited for, the one she had hoped to see again.

Paradise patted at her ponytail, some estrogen-linked receptor going bat-shit, sixteen-year-old as the male walked over to the sign-in station.

Taller. He was so much taller than she remembered. Broader, too—his shoulders stretching a huge Syracuse sweatshirt to its seams. He was in blue jeans again, different ones that nonetheless had the same kinds of rips and tears the other pair he’d worn had. His shoes were scuffed and dirtied Nikes. No baseball cap this time.

Really nice dark hair.

He’d recently gotten the stuff cut, the sides so tight she could see his scalp underneath the fine dark shading around his ears and at his nape, the top short enough so that it stood up on its own. His face was … well, it probably wasn’t a showstopper for anyone else, his nose a little too big, his jaw a little too sharp, his eyes too deeply set to be even remotely welcoming. But to her he was Clark Gable; he was Marlon Brando; he was the Rock; he was Channing Tatum.

It was like having beer goggles without the beer, she supposed, some chemistry in her transforming him into so much more than he appeared.

Breathing in deep, she tried to catch his scent—and then felt like a stalker.

Well, because she was a stalker.

After his picture was taken, he turned to the crowd, his eyes sweeping over the assembled, no reaction showing on his face. Dimly, she was aware of the doggen who’d checked them all in packing up her things and departing—along with the tray-wielding servers who were probably going back for reloads.

But like she cared about any of that?

Look at me, she thought toward the male. Look at me …

And then he did.

His eyes moved past her—but then doubled back, locking on. As a blast of electricity went through Paradise’s whole body, she—

All at once, the gymnasium went pitch-black.

Pitch.

Frickin’.

Black.

Back at the Havers’s underground clinic, if it hadn’t been for the glass wall Marissa was leaning against, she would have fallen down.

Especially as she watched her brother pull the white sheet up and over the frozen features of the female.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she had been unprepared for the silence of death … how, when Havers had called time, everyone and everything just stopped, the alarms silenced, the effort extinguished, the life over. She had also been unready for the withdrawing of the equipment that had tried to keep the female with them all: One by one, the tubes in her chest, her arms, and her stomach had been pulled free, and then the cardiac monitoring hookups and pads had been removed. The last thing stripped down had been the compression sleeves on her thin calves.

Marissa had had to blink fast at the gentle hands of the nurses. They were as careful with her in death as they had been in life.

As the staff filed out, she wanted to thank the females in their white dresses and discreetly squeaky shoes. Clasp their hands. Hug them.

Instead, she stayed where she was, paralyzed by a sense that the death that had occurred was not hers to witness. Family should be here, she thought with dread. God, where was she going to find the family?

“I’m so sorry,” Havers said.

Marissa was about to ask him why he was apologizing to her—when she realized he was addressing his patient: her brother was bent over the bed, one of his hands resting on the motionless shoulder beneath the sheet, his brows drawn tightly beneath his tortoiseshell glasses.

When he straightened and stepped back, he popped up those glasses and seemed to wipe his eyes—although when he finally turned to her, he was fully composed.

“I shall ensure that her remains are attended to appropriately.”

“Which means what.”

“She will be cremated with a proper ritual.”

Marissa nodded once. “I want her ashes.”

As Havers nodded in turn, and arrangements were made for pickup the following evening, Marissa was very aware that she was running out of time. If she didn’t get away from her brother, this room, that body, the clinic … she was going to break down in front of him.

And that was simply not an option.

“If you will excuse me,” she cut in. “I have some business to take care of back at Safe Place.”

“But of course.”

Marissa glanced at the female, noting absently that the sheet was staining red in a couple of places, no doubt from the removal of the tubes.

“Marissa, I…”

“What?” she said in a tired voice.

In the tense quiet that followed, she thought about all the time she’d spent being mad at him, hating him—but at the moment, she couldn’t muster up any of those emotions. She just stood in front of her kin, waiting in a position of neither strength nor weakness.

The door opened and the curtain was pulled back. A nurse, one who had not been involved in the death, put her head in. “Doctor, we are prepped in four.”

Havers nodded. “Thank you.” When the nurse ducked back out, he said, “Will you excuse me? I have to—”

“Take care of your patients. By all means. It’s what you do best, and you are very good at it.”