It was the stranger, the Incubus who wasn't an Incubus. The sunlight Incubus. I remembered the silver sparrow in Lena's hand when she was sleeping in my bed.
What was he doing here?
A black tattoo wound around his arm, sort of tribal-looking, like something I'd seen before. I felt a knife in my gut, and touched my scar. It was throbbing.
Savannah and Emily walked up to the counter, trying to act like they were going to order something, as if they touched anything here other than Diet Coke.
"Who is that?" Link wasn't one for competition, not that he was in the running these days.
"I don't know, but he showed up at Macon's funeral."
Link was staring at him. "Is he one of Lena's weird relatives?"
"I don't know what he is, but he isn't related to Lena." Then again, he did come to the funeral to pay his respects to Macon. Stil , there was something wrong about him. I'd sensed it since the first time I saw him.
I heard the bel chime again as the door closed.
"Hey, Angel Face, wait up."
I froze. I would have known that voice anywhere. Link was staring at the door, too. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, or worse....
Ridley.
Lena's Dark Caster of a cousin was as dangerous and hot and barely dressed as always, except now it was summer, so she had on even less than usual. She was wearing a skin-tight, lacy black tank and a black skirt so smal it was probably made for a ten-year-old. Ridley's legs looked longer than ever, balancing on some kind of high, spiky sandals that could stake a vampire. Now the girls weren't the only ones with their mouths hanging open. Most of the school had been at the winter formal, when Ridley brought down the house and stil managed to look hotter than any girl there except one.
Ridley leaned back and stretched her arms over her head, as if we'd woken her from a long nap. She laced her fingers together, stretching even higher, revealing even more skin and the black tattoo encircling her navel. Her tattoo looked a lot like the one on her friend's arm. Ridley whispered something in his ear.
"Holy crap, she's here." Link was slowly absorbing it. He hadn't seen Ridley since the night of Lena's birthday, when he had talked Ridley out of kil ing my dad. But he didn't need to see her to think about her. It was pretty clear he'd been thinking about her a lot, based on every song he'd written since she left. "She's with that guy? Do you think he's, you know, like her?" A Dark Caster. He couldn't say it.
"Doubt it. His eyes aren't yel ow." But he was something. I just didn't know what.
"They're comin' over here." Link looked down at his freeze, and Ridley was on us.
"Wel , if it isn't two of my favorite people. Fancy meeting you here. John and I were dying for a drink." Ridley tossed her blond and pink strands over her shoulder. She slid into the booth across from us and motioned for the guy to sit down.
He didn't.
"John Breed." He said it like it was one name, looking right at me. His eyes were as green as Lena's used to be. What would a Light Caster be doing with Ridley?
Ridley smiled at him. "This is Lena's, you know, the one I was tel ing you about." She dismissed me with a wave of her purple-polished fingers.
"I'm Lena's boyfriend, Ethan."
John looked confused, but only for a second. He was the kind of guy who looked relaxed, as if he knew everything would go his way eventual y. "Lena never told me she had a boyfriend."
Every muscle in my body tightened. He knew Lena, but I didn't know him. He had seen her since the funeral, at least talked to her. When had that happened, and why hadn't she told me?
"How exactly do you know my girlfriend?" My voice was too loud, and I could feel the eyes on us.
"Relax, Short Straw. We were in the neighborhood." Ridley looked across at Link. "How ya been, Hot Rod?"
Link cleared his throat awkwardly. "Good." His voice came out kind of squeaky. "I've been real good. Thought you left town." Ridley didn't answer.
I was stil looking at John, and he was staring right back, sizing me up. Probably figuring out a thousand ways to get rid of me. Because he was after something -- or someone -- and I was in his way. Ridley wouldn't just show up here with this guy now, not after four months.
I kept my eyes on him. "Ridley, you shouldn't be here."
"Don't get your panties in a twist, Boyfriend. We're just passin' through, on our way back from Ravenwood." She said it casual y, like it wasn't a big deal.
I laughed. "Ravenwood? They wouldn't let you in the door. Lena would burn the house down first." Ridley and Lena had grown up together, like sisters, until Ridley went Dark. Ridley had helped Sarafine find Lena on her birthday, which almost got us al , including my father, kil ed. There was no way Lena would hang out with her.
She smiled. "Times have changed, Short Straw. I'm not on the best terms with the rest of my family, but Lena and I have worked things out. Why don't you ask her?"
"You're lying."
Ridley unwrapped a cherry lol ipop, which looked innocent enough but was the ultimate weapon in her hands. "You clearly have trust issues. I'd love to help you with that, but we've gotta get going. Have to fil up John's bike before that hick gas station of yours runs out of gas." I was holding the side of the table, and my knuckles went white.
His bike.
It was sitting out front right now, and I bet it was a Harley. The same bike I had seen in the photograph on the wal of Lena's room. John Breed had picked up Lena from Lake Moultrie. And before he said another word, I knew John Breed wasn't about to disappear. He'd be waiting on the corner the next time Lena needed a ride.
I stood up. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but Link was. He slid out of the booth and shoved me toward the door. "Let's get outta here, man."
Ridley cal ed after us. "I real y did miss you, Shrinky Dink." She tried to make it sound sarcastic, like one of her jokes. But the sarcasm stuck in her throat, and it came out sounding more like the truth. I slammed my palm against the door, sending it flying open.
But before it swung shut, I heard John's voice. "Nice to meet you, Ethan. Say hi to Lena for me." My hands were shaking, and I heard Ridley laugh. She didn't have to lie to hurt me today. She had the truth.
We didn't talk on the way to Ravenwood. Neither one of us knew what to say. Girls can do that to you, especial y Caster girls. When we reached the top of the long drive leading to Ravenwood Manor, the gates were closed, something I'd never seen before. The ivy had grown over the twisting metal, as if it had always been there. I got out of the car and shook the gate to see if it would swing open, knowing it wouldn't. I looked up at the house behind it. The windows were dark, and the sky over the house looked even darker.
What had happened? I could've handled Lena's freak-out at the lake and feeling like she had to take off. But why him? Why the Caster boy with the Harley? How long had she been hanging out with him without tel ing me? And what did Ridley have to do with it?
I had never been this mad at her before. It was one thing to be attacked by someone you hated, but this was something else. This was the kind of hurt that could only be inflicted by someone you loved, who you thought loved you. It was sort of like being stabbed from the inside out.
"You okay, man?" Link slammed the driver's side door.
"No." I looked down the long driveway ahead of us.
"Me neither." Link tossed the key through the Fastback's open window, and we headed down the hil .
We hitched back to town, Link turning every few minutes to check the stretch of road behind us for a Harley. But I didn't think we'd see it. That particular Harley wouldn't be headed into town. For al I knew, it could be inside those gates already.
I didn't come down for dinner, which was my first mistake. My second was opening the black Converse shoe box. I shook it open, the contents spil ing across my bed. A note Lena had written me on the back of a wrinkled Snickers wrapper, a ticket stub from the movie we saw on our first date, a faded receipt from the Dar-ee Keen, and a highlighted page ripped out of a book that had reminded me of her. It was the box where I stashed al our memories -- my version of Lena's necklace. It didn't seem like the kind of thing a guy should do, so I didn't let on that I did it, not even to her.
I picked up the crumpled photo from the winter formal, taken the second before we were doused with liquid snow by my so-cal ed friends. The picture was blurry, but we were captured in a kiss, so happy it was hard to look at now.
Remembering that night, even though I knew the next moment was going to be awful, it felt like part of me was stil back there kissing her.
"Ethan Wate, is that you?"
I tried to shove everything back into the box when I heard my door opening, and the box fel , scattering everything onto the floor.
"You feelin' al right?" Amma came into my room and sat at the foot of my bed. She hadn't done that since I'd had stomach flu in sixth grade. Not that she didn't love me. We just had things worked out in a way that didn't include sitting on beds.
"I'm tired, that's al ."
She looked at the mess on the floor. "You look lower than a catfish at the bottom a the river. And a perfectly good pork chop's lookin' as sorry as you are, down in my kitchen. That's two kinds a sorry." She leaned forward and brushed my brown hair out of my eyes. She was always after me to cut my hair.
"I know, I know. The eyes are the window to the soul, and I need a haircut."
"You need a good sight more than a haircut." She looked sad and grabbed my chin as if she could lift me up by it. Given the right circumstances, I bet she could. "You're not right."
"I'm not?"
"You're not, and you're my boy, and it's my fault."
"What do you mean?" I didn't understand and she didn't elaborate, which was general y how our conversations went.
"She's not right either, you know." Amma spoke softly, looking out my window. "Not bein' right isn't always somebody's fault. Sometimes it's just a fact, like the cards you pul ." With Amma, everything came down to fate, the cards in her tarot deck, the bones in the graveyard, the universe she could read.
"Yes, ma'am."
She looked into my eyes, and I could see hers shining. "Sometimes things aren't what they seem, and even a Seer can't tel what's comin'." She took my hand and dropped something into it. A red string with tiny beads knotted into it, one of her charms. "Tie it 'round your wrist."
"Amma, guys don't wear bracelets."
"Since when do I make jewelry? That's for women with too much time and not enough sense." She yanked on her apron, straightening it. "A red string's a tie to the Otherworld, offers the kinda protection I can't. Go on, put it on."
I knew better than to argue when Amma had that look on her face. It was a mixture of fear and sadness, and she wore it like a burden too heavy for her to carry. I held out my arm and let her tie the string around my wrist. Before I could say anything else, she was at my window, pouring a handful of salt from her apron pocket al along the sil .
"Everything's gonna be okay, Amma. Don't worry."
Amma stopped in the doorway and looked back at me, rubbing the shine out of her eyes. "Been choppin' onions al afternoon."