Infatuate Read online

  “I’m fiiiine, I think. I dunno,” he said woozily. “Just need to sleep.”

  “Maybe you need some water or something? You look like you’re gonna be sick.” I stood over him, a pile of bones crumpled on the floor in the dark.

  “No, just sleep, just need sleep,” he said, not moving, eyes closed, moonlight bouncing off his glasses. I crouched down. He lay on his back, which seemed like a bad idea if he was going to get sick, so I rolled him over onto his side. Then I noticed it: his right bicep was slashed, right through his shirt and down to the flesh. A dark claret ribbon of hardened blood had dried there.

  “What happened to you?” I said loudly, waking him.

  “Huh?” he mumbled, going back to sleep.

  I bolted to the closet, rummaging through my first-aid kit to find a bandage and some ointment. I yanked up his sleeve. It was certainly ugly: ragged and raw. As I smoothed the bandage over the top of the wound, the antiseptic bubbled, a popping sensation, beneath it. If the room hadn’t been so silent I wouldn’t have heard or believed it, but a hiss rose, sizzling like an egg on a hot frying pan. Still asleep, Lance shook his arm as though trying to flick a bug away. I grabbed his hand to settle him and eventually he stopped. I dragged the trash can over beside him and trekked out to the kitchen to get him a bottle of water.

  Before heading back up to my own bed, I leaned into his chest listening to his breathing. It sounded okay, maybe a little jagged, but he was very much alive. It all worried me, though, in a way it wouldn’t have concerned me to see pretty much anyone else in this house stumble back in this state. Lance just didn’t do stuff like this. He liked to be in control; he prided himself on it. He made fun of the kids at school who got wasted on the weekends. I climbed back up to my bed and glanced at my clock. It would be time to get up soon.

  I didn’t hear Sabine come in, but when I woke in the morning, she was tucked neatly into her bed and Lance had left. I checked and found him in his room getting ready for work, seemingly back to normal. I didn’t have time to ask him what had happened last night before we all had to rush out to our jobs. On the walk to our work sites, Sabine regaled Dante and me with tales of her date.

  “And then after dinner, and the music and everything, he said he wanted to walk for a little while, so it could be just us. Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Yeah, amazing,” I said sarcastically. “Sabine, what aren’t you understanding?” Dante sighed, an angry sigh.

  “We went to Jackson Square. It’s so beautiful at night, and we just found a little secluded bench and . . .” She gave us both a mischievous look. I shook my head. “I don’t know why I have to believe your photography project,” she spat at me. She was getting frustrated with us now. “Anyone with Photoshop can do that. I can do that with Photoshop. Dante, back me up.” I whipped my head toward him.

  “Sorry, Sabine. I’m Team Haven on this one—”

  Thank you, I mouthed to him.

  “Even if I told you Max was just talking to me about you?” Sabine said, in her most persuasive tone.

  Dante lit up. “Oh? And what did he say?” He did his best to play it cool, but I could tell he was jumping up and down on the inside.

  “Just that you guys grabbed dinner since you were both working late,” she said, very nonchalant. Dante hung on her words as though secretly dissecting them for subtext.

  “True,” he said, sounding a little disappointed.

  “And . . .” She drew it out, as if about to bestow a great gift. “He didn’t say this, but I totally know he’s into you. Just in case you were curious.”

  “I suppose I might be,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  I tuned them out, my mind wandering. I couldn’t stop thinking about looking for whatever Lucian might have left. But something in the distance intruded on my thoughts. At the end of the block, police tape boxed off the tattoo parlor. A few gawkers stood by, watching, as two cops, lights flashing on their parked police car, called for backup.

  “Hey,” I interrupted Sabine and Dante, who had been too locked in conversation to notice. “What’s going on there?” I pointed, slowing my pace. Sabine crinkled her eyebrows and walked ahead of us to where Kip stood, his back to us. She tapped his shoulder and he put his hand on her back protectively, saying something. Standing on her tiptoes, she looked past the few people in front of her and then snapped her head away, covering her eyes.

  As soon as we got closer, we understood why: a man lay on his back soaked in a pool of blood. He looked like he’d been torn open. I grabbed Dante’s hand, on reflex, squeezing hard. Sirens shattered the still morning air and an emergency vehicle pulled up. Two uniformed men dashed out, throwing a sheet over the body. But I had already seen enough: it was the guy I’d spied in the cemetery last night with Clio.

  “I’ve seen that guy—” I started to say to Dante, but Sabine was on her way back over to us, the shock clear on her face.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Kip said he just found him there when he got in.” She shook her head. “No one knows who he is,” she said to the ground, arms folded. “I’m gonna hang out here for a while and then go home. I can’t handle work today.” Her face had gone ashen, her spirit paralyzed, not unlike the day in the swamp.

  “You sure?” I asked. She just nodded, turning to go back to Kip, but she quickly spun around again.

  “What was he like? That guy? You know, in Chicago?” she asked me in a heavy tone.

  I took a deep breath. “Perfect, in every way. And in an unreal way,” I said finally. “And also completely, dangerously wrong. All at the same time.” In my head I added: And now he has resurfaced, in that way that boys seem to when you have moved on.

  I waited until Dante and I were alone and then it flew out of me. “I saw that guy at the cemetery last night,” I blurted out. “He was with that Clio person. It’s them; it’s definitely them. Her group. The Krewe. I know it.”

  “Are you serious? What were they doing? Did she kill him?” he whispered.

  I didn’t know. I didn’t even want to think about it. But I feared that I could guess the answer.

  17. Meet Me at Midnight

  Dante and I spent the first part of our workday in the kitchen at the food bank, me as his sous-chef, chopping vegetables, heating meals and packaging them for the drivers to take later that day. River had beat us there, missing the crime scene, and demanded to hear all the gory details. When she was outside loading up the van, Dante and I resumed the debate we’d begun on the walk over: deciding whether to go to the police about Clio. Since I didn’t really want to have to tell them that Lance and I had been trespassing in the cemetery, we thought it might be best for me to call in an anonymous tip, even though I had so little information: I had a first name and I could tell them where she liked to drink her hurricanes, and that was all I could really provide them on the mysterious Clio. The cop, who called me “sweetie,” took down those few details and promised to look into it.

  Since Dante wanted to update Mariette, I went ahead to catch the streetcar to the library by myself, but first I had a bit of business to tend to. The afternoon sun did its best to clear my darkened mind, but certain sights I would never quite shake. I wound my way back home, standing before the house next door long enough that passersby probably wondered about me.

  Unable to wait any longer, I let myself in. The buzz of saws and whir of machines performing their various tasks, lifting and slicing and hammering, greeted me. The Habitat for Humanity home construction now complete, the guys had returned to their work here today, so I braced myself, hoping I could find whatever it was I was in search of before any of them—Lance especially—made an appearance.

  Even in daylight, the foyer was dim, full of shadows, making my job more difficult. Last night the object had looked like a bottle from my vantage point: dark, with a long neck that he had grasped in those slim fingers. I looked all around the window where the candle had been. I sorted through piles of discarded, c
hopped wooden beams. I even pawed around a heap of full black garbage bags, and there I found it. I didn’t recognize the label, but something caught my eye on the back: in the block of text listing the ingredients, five letters had been circled in the first line: H, A, V, E, and N. And in the second line, eight more letters, this time spelling: PLEASE READ.

  No one was around, so I decided I would just go for it. I intended to pop the top with the bottle opener of my Swiss Army knife, but then I realized there wasn’t a top. This bottle had been sealed shut as though someone had melted the nearly opaque glass to close it off. I shook it, trying to see what lay inside, and thought I could make out something attached to the bottom: a folded slip of paper. I had to get it. With the construction equipment roaring, I wound up my arm and thrust the bottle to the floor, shattering it. My scars tingled, perhaps at being so close to this vessel that had been brought from the underworld. I crouched to the ground, carefully picking through the shards to find that scrap of paper.

  Then a voice calling out made me jump back to my feet. “Eve- rythin’ all right out here?” It was the supervisor, John. I heard footsteps coming out to greet me. I froze.

  “Hi!” I waved, overly friendly. “Sorry, I’m clumsy. Just knocked something over. I’ll clean it up, promise.” With my shoes, I tried to direct some of the jagged pieces into a pile, to convince him it was under control and there was no need to come any closer.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get it later. Don’t want ya hurtin’ yourself there.”

  “Thanks.” I simply smiled, hoping he would go away. But he went on.

  “You here for Lance, too?”

  “Um, yeah, thanks, if he has a minute.”

  “Sure is popular,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What do you mean?” I couldn’t help calling after him.

  He turned around. “That other one.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Dark hair, sweet, but real upset about that scene over on Toulouse.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but my thoughts were too unformed. Finally, when he was almost out of earshot, I managed: “Can I see him for a minute?”

  “He’s not here. He left with the other girl.” He turned around to face me. “Don’t shoot the messenger.” He put his hands up, returning to the construction zone in back.

  So Sabine had come by? I struggled to push that to the back of my mind. I knelt down, sifting carefully through the pile, but I was so distracted, I nicked my index finger on a piece of glass. Blood trickled down, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. I gingerly sorted until I found that folded piece of paper: thick, cotton soft, familiar. I opened it up fast, leaving the slightest streak of crimson on it. It read:

  H—

  You’re right about Clio. Sabine will be next. Meet me at midnight. Please.

  L

  I read it again, letting it all sink in. Sabine will be next. It haunted me, that line. I felt the blood drain from my face, as though it was all pouring out of that small, stinging slice in my finger. My hands burned like they were being brushed with hot coals. Without warning, my fingers tossed the note. The second it hit the floor, the paper burst into flames.

  A crackling ball of fire the size of a grapefruit began to grow, dancing over the shards of glass and shooting out rays of light. I watched in sheer disbelief for a moment, then my foot, acting on its own, stomped on the flame. Three hearty stomps and it was out. Nothing left at all, not even charred bits of the paper. I took a deep breath, prepared to gather the broken glass and be done with this. But it was gone. All that remained of the dark glass shards were quarter-size puddles scattered at my feet. I studied them and they seemed to be evaporating. They shrank until there wasn’t even the slightest trace of them. No sign that a bottle had shattered, or ever even existed.

  On automatic pilot, the flash of that flame still burning in my eyes, I went next door in search of Lance. I knocked on his door, but no response. I let myself into my room, but found it empty as well. Where were they? Since I was home anyway, I decided to take another look at those pictures. I’d made it only a few steps up the ladder to my loft when a crash jangled my thoughts. My heart lurched. It had come from somewhere outside. I went to the window to peek out, but I got stopped in my tracks.

  Something—no, someone—came flying through the glass. But he didn’t even fall to the floor; he kept running, right into me, knocking me over. I felt myself scream but I couldn’t hear myself. I just kept hearing the sound of that shattering glass over and over on a loop in my ears. The guy was too fast and furious for me to even get a good look at him. He was a long, lean flash of blond and tan.

  He jumped off me literally, his sneaker pushing off my stomach, and launched himself at Sabine’s bed. With one hand he lifted it and flipped it over, then ran up the wall and propelled himself to the other side, landing on our desk and breaking it in half, a pair of its legs snapping off in the process. He looked at me then, and his whole form compressed a few inches. The angles in his face changed, his hair went dark, even his clothing morphed—his T-shirt from black to white, his pants into jeans—but his mad rage remained: now it was Jimmy. But not the Jimmy I’d previously encountered. This Jimmy had wild, angry eyes, like a jungle cat midattack. His hair was mussed as though it hadn’t been washed in days. His clothes were dirty, bloody, ripped. A gash on his upper arm had dried into a fat tar-colored wound, but there was no mistaking its shape: it was a scabbed-up, flaming fleur-de-lis.

  He threw the desk chair at me and I retaliated with the alarm clock from Sabine’s bedside table. It soared through the air and he punched it as it came his way, shattering it. I needed to get past him up to the loft so I could destroy the photos of him. I grabbed the floor lamp and swung it at his shins, managing to knock him off his feet. I took a few long strides to the ladder. He yanked my foot as I scurried up, and I tried to shake him off but he just gripped tighter. I pulled myself up one rung and then clocked him in the head with my other foot.

  For another hiccup of a second he flickered back to being that blond man, and then back to Jimmy. My eyes couldn’t make sense of it. I ripped open my night table drawer, the entire thing coming off its track in my hands. I grabbed the knife and stack of pictures as the rest of the drawer fell, everything spilling out. Jimmy’s photo was still at the top. He seized both my legs, tugging them out from under me. I landed on my chin. He tried to pull me back down the ladder. I sprang open the blade, held his picture against the loft floor, and sliced. Slice, slice, stab.

  But his grip didn’t loosen at all. I looked at the picture again. It was grotesque and disfigured, evidence of his corrupted soul, but my violence against it wasn’t having any effect. This had never happened before. He was laughing now as he pulled me down the ladder. I gripped the top rung with one arm and swung the knife at him with the other. I sliced him once but he didn’t flinch, didn’t even seem to feel it. Instead, he let out a howling, wild roar, mocking me. My legs scissored trying to buck him away. I scanned the room for anything that could help me. If he managed to get me down the ladder, then I could go for one of the desk legs that had been stripped off and try to fight him with that. I continued swinging and kicking and I kept that sharp, strong metal leg in my sights. The more I stared at it, the more attainable it seemed. And then, in a flash, it flew up at me. I whipped the knife away and caught the leg in my one free hand.

  I beat Jimmy back, swinging the leg at him, striking him as many times as I could, trying to tire him, though it seemed impossible. He landed on the floor but popped right back up. I hopped to the ground, wound up, and shot the leg at him like a spear. It landed in his chest and hurled him against the back wall with enough force to elicit a grunt. He slumped to the floor.

  The door to my room burst open. Connor and Brody stormed in. Brody charged at Jimmy as Connor ran to my side. But Jimmy sprang to his feet again and took off, zipping past Brody, back through the window he had destroyed and out onto the balcony. We ran to look out a
nd made it in time to see him leap straight down from the railing to the courtyard below, startling Emma, who had just walked in the front gate. By the time she saw who it was, he had grabbed her and then flung her away, so hard she landed on the ground by the fountain. Brody and Connor jumped over the railing to chase him. I followed a few steps and then felt the trauma of the past few long minutes catch up with me and my legs buckled. Jimmy tore off through the gate and out into the darkening evening streets. A little while later, Brody and Connor came back through the gate, panting and hanging their heads low at having lost him. He was gone.

  18. I Should Have Been There

  All of us assembled in the common room, in nearly the same places we had our first morning here. Except there was no Jimmy. And Sabine sat beside Lance. I hadn’t gotten to talk to him yet. Connor had called over to the library to order everyone home immediately after the tutoring session. Lance, as it turned out, had texted me that he and Sabine were meeting me at the library after work, that she had been upset so he was keeping her company. But I didn’t get that text, of course. I had been too busy sparring with Jimmy, or whoever this version of Jimmy had been who had crashed into my room and tried to kill me. Every muscle ached and every nerve throbbed now.

  Brody and Emma, who were supposed to be on night watch tonight, had had the afternoon off and had witnessed bits of Jimmy’s rampage. “I was watchin’ SportsCenter and heard the crash,” Brody explained to the group. “Jimmy was crazy, never seen anything like that. Out of his mind.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through that blue streak in his hair, tense. Across the room, Emma sat on the sofa beside River, who had her arm around her protectively. Emma clutched a balled-up tissue in her hand; her freckled face had gone red and puffy from so many tears shed. Even now, her glassy eyes looked like they just might spill over again.