A Beautiful Dark (19 page)

“So you need this,” he said. “For tonight—let’s just pretend that neither of us has any powers and no one is watching to see what we do. We won’t even talk about the Order or the Rebellion. Let’s just have fun.”

It was probably a very bad idea. Still, I threw my leg over the back of the vehicle, settled onto the seat, and wound my arms around his waist. “I’m ready.”

He revved the engine, and we were soon flying over the snow, zigzagging around trees, racing down slopes, speeding toward peaks of snow. The moonlight illuminated everything in a whitish-blue glow. I inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of the woods and earth and Asher—so warm and solid in front of me. I tightened my arms around his waist.

And I knew that he was generating heat to keep me from freezing as the wind whipped around us. I was content for the first time in days. The worry that I would create some catastrophe vanished.

Asher brought the snowmobile to a halt at the top of a rise and we both got off. He unfolded a thermal blanket and I sat, wrapping my arms around my legs. Then he created tiny balls of fire that floated around us, creating a cocoon of warmth.

“How do you keep those going without touching them?” I asked.

“Practice.”

“Did you do that in the snow cave? After I fell asleep?”

“I did what I had to do to keep you alive.”

“Because the Rebellion wants me alive?”

“Because I do.” He dropped down beside me. “And we agreed not to talk about any of this.”

“What will we talk about, then?”

“Why do we have to talk at all?”

Good question. I rested my chin on my knees and studied the vast expanse of stars, noticing as one streaked across the sky.

“What did you wish for?” Asher asked.

“I forgot to make one again,” I said. I turned to look at him. “What did you wish for?”

“That you would be happy.” He dusted off some snow from his jeans as though it was suddenly important that it not be there.

“Are you happy?” I asked.

“Pretty much. I’m alone with a pretty girl on a mountain at night.” His grin flashed in the moonlight. “What’s not to be happy about?”

“Are you ever serious?”

His grin disappeared. “More than you know.”

“Shouldn’t it be Ellie who’s here with you now?”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Ellie. Nothing real, anyway. She’s just a girl who’s there. Not someone you have to work for.” He met my gaze.

“You give the impression that you like her,” I said.

“I give the impression that I like Ms. Manning. It doesn’t mean I do. And I guess, if I’m honest, I sorta like that she makes you jealous.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“Really?” he needled. “Not even a little bit? That’s not what you implied last night.”

I opened my mouth to argue but had nothing to say. He was right.

“So there’s nothing going on between you and Ellie?”

“Nothing like this.” He glanced at me, but I looked away. I knew my eyes would reveal too much.

“You were right,” I said after several minutes of the silence easing between us. “I needed this.”

As the fireballs faded away, I was afraid that maybe I needed him, too.

Chapter 23

A
cold rain fell Monday, smattering against the windows and creating icy puddles of slush in the parking lot at school. After Asher had dropped me off at dawn on Saturday, I’d been left alone—and hated to admit that I’d missed the angels. But when I got in the car this morning, I’d found a note sitting on the steering wheel.

Vacation is over.

Today, 3:15.

No excuses.

—D

I’d almost torn it up, but Devin was right. I needed to stop avoiding them and face whatever was waiting for me.

Neither Asher nor Devin was in class. It struck me as odd, but I had to remember that they weren’t normal students. They weren’t even human. They didn’t need to be here. Did
I
need to be here? I was still thinking about it in history, third period. I hadn’t paid attention to a single lesson all morning.

Ms. Manning clacked down the rows between our desks in her heels, handing back our Battle of the Somme papers—the one that counted for 40 percent of our final grade. Her calculating eye scanned our faces from behind her wire-rimmed glasses. She stopped in front of me, and a paper fell from her hands to my desk—a big scarlet D scrawled across the top of my report.

My stomach dropped clear to the floor. Never before had I seen that grade on any of my papers. It made me ill.

I knew I’d messed up, big-time. My mind had been so preoccupied lately that even when I was studying, I might as well not have been.

“Skye,” Ms. Manning said as I walked past her desk at the end of class. I hung back.

“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“You’re my best student, Skye,” she said. “What’s going on? I’ve never seen you get a grade like this. I don’t know what to think.”

“I’ve been really . . . busy,” I said lamely. “Preoccupied. I’ve been struggling with some decisions since the ski trip.”

“I heard you quit the team.”

“Yeah, I . . . the avalanche . . . it just kind of spooked me, I guess. I decided I needed a break.” I’d spoken with Coach Samuelson on Friday before I went home. I hadn’t had a chance to tell Aunt Jo before she’d left.

Ms. Manning eyed me with a mix of severity and worry. “Should I be worried? Do you need to talk with a counselor?”

“God no,” I said too quickly. “No. Please let me do some extra credit. I’ll make it up.”

She sighed heavily.

“I’ll give you an additional paper to write after school today. You’ll have an hour, from three fifteen to four fifteen. But, Skye”—she looked at me over the top of her glasses—“you’ll have to get an A on this paper or your grade for the semester will be seriously affected. Don’t blow this.”

My throat went dry, and I had to swallow before I could say, “I won’t.”

I was supposed to meet Devin and Asher on the roof at three fifteen. How could I be in two places at once? I’d have to choose. I felt the color drain from my cheeks.

“Skye.” Ms. Manning took her glasses off in concern and came around to my side of the desk. “Are you sure it’s not more than just leaving the ski team? Something I should know about? Family? Boy problems?”

“Everything’s fine—I’ll be there,” I said. “I promise.”

“I’m glad,” she said, a smile returning to her face. “You have so much potential, Skye. I see such great things for you one day.”

“Thanks, Ms. Manning,” I said. Tears pricked my eyes. I wish I knew what I saw for myself. Right now, when I looked to the future, all I saw was a huge question mark.

“Three fifteen, room four-oh-eight.”

“Yep!”

I turned to the door in a rush so she wouldn’t see the hint of tears glazing my eyes. Ms. Manning’s reflection in the glass window of the door stared after me in concern.

If only she knew.

At three ten, I stood at my locker, putting the last of my heavy textbooks away for the night. I looked down the hall as it began to empty out, closed my locker, and sighed.

Ms. Manning was waiting for me when I got to room 408.

“Skye,” she said, “I placed the assignment on that desk by the window. You’ll have one hour from the time you start. I’ll be here if you have any questions.” She took her seat behind the desk at the front of the room.

I walked across the classroom to the desk she’d motioned to. An essay assignment was typed neatly at the top of the page. I sat down, took out a pencil, and began.

Knowing that I was supposed to be up on the roof, I felt strange sitting there in the silent classroom as my pencil scratched across the paper in front of me.

It almost felt as if school shouldn’t count anymore. And yet here I was, working on an extra-credit assignment.

My mind wandered to all the strange things I’d caused seemingly by accident. The thermostat. The school bus heater. The boiler exploding at Love the Bean. The avalanche.

Of course, none of these incidents had been confirmed as initiated by me, but I couldn’t help but believe they were. And if they were, could I do it on purpose? Could I harness my powers, whatever they were, and
make
these things happen? Now that there was quiet, and Devin and Asher weren’t breathing down my neck urging me to try harder, I wondered if it might not be so hard after all.

I focused on the radiator under the window. Ms. Manning was absorbed in grading papers at the front of the classroom, tapping her pen absently against the wire frame of her glasses.

I stared at the radiator, letting every single emotion from the past few weeks flow through me. My mind flashed to Devin trying to instruct me. Sitting next to Asher on the roof, our breath rising in clouds toward the stars, our shoulders barely touching. My cheek against his rough jacket. Then the liberating snowmobile ride, the way he always seemed to know what I was feeling. I had the vague feeling that thinking about Asher in this way was verging on dangerous territory. He wasn’t
human
. He wasn’t even from this world. Was falling in love with a Rebel against the sanctions they’d just been teaching me? Would it be as punishable as what my parents had done? I knew nothing about who Asher really was, even though he seemed to know lots about me. Did he think about me as often as I thought about him? My palms got sweaty, and I could feel myself burning up. But I kept focusing, channeling everything through me and at the radiator. And then, all of a sudden, I smelled something.

Smoke.

A small trickle of smoke roped through the vents of the radiator. My heart pounded.

I couldn’t see any fire, but I knew it must be there somewhere. I stared harder. The wisp bloomed from the slats of the radiator into a beautiful flower of smoke. I stared, a smile forming on my lips.

I did this.

“What’s that smell?” Ms. Manning asked, looking up from her papers, and then said, “Jesus,” as she saw the smoke, jumped up from the desk, and spilled the stack of tests to the ground. The sprinkler system in the ceiling turned on, and water began to spray everywhere.

“Oh, damn!” she cried, bending to gather the papers to her. I looked up—just in time to catch Asher’s wicked grin hanging upside down on the other side of the window. He winked at me. Then he was gone.

My heart skipped a beat.

I hadn’t caused the fire after all. It had been Asher the whole time.

“Skye, I’m sorry,” Ms. Manning said as she straightened back up with the stack of papers in disarray. “We’ll try this again later in the week. I have to go see someone about that radiator.” She smoothed her skirt and readjusted her glasses. The smoke had vanished.

My footsteps echoed on the stairs as I pounded up three flights to the roof. I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t done
anything
.

Asher and Devin were in the exact same positions they had been in the last time I’d pushed through the fire door to the school roof. Asher stood on the ledge of the roof, arms outstretched. The only difference was that this time, his huge inky wings were outstretched, too. Devin leaned against the water tower, his wings tucked away. Not a hint of emotion played on his face.

“You’re late,” he said flatly, and I wondered if he knew I’d been with Asher alone. Twice now. Devin would most definitely disapprove.

“I was trying to get some extra credit,” I shot back. “I haven’t exactly been focusing my attention on the right things, lately. You know, before you guys showed up I was actually a straight-A student.”

“You’ve been focusing on
exactly
the right things,” said Asher, jumping from the ledge. “You just have to do some re-prioritizing. Maybe A’s shouldn’t matter so much anymore.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Asher’s eyes crinkled in the corners, but he didn’t smile. It was weird seeing him here with Devin, not able to talk the way we had lately.

“Asher’s right,” Devin said gravely, stepping away from the water tower. “Your powers should be emerging, and you should be able to control them at will.”

Asher was suddenly behind me, which was strange because I hadn’t seen him move. He whispered in my ear, “Don’t let him freak you out. You can do it.”

“What are you saying?” Devin’s voice was hard. He looked at Asher, deep unease written all over his face. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.” Asher’s eyes grew hot as flames. “Should we ask Raven?”

“You leave her out of this.”

“So she
did
stop by for a chat?” Asher continued. “What, do you need reinforcements? Can’t do it all on your own?”

“I said leave her out!”

“If it involves Skye’s safety”—Asher’s voice was so low it came out as a growl—“you’d better not be hiding anything.”

The air was getting colder as the sun slipped farther below the mountains, and the edges of the sky tinged with unfathomable darkness. A burst of white light nearly blinded me, and Devin’s mammoth white wings rose from behind him, a gust of wind billowing beneath them. His eyes glazed over, his golden brows furrowed darkly, and his mouth set in a straight, tight line.

“I dare you,” he said so quietly, evenly, it sent chills trickling down my spine. “I just dare you.”

Asher stepped forward, his own wings rising behind him as if he was bringing the night with him. “Do you really want to challenge me?” The menace in his voice was terrifying. And then, from beneath his wings, a gust of wind raged forward with such unexpected force that I stumbled backward. It hit Devin square in the chest, and he was knocked against the concrete wall of the roof entrance so hard that he fell to the ground.

“Stop!” I heard myself yell, but before I could take a step toward him, Devin was on his feet. Asher raised his hands and shoved something invisible in front of him; a ball of fire rocketed from his outstretched hands. In a blur of white, Devin was at Asher’s back, pinning Asher’s arms behind him with one arm, the other wrapped tightly around his neck. Asher choked as the fire hit the side of the concrete building and fizzled out, leaving a wide charred circle the size of a window.